Only once had anyone dared challenge the gates of Eden. This one was spared his life, but only because El himself held their swords.
For thousands of years, they lived in peace, made strong by constant training and wise by council with El. They made their homes in a small city near the gate of Eden and prepared for the war that never came. Some of the Host grew tired of the stories, of the threat that never materialized. They were the Host of the Most High—lethal, and created to wage war. Why did they train, and why had they been made, if war would never come? The waiting was harder than the Host imagined any war might be, but things as of late were changing.
“Do you feel it, the darkness?” Some called him ‘lord’, as he was the head, but in all things, the Host thought as one. Separate names and identities were of no use.
“Yes, my lord. It is as if the world beyond is dying. The gate is as strong as ever, but I feel the ground it stands upon is growing weak.”
Both stood atop the city wall overlooking the garden, the city at their backs and the darkness beyond.
“The Tree of Life must be protected at any cost. The time of our created purpose is at hand, though this, I fear, is not the war we once thought we would fight. Something more evil is coming. Something we may not be able to overcome.”
***
Glasgow, Scotland—Present Day
JORDAN WESTON STOOD ALONE in a cluster of trees at the south edge of the Necropolis in Glasgow, looking over the monuments to the dead toward the gothic Glasgow Cathedral’s corroded green roof.
He was trying to concentrate, but the pain in his un-good hand, the pestilent pattering of the rain—these were distracting him. This mausoleum, which was the final resting place for the bones of one Major Archibald Monteath, was only one of many convenient access points to the spirit realm. A thin place. Most of the British Isles are thin now, he thought. Once an empire upon which the sun never set. “Until, of course, it did.” He didn’t laugh at his joke because he never laughed. And he didn’t joke.
He strode forward under drooping skies of clay toward the pedimented door of the tomb. Through this thin place were the walls, the very gate to Eden. Beyond that stood the Tree of Life. The Tree had never been taken by the Brotherhood.
The door to this place had only been used once, only by Jordan, and long ago. He held his un-good hand and rubbed the tips of his dead fingers. There is a cost. There is always a cost.
Jordan turned and took stock of his army. Ten thousand regulars of the Brotherhood horde, half of it humans, half demons—and all gathered for him. He wasn’t Seer, but he knew how wars were won. “Brothers.” His voice boomed over the men and beasts before him. “Today will mark the beginning of a new world, a world where we rule from the shadows cast by the light of a red sun.”
His army cheered and roared as demons sounded their approval.
“Now bond with your Brothers and take back what is yours.” Wings flapped and tails whipped as the men and demons merged into five thousand. Their commander remained and bowed before Jordan.
“Take them through, find out how many there are, and report back to me,” Jordan said. “Do not attack until I give the command. There are a few things yet to be accomplished on this end before we have the full advantage.”
“Yes, lord. I will not fail you.” The commander was the last of the Uri. He was unlike most of his dead brothers, as he was not a huge dragon. His pure-white skin was beautiful, with smooth scales and wings like silk. But he was as deadly as any Uri. He was perfect for this job, as he had unfinished business with the Sons of El.
“I know you will not fail, Commander. Now make ready. You will not have much time when the door is opened.”
Jordan turned and found the opening for the key near the door. Without any hesitation, he thrust his un-good hand into the opening. Pain seized him. The door groaned and split in half from bottom to top, yawning open wide.
Screams and the cries of trapped souls tore at the night sky. The white Uri commander ordered the horde army through. With a battle cry, they ran two by two into the darkness.
Jordan kept his hand steady in the keyhole, but his legs shook. The hand that felt nothing now felt everything. Blood, bone and nerves all came alive as what felt like hot coals melted into his skin. He held as long as he could, but when the white tail of the commander slipped into the darkness, he yanked his hand free. He fell to the ground, wailing.
The door sealed again quickly, dust billowed up around him, and the screams of the damned cut off. There was silence all around. A deep-rooted throbbing overtook his hand and now his arm almost to the shoulder. Now his un-good hand was his un-good arm.
