But now I was ready for my day.
“Ready for anything?” She asked.
Sure. I’ve already cheated death today. Who else wants a piece?
CHAPTER V
Portland, Oregon, Pearl District, present day
KREIOS COULD REMEMBER THE battles he had fought. He knew the look of each man that had died under the edge of his sword. Through it all he was the master of his temper, his anger, his rage. Time and conscience had taught him to hold it in check, to act and not let emotions rule.
But he could also remember the few times that he had lost his temper. Time and conscience had also taught him that everything was personal. The difference between angel and animal was self-control, keeping instinct and impulse in check. This was one of those times when he was more animal, operating on instinct.
Wide open and out of control.
The howling inferno of his righteous anger—his prickling sense of justice—filled him, and he allowed it to consume him to the core of his being.
There were three women he had ever dared to love. The manifestation of that love to each one was different but no less complete. And now his loss was complete. Filled up for each of them. He knew about price. And he knew he was nothing more than a fallen angel, in the final analysis. He deserved all of it. All of the futility. All of the pain.
He thought it especially ironic that the Seer’s Bloodstone was red—his anger was hatefully red as well. It pulsed through him in a fire that only the red of guilty blood could quench.
“Look,” the woman said, “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I’m not the one you’re looking for!” She sounded confident, but it was a thin shell. In the same way, she was rough and untended, the slightest hint of femininity beneath it all.
“I am not surprised anymore,” said Kreios, half to himself, half to the jeans-clad woman with wild red hair. “But this will be messy; an embarrassment.” They stood in the back parking lot of the Riverside Bar facing one another.
She bent her knees slightly as Kreios advanced toward her. “What do you want?” She lowered her shoulder, hand on hip. The front of her shirt, its buttons undone just a bit too far, fell slightly open, revealing a leather string that held something around her neck.
Kreios continued to move closer, towering over her by a foot or more.
“Hey,” she said, looking alarmed, “I’ve taken down bigger guys than you…” She widened her stance and dropped her hands to her sides.
“Woman, you are of the Brotherhood. Admit it and stand to fight.” He came off a little bored. Kreios did not want to argue with the demon, he just wanted to kill it and be on to the next. There were so many to kill, so many on which he could spread around the load of pain and suffering.
“Brotherhood? What are you talking about? She tossed her wiry hair in the jaundiced street lighting. The lot was empty other than a few lingering cars. It was past closing time.
Trina Wilson was her given name. She managed and tended the bar. She usually took home over $500 in tips, too, though she wasn’t beautiful. Whatever men saw in her was simply what happened when an excess of alcohol fogged the mind. She was good at working what she had, and it served her well.
More importantly, the demon for whom she played willing host was the Infernal—the leader— of a pod of the Brotherhood in the city of Portland, principality of Oregon. This Infernal had once answered to the Seer—Stanley Alexander’s overthrown master, Tengu.
“As I said,” Kreios continued, “I know who you are.” He stood weighing just shy of three hundred pounds and almost seven feet in height, wearing jeans, athletic shoes and a hoodie, blending into—sort of—the background of Pacific Northwest street scenery. He was massive.
“Dude,” she pleaded. “I just run the bar. I mind my own business. C’mon…you’re gonna pick on a woman?”
Kreios looked around. He didn’t want to have to kill any witnesses tonight. It was better to go in and out clean. “Demon, I am going to kill you, woman or not.” He began to tell his version of a joke: “After all, I believe in equal pay for equal work. If you give me usable information on your… associates…and their whereabouts, I will make your end quick. If not, you will suffer. There is no difference to me.”
She crouched and bared her teeth, hissing. Trina Wilson shook violently and then doubled over. Black wings emerged from her back as her Infernal master exited its place of refuge. The demon’s tail whipped around, clipping an old dented green dumpster and sending it across the parking lot. It careened off the brick wall of the building and smashed into a rusted-out Chevy truck behind Kreios.
