by S S Bazinet
William felt the world around him shake, as if a small quake had hit his wispy surroundings. “You’re scary, Arel. Do you know that? Now take your hands off my dead body.”
“No! If you don’t know what’s good for you, I do. You’re going back!”
William tried to wrench himself free. Before he succeeded, Arel’s form began to glow. It increased in brightness until he was blinded by its brilliance. An explosive flash followed. After that William began to fall out of the heavens at an amazing rate.
* * * * *
William woke up in his recliner groaning. His head was pounding. The slightest movement sent stabbing pains through his temples. When he opened his eyes, the room was spinning so fast he felt sick just looking at it. He shut them immediately. As soon as he did, he remembered his nightmare.
I’ve had some bad dreams, but that was the worst.
He remained very still, trying not to aggravate his headache. After a few minutes, he opened his eyes again. This time his dizziness was almost gone. He could breathe easily. He wasn’t wheezing. When he carefully moved his hand, he didn’t have to grit his teeth just to bear the pain. It felt much better. Was the antibiotic working after all?
I told you that it would be fine!
He glanced around. “Arel, is that you?” He continued to scan the room, but there was no one there. Still, the more he thought about his nightmare, the more he felt like he’d been violated. A bullying transgressor had enforced his will on him with no respect for William’s basic rights. “Oh my god, Arel threw me out of heaven.”
Nine
AREL TRUDGED HIS way out of his bedroom, down the hall and into the living room. Looking around with blank, staring eyes, he barely acknowledged Michael’s presence. His head had an empty feeling as if it had been sucked dry. He looked at Michael again. “I feel like a fighter who’s gone fifteen rounds with a black hole.”
Michael looked up and gave him the once over. “I can see that.”
“I don’t feel right, and I’m exhausted.”
“I’m surprised you’re not still sleeping.”
Arel closed and opened his eyes a couple of times, but the overwhelming heaviness of the sleep state wouldn’t go away. “Maybe I’ve been sleeping too much. I can’t believe that it’s already late afternoon. All I did this morning was go for that run with Kevin.”
“Sorry, but you went for a run yesterday morning.”
“Yesterday?” Arel stumbled over to the sofa and sat down. “Are you saying that I’ve been sleeping for a day and a half?”
“Not exactly. You were very busy part of the time.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t remember doing anything?”
“Sometimes, in situations like this, it’s best not to try too hard.”
“There’s something else. I keep getting these strange flashes of light, like the sun’s popping in and out in my head.”
Michael rubbed his eyes, blinked a couple of times and looked back. “Yes, I’m aware of that effect. It can be quite disconcerting.”
Arel frowned, giving the angel the once over. “And what’s going on with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your eyes, Michael, they’re kind of different, like you’ve been at the beach too long or you’ve been—” Arel paused. In the midst of his confusion, he saw William’s London home. He also saw what looked like a heavenly landscape, complete with misty cloud banks that he could walk through. “Oh hell, I only remember seeing you look like this after you’ve been helping me. Did something happen that I don’t know about?”
“Get some more sleep,” Michael said quietly.
Arel tried to clear his mind, but it refused to be bullied into giving up whatever was hidden behind the fuzziness. “You’re right. I’m still exhausted. I’m going back to bed.” He got up and began to retrace his steps to his room. He barely got to the hall when his exhaustion became almost paralyzing. Unable to move forward, a face broke through his murky thoughts. William was looking at him with fresh hatred and disdain. As Arel stared back, letting William’s anger sink in, his mind opened up, offering him clear access to its secrets. He grabbed at the wall for support as the facts revealed themselves. They were so damning that he couldn’t speak or move. When he finally got his voice working, his words came out in a husky whisper. “What have I done now?”
* * * * *
Leaned over the dining room table, elbows splayed, head in hands, Arel wished he was in a confessional. He needed to kneel in darkness, curtained off from the priest, unable to see his face. Instead, Michael was sitting across from him. It wasn’t that the angel was censuring him. Angels weren’t in the judgment business. The hanging judge lived inside Arel, and he was the one that demanded retribution. His absolute law was so exacting that Michael’s loving attitude was grating on Arel’s tender, guilty nerves. That’s why Arel had to be the prosecutor. In the courtroom that played out in his mind, Arel had to convince an angelic being that he was too forgiving.
“Please Michael, look at the facts. I’m needy. I’m abusive! I use my power to run rough shod over the rights of others. Isn’t that true? You have to agree with me on this one.” Arel paused and mopped the sweat off his forehead. As he laid out his list of wrongdoings, he might not be convincing Michael to convict him, but the fires of his personal hell were getting hotter. “You can’t deny those charges, can you?”
Michael sat very still. He seemed to inhabit an air conditioned space. Except for eyes that still glowed a bit too bright, he looked unaffected by Arel’s need for self-flagellation. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm and even. “Of course I hear what you’re saying, but I’d like to talk about what you’re not saying. Isn’t there another side to this issue?”
