Angel of Death Read online

  “Kill me, Ephraim,” Serri pleaded, not for the first time. “If ever you loved me, kill me.”

  He did not respond. He had given up responding to that moan. Besides, the two Nephilim that crouched above the mud and rubble walls of their hut, holding the thatch roof aloft in their monstrous hands, would crush them all to pieces if he did.

  Thirty months. That’s what they had said was typical for Nephilim births. Thirty months. Still, they had been willing to work some of their dark magic to speed things along.

  The red snake of blood on the ground beneath Serri was the first sign. Shortly after came the long, shuddering tear of flesh stretched past its limit. Her dying, thrashing screams mingled with the deep bellow of the gigantic baby. It was the size of an ox, and its cry was a fitting bray.

  “Hello, Sergeant,” you say.

  Even in the dark of the moonless midnight, I can see you are tired. I shouldn’t have brought you down here like this.

  “Hello, Donna,” I reply. I’m not wearing a uniform, but just casual clothes, a little rumpled, like I was pulled out of bed, too. That’s a little silly since it would take you two hours to get down here. I hope you won’t be angry when you see the scene. “The body’s through here.” I point to the light-streaming door of the trailer home. The thing glows like a lantern. Even the hole in the roof is sending out a patch of light to splash against the brown-leafed boughs of an oak, along the ditch behind the trailer park. The plastic police line moans in the wind. The neighbors seem afraid to approach it. They cluster in black knots, like flies preening just beyond a carcass. In a way, that is what they are.

  “Same MO?” you ask.

  I wince away from that. “Take a look. I don’t want to poison the well.”

  You press past me and enter. I follow. Our flesh touches in the corridor of wood-grain laminates and aluminum flashing. I step back. A snarl of power cords fills the hallway. You tread lightly. I watch you move. Your boots fit carefully in the clear spaces, your canvas pant legs gathering around your ankles. Your hands are held, curved and idle, near your face, like the hands of a surgeon who has washed but not yet gloved. Your hair is braided back. It sways between the shoulders of your jacket.

  The smell of soiled trousers comes to you. You stop. You’ve seen it now. I move up behind you. The initial sight is familiar and disturbing enough. The body sits in the dining room, on a red vinyl bench seat removed from some junked truck. Its feet are flat on the floor, its wrist stumps rest on its lap, and its neck stump juts up beneath a wide, red-rimmed hole in the wall and ceiling of the trailer. The cold night air pours through the hole, bringing with it the rustle of brown leaves. All around the headless, handless torso, investigators and technicians swarm.

  “A shotgun blast?” you say immediately. “He was decapitated by a shotgun blast?” You speak loudly enough that those working in the room turn toward you. I flush. I am glad you aren’t turning around. “I – you said there had been a gun used on the priest.”

  “A pistol. You’ve been following this closely enough to know that,” you respond.

  “Well,” I reply, scrambling, “I didn’t know whether he might have changed his weapon of choice.”

  You are angry. I see that. “Where is ‘Samael 5:2:356’?

  Anywhere?”

  Why are you so angry? “The teams haven’t found anything yet, but I didn’t want to wait until–”

  “And why do I smell marijuana so strongly in here?

  I’ll bet there was a closet full of the stuff before the perp came in.”

  “We did find some leaf fragments under a bed.”

  “This is a drug hit, staged to look like our guy, and you know it. The head is a critical trophy for this killer. He wouldn’t blast it away. He wouldn’t change his MO now, after some fifty hits.” You turn, not looking at me, and try to push past, but the passage is too narrow.

  I retreat before you. My feet are sloppy among the cables.

  “Mother of God.” You push me back with one small hand. “I can’t believe you got me out of bed for this.”

  I whisper back. “I wanted to see you. I thought you wouldn’t come down except on business.” I’ve backed into the living room now.

  “Wouldn’t come down?” you ask, exasperated. You pass me and turn for the open door. “Why didn’t you come up to see me?”

