* * * *
Nye
The greenhouse at the edge of the compound was one of my favorite places. Kiyoshi and Zarmina maintained it with elegance. The rows of fruits, vegetables, herbs and a few flowers, those were Zarmina’s. Kiyoshi would never go for flowers. He was too practical in his approach to the world. Only what was necessary. He maintained the fresh fruits and vegetables. That was where I had retrieved the avocado, tomato, onions, peppers and other herbs he needed for Kiri’s guacamole.
This part of the compound was almost an acre in size, I guessed. The whole spatial-dimension-distortion theory was lost on me. When I first came here, I knew I had to buy at least a ten-acre spread of land, and preferably away from the beaten track. Ten acres would house this facility and all it encompassed. The greenhouse, the main house with its twenty-odd bedrooms that were individual suites, the huge library, and the kitchen, thanks to an upgrade, was as modern as you could get. Not to mention the weight room, war room, worship room, healing room…it was enough to make my head spin.
“They’re my favorites,” Zarmina said, pulling me from my trance. I wanted to get her away from Kiri before she learned or saw too much. The more Kiri interacted with members of the household, the higher the chance of punishment from Gabriel. “They take more effort, but they are such a marvel in the world.”
Zarmina stroked a flower with her finger. She was as beautiful as ever. Her raven hair fell down her back. Those green eyes could sparkle with a brilliance reserved for emeralds. Her dark olive skin was smooth, but her cheeks had a pink hue. She was standing in a flowing, white, cotton gown. The simple summer dress had thin straps attached to a bodice that held her large bosoms in place.
“What are they?” I asked as my gaze returned to the flower.
“Canaliculatum x madidum. An orchid that’s common name is ‘little black sambo’.”
A growl came from somewhere deep inside me.
“Don’t take it that way.”
“Sambo means monkey.”
“Yeah, well, get over it. It’s beautiful even though it has an ugly name.”
That only reminded me more of when the masser would want me to do something. Get me that blue black nigga over t’dare.
“It’s not black, it’s dark purple.”
“Whatever. Lars says it reminds him of me.”
I cocked my head to one side and tried not to smile. Its center left little to the imagination concerning female anatomy.
“Not because of that.”
“Can you read minds?”
“Not officially, but I do hear things when a person is basically screaming them. And the laughter is not necessary.”
“You actually can do that?”
“Yes. There is much you do not know about the people in this house. But that’s just the way it is. In every facility, compound, whatever this is.”
A sigh of sadness escaped Zarmina.
“Had you always been able to do that?”
“No. I received the gift following my sealing ceremony. It was something I guess was buried inside of me. I could always read people’s faces before. Maybe I was reading their thoughts.”
“So what about it reminds him of you?”
“It’s difficult to grow, smells beautiful in bloom and taking your eyes off it is almost impossible,” she said, smiling so much her eyes sparkled.
Now a laugh was escaping my lips.
“He loves you.”
“Yes. It’s comforting. To have a love like his. What about yours?”
“Mine?”
“I told you I can hear when you’re screaming. When I walked in, you were screaming.”
“I don’t have one,” I said.
I walked down a path to a cement bench and sat, my arms resting on my knees.
“Screaming!”
“What am I screaming about?”
“Kiriana,” she said as she looked over her shoulder at Kiri who’d gotten up and was exploring slowly.
I nodded.
“She’s beautiful, but could you keep her dressed? Seeing and hearing go hand in hand with me.”
“Sorry. I was helping her…in the tub.”
“Nye, I know little of anyone in this house besides Lars and Kiyoshi. But please know I can be trusted. What is wrong?”
I breathed in deep trying to keep my mind clear so Zarmina couldn’t know everything. I looked at her.
“Is it hard? Having him off fighting.”
“My life is in his hands. But I trust him. And I’ll never know if he dies out there. I just hope if he does, it will be fast.” Zarmina smiled and skipped to the bench and sat by me. She rested her head on my shoulder and looked up to me like a puppy begging for a treat.
“Have there been any negatives to becoming an other?”
“I had a cold for a week following our sealing ceremony,” Zarmina needled me.
“I thought we couldn’t get sick?”
“I was not well before our sealing,” she smiled coyly. “Lars was quite worried about my health…and as we know, worry drops the temperature.”
“I fear for Kiri’s leg,” I lied, which he now knew was stupid around Zarmina.
“We can’t know why people come in and out of our lives. But that’s not why you’re screaming. You know it doesn’t matter anymore. I mean really matter.”
“It’ll always matter. Always.”
“It’s not like when you were young. They don’t hang people like that anymore.”
“A black man is not supposed to touch a white woman. Trust me. I’m not even supposed to look her in the eye, but I keep getting caught by ’em.” Kiri’s eyes were so soft and beautiful. Great, now I was probably screaming at Zarmina again.
“Nye, is that the way she feels?”
“It doesn’t matter what she feels. Do you know how many white girls got us in trouble when I was young? Forget ghost stories to scare the chill’ren. They’d tell what happened to the colored fella that looked at Ms. Lucy.”
“Nye, it hasn’t been that way for decades.”
