They landed in knee-high grass, silently, the enemy camp within sight. Kreios pulled a short dagger from its sheath, touching the grips of the Sword for comfort. We must move with speed. The longer we are in their midst, the weaker we will become. I will signal when I feel my strength failing.
Yamanu nodded, unsheathing a dagger of similar size and shape.
There have been moments to which men and angels have been brought throughout their destinies that have shaped the paths they have walked forever afterward. Some were ready for it when it came to call. Some were not, with possibility shifting irrevocably from that point forward. But Kreios knew El to be jealously intrepid in His pursuit of the created. He would roadblock, shunt, redirect, nudge, push, pull, convince, debate, and tirelessly chase down His children within the circle of the destiny He had created for them until they grasped it.
Kreios knew that he could not ultimately miss his destiny—in a sense—but he knew that it was still possible to fail tonight. He determined, therefore, to rise to the occasion with his very life forfeit, if need be.
Kreios felt Yamanu turn toward a deeper place that he could not access; the color of his thoughts turning bright white. The ground began to cover with thick fog, spreading outward from them and rising like the dead were to rise in the coming Resurrection.
Kreios was ready to deal in real justice now—and as the fog rose around them, enfolding them in concealment, he filled up his Sword with retribution, the wages of sin, the reward of judgment reserved for those wicked enough to ask for fairness.
Kreios opened his eyes and beheld his hand. It was translucent; the dagger in his hand could not be seen. His friends had always told him he had no imagination. The sight of his own flesh disappearing right before his eyes, however, made him break into a fresh smile.
Yamanu opened his eyes too, looking at Kreios with a hearty invisible smile. You must keep careful track of me. I will let you know if you are in danger of straying too far from my side and losing cover. He paused, then said aloud, “Not bad for an old man, eh?” He chuckled, slapping Kreios on the shoulder.
“Careful I don’t kill you, boy.”
“You’d have to see me first, little girl.”
Kreios nearly laughed out loud. Yamanu turned aside in his mind, Kreios opened up to him, and then they could see one another in the fog through their thoughts. It was an odd sensation to see with the mind and not with the eyes; it reminded Kreios of true faith. The evidence of things not seen…
They moved through the fog into the dark wood, alert, the fog penetrating before them and trailing after them in the wind.
CHAPTER IV
Somewhere in the Mountains of Idaho—Present Day
I DREAMED THE STORY of Kreios, the fight for his daughter Eriel, and the memory of his amazing love. I took great pleasure in fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. He was someone who had loved without fear of death. He was all or nothing. A little like me, really, which I liked—though I feared death like nothing else. In that sense, I’m still normal.
I read the entire book in two days, wondering at the end if there might be more to it that the Book hadn’t yet revealed to me. Probably. Still, I loved to read stories I could relate to. I could relate to the story of an angel—even though there were epic battles and soaring sonic booms, there were also deep and meaningful friendships. The best stories were universally true. I felt like I knew Kreios, that somehow I was linked to him in ways I could only dream and think of with the aid of She.
Michael didn’t read the Book for a couple of reasons. One, because Kale insisted that it was for me and me alone, and two, because when Michael opened it, all he saw were blank pages. No amount of focusing or magical wishing could bring the smooth script into focus for him. I, however, grew to love that handwriting and could recite every line. I cherished each letter as if written to me.
Kale left me alone as I studied my history, reading and re-reading the Book he had given me. Every time I opened it, a new story awaited me, so it wasn’t like I was reading the same thing over and over. No, I spent most of my afternoons with the Book by the tree, seated on that clump of green grass under its branches. And every day that passed drew me farther out away from the only home I had ever known, into this new and amazing story.
In spite of this newfound wonder, I missed my home fiercely. Thinking of Mom and Dad made my heart sick. I wished I could at least call them to let them know I was okay, though that probably wouldn’t help once they started asking me questions. Even so, I was growing apart from that home and into a new kind of life. Could a person forget so soon?
