A warm feeling began to spread through my body as I interpreted his words. I was never super athletic, but from lying flat on my back, I jumped to my feet in a single movement, grabbing my staff again along the way. I twirled it once over my head like a baton and jumped, swinging the staff in an arc at the top of his head.
He raised his bright silver staff to deflect the blow. He laughed. It’s like all he saw was some kid who had just learned to ride a bike without training wheels. I, however, was screaming like a crazy woman. The impact of the two competing weapons cracked like lightning, and just as I had imagined in my mind, the staff shattered into splinters.
I landed on my feet, bending my knees to absorb the shock. I uncoiled to my full height, Kale now off to one side and behind me at the end of our maneuver. I turned toward him, absolutely filled with rage like never before, out of control.
I tore the silver staff from his hand and racked him in the back of the legs with it. He went down like a bag of rocks as I reset and brought the metal staff up over my head. Right before I stabbed the end of it down through his face, he rolled out of the way. It impacted the floor, tearing through the matting and wood, digging into the earth below, so deep that the leather grip was only half visible.
My breathing was rapid and my heart pumped furiously. I felt cold steel against my neck and froze. Kale grabbed my wrist and wrenched it behind me into my shoulder blades. The tip of a knife rested threateningly just under my chin.
“You let your anger control your power one more time and I will show you the meaning of pain.” He flicked his wrist, slicing the underside of my chin, which hurt. But it healed quickly. That itching thing was going to take some time to get used to.
I walked over to one of the walls and sat with my back resting against it to catch my breath and try to recover emotionally. I studied Kale from across the room as he wiped the blood from his knife and put it away. The silver staff stuck out of the floor like a gigantic needle. As I calmed, I wondered how I could be so strong. There it was, right in front of my eyes. Evidence, facts, truth.
The room was littered with wood splinters. It was hard not to feel discarded, in a way. I had sat in class wondering if I was abnormal or normal—whatever that was—so many times. I wondered if I would ever be accepted as is, or if I needed to change part of me. Maybe I was doomed to be on the outside looking in. Try to fit in now. Now I would be the kid who had been kidnapped, at least. Or the girl who had superpowers. “So bizarre.” I wondered if I was concerned about the right things—and I even wondered if that thought belonged to me in the first place.
Kale grunted approvingly at me and picked up another wooden staff from the rack. “Now do it with love.”
Love? “What does that even mean?” I was trying not to feel awkward. “How do I do that?”
“Feel that heat, the same as when you were angry—but feel the way love can overpower your emotions and use that to break the staff. But this time, break it over your knee.” Kale managed a sideways smile and tossed me a new wooden staff.
I took hold of it and closed my eyes, trying to concentrate. I wondered what I was supposed to do to make my emotions flow. It should be second nature. But not when you’re thinking about it so intensely. I felt like I was trying to conjure spells or charm snakes—like I had ever done anything like that. I felt like a fraud.
Love. Right. I loved my mom and dad. I loved Kim, and oh, how I missed her. She was such a ham, and I sure could use a good laugh right about now. Michael then flooded my mind, and I could see his eyes. So very blue and welcoming.
I could feel him looking at me, and remembered the way he brushed against my arm whenever he was near; it was always so incidental and natural whenever he helped me out of the car or walked with me, or gestured while he talked about something.
It was the way he was. All the physical considerations aside, he was an amazing person. I loved his heart, his kindness, and the way he loved so honestly. I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life and I wasn’t ashamed to admit it, even to myself. He would be my one and only, ever.
Okay, this might actually work. I thought back to our date. I remembered how he had looked over at me and smiled as we drove off to the restaurant. He had just stunned me with that line about Audrey Hepburn … My heart melted and I pushed off the wall that marked the safe zone of my thoughts, drifting out into the pool of all things Michael.
Kale’s voice was soft and low. “What are you thinking?” I stood, eyes still closed, hands on the weapon. When I comprehended his question, I blushed. He prodded gently still. “Tell me.”
