"Yes," he said, offering her his elbow as he passed.
She accepted it, but it was such an Old World gesture that she wasn't sure how to react. He brought her to the edge of the clearing at the end of the cliff, unsheathed the blade he was wearing, and used it like a pointer, lighting the sky in sparkling, golden filaments.
"I will show you the main pavilion, the broad thoroughfares, and the temples. The libraries are expansive. As are the universities. In the residential districts, each palace was the prototype for the ones later human-designed. There is a sensory space at the outreaches. The hall of whispers. This is where beings so moved will try to pierce the veil to send humanity inspiration, or nightmares, whichever their choice."
"Is that where you met me?" she asked quietly, still marveling as she looked down the building-studded landscape in the jewel- green valley below. Then she remembered the vibes coming off the alley bricks behind the club, her mind ablaze with curiosity.
"No," he said quietly. "I will tell you where, later." He smiled. "To begin that explanation will make me lose focus."
Again she felt her face warm from his words. "This is awesome though," she said, peering over the cliff. She backed up from the edge of it and glanced around. "This is all energy?" She stooped to pick a blade of grass, studying it so closely her eyes nearly crossed.
Within the cool green blade, she could see tiny whirls of energy in-teracting as though the atoms in the structure were visible through the translucent, iridescent-green casing. Delighted, she brought it to her ear and listened hard to the soft, humming resonance it contained.
He seemed so pleased that he rubbed his jaw and paced away from her as though needing the distance to not touch her. "I can transport you down--"
"No," she said, laughing. "I can do it."
"You can? Here?" Raw desire began to take over his brown irises. "The laws of gravity still apply, you know."
She shrugged, dropped the scepter, and unfastened her Isis, which made his eyes go straight silver. Then she became a sparrow and took off down the side of the cliff. He was waiting for her when she reached the bottom, and he held out her Isis and her scepter to her.
"You should have these as you walk," he said just above a whisper.
"Thanks," she replied, more quietly than intended. "But why do you have armor on, just to stroll through town?" That she needed to know.
"Because I'm with you, and you are flesh," he said calmly, his gaze sweeping the pedestrian-packed boulevard.
Spectacularly attractive beings in unique combinations from every human ethnicity nodded at him as they passed along the pristine, shimmering stone streets. She'd been many places in the world, but had never been anywhere that one could potentially eat off the glistening, clean pavements.
Some of the passersby glimpsed his sword and hers, showing a hint of fang in their smiles, but allowed them to continue onto the destination without incident. She could feel him bristle with each visually curious invasion.
"People seem to be cool, so . . ."
"I may be king, but--"
"You're what?"
He looked away and smiled and held his chin up a little higher. "I will show you where it is dangerous to be when the three moons rise. We do not have a formal night. But once the solar sun goes dark each eve, the one that bears no heat is dimmer, not reflective light. Three moons rise... ours, yours that can be seen through the barrier, and the one that is the lunar pulse of creation. I will also show you where there are residences to avoid."
"Y'all even have a badlands here? Deep."
"Quite, and no place for any human, much less a lady."
"What happened?"
He stopped walking as they passed a massive library flanked by huge,
white marble lions. "In a.d. nineteen forty-three your calendar, foolish men on your plane, in what they called scientific pursuit, manifested a battleship into our harbor. Because of the energy distortion here, and the higher molecular frequency that only Neterus can adapt to, some of the men on the ship spontaneously combusted on impact with our atmosphere. Some got frozen in a motion stasis as their atomic structure could not make the transition from the slowed vibrations to the higher ones here. They were the lucky ones." He began walking again, but she placed her hand on his arm.
"Talk to me, Cain. This is partially why I'm here. I have to know what could happen if beings from your side come out to earth's plane."
"I was at court when it occurred." His eyes blazed with anger and pain as he spoke. "The smell of scorching human flesh hit the atmosphere and blackened it with a stench that those from the lower proclivities hadn't smelled so strongly since their time on earth. The smell of human flesh and blood created riot. Screaming human men rent the air, drawing the strongest of the dark-soul beings to the battleship first. Those with higher vibrations attempted to intervene. My parliament fractured right on the spot. Angelic-based beings tried to cover the living humans with their wings and carry them to safety, but those with equal strength and larger, leathery wingspans ripped bodies apart in midair struggles. Those humans that survived were taken to the shadow wall as my allies and I battled our way to them."
He raked his hair and looked off into the distance. "But by the time we got there, those human men had been raped and violated and passed around until their internal injuries killed them." He closed his eyes and let out a breath of frustration. "Then the ship summarily vanished with a few humans who had escaped desecration. That is when the feeding began. We sent battalions into the air, searching for remains that had been secreted away. We could not even bury the corpses. Those who burned... even their charred bones were fought over."
She couldn't speak as he began walking again. This time she didn't stop him, just stayed by his side in a matched stride. The horror of what he'd described put a chill down her spine, and definitely put the experiment Rabbi Zeitloff had explained into serious perspective. Cain needn't worry though. She had no intention of getting caught here, alone, after the three moons rose, if it was all of that. But what he'd told her also put every last piece of the puzzle in place for her. Plus, he hadn't lied to her--major points for him.
However, these beings could not get out. If this was what was over here all mixed up with humans and some half-angels and half- demons, then the breach had to be sealed ASAP, and any crazy military experiments had to stop. But even with all the insane information she'd just acquired, several very comforting things had also been determined in her mind. Cain was good. He was obviously supposed to have a blend of three elements--to be the mirror image of what Carlos represented on the earth side.