Frank stuffed his carryon bag—which contained the rare book—in the compartment above and then settled his corpulent frame into the fragrant leather seat. He could smell the body oils previous occupants had deposited there and that was a pleasing potpourri, a medley of stenches that he wondered how he ever did without now that it was ever present.
What would the stone endow upon him next? He felt himself becoming excited at the prospect, imagining things. He thought of Emerald. He wondered what was going to be on the menu for the in-flight meal. He sniffed. Some sort of beef dish. This was a fun new game. Frank fondled the stone in his vest pocket and let his mind go free.
CHAPTER IX
Elsewhere…
KREIOS LAY ON THE cold ground, aware only that he was alive. The dreams he’d had, where he’d gone in order to save his daughter—he could no longer remember these things. All he knew was that El was not finished with him yet, his life was of use, and that he had more to accomplish.
The Mark was gone, ripped from his daughter and also taken from him. He wondered at these things. But he knew El did things as He saw fit and in His own timing. Who was Kreios to question that?
Standing naked, he lifted himself into the air and surveyed his surroundings. He was in the depths of a forest. Where was unclear—it would take some time for him to be able to find his way home again. He had not ascended to heavenly realms. The light of the fallen sun still reflected its rays and warmth off his marble-white body. The only thing he was unsure of was when he was. Time could be a funny thing when the thin places of the world were growing, spreading like a virus.
He swelled with power in the sunlight, testing what remained to him since he had taken on the curse of the Mark.
He had his life. That was enough; what more could he ask for?
His tattoos flared brilliant in the light and he lowered himself to the ground, bowing low. He drew on more power than he had ever tasted, and this gift humbled him beyond words.
Some prayers were indeed silent and some things El granted were more than mercy.
El truly was good.
CHAPTER X
Boise, Idaho—Present Day
I MANAGED TO GET inside the door, with Ellie only a step behind, when the bell rang.
“Okay, class, let’s get started,” Mr. Dorsey, the math teacher, said. “First, we have a couple of new students to introduce.” He motioned to a sullen-looking guy in the back of the classroom, an attractive guy with black hair. He dressed like he was in a band; he came off a little emo, yet self-assured. “This is Dirk Elliott. He just moved to Boise from Orange County.” Dirk barely looked up in response. I thought he was either really shy or that he was suffering from New Guy Syndrome. Maybe it’s like Invisible Girl Syndrome. I know what that’s like.
Mr. Dorsey then waved a hand at us. “And this, if you ladies will please find a seat, is Ellie Söderström. She moved here all the way from South Africa. All right.” He moved quickly into the lesson with no valuable segue of any kind. And I had expected Ellie to wax scandalous about being a bone-white African-American, too.
I was in a lurch. I couldn’t believe Ellie was here. And that she was okay. The one thing I want to do is sit and talk for hours, but I can’t do that with her, not here in pre-calc. I felt like a secret agent who was in danger of blowing her cover if she did anything dumb.
We sat at the two remaining empty desks, and then I turned to her. “So,” I said, “how are you, Grandmother?” My tone dripped with sarcasm.
“Shut your face, girlie, or you’ll get me in trouble on my very first day back in school,” she said, gritting her teeth in mock rage.
I shot her a sarcastic look, with which I caught her eye.
She rolled her eyes and yielded with a shrug. “It’s been several hundred years, okay? Give me a break.”
Though her eyes pleaded with me for respite, I rolled my own at her manufactured drama and said, “Whatever.” Then under my breath, “Immortals complaining about immortality.”
“I heard that,” she said.
“Duh,” I said, pointing at both of us, “immortal.” I couldn’t concentrate on math for anything. If the president of the United States were to suddenly walk into the room in a clown suit with a gift pony as a bribe for my attention, I still wouldn’t have been able to stop staring at Ellie. She was alive. And here. I wanted so badly to know what was going on.
“Relax, girlie. You look good, by the way, and I’m glad you made it home in one piece,” I heard inside my head.
