CHAPTER 4

– CHAPTER 4 –

A familiar voice called across the centuries old expanse of seldom thought of times. Santo turned away from where he thought the speaker stood, trying to smash the memory down before it took hold. He had enough battles going on inside his head and didn't need to dredge up his mama. Somehow, she always seemed to show up to shovel another mountain of shit on the growing heap when he was at his weakest.

As usual, her memory refused to be ignored the way he knew it would. More the merrier, Mama. Come on in. Can't keep you out tonight. He supposed the soup of unwanted memories was just another reason to hate the damn blood moon. As if there weren't already a million reasons to hate the fucking thing. Too many reasons to count.

Under the best of conditions, Santo struggled to forget his eternally young Mama, his beautiful, but very dead sister and the familia that chained him to a wall. The light of the revealing blood moon always brought back the cold, dark truth of his childhood sins. And there was no taking any of that old shit back. It was a done deal. No matter how hard he wanted to change it. And even after not seeing her in centuries, here she was again. His mama. Making sure he never forgot the blood on his hands. Making certain his guilt nearly burned him to the ground. And the bitch knew it. So why couldn't she just leave him alone?

Okay, if he were being honest with himself, she probably didn't know about her occasional appearances in his head? That little guilt trip was on him. After all, his mama was on the opposite side of the world. How could she get in his head from East Texas? And none of the old family knew where Santo was today. How could they? When he fled Hell's Forge, he had made sure they didn't know which way he ran. He had taken great pains to stay off their radar. And even if he looked like an 11-year-old when he fled, he was actually 47. Although, most of the years between 11 and 47 he spent locked in irons and withering away in his family dungeons.

A long forgotten memory- the one he knew was incoming and the one he hated the most- flashed in the darkness like an old 16mm projector ratcheting to life behind him. It clicked and clacked, and clattered up to speed until its unwanted silvery images burst to life on the back of his eyelids. The old grainy sins of his youth coalesced there and an olive-skinned woman in her mid 30s- actually her 130s- said, "A moon like that signals dark portents, mi hijo."

My boy, she always called him, my boy. God, how he missed that. And her; but he would never admit that.

Santo hadn't thought of his Mama in years. He preferred it that way. Life was simpler that way. Easier that way. Lonely as hell most of the time, and something was always missing. But easier. And safer for everyone that way. The love he felt for his familial jailor only made the anger inside him burn that much more. Long ago, before coming to Britain. Before leaving America, Santo promised himself he would never forgive his mama. He would hate her forever. But in the end, his hatred was a guilty lie. He couldn't hate her. No matter how hard he tried. She was his mama, and he was her, mi hijo. So, if he couldn't hate her, he would settle for the next best thing. He would hate himself for being weak and stupid. For making his mama hate him. For turning her little boy into a monster. But maybe someday, in a thousand years, or a hundred thousand years, she might forgive him. And after she did, maybe he could forgive himself. But he didn't think so.

Santo closed his eyes tightly, trying to blot out the truth those memories brought. Memories he so desperately wished were lies, but knew were not. They glared at the back of his eyelids like immortalized images burned forever into the darkest places of his mind.

An 11-year-old Santo lay in a tiny single bed far in the past. But in the present, a much older Santo stood with his hands covering his eyes, watching the truth unfold. He desperately wanting to change it. His mama had finally arrived and with her came what had happened all those long centuries ago. And she would make sure he never forgot.

A little boy sat up in bed, peering across the room at his twin sister. She lay in an identical bed, facing him.

Their beds were the only thing identical about them.

He was all things dark. Black hair, dark skin and eyes so black they swallowed the light. Sonata was everything light, white blonde hair, alabaster skin the color of fresh snow and pale pink eyes that spoke of innocence and trust. They were a single photo shown in both color print and photo negative. Everything about them was equal, but all things were opposite. The only thing they truly shared was their love for one another and the love of their mama. And they believed with all their hearts, no one could ever break their love.

Esmoretta Guerrero stood between them, looking out the window as the fiery East Texas sunset faded into the black star speckled night sky. Soon, the first sliver of the coming blood moon would peek over the distant mountains. And when that happened, the land would become an ominous hue of dread.

Santo's Mama drew the curtains shut tightly, knotted the sashes and hammered the wall beside the window with a white-knuckled fist. Outside, someone closed and barred the sun bleached wooden shutters. No light would come through this window tonight or any night like it if Esmoretta Guerrero had anything to say about it.

"Why can't I see the blood moon, Mama?" Sonata Guerrero asked, sitting in her bed wide eyed and flushed. "It won't hurt me. Santo doesn't have to look. He can stay in bed like a good boy." Sonata stuck her tongue out playfully and Santo returned her teasing gesture. His twin smiled and pulled her tongue back in before their mother saw. But Esmoretta saw Santo.

"Do not tease your sister, Santo." their mother said, turning back to the little girl, who wore an angelic smile. "Seeing is not the issue," Esmoretta said, walking over and sitting on the bed beside her. "It is what happens when the light of the luna de sangre sees you."

"But-"

When Sonata tried to protest, Esmoretta cut her off. "And even though you're not a boy, you are still not an adult. The light of that moon can harm you. Never forget that. The light of the luna de sangre can change both of you." Esmoretta turned to Santo and asked. "So, what must you never do, mi hijo?"

Santo looked at his mother a little unsure and then blurted out, "Never let the light of a luna de sangre touch me before my 16th birthday."

"That's right, mi hijo. Never." Esmoretta stressed with an ominous look and a nod. "Or what will happen?"

