Airel

by Patterson, Aaron

  Stan pulled the dagger free and walked slowly around me as my wound gushed, blood running down my skin and soaking my clothes. He stood behind me then, with his dagger raised. I sensed what he was going to do, heard the voice of She screaming out in agony and grief, searched with all my heart for the mind of Kreios, but I couldn’t move. My heart had been pierced. I was mortally wounded.

  In the background, I heard Kim screaming, footsteps running toward me, but her voice sounded distant and vague. Somewhere deep within I knew she would be killed—it was inevitable—but I was now bound to my fate, and a prisoner of the events of my life. So short!I turned to face the unspeakably evil thing that had stabbed me, that would finish my life and end it. His eyes had become livid, death had skinned them over. I fell to the earth on my side and rolled to my back, my legs askew. He was crazed and twitching, his muscles stuttering as if fighting rigor mortis. He raised the dagger for the final blow, the severing of my head from my body, and all I could do was wait for it.

  The sound of tearing flesh, a sloshing wet sound, filled my ears. I couldn’t tell what was happening, if the sound had come from inside my body as my heart tore itself apart on the line that had been cut into it, or if the sound had come from somewhere else. I wondered abstractly how long a person stays conscious after they’re beheaded.

  I now began to long for the end. My life had been so very confusing. And filled up with pain. And short. It made, all of it, no sense to me. The most random bits of memory flashed into my mind and skipped right out again. Things I would have sworn I had forgotten, things that did not exist to me anymore. Memories of old classmates from kindergarten, a lonesome bike ride when I was seven, an old book I had held, a doll I used to love. Everything around me was becoming faintly hazy.

  A garbled exclamation broke the silence. My eyes flew open. From the open mouth of Stanley Alexander, protruding like an obscene black tongue, was the tip of a sword. His eyes rolled back in their sockets and blood dripped from the tip of the blade.

  The immense and crushing drain on my strength stopped—but I was left with a shattered heart, the violence done against it now complete and total. I both felt and believed that my life had now run its course; the time left to me now a handful of moments.

  But Stan had already found his own end. The line he had drawn finally ran out. He fell to the earth and shattered like crystal on impact, the shards metamorphosing into vermin and creeping things that fled to the undersides of rocks, there to hide from the light and warmth of the sun. The bloodstone, in the dirt, rested alone and unposessed, glimmering a deep and blinding red.

  I tried to find my bearings, fluttering my eyelids and struggling to sit up. Was it Kreios? Who had killed Stan?

  “Airel! You’re hurt!”

  It was the voice of the one who had struck down and defeated my treacherous foe.

  Michael.

  The black sword that he held dropped with a dull clang to the ground, and he rushed to my side, and fell tohis knees. “Airel.” The sound of my name on his lips warmed me completely.

  He had come back! He had struck down his own father to… emotion flooded me, drowning my senses utterly.

  “Airel, I’m so sorry…”

  I looked into those eyes once again, and instantly I knew the truth. Michael Alexander did love me. He had never wanted to hurt me. He had been forced to betray me, and was probably as confused about all of it as I was.

  Michael’s face seemed weathered, however. There was a muted look of horror there underneath it all, and as I searched him with my eyes, I noticed James was with him, looking like he had just arrived, standing just behind Michael in his varsity jacket. He had a strange look on his face.

  Kim was at his side, saying, “James, what’s going on here?” I turned back to Michael, a million questions popping up, and saw something else: fear.

  Michael struggled, looking tortured. I looked to James.

  Michael reached quickly on the ground for the piercing bright bloodstone, and brought it closer, holding its dangerous and intense light between us, not far from my chest wound.

  I was seized with the most unimaginable horrors. My heart felt like it was being welded back together, patched and bolted, and I died a little more, seeing impossible things. I cried out in my distress.

  James leaned forward quickly, with glowing eyes, and knocked the bloodstone from Michael’s hand, sending it skittering across the dirt, giving me a reprieve. I gasped and tried to gather myself together so that I could thank him, but he looked at me with extreme hostility. “Kill her, Michael! Redeem your mistake.”