He smiled and bent at the knees. “Ah, good,” he said.
“Kreiossss!”
The host Trina staggered away as the winged creature leapt fully free of her body. It was insect-like, its segmented body over ten feet tall, its midsection thick. The wings draped outward by ten feet on each side. The double barbed tail slithered and cracked like a whip.
Trina gathered herself together. Hunched down, she pulled a SIG P-225 from its ankle holster and fired three shots at the angel. The 9mm Parabellum projectiles grazed him but mostly spun out wild.
It stung, and he blinked at her. “You annoy me, woman.” In a single motion he lunged backward to the dumpster and tossed the heavy green steel trash box at her like a wad of paper.
It hit her full in the chest and she went down hard, the upside down dumpster finally pinning her between the asphalt and its grimy metal edge. She shrieked in pain, blood running down her forehead into her eyes from a large gash.
Kreios turned his full attention again toward the demon, but the lot was empty. He looked around, knowing that the demented thing would not run. It would fight.
He looked up just as it fell upon him from above.
A thunderous roar. Black drool flew from the maw of the demon as it waggled its head in apparent victory. It filled its lungs and screeched.
Kreios burst up and out in massive strength, throwing the huge black insect-like mass off him. He grabbed the tail as the demon tumbled end over end and yanked it back toward him, cracking the whip in reverse. The demon yowled in pain.
It flew, pivoting by tail held in the vise of angel hand, up over Kreios’s head in an arc. It landed on its back, raising a cloud of dust around them.
Kreios still held fast to the double-barbed tail. He braced himself to rip it from the beast, but the demon righted itself and rushed him.
The angel took up the challenge with a shout, tail in hand, rushing the creature with double the speed. With a deft spin in mid-stride Kreios twisted the tail, stiffening it, wielding it like a massive pike. He drove it deep into the creature at the joint between thorax and abdomen, severing it completely in half, following through in one motion, cracking the whip again.
The demon’s voice was a wretched gurgle; pathetic. Thick and juicy innards were thrown out into the arena of combat, burning like phosphorus on contact wherever they landed.
Kreios looked down at what his hands had wrought. The demon’s exoskeleton began to break apart, turning into wisps of black smoke that rose up briefly and then fell back to the tarmac, boiling there for a moment before being sucked up by the pavement like a sponge, disappearing.
“Now for the other one.” Kreios walked to the side of the dumpster and looked down at the pinned and bleeding woman.
“And you…?” asked Kreios.
Trina coughed. Blood poured from her mouth.
Kreios knew her lungs were filling up. “Oh. That is…sad for you.”
He leaned down and took hold of the object that hung from her neck and ripped it from the leather thong. He held it up to the lights of the parking lot. It was an amulet, the figure of a chameleon rendered in pure white jade. It changed colors even as he looked at it. His face became grim; he knew precisely what it meant.
The woman spoke. “Please! Don’t kill me…I…”
“I will not kill you, Trina Wilson.” Kreios pocketed the objec
t. “I will leave you here to die slowly. Your body will bleed out soon. It will hurt then more than it does now. Much more. Your legs will swell when you begin to burn. Your eyes will melt in their sockets. And when that happens…you will see where you are bound. Wait until the veil is lifted. Then you will see in truth. Your remains will disintegrate in the fire that I have come to set. There will be nothing left.”
Kreios stood, looking to the sky. “I will find every one of your clan…The Nri?” He looked at her; he wasn’t asking, he was taunting.
She hissed at him again, angered at the mention of the truth.
“I will burn all of them as well. They will wish for a quick death, but they too…will not taste it.” He felt the anger surging within him again and he clenched his fists in order to contain it.
He knelt down, his face inches from hers. “Blood for blood,” he said. And then he was gone.
Soon the Riverside Bar was a blazing inferno. And Trina Wilson was burning.
Arabia, 1244 B.C.