Here, in the heart of the woods, I began to like the quiet. It was the not-so-busy life, like how Jane Austen’s characters would just walk and talk their lives away.
I had to admit, the difference between those stories and my own life was that I was terribly alone. Though I had no chores and no responsibilities, I ached for all of it because it was at least familiar to me. The hardest part was the inescapable feeling that things would only get harder. I had walked into a dream, and here everything was all about me. Lots of girls, and probably some guys, fantasize about that kind of thing, I bet. Now that it had happened to me, I realized the foolishness of such a thing and how bad selfishness can truly be.
Michael had left me alone as well, and I had thanked him for it. I told him, “I know I’ve been kinda out of it lately; sorry. I should get myself sorted out in a day or two, though.” He smiled and hugged me, acting impressively mature, which had melted me to goo inside all over again. I felt so safe in his arms. I didn’t know what it was about this guy, but he was everything I wanted out of life. If I could just have him, honestly, nothing else mattered. Everything else was so crazy anyway that I was tempted to throw it away and start over. It might be easier, simpler, with just Michael.
“Take all the time you need, Airel,” he’d said to me. “We just gotta play along here. I think over time, he’ll get tired of us and let us go.” His statement caught me off guard. He hadn’t believed any of it; he thought Kale was crazy, that this had been just some psychopathic game, and that in the end, the cops would show up to spring us.
I returned to myself, wondering if that wasn’t what I had thought, too. Or was that what I was supposed to think? I didn’t know anymore. The stories in the Book were so real. They were too impossible to have been made up. I knew in my heart that Kreios was a real person. I could sense that his life was as real as mine somehow.
I wasn’t having bad dreams, but I wasn’t sleeping well. I guessed I didn’t need it, because I wasn’t tired. Knowing these stories gave me an energy boost. I used the nights to think and to walk all through the great house. I spent some nights in the study with all the books, reading by the light of the fireplace that never, not once, went out.
The house really was very beautiful. I explored every room but one. I couldn’t get into it because it was locked—even though I could have broken the door down, I guess. I didn’t do that. It would have been wrong. I imagined a great library of old books, or a hidden staircase leading to underground caves that held something unknown. It haunted me, and I thought about it often.
As I fell into bed that night, I relived the adventures of Kreios and his beloved daughter, Eriel. She was so kind—I imagined she was very beautiful. I wished I could know her, and somehow I felt like I did. I was falling deep into a dream when a firm hand shook me awake.
I bolted upright to find Kale standing over me. He wore a white robe, and he appeared monkish in a twenty-first century sort of way. “Airel, come with me.”
My heart pounded in my chest from the shock. It was like I was ready to defend myself from an unexpected intruder at my bedside. Even though I secretly was beginning to like him, I still tried to fight against it with all of my will. “To where? Don’t you knock?” I looked out the windows and said something rude about how it was still in the middle of the night. I was angry, too, for even considering trusting him.
&nbs
p; Kale left the room, saying, “Be sure to dress in something that doesn’t inhibit your movements.” He left no doubt in his mannerisms about the expectation that I follow him immediately.
I grumbled darkly as I dressed in a gray track suit and tennies. My hair was a mess, but I didn’t care—I just pulled it up in a pony. Men—they were all the same—so demanding, and no time for anything remotely sensitive. Well, except for Michael, of course.
I left my room and closed the door behind me. Kale was waiting for me in the hallway. He led me out of the house to the shack I had seen on my first solo journey through the house. There, outside the building, just as I had seen it before, was the large floating area where my imaginary gymnasts did their floor routines. My hands buzzed with the excitement of discovery.
