03 Reckoning - Guardian Read online

  As if hearing me grasp the reason behind his worries, he added, “Magdalene, just remember that tonight…you are surrounded by those who love you.”

  I yawned and straightened my arm across his belly in a stretch, trying to pass my actions off as calm and casual. The problem was he knew the truth.

  I actually felt very unsettled.

  That discomfort stayed with me until my lids closed and my breathing grew heavy and I was again back in the Hall of Records.

  Before my eyes were even opened, I missed Eran.

  He was my rock, my support in so many ways. As much as I thrived on my independence, I felt lost without him. The loneliness was overbearing and unforgiving, and there was only one thing I could do about it.

  Get up, I told myself.

  At the pace of dripping molasses, I sat up. Despite myself, I heard Gershom’s words in my mind, telling me where Abaddon had died last and that irritated me. My subconscious was actually propelling me towards something that was possibly very dangerous for me. Eran and Gershom had known it. Why didn’t my own mind? Of course, I knew the answer to that question. My mind put in to practice my motivations, and my motivations were to keep everyone else safe.

  Shoving aside that uneasy feeling I’d been battling, I stood and, using my appendages, lifted myself and fluttered to the ‘S’ section of the records.

  Not allowing myself to pause any longer, I found Abaddon’s scroll and unrolled it.

  What startled me first was that I had a difficult time finding Abaddon’s name. I searched it hurriedly at first and then had to go back over it a second time, contemplating whether Gershom had been wrong about the place of death.

  Then I discovered why I’d missed it.

  Unlike other lives who had visited earth multiple times, Abaddon had not. His time on earth was noted with two lines in the midst of many.

  Abaddon Rautenstrauch – Died Salzburg, Austria April 8, 1530

  Abaddon Rautenstrauch – Fallen Salzburg, Austria April 8, 1530

  I was thrown by this for two reasons. Typically I would see the word ‘Previously’ just prior to a list of preceding lives. On this scroll, under Abaddon’s name, there were none. But what shocked me more was the fact that he had fallen on the very same day of his return to the afterlife.

  This was not common. I had never seen or heard of any other soul being evicted from the afterlife immediately after their earthly death.

  Then it hit me deep enough that I couldn’t move a muscle. My wings froze in mid-flap, causing me to drop slightly until I overcame my shock.

  Abaddon had only come to earth once and during the course of that life he’d committed an act so atrocious it had thrust him from the afterlife to the discomfort and anguish of an unending lifetime on earth. And whatever that act had been, Eran had witnessed it.

  With even more hesitancy, I lifted my index finger and swiped it across the first line of Abaddon’s name, bracing myself for what was to come.

  I was actually surprised when it worked. As I had experienced before, a tunnel rose up and I was shot through it, leaving the peace and comfort in the Hall of Records.

  Everything changed then.

  Before I even recognized where I was, I noticed how I felt.

  Cold…

  Empty…

  Angry…

  I would have shivered against it if I’d had any control over this body I was now in.

  When I did focus in on my surroundings I realized that Abaddon was laying on his back, his short, stubby legs in the air. This seemed peculiar until I felt Abaddon open his mouth, draw in a breath, and scream.

  It was shrill and piercingly loud. Immediately, a woman entered the room, dressed in a colorless, unembroidered dress. She was frantic, shushing Abaddon as best she could. When she spoke it was in German but I could understand her clearly.

  “Hush, little one. Hush or your mother will come.”

  Just as she finished her request, the door opened again and another woman entered. She was older and wore an elaborate dress, detailed with an intricate design.

  She approached the bed where Abaddon lay and peered over.

  Her brow was creased with worry as she bent down and soothed Abaddon’s belly.

  At her touch, his arms flailed and his scream grew louder, rattling the bed frame.

  “Anya,” said the older woman over Abaddon’s screams. “What do I do?”

  Anya shook her head. “I-I don’t know…”

  “Could he be sick?” she asked, desperate.

