by Brian Rella
Something slithered across his path and stopped in front of him. The creature was long and had no arms or legs, but slid along the ground on its belly. Its tongue lashed at the air, its head bobbed over the ground, and fixed its yellow eyes on him. Kuriel wondered if this creature could see through his mask, the way it gazed at him with such intensity.
He reached down and grasped it by its middle with unearthly speed. The serpent. It squirmed and wriggled in his hand, hissed and spat at him, and Kuriel reached into its mind, and saw its simple thoughts; its fear and hate and loathing of the other creatures of this world. Forced by the Creator to lie on its belly for all eternity, it was hateful of Him for its position in His kingdom.
It exposed its fangs and lunged at Kuriel. Its teeth struck Kuriel’s cheek and broke against the Celestial’s skin. Kuriel cocked an eyebrow at the aggressive beast. Wicked creature. And then he burned it with his eyes, dropping the charred, blackened body to the ground. He left the smoldering corpse without another thought, and walked on toward a group of humans who had gathered together in a fertile part of the land and were busy getting ready for the darkness that had begun to fall as the sun that lit the world sank in the sky.
Kuriel approached the tribe of humans quietly, observing them. He wished not to be noticed out of concern they would act strangely around him, as the serpent had. He transformed himself into the wind and floated among them, observing their activities and thoughts.
They killed the soulless creatures, cooked their flesh over open fires, and ate it. The ritual of death and consumption filled Kuriel with a sense of wonder as he drifted among them. They ate and drank fermented juices around the fires, and as night overcame day, and their bellies became full, they made music and merriment, dancing and laughing with one another in joyous harmony.
But they were not all happy and Kuriel sensed the darkness alongside the light within them. In one man, he found the darkness was stronger than the light, and he became more curious of this one.
He became aggressive toward another male and Kuriel recognized what the dark man felt—envy—for Kuriel had felt it, too, and it had driven the two men to fight. Wine had clouded the dark man’s mind, confusing his thoughts and emotions about the female that he desired, but the other man possessed. Kuriel listened to the dark man’s mind and heard his thoughts and explored his blackened heart and spirit. Envy. Anger. Lust. Hate. Murder. All these filled the man and muted the Creator’s light.
The fighting did not last long. The wine made the dark man clumsy and slow. He was defeated swiftly, the sand beneath him soaked with his blood. His fellows cast him out of the encampment, and he began wandering under the moonlight. Drunk, he stumbled over rocks and roots and shrubs as he made his way. Kuriel followed concealed as the wind, curious about the man’s thoughts and motivations, and why he had become so different from the rest.
The man slumped against a tree, slid down the trunk, and sank into a dreaming sleep. Kuriel rested beside him, entered the man’s dreams, and began to speak with him.
“Why do you feel envy and anger toward that man?” Kuriel asked.
“He thinks he is better than me. They all do. They think I am less than them.”
“Why do they think this of you?”
“Because they are jealous. Jealous of my greatness, my ability to shape stone. Jealous of my good looks and passion with women. They do not want me around their wives and daughters because they know I am the greatest among them, and they fear I will take from them that which they claim as their own. They are bitter and jealous. I hate them.”
“Surely you are not better, nor worse than them. Just different.”
“I have no use for them other than what they can give to me. It is because of me our encampment exists. I built the well that gives us water to drink, water for the crops, water to bathe in, and now they shun me for a trifle. A small infraction of their laws and they shun me and will not let me with their wives and daughters.”
“What have you done?”
“I have no need to tell you,” the man said and turned away. But in the dreamlands of the dark man’s mind, there was nowhere to go, and Kuriel looked inside his heart and saw the wickedness there. He witnessed through the man’s own memories the pain and suffering he had inflicted on women, forcing himself upon them, and treating them with cruelty, and bringing them and their loved ones pain.
And he saw the cycle of darkness of man. Just as humans could pass the light within them to others, they could also pass on the darkness. And the acts of this man turned others dark, and they in turn turned others dark, and so on.
The man was full of bitterness and hate. Kuriel was displeased with this man, and he was moved to fix the dark imbalance of the man’s dark energy, and break the cycle.
In the dreamlands of the man’s mind, Kuriel reached into him, moving to his soul and penetrated it with his spirit. As he touched the man’s soul, the abundance of dark energy within the man’s soul moved toward Kuriel’s light, mixing with it.
Kuriel opened a channel and his light energy moved into the man, and the dark energy from the man flowed into Kuriel. But Kuriel could not stop the flow of energy, and at that moment, the realization swept through him, further unraveling the mystery of the human soul.
As the darkness from the man’s soul passed to Kuriel, he absorbed it, and tried to cleanse it, but something unexpected happened. Kuriel’s light was sullied with the darkness he extracted from the man’s soul. He could not cleanse it, or dissipate it. A shadow grew and spread within him. He tried to call out to Uriel, but the evil and wickedness flooding Kuriel’s spirit muted his song-like voice.
Fear gripped Kuriel as he tried to retrieve his spirit and return the darkness to the man. He reached back into the man’s soul, but what was done, could not be undone.
