Verse One: Janai

             It all boiled down to one moment, the one moment where the New York breeze whistled whispers of my father’s pride into my welcoming ears. I heard his smile as though I were standing before him, watching the dimple under his right cheek deepen with the coming of his small smile slicing through his yellow brown features as he reveled in the fact that his only son had been chosen to be of service to Lucifer. Me, Janai, chosen by the Dark Lord himself. Shadows crawled on my on my moonlit translucent skin, drowning the light of the full moon being collected by my pale complexion. A minute feeling of amusement warmed the tundra blooming in my heart as I thought about the contrast. I opened my arms with closed eyes, feeling the breeze whip my black hair about like streams of flailing horsehair. Tonight was the night I received the distinct pleasure of venturing into Hell to meet my most revered Dark Lord. But before I could do that, men had to die.

            I didn’t realize my eyes were open, didn’t realize I was watching the tiny man of my native Oriental roots pace across the velvet red carpet. I didn’t realize I could smell the fear in the sweat perspiring underneath his silk three piece suit. But I could. And he was afraid. He should be.  Power reverberated throughout my chest with every beat of my heart. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. I crouched, and I leapt across the large expanse of black with the feel of wind rising over the writhing black apparitions slowly coating my skin. I became night, black chitin hardening across the carved planes of my bare torso. And I crashed through the window, and to my target’s dismay, he saw nothing of my appearance, the only evidence of my entrance being the shattered window pane pooling around the open sore of my creation. He would not see me before he died. He would not have that privilege.

            A slight gasp left his thin lips, the expression of death paling his yellow brown tone. The realization that my shadowed talons were jutting through his heart donned upon him as he tried to turn his dying light brown gaze on me. His head turned before being dislodged from his neck with a forceful swipe of my right hand talons. He didn’t deserve to see the face of a man who fulfilled his mission as mortal. He didn’t deserve to watch me become more.

            I closed my eyes, feeling the heat of a thousand flames lick at my skin. It was pleasant. It reminded me of what home should feel like. When I opened my eyes, I found myself realizing just how true that statement really was.

            My long eyelashes battered against one another trying to grasp a hold on to what I was witnessing. While everything around me was black and stifling with an impossible humidity wavering in the air, Lucifer stood as a good eighty foot tower of orange with yellow blazes wrapping around his Herculean frame. The Dark Lord’s horns were curved blades covered in magma, and for the first time in my life, I knew fear, paralyzed under the scrutinizing sun hued gaze of my Dark Lord. Lucifer’s voice was demonic and rocky, smelling as though a fire was boiling in the depths of his esophagus. “Hello, Janai.”

            I was speechless. Words were wasted in my moment of awe. He laughed at me. My eyes rose to meet his gaze but my head fell in an obsequious manner that I have never displayed for any man, even my father. Yet here I was, playing the part of the loyal servant to the darkest of lords, and I couldn’t be happier. “Do you know why I have called upon you, my child?”

            I shook my head, the impassiveness of my countenance never betraying the torrential waves of emotions crashing within my body. A gleam of white light escaped from his corrupted sharp smirk, and I knew what it was to fall in love with sin. I never wanted to feel anything else again. “My son has become complacent under the watchful eye of his guardian. His friendship with your sister has weakened him. My father’s mortal plane made him weak. I need you to correct this, remind him of his destiny.”

            The threatening undertones of Lucifer’s statement were missed upon me. But my head remained bowed, submissive. I spoke in a subservient manner, head still bowed and tone still a whisper. “Yes, my Lord.”

            Lucifer closed his eyes and shook his head slow before saying, “I am not done.”  My head lifted slowly, and the threat wasn’t missed upon me this time. My knees buckled and I almost found myself falling to them as reverence glazed over my eyes in the form of tears I could never shed. Then came the bombshell. “There is a price for your sister’s failure.” Lucifer crossed his arms and peered down at me falling to my knees with those same tears of reverence falling on the high angled planes of my face, “Your father.” Those tears became rivers of resentment for what Lucifer was asking of me. I looked down at the cracks in my hand, seeing my father’s blood within the grooves of my palms before looking back to Lucifer with clenched jaws, nodding my head.

