Psyched (11 page)

Young Jorja looked up to stare dreamily at the far end of the pond, watching the water rush over the rocks and fall into the pool. She held up her notebook in one freckled hand and used it to fan the back of her neck while she chewed thoughtfully on the end of a cheap pen. Aisi realized with a jolt of surprise that this was the mission trip her mother took to Africa after graduating from an all-girl high school. She’d heard about this trip since she was a little girl; her mom remembered it so fondly. This was where her mother had met her…

“Jorja,” called a voice hidden in the brush on the far side of the pond. A man shoved through the undergrowth, making his way toward her on an almost invisible trail. Her father emerged, looking almost exactly as he did now. Ageless, handsome. As he rushed to the slender, fragile girl, he kept checking behind him. He reached for her and Aisi could see his perfect, unblemished hands. The girl clutched her notebook to her chest as she fell into his embrace.

“My brother, he is coming now,” her father said. His accent, which she never noticed now, was much more pronounced. Fear filled his voice. “What I warned you might happen when my brother found out? It’s happening.” He wrapped his arms around her reassuringly, although Aisi could see his lower lip trembling.

“Oh, Bezaliel,” her mother whispered, burying her face in his large chest. She looked so tiny and weak in his thick arms. She tried to wrap her arms around him but failed. “I didn’t think you were serious when you said he was angry about us. Why would he get angry if we want to get married? Your brother shouldn’t be allowed to decide!”

He rested his chin on top of her head, rocking her gently. “You do not understand my culture, Jorja,” he said quietly as he stroked her hair. “You do not understand my life or my past.”

“I might, if you’d only tell me.”

Shaking his head, he glanced behind him again. “I cannot. But I make you this promise, my love. We will be together. He will not stand in our way. For now you must go back to the mission and warn the others they must go.” He stepped back and grasped her shoulders, looking intently into her eyes. “Tell Father J to get all the volunteers together immediately and leave. I will find you. Tell him this message is from me. He will understand.”

“But—” Jorja began to protest, but he shook his head.

“No! You do not understand. You must go now.”

Jorja pulled away and stepped back defiantly. “If he has a problem with us, he needs to work it out with us.” She crossed her arms.

His silver eyes gleamed red for an instant. Aisi was sure her mother had seen it, and she stepped back uncertainly. “Bez…”

“Leave, Jorja!” he thundered, his voice ringing with an otherworldly power. She burst into tears. “Take your friends and leave at once so your lives may be spared. You have no idea what he can do to you, to everyone you care for. Go!” he roared furiously, red eyes aflame. Sobbing, she ran.

Aisi watched her mother, so young and innocent, dart back to the road toward a small settlement just visible past a stand of poorly thatched huts. Her father watched, too, making sure she’d really gone, before coming back to the tree where Jorja sat moments before in peaceful meditation. He picked up the notebook she tossed to the ground. Aisi closed her eyes, and suddenly she could see the page before her. Her mother had doodled her name next to his in flowery, girlish cursive.

Bez and Jorja.

Jorja + Bez = true love.

Jorja and Bezaliel.

Jorja Turay.

Mr. and Mrs. Bezaliel Turay.

He ripped the page out and let the notebook flutter back to the ground, quickly tucking the torn page with frayed edges into his shirt, near his heart. He looked around as something approached the clearing.

The mother elephant and her baby crashed past him, trumpeting loudly. Clouds of dust followed as she lumbered along as quickly as she could, her baby trotting at her heels. Beyond the clearing she joined more elephants, and together they stampeded past the locust bean trees. Zebras disturbed by the rumbling brayed and screamed before following them.

Red dust settled gently back to the ground as Aisi’s dad knelt by the tree, whispering over and over, “
Da mihi virtutum…
Give me the strength to do what must be done.”

A mirthless laugh echoed coldly through the clearing. Rising from the ground, he looked up as a man shoved the underbrush aside and shook his head. The two looked almost identical, and as her father stood, two more men who looked like him emerged as well.

“My brothers,” he said quietly, nodding at the men. “Armaros. Baraqel. Shamsiel.”

