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NAVIGATION
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"She was born to destroy him in the sweetest of ways." |
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Dracula sailed the extend of the very oceans looking for a companion, but when he found her she tried to kill him. Now he knows that there is truly someone out there that can share with him the darkness of the night, but will she accept or will she too betray his love. |
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Title: The Sacrament by:HIM
I hear you breathe so far from me
I feel your touch so close and real
And I know
My church is not of silver and gold,
It's glory lies beyond judgement of souls
The commandments are of consolation and warmth
You know our sacred dream won't fail
The sanctuary tender and so frail
The sacrament of love
The sacrament of warmth is true
The sacrament is you
I hear you weep so far from me
I taste your tears like you're next to me
And I know
My weak prayers are not enough to heal
Oh the ancient wounds so deep and so dear
The revelation is of hatred and fear
You know our sacred dream won't fail
The sanctuary tender and so frail
The sacrament of love
The sacrament of warmth is true
The sacrament is you
The sacrament is you
The sacrament is you
The sacrament is you
The sacrament is you
You know our sacred dream won't fail
The sanctuary tender and so frail
The sacrament of love
The sacrament of warmth is true
The sacrament is you
You know our sacred dream won't fail
The sanctuary tender and so frail
The sacrament of love
The sacrament of warmth is true
The sacrament is you
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London 2001
The unmistaken familiarity of a dangerous night took possession of the sky of London but there were more important matters that compromised the couple’s awareness of the night as they boarded their vehicle and headed for the nearest hospital with smiles on their faces. A joyous evening indeed, the materialization of an unexpected gift that marked the end of an arduous battle by giving them hope for a future filled with laughter, happiness, but most of all, life.
Minutes later, the white walls of the hospital welcomed the couple as they made their way to the receptionist who then immediately called a nurse to their assistance. The woman was sat in a wheel chair and directed toward an elevator. Her husband was at her side at all times. He was there telling her everything would be alright, holding her hand and saying ‘I love you’ every now and then.
Three hours later, after many struggles and countless worried looks from the doctor and nurses, the husband was asked to exit the room with the excuse that he was distracting his wife. Reluctantly, the man obeyed in silent misery. He stood outside the door listening to his wife’s painful agony and the overwhelming beeping of the heart monitor that kept track of the beatings of what he knew to be his own heart.
He couldn’t explain the pride and anxiety he was experiencing as people walked by him and smiled apologetic. He wanted to tell them about the war he and his wife had fought to be here. He wanted them to know how much they deserved to be here, but the delight in his heart was ripped away by the treacherous sound of the heart monitor marking an end.
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A deafening screamed filled the room as another contraction darted through Mary’s body. She could feel her body splitting in two, she felt the warmth of life leave her body and in seconds she was no longer here. Eerily, she still felt and saw her mindlessly body responding to nature. The doctor beckoned her to push one more time and allow her child to come into the world, but there was no answer.
Mary’s spirit, that weightless mass of strength that had kept her alive and had given her hope, witnessed as the doctor fought to return her to life. It watched as Simon ran into the room and took his wife into his arms begging for help, and it stood still when the nurse pulled him away and the body was wheeled into the operating room to try to save the baby. Mary’s soul tried to follow what was once her home, but it was called back by a greater force, Mary had fulfilled her destiny, there was nothing more she could do.
Meanwhile, in a desolate waiting room, Simon was pacing back and forth anxious and devastated. His Mary was gone and their baby’s life was still at the moment, inexistent. Nine months later he had thought he had gone through all the dark moments his courage could endure when in a single night he had lost the only man that had been a father to him and found out a truth hidden to all humanity. Together with Mary they had rid the earth of a deadly plague. They promised to guard the remains of that evil, but wanted to construct a brighter future and they took the sudden surprise of Mary’s pregnancy as a sign of prosperity. Now Simon was weeping for his lost love and praying for a life that had not yet begun and that if it survived he would be its only parent.
“Oh Mary, why?” Simon asked quietly as he dropped his weight on a multicolor chair in the waiting room.
