Addictive Paranormal Reads Halloween Box Set

by Nana Malone

  The General snorted in disgust.

  Lucifer’s hackles rose, the moment of vulnerability gone. Azrael winced. Pressure points. The opportunity for the General to reach out to Lucifer and encourage change had just been blown to smithereens. The adversaries stared at each other across the hospital bed of the child who had, just for a moment, united them with a common purpose. Both stepped back to assume their habitual, hostile stances.

  Azrael made another mental note to study the opposing Archangel's hostility. It so closely echoed the ancient hostility between Hashem and Shay’tan that it amazed him the two gods had eventually become friends. Sort of friends. Friends most of the time except for when they were at war? Perhaps, given enough time…?

  “I have ties amongst the community who can ensure this child finds her way into a good family,” Lucifer said coldly. “Doors will open and financial resources will appear at the right time to shepherd her in whatever direction the child shows a natural inclination to follow.”

  “She’s here for a purpose,” the General warned. “Interference may impede her growth.”

  “Her family is gone and you’ve left her crippled and scarred!!!” Lucifer accused. “Now you want to leave her destitute, as well?”

  “Not … destitute,” the General said. “Just … we don’t know why she’s here. If she’s an old soul from another realm, altering her circumstances from the ones she placed herself into may interfere. We must allow her to find her own path.”

  “Slumming on Earth amongst the humans,” Lucifer sniped. “Now that’s a surprise.”

  The Fallen Angelic, of course, referred to himself.

  “I’ll watch out for her,” Azrael stepped between the two before things devolved into one of their all-too-frequent physical altercations. The General possessed incredible self-control, but Lucifer knew how to push all of the General's buttons. Keeping the two of them together in the same room any longer than was necessary was never wise.

  “Let me know if she needs anything,” Lucifer said. “But I’m not going to rely on him. My own men will be watching, as well.” Lucifer pointed to the General, not Azrael, when he indicated who he wouldn't rely upon.

  Although Azrael and Lucifer weren't friends, they weren’t enemies, either. More … he disapproved of Lucifer’s debauch lifestyle. He understood Ki wished the Fallen to promulgate a certain percentage of hybrid DNA back into the human populace, a burden that had fallen entirely to Lucifer once the others had died out without ascending. But … damn! Did he have to be so … so … blatant about it?

  Hmmm… Perhaps that might make an interesting collection of behavioral characteristics to study? He’d seen many humans exhibit self-destructive tendencies, though none were more over-the-top than Lucifer. Azrael could almost feel his hand itching to pick up his void-reinforced pencil and start scribbling notes.

  In fact … he could almost feel his hand. Period…

  Azrael glanced down, wondering at the curious sensation of actually feeling something for real, not just imagining in his consciousness the echo of what physical sensation had once felt like back when he’d still been mortal. The urge to reach out and take the hand of the child lying helpless in the hospital bed and feel connected to her was nearly overwhelming. Perhaps he should bother the Emperor with the question after all?

  “I’ve got to get back,” the General said. “She-who-is has the Emperor juggling so many galaxies in the air right now it’s a wonder the poor deity knows which end of the universe is which.”

  He gave Azrael a rare grin. It was no secret that, just as She-who-is had kept her former husband He-who’s-not jumping through hoops for her by plying him with sexual favors, the goddess now kept Hashem happily busy spending hours on end in his genetics laboratory, cheerfully splicing new life forms together from the old ones. The Architect of the Universe was nothing if not resourceful about how she enticed others to do her dirty work.

  Azrael scratched all thoughts of bothering the Emperor from his mind. He was an eminent scientist in his own right. He would study the child and see if she exhibited any further curious traits.

  Both visitors exited, leaving Azrael as he’d been when they’d first arrived, standing over the child’s bed, listening to the beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor. He’d be glad when the doctors discovered her neck was no longer broken and removed the painful-looking Halo they’d bolted into her skull.

  A nurse with a clipboard barged into the room, making her rounds of the intensive care unit. Azrael faded into the shadows, tucking his wings tightly against his back and drawing his cloak around himself to guard against an inadvertent brush with death. The nurse noted the child’s vital signs, scratched her head, and ran out of the room to page the doctor.