Centuries later, a much older Santo turned back to the light of the blood moon, still as mesmerized by its incandescent beauty as he was when he was 11.

Throughout the long course of his life, whenever Santo had seen the glow of the blood moon, it had seized him like an electromagnet latching onto steel.

Dear God, he thought, why didn't I just listen to her when I had the chance? Everything would be different now if I had only listened. But he and Sonata hadn't listened and everything had changed on the night of their 11th birthdays. The night that had haunted him for 150 years. And now he was in hiding and his sister… his perfect, beautiful sister was dead. Killed by the monster. And when he killed her; he killed the part of his mother's heart that loved him. At that moment, he had also died.

Tears ran down his cheeks as he saw the monster; saw the truth. He had killed the only thing he had ever really loved. But his sister was only the first victim of that savage and insatiable rampage.

The curiosity of two young children had gotten the better of them. They snuck out to see what all the fuss over the blood moon was about. And now, centuries later, he was halfway around the world hiding in London. Hiding from his familia, from the shame of what he had done and from his sister's ghostly memory. But most of all, Santo Guerrero hid from the thing he became that night. The monster he could never escape. The thing that would forever live inside him.

Santo fired off a dry, mirthless laugh and thought, as if you can actually hide from yourself? What a fucking joke. It's always here, he thought, touching his temple. Whispering in my goddamn ear. Waiting for a chance to get out. To kill again. Wriggling around just beneath the skin. He dug at the top of his right hand. Damn thing won't stop trying to get out. No matter where I go. No matter how far I run. It's always there.

In all the years Santo lived in London, he had never called it home. As far as he was concerned, England may as well be a million miles away from Hell's Forge, Texas. But even if it were on the other side of the Galaxy, it would never be far enough away to make him forget what his family did to him or that he deserved it.

"It is forbidden," his Mama said, jerking the curtains closed to block the slowly reddening eclipse. "That light changes us all, Santo. Have I not told you that?"

He flinched at the memory of his mother's rough voice when she caught him trying to sneak a peek. He didn't tell her Sonata had dared him to look. No. He would never do that.

"Forbidden by who, Mama?" he asked in a voice steeped with a child's curiosity.

"By God, mi hijo. God forbids it. When the Angels came and purged the Earth of the fallen, they only allowed those enslaved by demons to remain if they swore to stay out of the light of the luna de sangre."

She came to his bed, tucked him in, and kissed his forehead. The way she had every night for the first 11 years of his life. Little did either of them know it would be the last night she would ever tuck him in. Each of them was too busy thinking about what hovered in the sky on the other side of the curtain to appreciate the moment. Although, both of them would come to think of that moment often.

Santo reached towards his mama and the ethereal memory dissolved and then reformed. Santo's well-manicured nails entered the light and transformed into monstrous black talons. His hand became inhuman. He felt the change rush up his arm and before it reached his elbow. He jerked his hand back as if the moonlight burned him. It hadn't. The grisly transformations did no lasting damage. At least, not to his body. But they frightened him. Not for what they did to his body, but for how they affected the primitive side of his mind. He liked the feeling of power. He liked it too much.

Santo heard his alter ego's voice in his mind, Mi hijo, let me out. When the Moon's pull latched onto Santo, he did not just look like a monster; he felt and thought like one. And what frightened him the most was that a tiny part of his mind craved being the monster as much as a junky longs for another fix. Santo knew if he let himself bathe in the Moon's light, he would blissfully give in to his darkest desires.

He stood in the darkness, rubbing his pressed lapel as if trying to wipe away a dark smudge only he knew was there. He could feel the creature within, wanting to get out and knowing that someday it would. Knowing the clock was ticking, and that someday it would escape again.

To make his fears that much worse, Santo Guerrero was no mere werewolf. He was a dark angel. A cursed descendant of one of the fallen tribes of Heaven. An ancestor of an enslaved nephilim foot soldier. A twisted conscript in Lucifer's army during the great war. And Santo, like the rest of his kind, were weapons left behind by Lucifer's retreating vanguards. He was half-angel, half-demon wolfen. A fierce creature capable of unimaginable atrocities. In human form, he was more beautiful than any human, and in wolf form was more terrifying than the worst nightmare ever dreamt. He was a ticking time bomb with a malfunctioning detonator.

But if there was one saving grace, it was that the choice to walk within the light or lurk within darkness rested solely on him. And his counterpart. But their choices were irreversible. And Santo- unbeknownst to the boy soldier- he had made his choice long ago.

Out on the mirrored river Thames, ships of all sizes made their way lazily out of the city. They were heading towards Margate point and then out into the English Channel to parts beyond.

The frigid night air howling down the channel seared exposed skin and froze teary eyes. Passengers and crew members alike retreated to their warm compartments. No one aboard the vessels saw the wretched, shambling figure half cloaked in fog as it made its way straight towards South Street, Bromley. It knew not where it was going or who awaited its arrival, but it felt an inexorable pull towards Santo and the long unfinished business of their past.

Behind Santo, a short, squat woman carrying a large candle holder entered the dark parlor. As she crossed the threshold, the five long flames of the golden trident flickered as if buffeted by a ghostly wind no one could feel. The candles almost went out. But the old woman drew back to a safe position just beyond the parlor. The flickering stopped.

"Pardon me, my lord," she called out in a loud Irish accent.

Startled by her sudden appearance, Santo reeled around and unwittingly stepped into the moonlight. The change was both instantaneous and terrifying. He became a tall, sinewy upright wolf with skin as black as midnight and wings like a bat. He stood cloaked in the light of the blood moon for a moment, taking in his twisted and beautiful form, and then smiled darkly.

The beast was free.