“I just want it to go away. I can’t live feeling like this.” My voice cracked and I let the wave of thoughts and memories cover me. “Kreios, I need him… I want him… but…”
“You have to let him go, Airel. You have to feel the pain, the hurt, and let him go.” Taking me in his arms, Kreios held me and I cried out of my soul. Never before had I opened up my heart to my own fears and feelings. It was the worst and best experience of my life.
I’m not sure how much time went by, but after it was all over I fell into a deep sleep as Kreios ran his hand through my hair. He was my connection, the one person who understood what it was like and what I was feeling. I don’t know if this will change my life, if I can move on and be strong but I know that I will be fine. I will be okay in the end.
Because I am enough.
Chapter VII
We had a long breakfast. I talked with Kreios about when we could go back home. I blamed it on Kim and how her parents, too, missed her terribly by now. I felt caught between two totally unknowable things: my desire for everything to get back to normal as quickly as possible, and my need to reset and find out how to be who I needed to be from now on.
I asked Kreios about the Seer, and he didn’t really say much. Stan had escaped and Kreios had been worried about me—so he flew straight home to check up on me instead of hunting down the monster. He told me that he would be leaving soon in order to be sure of a few things, wrap up the loose ends. I guessed that meant that we still had to be careful and stay hidden until Kreios could force an end to all of it. I didn’t try to push my luck with him. I knew he would just tell me that I needed more training.
Kim walked into the kitchen around 10:30, changing our conversation and giving Kreios the cue he was looking for to leave. He said he wouldn’t be long, and to stay on the property.
Kim and I had a decently normal conversation, considering everything that had happened. Kim was somebody who could do small talk, and with a vengeance. Once she had got her fill of the usual breakfast fare—except that this food tasted so much better—we decided to take a walk.
We ended up following a trail I hadn’t explored yet, which was nice, because the other ones were haunted for me by Michael’s ghost.
The trail led up into a thick forest of quaking aspens that were holding onto the last of their bright orange leaves. Their chalky white trunks and branches were a feast for the eyes. It was an Indian summer kind of day; autumn, but warm. The trail took us through the trees and ended abruptly at the top of a cliff, probably forty feet tall, that overlooked a little mountain lake. We could see fish jumping occasionally, making silvery splashes and ripples in the placid surface.
We decided to sit down, each of us ‘pulling up a rock,’ to soak up the rays. The sun was high in the sky, deep azure blue contrasted sharply against billowing white clouds. I thought about my mom and dad again. It was ripping me apart that they were worried sick about me, and I felt like it was within my power to go to them—it filled me with guilt. I wasn’t a prisoner, not anymore. I could just grab the keys to the Yukon and be done with it.
The only thing that kept me from going was that nagging feeling that I would do to my family what I already had done to Kim. Indirectly, sure, but still. If it wasn’t for me, Kim would never have been taken hostage and used as bait.
Then again, if it wasn’t for Michael…
“What is the great angel thinking about now?” Kim asked as she lay on her back on a huge granite boulder, sunning herself like a lizard.
“Oh, Mom and Dad,” I lied halfway. “I miss them.” Echoes of the hurt Michael had caused, along with my ebbing feelings for him, faded into the background as I forced myself to talk about something else. “And I miss my own bed and my own room. I think I won’t be graduating this year; missed too many classes.”
Kim shrugged. “No worries. You’re smart enough.” I wasn’t sure I agreed with Kim’s attitude. “Besides, Kreios can teach you anything you ever wanted to know. He’s like what, four thousand years old?”
“Something like that. I hope this’ll all be over soon. I don’t know how much more I can take. We’ve gotta get you back, too—”
“No way. This is the best vacation I’ve ever had.”
I knew she was lying for me. Trying to ease the pressure.
“Besides,” she continued, “until Stan is caught, we’re safest here. Kreios has something cooking, I can tell.” Her hands brushed away a bug that had found its way up to her cheek. I closed my eyes and tried to not think, tried not to worry. It was nice, anyway, to just lie still in the sun on a big rock. I decided to enjoy the moment.