“I’m thinking of love.” Warmth washed over me, but this time it was different. I could feel Michael’s arms around me. I began to overflow with joy. It just kept coming and coming. After a while, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I opened my eyes and saw everything around me awash in a warm, foggy light.
I watched as my hands effortlessly shattered the staff like clay on my uplifted left knee. I was shocked. I thought we were done, but before the intensity of the emotion passed away, I heard Kale from what seemed like a great distance: “Now the metal one, Airel; hold the power at your center and do not let it go. Concentrate.”
The silver metal staff appeared in my hands, blinding, nearly transparent with light. I spun it over my head expertly before bending it into a horseshoe over my knee. I was smiling when I turned to see Kale standing in front of me. Something about him was impossible to take in—like looking at something in the dark. I could not see him if I looked directly at him. He held out a solid square piece of steel—at least that’s what it looked like. It was probably half an inch thick.
“Punch through it, Airel. Direct and focus the strength you feel and punch a hole right through it.”
I could hear his excitement and I didn’t want this feeling to fade, so I held it close. I drew back my right hand, made a fist, and punched from the tips of my toes to the back side of the steel plate. My fist hit the plate and I cringed as hot pain reverberated through my shoulder. “Owww,” I screamed.
The beautiful light slipped away from me and I fell to the floor, exhausted. I sucked in the sweet, cool air and lay on my back, looking up at the wood rafters of the training room. Kale leaned over me with his sideways smile again.
“Don’t worry—it’s your first time. You show more control than I had expected.” He turned away. “There is hope for you after all.”
I was still out of breath. “Thanks. It was so wonderful. Nothing like anger.”
He nodded and furrowed his brow. “Anger is a dangerous emotion; the hardest to control. You must learn to use the pure emotions first. Limit your use of the unclean emotions unless absolutely necessary. They are powerful, indeed … but raw power can destroy its user.”
I sat up, glad to discover that I was catching my breath. “Can I die?”
“Yes, you can die, but it is difficult. You will heal from almost any wound. Your heart cannot survive if it is pierced. And again, how can the body survive if the head is severed from it?” He smirked at me. “So don’t go losing your head. If you stay out of trouble, you will age at a very slow pace and live for a very long time.”
I felt like he wasn’t telling me the full story. “What do you mean, a very long time? Like forever?” I didn’t know what to think of this. I’d never even considered the question of living forever.
“Yes and no. You may live for eight thousand years and die of old age. Then again, you may only make it to eighteen, dying in a bombing, or drown … no one knows.” His statement was loaded, but I had learned enough at this point to keep my tongue in check. If he didn’t say something, he meant not to say it.
“You do age, but very slowly. When you’re two hundred years old, you will look much the same as you do now.” He began cleaning up the dojo, putting the equipment away.
I didn’t know what to think. This changed everything. My friends and my family would all die. I would be alone for so very long. Just when I thought
I was going to like the idea of—well, immortality—the catch landed on top of me.
CHAPTER VI
1250 B.C.—Arabia
THE HORDE CAMP WAS quiet. A few guards patrolled the perimeter, carrying torches. It was easy for Kreios and Yamanu to creep past them into the main part of the camp, the fog moving in subtly with them. Kreios was waiting to feel the pull and drain of his power, but because of the Sword, he did not. He hoped Yamanu was doing fine as well.
His hope was not returned to him void; as Yamanu shaded them from enemy detection, he also read Kreios’ worry and reassured him. I think El is for us this night, my friend. I count over one thousand, Kreios projected. Does that sound right?
Yamanu agreed, and they moved on to the edge of the camp. We will sweep from one end to the other, killing as many as we can without drawing attention to ourselves. When we are discovered, we fly. Kreios wanted to break the will of the horde and see if he could turn fear upon them for a change.
There was only one variable outside the scope of their control. If the demons that owned the men remained unmanifest—that is to say, lying hidden within the men’s flesh—then all Kreios and Yamanu would need to do would be to kill the men; the demons would follow them to hell. But if the demonic pairings of the Brotherhood were physically manifest, and resting alongside the men—or elsewhere—their task would become complicated.