He cursed. It was numb, yet it ached constantly. How could such a thing be?
Some thought him to be human, but he was not, strictly speaking. Appearances are deceiving. His given name was Jikininki, but the strategic necessity for the Brotherhood to stand near such a powerful collection of thin places under the sun as was represented here in Glasgow precipitated a geographic move from his old haunts, plus a change of disguise. The mask of humanity he now wore looked, smelled, moved, and talked like a Glaswegian. Like Jordan Weston.
Beneath, though, Jiki was as powerful a Rakshasa half-demonic prince as there ever was. Further, he knew that his humanity was not in fact a liability. He knew it actually made him much stronger, like the halfbreeds who served the enemy.
Jiki was a corpse-eater. He preferred them fresh lately, though—maybe it was all the chemicals they pumped into bodies these days. His arm would feel better after he ate, perhaps. Tonight he might make his own corpse, and nothing was as appealing as a warm one. Today he deserved a reward.
Perhaps soon he would see with his own eyes the battlefields he truly desired, those ripening for conquest. With the new Seer at his side—the true heir, not this Alexander pretender—Jiki would become preeminent.
***
VALAC MANIFESTED ON THE sidewalks of Zurich as a small street boy, walking its gutters in dirty old torn clothes. Who was Emerald Ruby? He scoffed. “Nobody.” A name to use, an identity to assume, but now that vessel had outlived its usefulness for the shapeshifter and she was discarded. Emerald Ruby had gone the way of all things. Valac doubted he would need to take that form again.
As for the book seller, that pudgy worm from South Africa, he had been a tasty snack, especially the innards. In the end, men like Frank Wiseman were easy to deceive because they were all too willing. They liked to have their ears tickled. It’s all there in the Book. Enough of it, anyway.
Valac the assassin, with thirty-eight legions of Brothers under his command, had cast off his feminine mask of deception and taken on his true form: that of an innocent little boy. And Valac was making good time—he would make it across town to fetch his pet before the sun rose.
Though he now possessed the Bloodstone and the Book of Airel, he considered doing yet one more little thing. What to do about Airel? Should she live or die? It would not be something to sweat too hard over, but it would take some talent to get to her, for she could keep herself from being drained by his kind. He knew she possessed the Sword of Light, which had slain many of his Brothers. He was no fool. No. He would wait before he used the gift he was famous for, the reason he was the most feared assassin among the Brotherhood. It’s best to report first and get paid for these trinkets. Then I can consider…extracurriculars. He chuckled.
Something of a plan began to emerge in his mind. There were rumors of the Other, the rightful bloodline heir to the Bloodstone, the true Seer. Jiki was looking for him ... Maybe the girl Airel can be used as bait, or even the Bloodstone. Most believed the Alexander was the rightful heir, but if played right, the two sides could be fixed in conflict against each other. This was a thing he would ponder more upon.
He turned down a causeway by the lake, heading toward a warehouse building. My pet, he called in his mind, it is time to come out and play.
Ahead, a large door on the jetty rolled aside in the da
rkness, and slithering out like a snake, sliding like a river of excrement from the opening, came his pet. In the darkness of predawn night, it uncoiled itself and stood, unfurling terrible wings that spanned a thousand meters across, its two heads snorting and smoking black fumes from each set of nostrils. Valac continued walking, coming closer to the beast, calling to it in his mind.
The beast knelt so he could mount it, and then with a powerful sweep of the wings, it launched Valac on its back into the night sky.
CHAPTER IX
Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho—Present Day
ELLIE HADN’T REALLY BEEN hungry at all; she had no appetite lately. She had only come to the kitchen to escape. She didn’t know what else to do, where else to go—she couldn’t be in the room while Airel read the story of her heartless betrayal, her utter failure as a descendant of Kreios.
Plus there was another pain. Familiar, yes, but far younger.
