Angel's Curse (5 page)

“Free will is a powerful gift to bestow upon your children, not knowing what they will do with it. In Satan’s case, he did what every parent fears — he chose the wrong path — and it was not only a lack of faith and devotion in Him. Satan put himself up on a pedestal — the most beautiful of angels — for others to worship … and they did.

“He convinced others that everything in creation should be the angels’ domain. Convinced them that God had created the heavens and earth and all that resided in them, as the angels’ playground.

“He began to enjoy destroying His creations for pleasure — to see the fear in the eyes of those he killed — those who could not defend themselves. Satan became evil incarnate, and He wept. Then came the battle, the likes of which have never been seen since. Angels died in the thousands. Many animals became extinct. Mankind was almost wiped out … yet we prevailed, as did man.

“Satan had become too powerful for the angels to destroy him altogether. Yet Michael was able to cast him out in our hour of need, with a surge of strength no other could match, then or now. Such was Michael’s love and devotion to Him, that he had the strength to do what must be done. It was then that I joined Michael’s army, for though He was my father — and I loved Him greatly — it was Michael whom I admired, for having the courage to go forth in the face of adversity and defeat evil, when all else around him was falling …”

The memories swept over me again and spun —
spin the wheel to win a prize!
— until they settled on one where Danny was transporting himself endlessly around the world. He was talking to animals, telling them to prepare for a flood and to choose two of their kind — one male and one female — to be saved. The great flood. This meant Noah had to be involved somewhere along the way. Danny had come full circle and returned to the first of the animals he had spoken with. A pair was waiting for salvation. He transported those that were a great distance away to a small wooded area a few hundred metres from of the ark — an easy walk away — and moved on to the next animals.

The rain began before his task was complete. Many of the animals became frightened. They questioned why they must die for the evildoings of man. Danny had no answer for them. He could only comfort them with the knowledge that they would be welcomed in heaven.

Not all of the animals made it to the ark, despite Danny’s efforts. Some could not set aside their predatory instincts long enough to survive extinction. I saw what could only be skryvens and drasnos — the creatures Danny had tried to describe to me so long ago. The torrential rain continued until the ark was afloat. Noah, his family, and the animals were left to wait out the rain and ever-rising water …

The spinning wheel spun again. I could sense that with each roll I was moving forward in time, closer to the present. The spinning stopped. I found myself in a stable. The air smelled of hay and barnyard animals. It took me a while to realise why I seemed to be viewing this at ground level — Danny was looking through the eyes of a lamb. In the centre of the stable, on an area where the hay had been piled high, lay Mary — heavy with child — her head in Joseph’s lap. Danny had come to witness the birth of the Christ child, the saviour of mankind — of
mortals
.

Mary massaged her belly lovingly, talking softly to the babe inside her womb. Her body stiffened as a contraction swept over her, yet she didn’t cry out in pain. The tears that ran down her cheeks were tears of joy that her baby was soon to be born.

Christ was born into the world in relative calm — no noise or fanfare — the birth pain-free, for Mary was blessed.

The lamb rose to get a closer look, bleated and shook its tail. Mary held up the child for all to see. The lamb, having found comfort in seeing the newborn babe, left the stable to look up at the night sky. The star of Bethlehem shined brightly, watching as the three kings — the wise men — came to worship the Son of God …

Round and round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows!

Danny was in chain mail — a white sleeveless tunic bearing a large red cross over the top of the mail, loosely belted at the waist, with a long scabbard on one side. One hand held onto a large white shield, also emblazoned with a red cross. The other hand wielded a longsword. The thoughts that accompanied the images told me he’d fought with the Knights Templar to retrieve the Cup of Christ. It seemed the demons were after the same prize, though he had no idea as to what purpose they sought it for. He only knew it must not fall into their hands. To that end he fought side by side with the Templars and other angels that had assumed the Templars’ mantle. They had been forbidden from providing anything other than brute strength in the search for the Holy Grail. The Templars must find it for themselves and hold it in safekeeping, for it was a
mortal
holy relic, not meant for immortals. The Knights Templar won through and claimed the prize, only to lose it centuries later when they were labelled heretics — hunted down and murdered. Many of their numbers were captured and tortured, to extract false confessions, adding fuel to the charges of heresy and blasphemy. Further searches for the Grail proved fruitless. Its whereabouts — if it still exists — are unknown, even to the angels …

Spinning, spinning, spinning …

London burning in 1666, being purged of a demon-created plague spread by airborne particles, not flea-ridden rats, as thought by mortals. In order for the angels to save mankind — all of mankind — most of the city must be burned to the ground. The disease had to be destroyed before the world could be laid to waste. The heat would destroy the airborne particles. It must be done quickly, before the wind could carry them further away.

I could feel the heat of the fire, and smell buildings and flesh burning. I felt the anguish over all of the lives that were lost, nearly all of them unrecorded …

I tried to control the spinning of Danny’s memories, and found that I could speed it up and slow it down to some degree, but not stop it. I had to wait for it to stop of its own accord, at least for now.

I could smell and hear the ocean. After watching for a time I realised Danny had witnessed one of the Wright brothers’ first flights in December 1908, on the beach at Kitty Hawk, in North Carolina. The plane looked like an oversized box kite — to me anyway — with a squat body and tail. It had what seemed to be a fairly large home-made engine — not professionally manufactured and tooled as they are now — and two wooden propellers. I thought how fragile the plane looked — one strong gust of wind and it would break apart. I could feel the tension and excitement in the air as the small crowd of witnesses — I counted five heads — waited while final preparations were made. Danny was some distance from the action, yet his vision was clear and the image sharp. I was certain he would not have been spied by those on the beach, so intent was their focus on the men and their flying contraption. I could hear Danny’s thoughts as he marvelled at how ingenious mortals were — how they’d come so far in so little time — and his elation at seeing the brothers’ successful flight. The dawn of a new era for mankind …

One more,
I told myself,
and that’s enough for today.
I’d already spent five hours watching Danny’s memories and listening to his thoughts.