There she was. At play in the grass with one of the kittens, surrounded by wildflowers and ancient trees. He was there in the grass too, relaxing, smoking his pipe, blowing smoke rings. He looked through them to the mountains beyond and closed his eyes.
It was summer. Beautiful. He lived alone with Eriel, the battle to defend Ke’elei six years behind them. It had made her safe, had bound his people together and scattered the rest of the Brotherhood. He and Yamanu had hunted them for another year after the great battle. If any were left, they were deep underground.
Eriel laughed and teased the tiny bundle of fur with a ball on a string. “Kitty,” Eriel called him, pawed and jumped at the ball, arching his back and hissing. This made her laugh even harder and Kreios smiled in spite of himself.
“Look, Daddy, Kitty is trying to be a big boy. See how he hisses?” She tossed back her black hair and yanked the ball and string away, making Kitty hiss even more.
“You should be nice to that kitten,” he laughed. “One day it will be a big cat. You do not want him to be mean.” They both laughed and Eriel continued her little game.
Like ripples in a pond, the laughter smoothed its own way out of him, and all too soon. Kreios didn’t know what to think of the quiet; didn’t know what to do with it. He was accustomed to war and its particulars, hiding and trying to blend in. The quiet, the solitude, the peace…though it was still at alien to him, it made all the difference.
He saw a few friends—Yamanu for instance—on occasion. For the most part this new life was safely off the beaten path. Out here in the wild he could be himself. Eriel could grow and learn without being looked at with suspicion and fear. He knew one day it wouldn’t be enough for her. Eriel would need people, need to engage life, perhaps even start a family of her own. Then he would need to let go.
But that time would be far off, wouldn’t it?
Kreios stood and stretched his legs. The cabin he had built for them was simple. One room. But it was cozy. He picked a low open valley and built the cabin just beyond the tree line. It nestled at the base of massive Sawtooth Mountains and looked out over a perfect meadow of grass and wildflowers, a misty waterfall nearby that cast rainbows out into the air.
“When can we go back to Ke’elei? I miss everyone. I want to see Mary. I want to see uncle Yam.”
“Soon, my lovely.”
“Why can’t we live there?” Eriel stood. Kitty took the ball and string, running a few feet off in the grass with his spoils.
“We’ve talked about this. It is better out here. Quiet.” Kreios hated the politics of life in the big city. The Council also did not look kindly on him after all that had happened. Yet he could not help his six-year-old daughter understand any of this.
“I know…” Eriel said with a pout. She hung her head and looked up at Kreios with big eyes.
His smile broke wide. “You know I cannot resist those eyes. Come here.”
She came to him.
He lifted her into his arms and took to the sky, twisting and twirling with her wrapped tightly to his chest. She giggled, pulling him tighter with her little arms. She loved to fly with him and would beg and chip away at him for hours if he let too much time go by without “a sky adventure.”
“I love you, Eriel,” he said, kissing her cheek.
“I love you too, daddy.” Her eyes bright, she looked out over the world without any fear.
CHAPTER VI
Sawtooth mountains of Idaho, present day
LARGE QUESTIONS LOOMED OVER all of us. It had been a few hours. Now all of us were showered and changed and we had finished up in the kitchen, having feasted on whatever we could find in the house.
We were now sitting comfortably in the library.
“Okay, I’m ready to talk about the elephant in the room,” Kim said. We had to clear the air. I was really glad at least one of us finally broke the ice.
The fire was roaring nicely, casting the three of us in a warm light. It was just past midnight. Kim and I were sitting on the antique loveseat and Michael was seated on an armchair, leaning forward toward the fire, elbows on knees, staring into the flames.
Kim went on. “First of all, Michael—are you going to be okay?”
Michael looked like he had been caught doing something naughty. “Yeah, I just…this is…”
“I get it, you’re a jerk, a loser, and you don’t deserve her.” Kim pointed to me.