The waiting room was small, perhaps too small for such an enormous hospital. The walls were also white but there was a thick wall paper trim at the top, the pattern of the wallpaper were multicolor swirls that perfectly matched the four chairs in the room. A brown coffee table rested in the center of the four chairs, and two of the corners of the room contained artificial indoor trees that attempted to make the area more comfortable but succeed only in accumulating dust on his fake leaves.
Rubbing his face with both hands, Simon let out a desperate sigh. Instantly, he caught a glimpse of a book resting on the coffee table a few steps away from him. He stood and walked over to the item, picking it up cautiously and reading its golden inscription. Holy Bible.
Thirsty for reassurance and hope, Simon returned to his seat with the book in his hands and opened its pages leaving the content of what he was to read to faith. He read the first two sentences and felt his heart skip a beat then hurry its pace with fear. He quickly read ahead using his finger as a mark and experiencing the cold of immeasurable dread. His mind went back in time, exactly nine months before this day, to a place of revealed secrets that both he and Mary were too naďve to understand. In fact, not even Van Helsing himself was able to decipher the immensity of Dracula and his true goal. Simon stood up; his head was spinning as the voices of the past echoed inside him.
Go back to him; see if he’ll still have you. Dracula told Mary that night after he showed her his truth.
Simon held on to the wall of the waiting room as he recalled Mary’s exact words as she had said them to him when he asked her what Dracula had told her.
I think, No, I am sure, he said: For centuries I have walked the earth in search of a soul, not bitten but born. Everything I am is yours, and all that you are is mine.
Then what? Simon had asked
He told me he would show me you what he had shown no other, and then he bit me.
Why did he bite you? You already have his blood and he was looking for a soul not bitten but born. Simon wondered.
I don’t know. But he then let a drop of my blood fall onto my cheek and fed me from his own throat. We were transported to a foreign land where I felt and saw everything he experienced, and I remember I felt like I didn’t want to leave and I was not afraid of him, I wanted to stay with him right there.
Like hypnosis? He had asked intrigued.
Yes, because when we were back I no longer felt like I belonged to him. I had not completely turned into a vampire. It was strange but, it’s like he didn’t want to me one of them.
Simon closed his eyes and held his head against the wall realizing the mistake he and Mary had made. They were blind and stupid, too engulfed in their proud victory to stop and revisit all the clues.
Dracula had never wanted Mary as a companion; he needed her to bring his companion to life. Needed her to live to give birth, as the Virgin Mary did before, to a child, a child that would be born not bitten, and conceived without sin.
“Sir? Sir!?” A doctor repeated as he violently shook Simon to wake him from his tormented trance.
“Yes?” Simon answered disturbed.
“I am very sorry about your wife. “
Simon nods in response, unable to comprehend anything.
“I wish we could have done more but it was all so sudden that…”
“Thank you, I understand.”
“Very well then. I came to inform you that we were able to save your child. You have a beautiful daughter sir. Would you like to go meet her?” The doctor asked with a slight smile.
After a few second of silence, debating between disgust and internal pleading for mercy Simon responds.
“Yes.”
He walked slowly, with his head down, bracing himself for the unknown. He was about to meet for the first time, the being he should have stop from living nine months ago, the child that he was bound to hide forever from it’s right to walk beneath the halo of eternal night along Dracula.
Simon stopped in front of the nursery and did not have to search for the child, her eyes called to him. His soul was engulfed with sadness both for him and the child. He didn’t know what to do but he knew he had to get her away from him as fast as possible because there was no way to stop him from waking now that his companion of the night was born. Simon was sure Dracula could sense her, and that he would search for her until he found her.
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San Francisco de Asis Monastery in Mexico City (July 2005)
Simon
I knew he was in the room even before he spoke his first sentence. The emptiness of his soul ironically filled the air around him with the cold bitterness of disdain. He was vain and defiant, perhaps even more now that he knew he had played us like fools. How he dared enter a place that was blessed by the hands of many priests and considered to be a holy ground I will never know, in fact I know nothing about him and everything I thought I knew was part of his plan. There isn’t a line of conversion for this being; he has a reason for existence, a purpose that I can never understand. I also do not believe he understands it himself. I have come to think that he too is controlled by a greater force, that his destiny has also been mapped out but not fulfilled yet. It gives me a certain amount of hope to think this way, and lately, hope is all that’s left.
