An Angel's Touch: The Mark of Chaos

By Susan D. Kalior

Out of the frying pan, and into the fire. Johnny's fire.

Jump into the next adventure with Johnny and Jenséa in a heart–pounding plot that encompasses the brightest and darkest realms of existence. Johnny is weakened by minimizing his destructive exploits for Jenséa's sake. His choice is to perish . . . or—to reclaim his full power. But if he does, what will he do with his Angel? And what will he do when he has an opportunity to destroy earth and rule another world? An Angel's touch can be quite powerful, but it remains to be seen if it is powerful enough to prove love true, stabilize chaos, and save the earth.

Told from Johnny's point of view, Book Two delves deeper into johnny's world as he confronts his heritage, while on the ride of a lifetime through unpredictable twists and turns with supernatural beings in a mystery unfolding. johnny reaches for the stars (literally) with one hand, and drags his human angel along with the other into time-space dimensions and dark experiences she'd prefer to forfeit. But as Johnny would say, "Ah, to play the play." This story elicits laughter, tears, and heart-warming enlightenment in the face of violence, in a world of nightmares, with a touch of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan D. Kalior
• Release date: May 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781393777335

Susan D. Kalior

        Susan was born in Seattle, WA.. Her first profession was a psychotherapist treating those suffering from depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, substance abuse, sexual abuse, family violence, and severe mental illness. She employed therapies such as communication skill building, relaxation training, systematic desensitization, bioenergetics, and psychodrama. She has facilitated stress management, parenting, and self-discovery workshops that have aided in the psycho-spiritual healing of many. She has lectured on metaphysical and psychological topics, and been involved in various social activist pursuits.          Her education includes an M.A. in Ed. in Counseling/Human Relations and Behavior (NAU), a B.S. in Sociology (ASU), and ten months of psycholog-ical and metaphysical training in a Tibetan community.          Susan writes entertaining books steeped in psychology, sociology, and metaphysics in genres such as visionary fiction, dark fantasy, horror, and romance. All her books are designed to facilitate personal growth and transformation.         In her words: I love to sing, meditate, and play in nature. I love fairy tales, going outside the box, and reading between the lines. I strive to see what is often missed, and to not miss what can't be seen. There is such a life out there, and in there—beyond all perception! So I close my eyes, feel my inner rhythm, and jump off the cliff of convention. And when I land, though I might be quaking in my boots, I gather my courage and go exploring.         Through travel, study, and work, I've gained a rich awareness of cultural differences among people and their psychosocial struggles. I have discovered that oppression often results from the unexamined adoption of outside perceptions. The healing always has been in the individual's stamina to expel outside perceptions of self and constructively exert one's unique core being into the world. I am driven to facilitate expanded awareness that people may separate who they are from who they are told to be. Embracing personal power by loving our unique selves in our strengths and weaknesses . . . forever—is a key to joyous living. My motto is: Trust your story. Live the Mystery..

Book preview

Chapter One

Present Day Chile, South of Puerto Montt

HER NAME WAS JENSÉA, Angel of the dreams I never had. My kind don’t dream, not like humans anyway. And if we did, it would not be of Angels. Jenséa had grown tougher than when I first met her, but she was still—as they say, ‘pure as the driven snow.’ I was a diabolical sort, a creature of the night unbound by human law, and of late, not so bound by my own. And that was this: The call for chaos shall be answered. Sinners and martyrs were my best clientele.

Jenséa, Jen I called her, was a martyr of the first kind. She ‘called,’ but I could not abide. Her spirit outshined all, growing more brilliant as I liberated her from the trappings of convention, namely orthodox religion.

I pulled her out of bed early this morning, and we hopped a jet from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport to my Chilean homeland. We located my people, the Alaculufes, a primitive nomadic Indian tribe. I left Jen back at their camp in an animal hide tent—slumbering, curled cozily on a guanaco fur blanket in a pocket of warmth I magically created to counter September’s chill.

And I, I was prowling for my midnight meal, in clothes less black than my heart: sleeveless sweatshirt, jeans, and leather boots. I appeared human, mostly: arms, legs, the whole bit. My one anomaly I concealed under black fingerless gloves: a reddish ridge on my hands extending middle knuckle to wrist. Not too odd, considering my parents were one-quarter Dragon. Yes, Dragons are real. My Tazmark mother was Alacalufe, and my Tazmark father Castilian. This rendered me a Spanish look: cinnamon skin, defined cheekbones, amber eyes, and jet-black hair trailing down my back.

