Thirteenth of The Blue

VI

A GREEN IGUANA IS attempting to cross a two-lane road winding on a range of low woody mountains and hills. It is clinging to the yellow metal guards that should protect motorists from going over the cliffs with barely a safe distance away from the road. It is about to jump on the ground and make a dash across the concrete road which is empty of any vehicles, when it heard an unfamiliar sound that do not belong to its ecosystem. It c****d its ears towards the direction of the noise which is fast approaching with the mixed sound of hundred rolling drums and booming explosions. Its mind is in doubt whether it should go for crossing the road or running for dear life as the incoming sound, that advertise danger, draws near. It is about to jump down the paved road when a speeding thing flashed pass its eyes, not comprehending what kind of fast animal just dashed by.

            "Did you see that?" Geiki asked Leigh while handling the vehicle on a sharp curve of the road that snakes its way up, around and down the high landscape. "That is an iguana! I never saw any in the wild before."

            "Nope," Leigh uttered eyeing the gauges at the dashboard, specially the speedometer. She took note of the reading. "You are flying this car on one of the most dangerous curves in the country and still recognize an iguana which happens to be on the road?"

            "A hundred and thirty kilometers per hour is not considered flying, my dear best friend," Geiki's proud answer.

            "Then perhaps we can call it a crawl then?" She smiled and gently shook her head as if the near-death-speed is nothing at all. But it is nothing at all to her. She was used to it and puts great faith on her driver. She knew Geiki will go at lightning speed if his skills will push him and would arrive at the destination safe and sound. This kid was born for racing and driving is as simply as breathing. She looked out of the window, her eyes not on the surroundings that was dissolving in confusing blurs and twirls, but up in the sky.

            "It is a race car, Leigh, built to go faster. You will insult Laarnie if we let her crawl through this road."

            "Oh," looking at his friend as he spun the stirring wheel with wild and wide lefts then rights and marvels how his hand jumps from it to the gear stick and back again. "You named her Laarnie! After who? The first girl that fell in your sparkling and colorful, but deceiving lines?"

            "I just made the name up." He gave her a wink then a long stare that seems to reach within her soul, seeing her garments for the first time since they depart; a fitting plain white shirt and a pair of sexy shorts. Her hair was tied in a ponytail and her ears are adorned with a pair of round golden earrings the diameter of a tin can. She wore no makeup today but there is a glossy pink about her cheeks that made him feel a hot liquid was instantly pumped to his heart and is coursing in his veins. Her feet were enclosed by a pair of high black leather boots.

            "Eyes on the road flyboy," Leigh noticing he dressed different today. Acid wash jeans, a white muscle shirt and a white basketball shoes. What is called vampires’ aura around this guy was lesser this day, perhaps cut in half or more. "You don't need to stare at me. You are not captivating a potential victim with those hypnotic eyes of yours."

            He instantly turned his eyes through the windscreen just in time for another curve. Leigh yawned and voted for a short sleep. Geiki has no other choice but to play a soft music on his stereo, just resuming a paused track, Messiah by Dead Celebrity Status before the refrain beginning, "move out the way when I am passing through." It is a soundtrack just appropriate for his speeding vessel.

                                                                                             -KM-

UP IN THE CLOUDLESS sky a few hundred feet from the ground. A pair of red eyes that may have instantly evaporated a water drop in a steamy hiss, locked on Geiki's car like a pair of laser guides from a couple of homing missiles. The eyes belong to a black human figure with robust furs all over the body, beginning from the neck and below. It is on flight, helped by a pair of wings like that of a large bat’s. Its fingernails are curving at an angle an inch from the fingertips with sharpness that may poke through a metal plate. A tail protruding below the end of the spine is evident, dancing like a snake as if it is blown by gusts of wind. This supernatural being is known in many beliefs by the name of, devil, evil or demon.

            In many religions, particularly in Christianism, demons are ethereal beings that oppose the force of light. They tempt men to do evil things and in some accounts harm humans by inflicting them with diseases or possessing their bodies. In a popular story, they are fallen angels who rebelled against God and were led by a rebel angel called Lucifer. There have been many conflicts about these entities too. Many, throughout history tried to classify them and name their rulers and even orders. Alphonso de Espina in 1467 tried to classify them and he included goblins, incubi, drudes and cambions in their ranks. Michael Psellus in 11th century tried to classify them too, and his work have been the inspiration of Francesco Maria Guazzo sometime later. All who tried classifying them and studying demonology did not came with exact types, orders, and definition. Only Sebastien Michaelis came near when he wrote a book in 1613 entitled Marvelous History. Sebastian claims that a demon named Berith gave him the classification and names of the force of darkness according to order when he is exorcising a nun. But he only came too near, and none did exactly fit.