He watched me from inside the shadows; I could feel his gaze on me. I can even swear I saw his grim smile emerge from the darkness that surrounded him before his voice reached my ears.
“Father Simon.” He spoke calmly. His eyes traveled the length of my gown and finally rested on the silver crucifix hanging from my neck. “I see propaganda does work sometimes. And the country is quite... Catholic. Nice try but a bit obvious.”
My throat was dry but I no longer felt fear, I am most certain that what I felt was very close to resignation and anxiety. I had nothing else to fight for, I had done all I could and what was better yet, I could feel this was the end, my destiny had come.
I took a step back and he followed me with that glide of his that once both irritated and frightened me.
“I have come for the girl.” He said smiling, a devious insulting smile.
“I do not have her with me, and I don’t know where she is.” I answered softly.
His smile disappeared and he turned his back to me. Then, before I knew it, I was against the wall with his hand gripping my neck. The force in his palm was so that I could not breathe and my eyes watered in agony.
“You will tell me where she is!” He ordered furiously. Slowly he released just enough pressure for me to speak.
“It is true; I do not know where she is.” I responded before his hand tightened around my neck once again.
“Wait!” I shouted.
There had been a reason for the child’s birth, just after I left her in an orphanage outside Mexico City I send a letter to the Vatican and learned that the birth had been foretold because the girl had a duty, but because I was not able to prove my connection to Van Helsing the correspondence stopped and I was left without a concrete answer. I needed to know what the duty was. There was a sense of curiosity and responsibility that I could not overcome, almost like I had to know if I had done the right thing before my time was up, and if there was anyone that could tell me it was him.
“I gave her up for adoption. I don’t know where she is, I only know her surname… and I will tell you if…” I said expecting him to laugh at me, but he didn’t, instead he completely released me.
“If what?” He asked curious.
With that bit of courage that you only get when your end is near I walked around him and placed my request.
“If you tell me who she is, and how she came to be.”
His vicious smile returned to his face and his eyes sparkled for I moment before he spoke I had come to regret my interest.
“Many centuries before, after I had plagued the earth with this curse placed upon me, a birth was once again foretold. A child would be born to a woman, that woman would be the daughter of both good and evil, but her child would be conceived without sin and brought to the world for one purpose, in return for her services the woman would be granted entrance to heaven once the child was born.”
“Mary.” I spoke her name as all the air in me left my lungs by the strength of her memory.
“Yes, Mary. That is why I released her as I saw the sun peeking through the clouds; otherwise the child would not be born. Old men are wiser, and I am quite old.” He said lightly laughing at his own joke “I did know Mary would not wait long to give herself to you, and I knew you would believe it was your child she was carrying.”
“The girl is your daughter.” I said
“No.” He responded softly as he walked toward me. “She is my redemption…his gift to me. Or…”
“Or?” I asked confused.
“Or, perhaps she is the Dark Angel.” He said smiling
It took me a few seconds to process his words, somehow I had managed to be completely blind for the second time while all the clues were there staring at me the whole time. I tried to run, I had to get away and fix my mistake, but he was too fast and his knife plunged through me with incredible ease. For a moment there was no pain, only a tremendous heat that ran throughout my whole body. He picked me up from the neck with one hand and held me just above his head.
“The name.” He commanded
“Monte…negro.” I slowly said, why I told him was beyond me, I no longer controlled my actions.
He let go of me and I fell on my knees. I raised my head and saw his eyes one last time.
“Pray Father Simon, pray for his forgiveness.” He sarcastically said into my ear before vanishing into the night.
I saw the red of my blood soaking the floor beneath me and realized I had to do one last thing. With whatever strength I had left I managed to crawl to the desk under the window and take a paper and pen out of one of the drawers. I didn’t have much time but I had to write the account of what happened here today. Someone has to stop him.