She rubbed her sternum, where the swirling birthmarks that had identified her as a descendant of the angel Kreios once glowed silver-blue. Now they were mostly obscured, though at first she had thought nothing of it. It was a mysterious bruise that had appeared days ago. She’d noticed it in the mirror at the center of her chest after her evening shower.
As time went on, it became obvious—it was the Mark of the Bloodstone. It had never been completely removed from her. No matter what she did to try to remove it—whether in using her power of transportation by molecular disintegration or by appealing to El—it remained.
It was a part of her now.
She tried to think rationally, but it was difficult for her not to imagine her own death, and indeed that the second death, too—the eternal punishment—might be lurking for her in shadows, waiting to take her. She wondered how the Mark clung to her.
She rubbed at the wound as it slowly spread over her heart.
I must have bonded with the Bloodstone at Mard Castle all those centuries ago. That must be how it clings to me now. I was so foolish to think . . . She shook her head, remembering what had happened then.
And then a new thought came. If the Mark hasn’t fully passed from me, was I able to make it fully pass from Michael? Or did I fail—have I merely spread the disease?
Ellie locked her hands behind her neck and tilted her head back, closing her eyes, breathing. “No matter what I try to do to make it right,” she whispered to herself, a tear forming in her eye, “I cannot succeed.” She breathed deeper, trying to control herself. Have I not paid my penance, El? Have I not yet endured enough pain to make amends for all that I have done?
What will Airel say when she reads that story? What will my father do when he returns? I feel his approach; it is imminent. Airel had so many questions, so much to learn, and so little time in which to live her life—which, really, if Ellie was honest about everything, should already have ended. If not for Michael.
She thought about leaving. Running. Trying to escape and hide, like she had done all those years before Qiel had been born.
Qiel.
She broke down and wept, falling to her knees on the kitchen floor, sobbing for her only son, moaning his name over and over again, pounding the stone with clenched fists. Lost. Lost.
***
I HAD TO TAKE a break from reading. My eyes were getting heavy, and trying to process all this information was giving me a headache.
The house was cold and the halls echoed as I walked, but I found my old room and threw myself down on my back on the big soft bed. It was strange, thinking of this place as home, but it felt more like home than my house did. So many things had happened here … things that changed me into what I am today.
Crawling under the covers, I pulled them up to my chin and closed my eyes. I rolled my legs to one side, cracked my lower back, and grunted. I was still sore from our little rock-climbing adventure the other day.
There had only been six of us. Ellie, Dirk, Mark—Dirk’s new best friend and a football jock—Nate, a rich kid who sneezed a lot, and Molly and Millie—twins who were really shy. All I knew about those two were their names. It often surprised me how many kids were at my school compared to how few I actually knew. I lived in my own world, and the last year or so didn’t help matters.
I’d tried to get Michael to go with us. Our climbing guru, Shane, said it would be okay, but Michael bailed. I was more than a little annoyed, but I wasn’t going to let it ruin a perfectly good day on the side of a cliff.
We took a small school bus and parked at Lucky Peak. Dirk sat next to Ellie across the aisle from me. I caught him staring at me a few times on the ride there and he didn’t look away. The guy would not be shamed. But I was so excited to be climbing a real cliff that I didn’t care.
Much.
“So, you scared of heights?” Dirk said.
I thought back to my last supersonic flight, the trail of blazing blue light that traced my path in the sky. I shook my head. “Nope.”
Dirk seemed pleased. “But you could fall. I mean, rock climbing can be dangerous.”
“Only if the guy on belay drops you.”
Dirk blew a strand of dark hair from his face and shrugged. “You’re heavy for a little girl. I caught you before you hit your head. No harm, no foul.”
“Whatever.”
We’d climbed at the YMCA five times, and Shane said I was best in class. But it wasn’t really fair—I could fly, so it wasn’t like I was scared of heights.
