HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (13 page)

He sat like a
statue, his arm around her little shoulders. He felt her breathing
slow then grow regular. She slept. He was too excited to sleep.
Someone would have to knock him over the head to make him unconscious
for he’d never give into it on his own. Not this night, his
first night back on Earth, back in a human body, alive. He listened
to the near waters of the sea as it lapped against the ships and
pilings of the wharf pilings. He smelled the sharp scent of salt
water and wet wood. He stared overhead at the night sky filled with
stars. The moon had not yet risen. His thoughts recoiled from that
vast overhead emptiness. It was where he had come from and he hoped
not to go back there for as long as possible. Look at Angelique. She
had carried this little child’s body through three hundred
years and still it functioned. It did not grow or age, but it still
lived just as any other human body lives. With angelic possession her
body could go on for a thousand years. And so could his.

A thousand years!

His smile widened
and his teeth felt the chill of the night as they were exposed to the
slight wind sweeping across his face.

Just spending these
few hours in a body was a gift beyond all measure, but the idea he
might be able to live hundreds of years overwhelmed him. Tears stood
in his eyes, but he refused to shed them. He brought his gaze down
from the night heavens to the little girl’s face resting on his
chest. She was a beautiful little thing, her skin dark, almost
bronze, her hair raven, her lashes against her cheeks long and black
and feathery. She was a small exotic beauty. Her little hand that
rested on his midsection was perfect, tiny, unwrinkled, and so
utterly beautiful. It was not going to be hard to adore her and
follow her wherever she wished to travel. She was…angelic.

All night long he
thought his wandering thoughts and let himself drown in physical
sensations, the way only a newborn might. What a glorious night it
was, the best of all nights, the ultimate in his experience so far.

Nisroc handled the
buying of the tickets and getting them settled on the passenger ship
bound for a new land. They were given a cabin with twin swinging
hammocks and a small porthole looking out on the ocean at sea level.
Neither of them suffered anything as pedestrian as seasickness, but
it seemed Angelique found the cabin claustrophobic so she insisted
they spend most of their time on deck.

This was a trial to
Nisroc since it meant he stay “in character” while on the
deck interacting with crew and other passengers. He was “Father.”
Angelique was “Dear Daughter” as in, “Dear
daughter, please don’t lean so far over the railing, you might
fall overboard.” Or “My dear daughter has missed her
mother, but the two of us have learned how to make do the best we
can.”

He never failed to
miss her silent cues so when on the third day of the long voyage a
female child approached them where they sat in deck chairs, he knew
there might be trouble. He felt it in the air, felt it on his skin
like a cold cloak laid over him. Angelique stiffened in her chair and
she darted a dark look his direction. He thought she hissed in
displeasure, but he might only have imagined that.

The child kept
coming until she stood in front of Angelique. She said, “Hi,
my name is Daisy. What’s yours?”

Angelique spoke her
name, but as she did so she turned and looked at Nisroc squarely on
as if to say DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.

He cleared his
throat to get the child’s attention. “Uh, Angelique’s
got a sore throat. She doesn’t feel like playing.”
Angelique turned back to glare at the girl, but the other child
picked up no clues at all.

“
That’s
okay, I can just sit down beside you and we can play something easy.
See this rock?” Daisy pulled a smooth stone from the pocket of
her long skirt. “I found it on the beach weeks ago, during our
travels to London. We can play catch with it.”

“
No, uh…”
Nisroc began, but was interrupted by Angelique.

“
Sure, here,
let me see it.”

Daisy handed over
the favored souvenir to what she hoped would be her friend during the
passage. As soon as Angelique had hold of the stone, she drew back
her arm and threw it, causing it to arc high in the air and just fall
short of making it over the rail into the sea. It slid along the
rough boards before halting against the bulwark.

Daisy jumped up with
a cry and ran to retrieve the stone. She turned back, tears in her
eyes. “You tried to throw it away,” she said.

“
Did I?”
Angelique’s voice was sweet syrupy with sarcasm. “Oh,
Father, did I?” She turned to wink at him.

Nisroc’s lips
tightened in disapproval. “You needn’t have done that.”

“
You’re
mean,” Daisy said, backing away.

“
Come here and
let me show you magic,” Angelique said sweetly.

Daisy hesitated,
unsure of the situation. Maybe she had misjudged the girl, maybe it
was just a game.

“
Come on, look
here.” Angelique gestured her over. “You’ll really
like it. It’s something quite amazing.”

Daisy came back
slowly, chin to chest, obviously on the defense.

“
Let me see
your rock again,”

Daisy shook her
head. “You’ll throw it away.”

“
I won’t,
I promise. I want to show you something special.”

Daisy reluctantly
gave her the rock.

Angelique closed her
little hand over it and immediately opened it to reveal a tiny baby
bird. A featherless thing, blind, beak opening pitifully, little
ribbed chest heaving.

Daisy’s eyes
widened and her mouth opened.

Even Nisroc was
stunned. It was obvious Angelique had learned a few tricks during her
incarnation.

“
Now watch
again,” Angelique said, closing her fingers over the baby bird.
She opened her hand quickly and there sat the rock on her palm.

“
How’d
you do that?” Daisy came forward quickly, reaching for the
rock.

Angelique closed her
fist and Daisy halted, looking up.

