The boy was beside himself, 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 and fell next to her, his wet arm draping over her lifeless body. He did not move, his breathing shallow.
Kreios stopped his CPR, seeing at last that it was no use.
He 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 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 heal 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,” into 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 from every good thing, back toward the forest.
He sat alone at its edge and faced the scene of destruction, 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 broken body of his only love. 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. Everything had been erased—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, devoid of any mercy. The water was glass once again. It had no memory; it showed nothing.
He thought of Airel. In a very short time, she could have been, could have done, so much. The taste was vile and unspeakably bitter. He had been so foolish to hope that hope would bud and bloom into peace once he had made an end of 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 at the end of the Seer. But the cup from which he now drank was nothing like 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.
For the first time in thousands of years, Kreios felt a deep insatiable hunger for one thing: vengeance. There were enemies to vanquish. The Brotherhood was leaderless. There were many to kill. Michael would be the last.
***
THE SOUND OF THUNDER scattered a few birds. Michael stopped along the path through the woods and looked up to see Kreios, a streak of light, headed west.
***
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, left. In an instant she awoke, startled. She 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? She 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 it longer than he could remember. He could make instant friends, could find out if the target was one of the Sons or Daughters of El in a week or less.
But Airel had been different. He had wanted that, though. He had wanted her to be different. He had hoped it was just a mistake, a wrongful mark. They had to have botched things somehow; it had to have been a case of mistaken identity. He had fallen for her. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
If you love her so much, why did you betray her? His mind flickered backward to his mother—how his father had murdered her in cold blood while cursing her to a slow and painful eternity in hell. The next thought was inevitable, and it hurt more than he could express: Like father, like son…
He had known that trying to negotiate with his father was pointless, but he tried anyway. After a horribly long night, he had barely escaped with his life, leaving his mother to die. James had sealed it up, had demanded and extracted his complete and utter obedience.
Michael walked into the open meadow and began to climb the long, winding stone stairway that led up to the back of the house. He didn’t know he was sobbing, that his tears were falling onto Airel’s face, until he walked up to the big windows and saw his reflection in the glass.
He abhorred his reflection, felt guilty that he didn’t hate it enough. He pushed the door open and walked into the large ballroom. He then carried his love up to her room and laid her gently on the bed.
Michael was not expecting the fury of the storm of his own grief as it overtook him. He collapsed over the body of his beloved, whom he had murdered, and he buried his head in her wet hair, sobbing, “I’m so sorry. My love, I’m so sorry.”
He tried to breathe in the sweet smell of her hair and skin, but only caught the scent of death. All he desired was to join her, and he cursed Kreios for bringing him back to a life he no longer wanted to live.
Some things cannot be undone. Some stories cannot be rewritten. Some wounds will never heal.
Michael raised his head, blinking. He looked at her face, still beautiful in death. A thought, both rash and bold, was blooming upon the face of his consciousness. Would it be possible? He rose to his feet, half turned from her, as if pulled in some new direction, yet not willing to depart. No. He reached down to her figure, lying motionless before him on the bed. “No.”
He moved toward the door, slowly at first, walking backward, then turning, increasing his pace and reaching the door. When he passed through it, he turned and ran down the hallway to the stairs, racing down them, half falling with the speed he carried.
When he reached the bottom, he turned toward the library. “No.” He was racing. He crash-landed in the room before the great fire, which was always lit. Frantical
ly, he searched. “No, No.”
Running wildly throughout the room, dodging from shelf to shelf, he looked. He searched high and low. It is here somewhere; it must be; I feel it to be true. And yet the lines from Shakespeare echoed back to him:
Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but ‘tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
“I do not believe it.” He hurled the words against reality, dashing them against the rotten powers of his mind. He searched frantically on for a moment, then stopped—still.
Slowly turning, he fixed his gaze on the great roaring fire. Above its steadfast flame there stood a mantelpiece. On its ledge were a few books, an old-fashioned inkwell and quill pen; a few other things. He walked toward them.