In white mist, I pressed through the dense beech forest compacted with shrubs and herbs. The tenacious foliage scraped my arms but bore no scratches. The moist air dampened my hair, but not my skin. Hot and cold neutralized before touching my body. I was immune to disease, and impervious to attack, immortal as fiction. Only supernatural weather, beings, and means could harm me. I was not ordinary, but I had my part to play in the ordinary world.

I smelled the scent of a blue fox, the payne-guru. I thrust my face down into the broad leaf bushes; its heartbeat pitter-pattered loud in my ears. Food, I required food, but only meat appeased me: fresh, raw, human. The fox would not do. I would pursue what Jen pretended I didn’t—people, that is.

My eyes functioned well in the dark. I spied my target in a maroon aura near the Sinfondo River next to a poisonous litha tree. The village witchdoctor sat cross-legged in a multicolored striped tunic and tight guanaco leggings, dark face pulsing sinister intent through the cave of his yard long, black hair. He chanted a magical suicide spell, death marking the self-deprecating husband of a comely woman. I heard the husband calling . . . calling in a tone that started low and rose shrilly. This was the call for suffering. From the witchdoctor, I heard a pulsing low tone emitting hawk-like screeches. This was the call for mischief.

The witchdoctor was answering the husband's call for pain. Hey . . . my job. Witchdoctor be damned. The witchdoctor’s call for mischief would be answered—by me, a god of sorts, a malevolent god that is.

Alaculufes traditionally believed only malevolent gods existed—gods they must be appease, lest famine, war, and natural disaster befell them. To prove their devotion, they killed the weak and innocent in ritual sacrifice. Tribal law had outmoded such rituals, but in truth, the practice was not obsolete.

Tonight's sacrifice would be to me. And the sacrificed would be the wee little mouse, witchdoctor—he.

I approached my prey with a ghostly glide, eager to surprise and shock my victim whom the Alaculufes dreaded, the wee little mouse, witch doctor—he. He'd robbed the tribe of their finest possessions and surrounded himself with the most beautiful daughters of the most prestigious chiefs, hexing the families that denied him what he desired. Sometimes his hexes caused death to those who didn’t put out ‘the call.’ Can be done, if the spirit allows. Psychopaths annoyed me.

My morals weren’t much higher. In fact, they were lower. Even so, I’d promised Jen I’d devour only the most contemptible humans, determined by the state of their aura. The witchdoctor’s dense, dark aura traced his body like a border. This reflected a pygmy conscience. Although I had none, except for Jen, I spared whom she wished, as long as it wasn’t everyone, which was her truest wish—my doom. But tonight, doom belonged to the wee little mouse, witchdoctor—he.

I came closer, closer. He became an ‘it’ to me, void of importance or personage. My prey was nothing more than the object of my maxim. And that was this: Extract its spirit, delete its shell.

Its head snapped this way and that, listening . . . looking . . . sensing me, but not seeing me. My extrasensory ears heard its heartbeat quicken. I inhaled its fear, a mere appetizer of the meal to come.

I killed hedonistically, but that is not why I killed. I killed to survive. And survive I must, lest Jen not. The very nature of the earth planet would not allow her pure heart to thrive among the bestial masses. She was a Shen, you see, a human angel. She appeared common, even to herself. But she was rare, as rare as me. Her purity fed me. As long as I kept her alive, it is as they say, ‘the gift that keeps on giving.’

I blew away the mist and made myself glow red as I stepped closer to my food. My prey spotted me, flaring eyes to show power. But it had no power over me. No human did. Its malefic thoughts drove threats into my brain. Meaningless threats. Soon I would change into the culmination of what it is to be Tazmark. I relished toying with my prey for fun-filled hours before the kill, but tonight, rejoining my Shen interested me more. Death would be quick for the wee little mouse witchdoctor—he. It would hate realizing I was its diabolic superior. Dethroning it—that was my pleasure.

I stepped up to it, smoothly, coolly with deliberate mystical demeanor. My boots crunched twigs. A telmatobufo bullocki toad hopped out of my way, and a sixteen-inch, black spotted kodcod cat sat studiously in an Antarctic beech tree—watching.

