He sat and thought for a long time before answering. “You know, I don’t have an answer for you. I don’t know. What I do know is that she has accepted the burden of the Bloodstone fully now. She has bonded with it. She has chosen it over everything else.”
“But how… how does a person come to that? How could she choose that?”
“Like anything.” He shrugged. “You go far enough down the path of curiosity until you slide off. There’s no coming back from some choices. She’s already beginning to change. It’s taking her.” He paused, wanting to choose his next words very carefully. “Airel, that’s not even Kim anymore.”
She tried to stay strong, but it only lasted a few minutes. She collapsed into a pile of sobs on the seat next to him. She covered her face with her hands and wept and he held her. He knew what she wept for. It wasn’t just Kim. It was everything.
Eventually they fell asleep together, her head resting on his chest, his arms around her.
***
I WAS ABSOLUTELY STARVING. I wasn’t quite awake yet, but I was aware of the hunger at least. There was something in the air, too; a voice. It was tinny. I opened my eyes. We were on a plane. Oh, yeah. The plane. The tinny voice was the captain. Hex. That’s right.
“…cruising at Mach point eight. We’re currently slowing and on final to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. We’ll be landing at Wideawake Airfield in ten minutes for refueling. We’ll have a layover of a few hours per Miss Ellie’s request, so you can walk around a bit and eat a meal, perhaps see the sights. It’s up to you. All the arrangements will be taken care of. Please buckle up and prepare for landing. This is the captain speaking.” The intercom clicked off.
I looked around. Michael was stirring, but he wasn’t quite up yet. Ellie sat across the way. She looked up and smiled at me. Kim was still out like a light. Boy, howdy. That must have been some cocktail.
I looked out the window. All I could see were wisps of cloud and ocean. It was still daytime. How long have we been flying? Did I hear him say South Atlantic? Wowza. I couldn’t figure it out in my head, but I was sure of one thing—it had to be tomorrow already. My stomach growled.
I could feel the plane descending and slowing, and my ears popped.
As we got closer and lower, I could see quite clearly the endless sea. There was nothing else out here. It seemed like we were getting really low, and I hoped there was some kind of island or land out in front of us because it sure looked like we were getting ready to crash into the water.
Just when I started to become really alarmed, a bit of rocky shore flashed by under the wing. I was instantly relieved to find that, no, we weren’t trying to land on the open ocean. Touchdown came swiftly and gently.
Kim never stirred.
I elbowed Michael gently. “Hey. Get off me, dude.” He had draped an arm over me and was drooling on the expensive leather seat. He gave a snort, blinked his eyes, and looked around. “Oh. Hi. Sorry.” He drew back his arm and sat up.
The airplane was slowing to taxi speed, and Hex meandered it over various runways to a row of big metal buildings where other planes like ours were parked.
“How long were we out?” Michael asked.
Ellie spoke up. “Fourteen hours. I guess you needed some rest, hey?”
I stretched luxuriously now that I didn’t have boyfriend draped all over me. “No doubt,” I said, peering out the window.
Hex’s voice came over the speakers again. “It’s a balmy twenty-five degrees outside, and the weather is perfect. Enjoy your day. This is the captain speaking.”
Did he say twenty-five? “But it looks so nice out,” I said.
“Celsius,” Ellie said.
“Oh. Duh.” I felt so stupid. “Why did I not know that?”
“Because you’ve been snogging your boyfriend for over twelve hours, girlie. Anyone else wouldn’t even know their own name.” She smiled and I felt all gooey inside again. What is it about this Ellie character?
The plane stopped and we stood. Bishop came and opened the outer door with a huge smile, and the three of us got out, blinking and squinting in the bright sunshine.
“What about Kim?” I asked.
“Oh, sweetheart, she’s not going to wake for days. She’ll be fine,” Ellie said.
“Days? Holy crap. Do we need to get her on an oxygen machine or something?” I asked, more concerned than ever.
