Dark Angel (Anak Trilogy) (18 page)

That faraway, sad look that I was becoming accustomed to came back to Zell’s eyes.

“I thought King Arthur was only a legend,” I said quietly patting Zell’s hand that lay on the table.

“
Most legends are based in truth.  King Arthur was very real, an incomparable warrior. It is said that in one battle, he killed hundreds of the barbaric Saxons with his own hand.” Zell laughed. ”Actually, it took both our hands that day.”

“You fought with King Arthur?” I asked in awe.

“Aye, at his side,” Zell answered quietly. I have fought alongside good men against evil throughout history. I could have killed Hitler once. We were standing face to face. I have made it my duty to assist though, so I led others to him. They cut him off from his troops, and that is when he committed suicide.”

“Why did you not kill him when you had the chance?”

”King Herod, Mordred, Vlad III the Impaler, you know him as Count Dracula, Stalin, Ivan the Terrible, Hitler, and countless other evil rulers, I have encountered them all. Was it to be my face and name to show up throughout history as the avenger which killed all these monsters?  That would have been a little suspicious, don’t you think?  I don’t think I could have escaped notoriety. I would have become a superhero type, and that is not my mission.  My mission is you.”

“I can see your point
, and yet I feel kind of guilty for some reason.  Is it painful to remember all the people you have known, loved, and had to watch die?”

“More than you can know. There have been thousands of people I have been very fond of. I have helped bury scores of relatives and peop
le I have loved—always going on alone. Being eternal is not as glorious as you would think. My life has been extremely lonely most of the time. There has been only one true love in my life.”

A pang of jealously hit me like a train. Zell had loved someone before and had to watch her grow old and die. I felt sorry for him, but I felt sorry for me too. I don’t treat him very well, but I had gotten used to the thought that he belonged exclusively to me. To think there
were others hurt a bit, and I fell silent. I wondered if he had been a father. Should I dare to ask him, or would it be too painful for him? I decided not to ask him, but now that the thought had come into my head. It would not let me rest. I had to know who she was, and if they married. I had to know if Zell had been a father and had to bury his own children. I felt so rotten for being mean to him when all he has ever done is be kind to me and protective.

“Would it be too painful to tell me about her?” I asked taking Zell’s hand in my own.

“Tell you about who?” Zell asked puzzled.

“Your one true love,” I whispered leaning close to him.

“Ah, her,” he smiled dreamily.

“What was she like? Did you have a child? Tell me about her please,” I begged Zell quietly.

Zell glanced away, and I thought for a moment that the memories were too painful for him to talk about. After long seconds of staring into the street, he turned back to me and sighed.

“She was the most beautiful woman
whom I have ever seen in my six thousand years of life. She had such an energy about her. We had so much fun together, and I was devoted to her.”

“Awe,” I murm
ured feeling my heart twist a bit. “Did you marry her? Were you a father?” I could not keep the questions inside me any longer.  I had to know if Zell had loved her enough to marry her.

“No, we didn’t marry, though I wanted to marry her,” he sighed looking incredibly sad. “I wanted children too, but she would not marry me,” he shook his head sadly.
             

“Why Zell? Why wouldn’t she marry you? Didn’t she love you back?” I asked tears coming to my eyes at the thought of his unrequited love.

“She didn’t feel about me the same way that I felt about her. I believe the way she put it was ‘I creeped her out.’ She equated me to a nightmare. She thought that I was a stalker and a psycho. Yes, those were her words precisely—a stalker and a psycho. In addition, she is fearful of having to swim through the drool of my admirers if she chose to be with me,” he added his voice breaking as he tried to hold in his laughter.

“Oh! You are rotten,” I growled pushing his hand
which I had been holding back in his direction.

“Alas, now I am a rotting corpse in addition to being a stalker and a psycho,” he chuckled.

“Come on, let’s swing by the zoo,” I said jumping to my feet and pulling Zell up deciding to change the subject. “There’s a big gorilla there who reminds me of you.”

Zell’s mood lifted. He smil
ed and drew me close hugging me.

“Thank you, Annie,” he whispered.

“For what,” I said puzzled.

“For being the light in my otherwise dark existence,” Zell replied.

“We’ll see if you still feel that way after putting up with me for a couple of months,” I laughed.

“I will,” Zell whispered still holding me close. “I meant it you know. You are my one true love. There has never been anyone else.”

“You flatter me. I don’t think I’m worth a six thousand year wait.”

“No,” Zell whispered pu
lling back and lifting my chin.  “You are worth much more than that.”

“Come on now. The zoo awaits.”
I wiggled in his arms trying to escape. I didn’t want Zell or anyone else promising me their undying love.

Reluctantly, Zell released me holding on only to my hand. We walked the short distance to the zoo. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the zoo arm in arm. We were enjoying ourselves so much that it was already dark when we left the zoo.
Zell’s light-hearted mood changed, and I could feel his mood swing as if it were a tangible object.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I can feel evil close by,” Zell answered in a low tone.

“Is it a Dark One?” I asked clutching Zell’s arm.

“I don’t think so,” Zell answered looking into the dark night. I could feel rather than see him begin to unbutton his shirt.

“Is this why you always wear button up shirts?” I nervously giggled.

“The bulge of my swords underneath a tee-shirt is hard to explain,” Zell gave a half-hearted laugh in return.

It was then that we saw them. There were six thuggish-looking guys around Zell’s car. Two of them were actually seated inside the convertible.

“I would send you back to the zoo, but it may be a ruse to separate us,” Zell said coolly, and continued to walk toward them.

“I wouldn’t leave you even if you ordered me back to the zoo. I’m the reason you are in this mess.”