Frustration, rage, and fury consumed Kuriel. This cannot be. Give it back! Give it back NOW!
In his wrath, he devoured the man’s soul and all its light, and for a moment, he thought he had done it. The sweetness of light energy flowed through him, and Kuriel was pure again.
But it did not last, and the darkness returned quickly, and with the darkness, the cravings of the dark man overcame the Celestial, and his spirit was filled with new feelings: Envy. Anger. Lust. Hate. Murder.
9
FRANK
October 27, 2015
New York, New York
She looked different from his memories of her. Her hair had not been cut or dyed, and its waviness had gone flat and drab. Her features were more wrinkled than he remembered. Her face was placid, and there was a lifeless quality to it. Her skin looked washed out, old, and gray, like she hadn’t seen the sun in decades. If it wasn’t for the steady beep of her heart monitor, and the subtle rising and falling of her chest, Frank would have thought she was dead. As it was, she was just existing in the room, not really there, but there all the same; a brittle gray shadow against the bleached-white bedding.
The blankets, tucked neatly under the mattress all around her, made her look like she was in a cocoon. Tubes ran into her left arm connecting to various bags with small medical writings on them, hanging from a group of hooks behind her bed. He shuddered and fought against the image of her in front of him. That’s not you. That’s not how I remember you.
He wondered if she had been like this since he last saw her, lying alone like an immobile ghost, rotting away, hidden from the rest of the world, imprisoned in her mind by the events that had been too much for her to handle. Who visits you? You have no one besides me and I am always on the road, fighting. I’ve left you here all alone. What kind of son am I?
The guilt hit him like a punch to his guts and he had to sit in the chair beside her bed. He was off balance around her, full of sorrow and regret and guilt. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t his fault, that he had been born a Watcher and he had no choice. But the justifications were hollow and he knew it. He could have done more for her. Should have. She deserved more. She des
erved someone better than him, someone who wouldn’t have let her rot like this.
Something splattered on his thumb. He glanced down at his hand where a single tear had fallen. He brushed his cheek with the back of his palm and thought about the last time he saw his mother alive and vibrant, full of life.
It was the last time he had seen his brother.
And his father.
Frank trembled at the memories that spun in his mind like a tempest. The best of times living with the Watchers in the Temple in the Hudson Highlands had also been the worst of times. He had trained there; become a warrior there; a powerful man and member of the Order of Watchers. He had become a man there, a brother, and a son. It was there that he had become who he was. All of it. The good and the bad, because there had been good. It had been the best childhood any boy could hope to have. At least until the shit came through the Realm of the Second Death and turned his world into a living nightmare.
When he and his brother were training with Maza or Shizu or the other Watchers in the Temple, it was magical. The time he raced a bobcat through the forest… The time he and his brother had nearly set the forest on fire practicing their spells…The meals in the great hall in the Temple where he had…had…
Lost so much. He had lost his father to the murderous Glak'xhohr, who had come for him. He never knew why. The one person who might have known, Shizu, was gone. Where? Frank had no idea, but he had disappeared with Frank’s best friend, who also just happened to be his brother.
His brother, David, gone to wherever the fuck his teacher Shizu had opened the portal to. His first love, Maza, also gone, but not gone like his brother. Dead, like my father.
He stood and punched the wall, cracking the plaster and cinder blocks. His lip quivered, his eyes narrowed, and he punched the wall again with his other hand. Something of a growl escaped his throat as he did. His vision darkened around the edges and he cocked his arm back, ready to break down the wall with his fists.
A nurse burst through the door, her face all a worry. She glanced at Frank, then at the wall, then back at Frank again. She cowered under Frank’s glare.
Frank regained himself, fixed the chair in front of the bed and sat down, placing his hands palm down and flat on his thighs. “We’re all good in here, nurse,” he said without looking at her. “Leave us alone, please.”
He heard her heart pounding in the doorway, and sensed her thoughts. She was terrified. Then the door closed and her shoes squeaked rapidly down the hallway.
“Shit,” he said under his breath.
He soaked in his own self-pity sitting next to his mother. His gray, old, ghost of a mother. And then something like a bubble formed inside of his mind, and burst. Splat. Something powerful. He had been numb and tuned out of his inner self for so long that it hit him like a slap in the face. He had never given himself time to grieve the loss of his brother, father, or mother. He was always in a fight. Fighting for his life. Fighting for humanity. Fighting for the Order. Fighting to defeat the Fallen. Always battling for his life or the lives of others.
And maybe that’s what it took? Maybe by fighting the evil in the world outside of him, he would find salvation within.
The seed that had been planted so long ago, without his knowing, took root and sprouted in his mind. Why else would he continue to fight for the Order after all he lost, if deep inside, he knew what he needed to find peace?
Vengeance.
He was angry for his losses. He was angry that his mother lay here and he couldn’t do anything to help her. He was angry with himself for not visiting her. Angry at the Fallen for taking so much of his family from him. He was angry at the Order for their failures. He was angry at the girl, Jessie Hailey, who was raising the Fallen from the Second Death, bringing the evil the Watchers had buried so long ago back into the land of the living. He was angry at everything, and it all stemmed from the Fallen.
