>Chapter Seven<
The Death of Erma, the Lenage Queen
The disgusting odour of death stayed behind in the night. It was a weird and wonderful smell, somewhat like sulphur. An odour Paolo was acquainted with too well, an odour that had impressed itself in his reminiscence ever since he was all of three. As he took in the slain body of a non-Linage aswang woman, slouched alongside the alley fence, his lips arched back in hatred. He guessed she was about his age, all of twenty eight, too. Her hair was dishevelled and thick with blood. Her black eyes where open and cold, just as unmoving and unfilled as her body. The white silk blouse she had on was now discoloured red about the neck.
He took notice of her screaming hardly any minutes ago and he hurried to help out. But now her howls for help only resounded in his ears. His endeavour to save the woman was wasted, and now here he got to his feet fix his eyes down on another nameless prey. He once more was too late, and a life had been taken because of it. Whoever did this would pay, even if he had to stay out for the night looking for the Lenage aswang. He would give this non-Lenage woman her act of vengeance.
Inclining his body, he closed her eyes and fluffed up away the tears she shed by her death. He had failed this woman. He didn't know who she was; in fact, being a man-about-town, he'd never even seen her in town. But as ridiculous as it seemed, this woman looked recognisable in a way and it worried him. In effect it confounded him for some untried explanation. Her passing hanged on to at his heart sending a shudder of angst down his backbone. Perhaps, because she looked a little like him if he were a woman, no different hair colour, no different frame, diminutive, possibly because he was in her place on one occasion before, a vulnerable wounded of a Lenage aswang hunger for flesh. No matter what the grounds were, it filled him with compassion and torture.
‘Your soul can have a rest,’ he spoke softly before he stood up another time.
He looked about the neglected lane, searching for inkling - no matter which for him to go ahead to the Lenage aswang who caused this killing. But he found not a soul. The hairs on his arms stood up, and he was aware of his eyes boring in to the backside of his skull. He was well aware of another presence, he couldn't see them but he could sense two of them in close proximity.
But all he heard was stillness, an intimidating silence chilling him to the bone. It was apparent they were toying with him. But what they didn't recognise was that he could bend their little recreation against them.
‘Show your face, come out where ever you are,’ he called out with a perverse grin.
‘Why should I?’ A cold voice called from the shadows.
‘Because the sooner I kill you, the better,’ he laughed out as dim-witted as it seemed, taking joyfulness in egging the Lenage aswang on it as it brought more excitement to the clash.
‘Ah a certain one, I haven't seen a non-Linage aswang with this kind of guts in a long time.’ A shill feminine voice rang in his ears.
'What can I say, I'm a required to be reckoned with,' he expressed joy.
Before he could even bat an eyelid, his back knocked against the fence, opposite of him a strong grasp holding his hands above his head. A tall woman came into view, her dark hair exposed, her haunting red eyes looking fiercely down in to his own. She stood a good six inches higher than his tiny five foot frame. She looked fairly hungry for a Lenage aswang, but behind her ailing pretence, he could tell she had some kind of magic unseen away. Her pasty white skin shone in the moonlight, and her bloodstained lips created a relentless disparity. She was attractive, no doubt about it. But he wasn't an immature man. He knew of the hideousness in the rear of the beautiful faces of the destined.
‘You talk without stinting for a young man,’ she hissed exposing her three inch fangs. ‘Such a shame, you’re rather striking, for a person. It's almost a dishonour to kill you.’
‘Stop playing with your foodstuff, Erma. We're going to be behind schedule. Just kill him and let’s be on our way." Another woman called out, emerging from the shadows. Her long hair flared out behind her, like a drape of conflagration. Her eyes were afire with hunger for man beef. She was taller than he by only a few inches.
‘Quiet Leah, you’re running all my enjoyment,’ Erma said in a slapdash fashion, her eyes flashing riskily at Paolo.
He had grown irritated with all this talk and decided to do something. He at the double kneed Erma in the stomach; Leah was taken by surprise and hanged him down to the ground. Leah let out a ferocious snarl absorbedly and pulled him towards the rear by his hair crashing him in to a barricade. He kicked Leah’s legs out from under her. He pushed his self off the fence and smashed his elbow into her jaw causing her to descend to the ground. Erma took a swing at him, but he dodged swiftly. She was bewildered by his swiftness and he took advantage of the situation. He plunged a stake right into her heart. Erma hissed out in rage. Her pain and resentment echoed off the alley fences as her friend was burnt to a cinder. He just sniggered at her enjoying the misery he allowed to run riot.
All of a sudden, he was held up in the air by his neck, Erma baring her fangs at him, her eyes turning to a cavernous crimson. Agony twisted her features into a twisted pretence of fury.
‘You will pay for that,’ she hissed at him.
‘In the future, she might but not today,’ the yawning voice called out and Erma was also burnt to a cinder right before his eyes. Before he even knew it, he fell to the ground, shuddered, and disorientated. He looked up at his uncle expecting to see him delighted, but when he met his aged eyes, he right away knew his uncle was far from pleased. The old man glared down at him, clearly disenchanted. He was known as Uwa Oret, a clairvoyant and a self-directed non-Linage aswang. As the pits would come, many non-Linage aswangs would seek advice from him.
‘Nice going Paolo, only you could get yourself in this kind of jumble,’ his uncle said hard-heartedly.
‘I was just doing my job,’ he said scuffing at the old man.
‘Will talk about this back at home,’ the old man said glaring at him.
‘Calm down, Tiyoy, it was nothing,’ he muttered blowing his bangs out of his eyes annoyed.
‘It was nothing?’ The old man asked uninterestedly.
‘Yes nothing, Tiyoy. Just a graceful killing,’ he stated.
He had just killed a Lenage queen. An awe-inspiring rush of smugness washed over him. He had just killed one of the toughest aswangs and he wasn't even a fully-fledged non-Lenage assassin yet. He was truly living up to the non-Lenage tradition.
‘This is nothing to be proud of Paolo, this could start off hostilities,’ his uncle whispered at him, taking hold of him by the wrist and pulling him away from the passageway, the man beef still lying there dumped by both her slaughterer and her righter of wrongs.
‘Erma is your real mother,’ his uncle stated. Paolo was very befuddled. ‘You can only have her back when you have read a prayer in a book written by Paciano, the chief of the Linage aswang. Even she herself doesn’t know that you are her real son.’
‘Where is that book now’ he raised.
‘I don’t know. It must be with a Linage aswang,” he went on.
‘How does it look like?’
He didn’t reply. He just shrugged his shoulders.
Paolo metamorphosed into an extremely large owl and took to the air as high as he could. He wanted to meet his father once the next day. He somewhat didn’t want to believe Uwa Oret. He had been on the fence since then. Paolo knew that the old man hated bloodshed and slaughter, or even settling of scores.
Uwa Oret was not knocked for six at his transformation anymore as he knew well who Paolo was. He was a clairvoyant, so he knew many things. Linage aswangs could not harm him as he had a lot of talismans and magic charms.
Let pass the time and see, he thought.
Paolo’s Death
A Novel by Roger B Rueda
Product Details
Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 420 pages, 6x9
Publisher: AntBooks for Young Readers (15 May 2011)
Language: English
Price: Php 630
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