            “Good.” Lucifer laughed as I bowed with closed eyes. “Good.” The heat was gone. The stifling temperature of the greatest of hells became the cool breeze of the New York night. I opened my eyes to find myself in front of the oak double doors of my father’s marble stone porch. I rose, knowing that the aging bricks that held me up would be covered by my father’s blood. It was on this night, I would stain the cherry blossoms blooming around the front porch.

            Duty propelled me to knock on the door, but there was still this aching in my black heart that told me that I was against killing my own father. I knocked again. Despite everything else, my father had to die, if not for my sake then for the sake of our Messiah, the second coming of my Dark Lord, Rocky.

            My father opened the door, and there we stood, gazing at each other’s similarities. Our strong jawline. Our light brown eyes. Our long dark manes, his greying with age. It amazed me how little we actually shared in common. “Son?” Then I remembered why. I was his son no longer.

            The most immaculate blade I have ever held, complete with an obsidian dragon’s head as a hilt and an onyx blade with ancient glowing red Japanese runes running down the length of the gleaming black appeared in my hand thirsting for blood. I shook my head and whispered only one word. “No.” I chopped my father in half with the first swing, slicing him into smaller bits until he was nothing more than a pool of blood and gore on the front step of his porch. “I have a new father now,” and I did, perfect streams of moonlight cascading on the new son of the Mourning. Me. And my only mission is to protect my Messiah. The Anti-Christ. Rocky.

****

I felt Jhene’s eyes roaming across the blood splattered across my back like the constellations missing from the night time sky of New York City. I didn’t have to look at her to know the hurt in her gaze. The guilt in my heart outweighed the rage I felt, knowing that the reason our father had to die was due to her weakness. You had one job to do Jhene. And you failed. “You know why I had to kill father, don’t you?” You know it was your fault, don’t you?

I felt every lean muscle tense underneath the thin fresco material of my black blazer, my knuckles paling even more as I gripped the tourmaline grip of my blade. With a quick flick of my wrist, the black onyx of my blade was wiped clean with the help of the gust of wind I created. My jaws clenched as I tried everything to contain my rage. I didn’t want to add sororicide to my sin of patricide, but it was getting harder the longer I felt her sharp, black gaze on my back. Her voice was melodic in its condescending nature as she offered her answer. “No, Janai I really don’t.” A hiss escaped my perched lips as I nodded my head, a realization donning on me. You really don’t get it, do you? “Why did it have to be you, Janai?”

Despite the coos coming from her lips, my fury would not be contained any longer. I turned my head to the right and caught her with the corner of my eyes. “It was me because you failed!” I turned to face her, revel in the beauty she had inherited from her mother. Petite, mousy features, sharp light brown lips perched in defiance, dark, wavy hair waving around her perfectly diamond pointed features, she was beautiful. My baby sister. The failure. “All you had to do was make sure Rocky didn’t stray from his path. That is all. That is why you were chosen to befriend him, guide him, lead him to become our Messiah and you failed!” She bowed her head, that dark hair wrapping around the shame contorting her visage, and instantly I felt like an older brother again. My actions mirrored hers, my own long, black hair falling over the high cheeks we both shared. The hard edge of my voice was softened at the sight of her effortless “puppy dog” face. “I’m sorry for yelling, Jhene, but the Dark Lord asked our father to pay the price for your failure.” Tears smeared the kohl around her eyes, and the strings of my heart were tugged at the sight of my sister crying. So with a quick step toward her, I lifted fingers still stained by our father’s blood to her curved cheeks, gently wiping the tears from her face. “But I won’t allow us to fail again, Jhene.” She looked up to me, eyes gleaming with understanding, and I knew she knew what had to be done. “And I need you with me, Jhene.”

Jhene nodded her head. We knew our mission. Rocky, the second coming of our Dark Lord, would be reminded of his destiny. And anybody that stood in our way would be destroyed. Simple as that.