  Anya shrugged. “I don’t see how he could be. He’s been this way since…birth.”

  The woman sighed in despair, her face drawing in and her eyes clenching closed in torment.

  As if waiting for the right moment, Abaddon drew in a breath again and screamed, this time from the depth of his lungs, and both women stepped back, frightened.

  Then I felt it, something that disturbed me beyond words.

  Abaddon was enjoying this anguish, a pleasure tickling from within him.

  He opened his mouth and released another curdling cry causing the older woman to reach for Anya’s hand in despair.

  As their tears began to fall Abaddon cried louder still, the tickle expanding inside him.

  Then I was yanked from Abaddon’s infant body and back through the tunnel.

  It was calm here, peaceful; but it was only a brief respite before I landed inside Abaddon again.

  Voices, angry ones, shouted around me suddenly. Staring straight ahead, through Abaddon’s eyes, I found him watching chaos unfold within a small group a short distance away. It was dark but those on the mob carried torches illuminating a platform with a rope dangling above it.

  Someone was being carried through the mass, a man whose arms were bound and unable to defend against the mob’s fists and kicks. He ducked as best he could but he’d ended up bloodied by the time he’d been hauled to the platform.

  As two men lifted him and another two placed him under the rope, a fifth man read a decree.

  Again, it was in German but I was able to translate without trouble. This man was about to be executed for engaging in a clandestine affair. Apparently, the affair was with the daughter of a noble, specifically a Hochadel who had the authority to impose a death sentence.

  Instinctually, my heart softened for this man.

  Love was this man’s crime? And he was to be killed for it? How did it come to this point?

  The decree never explained. Instead, as the sentencing came to an end, the crowd turned to face Abaddon.

  “Sir?” said the decree reader.

  Abaddon’s head turned then and I found a portly man standing next to him. His mouth twitched uncomfortably and his eyes were downcast as if he was deep in thought.

  I was absolutely certain that this man’s answer would either save the lover or condemn him to death and that he didn’t take the decision lightly.

  Abaddon, sensing the man’s hesitation, leaned towards him and whispered in his ear.

  “He soiled your daughter.”

  Four words. Those four words, drew that man’s head up and with undeniable conviction, he announced his answer.

  “Death.”

  Sickened, I realized what Abaddon had just done. He’d secured the lover’s fate.

  The victim, whose neck was now constrained by the rope around it, struggled hopelessly.

  “No…” I screamed inside Abaddon. “No!”

  Every part of my being wanted to rip through Abaddon and release this man. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair! When I couldn’t I tried to turn away but Abaddon’s eyes remained locked on the situation, unblinking as if he refused to miss a single detail, that tickle of excitement rising in his belly again.

  A trap door below the victim’s feet opened and his body dropped through, causing the crowd to draw silent with only the squeak of the rope filling the air.

  I was yanked again back to the tunnel and cast to Abaddon’s body again, later in life.

&n
bsp; A brawl was taking place inside a pub where Abaddon sat in the corner. As fists flew and tables were crushed, he idly drank a mug of something warm, fermented, and filling. It took just a second to realize what Abaddon was doing.

  He was enjoying a beer while watching a fistfight rage around him.

  Abaddon chuckled at times, engaged as if it were a source of entertainment. After a few minutes passed and the ruckus died down, I sensed him turning his head, evaluating the men sitting to his right and then to his left. Finally, he lifted his hand and snapped his fingers, gaining the attention of a burly boy no more than sixteen. With only his fingers, he motioned for the boy to join the fight. Following the order, he did and shortly after the fight picked back up to full chaos.

  At each juncture in the fight when it showed signs of dying down, Abaddon repeated this process, snapping his fingers at one of the men beside him and instructing him to fight, escalating the diminishing conflict back to anarchy.

  When there were no more men left, he stood, mug in hand, and strolled over the bodies to the bar. There, a barkeep and possibly the owner, cringe against the back wall.

