Lafayette could see the wheels turning in Toni’s head. She was a modern woman – one you couldn’t just tell what to do. For her processing a slave wanting to stay in bondage was nearly unfathomable.
“So, you and your wife had six sons, all of whom were slave owners.” She looked over at Jericho with daggers.
Jericho winced at her reaction. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he darted his eyes across the table of food. “As I told you before, I wasn’t always a good man,” Jericho admitted. “The years of slavery have always been a curse on my existence.”
“That’s an understatement, if I’ve ever heard one,” Toni muttered.
Lafayette didn’t want his son to bear all the wrath for his seedy past. He stepped in to take the bullet in hopes of preventing wounds to the young couples’ new relationship.
“I introduced my sons to that way of life. If you are going to judge anyone, Toni, judge me. My sons did not seek this life out. They were born into it. However, I knew better. It was a choice – a selfish choice that led eventually to my wife’s death. My sister killed my wife because she was turning my ear.”
She turned from Jericho for a moment and listened to Lafayette.
“Turning your ear?” Toni wished at that moment she had a pen and pad to write this all down or at least a glossary to keep up with all the new terms she had learned.
Lafayette shifted in his chair. “It is when you change someone’s mind or heart. It’s not just persuasive talk; it’s incantations used as well. Elizabeth was trying to turn me against the Confederacy. She had been secretly helping slaves for years without my knowledge – although I should have known considering her love for her sister, and finally, she grew tired of the deceit and tried to turn me toward her cause directly. I later found out that she had experienced a great vision about how this all ends. While all the men were away at war, she shared her vision with my sister, Ophelia, thinking she could trust her. However, after hearing my wife’s vision, my sister killed her to make sure that I never found out about how our family fit into the prophecy.”
Despite Toni’s desire to be angry at them, she did have compassion for the dead women. “That’s horrible,” she said, swallowing hard.
There were two parts in her fighting for space now. One part wanted to understand Jericho and Lafayette. The other wanted to spit on their sorrows and remind them that more than their precious loved ones had died as a result of slavery and the dreadful Middle Passage.
However, if she was going to get down to the bottom of who she was dealing with, she had to allow history, something she couldn’t change, to stay in the past. At least for now.
Lafayette picked up a glass of water and took a sip as he gazed off. “We found Elizabeth and Charlotte in a co-mingled pool of blood in this very room when we returned home a week later from the war.”
Toni dipped her head. “I’m very sorry for your loss.” She forbade herself from asking where in the room the women had been killed, but she prayed it was nowhere near the dining room table.
Even after all these years, Lafayette still mourned Elizabeth and understood Toni’s desire for revenge. But he also understood the bigger picture.
Toni held a breath as she narrowed her eyes on her food. Slowly, her appetite was starting to diminish.
“Go on, ask your questions, little reporter.” Lafayette said, reading Toni like a book. Bless her soul, she was about to burst inside.
“What did you mean by how this all ends?” she asked, ready to shoot off a hundred questions in a row.
“The apocalypse,” Lafayette answered quickly. “My wife’s vision was about the end of the world.”
Toni cleared her throat on that one. Why was she not surprised that this could get weirder? “Oh…well, did you find out what the vision was about?”
“No. Not completely. A few days after her death, I found a hidden journal Elizabeth had been keeping about her visions. In it, was something about the four horsemen and the freeing of the Southern slaves being the only way to hold off the apocalypse. It was very cryptic, but every one of my wife’s visions had come to pass before her death, so I’m certain that she thought the one she had about the Civil War would eventually do the same.”
“She thought if the slaves were not freed, the end of the world would come sooner?” Toni asked for clarification.
“Yes,” Lafayette answered emphatically. “Now, I’m certain, looking at you, she was right. I still don’t know what she told Ophelia exactly, but I do know it was imperative to our collective purpose. You see, if the Civil War had not been won by the Union, you might not have been born, Toni. If you had not been born, then…” he paused, debating whether or not to explain himself fully. “Well, you have a very important part to play in this as we all do. With every prophecy, there is a succession of events, of births, deaths and unions. Your union with Jericho is paramount to fulfilling the most important prophecy of man’s fight against the dark. This final war won’t just be fought with witches and man, but it will be fought alongside the fallen.” He glanced over at his son with a look of concern, hoping he was not overstepping a conversation that the two lovers needed to have alone.
“Fallen?” Toni’s head tilted.
“Fallen angels. Beings like myself.” Lafayette answered.
Toni gripped the table as she glared at Lafayette. She could feel that he was more powerful than his sons, but she hadn’t imagined he was like her mother.
“You’re a fallen angel too?” she asked.
“I am,” Lafayette replied with both pride and shame. “Explains the eons, huh?”
“Explains a lot, especially the scars I saw on your back last night,” Toni said, mind blown. “They were from wings, right?”
“Yes, I cut mine from my back when I was sent here. Your mother did not.”
“Why?” Toni asked.
Jericho tried to keep them on the topic, clearly seeing they were going off course with angels and their historic fall. “After my mother and aunt’s murders and the discovery of the journal, we knew that while we could not save our family, we could save others. We changed our allegiance and used our wealth to help free as many slaves as we could.”