Verse Two: Khori

I watched him suffer at the sight of me. The starless sky of the New York night offered me no solace to the image of my Rocky on his knees, wrapping his arms around his torso, tears streaming down his smooth chocolate cheeks. Those long eyelashes that I fell in love with so long ago were closed tight, tears clumping them together as those dark violet lips of his stretched just enough to release a scream reverberating one command. “GO AWAY!!!!” Rocky’s screams hurt me in a way in which I can’t explain. Like curses spoken by the flames of hell, licking at my skin with every syllable. My delicate, beautiful, powerful little Anti-Christ crying for me to, “STAY BACK!!!!”

He won’t accept you. I can still hear the voice of God ringing in my ear even as my angel wings beat against the night. I remembered standing on the cloud, watching the stars and constellations dance on his Herculean frame as he told me my mission was impossible. My Holy Father, telling me I simple won’t succeed. Your friend is the Anti-Christ child, the son of my most favored angel. He turned his head and I saw the sadness on my Lord’s face, the same distraught look He must have had when He sacrificed his one begotten son for our sins. My sins. And even the twinkling of the stars could not deplete His melancholy. “I have to try, Father.” I remembered those words spoken by a voice carried by a warm, comforting wind. Even when He was telling me I couldn’t, I felt an undeniable need to try.

Even now, amidst the cries of the boy I once loved telling me to go, I had to stay. I had to try. My fingers wrapped around the gold and leather braided hilt of my ivory brand as I looked to the sky. I felt the defiance rising in my gold-rimmed eyes, dark brown eyes soaking in the sight of the cloudy night without a God in sight. He’s left me. I looked down on the kneeling Rocky, watching as the slim black suit crumpled as he sobbed into the slate roof he once stood on top of. “But I won’t leave you, Rocky…” I know he heard my whispers. I watched as Rocky looked up at me with those dark brown mesmerizing eyes pleading with me to stop his torture. But I won’t. “I won’t leave you, Rocky…” What was that? “I will save you.”

A strange figure draped in liquid black rose from my love’s shadow. Another figure with blood flailing from her back and shoulder blades like dancing spider legs hovered to Rocky’s side ready to defend him. Defend him from me. I knew what they were. As I watched the shadow hardened, I smelled the brimstone emanating from his lean muscular figure. I descended down slow, feeling the cold stone underneath on my bare toes, the gold in my eyes hardening at the enemy. Rocky covered the entirety of his face with open curled fingers, his whimpers meek as he whispered, “Just leave me alone…”

But I remained steadfast. I would not be moved. I will never leave you alone, Rocky. Not again. I shook my head, and the demon, with dried red blood running in a z-line where jaw met cheek, opened its maw, exposing the black talons it had for teeth down to the wisdoms. Its fingers were curved black scimitars as it roared into the night. I had my opponent.

I looked to the woman by Rocky’s side, a strange green-eyed monster growing inside of my heart at the same rate as the grimace contorting my features. This was my replacement? A shrug of my shoulders and I found my steps swinging wide and slow toward her, sparks rose as the point of my dragging blade carved a slight fissure through the roof. Amazingly enough, I felt graceful, as though a lioness walking toward my prey without care of whether they fought or flee. They were in my sights, and they would die by my blade for we wouldn’t share him. No. These demons were mine to kill. And Rocky? He was mine to save.

Verse Three: The Battle

Good and evil rushed toward one another, one with tiny caramel fingers wrapped around a golden hilt for an ivory brand, the other with curled brimstone claws crafted only for the destruction of Heaven itself. Khori held her blade behind her stride, only bringing it upward to carve through demonic black lamina. But the ivory steel was blocked by Janai’s talons, Janai’s black teeth sneering and growling toward Khori’s mousy features. Her button nostrils flared at the scent of the sulfur wafting off of Janai’s black tinged tongue. And there it was, the struggle of good and evil that ravaged in the heart of every man personified by the angel and the demon. Janai’s arms spread wide, black feathers sprouting from his back in the form of corrupted angel wings.

Janai leapt high above the skyscraper, roaring down at the advancing angel spearing through the darkness with a loud battle roar trailing her ascent. The gold rimmed irises disappeared in a fit of rage— her eyes whited out and faceted—as she swung her blade into a curve, carving into…nothing.