Please bury me next to my Mary in London. I cannot say how sorry I am that I could not protect her. I failed to fulfill my purpose. I only pray that someone to finds this writing in time to help the child, I … |
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Tucson, Arizona (Summer 2016)
Clever, he thought, Simon had been clever. Hiding her in a place where the heat of the sun is a tourist attraction had been a bright idea. It was even more apparent during this time of the year when the days lasted until almost eight thirty and the sun came up at four fifteen. Yet even if there was no night in this desert region of the world he would have still come to find her.
It had taken him eleven years to get to her, eleven years that passes as if they were eleven seconds. For him time was no issue, he existed unaware of all those who fell to his feet and would never be more. The darkness of his days, of his eternal nights, occupied all that he knew to be true. But now he had the opportunity to fill his timeless reality with her.
The girl, Adela Montenegro had the power to end him or complete him for all eternity. She was the awaited Dark Angel of those who believed in Bob, and yet she also had the ability to be his mate, his companion. Simon had failed to understand his duty and he had given the girl away to be raised by a normal family, with pathetic normal lives. He should have kept her and shown her the way to Bob, he should have told her about her responsibility to kill the fallen apostle. That was the only way that she could have stayed away from him, now she was defenseless against his strength and desire.
And he had found her, she was real and he had found her. He could feel her rhythmic breathing inside him, the beatings of her heart. She now belonged to him and he was ready to see her for the first time, ready to look into the eyes of the girl that would fill his empty heart.
“Adela.” He said smiling “Adela.”
Soon, he thought, soon we’ll be together…forever. |
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“Adela, wake up or you’re going to be late!” Diana Montenegro told her 15 year old daughter for the third time already.
It was now 5:15am and Adela had to be at Safford Middle School by 5:45 to board the bus that would take her and her classmates to their graduation trip, a camp out in the Sonoran Desert.
“Are you going to wake up or not?” Mrs. Montenegro said irritated as she turned on the room’s light.
Adela groaned and covered her eyes with a pillow trying not to see the brightness of the light bulb in the middle of her room’s ceiling. She did want to go on the trip, but 5:45 was much too early.
“If you are not ready in ten minutes you are not going anywhere young lady. I’m not going to speed all the way across town because you couldn’t get yourself out of bed.” Her mother told Adela as she was about to leave the room.
“Mom!” Adela said finally sitting up “I’m on vacation! School was out three weeks ago, it’s not my fault that Mr. Shaw couldn’t take us until now, but I have slept in for the past three weeks and I can’t just wake up at 5 on a random day.”
“Random day?! Adela you’ve known about the trip’s date since mid April!”
“But Mom…”
“I don’t want to hear another word out of you, either you get ready, and fast, or you are not going and that’s that.” Mrs. Montenegro said closing the door after she was on the other side.
Adela had the temptation of staying in bed just to spite her mother but she decided otherwise because she really did want to go on the trip. Besides, she had promised her best friend, Michelle, that she would be there. Knowing her friend she would probably already be waiting for her outside their old school. It helped that she lived a couple of streets down from the school and not like Adela who had had to convince her mother to let her stay at Safford for the two years of Junior High she had left still after they moved to the other side of town thanks to her father’s job. Adela remembered that she had had to beg constantly for a whole month before her mother agreed, and she knew that if she stayed in bed her mother would come back in the room and remind her that she could have said no and then she would have no trip to go to. Her mother always used that kind of manipulation on Adela, ever since she was a little girl Adela recalled that her mother had been overprotective and manipulative. When other little girls were playing outside with dirt Adela was in her room looking out the window playing dolls by herself because her mother was afraid she would be kidnapped if she dared take one step outside her front door.
Mrs. Montenegro attributed her paranoia to the fact that Adela was not only an only child but she was adopted also. Diana Montenegro and her husband Arturo moved to the United States from Mexico after Arturo was offered a very good job in marketing. He was hired by Comdeq a telephone company, to target the Hispanic population with new advertising techniques. They settled in Tucson and tried for years to conceive but after having tried all the possibilities presented to them they were left with the option of adopting or living their lives childless. After thinking it over very carefully they decided to head to their native Mexico were the process of adoption would be faster and easier. Their intuition proved to be rewarding and after only two weeks in Mexico City, a baby girl not much older than four months was delivered to the convent the Montenegro’s visited. Soon they had filed all the necessary paperwork and they were the proud parents of Adela Rosa Montenegro.