Toni found that somewhat admirable. Everyone could change, she supposed.
Jericho shook his head, remembering the years of strife that he had lived through. “After my mother’s death, we took on the light. We nearly emptied our coven’s reserves trying to help the cause. The other Laveau members were profiting, as we had, from the slave trade. Our sudden change in heart started a more intimate civil war. Some with smaller minds and more selfish concerns argued over the money, but Ophelia had a larger objective. She wanted to keep slaves in bondage to empower the dark ones and prevent your birth. She turned the rest of the coven against us, killed anyone who wasn’t in line with her goals and anyone who might sympathize with us. She also enlisted the help of humans through the Ku Klux Klan. Over the years, the numbers thinned greatly after that to the point where there are only seven of us left on our side.”
“Do you understand?” Lafayette asked, seeing she was thoroughly confused.
“Yes, I think so.” Toni had another question, one far more simple. “So, the blonde-haired warlocks are bad. Those are the ones that I need to watch out for?”
“Not all pale-haired warlocks, witches and angels are evil. Most are, but there are a few exceptions. The one thing they have in common is that they’ve all killed an angel,” Lafayette said, realizing it would hit home with Toni. “Once you kill an angel, your hair turns almost silver. It’s the mark of murder. You can’t color it, can’t change it, can’t cut it. It’s a warning of a warlock’s transgressions. It’s a symbol of shame. Or honor, depending on your allegiance,” Lafayette added. “However, to answer your question, yes, if you see the blonde ones, you need to get to safety.”
Toni tried to keep the story straight. “So, you’re a fallen angel who has been here since the war in heaven,” she said to Lafay
ette. She turned to Jericho. “And you’re a warlock, because your mother was a natural born witch and your father is a fallen angel. And I’m the same because of my family.” She took a deep breath. And she thought her Ancestry DNA profile was confusing. This was insane.
Putting her hands on her temples, she rubbed them slowly. “Wow, I feel more confused than I did last night. Angels? Really? I thought angels were only men, not women too. How many fallen are there? Are you all related?”
“Yes, we are all related,” Lafayette explained. “But there are not many of us left. And only a natural born witch, warlock or another angel can kill an angel – not a human.”
“And you’ve never killed an angel in all your time here?” Toni asked Lafayette.
“No,” Lafayette answered. “An angel’s only hope of ever being forgiven is that he will not kill another of his kind while he or she is here in this place of purgatory. Once you kill one of God’s perfect creatures, you are damned.”
“And that applies to everyone?” she asked.
“No, it applies to the fallen,” Lafayette answered. “There have been many times where I wanted to kill, many times that I should have killed another fallen angel, but my love for God is still great, and I do long to beside him again. If killing one of them will prevent my chance for redemption, the price is too great.”
Toni could hear the longing in Lafayette’s voice. It must have been torturous to be out of God’s sight, to be shunned. But if he had hope still after so long, then she had hope for him.
“You still love Him?” she asked.
“With all my heart,” he said, biting his lip.
Toni couldn’t help herself. She had to ask. “So, why were you cast out? If you loved Him so much; why did you do something so bad?”
Jericho cleared his throat. He should have anticipated that she would ask the hard questions, considering her profession, but he didn’t know she would be so relentless about it.
Lafayette felt like he was teaching a child. The history of their race was a complicated story. “The fallen were cast down here during the wars of heaven for disobeying God. Some of these fallen angels taught humans things that they were not supposed to know. Some mated with humans against God’s Word, even though God warned that they should not mate with man because they would eventually die. Humans die at a certain age because of their design. Our kind die because of murder.”
“I’m sure that you’ve heard the story before about the fallen,” Jericho said, trying to cut through the tension in the room.
“Vaguely,” Toni lied. She knew more about the Bible than she let on. Her adopted mother and father had been missionaries. She had grown up in the Church. But after she hit adulthood, she made her own way, put the Bible down for an iPad and replaced Sunday worship with Sunday brunch.
Still, the knowledge was there. She could recite the Bible almost word for word and none of what Lafayette was telling her was in it, which made her wonder what book he was using.
“Lafayette, you never answered my question,” Toni said softly. “Why were you cast out?”
Lafayette still remembered his original sin. “I was sentenced to life here for my first wife, Lydia. Now that story, you won’t find in the Bible, maybe in some old Jewish myths, but nowhere else.”
“Was she a woman?” Toni asked.
“Yes and no,” Lafayette answered. “But there were many after her, so many, it was hardly considered a mistake.”
“Lust is a sin, no matter the being, huh,” Toni quipped. “I get the jest of the story, but I’m still drawing a blank on why any angel who has fallen can be considered good or of the light or whatever.”
Jericho took Toni’s hand again. “We are not all bad. Just like you, we have the choice.”
“You are a Christian, correct?” Lafayette asked.
“I’m a Christian, yes,” Toni said, refusing to explain too much until she knew more.