“No, no. Trust me, girlie,” Ellie said with a serious look in her eyes. “It’s better this way.”
CHAPTER XIII
WE TOOK A TAXI to Georgetown for some grub. Of course, when I say taxi, I mean tiny little minivan piled to overflowing with, like, almost twenty people in it and on it. It didn’t help that the driver thought he was Enzo Ferrari himself, the way he blasted down the thoroughfares.
“I find you veddy good place to eat,” he said to us, flashing his pearly whites.
And it was true. The food was astonishing. I had never had fish so tasty in my life. Fish. It was likely because most of my prior experiences with seafood were deep-fried and square, served up with plenty of tartar sauce.
We sat at a secluded table in the corner of a little shop that sold light groceries and sundries, but that was also, according to our taxi driver, one of the best places in town to eat. I figured in that way it was a little like one of my favorite greasy spoons back home, Delsa’s Ice Cream Parlor. Just a mom-and-pop shop.
After our main meal, Ellie ordered us some samosas, little triangle-shaped pies filled with meat and veggies. She also ordered us some Turkish coffee, which was indescribable and amazing. We sat and talked, bloated with food. The ocean breezes filtered through the place through shutters that were thrown wide open against the sunshine.
“Well,” Ellie said, “I suppose it’s time to let you both in on a little secret.”
The expression on her face didn’t give away a bit of what she was about to tell us. I couldn’t have imagined it. She just sat there with an adorable smirk on her face, like she was playing, like she was just going to indulge in a little girlish gossip. It seemed innocent enough at first blush, and I returned her half-mischievous little smile as she began to speak.
“I suppose I should just be out with it,” she said, fidgeting slightly. “I’m not who I told you I am.”
The smile faded slowly from my face. I looked at Michael. He was looking dead at her; he didn’t return my inquisitive glance.
“I’m not an angel,” Ellie said, dropping the bomb on us.
A moment went by unmolested, slippery. I couldn’t get ahold of it. “Say what?” I said in disbelief.
“I said, girlie, I’m not an angel. Not a full-blood, anyway.”
Though I probably should have launched to my feet and shouted at her, I didn’t have it in me. I just couldn’t conjure up the emotion. I was instantly very tired, and I felt a large resignation coming for me, threatening to make everything I had ever done and ever would do completely meaningless. I searched for words and came up empty.
Michael interjected. “So you’ve lied to us this whole time.”
She shrugged. “Pretty much.”
As far as I could tell, she was having a great time with this new joke. Surely, I thought, there must be more to it. I probed inwardly for She and couldn’t make out any signs of alarm coming from her. Still. What’s really going on here?
I looked at Ellie’s face and couldn’t detect any malicious intent there. “So what are you saying?” I asked.
“You’re not a full-blood,” Michael said. “Then what are you? Explain yourself.”
“Yeah,” I said, “because this … I mean, this is messed up. You’ve been lying to us the whole time.”
“Shh,” Ellie hissed at us. “We still need to maintain at least a little bit of order here.” She sat forward a bit and directed herself only at me. “Airel, what I mean to say is that I’m just like you are. I’m a half-breed.”
“Wait. What? So you’re a … an Immortal? You’ve been chang
ed too?”
“Yeah.” She sat back and looked at both of us for a moment.
“But you’re not,” Michael began, “I mean, you’ve never been a member of the Brotherhood?”
“That’s an incredible question for you to ask me, kid. Like you have room to be suspicious. And, no, I’m not with the Brotherhood, though they’ve been known to recruit women from time to time. But you knew that, didn’t you, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked, right?”
This is just crazy sauce. Weirdly, in spite of what maybe should have happened in my heart and mind, instead of being angered by Ellie’s confession, I was newly energized. That’s what it is. That’s why there’s this weird connection between us all the time. I was exultant. “So wait,” I said, “tell me everything. How did you change? What happened? How did … I mean, who activated you?” Suddenly we really did have all kinds of stuff in common.
