CHAPTER IV
Arabia, 788 B.C.
URIEL HAD NO MEMORY of this state of being.
Then the perspective switched, and she hovered above herself. I am overtaken—possessed in every way—by the Bloodstone, by evil. The perspective switched again and she flew high above it all, watching what happened next.
At the center of her being was a flame. She understood it to be her heart, and just as she understood this, she watched as its light was snuffed.
But it didn’t go out. It was merely redefined. What was once light and truth was now darkness and untruth. And there was a difference between untruth and lies, for lies were ultimately creative and therefore, subject to the kingdom of El. Untruth, however, was a simple opposite. And simple opposites were clean and free.
High above, observing, she knew all of that to be blatant fraud, but in her memories she could see how and why she bought it, believed it, why it had seemed sensible, even logical.
Her light became darkness. Therefore, her darkness became light. And now she was free from all restraint, all sense of remorse, guilt, fear, and doubt because there was no tomorrow, no eternity, nothing but what pleasure could be derived in the Now, the Self.
She lived for whim. She was like the wind.
And then—thirst. Hunger. She wanted only one thing. Destruction. The hatred she first felt when she was activated by the Brotherhood now came rolling back over her, a thousand thousand times stronger now, and she knew where she would go and what she would do.
Ke’elei would fall and at her hand.
Uriel was only slightly aware of herself as she swirled down and down, beneath the folds of the ground, entangled with the grasping fingers of the Bloodstone. She had no rest from its wickedness; there was no place to which she could run from him and be safe. Her mind was beginning to bend in unnatural ways now, and her thoughts were beginning to come from somewhere outside herself.
The dual presence moved deep below the City of Refuge and began to spread itself like a disease in the bedrock.
* * *
“NEVER LET IT BE said that our forces lack imagination,” said Piankhy, the commander of the armies of the Brotherhood, his countenance lit in red by the presence of the Bloodstone. He brooded over its captivating lust-ridden beauty in the seclusion of his campaign tent on a little knoll in the wood a few leagues from Ke’elei.
This strategy, which he was just now beginning to understand, was new—it was unique.
The Brotherhood horde that had massed itself in its hundreds of thousands at the gates of Ke’elei was only one element of a two-pronged attack. The other element, the crushing blow, would come when the servants of El least expected it, and from impossible places.
Victory was assured. The Fallen, the angels who were not cursed, would become extinct today. This bitter feud would end and the true Nephilim would reign over the earth as it had been promised.
His Nubian armies had subdued the whole of Egypt, and like Alexander would hundreds of years later, Piankhy hungered for more. His mystic enthusiasms had led him to new depths, and his court magicians had uncovered new possibilities for conquest that made the natural world’s wonders pale in comparison.
But it came at a price, for Piankhy would not be able to wallow in the selfsame glories as did the previous bearers of this precious stone. No, he would not be Seer. He would be forced to stand off at a distance as the Bloodstone moved and worked autonomously. He didn’t understand all the details, but he did know that there was no room for an additional inhabitant now. There was already a confusion of presence in and around the Bloodstone, a duality that at times made things . . . difficult for him.
Most of that did not matter, for his hunger in regard to the cog set of war was great indeed. So he had folded his Nubian armies into the Brotherhood and made dark pacts with unseen forces under the cover of night. His power multiplied, and as they marched over deserts and high, wooded plains, terrorizing and pillaging as they went, the plan had been made clear in his mind.
He would lay siege to the City of Refuge and he would subdue the armies of the servants of El, this unknown god. Whether his armies were the main force today, or the diversion, was meaningless drivel. He would drive his forces over and through those walls, those gates, no matter what opposed him.
At the end of this day, Piankhy would own the victory; he would stand above all as the strongman.
He watched as the Bloodstone hovered over his open hands in space, lighting the interior of his tent in iniquitous red. It then dissolved into nothing with one clearly understood directive: “Begin.” The Bloodstone had disappeared from sight.
He summoned his generals. Now he issued the order to advance.
* * *
YAMANU AND ZEDKIEL GLANCED at each other as they ran down the streets of Ke’elei, Veridon and a few other stout hearts at their sides. Yamanu knew—they all knew—time was short.
They were in full battle dress, their swords and breastplates gleaming, their massive shields grasped in the hand and strapped to the off-side forearm of each angel of El.
Lesser folk, even some who were not even half angelic, even full-blood men, who had come to the City of Refuge in years past dodged out of the way of this cohort of brave warriors as they ran up the high street toward the Circle of Elders.
They were seeking a final audience with Anael. Yamanu thought that perhaps he might be convinced, one last time, to see the imminent danger at hand and issue an order to fly from here. Yamanu thought he might be convinced—but he had little real hope for it.