“So what ever happened with James after we went missing?” I was curious. I hadn’t thought of him at all, but I remembered that Kim had a huge crush on him.
“Oh, James,” She sighed. “He took me out one time after, but something was not the same. He was like a shell of what he used to be. He missed Michael, and I think he took it very bad. He never talked much to begin with, but this was different. It was kinda pathetic, really. I felt like all he could think about was Michael. I just let it go; I didn’t want to be around someone who was so down all the time.”
“Well, they were best friends.” I wondered if James knew who Michael really was. I doubted it; he didn’t seem to let anyone in, even me.
“Whatever, though,” I said, trying hard again to relax and just enjoy the moment. I closed my eyes and lay my head back. It was a lazy day, and nothing to do but watch it amble on past, like an old man with a cane. It was weird, like I could hear the footsteps of the old man in my head, shuffling past in the dirt. When I realized what the sound really was, it was far too late to do anything about it.
“Hello, Airel. Did you miss me?”
Chapter VIII
Stan stood hunched over, his lips wet with blackness, a smirk on his bruised face. I could see the glowing red stone dangling around his neck. “You are an abomination, a curse, and I am here to carry out my orders.” His bloodshot eyes twitched back and forth like a whipped dog.
Kreios! I searched for him frantically.
Kim struggled to her feet and scrambled to my side. “You must have a death wish, you creepy little man!” She was trying to look tough. “Airel will tear you apart!” I elbowed her in the ribs and muttered under my breath.
I swept her behind me with my arm and instinctively crouched, in my fighting stance. She doesn’t know what she’s saying and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Kreios had told me to run if I ever met Stan alone. He was speaking in two voices, so obviously the Seer was with him. My spine tingled as my body poured adrenaline into my fear.
“Come here, girl,” Stan’s eyes glowed red even in broad daylight; his pupils cat-like and piercing. He held a length of heavy chain in his hand.
“You really think I’m just going to go with you?” I could hear Kreios coming. I stepped forward slightly, to try to fend the villain off, but he didn’t budge an inch.
“You’re crazy,” I said through clenched teeth, trying to signify my courage. I could feel everything; every beat of my heart, every fiber of nerve and muscle in my body. I was a coiled panther ready to unleash raw fury—and deep within me, I could feel She gathering up all the frustration, anxiety, disappointment, and crushing powerlessness I had felt ever since I had begun my change, and distilling it into hate for the evil one that dared to stand before me. I wanted to kill, for the first time in my life, and what’s more I was ready to do it, couldn’t wait to begin.
When Kreios landed, it was a seismic event. There was maybe twenty feet of open space between me and my attacker, and Kreios landed right in the middle of it, cracking the earth deeply, making the boulders shudder. The swirl of light that danced around him almost looked like wings, but it moved around his body as if the light itself was protecting him. His jaw clenched.
He held no weapon in his hand, and he was clothed in the same simple robe that he had worn for my training. “This time, brother, you will bow to your Make
r or I will take more than your wing.”
The Seer laughed maniacally, extricating himself out of Stan as if his body was a used container, kicking him aside when he was through, sending the heavy chain he had been brandishing into the grass. Kreios lunged in attack, and the thing backhanded him with one massive movement. Kreios flipped over, righted himself, and hovered in the air.
“Airel! You must take Stan; it is the only way.” He looked at me, and in his eyes was strength and trust. “You must walk through the door, child. Walk through it and take that which awaits you there. It is your destiny.”
This is getting real. And it was getting hard to believe.
Time stood still in that moment of my existence. My eyes wide open, there appeared before me, somewhere or somehow between the real and the supernatural, a door. It was made of a single piece of wood and stood apart from everything. There were no handle or hinges, as far as I could tell. I looked at Kim; she was frozen and didn’t seem to be able to see me. The trees were stuck, motionless. I reached my hand out to the door, and as I did, it opened to me.