My prey’s pumper sounded like an acid rock band. Ah, fear. Fear tantalized me and intensified blood’s fragrance. Ah, blood. I inhaled deeply, aroused by the smell, teasing my taste buds with the promise of drinking the smooth sweet elixir, porous with energy. Ah, energy! Molten urges oozed through my body. I ached for—more. Growing, tingling, itching, changing. My skin transformed to coal black scales. My forehead produced ridges. A short snout emerged, featuring two fangs in my wide-lipped mouth. My orange eyes, engorged with Dragon energy, became an uninviting portal to the inferno that is me. My black hair flowed long behind three-inch webbed extensions at my temples. And though my body hardened, it retained human shape, maintaining the integrity of my clothing. My fingertips sprouted long, black, barbed nails, aching to rip flesh. I reveled in my orgasmic transmogrification into the dragonman.

My prey’s cold orbs flickered fear as it hurled an illusion at me: my shrunken head hanging on a pole in front of its straw hut. How meager a ploy to dissuade me. My own magic was a thousand times stronger.

Tazmarkian verse slipped through my lips:

"They call us the destroyers.

They blame us for their woe.

They never understand,

we reap the seeds they sow."

My prey rose. Skinny, little it. It backed up slowly, with bare dirty feet, attempting to burst my heart with its mediocre mind.

With a mere thought, I paralyzed its legs and arms. Its bulging eyes screamed terror. Its tongue hung from its gaping, bass-shaped mouth.

Saliva dripped off the points of my fangs. I was very hungry. Stepping up to it, I magically removed its striped tunic. Its dark eyes stretched down to see the tunic in a heap at its feet.

I stared at its bare brown chest, shrouding a feast of delicious organs.

In Alacalufe, it said, No, please, I will make sacrifices to you. You are the god, not me.

Reaching my black scaly finger to its neck, my barbed onyx nail punctured flesh. Blood swallowed the tip of my nail and I scraped the carotid artery. Blood beads erupted. Hundred dollar perfume to me. Potion of gods.

It whimpered. Music to my ears.

I pushed my face to the wound introducing my long, narrow tongue to the blood amassing along the scrape. I licked it into my mouth. Metallically delicious. More. I wanted more.

It said, in Alacalufe, "No, please."

I dug in my fangs, creating two deep holes. Blood oozed. I suctioned my lips for a long warm drink. The highly viscous elixir slid down my throat, pooling in my stomach. Blood. Glorious blood.

I brought up my head to view my prey’s pallid face. It wore a silly expression of horror, the expression it had extracted from countless others. This gratified me greatly. I stabbed my nails into its flesh under its ribcage. I shoved my hand inside its body, thrusting upward. I clutched its thick, slimy beating pumper and ripped it from the vena cavas' and the aorta. There in my hand, it had its last beat. A spurt of blood dribbled between my fingers.

My prey fell, smacking ground, landing on its clay pot stuffed with burning lithe tree sap, animal parts, and human excrement. Its spirit loosened from its body. I lifted my blood-soaked lips and inhaled the vaporous energy.

A single spirit has the force of a small sun. This is not generally understood because size is too often equated with power. But power condensed is more potent than power expanded. The spirit entered me, a heat rush high no drug could match. My mind whirled with explosions of light. My blood cells sponged new life. Cold power ran in my veins, engorging my body tissues with fresh vigor, flooding my mind with flashes of genius. I felt . . . reborn, not like taking a Shen, no, but it was enough to sustain me.

The lifeless body had a nothing stare. The night had become quiet. What had been near was now far away. Even the kodcod cat had run off into the night.

Blood quenched my thirst. Now to quench hunger. I bit into the tasty left ventricle and tore off a hunk. Sanguine broth gushed over my tongue, soaking my incisors. I chewed and swallowed, rapturously intoxicated. Then I stuffed the whole delicacy into my enlarged mouth. Mm, the satisfaction. Mm.

I sank to my knees, tearing into my victim's body with claw and fang like a beast, like the beast I am. In bloody reverie, I devoured the spleen, liver, and kidneys. Heaviness weighted my stomach. Alas, I was full on the wee little mouse, witchdoctor—he. Sated at last.

I rubbed my scaly belly and stretched, inhaling frosty air with a satisfying yawn. I turned my head toward the remnants of my prey and hissed long white flames. The remnants became ash, growing mushy on the damp ground.

The Alaculufes would fear the witchdoctor no more. Me, perhaps, but I didn’t intend to stay long. The Alacalufes were too wild for my Jen. I brought her here to my Chilean homeland to draw out her maternal instincts that she might give me the one thing no Tazmark had ever received—the unconditional love of a Shen. Shens were hard to come by. In nine centuries, I’d only known five. After a long stretch of diabolic fun—filled years, I ate them, all but Jen—that is. I would never eat Jen. I came close once, and once it will remain.

