Addictive Paranormal Reads Halloween Box Set

by Nana Malone

  Azrael glanced at the thousands of photographs lining the walls of her private quarters, including one of her and the General in an ornate Sata’an wedding dress; a gift from Shay’tan, it was rumored. Whatever the Regent lacked from her family of origin, she and the General had gone out of their way to make sure it wasn’t missing from their own offspring’s upbringing. Azrael felt honored the secretive co-ruler of the universe had taken him under her wings, even if she only did so to keep him out of trouble.

  “Focus!” The Regent pointed to a chunk of wood placed on a large stone table. “It's your turn now.”

  Azrael gingerly picked up the wood, focusing so he didn’t simply dissipate it. In a way this lesson was like how he had learned to hold a semblance of a physical form without sporadically devolving into a tentacled black ball of primordial goo. His ability to touch non-living matter without dissolving it was a relatively new development in his evolution as a creature of a void. Not only did it require concentration, but the hunger the Regent seemed so concerned about increased whenever he caused matter to change from one form into another the way a mortal might feel hungry after smelling the aroma of a decadent meal.

  “Good,” the Regent said as the molecules in the wood softened and became malleable. “Clear your mind. Now shape it into something else.”

  Azrael ran his hands over the wood. He smiled as he recognized his favorite research subject taking shape beneath his fingers. Elisabeth. Not that anybody except someone who knew the girl well would recognize her! His ability to sculpt was like everything else he attempted … rough.

  Azrael gave the Regent a victorious grin. As he did, he lost focus. With a cry of dismay, the little carving dissipated into black goo before being absorbed into Azrael’s non-corporeal form.

  "Oh, no! Not again!" His wings drooped towards the ground.

  “It’s okay.” The Regent gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll just keep trying until you get it right. No matter how many centuries it takes.”

  Touch. Azrael resisted the urge to wiggle like a golden retriever puppy. The Regent was totally immune to his dark gift. She was the only person, besides Elisabeth, to touch him and survive since his death.

  “You’d think after 2,300 years,” Azrael complained, “I’d have gotten the hang of this.”

  “It took my brother fourteen billion years to hold a physical form,” the Regent said, “and until recently he could only give matter to She-who-is to shape. Not shape it himself. Be patient.”

  Azrael grabbed another chunk of wood off the pile next to the work table. Whenever they had these lessons, the Regent came prepared for lots of failure.

  “I don’t feel hunger the way you do,” Azrael said. “But lately, I can’t seem to help absorbing everything I destroy. I do it without even thinking about it.”

  “It’s instinctive,” the Regent said. “As your consciousness matures you’ll gather primordial matter to someday build a universe of your own. Don’t fight it or the hunger will become all-consuming. Embrace it … and then focus on only destroying what you wish to destroy.” There was something rather ominous about the swirl of her bottomless black eyes as she tilted her head as though looking at something which had happened in her past. "Or who deserves it."

  “How long will that take?” Azrael asked.

  “A few million years,” the Regent shrugged as though talking about days. “Now quit chattering and focus!”

  Azrael’s mind turned inwards as he softened, and then began to shape the latest chunk of wood. Whenever he created, his mind accessed vague memories brought back from his time in the highest ascended realms.

  ‘You will destroy her in your current state, sweet boy,’ Ki had said. ‘You must learn to control your power so you can act as her protector.’

  Who? Whose protector?

  Azrael glanced down at the perfect likeness of Elissar, her sweet face smiling up at him as she held out Gazardiel’s winged dolly with a bandaged leg and makeshift splint. Only the scar running down the side of the sculpture's face marred her likeness. Elisabeth’s scar.

  Azrael startled as his conscious mind recognized the hope his subconscious mind had been nursing. Although they differed in many ways, they had similarities, as well. Elisabeth exhibited a bitterness Elissar had not possessed, but given all she’d gone through?

  The wood dissipated. Azrael managed to stop himself from absorbing it only after half of it had been uncreated.

  “Damantia!”