The girl had beautiful light brown eyes, dark, almost black, hair and light skin. The Montenegro’s knew nothing of her origin and they had decided to keep it like that but tell Adela of the way she had some into their lives so that there would be no secrets between them. Adela grew a confident child that knew she was loved by her parent’s regardless of who gave her life. She was thankful that her parent’s had found their way to her and believed that things happened for a reason and that she had been destined to be their daughter. Mrs. Montenegro could not have been more happy with her daughter’s reaction, but she still feared she could lose her at any moment, almost as if Adela was a beautiful dream she was scared to wake up from.
“Are you ready?” Her mother asked Adela ten minutes later
“Yes.” The girl answered picking up from the floor a weekender bag she had prepared the previous night.
“Don’t forget the sleeping bag and a sweater.” Mrs., Montenegro told her as they walked into the hall.
“Mom, we live in Tucson, why would I take a sweater?!”
“You never know, it might get cold.”
“No Mother, it’s mid July, I don’t think it will get cold.” Adela said smiling a bit sarcastically.
“Don’t play smart with me Adela, I know what I’m talking about and you need a sweater in that bag of yours!” Her mother said a bit irritated then changed her tone to a more amiable one. “Please take a sweater honey; you can never be too safe.”
“Okay Mom, if it will make you feel better.” Adela said sighting.
“Yes, it will.” Her mother responded
Bob please, Adela pleaded silently as she went back into her room to look for a sweater, please help her get over her paranoia that something will happen to me or I will never get to do anything in my whole life.
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He stood watching her as she walked out her front door and stepped on the small pebbles adorning her driveway, but he was too far away to see her clearly. What color are her eyes? He wondered with his own flashing in excitement.
“The sun is almost up; you know it is not safe here after 4.” Cassandra’s voice told him from behind.
Cassandra was his latest companion of solitude, one of the many that worshiped his very existence throughout the passing years. She was more a servant than anything else, but she believed she was more. Cassandra believed she had power over him, and she thought she knew what his intentions were toward Adela. She did not know that she was going to be the last of the nameless women that had traveled alongside him.
“A few more seconds.” He said more to himself than as an answer.
“Just kill her now, before the sun comes up.” The woman said licking her teeth in anticipation.
“No.” He spoke calmly “It is an unusual day; the sun should have been up an hour ago. The commodity of perfection is disturbing. We must wait.”
Cassandra narrowed her gaze on the figure of a young girl entering a vehicle several feet from them. She was painfully ordinary and boring, from afar nothing in her physical appearance resembled the Dark Angel, but Cassandra knew it was her. She was the one that had been born to destroy her master, the one they needed to eliminate before she found her calling among the forces that fought against them.
As the vehicle sped away she saw him close his eyes and inhale the aroma that traveled in the air moving toward them. It smelled like her, like the girl. It wretched of deliverance, of a freedom promised to all those who wished to accept it, but Cassandra was not one of the willing and neither was he.
“Come. The night will take long to grant us her shield but tonight the skies will weep when the Dark Angel dies.” He said moving across what was left of the shadows and disappearing from Cassandra’s sight.
She followed behind him with defined veneration.
----------------------------------
“You are very late, we almost left without you!” Michelle shrieked at Adela when she saw her running toward the school bus.
“I over slept.” Adela said between breaths. She had said good-bye to her mother and left her talking to Mr. Shaw, surely reading him what would be his last rites if anything happened to Adela.
Michelle was tying her long blond hair into a ponytail and smiling incredulous at Adela when her boyfriend came running behind her and poke her sides jokingly.
“Aww, you jerk! Don’t do that!” Michelle screamed at Jorge as she tried to punch him in the stomach.
