|
|
|
NOTE:
Property of Heart Slayer Industries (TM)
And property of the author (Me) Caitlin Price
Try to steal this writing and you will suffer consequences matched only by the forces of hell.
Have a nice day.
Chapter One:
Beginnings
Requiem tried, for what seemed like the umpteenth time, to restrain herself from killing the man in front of her. She needed him alive and undamaged. She was one of the angels of death. She would not kill the dumbass sitting in front of her. No matter how much she wanted to kill him, she needed him alive for questioning.
She was well aware of how her easy and comfortable blue jeans and rumpled black tank top contrasted sharply with the man's suit and tie. She was also aware of the man's gaze on the 'Kiss of Death' logo at the top of the shirt; though Requiem had the feeling that it probably wasn't the words he was staring at.
The man droned on and on for what seemed like hours, while she sat in front of his desk about insurance policies and such. At which point Requiem had to stifle the urge to jump up and strangle him, just to shut him up, because his voice grated along her skin like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Requiem drew in a deep breath to calm herself. She closed her eyes for a moment to control the anger and irritation threatening to break free. Her control was almost perfect, excluding the fact that she could not control her emotions, how she acted on them sometimes. At least she could fool others with the calm and cool mask that she wore when she was around others. Because she could fool almost everyone, but her temper and anger was so easily flared, she was usually called on to do her job of death angel for the cases of serial killers, rapists, and other vile and nasty things. In addition, killing those types of people made Requiem happy.
Currently, Requiem had a particularly nasty target. He was the worst kind of target to deal with and Requiem hated the people like him with a passion matched only by her blood lust. This man was put into the category of 'other vile and nasty things'. He was a used car sales man.
Finally, after maybe an hour of sitting and listening to him drone on and on about things that had no importance; he took her out into the lot where the cars actually were. Requiem felt a bit of hope for herself when he did this, until she saw that he was not taking her to what she actually wanted.
She hated used car salesmen in general, but this guy had them all beat. Requiem, who was now at age eighteen, needed a car to get around so she could get to her targets with a bit more ease than the bus stops. The salesman was determined to make her try a car that would use one hell of a lot of gas, which was also the last thing she wanted.
In the end Requiem looked at the guy with a flat-eyed stare and said in a pleasant contralto hum,” Listen, I do not want that giant tanker at all. I want the small car that gets fifty miles to the gallon. I do not want the big car, I want the little car that has two doors and enough room for me and my dogs to travel in. Either you show me what I want, or I swear to all the gods above I will leave this place, never come back and write to the Better Business Bureau about your little operation going on here. Do I make myself clear?"
The man looked taken aback and then he coughed politely,“ I’m sure you'll see my reasons for choosing the luxury SUV, in fact we offer a whole line of them at zero percent APR..."
Requiem looked at him for a moment, then she said,” That’s it. Goodbye."
She stormed out of the parking lot, through the adjacent building and into the guest parking lot in a hot and heavy flare of anger. Requiem slammed out of the building amid the stares of other people and employees. She snarled her way to the car, unlocked it, yanked the car door open, and flung herself inside the black sedan. She threw her purse in the seat beside her and gently shut the door. She belted her seatbelt put the keys in the ignition and rested her head on the steering wheel.
She had run out of useful emotions and the sudden drain startled her. She took in a few deep breaths and let her mind let go of the anger that was making her vision into a red haze. Whoa. Breathe, girl, Requiem thought to herself. She looked to the passenger seat, unsurprised that her unseen mentor now occupied it.
The man who mentored her now was neither living, undead, dead, nor even a spirit. He came originally from the depths from her imagination, given form when her magick had gotten out of control one night in a fit of rage when she was fifteen. She had known what he was the second she'd looked at him. He'd had to be the incubus that her mind had created.
When he emerged from the raging whirlwind that had put her neighborhood in shreds, Requiem shivered, knowing that she'd obviously lost control, though the destruction around her was clear enough indication of that. She had stared up at the man for quite some time, waiting for the damning words to pour out of his mouth, waiting for the punishment that she'd inevitably beg for him to inflict upon her frail body.
Requiem could be quite violent, indeed yes, she could be, but that never meant that she did not hate herself for the harm she spread when she did lose control. Her mentor had known this, and he'd seen a lonely, lost teenager who had lost the choke-hold leash she mainly had on her temper and emotions after fifteen years of torment from her peers and father. She tried, Gods above, how she had tried to never let it show, for usually when Requiem's father got defiance from her, her mother suffered for it, and Requiem knew it. She had finally decided she had had enough of him, of his cruelty and abusive habits, of his sadistic attitude.
