Shadow & Light

by Stephen Ayer

  He hoped that was it.

  The idea of upping his intake to stay vital unsettled him more than going to Hell.

  He leaned in against Peter’s door and watched it crack open with ease. Heh, still haven’t figured out key cards, have you? The angel sat in his seat, reading the morning paper as he sipped his coffee, his face inscrutable. Does he know? Could the news outlets even get the story going that fast?

  The vampire stepped through the doorway with a loud creak and brought Peter’s eyes on him instantly. Gold flecked and sharp, he glowered at Frank’s disjointed appearance. His hands were covered in dirt and dried blood, his dirty blond hair scraggly and matted, as if someone had tried tearing it out. Below flaky, chapped lips, the corners of his mouth and chin were caked with ruddy brown stains. Uncertainty flickered in the blood drinker’s eyes as he tried to gauge the holy man’s reaction.

  Peter closed the paper and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. His voice was calm, full of barely concealed rage. “Frank. Hm. You know it is a common proverb among the masses that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. You are unique, however. Blunders are your bricks, blood your mortar.” Again with the metaphors.

  Frank nodded hesitantly, unsure if staying calm or reaching for his piece would be the best option. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He lied.

  “I wonder... which comes easier? The lying or the killing?” Damn.

  “Probably shouldn’t have said that lookin’ like this. But if it means anything, I didn’t mean for it to end that way.”

  Peter shook his head. “It doesn’t mean anything, much like your life.” Frank got a more solid handle on the grip of his gun. He moves fast, but I can pull fast. “Truth be told, neither did theirs. But the havoc you caused means a great deal. Especially if it impedes me.”

  “No one knows it was me. Horrible shit happens all the time, you’re acting like they’re going to send out the fuckin’ army just for me.”

  “Now, I told you... very clearly... no deaths, no blood from the source. You have made me furious.” he said levelly, his fingers gripping the armrests. “But tell me, how exactly did this calamity come to be? Tell me well, Frank. Your life and future as an impediment depends on it.”

  Frank sighed and thought of how best to make himself look blameless. “I started the thing with your words in mind. Blood packs only.” Memories of the night surfaced. “I saw her from my room... and I just... I just had to.” Her teal dress clung to her body in a way that immediately made her stand out within his gaze, so ripe and vulnerable... “She was there for the taking.”

  “I followed her for a few blocks ‘till she got back to her apartment.” He closed his eyes and saw her against the darkness of his eyelids. Young and copper-skinned, she smelled like cinnamon. His mouth salivated for how she would taste. “I was already there when she arrived. I could hear her heartbeat. So calm. She had no idea I was there.”

  Before she could turn on the lights he fell over her like a cold mist. He locked her arms behind her back with his cold hands. Her scream died in her mouth as her blood filled his. He felt her body stiffen and lean back against his. “It looked like it was going to be clean. There was no fuss and she seemed to enjoy it.” A stream of sighs floated from her dark lips while her body shuddered dangerously. “I don’t know if I was there for one minute or one hour. I’d been so damn thirsty I felt like a dried riverbed coming back to life.”

  He didn’t tell the angel all the shades of bliss he tasted from her flowing life, nor the memories that swam across his mind. Salt water washed down his chest and the feeling of sun without agony shone on his back. The warm love she felt for her husband washed over his tongue while the bitter sounds of their recent strains echoed in his ears. “I’d been so concentrated on her that I didn’t know anything was wrong until the darkness in my lids got a hell of a lot brighter. That’s when it all went to shit.”

  He snapped open his eyes and dropped the woman instantly. When he turned, a savage blow greeted him and sent his blood and the woman’s flying from his lips. ‘I knew it, you lying bitch!’ screamed the man in the doorway. “Apparently he thought she was cheating.” The vampire knew differently. While he never saw a memory that told otherwise, he knew well the taste of an adulterer and hers lacked such sinful piquant. “He interrupted me... in the middle of a drink... so what happened next, was instinct.”