Before I could blink, the spinning wheel had stopped. I saw a baby sleeping peacefully in a cot, wrapped up in pink blankets, a teddy bear sitting in one corner. The image was serene, and I thought of it as a snapshot of a moment in time — a reminder that life goes on and there can be calm. I could have believed it was a photograph, if not for the steady rise and fall of —
pink blankets, it must a girl
— her chest …

I sat up, stretched my arms and yawned. Living someone else’s life was tiring, but the last memory confused me. Who was the baby?

“Danny, I was looking through your memories and I saw something I didn’t recognise. There was no commentary, so I don’t know what it was about. If I told you what I saw could you explain it to me?”

He set aside his book, perplexed at what memory I could have seen that required further explanation. He nodded his head for me to continue.

“I saw a baby in a cot, covered with pink blankets.”

“Ah, I see,” Danny said.

I tapped my leg impatiently with one hand. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What does it refer to?”

“That’s not actually one of my memories,” he began. “It was a gift from another.”

“Then why show it to me?” I asked, even more confused now.

How many other people’s memories did he have in his head? How many other people had he touched in the same way he’d touched me?

“Because it’s an important memory.”

“How can a memory that doesn’t belong to you be important to me?” I asked, getting more confused, and angrier, by the minute.

“I didn’t think you’d get to that memory so quickly,” Danny said.

I threw my hands up in frustration. “It’s not like I can control it. The memories spin. I can speed it up and slow it down, but I can’t get it to stop on a particular memory!”

“Calm down, Helena, you’ll gain more control over it the more you look at my memories. That particular memory was a gift from your mother.”

“
What?
”

“The memory of a little girl, sleeping soundly in a cot, not a care in the world. It was one your mother thought of often after she was taken from you.”

This was way too confusing. “We only met my mother once, and that was a brief encounter. You never did to her what you did to me,” I pointed to my forehead and heart, “to
get
her memories.”

“Nevertheless, when I restrained her, when I thought she was going to attack you, she passed the memory on to me. It was like a shout, loud and clear. I couldn’t help but hear it and see it. I think she wanted someone to know that you were on her mind often.”

“But she never made any attempt to find me.”

“And she told you why she couldn’t. Can’t you leave it at that and take the gift she left in my care? Perhaps love is a more powerful emotion than any of us had ever imagined it to be, that it can cross barriers.”

I wished I could have seen the image from another perspective, looking down on the room from above, seeing the expression on my mother’s face as she watched me sleeping.

5.
Genetic Codes

I sat in the garden, swinging on the three-seater garden swing — another gift from Danny — enjoying the sun. A light breeze carried with it the scent of a myriad of flowers, a haven in a sea of charcoal. I marvelled at how the genetic code of each flower was slightly different, giving it a unique fragrance, and how mortals had synthesised the scents of various flowers for use in perfumes.

It made me wonder … wouldn’t it be something if I could somehow manipulate the scent my own body gave off, to make me smell like something I wasn’t? How cool would that be?

I twirled a freesia between my fingers, the petals near my nose, breathing in deeply the heady, almost intoxicating scent. I compared the fragrance to that of a violet. What were the different base, middle and top notes, if any, in each? What did the scents evoke — memories, emotions or both?

I thought of vampires, angels and myself — how our scents differed as well, just like flowers. Of course there were other immortal scents I could ponder on, yet the ones that came to mind were the ones I’d had the most contact with.

If I could somehow figure out what the genetic sequencing for those scents were, and reproduce them, wouldn’t it stand to reason that I could change my scent?

Okay, a scientist I wasn’t. Though I did have heightened senses and a better awareness of what was going on both within me, and outside, in the world around me. I could see, hear, taste and smell things that were previously hidden to me.

Taste and smell — they were the most interesting. Being so closely related could the key to replicating a scent be associated with the taste of whatever it was I wanted to replicate? Could it hold true for things that weren’t technically food, or considered palatable enough to be edible? Was it possible it was
that
simple?

I knew what angels’ blood tasted like and vampires’ as well, but what did
my
blood taste like? If I compared the taste of my blood to the taste of say, a vampire’s, could I isolate the difference and effect some chemical change — something on the molecular level — within my body?

No use contemplating it forever, Helena,
I thought to myself.
There’s only one way to find out.

I used a fingernail to nick my wrist and sucked on the few drops of blood that welled to the surface. It wasn’t sweet like honey, or as disgusting as Brussels sprouts. It tasted like ordinary blood to me, slightly metallic in flavour — not the worst thing I’d ever tasted.

I looked inward, to the vampire inside me, seeking out the genetic code that my body had absorbed when I unknowingly took the life of the vampire who’d changed me, though he sought to kill me.

I could see the differences — and there were quite a few — when compared against my overall genetic structure, which was different again to when I was mortal. In my mind I visualised the genetic sequences as codes, using letters and numbers to identify each individual sequence. I wasn’t quite sure
what
they were, or if the terminology was correct — I’d run away before starting my fourth year of high school, to escape the abuse, and had never studied biology. I didn’t even know what DNA stood for, but as long as
I
could identify the differences it was of little consequence. It’s not as if I was going to have my findings published in any scientific journal. More likely I’d
be
the subject in the journal, as a strange blend of beings — perhaps touted as the next phase of evolution — rather than what I’d discovered.
If you discover anything, Helena,
I thought.
It might be a great theory, but in practice there’s a big possibility it won’t work.