Requiem shook herself and smiled at her friend. Now was not the time for trips down memory lane,” I know, I know, you do not have to tell me; I lost my temper. Though considering how bad it usually gets, I'd say I've done fairly well."
He smiled and shook his head mournfully,” Aye, I know. Still, it is the principle of control and patience we are trying to learn. It is the whole reason we are doing used cars in the first place, lass. You know that." He had a lilting Irish brogue that made her have to listen more closely to what he was saying, though it was not a very thick accent he had.
Requiem chuckled,” It is part of the reason”, she corrected meticulously," The other reason is that I don't have enough cash to get a new car, remember?" Then Requiem sighed and rested her head back down on the steering wheel of her mother's car,” I try, Ara, I really do. I try and try and I don't seem to get anywhere except scrape the leash on my temper more."
Ara sighed and gently placed a fatherly hand on Requiem's shoulder. At eighteen, she was so young and so troubled, and so very lovely, just as she'd been three years ago. During those years, Ara had seen her blossom into a lovely and intelligent woman. However, Ara also remembered the terrible price of the release of his own demonic-type intelligence that the gods had trapped in the mind of a girl that was barely able to speak at the tender age of eighteen months.
Ara remembered seeing everything that had brought him out of the mind that had captivated him for so very long, through the eyes of an angry, frightened, and powerful fifteen year old. And Requiem felt pulled back to her memories, unaware that she projected them to Ara, as if she was aware of Ara's turn of thoughts...the blessing to her being that she didn't remember the truly painful parts.
Requiem was quite aware of Ara, but in her weariness, she didn't control her ability to 'share' memories, didn't think she was projecting it, and so she just had to go with the flow of memory.
********************************************************************************
Requiem remembered very clearly her father's look of disbelief when she said that if he ever placed his hands on her or her mother in anyway again, she would kill him. He had laughed at her, and told her there was nothing she could do to stop him. He’d reached for her mother's throat and slowly began to squeeze it, and smiled at her with mockery and triumph.
Requiem remembered feeling the rage build up inside of her as she watched her mother slowly beginning to die. She never understood what exactly she'd done to call the vicious whirlwind of flame that had burst from her and shot directly at the man who'd sired her, she knew that he'd managed to put it out after he dropped her mother. She did remember quite clearly how she looked at him with so much hatred and anger that she literally tore him apart with a power so strong that the only things left of him was a small smattering of ash that littered the kitchen floor.
Then all Requiem had felt was icy rage in herself. She didn't quite remember what she had done to her neighborhood, but she remembered with perfect clarity the damage she'd done. Everything that drew breath or had roots in the ground was left intact. But the homes and yards and property of each and every person within a six-mile radius were torn apart. Scattered everywhere, shards of glass and metal lay around her.
She'd looked around at the destruction with a cool satisfaction, before she realized what she had done. That's when out of the mist came the man from her imagination, the incubus that had kept her sane for so long, in a solid flesh form, though only she and her mother could see him, or hear him, or even touch him.
He'd looked at her for a moment then he'd said in his impossibly deep voice,“ Well, now, little witch, I'm thinking it'd be best if you were trained in the use of your powers now. The big man up top needs another Angel and I think I've found one for him."
Requiem cherished the feeling of belonging he gave her, the sense of control she felt as he taught her more and more each day after she and her mother had moved. It had taken her awhile to understand that she would be one of the living agents for the gods. She also learned that the entity man so reverently called God was really a collection of hundreds of gods functioning in a manner of pure cooperation.
It took two years for Requiem to learn Ara's name. Learning his name didn't help much, but it allowed her some security and some knowledge of the incubus that taught her how to use the energies that seemed to flock and swirl around her more and more with each passing year. She had the rare gift of being able to call to the elements and energies directly, which it seemed, only angels of death could do.
Requiem had never been more grateful for her mentor and friend in her life, when she finally met the gods that tried to control her life. Defiance never seemed to work out well, but she would be damned before she'd let them push her around!
They were arrogant, as Requiem learned she had been at first, but please, the gods had been well into their power before they even thought of creating the earth, and they were definitely not young. However, that did not matter, she worked for them, in return for certain privileges that other demons or angels were not granted.
Nevertheless, that also meant she had to see the Gods' Council once a month. She had been far too busy to see them yet and she only had one day to see them before the end of the month. She took a deep breath pushed herself back against the seat to start the engine and head home. Tonight, she was going to see the Council, and she would never be the same, for when she entered adulthood, she would become wholly theirs.
----------------------------------------------
 crypticxguide · Thu Nov 16, 2006 @ 02:23am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
