Angel's Messiah (33 page)

I wiped away the blood so I could see my handiwork. Not too bad considering I wasn’t known for my penmanship. I was very pleased that I still wasn’t interested in having a bit of a taste, especially with all the blood here to tempt me. As I’d told Danny, I didn’t want to taint my body with the blood of scum like this.

“I’m getting bored, Luther,” I sighed. “Just give me Dallas’ last name and I’ll be off.”

“Can’t do that,” Luther said, shaking his head. “Gotta protect my own.”

“Dallas must be pretty important if you don’t want me to find him. Is he
the man?
” I asked.

Luther pressed his lips together again.

“Fine, have it your way.”

I slammed the heel of my palm on his forehead and pressed on his chest with my other hand. I didn’t want his memories, only the name. I dove in head first to find it. Luther screamed. His body started bucking underneath me as I tore through his brain, leaving a trail of pain in my wake.

Ringewald.

Luther was still screaming when I pulled my hands away. He saw Dallas Ringewald as a decent and virtuous white man — a woman-hating, god-fearing homophobe who believed in Christ, and the second coming of the Son of God. I couldn’t quite equate woman-hating with a homophobe though. Was he a eunuch or still a virgin? Either you
liked
women or you
liked
men. You could like both, but I had never come across anyone who
hated
both.

I drove Death into Luther’s heart and twisted the blade. The screaming stopped and all was peaceful once again. Death didn’t sing to me. She remained quiet, as though she didn’t care either way. Maybe the blade hadn’t made up its mind yet if they had to die.

I wiped Death on the towel, cleaned up and readied myself for the next name on the list. I would continue on with my original list from Harley and save the best for last. I wanted to savour the moment when I had the ringleader all to myself — this supposedly
decent
white man.

I laughed out loud. The cold, empty sound echoed around the room. There were now five less people in the world to hurt those whose only
crime
was their gender, sexuality or the colour of their skin. I was helping to make the world a safer place and it felt good.

Take me to the next one on the list.

A family of four was sitting down to dinner. The father was saying grace. The wife fussed about him, and their two boys, and they treated her like dirt. I wanted to tell her to leave the arseholes, that there was a better life out there for her, yet I didn’t. Some women are born to dominate, and some to be dominated. She fell into the latter category.

I waited and watched, biding my time until
Daddy
was alone, sitting on the toilet reading the paper. I blinked to appear before him.

“I only want names,” I hissed, and pulled everything I needed from him.

He didn’t cry out. With each attempt I was getting better at keeping the pain in their head.
Daddy
screamed all right, but only the two of us could hear it, in his head.

He had nothing new for me at all and I found I was disappointed. The killer in me was enjoying herself. The violence acted as a form of therapy for all the years of abuse I’d endured, mostly at the hands of men. I felt empowered by it, yet frightened at the same time. What if I couldn’t stop when I killed the last of them? What then?

You’re not like them, Helena.

When I was finished I gave a short, sharp punch to his chest, rupturing his heart. His family would find him dead, with his pants down around his ankles. I thought it was a fitting way for
Daddy
to die.

Take me to the next one on the list.

This one was hunting deer. I blinked and scared all the deer from the area, then made enough noise to lure he-man in my general direction. I was no longer in the mood for showing off. I wanted to cut to the chase and move up that list of names as quickly as possible.

When he-man was less than two hundred metres away I ran as swiftly as I could in his direction. I pulled up short in front of him and knocked the shotgun from his hand, before grabbing him by the throat and lifting him clear off the ground.

Do not embrace him, hand. I forbid it.

“You’re going to die, as swiftly as the deer you sought to kill, but first I need some names.”

I pushed him up against a tree and took from him what I wanted. I was rewarded with twenty-seven new names. I summoned his shotgun and used his own weapon to kill him. I left before his body even touched the ground.

After six days of tracking down one hundred and fifty-eight people, the list continued to grow. I now had another three hundred and ninety-two names. I was tired though, and needed some rest. I blinked and appeared in the penthouse suite at the La’miere. I lay on the bed and slept for six hours. There were no dreams or nightmares, only a deep and restful sleep.

I showered and cleaned up after myself. The housekeeping staff would never know anyone had been here. Then I headed out once again.

Day thirty saw me hungry, tired and emotionally drained. I fed, but derived no pleasure from it, and returned to Eden, to briefly spend some time with Danny.

“I don’t want you to go back,” Danny said, taking my hands in his. “Stay with me.”

“I have to finish what I’ve started. When it’s done I’ll come back to you, I promise.”

“How long will you stay?” he asked.

“A day or so. When the urge to leave takes hold, I’ll go.”

I stroked his face. He looked happy, yet unhappy.

“I’ve
missed
you,” I said softy, and realised beyond doubt that I had.

I gently pulled Danny in the direction I wanted to go. He followed willingly, and for a time we lost ourselves, forgetting about the outside world.

I kissed Danny’s shoulder blade and wrapped my arms around his chest.

“I love you,” I said.

“But you have to go.”

“Yes. I need to do this.”

Danny sighed and twisted in my arms so he could face me. He kissed my forehead.

“I love you, Helena Malakh. Don’t ever forget that. Use our love as a beacon in dark times, to find your way back to the light … and me.”