Arel’s inner fires flared hotter, making him pound his fists on the table. “Of course there is! I’m thrilled that he’s—” He clamped his jaws shut and finished out the sentence in his mind. I’m thrilled that William’s alive! In the background, for the briefest of moments, a wonderful sense of euphoria overrode his guilt and self-loathing. “Michael, help me. Tell me what to do. I know I’ve done something unforgivable, and I’m sorry, but if I think about William being dead, I wouldn’t change what happened. I’d rather be dead myself.” His eyes widened with his next question. “Is that an option? Could I give up my life for his? I know this sounds insane, but I’d do it. I’d gladly die in his place.”
Michael shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“It’s so weird that I want William alive. When I was a child, my brother’s death and the aftermath left me feeling that I deserved my father’s abuse. Eventually, all I wanted was to die.” He paused and stared at the scar on his hand. “But William refused to let that happen. As a result, he sentenced me to a hundred years of hell.”
“He forced you to live against your will. Now you’ve done the same thing to him.”
“But I didn’t do it out of hate! I wasn’t trying to get revenge. I’m sure of that.”
“William didn’t give you his blood out of hate either. He tried to give you time to find yourself. Maybe you had a similar motive.”
Arel clamped his hands together. “I only wish that were true, but I doubt that it is. I’m a co-dependent, needy parasite like William said.”
“Could it be that William has a similar need?”
Arel came to attention, jerking up and staring back. “What?”
“William was the first one to make contact again, remember?”
Michael’s words swept across Arel’s fevered psyche like a cool breeze, giving him a moment of respite. “That’s true. He was the one who wanted to renew our friendship.” He got up and started to pace. “Of course it doesn’t let me off the hook for all my transgressions, but maybe I’m not alone in how I feel.”
“Can you explain what made you follow William into the afterlife?”
“All I know is that there’s something between us, as if we’re conjoined, li
ke our fates are connected. I think that’s why I hate him at times. I can’t get away from that connection. It can override all reason. Then I do something crazy.”
“Sometimes caring that much is expressed negatively and sometimes positively. Yet, ideally, there comes a time when unconditional love transcends all boundaries. It’s beyond feelings. It’s a state that frees you from everything, frees you from fear and neediness.”
“Transcendent love? Like I’m going to understand that one.”
“It’s not exactly something you can understand. As I said, it’s something that simply exists.”
“Thanks, Michael. That’s a big help.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And what am I supposed to do with your apology? I don’t have your world to fall back on. All I have is this new hellish mess I’m in. And my human understanding is telling me that I’ve damned myself.”
Michael offered a warm smile. “That’s not necessarily so.”
“I’m glad that one of us feels that way.”
Ten
THE SOOTHING, WOODSY scent of frankincense and myrrh filled the room as William lay soaking in a steaming bath. He was finally beginning to feel himself again. When he’d first contracted Arel’s Madness, the name he’d given the disease he was infected with, his world fell apart. No, it was worse than that. His world was torn apart.
His mind and feelings were thrown into total mayhem. He went from being in control of his life, to behaving like a maniac. The memories of those awful bouts of insanity were disturbing. But maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing if he put a different slant on it. He thought about the chaos theory.
Evolving elements could seem totally chaotic, but there was an underlying order in the process. Things might seem to make no sense, but they had to be torn down so that they could evolve, so that they could be more than they were before.
If that were the case, perhaps he wasn’t just coming back to himself. Maybe something unexpected was happening to him. From the start, Arel had insisted that they were both okay, just going through a change. He said that there was no disease involved with what they were experiencing. He even claimed that they would exhibit new powers when the change was complete.
Maybe I should have believed him. He certainly seemed to display amazing abilities in our encounters.
After Arel snatched him from the throes of his death episode, William had been observing his progress back to health. Physically, he was doing well. His emotional swings were also balancing out. He found himself able to maintain a peaceful mindset most of the time. He stared at the scar on his palm. After dying and coming back, his hand healed almost instantaneously. The antibiotics might have been part of the cure, but no medicine acted that quickly.
He had another disturbing thought. Did he want to be like Arel? He hated to admit it, but his old friend scared the hell out of him. It was a first for William. He’d had an unbearable bully for a father and many a bullying teacher. Yet none of them could bring out the fear that Arel could elicit. And he understood why. Arel was still the child who refused to grow up, but now he was a child with incredible power, like the monstrous kid in an episode of the Twilight Zone.
As a vampire, I experienced power over life and death, but I changed. When I matured, I didn’t need that kind of power.
Arel’s power went far beyond the world. He could follow someone into the afterlife. But it didn’t stop there. Not only could Arel follow a person into the heavenly realms, he could manipulate what happened to them. He could decide their fate.
Arel’s dangerous, the ultimate stalker, and he’s stalking me. I’m his security blanket. He’ll never let me go.
William could hope that his own power would grow and match Arel’s someday, but he didn’t have any assurance that it would happen. In the meantime, he was at Arel’s mercy. He’d been at his mercy since they met in New York. William had simply never wanted to acknowledge it.
