Prologue Angel

PROLOGUE: ANGEL

Blood red on white.

Flower petals fall from bouquets, accenting the aisle, punctuating the drapery of silk and gauze-like sheets hung in an attempt at blocking out the view outside the celebration.

Everywhere I look are gaudy decorations, placed to mask the pain etched into the land around the manor and the estate. Decadence grander than any I've seen.

What is this place?

Who lives here?

Who would celebrate in the midst of this catastrophe?

As far as the eye can see, the wreckage of a flood scatters the landscape with debris beyond the elegant brick walls, the looming, wrought-iron fence along the top and at the entrances. The land beyond was once a thriving town. Now, desolation.

Something about the place makes me angry.

Triggers something in my emotional memory that my mind can't place.

Makes me feel even more hollow inside than the lack of any sense of self that haunts me every day. Reminds me of how alone I am.

And why this celebration should mean nothing to me.

All that remains, at the heart of this ceremony, in the bones of this town, and the desolation of my soul, is damage. Hurt. Damage.

Stagnant pools of water dot the gullies between the hills.

Rivers glisten where streets used to run, vacant skull-like eyes of the houses gaping at the desolate neighborhoods and abandoned cars.

Occasionally, you see a figure, huddled and panicked, picking their way through the remains, looking for somewhere to hide. Something to eat.

And there is something so very wrong about the way they move. The way their eyes don't seem to see what's in front of them.

Is this all that's left of the town's inhabitants?

Am I one of them?

Music plucks to life a short distance from my vantage, sitting on the roof of the manor house, just out of sight of the guests taking their seats on the lawn. Their movements are wooden. Forced.

They know that this is inherently wrong, just like I do. The song playing should be as foreign as everything else I can't remember about my life, but I recognize it.

And what this celebration must be.

A wedding.

The audience gathers, barely speaking to one another.

They at least have the luxury of understanding why it feels so wrong to be here.

I simply watch, wishing that the screaming wail in my head would subside.

Especially when an older man takes the stage, streaks of silver in his black hair. His suit is immaculate. Sharp.

Along with the matching suited guards, and a priest, taking center stage to officiate this fraud.

That much, I know. His expression tells me he isn't here by choice.

After they take their places, I know what comes next.

Like the way I know how to dial a phone.

Or drive a car.

Even if I don't remember learning how .

Salt and pepper must be the groom. Not sure who would want to marry that shark-eyed killer.

Something in the way he stands lets me know without a doubt that he's trouble. That he's taken lives.

And with the juxtaposition of the heavenly excess around me and the desolate hell out there, I wonder if he's the cause of this town's slow death.

Guests take their seats, but the joy is strained.

Fear tinges the mood, souring the explosion of color, tapestries, and carefully carved hedges. Like some macabre theater performance.

Until the music lulls, pauses, then begins a new song.

Every head turns, back toward the house beneath me. To the focal point of this nauseating affair.

When she emerges from the shadow of the overhang, everything else fades.

Nothing else could possibly compare to her.

She's resplendent, even though her dress is black, the crowning jewel of this sick celebration, more a funeral than the birth of any future worth living.

Solitary.

Forlorn.

And I cannot look away.

Nothing else matters but the slow progression of her swaying gown, the purposeful, agonizing footsteps toward the dais, a heinous fate. Yet her face is porcelain, cold and vacant. She's a statue etched of marble, perfect alabaster.

Capturing the deepest sadness.

The despondent angel in black approaches the stage.

Still, she remains aloof.

I don't dare take my eyes from her as she marches to her gallows. The processional stops as she reaches her place, turns, never blinking, never faltering. She could end me with a word.

But she says nothing.

Neither does she look at the man across from her.

Words echo in the hollow silence. Words said a million, billion times across the world, across time. But never have they rung so empty.

Compared to the vows of the leering, black-eyed groom, they are a clarion song. His voice clips out, strong. Arrogant.

"This day marks the dawn of an empire. The joining of power. Of fate. Today, I take this vow. I swear on every drop of blood spilled along my journey. In exchange for what you give me now, symbolized in your hand, in your heart, I promise to give you more than you can ever imagine, a legacy that will echo your name for generations to come. What love we lack will come in time."

The woman smiles without a hint of happiness.

"You will join me. You will be my queen. And together, we will change the world."

As the sound rings out, fading to another tense respite, a single drop of rain strikes my hand. Shocking. Cold.

"Quickly. Now," the groom barks, glancing at the first spots striking the stage.

"Do you, Marco Alejandro Vice, take this woman to be your wife?" A quaver in the priest's voice ripples through the crowd, a shiver of doubt. An omen.

"I do."

"And do you, Hellena Michaels, take this man to be your husband…?"