“So,” Michael began, “I’m still trying to wrap my head around how the Brotherhood nailed us.” The crate he leaned against was all marked up with stenciled Chinese lettering. “I thought it was just … odd, you know, how they could find us with such accuracy. And speed.”
“And that was only one small group, too,” Ellie said. “El forbid we should have run into many more, much less an entire clan.”
“Yeah,” I said. I had wanted to get to the bottom of that question from the moment the Brotherhood had shown up. “How did they find us?” I looked at the faces of my companions. Nobody knew anything, as far as I could tell.
“Did anyone else think their strategy was a little off?” Michael asked.
“Like how?” Kim asked.
“I mean, they didn’t …they didn’t …” Michael dug around for words. “They weren’t shoot-to-kill types. Does that make sense? I mean, it’s almost like they were just there to waste our time, to harass us.”
“Yeah, but why would they do that?” I asked.
It was dead quiet for a second.
“It’s almost like they were there to see what we were made of,” Michael said. “I know if I wanted to size up my enemy … I mean, if it was my call, and I was up against an enemy force that was, say, an unknown quantity … that I would send scouts. Or a strongman, like they did. Throw something serious at the situation and see what happens.”
“Well, we saw what happened,” I said.
“Yeah,” Kim said. “Airel kicked butt.”
“Yeah,” Michael said. “And I’m just wondering if we won back there. Really. Or not.”
“I don’t get it,” Kim said.
“I do,” I said. “I guess what you’re asking is, ‘what did we gain back there’—right?”
“Yeah,” Michael said. “I mean, I know what it appears to be on the surface. We won, they lost. We took them out.” He paused. “But I’m unsettled about it, when it’s all said and done.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Michael looked into my eyes. “I don’t like that those three anti-Cherubs showed up.” He gestured to Ellie. “I talked about that with her. That kind only shows up when there’s something really big going on.” He paused again. “I have a few ideas, but I don’t like what I’m thinking.”
Ellie’s eyes flashed and she shook her head. “Don’t look at me.”
Michael sighed. “We’re a walking target. Somehow.” He looked at me. “They could have been tracking us using your phone.”
“How about your phone, Captain Connected?” I was annoyed. “Or even the ice queen here,” I said, motioning to Ellie’s vivid blue spikes.
“It doesn’t matter how they found us,” Michael said, “because in the end they found us and saw what we can do.” He looked at me again. “They saw that you have the Sword.”
Ellie burst in, “How do you know?”
He stopped. All was quiet, save for the swaying, creaking motion of the train, the clack of the trucks as they rolled over the gaps in the rails. “And they saw,” he continued, his gaze moving from Ellie back to me, “that you know how to use it. That you can call it up at will.”
He looked at Ellie and Kim. “What other reason would they have to allow us to do away with one of their strongmen and his Brother? Those two were enormous, very strong. And then, what did the anti-Cherubs do? They just took off.”
I looked down, the seriousness of the situation becoming clearer.
“And you can bet that intelligence has already been shared with the powers that be,” he said. “Fact is, we were played back there.”
“What for?” Ellie said. “That is the question you should be asking.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, growing irritated again.
“You’re asking how they found us so quickly, right? How they found us, how they managed to draw us into all-out battle? And then how those three managed to get away from us, all the while making us believe we should be happy about it?”
“Dude,” I said, “we kicked butt. The end.”
Ellie rolled her eyes at me, waving me off.
“What?” I asked. “And by the way, Ellie, thanks so much for all your help back there. Thanks for taking the easy targets and leaving the strongman to me,” I said. “I really appreciate your faith in my skill as a warrior.”
She glowered at me.
“If I didn’t know better,” I said, “I’d think you had your own agenda.”
“Careful,” Ellie said.
“Maybe it’s you,” I said. “Maybe you led them right to us. Maybe you led them to us and then shoved me to the front of the battle lines so that I would be forced to reveal that I carry the Sword. Or maybe you just wanted to see me killed.”
She just looked at me.
“Hey, relax,” Michael said. “It doesn’t matter. All we can do now is stay off the phones and keep out of sight.”
“Ha,” I said. “That’s pretty lame.” A thought crept into my mind: Is he the one who tipped them off? Is he still working with the Brotherhood, and I’m too blind to see it? Before I said it, I wished I could retract it, unsay it, but I couldn’t stop myself: “Maybe it was you. After all, you used to be one of them.”
I stung him. Bad. Airel, you stupid, stupid girl.
I looked away from him, and my eyes landed on Ellie’s face. I detected the faintest smirk of satisfaction. I was shocked at that, at her, at myself. I looked to Kim, but she wouldn’t look at me. She just stared down at the planks in awkward embarrassment. Great. I’m such a fool. I couldn’t look at him; I was too ashamed of myself.
“I don’t like this,” Kim said. “We were careful. We’ve been using cash and stuff. They just came out of nowhere, as if they knew the exact road we were taking and what we were driving. Plus, there was that cop.”
It was uncomfortably quiet.
All our questions remained unanswered. All I had done was add more confusion to the pot and stirred it in real good.