The mocking smile vanished from the first man’s face. “Bezaliel… my flesh, my brother. How you have shamed us. How you have mocked all that we have fought for through the centuries. It has been we four through the fall of kingdoms and civilizations, brought about by
our
hands. We alone stood together, we four who have not yet been thrust into the dark chasm. How can you abandon us now? You would leave your brothers to live a life among mortals?”

“I love her,” came the simple reply, but the words and the sentiment infuriated Armaros.

“Love,” he sneered, glancing at the others and shaking his head as though he could not believe the idiotic words coming from his brother’s mouth. “Love is lie invented by weak-minded fools to excuse their own lusts and selfish desires. There is no such thing.”

“Now that I have felt it, brother, I know it is powerful and real,” Bezaliel said. “We have no power at all compared to this.” He looked imploringly at the men behind Armaros. “You have felt it, too, my brothers. I know you have. Sham, do you remember Idrissa? You loved her.”

“But he was wise and left her,” Armaros hissed, his silver eyes glinting red. “This woman? If you really loved her you would tell her the truth of who you are. You choose to hide, knowing if she knew you were a fallen and damned creation she would leave you. Is this love, then, to hide who we are to get what we want?” Armaros spat on the ground. “You sicken me, Bezaliel. You are already a lying fool, as every other common man.”

Bezaliel stood tall, fierce in his anger. “Have you not felt remorse at all for what we have done? For the lives ended, the pain inflicted, the blood shed? Shamsiel, please. Remember the cries of Idrissa as she begged you to spare her and her daughter…
your
daughter.” The man behind Armaros shook his head angrily, clearly remembering but wanting to forget. “What happens when we win, when love does not?” He opened his arms wide, pivoting to gesture at the pool behind him. “This place has become our shame. The clear waters of this pool once ran red with the blood of the innocent because of you, Armaros. We are fallen because we deserve it.”

“This is our kingdom and our legacy!” Armaros raged.

“We lost our legacy when we failed in our calling!” Bezaliel roared in reply. “Feel the pain of what you have done, brother!” He lunged for the man before him, grabbing him by the throat and shoving him into the pool. The two men tumbled in together.

Aisi felt herself fall into the water with them. Instead of seeing the rippling images on the shore above her through the water, she found herself in utter darkness. Screams of agony enveloped her. All around her she felt heat and saw flames shooting skyward as villages burned.

Four men, tall and broad, strode casually from the scene as the smell of burning flesh filled the air and stung her nostrils. She choked on the smoke. Machetes glinted in the air as they came rushing down, and shrieks of agony filled her ears. A pile of hands lay at her feet, swimming in their own blood.

She was drowning, not in the waters of the pool, but in sorrow and remorse. Guilt and pain so powerful she couldn’t breathe engulfed her, and as she felt herself sinking in despair. It overwhelmed her. She wanted to die.

With a gasp she found herself back on the water’s edge. Bezaliel knelt next to the body of Armaros, sobbing, the red marks from his hands still visible on the dead man’s throat. Above him, a black shadow hovered, red eyes glinting.

A low voice pulsed through the clearing and shook every inch of her. “You think you can deny me what will be mine? You may have delayed me, brother, but you cannot win. I reign with malice and terror over my kingdom and I will not be denied because you were foolish enough to develop a conscience.”

The black form turned suddenly on the three men, rushing at them, surrounding them completely in its dark shadow just as a young priest burst into the clearing. It was Father J, young and thin, free of scars. He held a Bible in one hand and a large golden cross, the cross which now hung over the entrance to his chapel. The dark cloud grew and filled the entire clearing. A nearly inaudible growl of laughter resonated all around them as the young priest began shouting in Latin, holding the cross before him.

“
Pater noster in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum
!” Father J yelled above the raging winds of a storm which existed only in the clearing, which only surrounded the survivors. “
Adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntas vos sicut in caelo et in terra…”
He spoke so quickly, Aisi couldn’t keep up. His voice boomed, shaking the trees over him.