I slipped out of the bed and left without looking back. Goodbyes were hard and I hoped the next time there would be no need for a goodbye. I wanted to return to Danny as I’d promised, so we could pull our lives together again and move on. We’d never forget, though perhaps we’d achieve some sort of inner peace. Something that allowed us to focus on the time we’d had with Gina, rather than the lack of time.

Ripping memories from minds as quickly as a predator tears its prey apart — leaving behind pain to replace what I’d taken — became a game for me. I worked faster and harder, pushing myself beyond boundaries that would have hampered me in what now seemed the distant past. I killed them swiftly, and derived great pleasure from it, which helped to ease my pain, albeit temporarily. The thrill of hearing and feeling the final moment a heart stopped beating was amazing, an almost spiritual experience. It was the reward for all my efforts. The quicker I killed them, the more I could kill in a single day, savouring that final moment like a junkie getting a hit. It washed over me and through me. I was drunk and giddy from it. To know that I was alive, after all that had happened to me, and that they were dead … it made me feel somewhat superior to them. I wanted to scream out
told you so
, to each and every one of them, just before they died, rubbing it in.

After having killed two thousand six hundred and forty
believers
, averaging around forty-four a day, it was time to finally meet Dallas Ringewald. I couldn’t wait. It would all be over soon and I’d be able to return to Eden … to Danny.

Take me to Dallas Ringewald.

I was in an office block, quite high up, and looking out of a wall of glass over a large city, bustling with people and cars. The sun had just set and the twilight sky was a dull grey, polluted as it was with smog. It was fitting, I thought, that the world should be so grey on the final day of the task I had set out to accomplish, on the day the last of the
believers
known to me would die.

I looked around the room. There was no one here. I wondered if somehow I’d managed to come to the right place at the wrong time. Maybe I’d just missed him.

I heard the sound of running water and realised Dallas must have headed off to the bathroom as I’d left my previous destination to come here. There were law books on the very expensive-looking, and richly-coloured, solid mahogany antique desk. The floor-to-ceiling bookcase on the wall to the right of the desk housed even more books, though I paid little attention to them. I’d noticed a photo on the desk of a man with two boys … twins. There was no photo of a wife or significant other.

Dallas came out of the bathroom, took off his tie and threw it on a leather wingback chair that sat in one corner of his office. He undid the top button of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves as he walked back to his desk. He presented very well — clean-shaven, hair just starting to grey, a pleasant face to look at, and lean, but not wiry. There was a wedding band on his left hand and I wondered why a supposed woman-hater would wear one. For appearances perhaps? He seemed familiar, though I couldn’t place where I’d seen him. With so many memories in my head — mine, Danny’s and those I’d ripped from others — it was hard to track down the right one. Had I seen him on the television? If he was a hotshot lawyer, maybe, or was it because some of the
believers
had actually met him that he seemed familiar to me.

He was looking right at me, or through me, I should say, and what he said shocked me.

“I know you’re here. Why don’t you show yourself?”

I sat sideways on the edge of the desk and blinked.

“I was wondering how long it would take before you came for me,” he said.

“How did you know I was there?” I asked.

“I have a gift. I can sense the presence of others, even if I can’t see them.” His eyes locked on my face for few moments before wandering over my body. “But you, I
know
you.”

I sat up straighter. Was it one of my own memories I sought then?

“I know
every
inch of you,” he sneered.

Client. But the name doesn’t ring true. So who was he, when I knew him? Look for the face, find the face.

“You’re trying to remember, aren’t you,” he laughed as he sat down in the chair behind his desk. “Here’s a hint — how many of your clients tried to throttle you, just to get off on it?”

Eight had tried to throttle me, only two for sexual gratification, and of the two, one had beaten me afterwards. He went by the name of Dean Richards. I looked at Dallas again. He was bit older, had lost a few kilos and looked much more respectable, but it was him.

“It all started with you, Helena. Maybe if you hadn’t let me — I know I paid you well — maybe if you’d fought back, we might not be here today.”

Was he saying that ultimately Gina’s death was my own fault? That would be too much for me to bear. I looked into his eyes and couldn’t see any hint of deception.

“Because of
you
I became hungry for women I could control. Because of
you
my wife eventually left me for another man. Because of
you
I raped and killed her, and pinned the blame on the new man in her life. Because of
you
I can’t have a normal relationship with a woman. All it took was that one time.”

I was too stunned to speak. I’d learned early on that to fight back only served to hurt you more in the long run. It was easier to do what you were told and live, than fight and possibly die. Had I been wrong all those years? Would it have been better if I’d fought back, even if it meant I would have died? Of course, I eventually fought back, in my own way, to save a young girl from abuse. I hadn’t thought about the preacher in years, and smiled at the memory of supergluing some of his body parts together. It must have been humiliating for him to have been found like that.

“I don’t know why you’re smiling,” Dallas said. He stood up, walked around the desk and turned me to face him. He pushed my legs apart so he could stand between them. His hands sought my throat and slowly they began to squeeze.

“All it took was this,” he said, squeezing tighter, “and still you don’t struggle.”

He backed up, his hands still around my throat and pulled me off the desk, manoeuvring me until I was pressed up against the wall of glass. He let one hand drop and unzipped the catsuit down to my waist. He slipped his hand over my right breast. All I could think about was that everything was all my fault.

“Your body and my hands,” he said, squeezing hard with both hands now, “but from it I’m making the world a better place, free from all the things that are wrong with it.”

Making the world a better place, that’s what Gina wanted to do. Gina, my baby, all my fault.