So I’m going to kill them all. Every fucking one of them. She’s raising an army? Then I can raise one, too. And she’ll regret the day she was born. I’ll train the boy. I’ll train him to be just like me: a hunter and killer. I’ll train as many as I have to, because if I can train them to protect themselves and their families, if I can train them to kill the Fallen, then maybe I can end this thing. And we can all find peace.
Frank stood and leaned over his mother’s bed, staring at her. He closed his eyes and thought back to how she looked in his childhood memories. He remembered. He remembered how she smelled, how she glowed with life, how she held him, how she fed him, how she bathed him, how she took care of him, and held that memory of her. That’s you, Mom. That’s you.
He pressed his lips to her forehead, and stayed there, letting his skin touch hers for a moment. A newfound determination and purpose burned in his belly. He pushed his self-pity back down to the hole where he found it moments ago, a deep well where he wouldn’t find it again soon. An angry fire had been lit inside him. The sorrow and self-pity burned off and evaporated, until only determination, fury, and vengeance remained. He would never let what happened to him happen to another family. He would train the boy. And he would kill that fucking bitch Jessie, and all the Fallen bastards along with her.
10
JESSIE
October 27, 2015
Humphreys Peak, Arizona
The fire in the cave burned low, and Jessie moved closer to it. Her toe touched a hot coal at the edge and she held her foot there, letting it burn. She let it sizzle on her skin until the pain cut through the angst she felt and then she pulled away cursing and spitting. She rubbed her shoulders and damned Arraziel for taking so long. It was almost winter and her Louisiana constitution despised the biting cold up here. The warm jackets she had taken from her victims weren’t able to completely keep the cold draft that whistled through the catacombs of the extinct volcano off of her. Somehow, the chill went right through the puffy down and settled into her bones. She stood and paced, her face twisted in a baleful grimace.
What the hell is taking him so long?
Patience, princess. He comes. See with his eyes.
Jessie closed her eyes and focused her inner eye on the image of Arraziel. The eye of her mind reached forward, through the cave and down the peak, joining with the demon’s vision.
A black, clawed hand, grasped a rock…
Pulling up…
Smoldering breath, snorting from the muzzle of a ram…
She saw what Arraziel saw and he was indeed close. A sinister smile cut across her face as her enhanced hearing caught the thud of his hooves in the distant entrance of the cave. Her face smoothed as she focused. Nalsuu had taught her well. The darkness of the cave enveloped Arraziel. The soft crunch of the powdery dirt under the demon’s hooves…his winding path through the catacombs of the extinct volcano…she saw and heard his movements as if she were inside him. His training was working.
Excellent, princess. You’ve learned much in a short time. You are almost ready.
Thank you, my King. His words warmed her like a father’s praise to a child.
Arraziel entered the cavern and dropped two bodies to the ground in front of her. The campers were either unconscious or dead. It didn’t matter. She had what she needed now, and the anxious anticipation she had felt melted away and was replaced by excitement.
“Put them over there,” she said to Arraziel, motioning across the room. “And make the fire burn hot. I’m frozen to the bone.”
Arraziel did as he was asked, gruffly tossing the two to the far wall. Returning to the waning fire, he blew a plume of flame onto the ground. The blaze grew and the air warmed.
Jessie trod around the fire until she felt its warmth penetrate the blanket of cold resting on her. She shrugged off her jacket and trained her attention on the couple across the room. “Are they dead?” she asked.
“No,” the demon growled.
“Good,” she replied. “When I am finished, you may feed on them.”
Arraziel grunted and steppe
d to the side.
The deep voice of her King resounded in her ears.
And now, princess, as we have practiced.
“Yes, my King. I have this lesson.”
Groans came from one of the victims and the woman’s eyes fluttered open. “W-where…” She opened her eyes and caught sight of Jessie and Arraziel about ten yards away.
“O-oh God! P-Please… Help…” she stammered.
Jessie cocked her head to the side, a blank expression on her face. “Help?”
She raised her hands in front of her and closed her eyes. The rhythmic pounding of her heart thumped in her ears, and the blood of her Fallen King seethed under her skin. Her face twisted into a snarl and she opened her eyes.
Extending her fingers toward the woman, she pushed the dark energy out from her hands as Nalsuu had taught her. Glittering violet cords of dark energy struck the woman. Her mouth fell open to scream, but the agony was too great, too violent, to allow sound to escape her. Her skin sizzled and smoked. Her features melted and charred. The smell of burning flesh and hair filled the air, and Jessie heard the pleasure of her King’s bellowing in her head.
Excellent, my princess. You have done well. But don’t kill her, my love. Save her for Arraziel to feed upon.
Jessie withdrew the energy and stared expressionless at the smoldering woman on the ground, deformed, but still alive.
“She is yours, Arraziel,” she said, her eyes never leaving the woman.
Arraziel stomped over to the woman and lifted her in the air. Her head lolled to the side, the skin crackling. A soft cough or gag escaped the blackened remains of the woman as Arraziel drained her of her remaining life force. Her skin pulled tight against the bone as her light left her. The demon dropped her to the ground and glanced at the man who lay next to her, then back at Jessie.