My human form returned, blood stained and dappled with organ tissues. I waded into the cold, loud river, clothes and all. The rushing water would have swept an ordinary man downstream, but I was strong, and the current massaged me pleasantly. I ducked under the river's surface, washing away the remnants of my kill. I burst my head up into the night air, and shook excess water off my long black hair, droplets flying about me.

I had to make certain Jen would not see blood, lest she recoil and shun me one more time, heaped on a pile of times that had grown into a mountain of rejection. I was still waiting for her to accept me. Waiting. Waiting. What little she knew of me was still too much for her. However could she accept more? 

Ah, the forceful water felt good. I craved sensation—always. But I wanted to get back to Jen, so I trudged out of the river onto the lush fern bank. From a beech tree, a screeching noise cracked the night. It was a Magellan horned owl calling for its mate. Oh, I empathized. Jen was hard to hold. For that reason, I impregnated her with my seed. She was unaware twins grew inside her, two weeks along. I smelled the change in her body when she conceived. I’m capable of producing children in the summer of every sixth year. I’d led her to believe this was the infertile fifth year. It was the first and only lie I’d ever told her.

I stood on the bank and whispered, "Calidus ventus." A warm magical wind rose and blew against my body, whipping my hair behind my back. I could magically think myself clean and dry, but I preferred physical sensation.

Tazmarks are dull, tactilely and emotionally. That is why I enjoy alcohol and cigarettes, or anything that can intensify feeling. Except drugs—the chemicals change me into Tazmark form without my consent. Possessiveness had a similar affect, making me do things against my true wishes, like getting Jen pregnant. I didn’t want these creatures growing in Jen’s belly, not really. But if I didn’t further bind her to me, she might one day want to rupture our tie. Not that she would succeed, but I didn’t like it when she tried. My strategy was unkind, I know, but I never claimed to be kind. I couldn’t tell if the babies would be Shen, embodied Angels like her—or Tazmark, of the Dragons blood, like me—or any combination thereof.

I whispered, "Consistere ventus," and the wind stopped. My black sleeveless shirt, jeans, and leather boots were dry. I touched the little gold crucifix on my neck. Oh, not because I was religious or anything. No, I was thinking of Jen. It had been hers. I wore it to remind me that the emotions I craved came only by sacrificing for my Shen.

I began my trek back toward the village thinking how bored and listless I had been before I met her. I had done everything a thousand times over and emptiness ate around the edges of my essence. I liked the stuff of hell, but boredom was a hell I had no taste for, even worse than the heavenly things I loathed.

The three quarter moon shot fat rays through the trees and thinning mist, creating eerie shadows that bespoke my essence. This essence—no human had ever been able to understand. I was a hell master with senses like Superman. I was a super man. However, my super feats did not entail classic heroism. But I was a hero, even though humans never viewed me as such.

I forced passage through foliage that gave none, enjoying the exercise, craving anything that would make me feel more in any way. Though Jen was the best fix, a little scotch wasn’t bad either. I manifested a bottle of my amber favorite and twisted off the lid. I could manifest and delete objects by teleportation, but not animals or people as free will prohibited such transfer. I guzzled down the burning elixir as I made my way back to my beloved.

She made me feel in plenitude: beyond carnality and wrath, beyond the sadistic drive that spiced the thrill of the kill, and beyond the eternal melancholy of an emptiness within me that had never been filled. These were the only feelings I’d ever known. Jen gave me new feelings, amongst them: pain (yes, pain—having seldom felt it, it was pretty cool), adoration, wonderment, delight, and well, I cringe to admit it—love. Feelings were fun. Not the sadistic fun I was accustomed to, but a fanciful, curious fun, stranger than anything I’d ever experienced.

I threw the empty scotch bottle in the air, making it disappear and reappear in the cabinet I stole it from in some old man's abode. He would question his sanity, and that amused the hell out of me. Little pranks such as these, I usually kept a mystery to Jen. I’d had enough of her moral prattling.