Michelle had been Adela’s best friend since the first grade when Adela first entered Safford Elementary and Michelle and Jorge had been “together”, as silly as that sounded, since kindergarten. Wherever Michelle went, Jorge was sure to be there and the same was true in the reverse order. As a consequence of this unlikely relationship, the three teenagers had become very good friends. They were inseparable all through their transition to the junior high that was located on the same grounds as their old elementary, the school even bore the same name Safford, and they vowed to remain close even now when in less than two months they would be in high school.
“We are going camping Adela, not off to war.” Jorge teased laughing at his own joke.
“Very funny, you know how my Mom is.” Adela said embarrassed.
“Come on, we have to get on the bus or will never get out of here!” Michelle told them shaking her head smiling.
They boarded the bus along with all the other students and Michelle and Jorge sat together while Adela slid on the seat behind them and put her bag next to her, there was enough room on the bus for her to take the whole seat for herself. After the other teacher’s that would be chaperoning advised them to buckle their seat belts, Mr. Shaw took his seat behind the wheel and closed the bus’s door. There were many parent’s frantically waving good-bye to their children, Michelle’s and Jorge’s included, but only Adela’s mother screamed at her daughter as the bus made it’s way out the parking lot.
“Dos te bendiga mija!” Mrs. Montenegro said on the verge of tears.
Adela smiled and waved goodbye to her.
“What did she say?” Michelle asked curious as she turned on her seat to look at Adela.
“Bob bless you.” Jorge answered for Adela.
“Oh, that’s nice!” Michelle replied “Gosh my mother probably wishes I never come back, and yours is nice enough to ask Bob to take care of you!”
Adela and Jorge exchanged annoyed glances and Michelle turned back to facing the front of the bus.
“What?!” she asked her boyfriend “It’s true!”
“You complain too much.” Jorge told her hugging her quickly so that the teacher’s wouldn’t notice their public display of affection.
Adela closed her eyes and threw her head back against the seat smiling; this was going to be a very long weekend.
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The sun disappeared and gave way to the night at around 9 pm just as Adela and her friends sat around a bonfire listening to ghost stories sworn to be true by all the brave storytellers. Jorge giggled as Michelle pushed her body against him but continued to deny that she was scared. Adela attentively listened to the tale of an evil hand severed from the devil himself that was said to wander the world and introduce itself into anyone’s hand acting with a mind of its own once they had obtained a body. She was captivated by the ridiculous tale not so much for its charm but because it was better than singing children’s song with the other half of the class that was seated five yards from them.
“I saw an old movie like that once only it was a comedy; Idle Hands I think was the title.” Jorge whispered to Adela smiling.
“Aw, I knew I had heard that story before. That’s probably where Manny saw it and he says it happened to his cousin.” Adela responded.
“Let’s go take a walk?” Jorge said to the two girls seated at his sides.
“We aren’t allowed to, we’ll get in trouble.” Michelle quietly refused.
“Come on, no one will notice, they are all busy.” He insisted. “What do you say Adela?”
“I guess.” She answered still listening to the story been told.
Jorge quietly stood and offered one of his hands to each of the girls to pull them to their feet.
“Hurry, but walk slowly.” He mumbled as they walked away from the group. They stopped for a second to grab three flashlights and continued their stroll into the dark of the dry desert abyss.
The brightness of the flashlights was enough for them to avoid the cacti and mesquite trees that appeared before them, but the there was nothing they could do to calm the noises of the night that became more apparent the farther they were from the camp. Unknown sounds of the wild infested their ears with promises of a menacing outcome.
“What was that?!” Michelle screamed when the howling of an animal took supremacy over all other sounds.
“A coyote.” Jorge laughed “Don’t worry; they are harmless unless you’ve got food on you.”
“How do you know?” the girl asked grabbing his arm and pulling Adela with her.
“I visit my uncle’s rancho every Easter. Coyotes are wild dogs; they don’t want to harm you they are just looking for food.”
“All mammals kill looking to feed.” Adela added pulling away.
Michelle released Jorge but remained very close to him. Their flashlights lit the pathway they were to follow but while Jorge and Adela moved forward Michelle remained in place and took a glance back to the camp.
“I think we should go back.” She told the other two teenagers.
“You go back.” Jorge answered “I told you that coyotes are harmless.”