Kreios invisibly tossed his dagger from one hand to the other and stepped silently inside the nearest tent. It was large, composed of rotting hides tied to long wooden poles. Flies buzzed about, even though it was cold.
A cluster of men, six of them, slept snoring like wild beasts. This was the smallest component of the enemy army; a group of six that ate, slept, and fought side by side. Stench filled Kreios’ nostrils, reeking of sweat, filth, and the sweet tang of urine. The men were not clustered in pairs, which meant that the demonic controllers of the enemy men remained inside them, dormant.
Silently communicating with his partner, Kreios took the left side, and Yamanu took the right. They moved quickly, cutting throats like butchers. The men flopped and kicked, gasping as blood poured into their throats, simultaneously bled dry and drowning. The demons within made them convulse, making one last vain effort to break free and escape as they were dragged off to hell, kicking and clawing.
The angels had their way in the camp for a good portion of the night, irradiating the pestilence of death and judgment. With each kill, Kreios grew more and more hopeful. Yamanu did not make a sound through it all.
Kreios turned from slicing the neck of a short man, the last in a group of four in a smaller tent, when a house of a man entered, clad only in a loincloth. A tangled matted mass of thick brown hair clung to him like a shrub to the face of a cliff. His belly overhung his waist, the picture of sloth.
The two angels were invisible to him, but his eyes grew wide as he realized that his comrades lay dead at his feet, their blood soaking into the ground. One, the last one to die, twitched, his left hand jumping. The giant man screamed like a wildcat, sounding the alarm.
Kreios was quick, stabbing his dagger into his throat, cutting the cry short—but it was too late. The sound of voices and angry grunts rippled through the camp. Yamanu knocked the man aside, who was dead where he stood, and sprang from the tent. Time to fly.
Kreios followed him out. Into the middle of the row of tents flowed hundreds of half-naked men, swords raised.
Torches blazed, captains issued orders in gruff shouts, and the guards on the perimeter began running toward the noise. It was like being trapped inside an hourglass. Kreios bent his legs to take to the air, but something held him back. Yamanu looked to Kreios and he nodded; he, too, was unable to fly.
Within the gathering mass of enemy combatants, there came a thick, dirty sound—flesh tearing from flesh. The men twitched and jerked as if being rent in two. Black-hooded demons with glowing eyes wrenched and twisted from the mouths of the men, as if their tongues were tombstones that guarded the wretched, stinking, open sepulcher in each one.
The dark forces came free. They drew black swords that dripped, wet. The earth beneath turned to boiling tar. Kreios felt distress in Yamanu. It had become too late now for them to flee. One course of action remained. Kreios erupted with a shout: “For the Sons of El and for Ke’elei.” He unsheathed the Sword of Light, blasting a shattering hole into the very heart of the night.
Kreios charged through the horde, an enraged bull. Men and demons flew in all directions, felled beneath the crush of his mighty arm. The fog vanished in an instant as Yamanu withdrew his shadow, drew his sword, and fought bravely in the light of the Sword.
As Kreios maneuvered his way through the onslaught, he kept a steady eye on the tent of the Seer. A cry came from his left side, and Kreios could feel the pain in Yamanu’s thoughts. He turned to see a large demon standing over his friend, a curving black sword held high overhead, ready to deliver the final blow.
Instinctively, Kreios threw his Sword, cleaving the demon into a disemboweled wreck. The Sword of Light passed through its target as if it had been nothing, lodging firmly into the trunk of a tree on the edge of the enemy encampment. Yamanu stood; the horde army closed in. Kreios sprinted for it, alarmed at his rashness. Perhaps now that Yamanu was freed, they could work together to regain possession of the Sword.
He heard a distant but immediate voice. “Take them alive. And you, Kreios: stand still where you are, or I shall remove this one’s head from his body.” Kreios whirled and beheld the Seer in all his evil glory, standing with a small, jagged sword to Yamanu’s throat.
