Realm of the Malach

Chapter 6: The Hands That Deal Our Fate

Aurora had no recollection of falling asleep. She awakened to the jerky rocking over rough road. Elise's head hung in deep slumber, bobbing from side to side as they drove on rutted potholes hardened after the rains. She lingered over the sight of her daughter, Elise looked so much like Riccard. Aurora felt the painful burn of emotion rise in her throat, her face warm with the welling tears. She promised Elise a boat ride on Lake Wylie, before the boats were landed and the docks closed for the winter. Afterward, they were to eat at their favorite Indian place in Matthews where the owner especially cooked a mildly spiced fish curry for Elise and served a bottomless plate of aloo paratha. Aurora loved that Ms. Vandana fed Elise from her hands the way she did her own grandchildren. She found solace in the doting they received as soon as they walked into the wafting smells of coriander, cumin, cardamom and milky coconut. Ms. V always embraced them heartily, wrapping them both in the convolutions of an elaborately sequined sari, as though the matriarch sensed their need for belonging, the need for ... Family. Aurora balked at the thought with a tightness in her throat. She bit her tongue, willing the tears and sadness away focusing instead on the scene outside her window. Dawn was breaking and silver lined orange clouds billowed against an indigo horizon. It was a stunning contrast to this town that was as desolate as she felt. Jostling their way up the isolated road, they passed white clapboard houses in varying states of disrepair. In between them on either side was flat arid land in fallow and thin pine forest. They passed a rundown gasoline station with a single pump precariously anchored to the ground. The unpainted plywood doors of the shop were padlocked together and cracks protruded on the cement foundation that jutted out from beneath the wooden frame. A dust covered Pepsi vending machine stood outside, off-kilter like a sentinel long outlived its purpose. She thought towns like these were extirpated by modernization long ago. But here, time seems to have stood still. Where were they?

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Kailash drove as fast as he could, being mindful of the child that slept peacefully behind him. Seeing Tena set himself upon the child that fateful night had confused the veteran mercenary. For the first time, Kailash felt fear. Not for himself, but for the child. Standing over Tena's remains, face-to-face with the mother and child, the fear paralyzed him. He should have completed his task. It was simple enough to do with both of them powerless and vulnerable. But he could not bring himself to do it. Only once before did this foreboding beset him. It was his first kill.

Kailash was but a novice and so young. Up until then, the Master Lucifer had been priming him, grooming him until he was sufficiently obsessed with the nephilim, the otherkin whose very existence was an insult to God of the filthiest, lowliest kind. Kailash stood by the Master's side, surveying the beast. It was a test, he knew. Yet, seeing the helpless creature in its mother's arms cast a doubt deep in the pit of his stomach. The Master Lucifer sensed his dread.

"What do you see, Kailash?" the Master asked quietly. Kailash replied, uncertain.

"A mother and her child," he said, steadying the trembling words from his lips.

"Look again," Lucifer said with thinning patience. The young mercenary strained, failing to see anything changed. Lucifer sighed and bowed his head in disappointment. It was then that Kailash understood. There was no room for pity if he was to fulfill his God-given purpose. What he needed to see was the demon hiding, incubating in the infant that suckled at his mother's breast. Without a word, Kailash advanced and set upon the mother and child. The woman screamed as she fell to the ground. She begged Kailash for mercy, clutching her child to her bosom. He hesitated, confused and dissonant in the grinding of the mother's wailing pleas. Her life ended with a breathless moan as a sharp-nailed claw ripped through her back. From beneath the lifeless body crawled the mass of skin and bone, heaving breaths full of air into its puny, skeletal body. Kailash stood in awe, at once repulsed and fascinated. The beast raised a fetal head where wet orbs as dark as the deepest ocean on a moonless night stared at him. Mesmerized, Kailash could not strike and the beast lunged at him from below, tearing the skin over his heart. It was the last and only time Kailash felt any emotion stir within him in any real way. The infantile beast nearly took him to the grave had the Master Lucifer not intervened. It was a painful reminder of his fallibility, his failing as the Master's charge. He was cruel in the beginning. All his anger, his fear, his loss and sadness converged into a torrent of madness and rage until the fire in him all but died and only ashes remained in his heart. There was in him neither good nor bad, only nothingness, a void he then tried to fill with being merciful. He became the Master's Duma, Lucifer's killer and mercy was the only redemption for his befouled soul. And now there was Elise.