  Azrael smiled, true joy making his heart feel lighter. Boy. Were they in for a surprise!

  * * * * *

  Chapter 15

  Ye shall not afflict any … fatherless child.

  If thou afflict them in any wise,

  And they cry at all unto me,

  I will surely hear their cry;

  And my wrath shall wax hot,

  And I will kill you with the sword;

  Exodus 22:22-24

  Earth: June 1993

  South Side, Chicago, Illinois

  Broken glass crunched beneath the slender tires of her wheelchair as the social worker pushed her towards the sixteen-story Robert Taylor Home. Plywood covered the windows of the two lower floors. Between the junkies and the all-too-common stray bullets from gang rivalry, it was impossible to keep the lower floors habitable. A rough-looking group of mostly African-American kids loitered at the entrance smoking cigarettes, their expensive gangsta-rap clothing and designer sneakers belying the poverty of their surroundings.

  “I want to go home!” Elisabeth pleaded. “Why can’t I go home? I don’t like being in a foster home.”

  “There’s nobody left to take care of you, honey child.” The social worker spoke with the cadence of an African-American woman transplanted from the Deep South. “I just can’t understand why your last four foster-families were so anxious to get rid of you. You’re well-behaved, and you don’t eat hardly nothing at all!”

  Elisabeth bit her tongue. The reason she’d lost weight was because the foster families kept locks on the cupboards. She got exactly one packet of oatmeal with a cup of reconstituted powdered milk for breakfast, whatever the school cafeteria served for free lunch, and one-quarter of a package of fluorescent orange store-brand macaroni and cheese and a hotdog with no bun for supper. She’d been kicked out of the first foster home for complaining the foster mother refused to feed her lunch on the weekends.

  As for the second? How could she explain the real reason she’d been kicked out was because her black man had gotten sick of watching her foster siblings pick on her and let them catch a glimpse of him? He rarely let her see him, but sometimes, like when the foster mother's boyfriend at the third foster home kept sneaking into her room at night to slip his hand under the covers to touch her pee-pee, he’d made himself visible to scare them off.

  She’d told the nurses at the hospital about the black man. It had been a mistake. They’d promptly sent her to speak to a psychologist who’d told her it was her imagination. Once you got labeled crazy, the social workers didn’t believe a word you said. Six months in the system and already she’d figured out it was better to keep her mouth shut.

  As for the last foster home? The foster mother had just gotten divorced. She’d taken her in to help meet the mortgage payment and her real kids weren’t too mean, but along with the end of the school year had come the end of free school lunch. The state didn’t pay enough to lose days out of work to run her around to all her physical therapy appointments and feed her. So … here she was. Going into her fifth foster home.

  One of the gang-kids stepped in front of the graffiti-painted steel door and blew a smoke-ring in the social workers face.

  “Step aside, Jimmie!” the social wo
rker snapped. “Or I’ll call your juvie probation officer and you’ll be right back in that group-home!”

  “Ain’t no worse than here,” the ruffian said. His cohorts twittered beside him. “Whatcha got? A little vanilla ice cream?” Jimmie touched Elisabeth’s pale, blonde hair. Elisabeth recoiled.

  “Little white bitch thinks she’s too good for us,” a mulatto-skinned female twittered. She had short, nappy hair with the gangsta-rap band initials ‘NWA’ shaved into it. The girl shoved Elisabeth's wheelchair back a few inches with her foot.

  Elisabeth had always been an open, trusting kid, but she was smart enough to figure out a new situation. Their old neighborhood hadn’t been great, but Franz had taught her how to avoid trouble. Don’t make eye contact. Pretend to focus on something else. Don’t let them push you around, but don’t get riled up at their taunts, either. Keep to yourself. Now Franz was gone, too.

  Why couldn’t her black man have let Franz live? At least then they could’ve gone through all these foster homes together? Or maybe that’s why the black man hung around? Did he feel guilty she didn’t have anyone left? She’d love to see the look on the gangsta-kids' faces when he showed up with that black cloak of his and pointed at them like the Ghost of Christmas Future.