He froze.
Kreios thought about so many things in that instant that only one mattered, for all its importance: he knew that he might never see his little girl again.
The Seer burned a hole in him with malicious eyes. Was this Lucifer, Kreios wondered, or just another piece on the game board? He locked his gaze onto the Seer’s eyes once more, determined to see if he could recognize anything at all. He held there until the creepings of fear consumed him. He was not going to escape this time.
Kreios turned toward the Sword that stuck out of the distant tree and noted that its light had been snuffed along with his last hope of deliverance.
Two enemy warriors grabbed his arms in the darkness and held fast with inhuman strength, their demonic counterparts nearby, faces hooded and black. It was like firelight flickering where their eyes might have been.
He was dragged toward the Seer’s tent at the center of the camp, quite a distance away. He struggled, but it was no use. They took Yamanu somewhere else, which completed the crushing of Kreios’ spirit. Each moment was more and more draining; Kreios could feel it. His breathing became ragged and harsh. He slumped to the ground, spent, and the two enemy warrior slaves who had been carrying him tossed him like a rag doll into the Seer’s tent.
Kreios landed on his face, his body a crumpled rag. Bright white stars flashed before his eyes, and for an instant, he thought he was going to fall out of time.
The Seer materialized in front of him, hiding under a hideous dripping hood. The stench that followed him was unbearable; it smelled like a pile of corpses in the dark. “I would like to thank you for bringing back my Sword. I have missed it so…” He laughed, high and wheezing, a whine. Kreios shivered and closed his eyes.
Kreios felt that Yamanu, wherever he was, would die soon if something didn’t happen. He felt him fading from his grasp. He decided to address the evil presence in front of him. He raised his face from the dirt and said, “Why me?”
The Seer laughed once more, wheezing and rattling. “You think I want you? I thought you a worthy foe… but you are a dumb sheep playing with wolves.” The laughter continued, more intense and disturbing. At last, the Seer regained a trifle of self-control. “Are you growing weak, slave? Yes… yes, you are. Perhaps amendments can be made to prolong your stay with the sentient—though you’re quite pitiful, aren’t you? Yes, you are.”
Kre
ios was sucking air and filthy dirt into his lungs when a thought came to him, light and terrible. He tried to put it from his mind. It has to be a lie. This was a sick game the beast wanted to play, and if Kreios was to survive, he knew that he had to begin playing it.
The Seer began speaking unclean incantations in one of the lost tongues, binding and loosing. The end result, though his ears burned for hearing such unspeakable atrocities, was that the drain on the strength of Kreios was stopped. The Seer knelt to the ground and brought his face near. Kreios nearly vomited from the stench of it, thinking perhaps the Seer would try to speak a curse over him. Instead, he spit on him as he stood and took his leave, hissing, disappearing through the folds of the tent. Kreios sighed with relief and began to pray.
CHAPTER VII
Boise, Idaho—Present Day
STAN THE MAN GIGGLED like a little girl, cleared his throat, and adjusted his sunglasses. “I am a fan of your little plan, Stan the Man,” he said cheerily. He repeated it again and again. It was a stupid little rhyme, but he needed it. He wanted it. He was the man, especially with his latest prize knocking around in the trunk. He had the world by the tail.
It had been enjoyable, his time with Lopez. The detective had been so very trusting, after all; it made the irony so very delicious. He actually thought that I would let him go after he told me what I wanted to know. That boggled what was left of his mind.
“Let me out, you pervert.” The voice in the trunk was angry, sure. But there was fear there … and innocence, too. Stan loved innocence, loved to misuse it, turn it back on itself.
The detective had been last—the enjoyment of that moment would live on in infamy with Stan. He had gorged himself on blood lust, on his poetic desire to manipulate and target the innocent. He preferred to kill first those who did not deserve to die, preferably with someone watching—someone whose pain would drive them mad before he finally showed them to the edge of the grave and turned them loose within it.
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