  I follow, out into the cold night. “I should have. Yes. But, well, I hadn’t made any progress and didn’t want to go up there without some new evidence, and then this came up and I thought–”

  We are halfway to the police line when you whirl on me and halt. I run into you, and we both stagger a step back. Your voice drops to a whisper so that none of the neighbors can hear. “Why didn’t you return my calls?”

  “What calls? You mean you – ?”

  “How many messages did I leave for you at the station house? Four? I left four messages on your voice mail, ‘This is Donna. If you want to talk, call back.’ Did you call? Maybe some other Donna…”

  So that’s part of the problem. I’d not checked in at the station house. I’d let them think I was in Indianapolis for a conference. “I’m sorry. That was a foul-up. I swear, I never got your messages.” I look at the crowd, which has quieted to watch us. “Could we go get a cup of coffee?”

  “I’m going home,” you say.

  I watch your eyes, dark brown and resentful. “I’ll follow you.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  Wisconsin still has snow on the ground. I see it out the window as I peel back your blouse. The snow is white beneath the waxing quarter moon, just now rising above the dead trees. The ground is smooth-hipped and silent beyond the glass and the curtain of heat that surrounds us. You direct me to lie down on your bed. It is still unmade from the morning. I let your hands lead me and, soon, as smooth and pure as the snow, you settle atop me.

  I tremble.

  Always the union between angel and human gives birth to something monstrous.

  EIGHT

  Donna rose in the preconscious moment before the crash. Through her bedroom window, she saw the crazy sweep of headlights in driving snow, heard the violent whisper of tires sliding on ice. The pickup was only a spreading stain of blackness on the gray night. It rushed down the hill, vaulted from the street, and soared into her yard. It filled the whole window.

  Whispers went to metallic shouts. The bumper wrapped itself around a tree. Headlights crossed inward. The hood arched up in an angry grin. A white oval winked on the windshield and then exploded as the driver, macerated, launched outward. He seemed the spectral figurehead of a ghost ship heaving up out of the snow. His leg snagged on something. Half-emerged, he slumped across the hood.

  Sudden fire turned the blue landscape red. That was the first moment, as Donna came fully awake. In the second moment, she realized she was naked. In the third, she saw that Azra was gone.

  And then the tree was falling. Sparks plumed as power lines snapped. The ancient elm crackled and pivoted once, magnificently, and then surged down toward her, naked in the window.

  She could not move. It was as though this was her preordained moment to die. It was as though she were merely acting now, the scene staged by someone else. Breath and voice and all failed her. Not even the sign of the cross came to her clutched fist. He was there. Azra. He stood between the window and the falling tree. And the tree was not falling. He held it up. In the flare of fire and spark on snow, he was there, for one undeniable moment, naked and holding back the descending fist of death. Or was he? Transfigured in pasting flakes and jags of flame he seemed both Christ crucified and Adam wincing back from the fiery blade of banishment. Then the moment was gone. The tree crashed to one side of the house. Nearby, power lines danced in Medusa snakes upon the torn blanket of snow.

  Azra stood there, small and naked, framed in the surreal snow, in electricity and fire. Now she could move. Grabbing up a pair of robes, Donna ran for the front door. “I’m coming!” she h
eard herself shout stupidly. “I’m coming!”

  The deadbolt stuck, frozen because of the blizzard. How did Azra get out? She kicked the door with her bare foot, receiving only a throbbing bruise for her efforts. Growling in frustration, Donna turned to the bay window where the love seat was. She clambered over the stack of books by the love seat and flung up the sash. The storm window grated upward, and cold and wind and snow sluiced into her living room. She scrambled out that streaming space. With the robes still clutched in her hand, she rolled over paving stones and two inches of new snow.

  Beyond, sparking wires danced, fitful and violent. The truck had turned into a flaming geyser. Its burst radiator spewed steam into the night. A regular apocalypse – Ragnarok, night of fire and ice. Azra was there. His young face flashed and disappeared in the orange glare of the engine fire. He stood just beside the place where the dead man burned. Fitful flames now and again belched out over him. He was insensible to them. He was a small boy before an open furnace.

