The Airel Saga Box Set: Young Adult Paranormal Romance

by Aaron Patterson

  Already supersonic, I began to pick up speed.

  ***

  THE STREAK OF BLUE light wound its way around the cloud of the Nri, hemming them in on all sides; they had nowhere to go. Gradually as the streak went around and around, it began to take on the shape of a glowing blue globe, the trail of blue light passed through them so quickly. Huge amounts of demon detritus were grist in this mill. They fell out from the bottom of the globe as wings, trunks, limbs; now prey only to gravity and the surface of the earth miles below.

  Kreios was overcome with emotion, coughing out an incredulous guffaw. El had utterly routed them. And quickly. “What is this new thing?” he asked.

  Then he heard, “Just watch.”

  Kreios waited and watched still more, and then the blue light slowed as the last of the Nri clan fell away beneath. The streak became still, a point of light, a round blue aura beneath pointing downward, the unmistakable pure and bright light of the Sword of Light above.

  Kreios was stunned for the second time that day. The Sword.

  “Go,” he heard.

  So he went to it.

  The sun was beginning its ascent in the east now. It threw its first rays upon the clouds where the battle had taken place, lighting them on fire in brilliant silver, red, and deepest midnight blue. Set like a jewel in a crown of magnificence was the radiant blue light, now just visible as a figure. It held aloft the piercing and pure Sword of Light, symbolic of victory.

  He could not have imagined for anything in the world what he would behold when he drew near. There, with face burnished to glowing in the warmth of the Sword, was Airel. She smiled proudly at him.

  He could do nothing but go to her and weep for his beloved granddaughter, his darling girl. She was dead, but was now alive. He shouted to the heavens with exultant joy, “She is alive. She is alive.” He fell on her shoulder and wept more, wept like a small child. The sun cast them in relief, a shimmering and pure sight.

  CHAPTER XI

  AS THE SUN ROSE over Cape Town, there was a problem with the Table Mountain cable cars. The system was down, the cables jammed, and a car was stuck up near the top wheelhouse, dangling motionless from the cable 3500 feet above sea level.

  Workmen doing the checks that morning in preparation for the open at 8 a.m. had gone missing. Clocking in, one of them was snatched screaming across the industrial floor of the mechanical room into the predawn darkness by something powerful and hideous. His cries were stifled shortly. The next one, alerted by the disturbance, had run into the room and been blindsided, grasped about the midsection by a massive clawed hand. Before he could draw breath to cry out, he was thrown out into the ether off the sheer edge of Table Mountain, falling to his appalling death after a very long drop into nothingness.

  Something dark and huge then mounted the cables, draping itself over the stopped cable car like a shroud.

  As the sun began to rise, a fearsome cry rang out over the city. It sounded bird-like, but it was loud and it radiated darkness; it broadcast fear and rage. To the few early morning observers on the ground below, who could not see much, it looked like there was a massive tree tangled in the mechanism and dangling down from atop the lone stuck cable car. It fluttered and waved in the breeze.

  But it was not a tree, and it was not passively fluttering.

  It was the enraged prince of the Nri, the last of his kind, wearing his finest and largest suit—the one with the big wings and claws—“the better to kill you with, my dears”—and he was issuing the call for vengeance.

  ***

  WE HEARD THE CAWING, croaking birdcall of the master of the principality from twenty thousand feet up. Though I had to shake my head at the relentlessness of events, I had learned to set aside my sometimes admittedly bad attitude and just buckle down. Besides, I had my grandfather back, and it was beyond awesome to be alive.

  He was more than a little surprised to see me, especially up in the rarefied air he normally tread without me. He had so many questions that I was overwhelmed at first. I tried to begin to explain, but then this creature—Nwaba, Kreios called the prince of the Nri—had bellowed at us and we had to put the conversation off for the time being.

  I couldn’t help but grin at Kreios as we flew together for the first time.

  “I knew you were special, Airel, but this … I cannot believe it.” That just made me grin at him even more.

  But the grin was wiped off my face when I saw what Nwaba had done.