“Maybe it’s you,” Michael’s voice broke in. I looked up, feeling wild and dizzy suddenly. He was looking at Ellie. “I mean, we don’t know you at all. We don’t know if you are who you say you are.” His jaw was set, his eyes narrowed. He would not look at me. “Do we?”
“Listen, you,” she said to him. “I’m not the one who stood by idling with a stick in my hand back there. I was busy cutting demon-possessed flesh to ribbons.”
“I was looking after Kim.” he said.
“So you say. But who called it on, eh? What brought them to us, right to us?”
“Hey!” I said, placing a hand on each of them. “Cut it out, you guys.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Michael shoot me a glare. I clamped my mouth shut and my gut balled up into a knot.
Kim stood up abruptly. “I can’t take this anymore,” she said, whimpering. “You guys are too much for me.” She struggled, wriggling into and through the small space between the crates and the wall of the car. “I’m gonna go find my own spot now.” She was gone before any of us could say a word.
Ellie stood. “Me too. You two lovebirds enjoy.” She was gone too, following in Kim’s wake.
I assumed they would each find their own little patch of boxcar paradise, quite apart from each other, given all the love I felt bouncing off the walls. The problem was, Michael and I were finally alone. And I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
***
KIM FOUND A DARK little hole in the crates and crawled inside it, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. She could feel something in her head nagging her mind. It felt like an inner-ear itch, but deeper, something she could never hope to get to, something from which she could never even hope to find relief.
She rubbed her temples.
She reached into her sweater pocket and touched the Bloodstone. It was warm; it calmed her mind to know that it was there. It scratched the itch and the effect was glorious—tension melted away. But the scratching drew
blood, and when this inner wound began to congeal it would only itch more, profoundly. Who would have thought such a pretty little thing could mean so much? Who would have thought that moment on the cliff, when she lay in the dirt, afraid, angels and demons having finished their scuffling death contest all around her, that she could find such a salve for her ragged mind?
It was a drug. Really. One she now needed. One she would guard like a jealous lover.
“She knows. You need to keep it from her; she wants to use it against you.” The whisper in her head grew louder as the itch vanished.
Am I losing my mind? she thought. She didn’t think so, but this—the voices, the needs, the hunger to know—it had to stop. It was overpowering.
“It’s not you, Kim, but her.”
Who? Airel?
“No. Ellie. Or maybe … maybe it’s Michael and Ellie together.”
Yes, Michael. He was the real enemy. He had bewitched everyone with his handsome face and charm.
“Just what is he trying to do?”
“I don’t know,” Kim heard her own voice sounding off from far away, muffled, wrapped in heavy cloth. What’s going on here? She wanted to run, to leap from the train, run as fast as she could, away. Just away. Away from this train, away from this mess, away from them, away from life, and be alone. Forever.
Kim hugged herself. It’s cold in here, and it smells funny.
What were they even doing anymore? Kim didn’t know. Maybe she didn’t want to know.
***
MICHAEL REACHED OUT GENTLY and brushed her cheek with his fingertips. “Airel.” She looked up at him, the pain in her eyes completely naked. “Thank you for looking at me again.”
“I’m so sorry…”
“No need,” he said, smiling compassionately. “You can never push me away.”
“But—”
“Shh,” he said. “Just stop. I know you didn’t mean it. I know.” He pulled her closer and kissed her cheek, perilously close to her lips, igniting their passions again. “Love,” he said.
“Oh, Michael.” A tear escaped.
He caught it with his lips, kissing it away. “You can never do anything that will make me turn away from you.”
There were more tears as she began to break. She reached out and pulled him to her, and they locked in embrace, holding each other fiercely.
“I am sorry,” she said.
“Shh.”
She pulled away and looked deep into his eyes, searching them. He could see understanding in her eyes, as if she really knew him and loved him for who he was. Twisting around with her back to his chest, she pulled his arms around her and leaned into him, laying her head against his shoulder. He cradled her with his body, wrapping his arms tight around her small frame. After a while, the smooth rocking motion of the train lulled them to sleep.
CHAPTER VIII
I OPENED MY EYES.
I was not on the train.
It was bright; the sun was high, its heat making my skin tingle.
I stood with the Sword of Light blazing like a star in my right hand.
To my left: Ellie, sword drawn, clothed in form-fitting robes. Across part of her neck and face, there glowed a design that was reminiscent of a tattoo, only like nothing the world had ever seen. I bristled at her presence. Who does she think she is, anyway?
On my right stood Kreios. I turned to him and he smiled at me. Grandfather. My heart nearly burst with the release—all my nagging questions had found their end. It was like the final resolving chord of a symphony. I wanted to throw myself at him as those lovely tones echoed through the deepest crevices of my mind, wrap my arms around his massive frame and cry—I had found him.
Or had I?
His face, the expression he wore, told me there was something else happening. Something I had not yet seen.
We three stood on a low rise before a wide, grassy meadow. Beyond it were broken buildings, the ruins of a once-great city. These ruins were roundabout, hemming us in. The jagged and wrecked skyline loomed over the meadow on all sides. It reminded me of a place I had only ever seen in pictures. Is that where we are? Central Park? Is this—or was it—New York City?