  Mistake?

  Michael pulled back from me, intense sadness filling his empty eyes. He looked soulless, an automaton on a short leash.

  “Take up your sword and strike her down!”

  I still didn’t quite grasp the situation. I felt as if I had been blindfolded and handcuffed to a carnival ride. James’s harsh words were still not making sense to me.

  Michael appeared to be severely distracted as he looked askance toward the weapon; he seemed to be suffering an internal civil war. With sagging shoulders set in the frame of purposeless behavior, Michael bent down for the sword, but stopped short of taking it up.

  James growled like a dog. He was enraged; his skin fell away in shreds that looked like old newspapers and torn photographs. Smooth black wings unfurled from his back and enfolded us in a threatening semi-circle. He shook, his arms growing long; huge round paws with long curling claws emerged from his fingertips. The boy I had known as James burst apart from the inside.

  “Love-infested innocent! If you lack the strength, allow me.” He snatched the sword from Michael’s limp hand as dark steam fell from his mouth. Michael stood there, completely whipped, and looked at me with sad eyes.

  A single tear fell to my cheek as I realized the ultimate loss in the situation. I pleaded with him, screaming at him in my thoughts, Michael, don’t stand aside and allow this! “Michael,” I spoke, my voice choking me, “have you already left me?” Again? My eyes burned with tears. I didn’t see the demon. I didn’t see Kim. All I could see was he, my soul, my life—Michael. I would not believe that he didn’t feel love for me. He had killed his own father to defend me; there had to be something else that held him bound beside his own broken will.

  The demon struck Michael in the face with contempt, sending him sprawling, then turning back to me. “Enough talk! You have been alive for far too long. Today you, Airel, daughter of El, shall die!” I was reaching up to Michael, trying in vain to sit up. The hideous demon leapt straight at me, colliding with such great force that I could feel my almost-immortal body begin to give in to what was becoming inevitable. We skidded off the top of the cliff in a plume of dirt and dust and stones, falling. The water, far below, was going to hurt.

  I couldn’t fight, couldn’t breathe. All of the strength I once had deserted me. I saw Michael rush to the cliff’s edge, reaching out to me as I fell, his eyes shouting a love and sadness so deep, so stricken, that I thought for an instant that he was in more pain now than I ever was. Hate was life to him; he was bred, raised, trained to hunt us down, to kill us. Even as I fell to my death, I decided none of my injuries, be they physical or emotional, mattered. Michael…

  The force of the water on impact further sapped my strength. My eyes instinctively closed as I went hurtling into the surface of the abyss, the demon astride my dying body, the water bubbling around us as we sank. The depths reached for me, to take me down, and down.

  I opened my eyes for the briefest of an instant, searching the cliff top for a final glimpse of my lover, his love unrealized. We never really had a chance, did we? I realized how thickly a bitter rust had covered us, locking away lovely possibility beneath a hideous mask.

  There was only one thing left to me that was in my power: Michael, I forgive you.

  I saw him standing rigid at the edge of the cliff, grasping the black sword in his hands. The blade was inverted back upon his abdomen,
and just as I began to sink beneath the spray of the water of the lake, he drove the point of it home, crying out in pain, doubling over. The demon jerked suddenly, releasing me, roaring in fury and pain.

  I could feel the water pour into my lungs, relentless.

  MICHAEL! NO, MICHAEL!

  My heart and mind screamed out at the one I loved, ripping against the grain. The waves crashed in upon me, and as they did, my eyes met with unspeakable horror: Michael drew the blade out and then plunged it back in, again, again, again. My heart burst inside my chest as I watched.

  The demon James writhed and flopped on the surface of the water as I sank below. I could hear its ungodly shrieking through the boiling and squalling waters as I sank. Still I looked to the cliff’s edge, holding out hope as a candle to the hurricane, begging God for mercy—and I saw Michael deliver the final blow, becoming limp, falling from the cliff, tumbling end over end, the sword pulled out and away, tumbling wildly, and Michael hit the water with a sickening smack as I sank.

  Blood and water mixed in a drink of death.