Each step produced in the air a shock wave of foreboding, each step radiating outward momentous importance. His hand reached up and out; he closed his eyes, sensing. Farther and farther it reached, fingertips extended. Closer it came, the reach of his hand cutting against time and possibility. At last, the tip of his forefinger brushed the surface of a book, and he heard, ringing out into the wilds of his mind a single word: AIREL.
Michael understood in an instant what was to be done. Taking the book down, he opened it. Taking the quill pen from the inkwell, he wrote three simple words:
“But she lived.”
From the Book of the Brotherhood, Volume 3:
Introduction
Dear esteemed Host, you know by now, from previous volumes, what great struggles we endure for the Master, the Leader of our righteous rebellion. The Brothers have taken you into the fold of the horde. The Seer has bestowed upon you the Leader’s imprimatur. Ye stand now ready to do battle against the Sons and Daughters of El, cursed be the name. Be it now known the Four Great Principles of our Dominion under the sun:
The Dominion belongs to the Brothers. It was given to the Master Lucifer by the first created man at Eden. The Master has delegated to the Brothers various Principalities…
CHAPTER I
Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho—Present Day
ALL I COULD FEEL was speed. Everything was racing along under me and my body was like an arrow shot at the speed of sound, only there was no sound. I could feel the turn of the earth as if I was about to step off—or be pushed off.
Thoughts—I guess you could call them thoughts—were whizzing through me even faster. I was an observer of my own life, and everything came back in random flickers.
I saw Kim making a silly face. We were—where were we? At the mall? She looked younger. But we were shopping, all right. She must have dragged me along again.
I saw the valley. The big tree where I first read the Book of Kreios. My spot was still there.
I smelled apricots. I was in the kitchen, and I must have been young because I was looking up at my mom, my head at about countertop height, and she was canning. The sun was low and warm in the room, and everything glowed like gold. Apricots. She smiled at me.
I felt the stress knotting my center as I relived that moment in the movie theater restroom when I first saw Kreios. I thought I was going to die.
And then I did.
I saw Michael Alexander’s smile. We were at school. That was the Great Day of the Coffee Disaster, and I so wanted to be Mrs. Napkins.
My heart fluttered.
I could feel it. But it was broken. Pierced.
Echoes from outside, somewhere else.
“…sorry…”
“…sorry…”
“…sorry…”
The Alexander residence. I was carrying Kim, busting through the garage door like a kung fu master through paper. I tripped and tumbled. Kung fu beginner.
The face of evil was a sidewalk-chalk sketch and it came up at me off the driveway, and Kim was gone. It was black and it grew arms and reached for me, enfolded me, then became smoke and disappeared.
I smelled death.
Then I smelled Abercrombie Fierce.
Weird.
Again, the walls of my hurtling bullet-arrow rattled with the refrain: “…sorry…”
I wanted to cry.
Why?
I was floating over the lake, looking at the cliff. That’s when I realized there was someone with me. But I couldn’t tell who. Michael? Then the cliff-top scene appeared and played out in front of me as I floated there.
Michael was crawling there. There was a trail of blood behind him.
The lake below boiled, the massive disturbance of an angel of El exploding out of it. Kreios hunched over my body there on the top of the cliff, and it struck me as odd—I had been husked. My dead shell remained and he was trying desperately to save it. I looked to my side, trying to see whoever was with me. I still couldn’t tell.
Michael was there on the dirt, sobbing uncontrollably, lying beside my body. Then Kreios brought the Bloodstone near to him.
What was he doing…?
Michael howled furiously.
And then everything changed.
Michael was carrying me and I was in his arms.
There was a streak in the sky and I knew Kreios was gone.
Then I was on my bed again. Not my bed at home, no. It was the bed I had slept in as a captive of my grandfather. My grandfather. And everything was cold. So cold.