  Deprived of his living chalice, the vampire flew into an unholy rage. The husband’s face paled in fear as the creature’s face came into view, dripping blood from his chin, his slavering fangs extended like bony knives. The man threw a clumsy blow and Frank caught it effortlessly. The vampire snapped his forearm and then ripped open his throat with a backhanded slash of his claws. “He went down quickly. Fucked up the carpet too with his blood spurting out everywhere. By then, the lady realized what was happening and started yapping like one of those small toy dogs.”

  He spun on her and saw nothing of the pleasurable daze left in her eyes, only primal terror. She scrambled back on her hands and feet, throwing little things at the vampire, each more futile than the last. A purse smacked him in the chest, a bottle of perfume cracked across his brow and drew blood and one of her stiletto heeled shoes flew past his shoulder. “Since there was already one corpse in the room, I figured go all in. Make it look different than what it was.” Frank picked up the husband’s dropped knife and dropped on her like night falling over the world.

  His cold, alabaster flesh closed around her hands, pushing the knife around her fingers. Glassy tears rolled down her flushed cheeks and for a moment the vampire paused, looking into her mournful brown eyes with his demonic reds.

  He didn’t mean to, but he had to.

  Before she could draw breath for another sob, he had already nicked her throat with her own hands. “I carried her over to her husband and positioned her knife hand near his neck wound. Not my best play, considering how messy his neck was compared to hers. But it’s Morocco. I gave the cops their case on a silver platter, all they have to do is connect the dots that match and leave out the ones that don’t.”

  Peter hadn’t stirred, still as a statue while his eyes bore into Frank’s like a hawk. “There was a third body, Frank...”

  “Yeah that was the neighbor. Convenient she came out too, just solidified everything else.” She had peeked her head out into the hallway after hearing the commotion. Even after the vampire had taken notice of her, still she stood and gaped, compelled to behold the horror that would be her end. The red terror loosed a guttural growl of satisfaction, lent more grotesque distortion from the mucus and blood clogged in his throat. “I didn’t even get a look at her face. She was a shadow at the edge of my world... until she wasn’t. She scratched, clawed and fought – ”

  Peter raised his hand. “No more, Frank.” Frank noted the subtle hints of disgust that showed through the angel’s countenance, his furrowed brow, his face cracking grimace, and worst of all, a certain golden light beneath his hand.

  Getting tired of your waiting games. If you’re gonna kill me let’s dance. “You’re mad now. But they think it was crime of passion with an unlucky bystander. Not a single peep on who really did it.”

  “Not a single peep...” repeated Peter. The angel’s vein on his forehead betrayed the rage cloaked in his icy voice. “Was there anything preventing you from knocking out the husband? Or what of doing anything else besides creating a bigger mess to conceal the smaller one!?”

  Frank’s eyes looked forlorn and he slowly backed against the door way. “I tried. My mind doesn’t work that way.”

  Peter convulsed with anger and leaped from his seat, smashing his heated hand into Frank’s throat. “Three innocents are dead because your ‘mind doesn’t work that way’! Your debt won’t be cleared with some apology.”

  The dead don’t care how sorry you are, thought Frank, before it occurred to him he would be missing a vocal chord before long.

  “What a shame I can�
��t kill you more than once.” said Peter, his eyes narrowed. Frank slammed down on the angel’s forearm with such force as to snap the bones in a normal man. Peter staggered before the vampire sent him stumbling into a dresser with a punch to the nose. Peter’s eyes welled up and a familiar red trickle seeped from his nostrils.

  Frank dropped down to his knees instantly, white knuckled and fangs bared as his body steamed. The angel’s roiled emotional state gave leave for his holy aura to expand and sear the vampire’s unholy flesh like a spark to gasoline. His skin turned bright red and the ends of his fingernails sizzled away into self-consuming embers. Eyes blurred and stung and his throat rattled to burning agony.

  But he did not die.

  He didn’t know how, he didn’t know why, all he felt was scalding pain across his chest and an insatiable urge for revenge.

  He rose up to his feet, not knowing if his next step was going to be when he finally crumbled into ash. Still he came for the angel, his agonies like annoyances before the promise of violence. Peter looked at him in disbelief before he yanked the cross around his neck free and slammed it into Frank’s face.