“So your uncle breeds coyotes?” Michelle asked wanting more reassurance.
Jorge giggled and returned to her to hug her.
“No silly, they are wild animals. But his rancho is against a hill and they come down to look for food, as long as they can get it without anyone getting in their way then they leave after they eat. That’s why I said that as long as you don’t have food on you they won’t hurt you, because if you did then will look for it all over you to get it. But you didn’t bring food did you?” he asked tenderly
“No.”
“See, then we’ll be fine.” He said pushing her forward “Adela your parent’s are Mexican, tell her about the coyotes.”
“My parents never left the city, and I doubt they know anything about coyotes. I am as clueless as Michelle about them; I didn’t even know what they sounded like until you told us.”
“What a disgrace!” The boy shouted into the night laughing.
They wandered for many more minutes and came to a place where even their flashlights weren’t enough to illuminate the way.
“I guess this is it then, now we turn around.” Michelle happily announced.
“Yeah.” Jorge said turning around.
He instantly saw them, two eyes that flashed in the dark, the eyes of a frightening creature.
“Don’t move.” He whispered to the two girls trying not to scare them.
They both turned around and saw what Jorge was fearful of. Again Michelle held tight to her boyfriend’s arm but Adela only stared into the eyes that called to her with a silent voice. He spoke her name and beckoned her to step forward, away from the cowardly pair that stood next to her. She obeyed without hesitation mesmerized by the beauty of the eyes that looked into her. With striking determination she kneeled before him and gave him her undivided attention.
“Adela no!” Jorge said trying to reach for her.
“It’s a coyote, you said they were harmless!” Michelle told him petrified.
“No, that’s not a coyote, that’s a wolf.”
Adela gazed into the gulf of those eyes and saw agony and pain like she had never known. She surrendered to the claim of the shimmering and striking eyes that held her own and found that she belonged in the depth of those eyes. She was in a trance from which she quickly recovered when Jorge threw a stone at the wolf and he disappeared into the darkness of the night as fast as he had come.
“Come on we have to get back to Mr. Shaw!” Jorge screamed pulling Adela from the floor and holding Michelle’s hand. They dragged Adela back to camp and waited by her side until she was out of her daze.
What the girl told her friends after she woke up would be the start of many dreams of a life that she remembered but had never lived.
“He was looking for me, but he doesn’t want me anymore.” She said with tears in her eyes.
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He had seen her; he had looked into her brown eyes and found that she was not ready. She was flawless in spirit but not in form, much too young to satisfy the manly needs he sought to relieve. But she would grow to be ideal, a few more years which were no concern to him. He would wait a century or more for her.
“Did you kill her?” Cassandra asked him when she heard him come through the door.
He frowned at her constant need to meddle into his private affairs. In dark years Cassandra we still young, only 50 to be precise, but even the 29 she had lived before her conversion were not enough to make her wise.
“No, not yet.” He answered sitting by the fireplace that did nothing to warmth his body.
“You are wasting time, let me do it.”
“No!” He screamed but did not move from his seat “Have you forgotten that the Dark Angel can’t be killed. There is only one way to destroy it, but it is not time yet. We have to wait until what is left of the girl is worth while to me.” He said flashing the woman an evil smile.
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He was in his room where all items within it were an extension of the night outside his window. Darkness prevailed and he knew he was at home. He paced the room slowly as his thoughts traveled back in time, to a place he wished he could forget…
He had promised that no harm would come to him and he had blindly obeyed his orders. He had said that he was the chosen one because his love was the greatest among his brothers. He had told him he would be protected from the wrath of the people, and said it was the way it was supposed to be. He had lied.
He was once a man who was caught in a conflict between a father and his son. Betrayal and deceit among the holy beings had caused him his humanity. He was once a man with a name, an ideal, a life. But he had been tricked by him, he who had promised him unconditional love in exchange for his conformity. To feel deserving of the heavens he had done as he was asked without knowing it was a trap for him and his master, his brother, the man who knew it all.