Janai was gone, replaced by the skies without stars. Worry brought the color back into Khori’s eyes as they bulged at a realization. Her eyes darted back toward Rocky, the still sobbing Rocky, still kneeling Rocky to find Janai standing before Rocky with his black avian wings spread before Rocky with a taunting smile spreading crooked across the demon’s strong features. Janai raised his left-hand slow in the air, the talons receding back into long, black fingertips before turning its palm over and offering a mocking gesture toward the angel. Shadows rose like liquid in the air underneath the hand before Janai pointed at Khori, the shadows solidifying in the air shooting toward Khori. The shadows came quick, but Khori’s ripostes were quicker as she halved the jagged shadows coming toward them.

Khori’s wings flexed and she dove back down toward Janai whirling in a circle with her blade outstretched to her. But then shadows ensnared Khori’s limb within their own vice-like grip. Khori glowered at the sight of the demon, anger tensing her muscles more than ready to cleave a chunk out of demon hide. But the shadows held other intentions as they danced around Janai, around Jhene, around Rocky. Her eyebrows crinkled over her faceted eyes, light brown curls bellowing about in the breeze as Janai spoke his taunts while walking toward the struggling angel. “You think your…Father’s light could resend the shadows of our Dark Lord?” Khori growled, baring pearly white canines out of defiance. “Look at him!” Khori flexed her biceps in an attempt to break her bonds. Janai crept closer, speaking slower. “This…is…our…Messiah, angel! He no longer concerns you, angel.” The measured nature of his tone came with a shadow writhing from its place underneath his feet in the form of a curling solidifying shadow, its point inching closer and closer to Khori’s nubile frame, aimed directly for her heart. “So for all of our sakes…” Khori’s eyes locked on to Janai that crooked smile of jagged teeth straightening into a resemblance of what Janai’s smile may have been when he wasn’t in his demonic form. There was a derisive calm to his voice as he asked her to, “Just die.”

Khori’s eyes bulged and a golden aura surged all around her, breaking the bonds of the shadows that once held her subdued. The feathers of her wings took on a golden, sparkling tint that gleamed when outstretched, her arms curled and every muscle rigid with the power of her Father. The sky seemed to open for Khori as she roared up at the golden rift in the night. Janai looked up at the sky. The blood flailing from Jhene’s back dropped into drips on the concrete. Even Rocky, looked up at the sight of the angel that received Heaven’s embrace, a slight golden drizzle falling on his curious, boyish features. Khori became the beacon of God. And Janai knew fear.

Khori crashed toward Janai—her blade reared back with both hands wrapped around the golden hilt—with her mouth wide with adrenaline and power. Janai didn’t even have a chance to react before the ivory was stained black with Janai’s blood, organs, guts, and gore spilling on top of the rooftop. Janai’s expression didn’t even have a chance to change before he fell to the concrete of the rooftop in halves, laid out for the golden light ripping through the indigo sky to illuminate.

Khori walked past the halved corpse of Janai, a whisper of a whimper falling on deaf ears. She looked down at the kneeling Rocky and watched his eyes fill with the light of recognition. A sharp smirk sliced across the diminishing baby fat of Khori’s face, golden flames licking at the bottom of her feet, crawling up her toned calves. Black blood splattered as she stepped through the sloshing pool of hemoglobin, few words springing forth from her plump lips. “I never wanted to leave you, Rocky.” Rocky continued to watch his angel advance toward her. “I’m sorry I died, sorry I left you when you needed me most. But I’m here now, sweetheart. Here to save you from the demons that…”

SCHLICK! “NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” Rocky’s cries rang out into the night as he rushed to Khori’s aid. But she was already falling, her white loincloth stained with gold-tinted blood and the dark scarlet plasma Jhene forced through the angel’s spine straight out of Khori’s heart.

Jhene pulled the blood spire from Khori’s body and watched as Khori fell into Rocky’s arm, her blood spilling on the dark fabric of his blazer. “Die, you bitch!”