Can you hear me? I asked her. No response. I sighed, exasperated.
I looked over at her one last time and saw a smirk on her face. I was going to have to wait for the answers I wanted, and she was teasing me.
***
“HEY, HANDSOME.”
Michael closed his locker and leaned against the door, taking my arm and pulling me to his chest. He kissed me and held me. I felt my shoulders relax. Something about his touch made me forget all the things that were stressing me out. “You smell good. And have I mentioned that you’re kind of awesome?”
Pushing back so I could see his face, he winked and nodded. “Yeah, I kind of am.”
We both laughed and it felt good to feel … good.
“I see Ellie’s back. Have you talked to her? Where’s Kreios?”
“Easy, mister. She’s been putting me off a little because of classes, but I’m meeting her in a few minutes.” I had been Michael’s ride to school that morning and I was planning to take Ellie home, so I asked and made sure he had a ride home.
“Sure, I’ll find a ride. I have football practice anyway. You know, with state in our reach, everyone’s getting excited.”
“I know. It’s annoying.” All anyone could talk about was going to state, and the last thing I cared about was high school football. “Come by later?”
Michael smirked and got that boyish look in his eye that I loved. “Miss me, huh? I’ll text you when I’m done with practice. You find out what you can from Ellie.” He kissed me on the cheek and left me standing there feeling a little sad that we wouldn’t be with each other on the way home. I’d grown used to having him around and couldn’t help but worry a little when he was off alone.
I walked to my car and crammed my bag into the trunk.
Normally when school was out, I would meet up with Kim, and we would chit-chat and banter our way to my trusty Honda, and then chit-chat and banter our way to my house, where we’d chit-chat and banter our way through our homework. And maybe even a TV show.
But not now. Not ever again. I shook the dark thoughts away, but I still couldn’t shake this deep sadness I felt in my core.
“Hey, Airel.”
I looked up to behold an electric blue poof. Under it, a face I had come to love. Ellie. My, er… grandma. Family. Without any warning, I crumbled under an emotional avalanche. I fell into her arms and started crying like a complete fool.
I had lots of reasons to be a blubbering mess. The fact that my boyfriend, whom I loved more than my own life, wasn’t around in my time of need, that I knew I wouldn’t see him for the rest of the day. That my Kimmie was gone forever, that my parents had turned into dictators and imposed a curfew on my social life. That the idea of a social life for me was a total joke anyway. I cried for all this and more. Holding on to Ellie meant I was safe somehow, that what had happened to me was real, that everything was going to be okay because she was alive.
Thankfully Ellie didn’t laugh at me or shove me away. She held me and let me cry it out. How weird was it that from the outside, she looked like another freaky girl in high school, while inside, in truth, she was the direct descendant of an angel of El, the angel of El, and that she was—what—about 3,263 years old?
I eventually calmed myself. “Sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes and standing back.
“You ruined my favorite shirt,” she said. But her tone was full of compassion. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” I had to laugh at myself and
shake my head. “Jeez. I’m such a girl.”
She shrugged. “Better than being a boy. Imagine all that body hair and the smell … ugh.” I snickered and she took my arm. “So, I don’t want to be a bother or anything, but I don’t have a place to stay. Or a car.”
“Hmm, that is a problem. Whatever shall you do?” I said, pretending to be aloof. “Where do you want to go?”
“Your place.”
“Really. I hear there are some nice rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn.” I was being a little mean, but she had it coming.
“What, you think I’m rich or something?” She winked. “I’m here to stay. Now that I’ve found you, I’m not gonna let you out of my sight. I’ve much to teach you, grasshopper.”
“Psh,” I scoffed. “What’s your story, though? I mean, for my parents?”
“Oh, I’m sure I can come up with something.”
I thought for a second myself. “You’re gonna need a place to stay besides Kim’s old room …” I caught myself sinking down into grief again, but propelled myself out of it. “Hey.”