“Stay behind me then,” Zell responded looking at me tenderly for a moment, and then he turned facing the men.

“May I help you gentlemen?” Zell called out to them pushing me behind him.

“Yeah man, toss us yo’ keys so’s we can take yo’ car for a ride.” The closest one to us was dressed in a tee-shirt about three sizes too big. His cap was turned so that the bill of his cap was over his shoulder. He pulled a gun from the waist band of a baggy pair of jeans.

Zell took out his keys and tossed them at the feet of the thug with a gun. Zell moved me to his other side, his side facing away from the gunman.

“And yo’ hoe too.”

“The car you can have. The girl stays with me.” Zell said sternly.

Evidently, the gang didn’t like his answer and the two seated in the car stood up on his leather seats and jumped out while the closest one with a gun quickly crossed the space between us and the car holding his gun out at eye level shaking it at us. He stopped three feet in front of me holding the gun across from my forehead. The rest of his posse pulled weapons and moved in our direction. I could feel Zell stiffen beside me.

The guy with the gun in front of me waved the gun in my face threatening to kill me in the most vulgar language I had ever heard.  I was dead. I knew I was dead, or they would shoot Zell and take me with them. I was sure when they finished with me that I would be dead too.

Zell moved like lightning. I heard material ripping and the faint, yet somehow familiar, metallic scrape as he pulled the swords out from underneath his shirt. I saw the gunman’s hand with the gun still grasped in it separate from his body and fall to the ground as if in slow motion. Zell twirled like a deadly top swords flashing in the light from the street lamps. The gunman who was not much more than a kid, maybe eighteen or nineteen, grabbed his arm where the hand had been seconds earlier and fell to the ground screaming. Blood streamed into pools around his writhing figure on the ground.

In an instant, Zell’s wings snapped out and covered us as bulle
ts began to hit the wings and fall with little pings to the ground. It became silent as the clips were emptied. Zell reacted quickly, withdrawing his wings and simultaneously throwing both swords. On each end of the group, two gunmen were knocked backward into the street impaled as the swords sank deep into their chests coming out of their backs. He drew the sword with the flame, and leapt across the parking lot in the blink of an eye decapitating the next closest thug with it. There was no blood. The sword cauterized the cut as it sliced through the flesh cutting off the blood flow. The gunman blinked twice, and then his head slowly rolled from his shoulders and across the road a few feet. The two thugs which were left backed up so fast that their baggy pants tripped them as they tried to retreat. Zell grabbed the one to his left and threw him across a five-lane road where he landed against a brick building. I could hear the crunch of bone as his head flattened like the bottom of an iron as it hit. The thug slid slowly to the ground leaving a trail of blood, bone, and flesh on the building as he slithered down the brick wall. The remaining carjacker began to scream.

“Stop,” I yelled as Zell advanced toward the gangster
who was left standing. Zell hesitated. “Leave this one for a witness.”

Stepping around Zell
, I faced the one that had escaped the mayhem.

“
Put your gun down, or I will release him to finish you,” I shouted. The gunman quickly did as he was told and laid the gun on the ground falling to his knees as he did so.

“Please don’t let him kill me,” he whimpered.

“Count yourself blessed,” I spat at him. “Go back and tell others like your friends lying here that any evil from this point on will be met with swift justice, not from the law, but from this avenging angel.” I pointed to Zell and turned just slightly. I gasped when I looked at Zell. The very sight of him scared me silly. He was at his full height maybe twelve or thirteen feet tall. His white enormous wings which were outlined in bold black and silver feathers were stiff and erect. He was splattered with blood and held a metal sword that he had retrieved from the bodies in one hand and the flaming sword in the other. His shirt had ripped from his body as he shape-shifted to his full height, and his trousers from the thigh down were ripped into shreds. His face, no longer warm and teasing, was as stone. His eyes were piercing and dark, no longer the warm silver color that I loved. The cool, night breeze blew his long, golden hair gently around his stone face. I was in shock and awe. I had never seen him in a full warrior state before, and he was beyond frightening. He had fought like a Trojan. It was obvious that he was not of this world. It was then that I knew beyond a shadow of doubt Zell was everything he said he was, and he spoke the truth about himself and my destiny. I began to shake uncontrollably.  I tried to pull myself together.  Turning my back to him and breathing heavily, I faced the punk in front of me.

“Take a good look at him. If you
ever
commit an evil act again, he will find you. There will not be a jail cell with free meals, a judge, or a jury. There will not be life behind bars with cable television and workout equipment. You will be dead. Your life is no longer your own. You must compensate for all the evil you have done. You must tell others that evil will be met with his sword. You must spend the remainder of your life helping those you have victimized, helping the helpless, telling of this night and how your life was spared, or he
will
find you!”

I saw the blue lights of a squad car several blocks away.

“The police are coming. Run to them. Tell them your story. If you sway from the truth, I promise he will find you and finish you off.”

With those final words, the thug jump
ed up and ran waving his arms down the middle of the street toward the police car. Zell scooped up his keys from where they lay beside the gunman with one hand lying unconscious in his own blood. I noticed he was a more normal size, and his swords had been returned to their sheaths. The color had returned to his face, and his eyes were once more silver. He heaved a great sigh and smiled at me with his beautiful smile.

“Let’s go Annie,” Z
ell said quietly grabbing my hand and moving me toward the Lamborghini.

We jumped in, and Zell gunned the engine burning rubber as we left the scene.

We traveled for a few miles in silence. When Zell spoke, I was terrified at his words.

“So it begins,” he stated quietly.

“What begins?” I asked him.

“Your destiny,” he replied calmly, “and mine.”