The angelic cohort, with Yamanu and Veridon now at its head, spilled into the courtyard, the seats of the court encircled by those ancient Corinthian stone columns of purest white. The tall old oak at the north side had long ago withered and dried up, most of its smaller limbs having dropped and shattered upon the cobblestone floor below. “This is a place of death,” Veridon said, breathing hard.
Yamanu looked around them. “Anael!” he called out. “We seek an audience with the head of the council. Show yourself.”
Zedkiel had joined them by now and began calling out as well. “Anael! Come forth. We command you in the name of El to fulfill your obligation to the people of Ke’elei.” A serious glance passed between Zed and Yam. They trod on dangerous ground now.
A low cackle came from the direction of the great oak. An errant breeze lifted a white wisp like a flag, revealing the position of the ancient one. “You command me in the name of El? Sentimentalities.”
The angels moved quickly toward the oak and surrounded Anael, who was reclined in the dirt amongst the great, gnarled roots. Veridon drew his sword and stepped forward. “Stand, Anael, and bear witness.”
But Anael waved a finger and Veridon’s sword was wrenched from his grip and cast away, clattering to the ground. “Stand aside, little boy, before you get hurt.” He looked disgusted, as if a fly was pestering him. “Who is this that darkens the council’s Circle with nonsense and folly?” Anael appeared to be very frail and aged, his face drawn with many lines. “Why are you young fools bothering me?”
“Anael,” Yamanu said, “the whole of the Brotherhood horde armies are encamped at our very gates. We must fly, or we will all die this very day.”
Anael cackled low for a long time, and then arched an eyebrow at him. “Then,” he said, laughing, “you must go and fight.” He cackled again. “I will never issue the order to fly.”
Veridon roared at the wizened angel in fury. “Why will you not? Thousands will die if you do not! Never mind the loss of the city—we shall concede it. But if we do not fly, we will perish. All of us.”
Anael shrugged. “But it would break the pact we’ve made.” His eyes then turned malicious and red. “In good faith.” His hands came up like claws and a burst of red power, like lightning, exploded from him, leveling the old tree and scattering the angels like twigs. When the dust had settled, Yamanu looked up to behold Anael hovering above the ground on a disc of red light,
his hands upraised and grasping a staff of blood light, a lightning bolt that pulsed in red frenzy.
“You trusting sheep.” Anael’s voice echoed harshly off the cold stone of the mountains that surrounded the City of Refuge. “You awaken only now?” He laughed. “It has been too late for you for hundreds of years.”
Yamanu stood to his feet, breathing hard, wondering what he could do to oppose this. He could think of nothing. This was something new under the sun, something he had not foreseen. El, he cried out within himself, what has happened? What new power is this which Anael wields against your servants?
“All you must do today,” Anael said, “is die.”
Then a great clashing sound came from the main gates, and the angels turned toward it. There was a shout, the war cry of a hundred thousand demon Brothers, coming from just outside the city walls.
Yamanu’s eyes were wide with fear. “The final battle has begun.”
CHAPTER V
Boise, Idaho, Present Day
JOHN CLEARED THE GROUND level of his house quickly. He found no one and nothing, so he crept up the stairs, looking for enemies. It wasn’t exactly fun, it wasn’t what he might call enjoyable, and yet somehow he only really felt alive when his life was at stake. I guess that’s what led me down this path in the first place. The typical version of the American dream just wasn’t ever enough for me. I always knew there was more, as if I was meant to live a different life.
Voices resounded in his head, accusing voices that told him he never really loved his wife and daughter, not if he always felt the need to go off and play tough guy all over the world. Clearly he loved the job more than the home life, and it had shown in his actions. He wondered if he’d ever given them enough of himself. Would they say, now, that he had loved them with everything he had in him? Why do I feel like having a wife and a child was a mistake, as if I was going against my own convictions?
More voices piled up guilt and regret and shame, telling him the only thing that had ever satisfied him had been this, stalking killers and thugs, making illicit deals in dark alleyways with unscrupulous men, selling power to the power hungry. The fact was, he was hungry for power too. He was addicted to it.
He peeked into the guest room, gun first. Nothing. Nothing under the bed, nothing in the closet. He felt like he was going through the same motions, the same drill he used to perform for Airel when she was only five or six, checking the room for monsters. See, sweetheart? Nobody’s in your closet. There are no bad men in this house.
What was it that drove him to pursue this life? Why had there been so much secrecy over the years? It was like his own family didn’t even know him, not really. Why was he so driven toward risk, toward grappling with rough and monstrous men in dark places?
Maybe it’s just in my blood—that’s all.
Was that it? Was it something inevitable, something he had inherited?