  Chapter X

  The sun blazed overhead, warming the forest glade unseasonably. Kreios could feel his strength returning slowly. His heart stutter-stepped in his chest and he cocked an ear to the disturbance: A scream. His body stiff and wooden, stubborn, he nevertheless jumped to his feet and began to run toward the cliffs.

  He reached out but could not find Airel. He sprinted, forcing his body to wake up, straining it.

  He arrived at the top of the cliff in time to see Michael toppling over its edge. Kim was there, standing still, dazed and in shock. Kreios was at her side quickly. He laid her down on the earth before she could hurt herself.

  He then noticed the bloodstone beside her. It was shining in a constant, piercing crimson light that called to him like the fondest memories of his childhood. He did not dare to touch it. There were more important things—he would not lose another fair young princess in his family line.

  He rushed to the precipice, looking down. Beneath him were Michael and James. The demon was struggling as if injured, and Michael was sinking quickly. He was injured as well. No sign of Airel.

  Water was a difficult element. It posed a singular set of challenges for one like Kreios. Flight through the air was effortless, second nature. Moving in water slowed everything, made difficult what would be easy in the air; it was like thousands of grasping hands pulled against whatever course of action was decided upon. And drowning was a mortal risk, even for an angel.

  He searched again in his mind for Airel, and could not find her. He cursed what his eyes beheld: two of the Brotherhood. And though they were far below, struggling and thrashing in the water, quite possibly even at that moment moving toward their eternal damnation as the jaws of hell opened wide to receive them, Kreios could not justify simply watching the boy die. He could not separate himself from this chain of events.

  Michael was beginning to sink beneath the surface. He doesn’t have much longer. Kreios leapt into the air, and far from giving himself over to mere gravity, shot on a bullet’s trajectory into the water; his body stretched out, punching a hole in the surface at impact that yielded the smallest splash.

  He was deep before his momentum was checked. There was blood; and the fume of cursed demonic detritus filled his nostrils even here. He looked; and in the distant darkness a chance ray of sunlight played off the dark brown hair of his Airel, the last in the line of his heirs. No! He moved quickly to her side and looked into her face; he feared it was too late. He took her anyway, pushing off the muddy bottom, gaining speed and momentum in the molasses, aiming directly for Michael, who was now sinking toward them. Too late, for both of them.

  Kreios did not slow as he intercepted the boy. He simply ran into him, gaining speed, a limp body hanging over each shoulder, and when he broke the surface of the water it erupted upward, outward, droplets and mist, and Kreios flew right out of the center of it.

  When he had reached the edge of the cliff, he dropped the body of the boy with contempt, allowing him to land clumsily in the dirt. To Kreios’s shock, Michael rolled and coughed, sputtering, gasping. He landed gently at the lookout point where the whole drama had unfolded, and laid Airel on the ground alongside Kim, whose eyes were closed. He looked from one to the other. Michael was nearby, coughing up blood and water.

  Airel was limp, her mangled heart not beating. Kreios began CPR. Michael dragged himself over to her side and left a blood trail behind him in the dirt. “Airel! Is she dead? Will she be okay?” His voice cracked, and Kreios filled her lungs with air, not looking at Michael.

  The boy was beside himself and started crying with big long sobs that wracked his pitiful body. “This is all my fault; I killed her, I betrayed her! Oh God, please help her, I can’t live without her, please, please!” He groaned finally and fell next to her, his wet arm draping over her lifeless body. He did not move, and his breathing was shallow.

  Kreios stopped his CPR, knowing that it was no use, and looked at the boy, Michael. He pushed him over onto his back. “Let me help you, Michael… hold still.” Kreios wanted nothing to do with the boy. But he knew that what he was about to do was what Airel would have wanted.

  Michael was almost gone.

  Kreios retrieved the blazing red stone from where he had left it, and against a great pulling and tearing at his will, brought it to the boy, resisting the caressing whisperings of blasphemy that were flowing from its core. “Receive your accursed burden,” he said, softly, sadly, as he touched it to the boy’s skin, then tossed it away. The wounds closed up, leaving many red scars—not healed, but repaired. Michael’s eyes snapped open; he gasped and screamed and pushed away from Kreios.