  There, on a cable car strung out above the city far below, was the biggest demon I had ever seen. He dwarfed the cable car on which he was perched, shrieking at us. In the carriage that dangled below were two figures that at first I did not recognize. One of them was in charge, the other was a hostage. It was obvious from their body language.

  But then my newly enhanced eyes picked out something else inside the cable car, stretched out on the floor behind them. I recognized the dress. That little sundress. And the red hair. It was Kim. She looked horrible, like a corpse, and I wondered if she was alive. If they have killed her… I began to think of ways to punish the villains for their crimes, but then Kreios touched my arm. I looked at him and he shook his head. He had seen too.

  “Remember your lessons,” he said.

  I nodded and settled down.

  The demon prince spoke.

  “Kreios. You have been on a little killing spree, my old friend. Some of the strongest clans fell under your hand. And now you come here. To my house.” A guttural laugh. “And the Daughter of El. She has found some new tricks to turn.” The demon looked down into the carriage and said something about a “Mr. Emmanuel” or something.

  I looked into the carriage as it rocked under the weight of the monstrous demon. The wings of the beast drooped down far below the bottom of the car, and against the backdrop of the wheelhouse perched on the edge of the mountain, with its massive, arched mouth waiting to receive its travelers, the sight was medieval. Dragons and castles filled my mind.

  But then two and two clicked together to make four: I recognized the hostage.

  No. It can’t be him. “Oh, no. Kreios. They have my dad.”

  “Yes,” Nwaba cried. “Yes, I do. And I am unafraid to snuff out his pathetic life.” He bared his teeth and hissed at us.

  “Be careful, Nwaba. You are not in a position to make threats,” Kreios shouted at him.

  “Am I not?” the demon said.

  With that, the goon in the car, who I guessed was Mr. Emmanuel, then shoved my dad almost entirely out the window, holding him back at the last moment.

  “DAD,” I shouted, and then noticed that something wasn’t right. My dad was standing, true. But he looked like a puppet on a string, asleep, yet he still stood.

  “Shall I drop him?” the goon Mr. Emmanuel said. “Or shoot you in the head?” He then aimed a pistol at me with his free hand.

  “Keep moving; don’t hover,” Kreios said, and I took his advice, making little dodging movements in the air that would complicate, if nothing else, a pistol shot at that range, about one hundred feet, which I knew thanks to my new precision eyeballs.

  The demon spoke up with a deep, guttural voice that made me shiver. “I want only one thing, Kreios. And you know what that is.”

  “I do not,” he answered.

  “Yes, you do,” the demon prince shouted. He was enraged. “How could you fail to see the most important piece of the puzzle, angel of El? Of course you know.”

  Again, Kreios answered him, “I don’t know what you want. Whatever it is, demon, I will not give you anything.”

  Nwaba screamed a vicious tantrum into the clear morning air. “Bring me the Alexander.”

  Michael? Why would they want Michael?

  “Bring me the Alexander, or I will kill her father.”

  Panic started tearing at the edges of my mind.

  Then I heard distant shouting, and I turned to look. There on the service catwalk of the upper wheelhouse, perched on the precipitous cliff, was
Michael. He looked like he was ready for a fight.

  “Nwaba,” he shouted down at us. “I am right here. Come and get me.”

  Wait. What? How did he get there? And where is Ellie?

  CHAPTER XII

  THE DEMON PRINCE WASTED not a single passing thread in the web of time. He launched from the wires, flinging himself at Michael Alexander with a single mighty stroke of his great wings.

  The cable car was thrust into severe bouncing motions as Nwaba pushed off, bobbing on the wires like a weight on a bungee. It fell, then launched upward, and then back down again violently.

  The passengers inside were all thrown in different directions.

  Mr. Emmanuel fell back, his grip on John broken by the forces at work. He crashed into the opposite wall of the car. The impact knocked the breath from him.

  Kim, the host of the Bloodstone, slid into his feet. Either dead or unconscious, he didn’t know, and he did not care.