My heart felt stabbed.
“But she likes you. She loves you—I think—”
“Hey,” I said, trying to deflect the direction of the conversation. “How about you, Kim? Are you okay? You look pretty rough…”
Kim said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little bruised up. It’s like that when you’re duct taped to a chair for a day or so.”
Again my heart felt wounded. This is all my fault. But the look on Michael’s face said otherwise.
She turned back to him. “Anyway, Michael, you’d better make it up to her.”
“I’m sitting right here, Kim,” I said. “I can handle my problems.”
She ignored me, laying into him again in attack mode, and I couldn’t interject. “What are you? Who was your dad? And James…I don’t even know where to begin.”
He sighed. I had never seen him like this. He looked older than eighteen. There was even a shadow of stubble on his face in spite of the fact that he—that all of us—had had a chance to wash the blood from our hands, our bodies.
“I know. Who am I really other than a backstabbing demon?” He looked her dead in the eyes.
Again, something I found arresting. There was some strength about him. It was way beyond the look he had given me on our first and only date. Before we were kidnapped.
“Right?” she said. It was a total Kim thing to say; ditzy, childish, playful. It seemed like she was back. Maybe.
Michael went on, “For once in my life, I wonder what’s going to happen to me. To us, I mean. I’m not used to this feeling. I’m used to having a plan; the plan. Stanley…always made sure of that.”
I found it very telling that he called his father Stanley instead of Dad. I wanted to interject something but I couldn’t think of anything to add.
“Stanley trained me to kill. To blend in. To win people over with charm, make friends, find out about their friends’ friends, and sniff out any that had angelic blood running in their veins. Like you.” He looked at me, eyes cutting into me for the briefest of moments before looking away.
It got quiet. Kim and I traded a glance.
“About that…” I said.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, tears filling his eyes in the firelight.
I spoke, and as I did, I choked up too. “I know. I know you’re sorry. I believe you. You don’t have to keep saying it.” I was a little frustrated.
“I know; I’m sorry…”
Kim slapped her palm to her forehead and we all laughed.
“But seriously,” I said. And then I softly blurted it out: “I lo
ve you, Michael.” It was as if a bomb went off. And it was crazy; like both of us knew it but neither of us wanted to be the one to actually say it.
The answer came even softer. “I love you too.”
It was very still in the room, like being in a deep forest right before a storm breaks; there was a buzz in the air, anticipation.
And then Kim popped the balloon. “Okay, you two totally need to kiss now.”
My jaw dropped.
Michael said precisely what I was thinking: “Awkwarrrrd…”
I laughed.
“How about a raincheck, mister.”
“Totes,” he said smilingly in Kim’s vernacular. He relaxed for the first time that day.
Kim rolled her eyes before speaking. “Okay, whatever. But I still have questions. Like, Michael, what freaking happened out there?”
He nodded, again looking older than he was. “It’s hard to know where to begin.” He sat back, crossing an ankle over one knee, his fingers interlaced over his stomach. “If you want explanations…I guess I could start at the beginning. My first…assignment.”
He breathed in and out. “Her name was Sally Potts. She was twelve, the youngest by far to change. I was thirteen. It was at a little school in West Texas; a one-room schoolhouse, just like in Little House on the Prairie.”
“Okay, creepy,” Kim said. “We’re not looking for a full-on confession here, dude. So save it. I just want to know how in the world we got here. How did we get here from whatever happened out there on the cliff?”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t worry, Michael. I think you’re a good enough guy. You did save her in the end,” she said, looking at me. “…even if it took you long enough. But can you, pretty please, fill me in on what I missed out there?”
“Okay, it’s simple: Stanley killed Airel.”
“I know. I saw that much,” she shivered.
“So did I,” I said.
“Then I killed Stanley,” Michael said. “And that’s when everything went wrong. Really wrong. James—my demon—tried to finish the…the…job? No, no. That’s not the right word.”
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