I could not feel my legs as they ran. My arms flailed at empty air. I was swimming in grief, running blindly, my vision blurred and became kaleidoscopic with my tears. This just couldn’t be. I found myself in Michael’s room and I landed on his bed, which was unmade and still carried his lovely scent. But he was gone.
I saw a note on his pillow and reached for it, stretching and swimming through the comforter. I couldn’t even ask why. I looked at his handwriting and started to cry again. The words, the feelings. I had fallen for all of it. The love of my life crumbled to pieces, into meaninglessness. He had been planning on leading his demon father right to me—or maybe he had even planned on killing me himself. I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand and looked at the note, the only piece left to me; the only evidence of the love that never was.
Dearest Airel,
I am so sorry if I ever hurt you. I have to go, and by now you know why. If I could change who I am I would; but I’m in too deep. Run, Airel. Run! Please!
Michael
I burst into deep heavy sobs and fell back on his bed. My hands shook in anguish as I crumpled into a ball. How could he do this to me? Didn’t he know how much I loved him? Didn’t he know that I would die for him? But he had told me to run. Was I supposed to run from him? Like this was some sick game?
I couldn’t think; it was all so wrong. I shivered in remembrance of his gunslinger eyes, those painfully blue eyes,The whole time I was falling in love with him, and he was encouraging me in it, he was thinking of how best to kill me. This was a game I had never played before, one I never wanted to learn, and one I was determined never to play again.
A hand touched my shoulder. Kale sat next to me. He pulled me into his arms. And in his arms I found my solace, my thoughts appropriately turning to destruction and fury. But that fuel was quickly spent, burnt, and I fell into despair. All of it was accompanied by a maelstrom of tears. The man I had loved to hate was now my only friend. The man I once loved was now my worst enemy. My body shook, wracked in spasms of pure white grief. I sunk low. I reached out looking for She. She could have told me; She could have warned me, and none of this would have happened.
I screamed to her in Kale’s arms, “Where are you?! Talk to me! Why?! Why didn’t you tell me!” I screamed until my voice gave out. She was there, and just as Kale had taken me in his arms, She did as well. Her warm wings covered me and I let everything go. All my emotions, hurts, and fears fell from my heart and soul, and I cried like I’d never cried before.
I was rebirthed in that moment. That’s the only way to describe it. I had to be cut so deeply that I felt my own death was imminent.
I saw clearly that everything from my birth to the day I had been kidnapped had been planned—foreseen—and provided for. There were no accidents, no coincidences; right down to whomever I met and what school I went to. And then, from the expansive view of my lowest moment, I could rest in the fact that there was a purpose for everything.
I had never asked for it. But there I was. I didn’t know what the end would hold for me, but I had to try. The pain of losing Michael threatened to crush me, but I understood now that I had never lost him. I had only lost who I thought he was. Simply knowing that I could love so deeply helped me begin to work past the pain, in a way. It would be a long, long journey, and I knew that my confrontation with Michael would be telling.
I didn’t want to think about what could have been. It wasn’t Why, but What. What was I supposed to learn and would I become a better person for it or let the pain and loss consume me?
Chapter XII
1250 B.C. Arabia
The Seer peered into the red light pulsing from the bloodstone, as if in the midst of it was the answer for which he was searching. He was filled to brimming with black rage. Within his tortured mind the staccato ringing of his Brother, his master resounded: “Slave, fool! The Sword was within our power—and you failed to keep it!”
The face of the Seer became old and withered again: “I have not failed us. It is you who failed to foresee what Kreios would do—” He doubled over in mid-sentence as scalding pain ripped through his body. He coughed and spit, and thick blood boiled on the ground. “Where are our nine spies? Have they returned?” He was writhing in agony until this new thought opened his eyes.
He did not know where they were. They should have been back with prisoners by now. The Seer struggled to his feet, the pain ceasing. He pulled his hood up, so as to hide the face of the almighty Seer from those who might want to see who he actually looked like. He walked out from his tent into the night air. It was disgustingly fresh, even in the midst of their encampment.
On a distant hilltop a small fire was dancing, sending its light up through the night sky. He could hear singing—the two escaped prisoners mocked him. No fool would sit and sing around a fire in plain view so soon after escaping from the most powerful horde army in the world. “And where are my nine?!”
Yet there it was. No shouts. No sounds of battle. Only singing, and the flicker of a campfire, star-like from this distance. The Seer growled, turned and grabbed his newest replacement captain of the guard. “Send twenty more Brothers with their hosts and bring me back the Sword—kill anyone in the enemy camp and bring me their heads. Tell them not to return empty-handed unless they wish to die.” He spit out the words with so much hatred that some blood sprayed against the guard’s face.
“Yes, master.” He scurried off and spread the word. In the next moment, twenty of the Brotherhood stood before the Seer, ready for battle. He waved his hand toward the firelight. The group moved out and disappeared into the forest.
***
Kreios and Yamanu had made camp for the night on the rise of a small open hillock, in perfect view of the enemy, and had lit a fire, not worrying if horde scouts saw them or not. The idea was to attract some attention and leave a trail. Besides, they were hungry. Yamanu stirred a stew made from fresh herbs, select roots, and a grouse he had killed. They talked and sang in thanks to El with loud voices as the stew simmered.