  “Step aside,” the social worker said. “Or I’ll call the police. I know each and every one of you and will have you all back in juvie faster than you can sneeze.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the kids grumbled, stepping aside.

  The social worker wheeled Elisabeth inside the building. The light bulb was missing from the lobby. A junkie leaned against one wall, humming happily to himself as the smack he’d just injected into his track-marked arm propelled him into his own happy little world. The stench of urine was so thick it made Elisabeth retch.

  “I don’t like it here,” Elisabeth said. “Can’t I just go home? Please?”

  A bottle rolled across the floor. A drunk shouted something unintelligible and stumbled towards them. Elisabeth realized the social worker was scared, too. Her brusque manner to the gang kids at the front door had been an act.

  'Black man? Where are you? Please! I’m scared…'

  “You don’t have a home left to go back to,” the social worker said more bluntly than was necessary. “Your parents are dead and nobody stepped forward to take you in. Your house and everything that was in it was sold to pay their bills. This is the best I can do for you.”

  Tears welled in Elisabeth's eyes. The drunk fell to the floor and passed out. The social worker pushed her wheelchair through the trash-strewn floor to get to the elevator. A piece of cardboard was taped across the doors with scrawled black letters. ‘Elevator broken. Use stairs.’

  “How am I supposed to get you up to the twelfth floor?” the social worker exclaimed. She stormed over to a door marked ‘building manager’ and pounded on it like a SWAT team about to initiate a raid until an overweight Hispanic man wearing a stained wifebeater came ambling out.

  “Elevator’s broken,” the building manager said.

  “When they going to fix it?” the social worker asked.

  “Been after the city for seven months now to get that thing fixed,” the building manager said. “They send someone out to get it going for a couple of days, and then it breaks again. Something wrong with the electrical system. If you ask me, the entire thing needs to be replaced.”

  “This kid’s in a wheelchair!” the social worker said. “How the heck am I supposed to get her up to the twelfth floor?”

  “Carry her,” the building manager said. “Or call the city. Every time I call, they tell me the city ain’t got no money to go fixing no housing projects. Maybe you’ll have better luck, being connected with the government and all.”

  'Yes … I’m in luck,' Elisabeth thought. 'Bring me someplace else. –Please- bring me someplace else!'

  The hair stood up on the back of her neck. She glanced real surreptitious-like out of the corner of her eye, hoping to see him. He only let her see him when he thought she wasn’t looking. There. A distortion amongst the shadows. A darker shadow where even the darkness appeared to be swallowed.

  The elevator suddenly dinged.

  “Well I’ll be damned!” the building manager exclaimed as the doors slid open. “That things been broken for weeks. City musta sent somebody out to fix it and didn’t tell me.”

  'Darn! Why’d you have to go fix the elevator?' Elisabeth glowered at the darkness amongst the shadows. 'Now they’re going to make me live here!'

  The social worker wheeled her in backwards. There was a sign over the buttons that said ‘out of order.’ She pushed the button for the twelfth floor anyway. The elevator sprang to life. They rode up in silence

  “We’re in luck,” the social worker said. “This is the last foster home on my list. If we can’t place you here, there’s no place left to go except a group home.”

  Group home as in …what? A bigger group than the first four foster homes you sent me to where there were five kids sharing a bedroom?

  The elevator doors slid open. An African-American man had a garishly dressed woman pressed up against the wall. Her skirt was shoved up and her legs were wrapped around his waist. He repeatedly shoved against her and grunted like a dog.

  “Get out of here!” the social worker shouted. “Get a room.”

  The man froze.

  “Fuck off!” the woman laughed. She nipped the man in the neck. “You paid for five minutes. All you get is five minutes, whether you finish or not.”

  The man resumed his grunting. The woman grunted along with him.

  “Is he carrying her like that because her back is broken like mine?” Elisabeth asked.

