The impact of the rock hurt. The impact of the rock just hurt, and nothing more. The fact that it looked like a bullet while it was screaming at my stomach but felt more like a sharp rock being thrown from a long distance, barely reaching its target, as it should have made me intensely angry. Totally enraged would be a more suitable description of it, because like it was purely instinctive, I started running towards Ricky like I was shot from a gun myself. As I look back on it all I can remember is that I was going to kill him. I think about it, and I do not even know how I was going to do it, I was just going to kill him, and it was all I could think of. The look of horror on his face as I was running down the street would have told me that he knew I was going to kill him, and he could not stop me from doing it.
The indignation that he “thought” he was going to kill me or disable me with that rock must have been the factor that was flooding my brain. The fact that he could not do it, or had made it look like he could do it was the furthest thing from my mind. I had no pity. I had no mercy. I had no insufferable maternal need to care for a boy that had been my son’s best friend. I had intense fury and a need to kill that very boy. He dropped to the ground in the fetal position as I was bearing down to start striking him, inflicting pain, killing that little bastard who so easily allowed himself the belief that he deserved to kill me. My mind was flooded with the most horrific images of slaughtering him, and I might have anyway if it was not for the arm that grabbed me and threw me into the lawn before I reached him.
Lou was standing over him and his body was quaking on the ground. He turned to look at me as I was sitting up from where he had thrown me. When he turned to look at Ricky he started muttering in a language that I could not understand at all, and Ricky’s body shook even more before he started wailing loudly. It sounded like he was crying like he had never cried before and was now making up for all the years that he should of. It was sickening to me, and my heart was practically falling out of its place within my chest as I heard it. Lou walked away from him and over to me, but shocked and horrified by the scene I started crawling away from him.
“You shouldn’t fear me Stacy,” he said as he held out his hand. “That’s the secret to all of it,” he then added as he walked towards me, and the curiosity of it caused me to stop crawling. Looking up at him, I understood what he had said from my years of being trapped in Sunday school. “Ricky is terrified because he finally realized that he has nothing aside from the knowledge that he will have to face my world in the afterlife.”
I did not take his hand, but I did get to my feet and looked him in the eyes. Do not get me wrong, it is still terrifying looking at the most beautiful man that ever crossed my path and then I must remember that he is not. I remembered that I was not afraid of him though because that is the first sign of subservience. “What the hell did you do to him?” I demanded in a hiss as I continued to look straight at him. It must have been funny under the circumstances so being angry at Lou for laughing when I asked was disingenuous at best. I was after all going to kill the little bastard myself before he interfered.
Lou started walking away, and I was again in the position of being furious at him. This was old hat by this point of the tale, but for some unspeakable reason I got control of it and calmly asked him, “Ok why do you care if I had killed him or not?”
Lou stopped walking and looked straight into my eyes from the fifteen or so feet that separated us. He was trying to test my resolve, but it was weak in my mind. “That is the first sign that you are not corrupted. You care about someone who had almost hijacked your emotions into committing the type of evil that would have fractured your soul beyond repair,” and I did not follow him, and I did not reply. Part of me thinks that this drives him crazy when I do this, and the fact that he turned around and started talking again as he walked proved it. “As I said before, all he has is the ability to deceive others. He has not gotten any real advantage from the pact he made with an angel. Her angels wouldn’t make such pacts, or I should say that none of them have since I was foolish enough to do it,” as always when he talks of God the anger is obvious in his voice when he finished his thought, “I made a wonderful example to any of the other angels, and giving your soul to anyone other than God means you get a one way ticket to Hell, whether I want the soul or not. He and I have both have made a wrong decision and it is ruining eternity for us, but that does not mean either of us deserve pity.”
I started walking again mostly so I could get away from the pathetic wailing of Ricky as he lay on the ground. Little jerk deserves his agony, my self-righteous half told me as I walked. A part of me wanted to tell him that he was heartless and deserved his agony, but it did not feel right to spit on someone in turmoil. I certainly wanted to, though. I was still wondering why Lou knocked me out of the way, but the wailing coming from Ricky even as the distance between myself and him was accumulating was drowning out all my sensible thought. My anger was completely gone, but unfortunately without it the confusion came back. Anger must be clarifying, but then again it wasn’t properly displayed at the time either, so I asked, “Why did you stop me from attacking him?”
Lou did not even hesitate to answer that, “I felt responsible for it,” but he left it at that as we continued to walk away. I looked over my shoulder to see if Ricky had gotten up because I could not hear his wailing anymore. He was still laying there but had just stopped. “He will live a long life if he cherishes it. I told him that if he gets in my way, I can strike him dead,” he paused for a few seconds because I had gasped, “I already explained to you that I can take the souls that are going to me whenever I want to, but I didn’t explain that to him. How he lives the rest of his life, and the longevity of it is all his choice, but he will be looking at me someday if I make it out of all this,” and until he pointed that out, I had completely forgotten that that was another possible end game for Lou. It never felt right all the same.
“Why do you feel responsible for my wanting to kill him?” I asked because if anything I have learned to stay focused on my questions and not let him lead me off in other directions. I was starting to feel at that point he may have been incapable of outright lying himself, but completely capable of deception like his minion. He did not respond to my question this time at all and just kept walking. I was following along beside him for the time being, and even repeated my question, but again he gave me no response. “Why don’t you just lie to me then instead of giving me the silent treatment?”
“Lying is a waste of breath,” he said again sounding almost bored. “While I walk on this world with you, I breathe, I eat, and I have to maintain most of the physical laws that mortals cling to,” he stopped and looked quizzically at the fork in the road. “I have many things as you have seen that remain omnipotent as well like knowledge, strength, and other things that are not important. Unlike yourself, I cannot defy time, and space, and because of that I have determined that it is a bad idea to lie to you because I cannot stay a step ahead of you like I can every other mortal,” he acknowledged the puzzled look on my face with a smile and then added, “Think about it for a while, but as a gift I will tell you that my charm and extreme beauty come at a cost to those around me. It creates instant insane need for those around me to cross into the realms of the deadly sins. You are prone to Wrath and Invidia, and I did not think it was fair to you that I intensify those things to your cost.”
Again, I was at a loss for words and started walking ahead of Lou. I could hear his footsteps behind me, but I did not want to look over my shoulder to see him. Most of this was because I did not actually know what Invidia meant. A little further down the dirt road I stopped hearing the crunching of his footsteps, but continued to walk along without looking back, until I could not take it anymore. I turned around quickly to see Lou standing there about the same distance that he was when I stopped hearing his footsteps. He looked shocked as I asked him “I imagine this is an example of other things?”
His face broke into a smile before he said to me, “It is, and it is not. I can mask my footsteps with your own like I can anyone else, but I can’t get away before you see me,” he licked his lips and said, “I cannot read your mind to know when you are going to whip around and catch me here while I am concentrating on masking my sounds with yours.”
I had to ask, “You can read minds?”
He looked at me and said, “It might be worth my breath to lie to you at this point, but I have other tools at my disposal,” and he vanished while “disposal” was still wafting in the air ... To be continued
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