This excerpt - from a fictional book by his fictional daughter - provides a bit of background for the character of Malak and his world.

Rodford Edmiston

Excerpt from a book published in 1970, written by Arielle (the Lioness) Labelle.

My Father Has Wings

by

Arielle Labelle

Don't call Aaron Labelle an angel. He has never claimed to be one. Though he has occasionally joked that he is an angel in training. What he does claim is that he was given his abilities by an angel. Something which cannot be verified, but which he devoutly believes, and acts in accordance to.

My mother is nearly as much of a saintly figure as my father. She claims Aaron is a divine madman, and there is much to back this viewpoint. Certainly, it would take someone with an unusual mindset to not try and parlay looking so much like a creature from Christian and Hebrew folklore (and some others, as well) into fame, glory and wealth. My father, though, was very careful not only to avoid that trap, but to deny the ambitions of anyone who tried to make use of him in such a way.

My father is the most caring person I have ever known. Which may be why his empowerment manifested in the way it did. Or maybe he simply wanted to be better, to lose the anger which too often accompanied his passion for helping others early on, and his transformation shaped his character into what we see today. I can testify personally to the comforting value of being cradled in his warm, soft, grey wings. I can almost understand the people who collect his feathers.

Aaron is the son of a Louisiana Cajun and a French immigrant. He was born in July, 1895 in Baton Rouge. Aaron was brought up mostly in that city but with considerable time spent with cousins in the bayou. He went to a proper school, but he also learned the ways of the woods and the swamp. English was his first language but not by much. His mother - who came to the US from France when she was just 16 - was a librarian and a born story teller and romantic. Among the tales she filled his head with were fables of fantastic creatures, including angels. His father taught high school English. He was a soldier in the Spanish American War and also loved stories, especially those of heroic warriors.

Note that Aaron has some Native American ancestors. A few of whom were enslaved by the French and Spanish before they started the mass importation of slaves from Africa. As well, some of his French Canadian ancestors were brought to Louisiana against their wills as indentured servants. He gets his light complexion from his mother. When he was young some of his cousins called him "Leblanc" because he was so much lighter than them.

Aaron was convinced to participate early in the Great War by his mother, with his father also encouraging Aaron to "go and be a man." Along with many other American volunteers he went to France well before the United States formally joined the conflict. Being fluent in French (though with what most French natives consider an atrocious accent) he was placed in a French unit on the front line. Within weeks - due to his intelligence and education - he was transferred to a nearby artillery unit, a group of French 75s. Part of the reason for his reassignment was that the French unit needed someone to be their liaison with the British command. However, the Brits couldn't understand him (or that's what they said) any better than the French could. Aaron eventually wound up doing more technical jobs. He had already proved himself in battle in the trenches, and continued to do so during several attacks by the Germans against the artillery battery where he was stationed.

In July of 1915 he was seriously injured in an counter battery artillery barrage. A barrage which started with gas shells. Supposedly this gas was chlorine, and intended to prevent the French battery from responding to the attack. From the symptoms of the survivors the gas was something very much other than chlorine, but the true nature was not revealed by the Germans. Whatever it might have actually been is apparently lost to time. The explosive shells which followed nearly put paid to what was left of the unit after the gas did its work.

That night, in the French military hospital where the survivors were taken, Aaron dreamed an angel came to him. (From his descriptions, this was an Arel, or White Wing, one of the Erelim.) Weeping but saying nothing, she held out a spear in one hand and a cup in the other, obviously expecting him to make a choice. However, before he could do this a nurse shook him awake to give him some medicine.

Aaron received a medical discharge and returned to the US with a medal and a scar on his head. His recovery was long and difficult and not aided by the fact that he was disillusioned in many ways. As were many others, he was disgusted by the wastage of trench warfare. The kings and magnates and their military commanders seemed to have no concern for how many died trying to obey their incompetent whims. He also felt a sense of longing, of something incomplete in his life. He followed the news of the war, feeling increasingly disappointed and unsettled. He began paying more attention to the unfair treatment of lower class people by the upper classes in civilian life as well as the military. He became obsessed with the acts committed against the lower classes on the parts of both governments and businesses. There wasn't a lot he could do, especially since he was still recovering, so Aaron decided to move on. He got a good job and tried resuming his relationship with his fiance, though unsuccessfully. The discontent deep in his soul drove her away, along with most of his family.

After the war finally ended he tried to feel optimistic, and convince himself things were getting better. It didn't work; he continued to feel out of place, that there was something deeply wrong with the world. As well as with himself. He therefore decided to travel, to see the country and maybe find himself. Aaron left his home town of Baton Rouge and wandered for a couple of years. (When I asked about this time in his life in preparation for writing this book, he just smiled and said "I was busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train, feeling near as faded as my jeans. The only person who came to see me off was my young cousin Bobby. He was one of the singing McGees.") The only remnants of his military adventure in France which he took with him was the Longines wrist chronograph he had been issued as an Artillery Corps lieutenant, a set of Jules Vern's classic stories in the original French, and his scars.