I passed two female Alacalufes, mischievous teenagers swimming nude in a steamy moonlit hot spring. Through white heat, they eyed me with that wanton look I receive in bounty. Women found my brown-skinned face most appealing. I knew my look was ominous. It’s strange how many human females are attracted to the diabolical. Oh, not just street women, but sweet women. I used to plot wild, elaborate seductions. The more willingly they gave themselves to me sexually, emotionally, and spiritually, the more pleasant my own experience. I could possess their spirits for several years, even before I killed them. And after I killed them, I could imprison their essence within me for a decade or more until assimilation was complete. After that, they would slip into their own version of heaven. Of course, freedom from me would be anyone's heaven. Still, they would remain undone, immortally wounded, until they could find their way back into the whole of creation, which is harder to do than one might imagine.

A plump tan toad hopped into the pond and the girls squealed playfully. I left them behind. They did not ‘call,’ and I was full anyway. And even if I wasn’t, they were the sort I’d promised Jen I’d not harm. Jen would rant if I continued to play with women as once I did. She believed all women were her sisters, lovers should be monogamous, and sex must be an act of love. I was fine with that. After thousands of conquests, the old thrill had died. Besides, Jen was challenge enough. Mostly, because the task was not to take her, but rather in getting her to take me, wholly, as I am. And sex, well, sex with a Shen surpassed common pleasure. Sex with Jen took me beyond pleasure into this strange love I had for her. She was mine, not because I kept her, though I did, though I had. No. She was mine because we belonged together. Life apart from each other, took ‘us’ apart. Sometimes she forgot that. Sometimes, I had to make her remember—the hard way.

I stepped over a decaying tree trunk swarming with termites. Hungry mosquitoes droned around my ears. Mosquitoes sounded like bees to me. My supernatural hearing turned loud sounds down, and quiet sounds up. Volume had no variety, yet I could feel the vibratory pressure of loud and soft in my ears. I knew what was loud, and I knew what was soft, I just couldn’t hear it.

I arrived at the sleeping village erected between forest and sea. Memories of my childhood. Really, they meant nothing. I walked between dozens of round, animal hide, pole tents; heading for the tent that housed my Shen. She’d rather have me enter by door than magically appear, as I often did with my ability to fly through space and time dimensions. She preferred me to behave humanly. That way she could pretend I was. Human that is. Well, I was human—partly, but she was human totally—her body anyway. Her abilities transcended ordinary people, but only when she believed they could. And she often didn’t.

A few camp dogs slunk around me with drooping hind ends and passive yellow eyes. They sensed I despised wagging tails and smiling lips, and that I was not adverse to canine snacks, though lesser forms of life rarely appealed to me.

Jen would say, No life is lesser. But there was a lot she didn’t understand, mostly about herself. I had taught her much about her powers, but only a fraction of her potential. When she gave me what I wanted, I would help her fully spread her wings, the wings human eyes could not see.

I reached the tent and threw back the animal hide flap. The tannic scent made my mouth water all over again. Moonbeams slashed across the space that led to my sleeping Shen, curled on her side, face blanketed with straight yellow hair. Strange to think I’d known her less than fourteen months, twelve of which we were apart, and yet our love felt beautifully ancient.

I walked over to her. She appeared comfortable in the warm air pocket I’d conjured. The shadow of her willowy form showed through her white cotton, Victorian style nightgown, which suited her. She was pristine, but tangled in convention. Sensuous, but subdued with prudish behavior. Able, but not willing to love me as I wished.

I swallowed my frustration and sank to my knees. At least she was here. At least I had her. At least she was mine. I slid my fingers beneath the yellow mass that covered her face, relocating it behind her ear. Her face looked soft, like in the old black and white movies. She reminded me of Sleeping Beauty, not by her features really. Who she was shined through her features. And that is what made her beautiful to me.

My fingers slid down her neck touching the ebony chain that held a chalky black metal, full-bodied dragon. The talisman rested on her bunched hand near her heart. The dragon head faced front with red eyes that sometimes glowed. It was from the Dragon World. It connected us in such a way that I was able to defy my destructive nature, and protect her.

The arm she laid upon was stretched out, palm up. I traced my finger slowly over the creases in her hand to her wrist, swirling my fingertip around the blue veins there. I would like to have felt her life blood heat and the softness of her skin, but I couldn’t. Being tacitly insensate had its drawbacks. Of course, it paid off during a fistfight or a knife fight—my favorite. Who could have guessed a Tazmark would yearn for the delicate touch? But I did, and Tazmarks are not wired for tenderness. My loss.

I rested my fingerless gloved hand on her hip, thinking of the babies inside her. I felt no sensation, not in my hand anyway.