  He looked down at the marks of his wounds in horror as he realized what the angel had done—had damned him to a life of bitter emptiness, shame, and regret. “I don’t want to live! Why did you help me? Why did you do that?” He broke into long fitful sobs. He collapsed onto Airel’s body, sobbing, saying again and again, “I’m sorry,” in her ear.

  Kreios stood and turned from him. The burden of pain that had been laid upon his back over many thousands of years was indeed heavy. Tears filled the blackness of his vision as he walked away into the forest. He sat alone, and the tears came once again.

  Airel was his blood. His daughter. Kreios roared softly as the worst of his fears became realized. Now he had lost her, too. It was a fitting gall that they had been driven, all of them, inexorably to this sad and shattering end. He could not see her anymore; he did not remember her face; he was unable to recall anything of joy. Kreios buried his head in his hands and wept: for Airel, for Eriel and for his wife. All he could see was the grave, yawning wide and consuming all his loves.

  ***

  Michael stood, finally. Far too late. Eyes marred by grief, he gathered to him the body of his only love and carried her in his arms. He looked to Kreios, who did not acknowledge him. Wordlessly he passed him by and started on the path back to the house, holding Airel in his arms. Life and purpose dropped away from his soul, leaving him naked, in exposure to the wicked ravages of the world. He welcomed them. He looked on what he had done with emptiness.

  ***

  Kreios was alone. Again.

  He stood and walked to the edge of the cliff, looking out over calm water that erased everything, and his whole life was not real. What had he done? He felt bound to loss. Every choice that was made under the sun, no matter how perfect and good when birthed in the confines of the heart, was destined only for an inevitable end and death. Joy was fleeting, and after thousands of years, time sped by far too quickly. The years had become seconds, and the hands of the clock, that malicious machine, were relentless and devoid of any mercy. The water was glass once again. It had no memory, and showed nothing.

  And yet he would refuse to ask why. He knew such a question had no answer. The deeper one penetrated into the deep and the void, the more obvious it became that every question found its beginning and
end in El. Now, yet again, Kreios had been brought back to the bedrock. The foundation of All. And it was unglamorous, and it was unlovely; and yet—for some reason that he did not yet understand—that did not matter.

  He thought of Airel. In a very short time she could have been, could have done, so much. The waste was vile and unspeakably bitter. He had been so foolish to hope that hope would bud and bloom into peace, once he had put an end to the Seer.

  His poor, wretched, wicked brother had chosen a far different path, one that had burned with fire and fury and the self. Kreios had dared to believe that he would be filled with relief. But the cup he now drank was not what he had expected.

  Light flowed outward from his body on feathery strands, waving in the breeze. He slowly became lighter, the earth releasing him from its hold, and he took to the air, gentle as the breath of his newborn baby girl so very many years ago.

  He spread his arms and raised his head, rising up above the trees. He gathered his resolve as he gathered speed, launching himself into the sky, flying straight up, leaving thunderclap behind.

  The sound scattered a few birds. Michael stopped along the path through the woods. Kreios headed north.

  There were still enemies to vanquish. The Brotherhood was leaderless. There were many yet to kill. And Michael would be the last.

  ***

  Kim’s body lay silent, her breathing rapid, the shock claiming ownership over her. Beside her, by a tuft of grass, the bloodstone lay blazing red, whispering. Alone, abandoned, and left. In an instant, she awoke, startled, and looked: red.

  Epilogue

  Airel’s body was cold and wet in his arms. The shiver that he waited for, that should have come from her chilled body, never came. She was completely still, eyes closed. She looked like an angel. Her skin, pale, smooth, fair; her lips full, the faintest red flushed within. What have I done? Why was he so confused and mixed up over this girl? It was just another job. He couldn’t count how many times he had had to do something just like it in the past. He was even good at it; had been doing the same things for far longer than he could remember. He could make instant friends, could find out if the target was one of the Sons of God in a week or less.