First he went north, and found various jobs in Scranton and other industrial towns. The treatment of workers there dismayed him, so he shipped out on a freighter. He went through the Panama Canal and saw the great redwood trees of the West Coast before heading east again. Finally, he arrived in Chicago to try for a new start.

In 1919 he was on strike at the Chicago packing plant where he worked when a goon squad organized by the Pinkertons attacked. "I survived the Great War and the gas there, but the 'smoke grenades' the Pinks used nearly finished me. While I was on all fours, retching and trying to see, someone hit me on the head. Probably with a rifle butt."

Aaron and many others were taken to a prison infirmary. That night he had the same dream. This time he was able to complete his choice. Realizing that men needed to strive for peace while being prepared to fight, he took both the spear and the cup. The silent, weeping angel smiled and faded away, nodding.

When Aaron awoke in the prison infirmary the next day he was completely healed. He also felt a new clarity of thought and had a new sense of purpose to his life. After a few days he was released with a warning from the judge but no charges filed. Then - completely unrepentant - he left to begin his work. As part of this he became a volunteer with Catholic Relief Services, specializing in helping those victimized by their employers. He soon became much more.

Though my father was physically healed - and soon learned to transform into an angelic form - along with the bad attitude he had acquired, the process of healing had wiped away much of the knowledge he had gained in the military. He remembered - still remembers - the events of his service, but lost the details of the skills. Some of this later came back to him, such as his knowledge of Morse code.

In compensation, he now learned much more easily and fully than before. He began picking up languages from the people he helped.

Many people have worked on timelines of appearances of supposedly empowered people through history, some even tracing the phenomenon back to myth and legend. However, before Haymarket there are only a handful of reliably documented events which might - might - represent the actions of someone we now consider empowered. Yet those few who gained powers among those who were gassed there remain distinct in history, the beginning of something new in the world. While the details of what was used on the strikers were soon deliberately destroyed to reduce the chance of prosecution, the formula was known in general. There followed multiple attempts - which were generally lethal - to deliberately empower people.

Most of the early empowered either did not try to keep secret who they really were, or tried and failed, or tried and soon gave up. My father, due to his ability to transform (or "angel up" as he puts it) succeeded in keeping his powers separate from his civilian life until the late Forties. Even then, the exposure came as part of his protest against the post-War registration program. "I saved thousands of lives, helped defeat the Nazis and keep the Soviet Union in check and you want to know where to send my income tax bill? Well, here's where. Good luck collecting. I don't have an income."

Which brings me to the peculiarity of my father's finances. From when he awoke from that second head injury until shortly after he married my mother he refused a salary for his work. He lived on food and tips from the people he helped - and he only took those if they could afford them - plus occasional meals at charity kitchens. He slept in the homes of those he helped - often on the floor - or at Church housing. All this long before the fall of the Market in 1929. People today don't seem to realize that the main thing the Great Depression did was make more people suffer the same hardships as the poorest always have.

He did start accepting a salary after he married, in 1921. Mother earned a good income as an accountant - in part due to Father asking a business friend to make sure she was paid what she was worth, rather than getting less than what a man could earn on the same job. Once they were married and together moved into a larger apartment, my father started taking pay for his work helping people. Though he still rarely used any of that money for himself, instead using it to support our household.

That much was a matter of public record for decades. What wasn't was his activities as Malak. On his own and joined with other empowered, he fought against both government and business corruption and those empowered who yielded to temptation. Aaron had no objection to people with powers using them to earn a living - though he frequently criticized those with powers who run for office, seeing that as unfair - but he felt that one of the reasons he had been given his powers was to defend those without them from those with them. They were just one more group who could victimize the less fortunate.

After I was born in 1923 Aaron spent less and less time as Malak. Especially after October of 1929. However, as my brothers and I became better able to care for ourselves he began resuming that work. Then came the Second World War.

Even today people underestimate my father's proficiency at combat. Yes, he can fight. Dear Lord, can he fight. More than one physically potent empowered who thought him- or herself unbeatable has gone down before strikes from Aaron's mighty wings or fallen to the bite of his flaming spear. However, during and following WWII his emphasis - as always - was on helping those in need. Thousands of refugees and death camp prisoners owed their lives and freedom to my father.

Unfortunately, while Malak is mighty, he is mortal. Despite all he and those with him could do, millions died or were permanently marked by the privations of the war. Something which haunts him to this day.

Today, despite the effort of governments to control and contain the empowered, my father continues to champion the cause of the weak against the strong, However, he works within the system when he can. He believes in the advice to render unto Caesar, and advises other activists to do the same. He likes to follow that quote with a calm but firm reminder that even Caesar will fall without the support of the masses.

Oh, and it's just a myth that my father is afraid of ornithologists. That was a joke he told decades ago which some people still take seriously.