Echoes: stabbing pain, life death, fury, anger cold, water grave, AIREL, a scratching noise like pen on paper and, “…sorry… sorry… sorry…”
Ice fire. That’s what it was. My heart was consumed with burning cold, and I could feel it. I hovered over myself; something was hovering over me.
Then my ears popped.
And I could hear it: “Airel, I’m so sorry… please forgive me. I love you.”
***
CHOICES.
Choices that we make lead us to make other choices, and those choices can sometimes bust us in half and dump us in a blind alley with no way out.
Michael Alexander sat on the edge of Airel’s deathbed, his mind tearing. He could physically feel his heart rip inside his chest, crushed under the weight of his decisions. And he thought about the paradox—the utter craziness—that he was both lover and traitor to the most beautiful girl in the world.
He wanted to rip into himself. Yeah. Starting with this new scar right here. He felt the mark on his abdomen—the mark of a coward. Add that one to the list.
But what choice did he have?
The words echoed back to him from downstairs in the library:
“But she lived.”
He had watched the page crinkle under his tears as they dropped to the parchment, smudging the ink. This was not what he wanted. She was just another mission, just another cursed threat that needed to be cleansed from the earth. She was a job like so many others. But Airel somehow got in, snuck past all his defenses, and took hold of his heart. He had never known love, never really cared about it. She broke the rules as if they’d never even existed.
Then he had run back to her room, hoping that what he had dared to do would work, that the pen on the page would be powerful, that she would indeed live. But all he could do upon entering was stare at her lifeless body.
Airel. Her corpse was pallid and blue. It broke him afresh; tears stung his eyes. He could not help but mutter a curse against himself. He ran a nervous hand through his hair, grasping at it, wanting to tear it out.
After all I’ve done.
He thought of his wicked father, Stanley Alexander. The lies. Who can honor something like that? Yet he tried.
He had allowed James … he turned his head and let his body crumple down and down, withering. I can’t think about James and what he did.
But he continued to list off his many sins.
He had been all in for the excitement of finding one of the immortals, the Nephilim descendants. Using his training, tracking her, finding her, observing her, standing right in front of his prey while she was totally oblivious, allowing her to take the bait, and then to spite her and all she stood for— the immorta
ls, creation, El—he had delivered her up to the destroyer.
The Seer.
Tengu. And Tengu’s host, Stanley Alexander.
All that remained from it was total and empty desolation.
Michael stood up and violently stalked around the room, shouting, screaming at God, at El, at the whole world. He could take them on, right here, right now. His rage was a tower of all-consuming fire.
But it cooled quickly in a dousing sea of desperation. Most of his rage was directed inwardly.
At himself.
That rage quickly changed to passionate sobs of grief. He found himself on his knees at her bedside, smothering his face with her wet hair and whispering again, again, and again, “I’m so sorry, so sorry.”
Michael’s heart shattered. His world was a ruin. He had become what he had only just learned to hate, and a moment too late: evil.
CHAPTER II
I WAS UNDERWATER AGAIN. Dragged kicking and screaming. Soaked. Stuck deep. Everything hurt. My heart was frantic in my chest like it was lapping my ribcage and going for a new track record. My limbs were numb and cold. My hair tangled around my face. I couldn’t breathe.
And then it happened. It was like getting my back popped at the chiropractor—everything felt electric, like somebody flicked a switch. I burst to the surface, my arms and legs flailing in one spastic twitch, my fingers and toes tingling with nervous energy, my lungs gasping, grabbing for air by the shovelful.
My muscles contracted and I shot up to a sitting position, eyes wide and blinking, spending my first precious breath on a bloodcurdling shriek that could wake the dead—me. I could feel the memory of the speedy place, wherever I had been, being vigorously wiped away like a picture on a whiteboard. It quickly became blank like a vanishing dream.
Panic set in. Where is he?
The Airel Saga Box Set: Young Adult Paranormal Romance Page 32