“No,” Rocky sobbed softly in the crook of her Khori’s cold neck. “What have you done,” Rocky whispered. Jhene stood watch, watching the sorrow emanate from the Anti-Christ. But then she felt the anger, a palpable kind of anger that kept her frozen. The air grew cold, the coming deluge steaming around Rocky and Khori’s corpse. And when Rocky lifted his head, the smell of death filled the air as his scarlet gaze looked up at Jhene with a fury that sealed the golden cataclysm in the sky. God was no longer present when Rocky’s fury surfaced. His roar was long and loud as he yelled, “WHAT HAVE YOU DONEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!”

Rocky, small in stature inside of his stained slim-fit black suit, knelt in a pool of Jhene’s blood a broken man. With her black blood coating his fingertips, he held his crying features as he recalled decimating his best friend after she had slain his first love, a love that came all the way from Heaven just so he would never feel alone again. His teary brown eyes scanned the rooftop, taking in the sight of the corpses left in the wake of the battle between Heaven and Hell, including the one he knelt over, and he realized that all of the wealth afforded to the Anti-Christ from his adopted family, the status afforded to the Prince of Darkness from his old alma-mater, Fiorella LaGaurdia High School, all of his gifts, all of his talents, meant nothing without his best friend, his guardian, his love.

He remembered vividly standing outside of that one story shack—police lights flashing red and blue across the chocolate texture of his hairless features—that housed his newly adopted girlfriend. The details from that memory were left hazy because of Jhene’s presence in his memory. He still heard the ethereal tone of her voice, a ghost of his past, reverberating in the ears of Rocky’s most distant dreams. You’re something else… Those words marked the first time Rocky ever realized that his veins pumped demonic blood, the first time he descended from the darkest of royalties. But as he looked down at his bloody, open hand, Rocky’s eyes bulged, realizing that his kingdom would consist of the same fluid that coated his left hand.

“Is this what it is to be the Anti-Christ,” Rocky whispered as he lifted Jhene’s arm-less torso close to his chest in a deep and warm embrace despite the cold temperature of his best friend’s body. “Is this what Earth will become under my rule?” Rocky clutched Jhene close, tears streaming from his closed eyes as the guilt began to take a vice-grip hold of his heart. His lanky fingers intertwined with the loose curls of  Jhene’s jet black mane as he hugged her close, unable to take in the wide-eyed look of terror frozen in stasis from her moment of death. One last whimper escaped his dark purple lips as Rocky whispered, “What do I do now, Jhene?” No answer. More tears. “What do I do,” Rocky cried out to the starless sky above him, singing a song of high-pitched melancholy to the full moon hidden by the wispy clouds above.

I found myself standing in the crisp grass staring down at Khori’s tombstone, reading the dates to myself with memories and questions blending together. October 29th, 1994 - November 25th, 2008. I wasn’t there when she was born, of course. But I remembered the day I fell in love with her. It was a brisk day. I still remembered the cold air escaping from her trembling lips. They were so pink. So soft. I could have kissed her right there, especially with James Morrison’s song playing from loud speakers. That was the first time I felt like we saw each other. “Are we supposed to be here, Rocky? I don’t want to get into any trouble.” That was the first time I saw past the orphan brought up in New York City. That hard-edge softening underneath those gold-rimmed bifocals she wore on her face.

I shook my head, my cold and tiny hands rising to run my fingers through that curly black mane, those curls so soft, I thought she would melt like cotton candy in my grip. The slight puffiness of her caramel cheeks flushed, a slight smirk appearing on her face. She saw me too. I shook my head, my voice soft as I reassured her she wouldn’t. She saw the person I hid from the world. Saw me as the poet that I became only when I was with her. “I would spend a thousand days in hell for you to see one moment in Heaven.” And then our lips met just as James Morrison sung, “Never thought that I’d love someone…that was someone else’s dream…”

And it was true. We were together ever since we first heard those words. She was my dream, my dream come true. And even when her dream of being adopted came true and she asked me, “Rocky, you’re not mad at me for getting adopted, are you?” I remembered the playful smile stretching across my face as I shook my head. Her eyebrows crinkled incredulously as she stared up at me unbelieving. “But that’s like every orphan’s dream, isn’t it?”