“Angels cast here must wait for the day of judgement, just like everyone else. Some have turned completely dark because of their jealousy of man. Others have used this time for redemption, considering that they could have been cast into hell like Lucifer during the Great War in Heaven. Once we lost our purpose as messengers, we were no different from you. We are here to find our way again.”
Toni would have to let that concept marinate for a bit. She moved on to something that was hopefully easier to explain. “What about the eyes? Why do they blaze like that?”
Lafayette chuckled. It was the simplest thing to explain. “Have you read Acts?”
“Not lately,” she said with a stone face.
Lafayette allowed his son to take the lead for a moment. Maybe the explanation would be better received from her new beau.
“Sorcerers are as old as the first books of the Bible. But we received our blazing eyes during the days of Paul. A warlock who had the ear of the high Roman official, Paulus, tried to turn his ward’s ear from the Paul and his teachings of Christ in fear that he would become saved and take the teachings back to his people in Rome, spreading Christianity as was the edict of prophets. Bar-Jesus was close to turning Paulus from Paul, close to casting doubt. Filled with the Holy Spirit and determined to win the Roman’s heart for his Savior, Paul called down the hand of God and made Bejesus blind for a season for his transgression, forcing him to roam aimlessly. When the warlock’s sight came back a season later, his eyes were turned a blazing, unnatural color that only other warlocks and warriors of God can see, but what is not included in the Bible is that when Paul called down the hand of God on Bar-Jesus, every warlock on the face of the Earth went blind as well for a period of time. And every warlock since has worn the mark of Bar-Jesus and his sin. Our eyes blaze to remind us of how close to hell we truly are.”
Toni didn’t know how much more of this she could process. “So, let’s bring all of this back to me for a minute. Have I reached the point of no return with this?”
Lafayette stuck his fork into his mouth and tasted his breakfast. “Afraid so. Your transition began the moment the spot was removed from your brain and sealed the moment you bonded with Jericho, but the circle will not be complete unless you marry him.”
“Marry him?” Toni repeated breathlessly. She was faring better with the discussion about fallen angels.
“Yes,” Lafayette said, looking at his son. He had imagined Jericho would have mentioned that part to Toni before bedding her all night.
“Why do I feel like it takes more than a piece of paper from a local constable to marry into this family,” Toni said, taking a deep breath.
“The act of marriage is…powerful to say the least, and not done lightly,” Lafayette said sternly. “Of course, we love the pomp and circumstance of a human wedding with the white dress and the walk down the aisle, but marriage for our kind is and has always been about the release of one’s physical, spiritual and emotional self into another for the purpose of creating a child.” He glanced at his son again.
Toni wouldn’t deal with that right now. It was putting the cart before the horse in her mind. Jericho and she had made love, sure. And it was great. Sure. But marriage via a kid was a little premature.
She moved the conversation along quickly. “So, you’re immortal as long as no one kills you, right?”
“There has never been a warlock that was not eventually killed,” Jericho said, glad to change the subject. “Sometimes it takes a few centuries, a millennium even, but man is made to war and war leads to death of all living things, including warlocks.
“So, no natural causes?” Toni asked, contemplating her future. “No dying in your sleep or while watching the sunrise?”
“You can choose to relinquish your life force, but I don’t know of any who have done it,” Lafayette answered truthfully. “To be knowledgeable of this world and truly understand death usually prevents you from ever thinking of willingly giving over your life.”
Toni felt herself going into overload. There was so much information. So
much context. “And my family was killed because we somehow fit into the prophecy? It’s the only thing that makes sense to me, considering how your sister slaughtered my father and my mother.”
“The prophecy says after the circles are complete through the marriage of the last unwed son that the heir of the dark shall rise to be the anti-Christ, the heir of the light will rise to be the warrior to fight the anti-Christ during the last days. Both will be born from the six sons of the fallen and the descendants of Be-Jesus. Now, I never produced six sons until my marriage with Elizabeth. I assumed the prophesy had nothing to do with me until then. My sister, in turn, had six sons with her husband, the man you saw in your vision. We knew it was no coincidence after that. It was clear with the birth of our last children that we were set on a path against each other. My sister chose to put things into motion when she killed my wife in hopes that her vision would not be realized. Everything in our existence has led to this, including you arriving here.”
“Is their circle complete already, this other coven?” Toni asked.
“No. We would all know if Ophelia’s last son had completed their circle. At conception of the anti-Christ, the earth will part and the sky will darken. What we’ve been trying to figure out, however, is how this will happen. The anti-Christ is born from incest, a sister and brother. However, Ophelia has no girls. Regardless, we know we are set on the path. The apocalypse is coming.”
“I imagine that those years will be some of the hardest for mankind,” Toni said, exhaling a breath that had trapped in her chest.
“Yes, God’s most love creation will be forced to prove himself when that time comes. And many will prove themselves false,” Lafayette said with a nod.
Suddenly, Toni didn’t like his tone, but she imagined his frustration came from being a tad bitter with being booted from paradise. “Well, if you ask me, the best thing that could happen for everyone would be that the last son didn’t marry and make an heir,” Toni said deducing the prophecy to a matter of control.
Warlocks_The Creole Coven Page 14