After we parked, we took our gear and hiked the short distance to the base of the cliffs. “We’re here, everybody. Gear up,” Shane said. “We climb in pairs. Stick with your partner and remember what you learned in the gym.” Shane wore a fiber ball cap and a tight T-shirt. He was lean and fit. He climbed a few times a week, so his body was conditioned like crazy.
“Ready to tear it up?” Dirk asked me. I nodded.
Half an hour later, Dirk and I were sixty feet up the side of a crazy-high vertical cliff face. Even though he put on a brave façade, I could see he was nervous and getting more so the higher we climbed. I let him take the lead so he wouldn’t see how easy it was for me. I was cheating a little, being superhuman, but it served him right for being a creeper.
“How you doing up there?” I asked. He was ten feet higher than I was, and a little to one side.
“Fine. How about you? You okay?”
“Yep. We’re going a little slow, but if you’re getting tired, I understand.”
Dirk hammered in another anchor. “I have to hammer and set the anchors, and you get to climb and stare at my hot backside.” He looked down at me, grinning.
I made a show of rolling my eyes. “You wish.”
We were in a tough technical section where the rock face bulged outward. Based on what Shane had taught us, we could either go left or right, but Dirk was going up the middle. The last anchor he’d set was already fifteen feet below him. If he went a few feet more, he would be stuck. Either that, or he would have to jump six feet or so to get the next handhold. “I wish I’d made you lead.”
I felt myself blush, but turned my face away. He would not see me blush. “You going left or right up there, buddy?”
Dirk was too far up. His right foot was on a round cone-shaped rock, but he should have had his left foot there. His left hung in midair while he searched for a place to put it, but there wasn’t anything close by.
I could hear Shane giving some instructions from down below, but the main part of the group was far away from us. We were the better team, so we had taken the lead and gone first. Shane was on belay for the other team; we were basically free climbing.
“You okay, Dirk, or do you need a girl to help you?”
He didn’t answer.
“Dirk?”
Silence.
He’s seizing up. “I’m coming.” I climbed as fast as I could without flying—I couldn’t give myself away—and was about to reach him when he jumped for the next handhold. He didn’t make it. For a split second, his hands had grip, but when his full w
eight came down, he slipped. The rope between us went slack and he fell.
If I didn’t grab him quick, he would fall twenty feet and bounce off the cliff below me before the rope caught. I jumped, grabbing him around the waist. I helped him find his footing again, and as our eyes met, blood ran down from wounds in his left arm and forehead.
I jumped, sitting up in the bed. My nap had gone on long enough, and it was time to stop going over and over what had happened. There was nothing further I could do about it. Dirk’s okay—nobody saw what I did. It’s all good. I didn’t believe it, though.
CHAPTER X
Arabia, 788 B.C.
QIEL FELT COLD AND lonely. Something was happening to him that had never happened before. He was no fool; he knew enough from talking with friends about what would happen when boys began to become men. But this wasn’t that. This was cold. He felt truly ill. His mind was filled with visions of horrifying monsters, tentacled beasts, things with scales and fins, the creature Leviathan.
His captor had shackled him here in this dark cell. A blacksmith had driven the pins through the manacles that chained him to the wall. He didn’t know what had happened to his mother. He had wanted to cry earlier, but now he withheld all these fears, allowing them to coalesce inside of him, hardening into hatred, fury, even vengeance. He knew from what his mother had taught him that vengeance belonged to El alone, but still. He needed something to get through this. He would not allow himself to cry like a child. It was time to close the book on those chapters of his life. It was time to move forward into manhood now.
He pulled against the chains. They were heavy; he could barely pull them taut against their own sagging weight. A rat ran across his naked toes, its little claws raking across his skin, and he managed to get enough of a piece of it to kick it through the air, its hindquarters and its tail straight out as it spun. He growled and pulled on the chains harder, but they were too heavy. He shouted out in rage, feeling the man, but the voice that echoed back to him was that of a little boy who was frightened. Alone in the dark with the rats and chains.
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