Angel's Messiah (34 page)

Some people shouldn’t be born — maybe me, maybe Dallas, or maybe both of us — but there was still a possibility I could make a difference. I hit the glass wall with my elbows using as much strength as I could summon. The glass shattered. I wrapped my arms around Dallas and pulled him to me, then let my body fall backwards. I felt the cold night air rushing past our bodies and heard it whistling as we plunged towards the ground.

Dallas continued to choke me, enraged now, and I let him. I twisted our bodies in the air until Dallas was underneath and blinked. From above it would have looked like a man plummeting to his death was trying to clutch onto something, trying to save himself. I could have prised his fingers from my throat and left, but I wanted to feel his body being crushed by the pavement below. I wanted to feel his bones shattering and his heart rupturing. I wanted him to know that I may not have struggled, but in the end I won. I wasn’t the victim anymore.

Dallas’ body hit the ground so hard the pavement cracked and three people walking past were knocked off balance and fell to the ground, thinking it was an earthquake. When they finally stood up and looked around, shaken as they were, they were confronted will Dallas’ broken and nearly unrecognisable body. One woman screamed, another fainted and the man was yelling out for an ambulance.

I lay on Dallas with my head resting on his shoulder. His hands had fallen to the side, no longer holding onto me. I felt the warmth leave his body and smelled the horror and terror radiating from the small crowd that had gathered around him.

Sixty days after Gina’s death I
had
changed the world, just as Gina had done. I’d made it a safer place. Somehow I was
not
content. The hate emanating from Dallas had probably infected his sons as well, and likely the sons of other
believers
. The hate would be perpetuated, through endless generations, and I couldn’t let that happen. They all had to die, even the ones not yet old enough to crawl. Not a single one could live.

It wasn’t even close to being over.

24.
Sins of the Sons

I waited patiently in the ample living area of Dallas Ringewald’s home for his teenage sons to come home from school. The housekeeper, the only constant female influence in the boys’ lives, had already been taken care of. She was sleeping soundly in her bed, and wouldn’t remember who I was, never mind that I had actually been there.

I was sitting in an armchair, legs crossed and the zip of my catsuit low enough to expose my black lacy bra. It was something teenage boys were sure to notice as they walked or ran past the living area. I thought about the boys. They would have been babies the only other time I’d met their father.

The twins would have been far too young, back then, to know how their father had treated their mother, or to question if he may possibly have been involved in her death. She would have been nothing more than a photograph of a woman they didn’t know.

The front door opened, then slammed closed. I heard the boys drop their school bags in the foyer. The only problem was that I heard three bags being dropped instead of two. They’d brought home a friend. I blinked so that none of them would see me. I’d have to bide my time, until their friend left. Hopefully he’d only stay a few hours at most, then I’d be able to dispose of the sons. I didn’t need anything from them, no names or other information, I only needed to kill them.

I followed the three boys upstairs and into the teens’ retreat. I hadn’t been paying attention to their conversation on the way up, but now I was here I had nothing better to do while I waited.

“Yeah, well Dad says all women want it, even when they say no,” one of the twins said.

“
Your
dad says that?” the friend asked in disbelief. “Mr high-flying lawyer, and he doesn’t think that no means no?”

“Haven’t you ever had a girl say no, but not push you away. It’s like she’s really saying yes, but wants you to think she’s a decent girl, not
like
that,” the other twin said.

“I don’t understand, Rod,” the friend said. “Whenever a girl’s said no to me, it really sounds like she meant no.”

“Shit, Sam, you mustn’t be getting them hot enough. Get a girl hot enough and she’ll
beg
you for it, even though she’s saying no. It’s all in
how
she says it,” Rod replied.

The dirty little shits. They were as bad as their father. No one would mourn their loss, least of all any of the girls who had said no to them.

“Should we show him the photos?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know, Mike. He doesn’t seem man enough,” Rod replied.

If there’s anything likely to rile a teenage boy, it’s questioning his manhood, and Sam was no exception. He puffed out his chest to make himself look bigger and crossed his arms.

“Photos, is that all you’ve got?” he scoffed. “No videos?”

“We’ve got videos,” Rod said cockily, “but you’ve got to earn the right to see them. When you bring us some photos of your own, when you can prove you don’t take no for an answer, then you can see some of our home movies.”

“You’re on,” Sam said.

Mike went to his room and returned with a locked cashbox. He went through the keys on his key ring until he found the one he was looking for and unlocked the box.

The three boys sat on the couch with Mike in the middle. He sifted through the contents of the cashbox until he found an unsealed envelope. He opened it up and took out a dozen or so photos.

I walked around to the back of the couch to get a better look. Mike had his hand over the first photo. When he moved it I was shocked by what I saw. Obviously the brothers worked as a team — one to do the damage and one to record it. The poor girl in the photo was crying as one of the brothers — I couldn’t tell which one, as his back was facing the camera — burnt her breast with a lit cigarette while he was on top of her. The photos only got worse, if that was possible. These were two very sick and depraved boys, a chip off Daddy’s block.

Sam’s face was pale. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing and wondered exactly what the videos would contain. He didn’t want to find out.

“I can’t do that,” Sam whispered.

“I knew he didn’t have the balls for this, Mike,” Rod snarled. “Why did you invite him back?”

Mike shrugged his shoulders and laughed. It was all one big joke to him.

