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The brightest light in the room was the glint of my Reichter .45 revolver. I know that is how it seemed for Thedrick. He was squinting to avoid the glare of it, which I was keeping on his left eye. He really shouldn't have been moving it was starting to annoy me. I let him know by starting to wriggle my itching trigger finger. He knew what it could do, and he knew I would have no problem staining my custom tailored electric blue Armani suit red with blood. Brain matter gray wouldn't bother me too much either as his partner had found out not long ago.
"Now once more. Please let this be simple. I'm getting really shall we say perturbed right now." Thedrick looked up at me with a fear I hadn't tasted in nearly a decade. I felt it pass through my veins like a wondrous drug and momentarily I forgot my goal. I was brought back by the sound of his nails scraping the wood chair. "I don't have all of eternity. Ok so I do but I would rather not spend it all with you. I've been to Hell but being in a room with you runs a close second. Now if you don't want me to start revisiting horrors on you will answer my question. Where is she?"
"I don't know who you're talking about!" Thedrick screamed. I hadn't even taken my true form yet, I must have a firmer understanding of human terror than I had suspected. Now I wished I hadn't gotten him quite so worked up, he wasn't thinking.
"You do know her." I walked over to the table and picked up a picture. It was of a young girl with blondish hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had eyes that could only be described as startling brown, even in the picture they were enough to distract from her smile and her body. "Now where is she?" His eyes had started lower on the picture, with her thighs, in this picture only covered by a pair of fishnets and a brief black skirt. I think he was fixated on her breasts spilling out from beneath her black half shirt bearing the insignia of Bete Noir.
"I don't know! I swear!" Thedrick was staring at her breasts I realized. He was trying to remember where he had seen that insignia, a hooded serpent coiling a distinctly feminine form all done in red. He did, he was lying to me.
"Thedrick. I'm tired. I need this girl but she needs me worse." I took a deep breath and put the picture down. I wish I knew her name; it would make it easier to keep him from lying to me. As it was I only had this image to work from. I walked to the table and picked up a dagger. I smiled as I looked at the wicked curve of the blade. I could still remember the first time that I had held the blade.
Thedrick saw the blade and instantly he thought I had decided to kill him. I shook my head slowly, I knew it wouldn't calm him any but it wasn't his time to die yet. I still hoped I wouldn't have to kill him. I set my gun down on his lap, facing his stomach encase it were to go off. Then I took the dagger and drove it into his shoulder stopping when I felt the blade rest against solid bone. "Who is she!?"
"Sara!" Thedrick screamed like a woman. It was fortunate for him I had tied him well, the way he was wriggling he would had hurt himself more than he was already hurt.
"Where can I find her?" I held the blade perfectly still for the moment. I was glad I hadn't had to resort to more drastic measures. I was fully prepared to carve his heart out and I think I could make him survive the experience, for a few hours at least.
"She's a groupie." He hissed with pain. He wasn't screaming anymore; every little thing is a blessing. "Follows Bete Noir all around the country!"
"What the fuck Thed?" I tore the blade from his shoulder and wiped the blood clean on his cheek smearing the blood there. "Why did this have to be so fucking painful?" I picked up my revolver and then caught a scent. A moment later I recognized the smell as urine. That nasty little boy. "And you pissed yourself. Bravo, motherfucking spectacular!" I roared. I didn't realize how much I scared him until I felt it crash against me again in a single euphoric rush. "Wow." I blinked blind with bliss and waiting for the sensation to pass.
When it passed I walked to him and cut the ropes that held him down. Thedrick looked at me but he didn't move. I hadn't noticed before but he was a big guy. I guess he weighed around two hundred forty pounds and most of it was muscle. His hair cut suggested military of some kind and so did the dog tags hanging around his neck. I took a step back then I put the dagger down on the table and reached out to touch his shoulder.
The slit in his shoulder had been a clean one. Thedrick wasn't bleeding nearly as bad as he could have been, particularly if I had intended for him to die. I didn't want him to die though; even without attention it wasn't likely to kill him. I reached out and grabbed Thedrick's shoulder firmly pressing down on the wound. He reached up and gripped my wrist trying his best to pull me off but his strength was nothing compared to my own and I wouldn't be moved.
For no reason I can think of now or understood then I healed him. It was probably worse than the wound itself. I know his fear spiked to new heights as he felt my power entering his wound. It felt like ice water in his veins, so cold it burned him from within instead of chilling him. The wound was closing quickly though and when I released him it had vanished entirely. "Go." Thedrick reached up and stuck his fingers through the hole in his shirt to feel where I had stabbed him. There was nothing left to prove it had been real, no scar or scab but a few drops of dried blood were smeared on his shoulder trailing down to his nipple and from there to his naval.
Thedrick's terror was beginning to mingle with something else; I believe the feeling would best be described as awe. I walked out of the room leaving Thedrick to his thoughts. He had helped me more than I had expected. I left the man's apartment and gently shut the door. I didn't want anybody disturbing Thedrick until morning. The death of . . it hadn't occurred to me that I hadn't known what relation the two men had shared until that moment. It wasn't important but for the moment it nagged at my mind.
"Sara." I said to myself tasting the name as I skipped down the stairs in twos and threes. "So that is what she is calling herself." Last time I had been this close she had used the name Bella. I guessed she probably changed her name on a regular basis. It didn't matter. I knew her real name.
Sara's real name was Elimina. I don't think she knew this though, most humans never learn their real names. Each time a person is born an angel is present to witness the event. The first word they utter after a person's birth is their true name, the way they are inscribed in The Book of Life. It is under that name that all their deeds are recorded. Her name wasn't in The Book any longer. It had been stricken the moment she had taken my hand all those years ago.
I hadn't realized how lost I was in my own thought until I stumbled missing the edge of a curb. I was in Sunridge California at the corner of Crandall and Becks. Thedrick's apartment was probably better than a mile behind me now. "Sara." I said again. I wondered if she could feel me at this distance, if she knew instinctively where I was. Then I stopped thinking about her at all and looked down the streets.
The sun had barely gone down over the hills and a pleasant breeze was warming the valley and keeping the people from retreating to their homes. The first stars had appeared, twinkling while they could without competition from the streetlights. A half moon helped them adorn the night but soon it would be one of the few survivors of the flood of light mankind could produce. I always smile when I think of the victories mankind holds over God. They don't even realize the things they've done, the accomplishments they can claim.
I desperately wanted someone to talk to but I was paying no attention to the faces streaming past me on little errands. I knew little of who they were or why they were and I didn't care. I just continued to blindly walk down the streets taking random turns along the way. I didn't know where I was going, if I was being led or if I was just wandering and I couldn't bring myself to care. I was only thinking of her. I had to have her but first I had to find something to sooth my screaming nerves.
When had I seen her last? It was some time in the last century I was sure of it. I had been present when she died. I remembered that as well but where had it been. Nineteen twenty something. I had been stuck in America, a little shit of a town called Thicket Creek in Texas. I can't stand the South and Texas, any place where the humans are accustomed to breeding in their own ranks is not on my list of places to visit. She had been a dancer in that life, today it seems funny that she would go out in public dressed like that or looking like that.