“Not mine.” A brisk wind fluttered through the bloody blazer I still wore, whisking away the tears on the corners of my eyes while I shook my head, still remembering the soft voice that escaped my baby face. I couldn’t help the smile that spread in a large arc on my face, not a stitch of hair above my lip or on my chin then. Just a childlike wisdom that knew the dream I was supposed to have had already came true. “Why wish when I had already received?” Those were the words I left her to ponder before we kissed. Before we parted.

Those were my last words to my only love. I remember somehow getting the information out of the social worker to find her. I just wanted to meet the people that were raising my love. But when I got there, all I saw was flashing lights, red and blue, my face warmed by rage as I watched coroners pull out three body bags on gurneys. I knew who the smallest one belonged to. Khori. The policemen restrained an older Hispanic man out of the sheet metal one story shack, his gray beard and mustache foaming at his madness as he tried to break free, screaming only one thing. “Diablo! Diablo!”

I wanted to show him the Devil. Felt the blood in my veins raise in temperature, but my skin was cold. Even back then, my ancestry was unknown to me. I just knew that I was becoming a dangerous kind of ferocity. I didn’t notice the black scales racing across my skin. I didn’t know my eyes were glowing the scarlet they would become before murder occurred. I only knew of that melodic voice that pulled me back into the reality that I had just lost the one thing I had loved more than anything. “Stop…” I turned my face toward a little girl standing behind me in a flowing white dress, mousy features stern in defiance as she looked at me with those deep and dark enchanting eyes. I knew she saw me too. But yet, there was no fear in her eyes. But there should have been. “You can’t show them what you are. Not yet.”

My gaze turned back toward the flashing blue and red lights, tears streaming down my youthful features and with a voice wracked with emotion, I asked a question that would change my life forever. “What am I?”

A younger Jhene grabbed my tiny fingers with her equally small grip and tugged me away from the crime scene and away from the life of a child abandoned with only one declaration. “Let me show you…”

And now, four years later, here I stand with the answer to that question. A murderer. The reason. The reason why Khori had died and came back as an angel. The Anti-Christ. But what does it all mean? I snapped out of my reverie, listening to tires screech against pavement, trying to hear the song that led to me and Khori’s first kiss and only finding the voice of the first person I met when I first met my new family. “I knew I’d find you here…”

Of course you did, Angel, big sister of mine. Angel, small and beautiful with dark wavy hair, dark penetrating eyes, face etched of Nefertiti’s regalia, always knew when I was hurting. She was the first person of the Mourning family that welcomed me into her arms, the first person that taught me about my origins, my supposed guardian. But she couldn’t guard me from the hurt I felt now, couldn’t shelter me from the fact that the woman that led a lonely orphan of New York City into the warming bosom of wealth, power, and high society had met her demise by my talons. My gaze remained steadied on the worn tombstone of my first love, her name tattooed on my heart glowing with the resurrection of an old flame. I kept my face stoic, my voice steadied as I swiped away the last tear to fall from my eyes and offered it to the wind. “How?”

I could feel Angel smiling behind me, probably inherently proud of me for utterly destroying my best friend. Demons are weird in that sense, devoid of any attachment to the human condition. “The police found Janai and Jhene’s corpses on top of the rooftop. I assume that was your handiwork?” The question composed of sarcasm did not fall on deaf ears, so I said nothing. “Oh well, it means nothing. They were weak anyway. Not worthy to stand next to the King of Kings…” King of Kings. The Anti-Christ. I found myself no longer wanting to carry my banner. I know she was reading my doubts, hearing my thoughts as though I were speaking them into the wind, words blending with the scent of old death. That was her…gift. But her tone carried with it a shrug of her shoulders and the turning of her back. “You should still do something to mourn Jhene’s death, celebrate her life, however you wish to present it. Wouldn’t want the humans to know what you are before your Coronation now, would we?” No of course not. I heard her walk away even though I’ve known Angel to be as silent as shadows in her stride.

I continued to stare down at the tombstone, engraving the memory of Khori in my mind as I thought about the last words I heard her speak and the last time I seen her smile and a smile involuntarily flashed across my face. I pursed my lips together and began to whistle the song our lips danced to, but found myself without melody or a soul to share my pain with. And with that realization, I knew, I was all alone.