She sighed, the kind of sigh that bridges sleep and awake, breathy, feminine, vulnerable—my Angel. She’d never known that she was an Angel until I told her, until I showed her how she could shine Divine Light to heal—and more importantly to destroy the diabolical, supernatural variety. I took a great risk teaching her that, for her Divine Light, though medicinal to others, could burn me to oblivion. Had she not healed me with a dimmer ray of her lesser love, I would not have survived the wounds that she’d more than once mistakenly inflicted.

I rolled her flat, and slid my arms under her upper back and knees, lifting. As I stood there, looking at her face, her azure eyes opened drowsily. johnny? Where are we going?

Shhh, I whispered, adoring the faint freckles on her nose. I kissed her forehead. We’ll be there soon enough.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and nuzzled her head against my shoulder. Affection—Shens were good at that.

I carried her out the door through the sleeping village, pleasuring in the gentle pull upon my muscles. I flapped my incorporeal webbed wings and flew us out of the third realm, into the skies of the sixth realm. The sixth realm hardens my body, almost stone-like, defining my muscles. Here, my human features appear more vampirical, almost skeletal. My fangs are revealed when I speak, and my fingertips sport long, black nails.

My incorporeal wing density and trajectory resulted in me flying mostly upright, enabling me to carry Jen in a comfortable manner. We flew over the Andes Mountain Range above a chain of bubbling stratovolcanoes that steamed my soul. I brought us down into the third realm, landing on top of a crimson mound, not too hot for my Shen. I set her tender, bare feet down upon the soft, red ash. The top of her head came just above my shoulder.

She gazed up at my face with sad wonder. Her feelings for me were all tangled up, unlike mine for her. Then she stared outward, seemingly awestruck by the row of rumbling mounds exhaling ghostly vapors. Orange-red magma spilled over the sides against a backdrop of dark purple sky that stretched into infinity.

Steam heat blew against her gown, giving form to her willowy legs. Huffs of warmth blew her straight blonde hair behind her shoulders and parted the bangs on her forehead.

I gazed down upon her fondly. These volcanoes are of my essence.

She looked up at me with her azure eyes, glossy with the sting of ashen particles that floated invisibly in the air.

They are beautiful, she said. I’d like to see them when the sky is pitch black.

I smiled faintly. Her words pleased me. She found my world beautiful.

I love fire, johnny. It frees me somehow. Then she gasped lightly, and pointed a finger at a volcano discharging white vapor. Her voice hinted fear, johnny, who is that?

I looked, but viewed no one, save an imprint lingering in her mind of a woman with long black hair in a deep purple gown with drop-bell sleeves like something out of ancient Romania. The woman’s arms waved up and down like an accomplished sorceress in a B rated movie. Hmm. Another Tazmark?

Jen peered up at me innocently. Oh, she disappeared. Did you see her?

I wanted to lick her lips and kiss her eyes. No, I said, but I don’t doubt she was there.

Who do you think she was?

Jen, I said, a little annoyed that she was pressing an issue that would only upset her, I don’t even want to speculate.

A Tazmark, johnny?

I shrugged my shoulders. She was nearing shaky ground. And I knew she would fall if I confirmed her suspicion. I’d been trying hard not to lie to her, even though being truthful was against my nature.

Let’s go, I said with utter calm. I was not calm, but it would alarm her to discover my uncharacteristic anxiety. My apathetic confidence had been shaken since I met her, and had been declining ever since.

Her amiable eyes rolled up to me. Very well then. She placed her lips on the bare skin of my shoulder and planted a kiss. The kiss seeped into my arm. I melted a little. Her love hurt me. But the hurt was good. Only she—could enliven my dead, dead heart. She—who was my ward for life, my purpose for living, and my hope for something I couldn’t begin to understand. For the first time ever, I needed someone. I needed her—Angel of the dreams I never had.

Chapter Two

Iswept Jen up in my arms, the way it’s done in romance novels.

john—ny! Her arms encircled my neck, happy to be held, happy to be close to another human bei—. Well, happy to be close.

She was quite the romantic, so I romanced her when I could. It wasn’t a show. I meant it.

I bumped her up a bit to get a good hold. The sixth realm is no place to drop a Shen. Fiendish creatures are empowered here, hot for action.

I flew her into the sixth realm through blinks of light that were the cross meridians of linear time. She nuzzled her face into my shoulder, eyes hidden—her standard pose. She ever avoided viewing my more vampirical state, not so much that it offended her, but it made it harder for her to deny what I was.

