HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (14 page)

Once on the street,
Nisroc fell into the pattern he had put to such good use on landing
in the New World. He found an outdoor store bench where Angelique
could sit, where she could tell people, if they inquired, that her
Papa was inside shopping. Then Nisroc went in search of prey.

Stalking the people
of this backwater town wasn’t easy, for they seemed to be an
alert, superstitious bunch, but the problems weren’t
insurmountable. Within two hours Nisroc had stalked, choked to a
faint, and robbed four pedestrians. The coin sack he carried bulged
with coin, which he brought back to show Angelique.

She was pleased, but
only showed it with a little smile. He had done his job, that was
all.

That night they
stayed in a hotel full of cowpokes, trappers, sailors, and
dockworkers. Later in the night, Nisroc, who required so little
sleep or rest, stalked the midnight city and relieved more patrons of
their riches they carried on their persons—most of it by slight
of hand. By morning, they were able to secure a better room in a
cleaner, more upscale hotel. It was all uphill from there.

The years sped past,
with both fallen angels perfecting both their relationship and their
place in society. Angelique met with Haitians, as they reminded her
of her old homeland, and adopted their religion, especially the
rituals surrounding voodoo. With her own innate powers, she was able
to mystify and frighten her little group into submission. They all
followed her. Anyone too afraid ran away, leaving the city and the
demon girl behind.

Within a hundred
years, voodoo went underground, sent there by traditional religions.
Within another hundred years, it became a tourist attraction sporting
shops full of gimcracks and factory-made plastic skeletons. But all
the while Angelique took advantage of her group, pooled their
resources, and with Nisroc as the named owner, became the largest
holder of businesses in all of the now burgeoning city. They owned
not just the tourist shops, but hotels, warehouses, ships, and an
ever widening interest in oil interests in and around the area.

They were not only
rich; they were super rich. Nisroc kept all their holdings under
surveillance and in order. He proved to have a natural businessman’s
temperament and an intelligence far surpassing any of his
competitors. It didn't hurt that he was a beautiful creature with a
charming way about him. Many men were fed a scheme as if fed a sunny
warm cream and only later found it curdled.

Soon they had homes
and villas in Nantucket, in New York City, in Chicago, and overseas
in several European countries. All of it was on paper for neither of
them traveled far from the city they'd adopted.

But Angelique soon
tired of acquisitions and money.

“
What else do
you want?” Nisroc asked.

“
I want to
bring the rest of them down.”

Nisroc’s face
showed surprise. “But I thought you only needed me. Why do we
need the others?”

“
To finish
what we started.”

He glanced away from
the child. “You mean…the rebellion.”

“
Yes. It
isn’t finished. We all need to be in human form again so He
knows we are the favorites, not these pitiful bodies we occupy.”

Nisroc loved the
body. It could feel. He even liked an occasional pain; it made him
know he was truly alive. He almost understood God’s love for
mankind, his greatest creation. Yes, it still hurt that the angels
were set below man, but he almost…almost understand why.

He did not really
want to go to war with God again. They had lost heaven before. If
they lost earth,too…

“
We won’t,”
Angelique said.

She had read his
mind. “And if we do?”

“
Then we will
be back in the void separated, same as before.”

“
If we lose
again, there may not even be that left for us.”

“
Shut up,
Nisroc.” She turned her back on him.

He left the room
quietly. How many of the other fallen angels would she bring to
earth? All of them? It could take a lifetime, finding a proper body
for everyone.

But he knew
Angelique. If she said she could do something he might as well
consider it done. Just the very thought of her ambitious plan made
him cringe. He shook himself and hurried to another part of the
house. He halted. He'd go to the kitchen and make himself a sandwich
with a big slab of roast beef the cook had prepared. He'd eat until
his belly swelled and hurt him, that is what he would do...

Nisroc paused in the
long hall outside the library door where he’d left Angelique.
He listened, stilling his heart, slowing his breath. He listened for
a protest from heaven. When he didn’t hear it, as he expected
he wouldn’t, he walked slowly to the kitchen, but once there
his appetite had fled. Instead, he wanted out of the house and away
from Angelique and her madness. He left quietly by the front door,
his chin to chest and gaze lowered to the earth. For the first time
in thousands of years he felt the first blush of fear.

CHAPTER 16

THE GROWTH OF A
CONSCIENCE-EARLY 1900s

Nisroc spent
hours each day riding the the new electric streetcars that had
changed the way he got around Charlotte.

Not only did these
rides take him to the offices of

their various
businesses, but it just felt good to Nisroc to ride while someone
else drove him. Angelique said he could have his own car and driver,
but he liked the anonymity of the streetcar better. He spent as much
time studying passengers as he did viewing the passing views of the
city.

In June of 1911, he
was on the line that went out to the suburbs when a female passenger
seemed to lose her mind. She sat across the aisle from him, a
package tied with string in her hand. Suddenly she threw the package
onto the floor between them, stood and began to sway and keen, an
eerie sound that caused the hairs on the back of Nisroc’s neck
to rise.

Nisroc rarely
intervened in the affairs of humans, but something about the deeply
sad sound coming from the swaying passenger triggered an urge within
him. He stood with her, bending to retrieve the package, taking her
arm. She looked up at him and he saw her eyes were dark and haunted.
She said softly, “Take me home.”