  “You did fine,” the Regent said. “You stopped yourself before you completely destroyed it this time. It’s an improvement.”

  Azrael looked at the black puddle quivering on the table like a jellyfish. It didn’t look like anything he’d ever define as an improvement.

  “How come I can shape it?” frustration gave his voice a sharp edge, “but then not stop myself from destroying it?”

  “The General helps me keep my power in check,” the Regent said. “And I help him keep the balance. Perhaps it’s time you started searching for a life-mate?”

  ‘You will destroy her in your current state, sweet boy,’ Ki had said. ‘You must learn to control your power…’

  Azrael looked up at his mentor and second-mother. Ever since she’d taught him to hold a stable enough form that women no longer ran screaming the moment they lay eyes upon him, she’d been trying to play match-maker.

  “Not yet, my Queen,” Azrael said regretfully. “First I must master all you have to teach me.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 20

  Doth every man among them

  Hope to enter the Garden of Delight?

  Quran 70:38

  Earth - AD December, 1999

  Chicago, Illinois

  “Nancy!!!” Elisabeth called, hop-walking across her bedroom without a cane to the closet. “Where’s my white sweater?”

  “Wherever you left it,” Nancy called up from downstairs.

  “But I can’t find it!” Elisabeth frantically rummaged through the closet. “We’re going to be late!!!”

  Azrael suppressed a smile, the glittering blackness of his eyes glowing even darker as he spied the errant sweater peeking out from underneath the bed. Elisabeth looked lovely in a vintage red ankle-length Laura Ashley tea dress with a full skirt and plunging V-neck bust line which the teenager didn’t quite fill out … yet. Elisabeth had argued with her foster mother that the thrift-shop gown had gone out of style with the 1980’s, but Azrael thought it showed off her slender figure and blonde hair beautifully, so much classier than the tacky ‘hip-hop’ attire common amongst young people these days.

  “We’ve got plenty of time!” Nancy's voice filled with laughter. “You’d think you had a hot date or something!”

  “I wish!” Elisabeth muttered under her breath, hop-walking over to her bureau to rummage through the drawers even though she never put her sweater in there. “I’ll be standing next to Tommy Rodriguez and I want to look presentable!”

  Azrael glanced at the errant sweater, taunting him with its snowy whiteness from beneath the bed. At the rate she was going, she would be late. When Elisabeth hurried, she took unnecessary risks, and whenever she took unnecessary risks, the leg which still resisted fully healing reminded her who was boss … her fragile mortal shell. Not her formidable, slave-driving will which refused to take ‘no’ for an answer.

  The last thing Azrael wanted to see was his favorite research subject fall flat on her face in front of the young man she had a hopeless crush on. The young man had flirted with her during last week's rehearsal for tonight’s high school Christmas recital. Elisabeth usually sank into a deep depression this time of year, but her infatuation over the young male had caused her to forget her usual aversion to the holiday season and the tragic memories it invoked.

  “Nancy!!!” Elisabeth called, panic stricken. “I can’t find it!!!”

  Did he dare? It was forbidden to intervene in the affairs of mortals, but it was only a sweater, little di
fferent than the Collected Works of Emily Dickenson [1] he’d left open on her bureau to a poem suitable as inspiration for tonight’s performance:

  'Hope' is the thing with feathers --

  That perches in the soul --

  And sings the tune without the words --

  And never stops -- at all

  Edging over to the edge of the bed, Azrael turned his pencil around, eraser-first so it wouldn’t leave a mark and used it to fish out the sweater. Although he’d gotten better about not dissolving inanimate objects, his track record was less-than-stellar. He didn’t wish to mar her favorite sweater. Elisabeth turned and spied it arranged neatly on the bed.

  “Never mind!” Elisabeth shouted. “I found it.”

  She looked right into the corner where the invisible Azrael stood watching her every move.

  “I must be going crazy or something, huh?” Elisabeth stared straight at him with her eerie silver eyes as though she could see right into his soul.