The shack stood in the corner of the area, lit from the inside. Kale ascended a stair made of wood and opened the door. I followed him inside. The shack, shed, dojo, or whatever, was constructed of wood and stone. The floor was covered thickly with a rough rug. It was impossibly large inside. The inside space didn’t fit the dimensions of the shell that hemmed it in. Fat wood beams anchored the roof overhead and a rustic chandelier, already lit, hung from the middle beam, lending a warm glow to the room.
A perfect square—I could tell by looking around that it was a dojo. It was nothing like the place where I had learned to dabble in kick-boxing, but no matter what, it was a place designed for sparring. Against the far wall stood a rack with swords, staves, and other weapons. Kale walked to the middle of the floor and stood in a dark red circle. Farther out from that circle was a faded blue ring, then another red one, and so on about every five feet.
“The rings are the first stage of your physical training. I will train you in hand-to-hand combat and teach you to use your abilities. You will be able to control them at will soon.” He stood with his feet slightly apart, his hands in front of him at chest height in a kind of salute, grasping a long, pointy stick.
I was beyond flabbergasted. I responded coolly, cocking my head to one side as if appraising his sanity. “So, it’s hand-to-hand combat, then.” I inhaled, still trying to take it all in. “Did you not get the memo? I’m seventeen—” Before I could do anything else, he had stepped to one side, drawn back a spear, and hurled it at me with blinding speed. The end of it plunged into the shallow of my gut, shredding me right through, the leading edge exiting through the small of my back. The pain was so sharp that it was indescribable. I began to black out, falling to my knees.
Kale was upon me in a flash, standing before me like a warrior thirsting for the final kill. I could feel him panting heavily. He grasped the weapon firmly and yanked it straight out from my body, my blood flowing.
He brought the heel of the pike down with a shattering crack on the floor, the weapon standing vertically, a spray of blood showering me as it vibrated powerfully from the violence of his grip. He reared his head back as he towered over me. I collapsed sideways as he released a blood-curdling shout that seized me, head to toe, with icy fear. My head bounced off the matting of the floor and the room started to spin as my eyes involuntarily squeezed shut in pain.
I saw blue, pink, and white stars floating across my vision. Then an unbearable tingling itch grabbed at my gut in tiny fingers of intense pain. It itched so badly. I lifted the hem of my shirt in horror, watching in awe as the gash closed up and smoothed over as if it had never been there. The itching subsided gradually, but my track jacket was hopelessly shredded and bloody. I looked up at Kale, quite beside myself with shock and rage.
He smiled down at me and laughed.
CHAPTER V
KALE’S GRINNING FACE LOOKED stupid to me; I was beyond irritated. He held out his hand to me.
I looked at his fingers as if they were attached to the hand of Satan. “Nice. Attention getter. Okay then, now that we’re done, what’s for breakfast?” I finally took his hand, deciding to “just roll with it,” as Kim would say. I cooed, an aftershock of my injury racking my body one last time as I regained my feet.
Kale cracked a joke. “You should not train on an empty stomach.”
“Hilarious.” I placed my hands on my knees and breathed hard. “Yeah—mine’s killing me.”
I stood there like an outfielder for a while, just taking everything in. I guess you always want what you can’t have—now that it seemed impossible for me to die, I felt trapped in my own life. More so than usual.
He must have heard some of my doubtful thoughts. “In time, you will have your answers. For now, you must just accept things as they are.”
There was real, honest compassion in his voice. It was refreshing, I decided.
“You have been given a gift—will you accept it?” He still held out his hand, though I was standing already.
Kale, the sight of him standing before me like that, now triggered something in me. I knew it, too. Something had let go way up at the top of some gigantic mountain of me, and an avalanche was going to come down and change everything. My eyes filled with tears. “Do I have a choice?” Destiny was coming for me again—I could feel it. The moment was beginning to crash in upon me, and I had been stripped of my defenses against it.
“You always have a choice.” His words sounded like the voice of God—very still, very quiet, and purely true.