  “Enough!”

  The vampire collapsed to the ground in a steaming heap, his forehead red and raw in the shape of a cross. Weak groans floated from charred lips, his eyes distant.

  Peter drew his resplendence back into his being and leaned down, eyeing the agonized but not ashed vampire. “What are you Frank...” he said aloud, until his eyes caught something bright beneath Frank’s shirt. He pulled at the shirt from the side and saw it was the vampire’s Templar brand, glowing red hot on his flesh, the sacred symbols within as bright as furnace embers. “Ah.”

  “Guess this makes us...” gasped Frank, “equals... asshole.”

  Peter took a deep breath, his eyes losing the heat of surprise and taking on a cold glint once more. “Your leash has only grown longer. You’re still damned and that brand won’t change that.”

  “I’m angel-proof and prayin’ to God won’t change that.” Frank cackled, his voice dry and strained. “But don’t worry... I ain’t gonna tell the cross boys that their brands got extra features...”

  The angel rose to his feet and straightened his jacket. He took a deep breath, incensed that he had finally found a problem he couldn’t ash. And then he spoke. “There will come a day, Frank, when you must face a true reckoning for your crimes.” He stepped over Frank’s crumpled form and paused by the door. “God willing, I shall be the instrument of your judgment.”

  The door shut with a slam and Frank slowly pulled himself off the floor. His bones felt brittle, like fried straws buried underneath stinging flesh. He threw himself over the angel’s bed, the exertions of the night combined with the angel’s illuminated outburst draining his will to get back to his own room. He let out a wheezing cough and tasted flecks of ash waft off his tongue. His head lolled to the side and took note of the windows in the room.

  All were covered by thick maroon curtains, little slats of light danced beneath and around their edges. It wasn’t the best set-up, but it would do. With a ragged sigh, Frank closed his eyes, the dreams and the past drifting over him like a veil...

  ***

  Peter stepped out into the gentle morning light of Rabat, still fuming about Frank’s indiscretion and new found immunity. Enjoy it, Frank. A simple brand and tattoo won’t save you from the sun. Won’t save you from your sins... He shook the vampire from his mind and focused on the task at hand.

  Of the three leads he gleaned, only one seemed to work directly with the occult. Rajya Nasari. Half an hour later, he was walking through the front of the Sale Medina’s Bab Mrisa gate. Two great pillars of stone, finely carved and square, separated in the middle with a massive horseshoe arch greeted him.

  Its Almohad aesthetic stirred bitter memories of slaughter in Spain, but now, so far away from that conflict he could almost come to admire its beauty. They did know their way around stone. I’ll not begrudge them that.

  The rich brown adobe bricks gleamed orange in the sun and clashed against the stark blue sky. His eyes were drawn to the sculpted work just above the arch, interweaving curls and flourishes that contrasted against the rest of gate’s simple textures. He passed underneath its heavy shadow and came into the souk, where the noise amplified a hundred fold from the close quarters.

  The heat of the sun beat down on his neck and cooked him within his heavy jacket. In between those dressed in jeans and scarfs there were those whose dress diverted his sharp gaze from the task at hand. Women in dressed in simple kaftans, light yellow and orange fabrics fluttered to their strides. Others were clad in heavier materials, green velvet with lustrous Moroccan rhinestones sewed into the fabric. The bold colors seduced his eyes and he realized the whole market was dedicated to textiles, not just the shop he was looking for.

  Under red and white tarps merchants plied their many wares in the dusty shade, octagonal sun umbrellas wrought in hues of gold and turquoise, traditional black abayat cloaks and their chiffon threads swaying gently in the breeze and woolen carpets that hung above the merchant’s heads, dyed in vivid hues of maroon and violet.

  He pressed his way out of the main crowd and got under the red shade of the stalls, wracking his brain for something more specific to Rajya’s location. The old articles he scanned came back to him unwillingly and combined with the smothering heat, worked to drape him in a nauseous stupor. He caught glimpses of the woman, her hands over a basket, a pale orange scarf reaching down to her waist but nothing substantial. And then he saw her ring. Innocuous and polished black, he saw the silver inlay of roses revealed under moonlight during one of her night time jaunts. Got you.