Kreios, a resounding baritone, and Yamanu, a tenor, sang songs they had used to sing as children before they had left paradise. Their voices rang out clear, strong, over the ravine, and reached all the way to the horde camp—making the patrols uneasy. Kreios knew there was power in the songs of angels.
Yamanu dipped his finger in the warm stew and a look of pure delight crossed his face as he touched it to his lips. “Wonderful, my friend. A few more moments, and we may even draw out the Seer with this fine stew.” Yamanu breathed in the aroma and closed his eyes, savoring the smell. They began to sing again.
***
The Brotherhood twenty made a clicking sound as their wings twitched. They found the nine that had been dispatched prior, and joined them. The intelligence the nine had gathered confirmed that indeed there were only two angels. The horde contingent agreed to a multi-pronged attack on the escaped prisoners: they would surround them and destroy them.
Before long, the Seer could observe their black forms ascending the hillock against the far-off camp, and he rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
As he expected, the singing stopped. A flash of white light lit up the night sky. After a mere instant, all was silent once again. The sound that reached the Seer’s ears made him tremble deeply: again, it was the sound of singing, only this time more intense.
He cursed and coughed, and in a fit of rage began to attack the four guards that had been assigned to keep watch over his tent. All four were soon dead. Blood ran down the Seer’s robe. He breathed raggedly and allowed black saliva to drop freely from his mouth. Kreios was mocking him—and for that he would pay—dearly.
***
As Yamanu and Kreios sat cooking their quaint dinner over a warm fire, singing childhood songs with happy hearts, the twenty and the nine drew near, encircling them. Kreios and Yamanu could smell them over the stew, and the mingling of stench with savory scent turned the stomach.
Kreios had only
to draw the Sword. Nearby, hiding in the forest were the one hundred Shadowers Yamanu had promised; the best and most gifted. With them stood another seventy angelic warriors who did not agree with the council’s decision, and insisted on following Kreios and Yamanu into battle. As he drew the Sword and held it high, the skirmish began.
There were not enough members of the horde to go around, and the angels made quick work of them. It was over in an instant. The one hundred Shadowers and the seventy warriors then ascended to the campfire, and offered their allegiance to Kreios and Yamanu.
“Kreios, friend of El and brother to the host of heaven. We heard your beautiful singing. May we join you?”
***
The Seer flew into a rage and screamed for the entire army to assemble, to make ready for war. Fear and anger had a common friend: blindness. One can make grave mistakes under their influence. The Seer was now doing precisely that. The tools that he knew how to use so effectively against his enemies now turned against him, naturally.
***
Kreios reached out in his thoughts to the gathered angelic army. He would exercise command in this way. He first searched them to determine if they were valorous warriors, intrepid and thirsty for victory. He found to his delight that all of them were indeed of solid stock, some even angry at the council’s decision. All of them wanted to destroy the horde almost as much as he did.
The risk of opening up his own mind could not be helped, but he closed off as many irrelevant passageways as much as he could, in order to make his commands clear and concise. He did not want to clutter the field of battle with thoughts of Eriel, with his fear of losing the Sword.
He looked down into the ravine from the hill. It was writhing with the creeping light of enemy torches. The sound of tearing and ripping flesh broke the stillness: the horde had just doubled its size. The demons now stood apart from their hosts. They would act as lightning rods, filtering superhuman power to the men under their control. It was a wet and sickening noise, the reek of the stinking demons wafted up the hill. Kreios complained lightly that he would not get to enjoy Yamanu’s fine grouse stew.
“Some other time, friend and captain. Save your hunger for the roasting of demon flesh in the fires of Hell. Besides, I already ate most of it.” Kreios nearly laughed at his comic friend. He only shook his head.
Then, in a loud resonant commanding voice that shook the very rock of the hills, he said, “Stand ready the Trumpeter! Prepare the attack!” The angelic host drew sword, bow, spear, axe, and the hills of the theatre of combat rang out with the sound of it. “Angels! Hear the sound of the voice of the Father and do not fear the cleaving of flesh from bone! Fear not the dark enemy that hides in shadow and deception! Fear only the shame of ignominious and unworthy death!” Shouts and warrior grunts and growls showered down upon the enemy horde.
Then Kreios issued his first order: “Demons first. The strength of the men will then fail and their desire to fight will crumble.” The thought rang out in the minds of the angelic army, and the earth beneath them began to shake as the Sons of God assembled themselves in battle formation. “You will join the battle in waves so that we can minimize the drain of the horde. Half of you will take to the air with your Shadowers while the other half engages the enemy in combat with theirs. Keep your distance until my signal. I will lead the attack. Yamanu, you will lead the angelic host in the air. When the time is right—we merge and destroy the horde.”
“What about the Sword?” Yamanu queried Kreios privately. Everyone within a small radius of the sword would not lose strength. “Thirteen of the best fighters will stay with me throughout the battle. That many will stay strong if they stay close to the Sword.” The thirteen angels, singled out and now assembled, agreed to fight at Kreios’s side to the death. He was deeply touched by their willingness to sacrifice themselves. He knew that this was about more than Eriel, or even he and the Sword. These few men knew that. He wished he could grasp the hands of the angels in his little army to show his gratitude—but he could not.