  Azrael shuddered as a deep emotion he could not name made his breath hitch in his throat. The last person possessing such beautiful, silver eyes had given him honey-cakes to feed his ‘doll.’ His pulse sped up as he nervously stepped out of the path between her and the sweater. Even with the scar the General insisted she keep as a badge of honor, Elisabeth had grown into a beautiful young woman.

  “Not like anyone’s going to be looking at me, anyway,” Elisabeth no longer spoke in Azrael’s direction, but her reflection in the mirror. She lifted the princess skirt and stared at the steel brace she still needed to support her left leg. Although she now only needed her grandfather's wooden cane to walk, every morning the girl who had defeated death looked in the mirror and reminded herself she was scarred. Ugly. That no boy would ever give a cripple a second glance.

  Oh, how he longed to take her in his arms and tell her she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen! He stepped closer, unconsciously flaring his wings as he inhaled her scent. Her scent had begun to change this past year. The scent of a woman ready to take a mate. He closed his eyes and inhaled the subtle pheromones. It was the headiest perfume he’d ever encountered in the two thousand plus years he’d been alive. The urge to be near her had become almost … irrational.

  ‘What is wrong with you today?’ Azrael scolded himself. ‘Not only is it forbidden, but your first embrace will be -her- last!’

  He hoped the young man who inspired his young subject to come out of her self-imposed shell and participate would be worthy of her. If he hurt her…

  *Snap*

  Azrael clenched his pencil so hard it broke in half.

  “Time to go.” Elisabeth slipped the sweater over her shoulders and grabbed her cane, sighing with resignation as she made her way across the room.

  Azrael noted the peculiar feeling of disappointment when she walked straight past him as though he wasn’t there. She wasn’t supposed to be able to see him, but sometimes he thought she did. When he realized she didn’t, it was always disappointing. She hadn’t even glanced at the poem.

  “Elisabeth!” Nancy yelled up the stairs.

  “I’m coming!” Elisabeth shouted. Her cane clacked rhythmically down the stairs, more ‘insurance’ these days than actual crutch.

  “You look beautiful!” Nancy gave her a genuinely warm hug. “If there’s a heaven, your family is looking down right now and telling themselves how beautiful you look tonight.”

  “I wish we’d bought the red heels we saw at the Vincent de Paul Society thrift shop,” Elisabeth frowned at the clunky ‘granny sandals’ she’d borrowed from Mrs. Schroeder next door. “They were so dainty and pretty.”

  “They were three inch heels,” Nancy scolded her. “You’d have fallen flat on your face right in front of Tommy-what’s-his-name.”

  “But I liked them!” Elisabeth protested. “This dress is long enough to hide my brace. It would have made me look normal!”

  “You are normal,” Nancy said. “Come … I’d like to get a seat close enough to the stage to actually see you this year!”

  Azrael trailed behind them, stepping out of the way as Nancy locked the door to their small rented row-house. The neighborhood was only slightly better than the last one, but Lucifer had greased wheels and pulled strings so the opportunity to move to a better school district had appeared to fall into Nancy’s lap naturally. Azrael silently followed as they walked to the end of the street to catch the city bus.

  His hand tingled. Azrael liked to include sketches with his notes. The pencil moved like liquid across the page, capturing the visage of the two women, Elisabeth with her red Christmas dress peeking out from beneath her worn woolen coat, Nancy in her simple cotton frock and boyish down jacket with a not-too-conspicuous patch holding together the underarm.

  ‘The subject appears to have finally accepted the love offered by her foster mother and blossomed under her care,’ Azrael scribbled in the margins as he found a seat in the rear of the near-empty bus and observed their almost sister-like chatter about boys. ‘Although love is not an emotion that is unique to the species Homo sapiens, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly humans whither compared to other species when they perceive an absence of love in their lives.’