I could only believe one thing as it swung open and revealed what was on the other side: this was the Sword of Light. The Sword of my grandfather, an angel of God, who had once lived in paradise, heaven, in the company of God Himself.
The Sword was brilliant; it illuminated me, my spirit, my mind, and called to me. I strode through the door, a petite girl of seventeen, and wrapped my hand around the grips. As I passed through the door, it evaporated, leaving me once again at the top of the cliff, Kreios, the Seer, and Stan before me, Kim behind me, all frozen as if I had been taken out of time. And the Sword was immense, but seemed to shrink and grow light in my hands. I sensed that it would do the work; all I had to do was hang on.
I moved the blade in a wide arc over my head, feeling far more wise and graceful than I ever had; I felt like a warrior. And I knew that I was. I took to my fighting stance, this time with the Sword in my hands, and closed my eyes.
When I opened my eyes again, I was still holding the Sword. Everything was slowly starting to regain its momentum around me. I saw a branch move in the breeze. I looked at Kim, who was looking at me as if she had seen a ghost, her finger trying to point at the Sword, but failing, shaking and falling back to her side. “Kim. Stay out of the way, okay? Go hide!” She ran to a nearby stone outcropping and disappeared.
The Sword was featherlight in my hand. I felt warmth and power filling me. It was not red like anger, or white and wonderful like love—but something else entirely. It didn’t even have a color—not one I could put into words.
Stan sneered, unsheathing the same black dagger he had had at his house, stepping toward me in a sideways crouch, dagger in his leading hand. “The Brotherhood wants you alive. They will have to understand if I bring you back dead—I had no choice, you see—you attacked me!” He snarled, snorted and spit.
Kreios barreled right at the Seer, taking him on without delay. The two tumbling bodies fell out of sight in the forest, behind a small rise. I could hear branches breaking; maybe whole trees from the sound of it.
I studied my enemy. Stan was not just any man. Not only was he being propped up by supernatural—unnatural—power that found a home in the Seer, but he was also the father of the lover who had left my heart in a heap of ashes.
My enraged heart was now looking at the target for the blame—Stan. And not only Stan, but the being known as the Seer. I focused my pain on him as the cause of it and charged forward with a shout that surprised me.
Stan’s guard was inadequate at best, and as She guided me through my body’s motions, I stabbed with a thrusting motion and felt the Sword take over, driving the point of the blade in. I could feel ribs break under the force of the blow.
Stan howled in pain, dropping his hands. I moved fluidly to the side, forcing the point of the blade to pivot on the rib, ripping him apart inside and opening him up. Stan fell to one knee and gasped, eyes bulging. The Sword was withdrawn from his wound. I felt almost like a spectator as I watched myself move like someone who knew what she was doing; who could handle herself with a weapon like this. I swept the Sword out and around to the side, spinning back to my opponent, keeping the Weapon between us. It was amazing how easy it all was.
“You think you can kill me that easily,” he croaked. The wound began to heal right before my eyes, though a deep crimson scar remained. “As long as I have this—” His voice cut off as he fondled the red bloodstone that hung around his neck. Then a new cut emerged on his neck: long, with five points at its end. It began to bleed. It looked like claw marks, or maybe invisible strong hands.
Kreios.
If I killed Stan, the Seer would die as well… or will he just retreat into the red stone? I couldn’t remember. Stan got to his feet and smacked me with more force than I would have thought he was able to muster. I thought I would fall, but my body moved into the motion his strike had created, moving with it, spinning back around, using it to reset my fighting stance.
“We must coordinate our kills, Airel! The Seer must perish first, otherwise he will escape into the stone.”
In our macabre dance, we had exchanged positions; the rocky cliff now stood behind the wild-eyed man. Maybe I can back him up and push him over. Will a fall of that height kill him? It might knock him out and drown him…
I swung the Sword powerfully, meeting the edge of his jagged dagger in a spray of sparks. The tip of his weapon was cut; it sailed off into the lake below. He tried to counterattack with a quick jab, but missed. I swung again, bringing the tip of the blade in an arc up from the ground to the sky, pushing him back.