Angelique’s
face hardened and her eyes narrowed. “I can do that to you,
too, if you don’t go away, little girl. I can turn you into a
tiny baby bird or a horny old frog or a long-tailed rat running for
cover in the holds of this ship. Your parents will never see you
again. You’ll die a grisly death of starvation as a tiny bird,
or be thrown overboard as a slimy frog or be crushed by a boot as a
marauding rat. NOW GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE.”

Daisy stood frozen.
She had heard the threat and now seemed to be processing it. Turn
her into a bird, a frog, a rat? Looking into Angelique’s eyes
convinced her. She stepped back. Her lips trembled. “You can
have it. You can have my rock.”

Then she spun around
and ran as hard as she could on the shifting deck to the stairs
leading down into the passenger cabins. As the top of her head
disappeared below decks, Nisroc turned to Angelique. “Was that
necessary? What if she tells her parents and they come complaining
about your behavior?”

Angelique shrugged.

Nisroc sighed and
shifted in his deck chair. He stared out to sea, that endless road
of turbulent water and the distant lonely horizon. Puffy clouds
drifted over the light blue sky, and the sun stood at its zenith.

Yes, he was human.
He had been granted, by this child, by this Queen of the Fallen,
another chance at life. Yes, he was banished from God, cast out into
the regions that was nothing and nowhere. But how much was he going
to have to pay for the privilege of life on Earth? And how much
sorrow and despair was his queen going to bestow on her fellow humans
before all was said and done? She was not so much evil as
dispassionate. Not so much child as old intelligence. And not so much
angel as devil.

Was he, too, made of
the same stuff, since he was one of the Fallen, one of the Separated?
Was he, too, capable of cruelty, avarice, deceit, and corruption? Or
more? Murder? Perhaps even murder.

He did not know. But
he suspected he was not the same as Angelique. He was not a
Destroyer, that much he knew beyond doubt. He was a sinner, a lost
soul, and a condemned being, but he was no Angelique. There was no
one in any age, in any realm, like Angelique.

It was the first
time since drawing breath that he questioned his existence in the
world. Now he knew it was not always going to be a series of
exciting sensations, appreciation of the physical body, and joy of
living in the world at large. No, it was going to be…

He knew now it would
be…

It was going to
be…his worst fear. The future felt dark now, full of storm and
lightning and destruction. He was going to be a part of it. He was
Angelique’s pawn. Would she have really turned the other child
into a small, helpless, threatened bird or animal? He knew the answer
to that question was yes, absolutely yes. She had cared no more for
that child than she would have cared for a spider or an ant. She
would have squashed the life from it without hesitation.

This new life with
Angelique was going to be bad.

It was going to
be…bloody, bloody…

Hell.

Everyone thought it
a scandal when the wire-walker ran off with the child animal trainer.
The manager even threatened to call in authorities, but no one
listened to him.

On the ship,
Angelique explained to Nisroc what condition the world was in now.
It had changed so drastically since Caesar’s time that it was
hardly recognizable. Nisroc found it dark, dreary, and barbarian,
but it was still Eden compared to the outer void and he loved it for
that. He reveled in the winds, the scents, the tastes, the tactile
touch of branch, leaf, cloth, hair, flesh, dirt, metal. He was like
a child let out of prison, running around snatching at things,
hugging them, opening his mouth to the downfall of rain to taste the
waters of heaven, and when not being watched, eating two-fisted,
stuffing his mouth with all the delights of the earth.

“
We haven’t
much money left, so we must devise a scheme to get more,” she
warned.

“
I’ll
find a way to take care of us,” he said. Nothing could
diminish his good humor. He was human again! He was out of the
darkness! Though he feared Angelique's behavior and her morals when
dealing with the humans, he still wanted to thank her ever few
minutes for giving him back life.

She looked up at the
big blond Swede, “You better. I don’t like starving.”

Nisroc grinned and
set off toward the wheel house to talk to the captain.

Angelique stayed
behind, watching him go, his spirits so high. She would again voyage
across a great sea, but this time she would walk the decks with her
handsome father and feel the sea wind on her cheeks. This time she
would not be a stowaway locked in a musty trunk.

She hurried to catch
up with Nisroc, excitement bringing a blush to her face.

CHAPTER 15

Conquering
Charlotte, North Carolina

It was a dirty hole
of a town overrun with the French. It had taken Nisroc and Angelique
months to cross the ocean and then to find a scout to take them
South. Months more were spent hacking through bush and thistle and
thorn, through forests, over rivers, around lakes and marshes, to get
the pair to the small hamlet called Charlotte.

“
It’s
hardly worth it,” Angelique said.

Nisroc glanced
around the wharf and up the slight muddy incline to the town. “For
once I agree. Why did we have to come here anyway?”

“
I was told it
was a multi-racial town where newcomers can get lost—not that
they said it that way. They said there were coloreds here and the
yellow man and so many different peoples it was a cauldron.”

“
Do we want to
be lost?”

Angelique shrugged.
She lifted her skirts and started up toward the town. “We do
for a while.”

Nisroc followed
without a word. He never argued or rebuked his small mistress. She
could send him back into the dark faster than blinking her eyes. She
was his god, as much as the thought made him despair. It was either
do as she said or give up this earth.

He could not give up
this earth.

He also had a small
hope that one day his power would increase to the point he could be
free of Angelique. It was not probable, he knew, but without that
hope he did not know how he could go on. The one true God they had
both deserted would never have made him a slave this way. But it was
eons late to regret old choices.