I hobbled forward as Alex closed the door behind us. In front of the windows was a small table with a bronze sculpture on it. I stared at the unusual design that hinted of a bird’s flight as he came up beside me.
“It’s called ‘Unique Forms of Continuity in Space’ and was sculpted in 1913 by Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni. I find that when I stare at it, it calms me.” We both stared at it for a moment. I could agree with that sentiment.
“The bathroom’s through here,” he said opening a door to the right of the entrance. “Let’s get you cleaned up and take a look at your leg.” He put his arm around me, supporting most of my weight, as he had from the car to his apartment door. Getting helped around was kind of nice.
I had already removed and put all my gear into the backpack that the old jeweler's grandson, Antonio, had put together for me, so it was just a matter of getting to my calf. Which was easier said than done because I was wearing stretchy, skinny jeans…that meant I was going to have to take them off, so I hesitated. My face must have revealed my dilemma because he smiled.
“I think I have something for you to change into so that we can work on your leg. Wait just a minute.” He left me still standing in the doorway of the bathroom and went through another door further along the wall into what I assumed was his bedroom. He came back out carrying a few articles of clothing.
“Here, go on in the bathroom and get those jeans off. Even if one of these doesn’t fit perfectly, put something on so that we can see your leg.” He gave me the clothes and quietly closed the door behind me.
I discovered that one of the things he’d brought me was a pair of Mickey Mouse pajama boxers that fit perfectly. Odd. I wouldn’t have taken him for a Mickey fan. He seemed amused at my choice when I called to him to come in, but even so he set to work cleaning the wounds on my calf. The thing must have had a double row of teeth like a shark if the lacerations were any indication. I inhaled with a gasp as he applied peroxide by pouring it right on the wounds and clenched my teeth against crying out. He patted the wounds dry, turning my leg to see both sides, looking to see how deep they were.
“I don’t think you need stitches, but I’ll put some antibiotic ointment on before I bind them.” He put words into action, and I gritted my teeth some more. He moved on to wrapping gauze around my calf, and I watched his hands as he worked, those hands that had caused me such pain now gently helping.
“What about you? I know that you got hurt too,” I said finally when the pain had eased somewhat. Mainly I just wanted to take my mind off what he was doing, as it was making me a little nauseous. Well, that could also be because I had not eaten anything for quite a while. I’d been too nervous for dinner.
While I had been changing earlier, he had changed into a pair of jogging shorts leaving the wounds on his thigh and slices on his calf visible and still bleeding slightly.
“I’ll get fixed up after we finish with you. I’ll be all right after a little rest.” Right at that moment my stomach growled loudly which made us both laugh.
“I guess you’ll need to eat too,” he said. His leg wasn’t as bad as mine, but I saw when he stripped off his shirt that he had a hole in his side the size of a quarter. No wonder he’s able to scale the elevator cables, I thought, looking at his biceps and abs, not to mention carrying me around so easily. He obviously worked out…a lot.
“That looks like you need stitches.” I continued to sit on the toilet with my leg propped on the edge of the bathtub, too drained to move while he cleaned his wounds.
“No, I’ll just tape it up. It’ll heal fine,” he said proceeding to pour peroxide into the wound on his side.
After he was done, we washed most of the surface grime off. He got a wet washcloth and tried to wipe my face as if I was three, which was kind of amusing. I tried to get it away from him, and after much fumbling I finally succeeded, only to find that he was laughing silently at my inept struggles. I felt ridiculous.
Finally, he picked me up and carried me to a stool at the counter in his kitchen, ignoring my claims of being able to get around. Then I watched as he fixed us something to drink along with a couple of sandwiches—some kind of sausage with a slice of sharp cheddar cheese. My mouth began to water.
“So, you are a demon, right?” I finally had the courage to ask.
“Yes,” he said, slightly smiling as he put a plate down on the counter before me.
“And you’ve killed me pretty often,” I added. He flinched a little but nodded.