  “Mother of God, get back!” Donna shouted, catching his arm and pulling him away from the wreck. “He’s dead. There’s nothing you can do.”

  Azra’s voice was husky. “I know.”

  She drew a white robe around his shoulders, cinching it at his waist, before she took the time to put her own on. “Come inside. It’s a blizzard–”

  “I’m not cold.”

  She glanced at the blazing truck. “Doesn’t matter. Come inside. There’s a thousand ways to die out here.”

  “I know,” Azra said, relenting to the tug of her hands. He trembled.

  “You’re going to be okay.” Clinging to each other, they walked back toward the dark house. Its open window spilled heat into the night. “I’ll call the station house, the fire department – there’ll be twenty volunteers here soon. We’d better get dressed.”

  “I’m hungry,” Azra blurted.

  “I’ll heat water for cocoa–”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “We’ll have cinnamon bagels, too.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to die.”

  “I know–”

  “No, I mean he really wasn’t supposed to die. I should have been there sooner. I should have been able to stop it.” Fat flakes of snow shambled down all around him. In the white robe, he seemed a paladin of old, or a priest of some ancient and very good god.

  “You’re only human. You did everything you could.”

  “But not everything I should–”

  “You saved my life. Whatever you did with that tree, you saved my life.”

  “You weren’t supposed to die tonight, either.” His hands and arms were strong, framed in the flashes of fire and spark.

  “Thanks to you, I didn’t–”

  “That tree shouldn’t have fallen. That truck shouldn’t have struck it. That man shouldn’t have died.” A hurt light shone in his eyes.

  “Let’s get inside. I’m cold.” They stood before the window. Radiator air, as warm and as wet as blood, gushed out over them. Donna leaned toward Azra and gave him a quick kiss on one cheek. “I’ll go first, clear away the books so you can crawl through.” She stopped, assessing him. His eyes were far away. “No, you go first. Push the books out of the way. You go first.”

  He bent obediently into the dark window and climbed through. Crime books cascaded before him. They slapped the floor. He left piles of snow on the arm of the love seat as he crawled across it. Wet feet crushed the books. He stepped from them and stood, waiting for Donna to come after him.

  She followed, fitting more easily through the space, and turned to close the storm window. Her fingers were frigid in the aluminum slots. The glass grated downward. She closed the sash, too, panting in the darkness. Azra stood beside her, stony.

  “How about some light – if the accident hasn’t taken out our power?” Donna said. She switched on the floor lamp that curved over the love seat. Comforting gold illumination spilled across the pillows. “We can hope the phone lines are good, too.”

  Azra looked diminished, now, standing in a woman’s robe, puddles forming around his feet. The snow that haloed his hair was quickly melting into it.

  “Sit down, Azra.” She kicked the crime books aside. Her feet trailed water on the floor. “I have to call the station. Sit here.” She guided him to sit. He did. A resigned whuff of breath escaped him. She blinked into his staring face. “You’re going to be okay.”

  “Everything’s coming apart.”

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  “Yes.”

  She turned on the TV. It crackled and set up a highpitched keen. The screen glowed to life. WGN was showing a movie version of Tennessee Williams’s Period of Adjustment. Two men stood on a porch, snow spitting fiercely down outside their cave of light. Donna had retreated to the kitchen. She stood at the phone, speaking quietly and urgently into it. “Yes. Just five minutes ago. The driver’s dead. Nobody else in the truck. It’s on fire. We’ve got a downed tree, too. Yeah. There’ll be power outages. On Fish Hatchery Road. Yes, just across from the conservancy. Yeah, they get going pretty fast down the hill. I’ll stay on the line. Yes.”

  She drew the mouthpiece away from her lips, snatched a white-enameled kettle from the stove, flipped the faucet on, and began filling it. In moments, blue flames licked the drops of water inching down the outside of the kettle. “Something to eat,” she murmured, wanting comfort. Cradling the phone between shoulder and jaw, she pulled out a pair of plates, a bag of raisin bagels, a tub of spread, and her jar of cinnamon and sugar. She waited for the water to boil, waited for the operator to respond.