Yamanu turned to Kreios and they embraced like warriors. A billowing mass of fog appeared, obscuring the angelic army. Kreios unsheathed the mighty Sword.
Chapter XIII
Somewhere in the Mountains of Idaho, Present day
I opened my eyes, though I didn’t want to. Nothing this day could hold appealed to me. Kale and I left at 4 in the morning and I passed out in the front seat. Crying was hard work, and my eyes felt crusty and swollen.
My head hurt so badly it felt like someone had used it as a drum, pounding on it all night. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I looked over at Kale. He turned and gave me a sort of half smile.
“You were talking in your sleep.”
I groaned and pulled the visor down and gasped at my reflection. In most cases, after a night of crying and sleeping in a car I would be a hot mess. I was not, in fact, I looked fine—good, even. I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t say anything embarrassing.”
“No.”
I tried to block the memory of Michael standing in the kitchen. He had turned toward me, looked me in the eyes and lied, straight-faced. To think that I almost kissed him. I had wanted to kiss him. Even now, I still wanted simply to be with him—that was the worst part—I still loved him. How could he have done this to me? And how could I still love him?
“You okay?” Kale asked. He was looking at me with a concerned expression on his face.
“Yeah. Just having flashbacks.” I wiped a tear that had slipped past my defenses and smiled as best I could. I wasn’t okay; not even close. I wanted to run and curl up to die alone. But I might not die. I might have to live for thousands of years. It felt like I stood before the yawning chasm of eternity, and it was fast filling up with misery. A change of subject: “How long was I out?”
“About an hour. We’re still two hours out. I did some digging and found out that Stanley Alexander is a defense attorney. He’s widowed; his wife died of cancer, according to her medical records.”
“How did you get all this information?”
“I have a source.” He let a smirk cross half his face.
“A source?” It was clear that he was not going to let me in on this secret.
“I think I know where he will be. He has two homes. One of them he rents out, but it’s been vacant for the last six months.” Kale took a sip of his coffee. “No one knows what he’s done yet, but that won’t last long. People he works with, friends, neighbors will have seen that video on the news and recognized his voice, put two and two together and called it in. He hasn’t been seen at work in quite a while.”
“What video?”
“He sent a video to the newspapers and TV stations. It was aired last night.”
I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Kim?”
“Yes, she was on it. Which proves that she’s alive. But we need to find her before anyone else. If the police show up she’s as good as dead.”
“It’s like he wants to be caught.” I wondered if the video was an attempt to flush us out.
“Maybe he does. If he’s as far along as I think he is, God help the police if they try to arrest him.”
I wondered what he was talking about. “What do you mean? How are we going to get Kim back?”
“I think he’s the Seer. You would have read about him in the book I gave you.” I nodded. But I wondered how someone who had lived thousands of years ago could still be alive.
“The Seer is a spirit. He can be killed, but only by one of the Sons of God. We must be careful how we go about our business, Airel. If we kill Stan and leave the Seer without a host, he will be driven into the bloodstone.” Kale looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head. It was too much to take in. If I had read something about it I couldn’t remember it now.
“The stone was stolen from paradise when the Sons of God fell. It is a pure union of Diamond and Onyx that glows
red in the presence of the spirit of the Seer on earth. It does not belong here in the earthly realm. It is a talisman that allows him unnatural power, power that he continually consumes via the bridge enabled by the bloodstone between the spirit realm and this one. He uses this power to try to subjugate any created thing he desires to control. He is a demon prince from the substructures of Hell; some believe he may even be Lucifer himself—it is difficult to discern these things. The spirit of the Seer is confined to the immediate vicinity of the red bloodstone. If his host is killed, the Seer will be recaptured by the bloodstone until he finds someone else to enter.”
“So Stan invited this Seer to possess him?” I couldn’t believe someone would be willing to do that.
“He can be very convincing. He will say anything, as I said: you name it, he will promise it. A person who’s drunk or high will let him in without even realizing it. All the defenses of the mind, the gateway to the spirit, are nullified and the doors stand open wide.”
I shuddered. She fluttered in my mind, as if asking for my attention. “What about me? I’m not possessed, am I? I hear this voice in my head—like my conscience, but almost audible to me. I call her She.”
Kale’s eyes narrowed. “I have one, too. She, as you call her, is your inner man. Or woman. I keep forgetting that these days, man means a man, not the race of men.” He gave me another smile, and I was struck by it—there was something in it that I couldn’t quite figure out. It felt warm.
“When you were awakened, your inner woman, your angelic spirit, was awakened in you at the same time. It’s like a sixth sense, only separately cognitive. She is there to help you and protect you. In battle, for example, She will warn you in advance of any threat to your life.”
“So, it’s a good thing.” I could feel her sitting back down and fluttering her wings, folding them under her. They sounded like the pages of a book sometimes, like the fluttering of a bird at other times. It was so bizarre how I could visualize what she looked like, and simultaneously be unable to see her.
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