  No, what Mr. Emmanuel cared about was John. He had lost control of him in the swinging motion of the car, being forced to watch in horror as his bargaining chip toppled over the rail and disappeared.

  ***

  I SAW MY DAD falling and dove after him; there was nothing else to be done. It was horrifying. I managed to catch him, pulling up seconds before we hit the rocks below. He was unconscious, but he was breathing. What is it with the men in my life needing me to rescue them all the time?

  I had to find somewhere safe for him. I needed to get Kim. I had to help Michael. The more I thought about it, the more the impossibility of the whole thing became clear to me.

  “I can’t do everything.” I had to do what I could do and trust El to do the rest. “Please, God. Keep them safe. Michael, Kreios, and Kim.”

  I scanned the landscape and spotted a boulder-strewn clearing in the nearby mountains. But there was something there that made me gasp.

  “Ellie.”

  ***

  NWABA, THE DEMON PRINCE, plucked the boy Michael from the catwalk as easily as an eagle would snatch a trout from a lake, his talons wrapping like prison bars around the boy’s midsection. He flew off with his prey, moving swiftly for the business district of Cape Town, for his high tower.

  Thoughts raced through his head; options. Perhaps the Alexander could lead him directly to what he desired most after all. Nwaba touched down on the rooftop of the tower by the big elm. He flung Michael to one side as he landed.

  He scrambled away, moving toward the great elm tree, which was in full leaf.

  Nwaba chuckled at his fear; it was delicious to him. “Now, boy, we can negotiate.” He now changed, the chameleon lord, into his favorite suit of clothes. His scaly skin became pure white, his tail thinned to a long wire, his face disturbingly humanoid.

  Michael began climbing the tree, communicating fear on his face, in his movements.

  Nwaba was amused. “What are you doing, boy? Come down, coward.” He pranced and mocked him, cackling wickedly.

  Michael scampered farther up the tree, grabbing for branches, paying him no heed.

  “Come now, boy. I won’t hurt you. We must talk, negotiate. I know you are the rightful heir to the Bloodstone. I just want to come to terms with you.”

  “You know I don’t have it,” came a voice from within the foliage.

  Nwaba was given pause. “So you say,” he said, “but that does not matter. Let us find it together.” He paused again, pacing, his wire tail whipping around. “I know it calls to you, boy. You are the heir. Surely you have heard its sweet whispers, as I have.”

  No answer from the tree.

  Nwaba crept nearer as he spoke. “Surely, Michael Alexander, you have heard what lies in store. You have seen and heard visions.” He was at the base of the tree, the sticky pads of his hands feeling around for a hold, the claws of his feet sinking into the green wood. He began to climb upward. “You are the Alexander.”

  Silence from above.

  “I know what conquests can be made. I can still choose a new host, you know that as well as I; you and I can unite and be truly magnificent.” Nwaba articulated his long wire tail upward into the branches of the tree as he climbed, probing for the boy. “Surely you share my thirst for domination.” His voice snapped in contempt for the present situation, for his apparent powerlessness to convince the boy of what he wanted, what he needed.

  ***

  MR. EMMANUEL REGAINED HIS feet and began firing his pistol, loaded with .45 ACP magnum load hollow-points. First he had taken a shot at Airel, but she was too fast. She was there and then gone, diving after John. He growled in frustration. Then he took aim at the angel Kreios, who was the only one not moving. The first shot went wide.

  The angel moved quickly. Before he could fire another shot, Kreios was inside the car, pushing him away from the door, one iron hand grasping his shirt and the other thrusting his pistol skyward.

  He thought fast, waving the fingers of his non-firing hand. The hollow-point bullet he had just fired began to circle back around.

  ***

  “COME NOW, BOY. DO not hide. You cannot hide from me. You cannot hide from the Bloodstone.”

  The tail was now far above. It had threaded its snake-like way through the branches, up and over and through, and was now making its way back downward.

  “You are the Alexander, boy.” Nwaba saw the boy’s foot resting on a branch before his very face. He smiled. He reached up and grabbed hold of it and then shot forward and up, thrusting his face into the face of the boy, spitting, “It has called your name.”