“Patience, grasshopper,” she said in her funny accent. “All in due course.”
“Hold on,” I said, interrupting Michael before he could get another word in. “I’ve been dying to know, since we’re finally getting down to it here. Where are you from? How old are you?”
She giggled and obliged me. “I kind of lost track, if I’m honest. But it’s fair to say that I’ve been around a long time. A very long time.”
My mind raced.
“Anyway, in answer to your question of where I’m from, I guess you could say I’m headed home right now. That’s why I figured it was a good time to come clean. Cape Town is my own fair city. My own most recent fair city. I’ve been known to haunt Sydney and London from time to time.”
“Wait, I thought you were from Portland. Or Seattle,” Michael said.
“You assumed. I carry documents too numerous to list. What the documents say on their face is what allows people to draw their own conclusions in concert with how they think. And when you’ve got as much experience as I do, you know how to make connections and how to use them. At the moment, officially, I’m a dual citizen of ol’ Zed-A and the USA—”
“Zed-A?” I asked.
“South Africa’s official initials, girlie. Anyway, I guess you could say in regard to my American citizenship that I’m African-American. Though with skin this fair in an intellectual climate as intolerant and closed-minded as America is currently, I know it’s the unpardonable sin for me to say so. If the world even believes in sin anymore.”
I laughed at her little rant. I supposed she deserved it. “So you’re from Cape Town? Is it cool?”
“Crikey, yeah. I’ve been all over the place. Quite literally. And Cape Town is one of the most naturally gorgeous spots on earth.”
“Why did you lie?” Michael blurted out.
I felt a little ashamed at myself, feeling like a too-eager turncoat. That, plus his question made me blush a little, but I nevertheless waited for her answer.
“That’s easy, mate. You can’t trust anyone these days. I have a lot to lose. There’s a lot at stake here. Actually, you should feel privileged that I shared the truth with you even now. You ought to feel some measure of gratitude that I’m demonstrating enough faith in you to confide this.”
“Okay, but why?” he persisted. “Why did you have to keep us in the dark at all? Are you even here because of El and orders, or was that all just a lie too?”
Ellie leaned across the table toward us and lowered her voice. She pointed to me. “Airel knows the answer to that already.”
After a split second of confusion, it did indeed become clear as a bell to me. I looked at Michael and said, “She’s here to protect me.” That’s crazy. How could I be that important? And of course it was beyond prudent for her to keep that to herself for as long as she dared. She must think we’re headed for something enormous, then … still, though … little ol’ me? She’s here to protect me?
But I knew. After all, I knew, and it was flooding into me. After all I had read in my grandfather’s Book, after all I had experienced, after all the impossibilities of my own resurrection from the dead, my still-developing abilities, and the fact that I could now call the Sword of Light at a whim and wield it in battle, the very Sword my grandfather had been the only angel to possess… well, perhaps technically it had belonged to his brother Tengu, before he had joined the rebellion—all of it came crashing into me with brute force. I grasped the edge of the table to steady myself. I was breathing hard, like I had just run a sprint. “Whoa,” was all I could articulate.
“See? She knows,” Ellie said. “Now, Michael, how ‘bout let’s fill her in on the rest of the plan. The why of it. The danger. She’s gotta know. She’s gotta know now.”
For the next hour, we sat at the table as they filled me in on how we were going into, basically, the lion’s den. And how not just Kim was effectively the bait, but me as well.
Kreios, I thought desperately, you had better freaking show up. We are taking some huge risks now. Risks that might change the whole world forever.
***
WE BOUGHT A FEW little souvenirs from the street merchants before catching another taxi back to the airstrip. “Wideawake. What a cool name,” I said. I was thoroughly engrossed, and as it turned out, clueless. I should have known better.
The bottom of our little world didn’t drop out until we boarded the plane again: Kim was gone. At first I thought she had just woken up and needed to use the bathroom or something, that maybe she had gone into the hangar for some reason. Something temporary, something that meant she would be back.