            This being is once an angel before he joined the ranks of mutiny. A member of the lowest hierarchy, fallen angels, sent here as a spy, and to test Geiki. Many demons have different appearances but they can hide under the looks of a human. This furry creature that could be mistaken a monkey which have grown a pair of dragon wings and a face of a man, is what he exactly look like when not in the cover of a human disguise. He got a lone horn amid its forehead like that of the goat, and all his teeth barring the mouth are razor sharp which look like it can chew up rocks. Others among his order, fallen angels, look different beyond their cover, unlike the assumption that all of them may look the same.

            A flaming spear materialized on his right hand and cued it on his target, his left, pointing an index finger to the moving car as if a g*n sight. He tensed his muscles, forcing the arm with a spear some degree backward with the weapon overhead. She was frozen like that for a few moments like a floating black statue. He is about to throw the spear, not caring whether the car will be blown into thousand pieces while the potential victims inside will be incinerated in a booming inferno.

            "Hey!" A voice came from his back, at first she is unable to believe it. Perhaps demons do have hallucinations too. He turned his head to face the imagined source of the voice. He found out that his mind is not playing with him when he saw Spring aiming at him a silver arrow nocked at a bow which was wrought like a pair of widespread angel wings.

            "You," he snarled showing a full set of sharp teeth then brought a tongue that is the larger version of the snakes'. "How dare you aim that at me!"

            The spear that was more a stick of red tongues of fire was meant for Geiki and Leigh, but now as the infidel turned, it is now aimed at point blank range to Spring's eye shield. He could have released it flying in the air towards his target, shattering the glass in corn-size pieces and blowing the head of the angel to her eternal death, but Spring can play with the game better and sent a good arrow on his left shoulder.

            The force of the arrow upon impact came with booming explosion. Geiki below believed it was a roll of thunder as it echoed over the low mountain ranges. The force was tremendous and it sent the dark creatures in a flight, colliding with one of the peaks in a crash that sent rocks hurling into the morning air and a shroud of dust was thrown towards the sky.

            Spring, wasting no time, followed him in an instant and before the last rock came rolling down the slope, she was stepping a silver boot across the chest of the devil that is lying imbedded into the ground, his hands and feet pointing in all directions of the compass.

            When the dust settled down and the air get cleared again, the devil found himself looking at another arrow on a perfect aim on his forehead. He stared at the barbed tip for a few moments as if appreciating the weapon of war with a glint of sun on the sharp tip. He lied still there as if he wanted to sleep, defeat printed on his irises, the spear in his grasp no more. Unable to fight back and defend himself, he turned sideways looking at the departing car.

            "Go on," he softly said in a voice that was borrowed from the crows. "It makes no such difference. We will win this time." Then he gave her a long stare from those red hot eyes.

            Spring could have sworn she saw a pair of thin smoke rise from his irises before she released the arrow and it came contact with the forehead just a centimeter below the lone black horn.

            No one could have defined an eternal death. It is a painful stage and process. Once a human being dies, he resumes his life as an eternal being. The completeness of a human being is the form of an angel, wherein he is being freed from the pains of life, cleansed out of all sins and lives an everlasting life. But, it is always a matter of light and dark. Many were sent down the oblivion to live an eternal punishment as creatures of the dark in the fiery depths of hell and were admitted as a member of the ever growing ranks of the force of the fallen. And nobody has foretold of eternal death wherein a being is erased forever like a data on a desktop recycle bin.

            It is a hard death, as Spring have observed for the first time. The creature beneath her sole gritted his teeth as if wearing a smile to welcome the one final death while his body seem to be dissolved in the air like a black sugar inundated by a hot water in a glass. There was never a scream, not so much a painful moan as the process took agonizing slowness first taking the fingers, the nails in a black smoke and the ribcage cracked, turning it inside out while the joints disintegrated, moving away from what were once their extensions. It took about seconds but Spring felt she have been watching the wretched scene played before her eyes for years. Then, he was no more as if just a thought that suddenly vanished forever.

            She looked for Geiki's car, evaluating the green landscape below. But the blue car is out of sight, like it was too sent to an eternal death. Yet she knew better that Geiki is still out there driving the car towards their destination. She can feel his feet pressing on the gas pedal like it is her body and not Geiki's. She scanned the skies, making sure it is clear of any further threats, a part of her wanting further and more challenging action. But she cannot fight the clouds, and they are the only ones flying up above, marching like an invading army of whites.

            But she should have not thirst for more action, for there will be a lot to come.