  Azrael paused, reflecting on the gaping void in his own heart left by the loss of his mother, his sister, and his friend. A hiss erupted from beneath where he sat crouched over his notebook. An escaping tear had just dissolved a hole in the floor of the bus. He was waxing melancholy again, allowing the all-consuming hunger of loneliness to affect his normally even temperament. He refocused his attention to the conversation going on between his favorite research subject and her foster mother.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Nancy said. “Why don’t you invite Tommy to come over for cookies tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Oh, no!” Elisabeth said. “I’d be mortified to ask a boy out on a date!”

  “It’s not a date,” Nancy elbowed her. “It’s just cookies. The way to a man’s heart is always through his stomach!”

  “That’s just a myth!” Elisabeth said.

  “No it’s not,” Nancy said.

  “No it’s not,” Azrael said at the exact same time, thinking of how Elissar had lured him to stay.

  Elisabeth’s head jerked up and looked towards the rear of the bus where he sat. Had he uttered the words aloud so mortal ears could hear it?

  “Is something wrong?” Nancy asked.

  “No.” Elisabeth turned towards her foster mother, a puzzled expression upon her face. “I just thought I heard something. That’s all. A voice that sounded … familiar.”

  Azrael derided himself for his stupidity. He could make himself invisible, but not inaudible if he was foolish enough to speak aloud. Whatever had come over him?

  Elissar. Elissar had used honey-cakes and roast chicken. Simple meals. But it wasn’t the offer of food, but friendship despite the nine-year difference in their ages which had kept Azrael coming back. Elissar had needed a friend as much as he had. More than two thousand years she'd been in the grave and he still missed the only real friend he’d ever had.

  ‘Why do I keep coming back to –this- particular subject?’ Azrael wrote in his notebook. ‘She bears a striking resemblance to Elissar, but I suspect it’s more than that. Elissar was every bit as lonely as I was then, back while I was still mortal, while Elisabeth seems every bit as lonely as I feel now. For some reason she perceives herself to be an outcast.”

  Elisabeth fell deep into discussion with her foster mother about what college she wished to attend next fall. Azrael had begged Lucifer to pull strings and line up a full scholarship to the University of Chicago so she’d still have access to Nancy, the sole stabilizing influence in her life. Lucifer had informed him that, with Elisabeth’s good grades, his young subject could attend any college she liked.

  ‘I’ve been lurking amongst humans so long that perhaps I am becoming like them?’ Azrael wrote. ‘Elisabeth believes she imagined a ‘watcher’ because she need
s to make sense of her parent's death. Perhaps –I- imagine her to make sense of my own sorry fate?’

  The bus stopped in front of Lincoln Park High School. Azrael flew up to perch upon the portico as they made their way inside. It was crowded tonight; girls in red dresses; boys with black pants, white dress shirts and red ties; parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters. Some were dressed as though attending a grand ball, others in jeans and T-shirts, but there was another element in attendance tonight. Gang members… A significant force in the Chicago youth community. Wherever they went, trouble always followed.

  Azrael decided he would blow off the reconnaissance he’d been planning on doing in North Korea and stick around for the concert. The fact he wished to observe Elisabeth’s reactions around the young man she was so enamored of had absolutely nothing to do with it!

  * * * * *

  Chapter 21

  When the senses contact sense objects,

  A person experiences cold or heat,

  Pleasure or pain.

  These experiences are fleeting

  They come and go. Bear them patiently.

  Bhagavad Gita

  Earth - AD December, 1999

  Chicago, Illinois

  Elisabeth glanced at Tommy Rodriguez through veiled lashes as her voice anchored the tenor section for Handel's Messiah. She’d always regretted she hadn't been born a high-flying soprano whose voice could rise above the chorus like an angel, but then the choral director had paired her with Tommy, a natural tenor with a beautiful voice. Tommy lacked Oma’s childhood lessons to read music and stick to what he was supposed to sing, no matter how off-key the chorus sang around him.

  Technically Elisabeth was part of the boy’s tenor section, always sparse because only dweebs and the rare, truly talented male singer ever signed up for dorky chorus. Not even for an easy three credits! Tommy was the latter. He even had his own hip-hop band!