“So why did you help me tonight?” I asked frowning and completely confused.
“You don’t remember the Titanic, do you?”
“Uh, not really, no.” I shook my head. “But I guess, from your statement, that you were on the Titanic too?”
He seemed to hesitate, obviously trying to decide what to tell me. “Yes, I was on the Titanic. I’m curious, what exactly do you remember about me?”
“Well, I…” goodness, what to say? “I remember that we were married at least once,” I could feel my face starting to burn and I twiddled my bread crust around on the plate. “But then you burned me at the stake.”
“That was the last time we were together, before the Titanic,” he said. “Is that all?”
“Umm, no. No, I remember a few more. Like once you killed me with a sword under a tree on a hillside here in Rome. Once I think you hit me. There was a barrel,” I paused. I knew there had been other times because there had been other dreams, but my throat seemed to close. I noticed that with each listing he seemed to flinch slightly. I nervously took a drink of water.
“So you just remember dying?” he asked. “Don’t you remember anything before it?”
“Umm, sometimes I remember at least parts of the life but basically, yeah, I just remember the death.” I shrugged trying to seem nonchalant. We finished eating, and he helped me move to sit on the sofa (carried me again), propping my leg up along the couch with my back pressed to one rolled-back arm. Then he sat opposite me on a chaise lounge, leaning back.
“Well, let’s just say that I don’t always want to kill you.”
“Right, up until you do kill me?” He closed his eyes and rubbed his hand across his face at my question. So I added, “But you’re a demon. Why can’t I smell you the way I do the other demons?” I didn’t understand the whole demon thing yet. It hadn’t even been a week since I’d even realized that my beliefs in reincarnation had taken on a whole new perspective.
“Two reasons I think. Mind you, I’m not sure, but mostly I think it’s because of my age.” So, the older a demon got, the less it smelled. Interesting. “And then too, I no longer kill people to consume their souls which helps. I used to disguise the scent with cinnamon but now there are colognes that help. You know, you have a slight cinnamony odor yourself.”
“I do?” I asked, and he nodded. “Is that how you recognize me so easily?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…you just seem to know it’s me. Tell me, did you know before Sam came up in the square the other day?”
He smiled and nodded. “Yes, you were so nervous, so it was that, coupled with your birthday. Though your hair or skin color might be different, you tend to be about the same height and weight, and from time to time you have similar features as previously. But sometimes no matter your appearance, I just have to look into your eyes, and I know that it’s you.”
He seemed to be watching me closely to observe my reaction, but all I could think of was my mother telling me about when she met my dad. I cleared my throat.
Then I asked nervously, “When was the last time you consumed a soul?” I knew it could have easily been the day before. Was he telling me the truth? Strangely, it felt like it.
“You were there actually. Do you remember me as Alexander the Great?” he paused momentarily, lifting an eyebrow at me. I merely shrugged a shoulder in response.
“I killed my supposed father, Phillip II of Macedonia and took his soul. History has made m
e Phillip’s son. In reality I’d merely lived with the king for years, along with my friend and his advisor, Aristotle. Really it was Aristotle’s ideas regarding philosophy, government, politics, and the sciences, along with poetry and drama that began to change me I think. I began to be interested in life, of being able to spend time with people that I found interesting.
“At Phillip’s death, I promptly took over the army and invaded Thessaly and Thrace, easily winning. At Thebes all I left standing were its temples and the house of the poet Pindar. That level of destruction was my usual, what we say now, standard operating procedure, and the other Greek states quickly submitted. Then I defeated the great Persian army at the Granicus River. I was the greatest military leader of the time. And in an attempt to unite all those diverse areas, I adopted Persian dress and customs, even making my men bow down before me.
“In Egypt, I met with no resistance and, in fact, the Egyptians proclaimed me pharaoh and a god. I began to feel like a god. But after ten long years of military conquest, I returned to Babylon, where I met you, and my world effectively came to an end.”