  The social worker's mouth fell open. She pushed the wheelchair past the couple as quickly as she could to a gouged doorway at the end of the hall. A television blared through the door. Across the hallway, a baby squalled through a second door. The social worker knocked and then turned to her.

  “Sometimes I need a little angel like you to remind me why I got into this line of work in the first place,” the social worker tousled her hair. “This place will be better than the last four. I promise.”

  The door opened. A morbidly obese woman with a cigarette in one hand gave Elisabeth an appraising stare. Elisabeth glanced down tree-trunk thick legs to the fat-rolls squishing over the tops of her loafers. Behind her, an assortment of kids in every color of the rainbow hung out in front of the television.

  “This the one nobody wanted?” the fat woman said through puckered lips. She took a drag of her cigarette and blew it off to one side.

  Elisabeth knew the drill. She glanced through to the tiny kitchenette, the cupboards and fridge. Locks.

  “She’s a good girl,” the social worker said. “No back-talk. Don’t give nobody any trouble.”

  “You didn’t tell me she was no cripple,” the fat woman interrupted. “How’s she gonna get up to the top bunk?”

  The fat woman and the social worker began to argue. Elisabeth bit back her tears. She’d cried at the last four foster homes and it had gotten her nowhere. Two of the foster kids pointed to her wheelchair and twittered about the scar running down her face and bolt-holes the Halo had left in her forehead.

  “Why can’t I go back to the hospital?” Elisabeth pleaded. “If my neck breaks again, maybe they’ll take me back? The nurses were real nice to me there. Maybe one of them will take me in?”

  “Sorry, honey,” the social worker said. “The only one who expressed an interest had … issues.”

  The fat woman and the social worker argued some more, and then reached an agreement.

  “You’re going stay here a few days,” the social worker said. “And then I’ll be back. I promise. We’ll work something out.”

  Elisabeth closed her eyes and focused on that vague sensation she’d learned to pay attention to. Yes. He was still here. Her black man. So long as he was here, she knew she wasn’t truly alone.

  “Okay.” Elisabet
h plastered a tough expression on her face so the other kids wouldn’t think she was a wuss. If she showed weakness, the others would target her. Every time she got sent to a new foster home or school, a pecking order was established. She’d learned pretty fast the kid in the wheelchair was always low man on the totem pole.

  The social worker left her with the fat woman with the locks on her cupboard and six rainbow-colored foster-siblings. She wished the black man would talk to her. Never once had she heard him speak. Not since the night he’d taken her entire family. Why hadn’t he taken her, too? She wished, now, that she had gone with him.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 16

  For the Angel of Death

  Spread his wings on the blast,

  And breathed in the face

  Of the foe as he passed;

  And the eyes of the sleepers

  Waxed deadly and chill,

  And their hearts but once heaved,

  And for ever grew still!

  Lord Byron

  Earth - AD June 1996

  Kizlyar, Republic of Dagestan, Russia

  “Privyet [hello],” Azrael greeted, watching the Russian army move into position around the hospital. “Kakova situatsiya [what’s the situation]?”

  “350 Chechen rebels seize hospital,” Mansur Al-Hallaj said in heavily accented Russian, the linga franca of ethnically diverse Dagestan. “Over 3,000 hostages.”

  Azrael scrutinized the colorfully dressed local Sata’an-human agent. Like many of the Sata'anic Fallen, Mansur’s family had retreated into a geographically isolated area to intermarry with humans and secretly raise their families. Dagestan's traditional long Circassian coat, tall boots and furred hat could hide a plethora of undesirable genetic traits.

  Although in theory the elders of these remote Sata’anic families reported to Lucifer, the offspring had generations ago ‘gone native.’ The tolerant, Sufi-based religion practiced by Mansur’s people had been passed down virtually unchanged from the religion modern full-blooded lizard-people practiced to this day in the Sata’an Empire. Tall, dark-haired, and with Caucasoid features, the only thing which differentiated Mansur, named for a Sufi mystic brutally murdered by mainstream Islamicists for preaching the heresy of equality, from the full-blooded humans his family had intermarried with, was his serpentine gold-green eyes and lizard-like tail.