“What?” She tossed her bag in the back.
“Just what do I call you? I mean, are you Uriel or Eriel or—”
She grinned. “I think Ellie’s the least confusing for everyone, don’t you? Besides, I’ve grown to like it.” She got in on the passenger side.
I smiled. She would always be Ellie to me anyway, and that was all that counted right then and there. I slid in behind the wheel. “Sounds good to me, Ellie.”
“Now, mate, who is the stud with the raven hair? He was totally checking you out.”
CHAPTER XI
Glasgow, Scotland—Present Day
JORDAN WESTON CALLED THE boardroom to order, motioning to the others to sit.
Rain fell outside. It was a thoroughly Scottish December day, which wasn’t surprising at all.
The modern and thick floor-to-ceiling panes of glass that separated the Glaswegian weather from the boardroom and its sharp-edged wood slab conference table were also normal, unsurprising.
The gathering of the board of directors too was de rigeur.
What was surprising, though, in extremis, was the packet of papers Jordan held in his good hand. Rather, the information they contained that had precipitated the meeting. That was what was surprising.
Why? It was obvious.
Jordan felt the dull, aching pain in his un-good hand, the left one, and thought for the millionth time how ironic it was that he had to headquarter here in Glasgow, with the precise variety of prevailing atmospheric conditions that produced pain in the withered hand. Nature had a sense of humor, and it was wicked. But it was Glasgow or nothing. Of all the thin places in the world under the sun, this one was perhaps the thinnest and therefore one of the most powerful. Celts and Stonehenge and … and on and on, that’s why.
He rubbed his left hand with his right and thought absently of healing as he spoke. “Blaise, kindly shut the doors.”
A pear-shaped bespectacled man in tweed near the doors rose and closed them.
Jordan—this was the name by which he was known here—leaned back in his executive chair, a sleek thing made of polished aluminum and woven black fibers and plastics that were better than the finest steel. He looked out at the rain from five floors up, over the roofs of most neighboring buildings, into the fog.
Blaise sat at the table again.
“News from South Africa,” Jordan said, taking up the packet of papers. “The Nri have been scattered.” He assessed the reaction around the table. It was considerable. “Quite possibly, they have fallen altogether. Nwaba has been eternally bound.”
Megan Combes, a fiftyish matronly woman in a suit as gray as the average leaded Scottish day, spoke. “The second death.” She sounded as if someone had ruined her home-baked cake.
Old red-faced Charles Brant, an aristocratic throwback whose head was crowned with an unattractive and unruly explosion of brown hair, said as much to her as to anybody else, “It’s not possible.”
Others around the table spoke, saying, “Vicious lies,” and “But the Nri are one of the Original Clans,” and so on. Disbelief was the tying thread.
“Believe it,” Jordan said. He raised the papers up. “Pass this packet around. All the information is here.” He pushed back from the table, stood, and walked to the glass wall, looking out, watching the raindrops as they beaded on the other side of the glass, running downward. “Some of you may need to renew your reading of the Book of the Brotherhood, refresh your knowledge of the angel Kreios. The angel of El.”
“Cursed,” the group said as one, pronouncing the word in two syllables.
“Kreios has reappeared.” The board was silent, and he assumed their silence signified shock and surprise, if not at least healthy respect for their mutual foe. “But that is not all. There have been other developments.”
Jordan Weston turned to face them. “The heir, the Alexander, is lost. Perhaps temporarily, perhaps irrevocably—it will depend upon his choices now. The Stone is therefore loose; it seeks the final line. And more. There is … There has occurred an unforeseen event. There is another immortal, freshly activated. A girl. Her name is Airel. She possesses power unlike we have seen since the first age, our Dawning, and it grows daily. It is suspected that she will surpass even Kreios.” His eyes widened and then he revised his statement. “If she has not already.”
It took a moment for the import of this statement to sink in.
Charles spoke once more. “What shall we do?”