Stan twitched and cried out, slapping at new wounds on his body. He was limping and favoring the side where I had hit him and smashed his ribs. Evidently the healing power of the bloodstone was not working fast enough. His ribs are still broken.
I pulled up and kicked him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. He doubled over; I raised the Sword high overhead, and clubbed him on the back of his skull with the end of the handle. He slumped to the dirt in a wrecked pile. Unconscious.
I wasn’t even breathing heavy.
And then the Sword of Light vanished right out of my hands. It was gone. Was it ever there?
***
The angel and the demon tumbled into the undergrowth, away from Airel. Kreios knew that he must be quick if he was to be victorious. A massive aspen broke their progress, snapping off three or four feet above the ground, the tree top falling with a shiver.
Kreios grunted, grabbing the Seer by the neck, ripping at it, feeling the black blood trickle and spray, and the smell that rode along with it.
Clods of dirt flew through the air. They struggled, Kreios climbing onto the demon’s back, but Tengu flung him off. Kreios rushed him, faked left and lunged right, striking again at his neck with his left hand, using the hold to swing himself around onto the demon’s back. Kreios could feel his strength begin to fail; the demon soaking it out of him quickly now.
Kreios got a foot planted in front of him, shifted his weight, then forced Tengu forward mightily, sending him headlong into the dirt; the angel riding the back of the demon. The Seer choked and gagged, holding his ribcage. A gash appeared there, and Kreios could see the broken ribs jutting out. Airel was doing better than he had hoped.
Tengu tried to flop over on his back, arching himself desperately, trying to extend the seconds, to weaken the angel. Kreios simply enlarged his grip on the neck of the demon, holding his head now in the crook of his elbow. He reached and dug thumb and forefinger into both of the Tengu’s eye sockets, digging them in as deeply as he could reach.
The Seer screamed in total agony, blinded and bleeding from the damage, his eyeballs ruptured and leaking.
Now that the demon had been immobilized, Kreios changed positions. He wearily placed a knee on each shoulder blade, pinning him to the forest floor. Kreios then grasped with iron grip the horns of the Seer’s head that sprouted from the top
of his skull and wrapped around in front of his face.
“You ceased long ago to be my brother,” he said. “The war of endurance is over. And I put an end to you at last.” With one powerful motion, Kreios wrenched Tengu’s head to one side, pulling upward, snapping the neck of the demon, killing him, and ripping his head off.
Now, like a scrap of discarded snake skin, the body of the demon withered, shriveled, and became dust, blowing away in a sudden strong gust. Kreios discarded the large head, letting it roll down the gentle slope a little ways. It came to a stop, then exploded in a whiff of inky darkness, pitifully vanishing as vapors into the wind.
Chapter IX
I was standing over the crumpled body of Stanley Alexander when I heard the most awful wrenching sound; a scream that ripped at the heavens and was cut short, as if the soul of it had been torn right out midstream. I was still trying to figure out what was real and what was not—vanishing doors, then disappearing Swords—seriously, what’s next?
As soon as that unholy scream had rent the air, Stan jolted wide awake in a spasm, lurching up from the ground. I jumped back defensively. I reached out in my mind to Kreios and got nothing. Is he dead? I didn’t know.
When Stanley Alexander opened his eyes, something was different. It was very bad and it was very new. She was sending me warning signals without words, and I understood that what I was looking at in Stan was unprecedented. What he had become then had never been seen under the sun before.
He got to his feet wearing a wicked smile, and said, “‘We’ is now me.” He moved so quickly that I couldn’t do anything. Before I knew it, he had stabbed me. I felt overwhelming pain dashing against my chest. He stepped forward, pushing with the blade. I heard Kim scream from a long way off.
He pushed harder, the black blade digging in further, and I fell to my knees. I gagged, wrapped my hand around the blade to try to stop it from going farther. I felt a pumping, gushing, leaking sensation in my chest that was all at once hot and cool, and my strength faded rapidly.
Airel Page 29