He began to list Arel’s crimes. First, Arel enticed him into infecting himself. Their meeting in New York replayed in his mind. He’d wanted to leave, to get away from Arel’s insanity, but Arel made sure that William first sampled Arel’s tainted blood. As a result, the gifts that came from his vampire condition were nullified. His aging gene was turned on and his immune system was put on overload. Secondly, when Arel came to London, he added to William’s stressed out condition. William nearly had a stroke. The third strike was Arel’s juvenile need for a bonding ceremony which involved slicing open William’s hand. The end result of that lunacy was William’s death. And he was alright with dying. The other side was beautiful, more beautiful than anything he’d experienced on earth. Which brought him to Arel’s latest crime.
He snatched me out of the afterlife with no trouble at all, like he was playing chess, and I was simply a pawn who was in the wrong place!
His heart raced as he relived the sensation of falling back into his body like a misplaced, rag doll.
Dammit, Arel has to be stopped, but I’m not strong enough to take care of the job!
Another person came to mind, someone who might be powerful enough to take out Arel. As he pondered his solution, as he thought about having Arel killed, his throat closed up with regret. In that instant, he knew Arel was the only real family he’d ever had or loved.
But caring about Arel has been my downfall.
He had to push away the horror of what needed to be done. He had to steel himself against any emotions that would endanger him further.
I have no choice.
William had to find the one who had made him a vampire. He had to locate Rolphe.
Eleven
KEVIN FROWNED AS he watched Tim put his cell phone into his pocket. “I hope calling Arel doesn’t backfire.”
Tim returned a questioning look. “But it was your idea.”
Kevin walked over to the coffee table and grabbed a handful of chips. “Yeah, well I’m having second thoughts. Telling Arel that we’ve got an emergency might not be the best way to get him over here.”
“You said we didn’t have a choice.”
“We don’t. Once again, he’s been holed up in his house. Something isn’t right.”
“Peggy feels the same way. She’s been complaining about her bad vibes recently.”
“I’m getting some bad vibes myself. Arel’s helped me out, and I guess I feel a responsibility to return the favor. Besides, I’m leaving for Paris in a couple of days. We have to do something before I leave.”
“Hopefully, the two of us will have more influence joining forces.”
Kevin stared at the foyer expectantly. “I’m glad that you told him that it was just a small emergency, nothing life threatening.”
Tim laughed. “That’ll make no difference to Arel, you know that. As soon as he thinks something’s wrong, he imagines the worst.”
Kevin looked at his watch. “Yeah, he’ll probably be here within two minutes of getting your call.”
“We might have an extra minute. He said he had to dress.”
“He’s not dressed at two in the afternoon? Peggy is right. He is in trouble.” Kevin popped a couple of chips in his mouth, gave them a cursory chew and swallowed hard. “Why does he have to always shut us out? Doesn’t he know we want to help?”
“You’re not usually so tuned in to what other people are doing. What’s going on?”
Kevin grunted. “What choice do I have? You know how it is with Carol. You know how touchy she’s been. According to her, I better be tuned in or else. Plus, she’s been worried about Arel too. How’s she going to go off on a honeymoon if she thinks he’s not okay?”
“Arel is a bit of a mystery all around. I get the idea that he sees himself as the wise one. Maybe he doesn’t confide in us because—”
“He thinks we’re the dummies?”
“I’m not saying that he tries to put us down, but he does come off as a little parental.”
“Maybe I’ve put him in that position with all my issues with Ca
rol. In fact, I wonder if I’m to blame for this latest episode he’s having. I kind of accused him of giving me bad advice since the get-go. Maybe he took what I said to heart and is blaming himself.”
Before Tim had a chance to reply, there was a knock at the door and Arel letting himself in. Standing in the foyer, Arel’s eyes scanned Kevin and Tim anxiously.
Kevin waved to him. “Hi, old buddy.”
“What’s the emergency?” Arel asked as he came forward.
“That was fast,” Tim said. “I thought you weren’t dressed.”
“I was in my work sweats. They were wet. I had to change. So what’s going on? Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone is fine,” Tim said, gesturing Arel into the living room. “Sit down for a few minutes.”
“Yeah, Arel, get your butt in here,” Kevin added. “We haven’t seen you around for over a week.”
“Is that why you called?” Arel asked.
Kevin dusted off his hands and crossed his arms. “Yeah, and don’t blame Tim for the little white lie. It was my idea.”
Arel stiffened. “I don’t understand.”
“What Kevin is trying to say is that we’re concerned,” Tim explained. “You haven’t even taken our calls this past week.”
Kevin nodded. “Peggy’s radar is going nuts. Tim’s having a devil of a time keeping her from coming over and giving you the third degree. So I suggest you talk to us if you don’t want her getting involved.”
Arel glanced around furtively. “Where is she?”
“It’s okay,” Tim said. “She’s out shopping with Carol.”
“And both the kids are napping upstairs,” Kevin said. “So this is the perfect time for you to spill your guts.”
Arel’s slender frame was bent as he went to the sofa and sat down. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I do need to talk to someone who might understand.”
Kevin pulled an ottoman over to the coffee table and sat down too. He took another handful of chips. “Wow, I thought you’d put up more of a fight. You’re usually pretty tight lipped about everything.”