Jordan clasped his un-good hand in his good hand behind him and rocked forward and back, flexing his calves. “I feel we should discuss strategy. That is why we’re assembled in this capacity—talking of the Real, and not our cover business.”
“Very well,” Blaise said. “I propose we send you,” he looked at Jordan, “to consult with the Infernals.”
“I’ve already taken the liberty,” Jordan replied, “given the seriousness of the situation. I should like to do you one better, though.” The tone around the table was as if they were merely discussing the results of an election for town council. “I should like to inquire in regard to the insertion of a specialist.”
“Speak clearly now,” Megan said. “Do you mean to call up one from the Garrison of the Offspring?”
“It would be a similar billet to that of Kasdeja,” Jordan said.
“An infiltrator,” Charles said, and then fell silent in thought for a moment. “Would it work as well the second time round?”
Jordan smiled. “They call him Valac,” he corrected. “And yes. This one is very, very good. But not just good—smart. In the past, we have put too much stock in raw talent. One needs hunger, a drive, a taste for this sort of thing. And besides, not all signs point to the Alexander as the rightful heir. I believe there is another.”
It was a rare thing indeed to be able to find one of the Brotherhood who did not drain the cursed. The one defense they had was that they could feel danger before it got close enough to strike, but not this time. This time, the girl Airel would not escape so easily.
CHAPTER XII
In the northeastern mountains of Turkey—Present Day
KREIOS LANDED ON THE outskirts of town and smoothed his hair. It was longer now, as it had been quite some time since his last haircut. He moved easy down the dirt road, wondering if the cursed man he sought was still alive. He suspected yes, or the Books were wrong.
They were never wrong.
After a mile’s walk, he came upon a one-room house of stone, mostly dug out of the earth and fashioned from rocks that had been taken from the two fields behind it.
According to the Books, the man had taken no wife, and there were no children. There was no family, there were no forebears or ancestors left. There was no legacy but the earth and what the cursed man put into it—his toil, his sweat—and what he took from it—the harvest it gave him.
The farmer, an old man, lived like a soldier might. His conquests were not th
ose that would spill blood—not anymore—but rather over the terrain itself. He was on his own out here in this wasteland. If he could not work, he would not eat. All he had was what he could grow. Kreios found a spot to sit under an old oak tree overlooking the solitary farm. He watched as the man stepped from the porch to begin his day. He looked at the man’s hands. They were rough and weather-beaten, perpetually etched with dirt. Kreios hoped that his long life had been filled with misery and pain. If any of El’s creatures deserved that, this man did.
He moved slowly toward his fields like a rusty hinge hanging on an old door, paying the angel of El no mind. Kreios wasn’t sure if he was being ignored or if the man was simply that dull.
Kreios saw the goats. There were six of them, each with a tin bell that clanked like small voices from a different world. The man walked amongst the herd, rubbing his eyes and running his fingers through his short-cropped hair, gingerly probing the mark on his forehead. Still there, Kreios saw. Still unhealed after all these years. Kreios grunted in satisfaction; this was indeed the man he sought. He pulled a pouch from his coat and rolled himself a cigarette.
The man grasped a hoe that was leaning against the wall and walked toward a small patch of tilled earth to the side of the house. The sun was still low, concealed by the ridge to the south, and gray low-slung clouds in the interim carried snow with them. “Another day,” he said and began working, hoeing out by the roots buckets of dormant floral grasses for the goats.
Kreios spent the next little while watching, thinking of what he would do with the cursed man. A plan was working in the deep parts of his mind, but it was not yet fully formed. Kreios knew that the Bloodstone was moving; soon a new Seer would emerge. He would need to be ready to strike before that happened.
The man walked over to the goat pen and threw the weeds and grasses on the ground in the middle. He used the bucket to fetch water from the well. Then he tended to his modest winter crop of beets, garlic, and potatoes, planted up against the wall of his house for at least a little shelter.
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