When he noticed what he had done he tried to punish himself and show him that he had repented but the wrath of the father was too great. He was denied the pleasure of death, the silence and end of all things, he was forbidden to enter the place of forgiveness. The son had lied to him; he used him as a way to escape from the damnation of the earth he found unsuited for his teachings. And he was blamed for all chaos that followed, and all that was before. He was destined to forever witness the pain, the cries of those who died leaving him behind in a land of darkness.
Denied of the warmth of life but offered to feast on the blood of the unworthy, the mortals, he wandered through time discovering each night the immensity of the punishment upon him. There would be no more days for him, for the light was reserved for the forgiven. He would not age for the wisdom he was gaining was worthless. An eternal existence just so that he could regret every one of his days was a cruel penalty. He came to despise everything he once venerated. He grew to hate those that brought this upon him and all that they stood for. He forgot the man he once was and became nothing but a shadow.
As time passed he found the earth to be plagued by dark forces, some of which were false entities, others merely jokes. He rejoiced in the subtle vengeance he received through the children of good. Feeding on the worthy, the pure, the saint, was almost as gratifying as the thought of feeling his heart beating once again with authentic life. The short time in which the warmth of the fresh blood of his victims ran through his veins gave him an ecstasy he quickly found could be compared to sex. Making love was foolish; he no longer knew the meaning of that feeling. His last sunset turned him into a monster and even those who claimed to have loved him left.
At first he could think of nothing else but figuring out a way to end his curse, but with each feeding he took he found he enjoy it even more. He eventually embraced his sentence and made history his own, he made the world tremble at his beat. Conquests filled his vanity, the blood of men his veins, but his heart remained empty; until he came upon the old scriptures that had been hidden to the eyes of the world for centuries. Van Helsing found them first and was foolish enough to hand them over to the church. The church, the biggest most ridiculous establishment he had ever set his eyes on. Lies, everything the church said and held as holy were lies, he had been there when the proof of holiness was given and things were not as vicious as they made them out to be. But that did not matter to him. As soon as news of the scriptures location reached him he entered the church and stole them. It was painfully easy to do; he still laughed at the incredulous faces of the priests as he walked up to the altar and made his way into the private chambers.
It was written in gold letters against ancient parchment the color of the earth, the foretelling of the birth of the Dark Angel, his prosecutor, his eventual murderer. She would be sent to destroy him for he had grown too strong and was a threat, to what exactly it did not say. It was absurd to think he was a threat when it was he who hunted to survive; it was he who hid in the darkness of the night and waited for its sheltering arms to wander. He was angry for a second until he read the following lines, a revelation that for an instant warmed him. The child born as the Dark Angel was also like him. Chosen to bear a curse against her will she would need to chose between good and evil and the triumph side would gain eternal bliss. He read and smiled anxious to combat the spirit of his new hunter.
He spent the next 10 years searching for her. She was born in London a few years short of the 20th century. He had killed the child instantly and rewarded himself with the flesh and blood of three whores outside a tavern. He had been victorious but was unaware that Van Helsing had been following his steps and he was trapped and locked up before the dawn of the next day. Buried alive or simply buried with the hope that he would die was a torment that lasted one too many years. As Van Helsing fed from his blood to live to see his end he saw through the remains of his soul the mistakes he had made. The child he had killed was not the Dark Angel, again he had been tricked.
He trembled with rage remembering the events that led him to Mary, the mother of the angel. It had not gone according to his plan and though in the end it was all for the best he still hated the memoirs. Painful, yes, but necessary, it had all been necessary to get to him, to Adela. She would be his partner in eternal damnation or his final hunter, his death. Until he decided what to do with her he had to remain close, he had to get to know her and approach her slowly. With Mary he did not have the benefit of time, Van Helsing denied him the chance to seduce her, but Adela was young and naďve, she did not know her true origin and her duty to him.
“I will wait Adela, I will wait until you are ready.” He said smiling wickedly in front of a mirror. The emptiness of the mirror before him, the reminder of his lack of a soul was comforting and familiar. “We will be united, and you will be mine or you will die by his own hand.” He finished as he moved to a window and looked into the night.
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© Littlepaty 2005 All Rights Reserved.
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