  Abaddon rested one arm on the bar and used the other to gesture sweepingly across the room. His eyes followed and I could see the devastation.

  Tables and chairs were gone, just splinters of wood now. Glass and dented metal mugs scattered the bloodied wooden floor. Windows were now jagged pieces of broken glass, allowing in the frigid night air.

  “Next time,” said Abaddon in German, his voice controlled, subtle, “It won’t be just your business.”

  He then stepped across the bodies towards the door. Those who had been sitting beside him, the ones who had entered the fight at Abaddon’s command, were the clear winners. They’d crowded together in the middle of the room, surveying their results and counting the bodies until Abaddon was nearly to the door. But at the sound of Abaddon’s finger snap they seized their banter and quietly followed Abaddon out the door in a huddled mass.

  As the cold air hit Abaddon, I was pulled from his body and dropped back in at a later date to witness another atrocity. This time, Abaddon arranged an abduction. The next, a mutilation. One after another, I was shown parts of Abaddon’s life, standing as resistant onlooker to the crimes he endorsed and set in motion.

  There were three elements I noticed in each of them. First, never once did he commit the crime himself. He enjoyed being a spectator far too much to dirty his own hands. Second, with each act of violence, the tickle in his abdomen grew stronger, more persistent. Third, Abaddon had always been malevolent. It was a part of him as were his thoughts, his instincts, him motivations.

  What remained unseen were any clues as to where he might be hiding now, in the present.

  I was sickened and devastated by what I’d lived through in Abaddon’s body, feeling like a prisoner trapped in an ongoing nightmare, unable to help Abaddon’s victims and unable to restrain his actions. I was growing wearier with each passing experience when I came across the most devastating of all.

  It left me stunned, my emotions in shreds, incapacitated, desolate. I never thought it was possible to know so much horror and grief at once.

  When I was dropped in Abaddon’s body again I expected to bear witness to another anonymous victim. But this one…this time…it was someone I knew.

  Abaddon’s limbs swung back and forth, I realized, recognizing immediately that he was walking. Trees surrounded him and a river moved off to the left side. It was a place of tranquility, one would come to reflect. But he wasn’t alone. I learned this as he swiveled his head down and to his right where I found a girl, no more than seven, beside him. When she looked up, it caught me by surprise.

  Her Indian features were distinct and familiar to me, even at that age.

  It was Sarai, Abaddon’s daughter.

  I could see in her a way of cajoling that would carry over to her supernatural ability when she fell to earth and the intelligence burning behind her eyes.

  They walked for only a short while, hand in hand, until the sound of another’s voice could be heard, faintly at first and growing more distinct as they strolled towards it.

  It was speaking in German, giving a commemoration, it seemed.

  As Abaddon and Sarai came through the trees, I learned that I’d guessed correctly. A group had gathered around a mound of fresh dirt on a small overlook above the river below. At the head of the mound was a cross with a wreath abundant with flowers, blue and purple, hanging from the neck.

  The man at the gravesite finished and Abaddon and Sarai watched from a distance while the group slowly dispersed, leaving only the speaker and another man.

  With their backs to us their faces were obscured. Yet, the shape of one triggered something in me, and I nearly ran to him before remembering that I did not control the actions of the body I was in.

  His voice low, the speaker placed a comforting hand on the other man’s broad shoulder, and said, “She will stay with you in spirit now. You may not see her but she is here.”

  He then turned and followed the path of the others, leaving the despondent man alone at the graveside, unable to comfort him further.

  The sadness I felt in watching this scene was overwhelming and yet I felt nothing but apathy, a dark void, from Abaddon.

  Sarai made a movement to step forward but Abaddon’s hand came down and stopped her.

  Abaddon appeared to be waiting for something.

  Then, his head rotated to find the path the others had taken was now vacant. Only then did he drop his arm.