“
All right.”

He helped her to a
seat and sat next to her. He kept the package in his lap. Other
passengers were craning their necks to look at the odd woman, but his
disapproving frown caused them to turn around.

“
Where do you
live?” he asked.

She seemed not to
have heard him. She stared ahead of her silently.

He sat and waited,
watching as passenger after passenger stepped off the streetcar at
regulated stops. Finally, at the end of the line, the woman stood.
He followed her to the exit steps and down into the street. It was
late afternoon. Magnolia and gardenia blooms scented the air from
trees and bushes along the sidewalk. A soft breeze ruffled Nisroc’s
long blond hair. He looked at the woman, who now stood still,
wondering what he was doing.

She turned abruptly,
as if just now remembering where she was, and strode away. Nisroc
followed, swinging the package by the twine wrapped around it. Now
he was intrigued. The woman was obviously mad. He just wanted to
see what she would do.

After two blocks,
the woman turned into a small courtyard and crossed to a recessed
door. It was not locked. She entered, ignoring her companion.
Nisroc followed, and was about to ask what she wanted done with the
package when the two of them moved from a shadowed hallway into an
open shadowy room. Nisroc paused on the threshold, frozen by what he
saw.

A thin line of
afternoon light cut across the room from between heavy, velvet
curtains. The weak light fell across a man’s battered body
lying on the carpet of what appeared to be a parlour room. Beside
him lay a bloodied, ornate iron poker from the cold fireplace.

“
I killed
him,” the woman said. “He beat me all the time. So I
killed him.”

Nisroc had seen
murder, had committed murder, and had been murdered as Caesar. Yet
this scene struck a resounding chord that resonated throughout his
being. It not only reminded him of one of his own earthly deaths,
thus thrusting him back into the long, dead silence of the void, but
this death seemed to summarize the great difference between man and
angel.

A quarrel had
created this death, a rising resentment against mistreatment. A
product of revenge—that was this man’s reason for losing
his life—and of course it was as good as any other.

“
I can’t
judge you,” he said. “I don’t think I can help
you, either.”

“
You can hand
me the package.” She reached out to take it from him.

He stood as she
unwrapped the package, talking as she did so.

“
I need to
thank you for your help. If you hadn’t taken my arm on the
streetcar, I think I would have jumped off it and rolled beneath the
wheels. I’ve damned myself in this life and the hereafter.
And I don’t…I don’t care.”

She had the package
open and withdrew a beautiful cloth that shimmered in the low light.
“A shroud,” she explained, standing to drape it over the
corpse. “I had to go into the city to get him a shroud. I had
nothing here large enough.”

She stooped to roll
and tuck the body inside the cloth. When she stood again, she faced
him.

“
Now you can
take him away.”

Nisroc did not move.
“Take him away?”

“
From here.
Take him away and hide him so he will never be found. I can say he
left me, he left this house, this city, and he won’t be back.
It happens to women all the time. Men go west, looking for gold,
looking for a better life, and never return.”

The next moments
would determine the course of events, Nisroc knew that. If he did as
he was bidden, he would be connected to this woman for whatever came
next. If he turned his back on this scene and walked away he could
go back to his life as Angelique’s partner.

The woman came close
to him. “I am not beautiful,” she said.

He shook his head to
deny her words for she was indeed a beautiful woman. Her hair, the
color of midnight, was piled high on her head. Her skin was milk and
her eyes were dead pools of darkness. Her lips were naturally red
and full. Her body, though not young, was ripe and she had an hour
glass shape beneath the long sweeping dress.

“
No, I am not
beautiful, but I am loyal. For help with this,” she gestured
to the wrapped body. “I can be your friend…or whatever
you want me to be. As long as a hand is not raised to me, I might
even become sane again, though I can’t promise that.”

Had she smiled, he
might have left immediately, but he briefly read her thoughts and
found them entirely open and true. So he put his hands on her
shoulders, moved her aside gently, and scooped the dead man into his
arms. He had not had a woman since he had come back into the world.
He suppressed those urges knowing it was the body that ached and he
was more than body. When he spied a woman and fell for her looks, he
always turned away and made his mind blank. Trafficking with a woman
in that way could be full of trouble and of woe. He had learned that
during his last incarnation.

He could have
anything he wanted, anything his appetite hungered for, but did he
really want this?

“
I’ll be
back,” he said, again not thoroughly understanding why he was
getting himself involved.

“
And I’ll
be waiting,” she said as he disappeared into the hall and out
the door.

Angelique did not
worry about Nisroc’s disappearances. She knew he had a lot of
work to do on their joint financial concerns. She also knew he was a
grown man, living in an adult human body, suffused and overcome by
all the human passions. She didn't know if he went with women, but
she knew it was natural and no cause for alarm or jealousy if he did.

Yet lately she
missed Nisroc more often, noticed his absences more keenly, and
suspected he had fallen into the clutches of a female human unlike
any he had fraternized with before. She could read his mind and
discover how serious the relationship might be, but he always knew
when she intruded into his thoughts and he despised it. To keep
everything on an even keel she rarely took advantage of him that way.