I hate nightmares. I thought I had moved past them. It seemed like they were just getting worse now.
Then She showed up, but instead of bursting into my consciousness and pelting me with words, She just painted picture after picture, flooding my mind with images, provoking memories, thoughts, emotions. I saw my life. I saw it for what it was: a mix of illness and emotion, danger and decision. Now everything I had ever known—or thought I believed in—was on its head. I saw a scared little girl in a dress and ribbons hiding behind a curtain, pulling the strings of a marionette below her. When I looked down, I saw who the marionette was. It was me. And it was clear I was playing with something I didn’t know how to operate.
What am I supposed to do with my newly long life?
“Will it be a gift to you, or a curse?” She asked.
That depends, I answered my pet voice-in-the-head, considering everything for a long while. Finally I thought, How are Michael and I going to be together when I will outlive him? What about a normal life—a family, one day—kids, and a dumb, barking dog?
She posited something then, as if I was a student in her class. I saw a picture of the word normal with a gigantic question mark superimposed on it, and the more I looked at the question mark, the harder it was to see the word beneath it.
Oh, I get it. What’s normal even mean?
She smiled. It was something felt rather than seen; it was weird.
I looked around me at the wreckage of the city. From time to time, pieces of rotten skyscrapers finally succumbed and fell from immense heights to the overgrown streets below, raising huge clouds of dust, the crashing more shocking because of the eerie silence in which it sounded. Am I supposed to be some sort of hero—saving people from burning buildings?
I turned to Kreios and looked at him, realizing he was only a figment of my own dream. “Will we ever find you?” I asked him. “And if we do, will you have the answers?”
“So much doubt and worry,” She said, scolding me.
My mind would not stop working. Even in my own dreams, I could have no rest. It’s all just so complicated.
“How do you really feel about Michael?” She asked.
I love him.
“Do tigers change their stripes?”
Cryptic. And freaking typical. Will I ever get past what he was; that’s what you’re asking me. Might he do it again? How can I know? I understand why he told the lie.
“Still, it was a lie.”
My stomach ached. I hugged myself and became aware of Michael’s arms around me. We were on the train and he was behind, holding me with strong, warm arms. Isn’t this enough?
“Is it?”
In so many ways, it was not. This is my demon, my curse.
“Find the answer on your own. It’s the only way you can really know the truth. And let her guide you.”
She was gone. I was back in the city, on the little hillock again. Ellie was to my left, only she didn’t appear to be sinister anymore. I wondered about her, but she didn’t regard me. Kreios was to my right again, staring directly ahead as well.
“Be ready, Airel,” Kreios whispered.
I snapped my eyes back to the front.
There was something in the meadow besides grass and wildflowers. Something dark, something that flowed like a spill. Some noxious fume. I could just pick out details as the tentacles of the thing flowed into the open field and slowly took it over and choked the life out of it, like a gnarled hand grasping to kill.
Anti-Cherubs. Infernals. Brothers. Demons. Still others—an approaching army. The Horde was a single organism that breathed from the same cursed lungs, moving as one.
At their front, in the midst of their leading edge, stood a figure cloaked in red, the pure white of its robe peeking out in the breeze that lifted and teased the cloak. A long bl
ack staff was in its hand. The Seer had miraculously returned from his overthrow. Or perhaps a new one has been found.
Three angelic warriors stood against the very essence of evil, all that could be mustered. I pretended to be calm, but fear rose up inside me. I tried to count, but then realized there were far too many thousands for me to continue.
A stone’s throw away, the leader—the Seer—stopped, holding up a pasty-white hand in signification to the Horde. They then halted in their many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. It was a sick greeting, like the kiss of Judas. The hand reached to the hem of the hood and pulled it back.
It was Michael.
I wasn’t surprised. I was saddened instead.
His eyes were ablaze, darker and redder than his cloak. Set in the unfailing beauty of his face, it gave him such a striking appearance of beauty intermingled with hateful ugliness that I desperately wanted to look away; it was more than I could bear. His face was a mockery of beauty, a thin shell only just masking truly baleful intent.
Michael…what have you done? Where have you gone? What’s become of you?
He stepped forward.
I met him stride for stride.
In a conference of commanders before the battle, we met alone on the field. The Bloodstone hung profanely on a tether around his neck. His pasty skin seeped black gooey beads of sweat. His voice was not his own—it was hideous and spastic. “What do you want from me?”
“Nothing, Michael. Nothing.”
He spat prodigiously on the ground and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You never believed in me, did you? You doubted. You worried. Well,” his eyes wandered over my body, giving me the creeps, “now you have what you’ve always wanted. You were right. It was self-fulfilling prophecy. Besides,” his expression was wicked, “I am the Alexander.”
My heart was frantic; I didn’t know what that meant. Did I make him this way? Was he forced back to the Brotherhood because I couldn’t get past my own fears? Because I had never trusted him?
“Maybe if you would have been able to use more self-control…” His tone was mocking.
The Airel Saga Box Set: Young Adult Paranormal Romance Page 44