I broke. I heard the sweetest music. I took his hand and collapsed into his enormous chest, heaving in big, wet sobs. I felt like heaven, creation, God Himself, were all part of a conspiracy designed to bring me always and forever back to the point where the tiny capsule of all that I was resided on the tip of a pin.
Kale simply held me like a child and let me cry. I didn’t know how long it was. And I wasn’t sure what exactly happened. Lots of times I just cried because I had to, to let off the pressure that accumulated inside me, to say with tears what words couldn’t describe. Whatever happened in that moment of time changed everything.
I pushed Kale away and dried my swollen eyes with the sleeve of my track jacket, now mangled and bloody. I took it off, deciding I could manage with just my T-shirt, but that, too, was destroyed. It made my mind tangle in knots. “Fine, then. What do we do now? Cut me some more to see how much I can take?” I wiped at my eyes and sucked in a sob.
Kale’s voice was gentle. “We need to find out what you are able to do and how much control you have over your abilities. When I say that you have a choice… you do realize that you have the choice to do good with what God has given you, or to do evil. Which do you choose?”
It was surreal. I felt like I was on a game show. I felt like I was back at the kitchen table arguing with my parents about the SAT and what college I would go to, what major I would declare. I felt like asking Kale how I could possibly know. The truth was, though … the answer was obvious.
But wrapped up inside his question to me was another one, directed right back at him: How can a murderer ask someone to choose between good and evil without being crazy himself? I wanted to ask it—and I unwittingly did, forgetting that he could read my thoughts. Crud. I found myself wishing desperately for some privacy.
“Good,” he said, obviously willing to gloss over all my mental baggage for now. “The first thing we will work on is hand-to-hand combat.” He turned and walked over to one of the racks that held staff upon staff like pool cues, and I followed, shaking my head, trying to clear it. He continued, “You are stronger than you think, but only when you’re filled with raw emotion. You will be able to feel it coursing through your veins.” He handed me a staff.
Oh, what the heck. Maybe I could use a little workout action to help me think clearly. I took the staff in my hand, feeling a little like Moses at the Red Sea. What next?
“Love. Anger. Fear. Whatever the emotion, it must be strong.” His voice commanded attention.
I nodded, though I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I figured I would learn as I went, me being a hands-on type when it came to kick-boxing and such. I turned the wooden staff over in my han
d, running my fingertips along the smooth surface. It was dark, very hard, and was wrapped around its middle with a leather grip.
Kale held up his own staff now, made of silvery metal with the same leather grip in the center. “I want you to break that staff over my head.” Kale looked at me with eyes that were lighter than they had been a few seconds ago.
“What?” I looked at my staff, then at him.
“You heard me. Hit me. It must be hard enough that you shatter that staff—and I must warn you, that is gopher wood. A rod of that is very hard, almost impossible to break. So you must focus on your anger right now, and try to channel it into your actions.”
Well, then, no problem.
“Here’s a little something to help you out,” he said, and whacked me in the shin with his metal staff.
“Ow.” My left shin stung, and I instinctively snapped into kick-boxing mode. Kale was not smiling this time, and I knew if I didn’t at least defend myself he would punish me further. Whatever, old dude. It helped me to “channel the anger,” anyway.
I moved as swiftly as I thought possible, swinging my staff overhead and bringing it thunderously down. It collided with his staff with a clang, and the vibration hurt badly. “Ow,” I said again.
He made ready again, elegantly. “That’s all?”
“Hmm,” I scoffed and tried again, this time faster, stronger, quicker. I pivoted on my left heel and brought the staff across his midsection with all the force I could muster. I was going to put everything into it, even if I fell afterward.
His staff was everywhere at once. He blocked the blow almost casually, and his unexpected movements caused me to lose my balance. I went down to the floor, landing on my knuckles, my staff skittering off and rolling. Pain shot up my hands. I turned over onto my back, winded.
“Again. Break the staff over my head.”
The Airel Saga Box Set: Young Adult Paranormal Romance Page 23