“I’ve been alive long enough to know the world never changes. Not at its core,” I sighed and took in the silhouette of Kiriana as she smelled the jackmani growing along a trellis.
“You love her.”
I felt my heart lurch. Sure, I’d questioned it myself, but hearing it, out loud, from an outsider. Not my own inner voice. Maybe it was just because she could read my mind that Zarmina came to that conclusion. My mouth filled with cotton while blood rushed into my ears. Stars flashed in my eyes.
“No, I don’t,” I snapped. “And she doesn’t even want me around.”
Zarmina got up and walked back to her orchid. Her finger traced the center, then she bent down to pull the fullness of its perfume.
“Do you know why I grow the flowers?”
“To annoy Kiyoshi.”
“That’s a bonus. I grow them because they make me happy. They bring me joy. How can you look at a flower and not smile? Fighting with Kiyoshi over planting rights was worth it. It was a small battle that brought me great pleasure. Tell me Nye, when you look at her, do you smile?”
I couldn’t answer. Not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I knew it wasn’t the right one. At least not how I was raised. My fantasies alone would’ve gotten me horsewhipped for sure. I should know. Even though Gabriel doesn’t use a whip, he punishes me for stepping out of line. My hundred-year sentence might as well keep getting extended. Well I wasn’t going to let another second get tacked on.
Zarmina continued to walk through her garden. Her voice softened to almost a whisper.
“When I walked in here I heard things not from her lips.”
“What? What did you hear?”
“People do not like their thoughts shared. But I will tell you this.”
Zarmina walked back to me and took my hand in hers.
“Tell her about us. It will not frighten her and it will not bring her harm. If you do not, she will try t
o find out on her own. You already have to try to explain the garden.”
I hadn’t considered that when I brought her in here. Darn it.
“You know the rules.”
“Damn the rules. It will be safer for her to know of our world. I must go. I can feel Lars is awakening and he will be looking for me.”
Zarmina walked to a bright pink tulip. Drawing small scissors from her pocket, she snipped a bloom.
“Goodbye, Kiriana,” Z called then flitted off like the fairies I imagined roamed the flower gardens in the cities.
* * * *
Kiriana
“If I told you what is going on, could you not tell anyone?” Nye asked as he approached me.
I thought about what he was asking of me. What had he really done to me? Shot, kidnapped, stabbed. D had shot me, he had healed my leg, fed me some great food and rejected my sexual advances. Bastard!
“How much are you willing to share?”
“More than I should.”
“Why shouldn’t you share?”
“It’s punishable.”
“Well that means if you tell me you’ll have to kill me.”
“Not exactly,” he said as he ushered me back to a bench. “I would be the one being punished.”
“That’s good to know, because if the punishment was death then I’d be worried that you’d already written me off.”
“You should recover fully, but you were shot with an arrow with a paralyzing mixture in it. Well, it paralyzes bantlings.”
“Bantlings?”
“Newborn demons, sort of. They’re fully developed in Hell. They just need to be reborn here…”
“Demons. Right. When can I leave?” I stood. “I’m not a virgin. Just so you know. I’d suck as your human sacrifice.”
“What did you see on the road?”
I froze remembering what had happened. A creature was lying on the ground and Nye grabbed its hair or…tentacles? And there was a burst of light. Then nothing. The dirt road surrounded him, but the dirt wasn’t the khaki gray of the dusty road; it was black. Black and almost ashen and floated up to the sky like a bonfire.
I looked down at my leg. The black streaks had subsided and I could touch my leg without it cooling my fingers. My hand glided down my thigh. It was still numb, but the feeling was coming back in it.
“I saw nothing. Nothing at all,” I hissed. The whisper was the only way I could get out the lie.
“The nothing you saw was an emerging demon trying to assimilate to this plane.
They call us the Frozen. We’re a group of demon hunters.”
“Why frozen?”
“Because our bodies are basically frozen in time. We still need rest and food. And we can bulk up so we work out to hone our bodies and skills, but I will always have the appearance and body of a man in his twenties.”
“So, you’re an angel?”
“I’m the furthest thing from an angel,” he said with chagrin. His hands covered his face then ran over the top of his head like he was trying to wipe away shame.
“Then what? A vampire or werewolf?”
I finally turned to look at him, hoping to see some weird abnormality. Fangs. Broken, ragged nails. Pointy ears. Anything. All I saw was the most statuesque man I’d ever seen.
His lips were full, but not large, ones that’d be powerful enough to have strength behind them. They separated for a moment to allow his bright red tongue to catch on his front teeth then retract as if it were sucked in by a powerful force. Shit. All I could think of was being in a tug-of-war over whose mouth it belonged in. I pulled in my lips to hold myself back from tossing him on the ground and taking him by force. Damn. This had to be because it had been so long since I was really with a man.
“It’s not and you know it.” The whispers were back, they always slapped me in the face when I was deluding myself. “He’s gorgeous, strong, his hand could hold your whole ass and those abs…oh why did he have to put on a shirt? You know you want to lick…” I ran my fingers through my hair, tugging it slightly to shut the whispers up.