I pondered the woman in purple. Probably Tazmark. Tazmarks had an uncanny mode of operation. And that was this: A clever search, a theatrical capture, and a leisurely kill.

Yet, how could it be that we confronted another Tazmark so soon? A hundred years often passed before encountering even one. This would make four in two months. Something was awry.

Even so, Jen mustn’t worry. When she worried, she ran. Six weeks ago, last July, we’d both barely survived a battle with three Tazmarks. She still had nightmares that left her screaming. I knew she’d want to leave me if another battle was brewing. And to my surprise, I sensed it was.

Juan. I heard a woman’s voice in my head.

Out of thin air, she appeared, the mystery woman seen at the volcanoes, flying backwards, facing me. She was Tazmark. My adrenaline pumped for possible battle. Her dark-skinned features were shaped like mine, Spanish looking, mystical amber eyes, refined cheekbones. Tendrils of lengthy, black hair escaped from the hood of her purple cloak and blew frantically over her face. Her cape billowed and flapped. All these effects she created, for there was no wind in the sixth realm.

She smiled and spoke telepathically, You’ve grown into a fine young man. Young for a Tazmark anyway. But you are a little old for a Shen who has a mere twenty-five year old consciousness. Her eyes glazed ice cold, the way mine often do. You are foolhardy to coddle one of her kind.

So, I said aloud, you are my mother.

Her purple, velvet fingerless gloved-hand went over her heart. She said telepathically, I am called Aruka.

Jen whispered sweetly, I’m not your mother, johnny.

Hmm, I grumbled. Apparently Aruka had rendered herself undetectable to Jen. Why now, and not at the volcanoes? I can usually read minds. My IQ is 240, and I possess a cerebral marcudiam (a Tazmark thing) that enhances my extra sensory ability. However, other Tazmarks also have these qualities, along with the ability to shield thoughts and essences with a dense black light, known as a Black Light Shield.

Aruka said telepathically, Darling little thing, she is.

My body tightened.

Jen’s body tightened. johnny, what’s wrong?

Jen was worried. Worry made her a pain in the ass. I cast a relax spell on her. Sh, I told her, rest easy. Her muscles loosened. I’d made her feel a bit drunk. I decided to continue flying without really going anywhere, something akin to circling the neighborhood, hoping to shake Aruka before returning to the tent.

Aruka's telepathic message sank into my brain. She is like warm butter on a hot day melting all over you, dulling your identity. Drop her Juan. Escape her influence.

I had an impulse to drop Jen, proof of my mother’s power. She was around three thousand years old, or so an ancient parchment once told me. That was a lot of time to incubate power. She’d even preceded the Shen who made the crucifix popular. I was only in my young nine hundreds, having been born in 1098 AD. However, age doesn’t necessarily equal power. I’d defeated Tazmarks older than me. I believed I was stronger than her. Yet—I wasn’t sure.

Our minds exchanged messages.

I narrowed my eyes. Is it a challenge you seek?

Her eyes narrowed too. Of course, but it will prove more interesting if I wait a bit.

Meaning?

There are but eleven adult Tazmarks on earth, including us. You, paired with this Shen, have become a great attraction. You can be smelled a country away, and the other eight Tazmarks will arrive soon, returning here to the hotbed of our creation almost ten thousand years ago. We have waited long for your homecoming. Your essence is locked in now. From this moment on, no matter where else you roam, you and the other Tazmarks will be drawn here compulsively.

She was trying to spellbind me to Chile, and I think it was working. I intensified the black light over my mind so that she could not succeed, nor tell how surprised I was to hear such news, though I suppose there was logic in it. However, as Tazmark and Shen, to my knowledge, have never before allied, how could I have predicted such consequences?

Aruka flared her hands. We shall engage as never before in earth history. Why, we might even destroy the planet. We’d have no place left to play, but oh . . . to go out with such—magnificence.

In her eyes, I saw the earth smothered in fire. She’d let me taste her passion. Behind that vision, I saw flashes of her exploits on earth thus far. She had been busy, but nothing compared to her future ploy.

If the earth were destroyed, Jen and I would be separated. Her quintessence would go where Shens go, and mine would go to the Dragon World. As for where mother would go . . . well, it made no sense, her wanting earth to perish, for upon death, she would become a servitor to full blooded Dragons in the Dragon World, as do all Tazmarks who die before reaching level ten. She was no ten. That, I would feel. Tens don’t even dally much on earth. They play in the solar system.