* * * *
323 BCE
I first saw Alexander when he rode his favorite horse, Bucephalus, through the cherry orchard that my family and I were helping to harvest. With the sun shining down upon him and sparkling off of his weapons and armor, he looked magnificent sitting on that horse. But as he drew nearer, I saw a hard glint in his eyes. I could tell that he was totally ruthless. His mouth, while curved upward, wasn’t truly smiling instead it just seemed cruel. I quickly looked down at the netting in my hands, but I knew that he was watching me.
“What is your name, good sir,” he asked my father.
“Berosus, sire. Would you care for some cherries, sire?” he asked and beckoned me forward with a basketful of cherries. I reluctantly moved forward, proffering the basket though still not looking up.
“Cherries are not the only sweet I crave. Who is this?” he asked while taking a handful of cherries.
“She is my daughter, Diana, sire.”
“Send her to me at the palace tomorrow.” He rode off but, with the statement that he made so blithely, though I was not to know it at the time, he changed my life for eternity.
“Sire, you sent for me?” I asked softly. I had been in the palace for several days but had not been summoned by Alexander until now. I was surprised to enter a room with a long table set for a feast. As I spoke, he turned to look at me. He had been standing by the window looking out over the gardens with the moonlight shining down, and I had come up behind him quietly.
“Yes, we are having a celebratory dinner. Join us,” he said. “Ah, here is my good friend and my best general, Hephaestion, to add merriment to the festivities. Heph, this is Diana.”
Hephaestion was an immense, scarred man. His torso was as large as one of the pillars of Zeus’s temple! While standing with the two men, a light breeze wafted across us, and I smelled it! There was a demon close by! As faint as the odor was, it must be in the garden, I thought. I was standing too far from the window to see out well, so I moved closer to Alexander to get a better view. When I did, I realized that it was from Alexander that I smelled the demon reek. He did not have the absolute stench of the other demon I had killed last year, but the stink definitely clung to him under a slight cinnamony odor.
My heart started beating much, much faster. Now what? I knew that at some point, probably tonight after dinner, I would have to be alone with him. After all, that was why he had demanded my presence at the palace. Never mind that I did not wish to be here and was completely disgusted by him. A woman’s wishes were never taken into account. I sighed with resignation as I realized I had no silver weapon.
I have never seen a demon so very human looking, I thought, as I looked him up and down in amazement. He and Hephaestion were laughing at a joke that I had missed. When he laughed, Alexander lost that hard glint in his eyes and looked young and fresh. Handsome. Someone you might like to know.
Behind us the room slowly filled with people. Before I knew it, Alexander took my elbow to guide me to sit at the table with him, and I shivered. He looked askance at me, but I forced a slight smile to my lips.
All during the meal, I managed to answer sensibly when spoken to, but my mind was preoccupied with thoughts of killing him. Would the dinner knife be silver? Later, how would I be able to escape? I refused to give myself any reason to doubt that I would be successful. I must be successful. So, it would be noticed if I went to his room, and he was dead immediately afterward. I could feel my life expectancy dwindling rapidly.
“Where did Alexander find such a lovely goddess?” Hephaestion asked me smiling kindly.
“You flatter me needlessly. Besides, I can hardly answer such a question,” I replied.
“Nonsense. Tell me where he found such as you and is there another?” he asked with a broader smile and a wink. He was a charmer, and I could not resist smiling back at him.
“There is only me I am afraid. How long have you been a general?” I asked, trying to get the conversation on a broader, less personal topic. We became engrossed in our exchange and in such preoccupation, I did not notice when everyone else was gone except for Hephaestion, Alexander, and me. Alexander was staring at us coldly, that glint back in his eye.
“Heph, what would you?” He asked as he toyed with his dinner knife, flipping it end over end.
“Nothing, Alexander, I was merely speaking with her,” he avoided looking at me as he answered. The tension in the atmosphere was thickening.
“Is this to be another instance exposing your lack of loyalty to me?” he asked harshly.