  Michael was unperturbed.

  This, for a split second, confused the demon prince.

  “Yes, I know,” the boy said. He showed his hand, in which he grasped Nwaba’s tail. It had threaded its way through the tree, up and over a great limb and back down again, and the boy had shrewdly procured it for his own use. “But who are you?”

  Very quickly, he looped the wire tail around Nwaba’s head, pulled it tight, and leaped from the tree.

  ***

  KREIOS SQUEEZED POWERFULLY AGAINST the wrist bones of the man’s firing hand, first breaking them, then crushing them.

  The man cried out in agony but the bullet was now on course; he smiled.

  But the angel knew. He turned at the last minute, placing Mr. Emmanuel’s head directly into the bullet’s new line of trajectory. The last thing Mr. Emmanuel saw was the face of El’s most terrible angel, in most terrible aspect: victory.

  ***

  NWABA WAS HANGED. HE struggled viciously for a few seconds, his eyes shut tight. When the visions that appeared before him became too terrible to bear, he opened them wide and beheld nothing but blackness. The host had expired. He had nowhere to hide.

  CHAPTER XIII

  KREIOS TOUCHED DOWN ON the rooftop of the tower to find Michael Alexander not only alive, but well.

  “Michael,” he said, “I should kill you.” Kreios did not know what to think about the boy Airel loved. He had harbored so much unbridled hatred toward him since that day on the cliff top that looking at him now, he wondered where it had all gone.

  “I also wrecked your truck,” the boy said simply. “Crashed into a big demon in Oregon.”

  He was in earnest, which impressed Kreios. He could sense a sea of change within him. “No. I will not kill you right now. But the SUV… perhaps we will talk about that later.” He looked up into the tree as the demon Nwaba broke apart into ash and floated away in the breeze. “I will say, however, that I am now an admirer of your work.” Words were so much cheaper than actions, Kreios mused. He would see, but perhaps the boy deserved a chance after all.

  “Thanks.” Michael shifted his feet, looking away. The awkwardness between them thickened.

  Kreios looked at him. “You are well. How is this so?”

  Michael showed him his chest, which was clear of any sign of the work of the Bloodstone. “Ellie healed me.”

  “Ellie? Who is Ellie?”

  “She’s a half-breed, an Immo
rtal. We met her while we were trying to catch up with you. You know, along your trail of destruction. But—”

  Kreios was grim. “Yes.” He thought for a moment. “I suppose I should apologize.”

  Michael said nothing.

  “Michael—”

  “Look, this half-breed girl, Ellie. We don’t have time to talk. She needs help. When she healed me, something happened. And I’m afraid the only one who knows what we might be able to do is you.”

  “Where is she?”

  CHAPTER XIV

  KREIOS AND MICHAEL LANDED in the little boulder clearing. He saw John lying in a patch of rough grass off to one side, still heavily drugged. Michael strode quickly over to Airel, who was kneeling before the prostrate form of a girl. This must be the half-breed Ellie, Kreios thought as he too approached them.

  “Airel.”

  Airel leaped to her feet and threw her arms around the boy, embracing him. “Michael, you’re … okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said, looking down at the girl with eyes drenched in outsized responsibility and regret.

  Kreios remained off to one side, looking at Michael’s expression.

  “She saved me,” he managed, choking up. “Now she’s …”

  “We have to do something,” Airel said, tears streaming down her face.

  Michael pulled her closer to him.

  Airel looked from Michael to Kreios with a spark of fear in her eyes. “Where’s Kim?”

  “She …” Michael began. But he could not finish.

  Airel’s face became white. She shook her head in disbelief, her eyes wide. She then fell into his arms sobbing. “No.”

  Michael held her in his arms like a man would hold his bride of many years, consoling her, comforting her for some great loss, the grief of which he would be there to help her bear for years to come. Kreios was struck by the power of that image then, and the stock of the boy rose in his estimation once more.