“This is my kingdom. Pain is my glory. I will not be denied,” the voice whispered smoothly. Somehow it made Aisi’s head pound in agony. The wind intensified and shifted, surrounding the brother who’d said nothing. “Baraqel. My brother…”

The gale shifted swiftly and gathered into a dark, black cloud which rammed into the man’s chest with such intensity that he fell, gasping, to the ground. Calm once again filled the clearing as the leaves stopped rustling. An unnerving still spread through the clearing. Only the water rushing over the rocks could be heard as Baraqel stood, his red eyes staring at the body on the ground.

“You robbed me of my flesh, Bezaliel,” a voice hissed, even though the man’s lips hadn’t moved. “You owe me.” He ran at Bezaliel, but his opponent was ready. With a sudden cry of pain and an expression of surprise, the man pulled back from the brother he meant to attack, a red stain spreading rapidly beyond the carved hilt of an ivory-handled knife lodged in his stomach. The black shadow emerged from the falling body with a shriek of anger, and then disappeared into a hole under a rocky crag near the waterfall.

Bezaliel slumped to his knees. Covering his face with thick hands, he sobbed over the bodies of the men collapsed together on the ground. Shamsiel stood next to him, laying an arm across his shoulder. “It had to be done,” he whispered.

Father J knelt down next to him as well, tucking his Bible and cross into his robes as he fell weakly next to them. “Bezaliel, you have done well, son.”

“Jok…what I feel,” he cried, resting his hands on his thighs and raising his face to the heavens as tears streamed down his cheeks. “It hurts. I have lost my brothers. I have harmed so many. I killed and maimed and destroyed.” His voice broke.

“What you feel, Bezaliel,” Father J answered gently, “is remorse. You feel it fully, because you are not human. You make no excuses for yourself. This will cleanse you and make you whole, my son. This is the only way for you to overcome the destiny you chose when you betrayed your original call as a Watcher. You have a choice now, both of you.” He looked at the men squarely as they rose and stood before him. You are free of your broken promise to protect this place. You are free to leave but you must swear never to reveal who and what you truly are.

“Armaros is weak now, and the only refuge for him is among the damned. They know him and will recognize his power when he regains his strength. He will return one day, with an army of demons who will try to possess the bodies of anything living. Your calling now is to guard the two portals from which he can escape.”

The vision grew blurry, coming in and out of focus as the images came faster. Bezaliel and Shamsiel tossing the bodies into the crag and setting them on fire. The two men hugging and walking their separate ways down the dusty road. A wedding where a beaming bride with long red curls stood next to a tall, broad-shouldered man, the two alone with their priest in a small chapel under a beautiful gold cross.

The image abruptly sharpened back into focus as Aisi’s twin cried for help and was suddenly silenced. The trees surrounding her old house stood perfectly still, ignorant of the dark wind raging through their branches as a priest and a fallen angel shrieked in Latin. The cement they poured into the rocks, near what appeared to be an old well next to the house Jorja and a man now known as Billy shared with their twin girls, glowed fiery red. Flames shot out around the edge of the hole they tried desperately to fill.

Both men placed their hands over it, black on white, as the concrete rippled and threatened to explode. The skin on their hands bubbled into blisters as the smell of singed hair and melting flesh filled the air, but they did not back away. Flames licked their hands, through fissures not yet sealed, and jumped up to hit the priest. He backed away, covering his face with howls of pain, but Aisi’s father kept shouting. The spiraling shadow was sucked with shrieks of fury into the cracks around the edge of the cement, and the ferocious wind died away as the red flames vanished. All was silent once more.

Chapter 12 Unexpected Visitor

Aisi yanked herself out of the vision. She didn’t want to stay and witness the atrocities committed by her father indefinitely, but she could have—t here was so much to see, thousands of years of playing warlord and encouraging tribal warfare, starvation, and deprivation. She couldn’t bear to see any more. Trembling, she realized she’d gone weak in the knees. She wanted to stop seeing things but the vision refused to turn off. She tried to wipe the sweat from her forehead, and she realized she was nearly soaked. The images kept racing through her mind. Eyes open, eyes closed…it didn’t matter. The more she saw, the sicker she felt. She noticed Father J sitting across from her, holding a trash can toward her with a look of understanding and sympathy. Aisi reached over, yanked it from his hands, and puked into it.