“Alexander, I was trying to help with the men, not be disloyal. I thought we were past that?” he ended on a questioning note.
“You think she needs guidance and encouragement as the men supposedly did?” He was disdainful.
“They did! And you finally agreed. That is why we came back.” I felt that Heph intentionally didn’t say anything in response about me.
“Yes, I gave up my plans for expansion because you and the men were tired and wanted to stay in one place for a while.”
“We’d been marching across the land for ten long years, Alexander. Of course the men wanted to rest. You lost more men to disease and accident than you did in battle. They were tired and footsore. You agreed that we should come back to Babylon!” As they spoke, I looked from one to the other, and I could feel Alexander’s bitterness emanating in waves from him.
“I think you should excuse us Diana,” Alexander said. “You may wait for me through those doors.” He pointed to a pair of double doors at the end of the room. I looked at Hephaestion, and he smiled kindly at me, but really, what could he do? He didn’t even realize the true extent of my horror.
During dinner I had slipped my dinner knife through my sash, and I carefully pressed my arm against it, hiding it as I moved to follow the directions. Was it silver? I did not think so, but hope died hard.
In the center of the room I entered, there was a raised dais with three shallow steps leading up to a large, round bed draped with silk. Since I certainly didn’t want to get in the bed, I wasn’t entirely sure what to do. I chose to stand near the closed doors trying to decide the best side to be on, knife ready, when he walked in.
Through the door, I could hear their voices but not their words even though it sounded as if they were shouting. In the middle of a word, Hephaestion’s voice was abruptly cut off. Worried, I took a step towards the door with my hand out to take the knob and then hesitated at the silence.
After a short time still not hearing anything, I gently eased the door open to peek through and saw Alexander standing over Hephaestion’s body. Heph had a dinner knife sticking out of his throat, his blood had sprayed across the carpet, the dining table and absolutely covered Alexander.
“He was my friend,” he said to me not looking up at my entrance.
“Why?” Whether I meant why had he kil
led him or why did he think of him as a friend I do not know, but I felt bold enough to take a few cautious steps toward Alexander, keeping my hand with the knife hidden behind my body.
“I could not let him have you.”
“So you stabbed him?” I asked, surprised and shocked. How could Alexander possibly think that it would even enter either of our minds to go against him? When would we have the opportunity? And certainly it would mean our deaths if we were caught.
“He defied me. He did not think that I should have taken you from your family.” I had to agree there.
“No one can defy you?” I asked as I took another cautious step closer. Still he hadn’t moved. As I spoke, he looked at me briefly before looking down again at Heph.
“Anger and jealousy are such powerful, unreasoning emotions. I had forgotten the knife was in my hand. I will miss his observations and his judgments,” he whispered. It was almost as if he wished he could take it back. A demon that feels remorse? I wondered astonished. With another cautious step, I was almost close enough to strike.
“Perhaps you will see him in the next life,” I whispered. Then I leaped at his back, bringing the knife up and down, swiftly plunging it between his shoulder blade and spine. I skittered backwards just as quickly, but he didn’t fall. He didn’t even shout. Instead, he reached behind and easily twisted the knife up and out sending blood streaming down his back before turning to me, gripping the handle tightly with the dripping blade pointing towards me.
“You wanted him that badly?” he asked quietly. I shook my head beginning to back up again. The hard glint in his eye was gone, I saw, but anger was unmistakably shining through.
“Why then?” his jaw was clenched.
“Because of what you are. Demon!” I exclaimed.
He approached me, one deliberate step after another. I didn’t run, after all where would I go? My back was pressed to the wall. No one would believe me. They would end by killing me just as quickly as he, for I had attacked the great Alexander after all. Treason. He reached me and put his hand around my throat, his thumb gently caressing the side under my ear, looking contemplatively into my eyes.
“You are a warrior?” he questioned, and I nodded in response. I was beginning to gasp for breath, adrenaline pumping through my veins absorbing my oxygen too quickly.