I blurted telepathically, You would not resent serving Dragons? I said.

Serve? I would serve no one.

How so?

She threw back her head and laughed. Tazmarks delighted in mind games. Her sinister lip curled. I am cleverer than you, Juan. I am wiser, stronger, and my knowledge is unparalleled. And this I tell you, there will be a showdown of Tazmarks, and earth will be destroyed.

I camouflaged my concern, unwilling to part with Jen, even in death. You fantasize. There will be no showdown.

She raised a brow. You think not? In Montana, the Tazmark, Chord found two other Tazmarks to combat you. Tazmarks, Juan . . . they are hard to find. But it was elementary for Chord because they hovered near, waiting for the opportune moment to challenge you. The Golden Tazmarks would have been fools to face you alone, so they enlisted the Black Tazmark, the one you called the Dark One. He preferred to defeat you personally, but the other two silver-tongued him.

So, I said, you were there.

Yes, she replied. I almost joined your side, so pathetic you were, endangering yourself for a Shen. If you’d never known her, you could have taken the Dark One alone and with less adversity. Still, your joint exhibition thrilled me. Watching a Shen kill . . . now that was a sight!

You should have joined the fight mother dear, but against me.

Then, with you destroyed, I would have been cheated of the spectacular battle I’ve planned—a battle far more breath-taking than the Montana scuffle.

Montana scuffle? I wondered if she was bluffing, because that battle was pretty terrific.

She crumpled her face. Oh come! Laser light, forest fires, exploding mountains. I thought such ploys had gone out with the Dark Ages.

Oh, I raised my brows, your techniques are progressive, hip, in with the times? I said sarcastically, Aren’t you a little old for that?

I am old like fine wine. She closed her eyes dreamily. But I am as young as a baby’s heart ever deepening a thousand year old plot with fresh twists, Juan. Patience waits on my webbed wings where it would fall off yours. Patience breeds genius.

She was full of secrets. I wanted them before I killed her. You let the Shen see you at the volcanoes.

Yes. I’d like her to partake in the battle.

A moment ago you wanted me to drop her.

I would have caught her. I would accomplish much more with her than you. I would bring her to full power and then use her in the play.

I couldn’t let my Shen be drawn into this, but I had to be cunning to keep her out. Continuing with our telepathy, I said, She alone, could destroy you now. I secretly doubted she would, because Shens would rather die than kill. I thickened my Black Light Shield. She learned much in the last battle. As a team, we would defeat you and all Tazmarks with ease. But that would be no fun for me. Fun, would be to defeat you all without her.

Nonsense. You underestimate me.

"You underestimate her."

Mother postured her hands arrogantly on her hips. On the contrary, you’ve taught her little of the much she can do. I’ve been waiting long for an excellent fight. I am bored with this earth and this immortal life that offers me nothing new. Teach her more, Juan. She gave a twisted smile. Perhaps ‘I’ should. I think I will. Then the day I’ve dreamed about shall be even more thrilling than I dared imagine.

It would be a grave mistake to teach her more. She will be your doom.

"No, Juan, if I teach her more, she will be your doom."

Never, I said. But inwardly I wondered if she was right. Full powered Shens, like the one who helped free India with pacifistic means, and the one who made the crucifix famous, while beneficial to the world, could unintentionally hurl agonies untold upon malefic creatures. A Shen’s spiritual love was demonic to us. And a Shen—the demon. To die by Shen meant an afterlife of heaven that defies our nature, and straight jackets us from the destruction that is our joy.

With her eyes buried in my neck, Jen asked, What’s taking so long?

I couldn’t tell her that I was delaying our return to ward off mother before we landed, so I answered with another lie, I’m searching for the right parallel to emerge in the third realm.

Oh, she said quietly.

Aruka laughed. She thinks she knows you, but she doesn’t—not really.

I gazed upon Jen, so trusting in my arms. Her body glowed in this realm, and her intangible wings, while invisible on the third realm, looked like sparkling energy feathers here. She was not even aware of them for her world was yet so small—even with me in it. I felt her wings thick essence mixed into my sixth realm arm. Wings of the stars. Jen . . . my Shen, wanting to pacify everything and everyone.

Aruka’s telepathic words wormed into my brain. She will condemn you ceaselessly, Juan.

I glared at mother, for her words