“Listen you little fuck, just remember who our father is,” Rod threatened Sam. “If you can’t keep your mouth shut I’m sure he could make things very uncomfortable for you and your family. It would be your word against ours. None of these sluts,” Rod pointed to the photos, “is from around here, so you’re on your own.”

“I think it’s time I left,” Sam said.

Smart kid,
I thought.
He knows better than to associate with scum. He’ll be okay. Traumatised perhaps, but he’ll be good.

Rod grabbed Sam’s arm as he stood up to leave, and squeezed.

“I think I’ll show you out. Wouldn’t want you to have an accident and fall down the stairs,” Rod laughed.

Mike took the cashbox and photos back to his room and I followed him. He laid the photos out on his desk, rubbing them with one hand and jerking off with the other.

Sick, perverted little fuck,
I thought.

I went back to the couch in the retreat and sat down, crossing my legs and resting my arms on the back of the couch. I blinked, to make myself visible again, and waited for Rod and Mike to return.

“Stop jerking off, Mike!” Rod called out as he bounded up the stairs. He knew his brother too well. “You’re
wasting
the good stuff on nothing.”

“Listen to your brother, Mike,” I said.

Rod stopped at the top of the stairs open-mouthed. Mike came out of his room, zipping up his pants, to see who was talking to them. They’d noticed me at last.

“How the hell did you get up here?” Rod asked.

“Oh, I just appeared from thin air,” I said with a smile on my face.

“Fuck, must be an early birthday present. Dad’s going all out this year, hey, Rod,” Mike said.

Rod folded his arms across his chest and grinned. His eyes wandered slowly up and down my body, settling at last on my breasts, as they rose and fell with each breath I took.

“She’s probably been around a bit. Where’s the challenge in that?” Rod replied.

I laughed. If they weren’t so serious it would have been extremely funny.

“What makes you think your father sent me?” I sneered.

“Who else would?” Rod asked.

“No one. I came here of my own accord.”

“You mean you’re here for Dad?” Rod asked.

“No, I’ve already had him,” I snorted. “He was nothing special at all. Doesn’t know how to
please
a woman, a real let-down in every way.”

“That’s our father you’re talking about, slut,” Mike cautioned her.

“That’s your
dead
father I’m talking about,” I corrected him. “Haven’t you seen the news yet?”

“What do you mean?” Rod asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you know what the word
dead
means?”

Rod quickly turned on the television and changed to the news channel.

“It’s been confirmed that someone has fallen to their death from the office of renowned lawyer Dallas Ringewald. Police have yet to establish the identity of the body, but it is believed to be that of Mr Ringewald.”

Rod turned off the television.

“If it’s Dad, why haven’t the police come to get us?” Mike asked.

“They banged on the door for a few minutes, just after that nice young boy Sam left, and when no one answered assumed everyone was out. There’s a police car sitting out the front of the house, waiting for you to return,” I said.

“How come we didn’t hear them knocking?” Mike asked.

“Because I didn’t want you to,” I laughed.

“Lady, this is some sort of freaky setup, isn’t it,” Mike said, not convinced what Helena was saying was true.

Mike looked at Rod and made a hand signal. Rod nodded his head slightly.

“One thing’s for sure though, you’re not going anywhere until we’ve had a little fun,” Rod said. “We never waste an opportunity for a bit of
fun.
”

“No,” I said firmly, smiling.

“Yeah,” Rod said.

“Haven’t you boys learned yet that no means no!” I scolded them.

“Your smile says otherwise,” Mike said.

“It doesn’t matter what my smile says, the word I uttered was
no.
”

The Book of Danizriel

25.
Summoned

Danny felt himself being pulled, and knew Michael was summoning him. His presence was not requested, it was demanded. As a result, Danny found himself in a rainforest, surrounded by a variety of tropical birds, some real, some mythical. He thought Michael’s mood must be sombre indeed if he required a heaven designed to uplift the soul. He wondered what might have happened to cause such a mood.

Michael was sitting on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree, a toucan perched on his arm. He stroked the bird’s head gently and spoke to it softly. The bird did not take flight when Danny suddenly appeared. It instinctively knew it had nothing to fear in the presence of these two men.

“Michael, you summoned me?” Danny asked.

“Come sit,” Michael said, patting the trunk of the tree.

Danny sat next to Michael and stared out into the forest. He looked at the different-shaped leaves, their sizes and the varying shades of green. It was peaceful and calming, even though the forest was noisy with the sounds of birds, animals and insects — the sounds of life.

“I was saddened to hear of your loss. We all mourn for your daughter,” Michael said.

He set the toucan down on the forest floor and placed his hands in his lap.

“Thank you, Michael.”

“How is Helena taking her death?” Michael asked.

Danny had a feeling this — Helena — was the reason he had been summoned.

“She is coming to terms with it in her own way,” Danny said. He could not lie, but he did not have to tell all, if he wasn’t asked.

“Is she still in Eden?”

Danny grimaced. He was going to be interrogated in the nicest possible way. That didn’t mean he was going to make Michael’s task any easier. If his wife was in trouble he wanted to buy her a bit more time.

“No,” Danny replied.

“Do you know where she is?”

“No.”

“Danizriel, I had thought you would keep a tighter rein on your wife,” Michael said.

“She is not an animal to be kept on a leash, Michael,” Danny said angrily.

“I’m sorry, my friend, I meant no disrespect,” Michael said hastily, backpedalling. “Forgive my poor choice of words. Perhaps I should ask if you know what she is doing.”