“I suppose,” Nye’s response shook me back into reality. “Without the great superpowers and weird eating habits.”
“So you have no super strength or magical powers?”
“I can heal fast, but mostly because of the same herbal mixtures that are helping you right now. I’m pretty good at jumping and leaping, but outside of when Gabriel wills it, I cannot do anything special.”
“Gabriel?” I asked as I sat back down on the bench.
“He’s like our master…” A shiver shot through his body and he corrected himself. “Boss. When we need to join with others like us, he makes it so we can materialize there without the travel time, because there is little time to react in those situations.”
“Like what situations?”
“Mount Pleasant is one of twelve Hells Mouths. Do you know what that is?”
“Not really, but it sounds correct.” I thought between the mixture of heat and boredom, I’d been in Hell since I had gotten there.
“A Hells Mouth is a place of evil where demons emerge to spread themselves throughout the world. Mt. P is ideal because of all of the manufacturing that goes on. The demons can just attach to the buses, tires, hoses, envelopes, phones…well, you get the picture. The train depot was the initial draw, I believe. I mean you could ride the rails all the way to either coast, up to Canada or down to the Gulf. The demons are shipped all over.”
“Envelopes?”
“I assume it’s in the semis that transport them. A Hells Mouth can happen anywhere. Smaller towns have the innocence draw, cities have the camouflage factor. Both have their negatives. I don’t know how they are chosen, but when the mouth starts to close, there’s a run. Hundreds or thousands of demons can escape over a few days.”
“And that’s when you can zap yourself places?” I asked as I wiggled my outstretched fingers.
“Yes.”
“But not right now?”
“Nope, and I don’t do the…zapping, Gabriel does.”
“What about the demons you hunt? Do they have powers?”
“The bantlings or newborn demons come into the world as animals, then change. I’m sure the ones that care for them have some powers.” Nye sighed.
“What about this?” I said as my hands spread to highlight the greenhouse. “Can’t the demons see this?”
“No one can see it. All people see is the barn and trailer.”
“Do you have some cloaking device?”
“No, it’s spatial dimension…I don’t get it, Kiyoshi handles all the particulars especially when it comes to expansion, but basically our compound is about ten to fifteen acres. All inside the barn.”
“The barn?” I mocked. “No, really?”
“Our living quarters expand to over five stories. Between that and this don’t you think you would have noticed that when we pulled up?”
“I was dying at the time…”
“You still would have noticed. What did you see?”
“An ugly trailer and the barn that looked as bad as the trailer.”
“There’s a reason for that, it keeps people away. It’s in good enough shape to keep the county away, but not nice enough that people would stop to inquire if it was for sale.”
Turning my head I looked out at the expanse of the greenhouse and realized there was no way I could have missed that. Where was I? Could this be real? Demons? Angels? Was Nye’s Gabriel The Gabriel?
Something buzzed by my face. I screamed and curled into Nye’s chest. His arms wrapped around me in protection.
“What was that?”
I had a firm grip on his shirt and his body had stiffened. My breathing was rapid, but his had completely stopped. He turned his head down and I swore he kissed my hair.
“It’s just a little bee. We have an aviary on the edge of the greenhouse.”
I released my grip on his shirt and sat back.
“I didn’t mean to
…”
“You surprised me, that’s all,” he said, relaxing slightly. One of his arms was still cradling my back. My body was mush again and I leaned into him. In that moment, I forgot where I was and why I was there. I imagined we were just taking a walk in the park together. My mind, along with my hand, wandered more than they should have and I started to stroke his leg.
He shifted, coughed, and spoke again.
“What else do you want to know?”
“The knife you had…what’s with that?”
Nye swallowed hard and we sat in silence for a few minutes. He shifted, again, rested his muscular forearms on his knees, while his head hung low. Part of me wanted to tell him to forget about it.
“It’s called a claustranima.”
He pulled it from the sheath, which he had adjusted so the blade was behind his back. Holding it by the hilt, he passed it to me. My hand wrapped around the tang and the little blue light went from dim to brightly glowing.
“The six blades are extremely sharp so please be careful. It’s the only way to kill a demon. Our arrows, knives and guns slow them down, but these turn them to ash.”
“What about the glow worm?”
“That’s not a worm,” Nye grumbled. “It’s my soul.”
“Your soul? But this glass could shatter so easily,” I said, feeling the grooves that had been cut in it.
“That’s a diamond.”
“A diamond? It’s the size of my palm.”
“Actually, it’s the size of my palm,” he explained. He placed his hand around the hilt. His soul dimmed. He removed his hand and I held the knife again.
“I guess working for God has its perks. Why does it glow?”
Nye shifted uncomfortably, so I handed him back the knife. He sheathed it and we sat in silence again.
“What was the poison?” I asked.
“A mixture of paralytics from snakes. Mixed with herbs. It was killing your muscle tissue. That’s why your leg turned black. Like frostbite or gangrene.”
“Then how did my muscle come back to life?”
“It wasn’t in there long enough. It was just the surface layer, really. Think first-degree burn. Those shots I gave you helped a lot.”
“Shots? I only remember one.”
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