But she was gone.
Ellie was as angry as I had ever seen her. “We’ve gotta find her. Now.”
***
“THAT’S A GOOD GIRL, Kim. You’ve done well. Very well.”
Kim had been faking it for hours on the plane, pretending to be asleep. It was so crazy how the Bloodstone gave her the ability to do superhuman things, like resist powerful psychosomatic drugs intentionally slipped into her drink by psychopathic blue-haired trust-fund girls. How it gave her new desires she hadn’t ever put together for herself. Take-over-the-world-type stuff. She felt, with it, that she could fly. Perhaps I will …
And time flew by too. Normally she would have been impatient. But the Bloodstone lent to her a different perspective; it was larger. She could see more of the historical picture with it, see that everything happened again and again in cycles of evil; that she only need wait for the next one. It would be along just as surely as the next bus to the end of the world. And that made her less jittery. So when the time became ripe, she was ready.
But on the threshold of the total surrender of her will, she hesitated. Destiny loomed over her in the form of pure doom; there was no hope save for her last free decision: Is this what I really want?
“Hush, my dear,” the Bloodstone cooed, “and savor the taste …”
It does taste good …
Under the carnal influences of the Bloodstone, she sprang from her seat and bolted from the plane. No one saw her; the pilots were indoors filing their flight plan and checking the weather. The ground crew was busy elsewhere. The gang of three, those troublemakers, those molesters, those kidnapping liars, would be back soon, so she took off at a dead sprint.
But she wasn’t really Kim, was she? No, not anymore. Now I’m better than Kim. I’m Kim as I should have been. And I will evolve into something truly magnificent. Something immortal. Kim told herself that her root motivation wasn’t jealousy; that she didn’t really just want to be like Airel, to have what she had, to be beautiful, to live forever, and to have Michael for her own. But it was all lies. Fighting fire with fire, she told herself lies that countermanded the previous lies. In fact, the truth was, everything was a lie.
None of it mattered.
She would be beautiful.
Untouchable.
***
SHE WAS BEGINNING TO wheeze, to pant, to convulse as its—her—legs pumped up and down over the dead moonscape of lava rock. She was spewing forth more evidence of the presence of the Blood
stone—gooey black tar oozed from her nostrils and a fume of that vapor poured out from her mouth in puffs.
For an instant, one of the legs failed to pump properly, stumbling over an irregularity in the field of rocks. Down she went. There was no pain; only the Bloodstone’s manufacture of an all-consuming elation that dwarfed all other indicators of pain or reality. There was blood on the hands now, though.
Slipping the straps from each shoulder one at a time, it took the pink backpack off and reattached it to the front, running her arms through the straps again so that this time the bag rested on her chest.
A ripple appeared on her back as razor-sharp wingtip talons skillfully pierced the skin and the fabric of the dress, protruding slowly like a plant growing out of fertile ground and then unfurling like the petals of a diabolical flower. At first green, the wings quickly changed to brown, matching the lava-rock landscape that was spread roundabout.
“Tengu deserved his end,” the Bloodstone—Nwaba now—thought. “Now it is my turn …” Swiftly the wings descended, and the hybrid creature shot into the sky as if launched from a catapult. The wings of something, anything, that could fly; the face of a human. “Well … as far as is reasonable,” Nwaba said to himself. After all, this chameleon had never quite been fully anything.
Nwaba flew, his wings protruding from the spine of the one named Kim, toward the peak of Green Mountain. He could detect the stench of one of his oldest foes. Kreios. He might know Nwaba better under younger names. Only if Kreios had truly been paying attention would he know him as Nwaba. “We shall see, Kreios. And we shall see you soon.”
The one named Kim spread its arms wide in menace as the wings shot her swiftly through the air, pink backpack first, toward the place where Kreios had last stood upon the earth. That place with that accursed symbol, the cross.
The Airel Saga Box Set: Young Adult Paranormal Romance Page 55