  Steam coiled above the chipped ceramic mugs. Floating mounds of cocoa powder sank and dissolved in the dark water. Donna glanced at the man sitting, small and crouched and silent, in the spot where Kerry used to sit.

  “Hello? Operator? Yes. I’m still here. I won’t hang up, but I’ve got kind of a crisis I need to take care of. Yes, shout if you need me.”

  Donna slipped the phone into her bathrobe pocket, unfolded a TV tray, and arrayed the food and drinks before Azra. She sat down beside him.

  “Here. You’ll feel better. Have some cocoa.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Have a cinnamon bagel.”

  “Thanks.”

  They both drew halves of a warm, buttered bagel from the tray and watched the TV flickering in front of them. The men in the show were inside now, in a living room decked for Christmas but devoid of any cheer except the drinks they held in their hands.

  “You’re going to be okay,” Donna said to Azra.

  “You’re just shaken up. Me, too. The volunteers will be here soon.”

  “Everything is falling apart,” Azra said. His hand trembled as he held the half-eaten bagel. Donna leaned in toward him and took his hand. “No. Everything is coming together.”

  He turned to her. At last, the distant focus had gone from his eyes. “Did you ever have one of those times when you feel like you’ve suddenly changed, and you don’t know when or why, but you know that what you were isn’t what you are anymore, like you’ve been given somebody else’s memories and somebody else has taken yours?”

  “Sweetheart, it’s just this one crazy night. Just this one night–”

  “It’s enough to make you crazy. You can’t rub two thoughts together. All the words you know don’t apply any longer and you have to learn a whole new language before you can even think.”

  She sipped her cocoa. It was still too hot, and the liquid drew a scalding line along the curve of her tongue.

  “No, I’ve never felt like that.” She blinked sadly. “I knew someone who felt like that, though.” Someone with the same mother, the same birthday. “You’re going to be okay, Azra.” She patted his knee. “I’ll make sure you’re okay.”

  A deep breath filled his lungs, and he returned the last hunk of his bagel to the plate. “What are we doing?

  There’s a body burning outside. The fire department will be here any moment. W
hat are we doing?” He struggled to stand, but Donna pulled him back down beside her.

  “Sit down. We’re doing what we need to do. Sit down.”

  He relented, allowing her to pull him to the love seat.

  The TV showed a bedroom, where a woman sat, weeping, at a vanity, and her husband hovered above her, trying to comfort her. In the other room, another couple reflected on how awful and frightening it was when two people, two worlds, tried to live together. Donna kissed Azra. His lips tasted like cinnamon. On the television, the man said, “The human heart would never pass the drunk test. If you took the human heart out of the human body and put a pair of legs on it and told it to walk a straight line, it couldn’t do it. It could never pass the drunk test.”

  She kissed him again. Donna kissed him. His face was streaming with tears. She kissed him. “You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

  Union between angels and humans always brings abomination. I had known that. I had known my work was slipping. But the truck accident outside Donna’s window – that was a true abomination.

  Kevin Brown, a devoted father and honest worker, was returning home from the night shift at Nestle. He had driven cautiously all the way, had used his low beams in the blinding blizzard, had even shut off the radio so he could focus completely on the road. He had worn his seat belt. Just by the conservancy, Fish Hatchery Road turns a sharp corner and plunges down a steep hill. As Kevin rounded the bend and began his descent, a family of deer ventured across the road. His brakes locked. He fishtailed. He missed the doe by inches. The truck gained speed. He pumped the brakes. Tobogganing across unseen ice, the truck smashed into an elm. Sheet metal severed his seat belt. There was no airbag. He was stopped only when his left ankle caught and broke in the steering wheel. It didn’t matter. Kevin Brown was dead the moment his head burst through the windshield. He was not supposed to die. I would have been able to save him had I not been so locked in humanity. I could have run time backward. I could have dulled the edge of the sheet metal. I could have shattered the windshield before his head struck it. But not that night. Drowsy, naked, human, I could barely save Donna.