The Night Prophet Novel Prologue

The Night Prophet Novel
By Lori Ann Trierweiler

Dedicated to my father, James


Prologue



The Book of Isaiah, Chapter 21, verses 5-9
"Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise ye princes, and prepare the shield./For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth."

...And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground."







October 13th, 1982, 2:15 AM. Prague, Czech

While looking into the whore's eyes he felt a quick shock on the right side of his heart. Pulling his body back quickly his breath grew heavy and hard. He could hear her asking question after question which only angered him further. Clenching his fist to his head and digging deep the pain began to fade. Bending over he picked up his gun with a slightly shaking hand. Inside the black blood that stained his eyes he could see only the whore's pathetic lip tremble. Nothing made him sicker than a pathetic dirty human begging.

Belial shot her once in the head. He did her a favor.

Walking into the cold of the Prague streets he continued to quiver. Sideswiping a brick wall he pushes his nails into the unforgiving mortar. Rain begins to gently fall out of the shapeless and starless heaven. He was colder than usual and the rain pissed him off. Angels do not feel heat or cold like humans, their blood never changes. So why did he feel the ice splitting through his chest? No matter what had caused the pain there will be no consolation for him. There has never been any consolation. Only isolation and a one faded memory..

She had been beautiful. Aftiel was more than beautiful, more than any star in the heavens, more than life on any planet, more than the rotation of any universe. She was his beloved. Missing her would never enter his mind. For angel's do not have minds like that of humans. He would ache for her like a human aches for booze. But he had made his choice didn't he? Being cast into hell was a joke. Being cast onto the earth to torture humans was even more hilarious. But being cast into oblivion without her, now that was something to talk about.

Why the heart lightning? Something had happened in the balance and he could feel the pulse. There was a pulse in his habit of dread. A light for him maybe? A light to bring back the times before... But the Maker didn't give a fuck about him anymore. Why should he even think about this shit?

Azazil stoops before the door at the Hotel MODRÁ RŮŽE looking at Belial.

"You feel that?" he asks.
"Feel What?" Belial replies flicking his cigarette.
" That was the rebirth of an angel," Azazil whispers all too clearly, "the first born of the arc's dust."
"I didn't feel anything," Belial states pulling his jacket tighter around his unseen cold.
"Don't tell me you didn't feel that," he whispers.
" So they are coming back? That means shit to me Azazil," he pushes him aside.
" This means the war is coming finally. Fucking finally a chance to leave this shit hole," he sighs.
" I have been at war my whole fucking life, " he mumbles walking up the long spiral stairs.
" They are coming back," Azazil thinks, "Dusters. I can't fucking wait to turn them back to ash. "

Belial feels Azazil's thought like a tattoo pricking the air. Aftiel. Violet Rain. Her kiss. Her loyalties were with the wrong fucking side. How could he have chosen her life for his? For this life. He aches again, and again, and again.

Alone in his library full of dust and spiders, among other sinister decor, he leans into his wing back chair. A pale finger follows the line of an ancient text, a star chart to be exact. Helel ben Shahar's smile widens and reveals a perfect row of diamond sharp teeth. His ruby lips quiver in a snarl for this long overdue and much anticipated excitement .

"All Angels in their houses," his finger stops on the sun, "the light bringer returns.," and he is satisfied.


October 13th, 1982, 2:15 AM. London, England.

Peter presses his forhead to the glass on the OR door. His wife screams. His gut wrenches. He can't stop it, the puke that now is covering his shoes and the tiles below him.

When Peter James fell in love with his wife the failures of his soul briefly halted. She stood upright and strong with some conviction he could have cared less about. Her name, Viola, seemed to roll off his tongue on a hot pursuit of her body. Her skin was dark and tanned with her unrelenting love of the sun and charity. Her white dress clung to her like winter drapes to the first spring day. When he met her for the first time he counted every gold fleck in her right eye. She spoke of her latest crusade to Africa, and he didn't care he just watched her lips move.