  When he came back to full alertness and his eyes widened, he realized he had turned down a series of narrow alleys. Like a compass, his body had been drawn to hers, impelled to follow a path even Peter was unaware of. He looked from side to side, scanning the merchants, all old men, many sitting on baskets with the dullest of stares, brought about from the merciless sun. Nothing but basketwork. She has to be here. Unless there’s other alleys with nothing but—. He stopped when he saw a feminine shape stacking wicker chairs in the back of a dimly lit shop. Good.

  He came under the shadow of the stalls in front of the shop and sighed in relief, being out of the sun’s glare. Like all other places, this one too had an old man out front, so bronzed and weather beaten the sporadic tufts of fur on his face looked as white as clouds. “Rajya! Customer!” he droned and continued staring out into the hot and golden street.

  Peter smiled from ear to ear when he heard her name. Thank you Lord, for your guidance. Rajya came out to greet and she paused for half a moment to regard him, unused to visitors of Western appearance.

  She broke into her pitch right away. “We have hemp baskets, open top baskets, wicker hats, soft borlo bags...” Her voice trailed off when she realized his eyes were not following her hands. “You’re not interested?”

  “I’ve heard interesting things about this shop.”

  “Rajya! Tell him our weaving is the best!” said the old man.

  The angel smiled and rested his elbow on top of a tall, twined basket, stained in various reds. “I’ve heard that too about this place. Very impressive work.”

  Rajya looked him up and down, eyebrows arched and amused. “You’ve come a long way for baskets.”

  “I confess, they are a terrible passion of mine. As is the truth.” The angel did not jest. While his works in the mortal realm focused mainly on death and righteous purgation, in his times of peace he sought to create and walk in the shoes of Man, if only for a moment. Chairs and tables were as much a product of his hands as were swords and daggers.

  The women stared into his face intently, as if it would help her understand better, but then relented with a sigh. “I’m sorry sir, I don’t understand.” You will soon enough.

  Peter waved his hand and walked past her, thumbing a basket the size of his chest. “No matter. As fascinating as all
this is however, I would really like that ring.”

  He turned just in time to capture apology and panic flicker across her blushing features. “Oh I’m sorry but it’s not for sale.”

  The old man stamped his foot down, not taking his eyes away from the sunny street. “Rajya! Everything is for sale!”

  Peter smiled and took her hand into his. “It’s alright. Just tell me where you got it.” His palm skimmed over hers and he felt the slightest twinge of malevolence skirt across his touch, a sting of coolness that his holy being pushed back. “It’s a beautiful piece.”

  He saw fright twist her face and knew she had felt the unnatural warmth from his hand encircle her ring finger. “You’re one of them...”

  The angel grinned. “Why don’t we go talk about it? It’s almost lunch.”

  “Rajya! You need ten baskets before break!” said the monotonous, withered man.

  Peter spared an acrimonious glance at the senior. “You’ll have your money, old man.” Just then he felt Rajya try to pull away but he snatched her by the wrist, trapping her in his steely grip. “I can help you, Rajya. Or I can make you need help. Run away from me again and I’ll ensure the latter.”

  Protests died in her mouth with a whimper while her amber eyes grew misty with terror. “I won’t run.” she said solemnly.

  Peter patted her on the head and withdrew a wad of dirhams from his pocket, laying it behind on the main counter. “Very good. Come. We have much to talk about.”

  Twenty minutes later in an outdoor cafe, Peter watched her ring in between bites of couscous, flavored with coriander and bits of parsley. The thing was as simple and thin as a wedding band, but gleamed black as night in the sunlight. “Rajya, you know it’s no good to run from me, you can be doubly assured it’s no good to lie to me. And while you haven’t lied, your evasiveness obstructs me just the same.” He took another bite. “By the time this bowl is empty, truth or blood will run from your lips.”

  Rajya looked around the cafe, as if looking for someone. They won’t help you here. Such is the loyalty of heretics and oathbreakers. She sighed. “I can’t say much.”