  By this point, however, the man in front of the grave had dropped to his knees, sobbing, crippled over in agony.

  While my sorrow for him deepened, again I felt only emptiness from Abaddon. Only when the man’s cloak slid to the ground did I sense a change in Abaddon.

  The man was naked from the waist up, shirtless despite the frosty afternoon air. As his shoulders shook uncontrollably, something began to sprout from between his shoulder blades.

  Instantly, I knew what they were but Abaddon, having never seen them before, was overcome with intrigue. His entire body seemed to come alive then, that sickening tickle in the bottom of his stomach rising up again. He was exhilarated, amazed, and he coveted what he saw.

  The man’s appendages unfolded and lay against his back’s natural contours. Stark white and nearly the size of the man himself, they were glorious, breathtaking.

  Several things happened at once then, so fast that I nearly lost track of them all.

  First, Sarai spoke and broke the silence around us. It wasn’t a statement so much as a demand. She lifted her small hand and pointed at the man. “Wings.”

  Her voice disrupted the despair of the man at the graveside and he rotated at his waist, looking behind him.

  Second and at the very same time, Abaddon’s hand came under the breast of his jacket where his fingers found a piece of cold metal. He tucked it underneath the sleeve of his arm, keeping it hidden from sight.

  Third, the speaker returned, coming up the path, his overcoat removed and folded over his shoulder. Without having to be told, I knew this man had returned to offer the additional warmth to the man on his knees.

  But none of this shocked me. What did was the face of the man in sorrow staring back at me.

  His hair was gray now and his skin was defined by wrinkles and my heart opened at the sight of him.

  “Eran,” I whispered from inside Abaddon’s body.

  Then, without warning, Abaddon’s hand slipped the metal piece from his sleeve, unfolded it, and launched it at the man who had returned.

  The metal landed squarely in the man’s chest, redness instantly spreading below the protruding metal piece. The man blinked but his eyes were empty, not staring at Abaddon but through him.

  Eran ran to the man, his wings withdrawing by the time he’d reached him. Kneeling beside him, he scanned the body as he’d done mine on so many occasions since this scene took place, surveying the injury
and the possibility of survival.

  There was none, the man’s last breath wheezing from him confirming it.

  Abaddon started across the frozen ground, passing the grave marker on the way. As if the scene unfolding wasn’t enough to unnerve me, I caught sight of the wooden cross as Abaddon passed it. While it meant nothing to Abaddon, at this point having never heard of the person they’d buried, it made me constrict.

  Chiseled in the wood was a single word:

  Magdalene

  This had been my grave. Eran had been grieving for me. And Abaddon had intended to hurt him in the midst of his sorrow.

  Rage swelled in me then and while I was cognizant of the fact I couldn’t move on my own volition, I hoped that somehow my emotions would transcend time and bring Abaddon to his knees.

  Despite my most unrelenting push for it, Abaddon continued his stroll to the side of the man he’d just killed, stopping to stare down at what he’d done.

  “He…He startled me,” Abaddon muttered. “It had been a reaction.”

  And it had been. Abaddon was just as shocked as the rest of us. He’d only wanted the wings, Eran’s wings, and he’d been distracted in that endeavor.

  But something moved in Abaddon then. A door had been opened. Whereas before, Abaddon had assisted in the killings, watching from afar, this time he participated, and the reaction I felt in his body, the exhilaration that ran through him, told me that he enjoyed it.

  Abaddon bent down and took hold of the knife still protruding from the man’s chest, pulling it out.

  Then he spoke again, words that didn’t make sense at first, not until his actions followed.

  “But now that I’ve done it…” he muttered.

  Still holding the knife, he stood up, moving his wrist so that the blade was elongated. Using his upward motion, Abaddon’s arm moved under Eran’s neck and slid across it, making certain the knife connected with the skin as he pulled it towards him.

  I knew what had happened though I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. My mind would not process the understanding of it. I refused to believe it.