He married her a few months later under great sarcasm from his friends and family. A son of a duke does not marry a common girl from East London. Times were a'changin as the old folks said and he would have given up Knightsbridge, London, god, man and country for one night in her skin. Good thing was his father was already dead and he had already taken all the money and his name. His mother could talk over tea with her cronies all she wanted. Nothing would ever come between Viola and him.

Like many fools in the fits of love he didn't consider death a player in the game. Peter was a selfish idealist addicted to the body of a woman that he didn't understand. He didn't want to understand either. Somehow he acted well enough to seem interested in her causes and long trips to desolate countries. He never acknowledged the vanquished surroundings she was in, only her body . Peter was too utterly consumed to notice the storm clouds roll in.

When the lightning came across the barren Ethiopia land he saw it only as an opportunity to make love. Inside their tent he could trace the line of her breast with his finger. She could occupy all the minutes of another hot and dusty boring afternoon. To his irritation, persuading her from the heat lighting took longer than expected. He gazed into her eyes in the way that he meant sex and saw a sinister purple reflection in the gold. His chest hurt with a sudden fear and his breath seemed to leave him. She only smiled and it made him angry.

"Lets go inside," he managed to choke out, " Its getting pretty wicked out here."
" You don't think it's beautiful?" she replied, " Its like the world is inside one of Tesla's Orbs."

He grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the tent. He needed to get out of the world, out of the lightning, out of her silly and stupid ideas. She should listen to him when he told her what he wanted. There was a fear so deep in his throat that it bit. He was hungry and rough with his hands and frantic in his thoughts. He enveloped her in maddness and could barely see through his fury in the desperate sex. She whimpered. She said something. He flipped her over like a dog. She was crying. The look on her face was of horror. This moment, this act of violence, was the beginning of her death. Because when the hope of true love dies the spirit soon follows. No matter reason or reference, this fracture of light and dark would slash him to pieces in nights to come.

Screams fills the room as Peter watches Viola's blood cascading to the floor. His face presses against the glass as tears stream into snot drops to his jaw. A pale faced nurse stands up looking at him with pity. He can see this as if it was someone else's dream. He beats his fist to his head in heartbreaking misery. She was his. SHE WAS HIS! Filling with undeniable anger he storms into the operating room to hear the tiny screams of a baby.

"Its a girl," the doctor says standing up. His knees are covered in blood and his face is hot with sweat or tears.

"My Wife!" Peter screams and puts his head on her still chest. "My Wife!"

Violas eyes were open and full of tears and the void of life. Her gold flecks were replaced with white holes. His hate will push him into a part of his soul he will never return from.

"I am so sorry for your loss," the pale faced nurse whispers and rubs his shoulder. Her hand feels of a theif and he slaps it away.

"Sir, you have a daughter," the doctor speaks with more volume.

"Like the world inside one of Tesla's orbs," Peter could remember Viola whispering. Viola so enthralled with the damned heat lightning! "Damn You God for that Lightning! Damn me for that night."

"Sir!" the doctor begins to raise his voice.

"Her name is Tesla. Now get her the fuck out of my sight," Peter says firmly and turns away.

His hand stops shaking and a cold calm enters. The kind of cold calm that feels oh so good on a hot naked hand. Peter walks out of the OR and doesn't look back on his dead wife or "that" crying bloody infant. He never notices that the room smells of violets and electricity. He never knew that his wife gave birth to the first of the Maker's Dusters. He will never understand the tears in the eyes of every nurse and doctor. Peter hates pity and he hates the grey remains of his memory.

Peter will also never care about Tesla or her life. He will put up with "it," the vile murderous creature of his own loins. He will never look at her, other than to be reminded of his beloved's murderer. He will never wish her happy birthday. He will never touch her, not even once. She makes him sick and to strangle her and be done with it. He will send her to boarding schools in places that he will never think twice about. As far as he is concerned, he is paying for her prison sentence. He will never be her father and he will hate her until his last breath. Which in Peter's case, never came soon enough.

And Peter, like all humans at the end of their life, will finally see the truth and it will be horrifying.