As he came back into the hallway at the top of the stairs, his ears pricked. What is that? He couldn’t place the noise he heard. He thought it was coming from Airel’s room—the last place he wanted to find something, the last place he wanted to see—but he didn’t know what the sound was. He shook his head and trying to get a clear thought through his brain. He double-checked that the safety was off on his 12-gauge and walked toward the source.
There it is again. It sounded like someone choking. John swallowed. The door to Airel’s room was open a crack. He was sure he had left it closed. The light from the moon, so out of place in this powered-down electric suburbia, washed out into the hallway. Shadows moved in its beams. Somebody’s in there.
John’s pulse quickened to a thunderous gallop, nearly deafening him as it pounded through his ears. He stood six feet away from the door to his comatose daughter’s bedroom, thinking of his next move. He brought the butt stock up and crooked it tightly into his shoulder. He looked down the barrel as he raised it, drawing a bead on the door at just below head height. He couldn’t control his breathing; his aim was inconsistent, bobbing up and down. He laid a finger across the trigger. He was ready.
But he wasn’t ready for this.
“Cross,” came a hissing whisper from inside the room.
It chilled him right down to his toenails. He felt the great tug of fear pulling him backward palpably, urging him to flee. “Step out in the hallway, bastard,” he said. “I’ve got something for you.”
The door edged a little toward the jamb the way it would when there was a sudden differential of air pressure in the house, like when the heat kicked on. Movement. Shadows in the darkness. And a smell of rottenness.
“Come out!” John commanded.
The door, which opened inward toward the bedroom and which was not a cheap hollow core but rather a solid pine slab, now exploded through the jamb into the hallway, ripping off its hinges. The intruder followed immediately and he was a big boy, towering over John by at least a foot, maybe more. It was hard to see details in the dark.
He raised the muzzle of the Mossberg and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flash revealed something impossible. It was all black, unclothed. Its mouth—such as it was—was full of fangs. And it had a tail. He saw all this in the blink of an eye. This wasn’t a man. It was something straight from hell.
CHAPTER VI
Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, Present Day
KREIOS AROSE, MILLIONS OF thoughts pouring through him. He felt as if he would run in mad circles until insanity finally took him, and then . . . what? El! Where is the end?
Ellie would not listen—no one would listen.
“All these books,” he said, looking at the piles he had amassed, “and not a single answer.” He shoved the stacks over, kicking the table legs, scattering things in all directions. He knew of her Mark, had spent days going over and over his books to find a way to save her. But there was nothing. Now she had left again and he had other matters to attend to, but his anger flowed through him and he left it unchecked.
Impulsively, he stalked to the door of his closet. The bare concrete room. The Threshold. He would not stand by and do nothing. His hand seized the doorknob and he wrenched it open without pause, keeping his eyes brazenly open. There was no need for him to focus any more intently than he already did upon the destination; he was of single purpose.
Cain.
The door did not show some otherworldly scene. It did not open upon the woods near where Cain had dwelt for so many thousands of years. It did not reveal the Keep of the Damned; it did not link to Sheol. It merely revealed a clean emptiness, a space much like the plain concrete room Kreios had built as a covering for this thin place.
And there was Cain, in the flesh, sitting on the floor. He bowed to the Angel of El, tucking his chin to his chest.
“Cain. It is time.”
Cain looked him in the eyes.
“Release your dead upon the earth.”
Cain hesitated. “What of the seal?”
“Release your dead, worm! Go forth! Do not spare. Kreios commands you.”
A change came over the countenance of the man Cain, and his eyes dimmed to full pitch black. “It will be as you say.” He did not issue another word, and in the next instant, he was taken away.
Kreios closed his eyes and quietly shut the door. He had not heard the command from El. He had not, as Cain had confirmed by his obvious question, been granted the authority to do as he had commanded him to do—the seal of which Cain had spoken was still intact.
This was not the time. But he had done it anyway, and now there was no stopping it. What Kreios had done was willfully out of order, and he knew it. His grief had mastered him, if only for a moment.
What will it cost?
He could feel it—the souls of the dead were rising through every thin place on the face of the earth. Would they now go forth? Would these who had unjustly killed before wage a just war upon the Brothers, those whose dark kingdom had enslaved them? Would Cain fulfill his final purpose now?
Surely he would.
&
nbsp; Surely.
CHAPTER VII
Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, Present Day
MICHAEL FOUND THE HATCH to the tunnel leading to the place he once feared—the underground house Kreios built long ago, the place where he once fell in love with Airel, the place where he betrayed her, and the place where she died. It was a lifetime ago, as if a dream, yet coming back here seemed like the only thing to do.
“Hello?” he called to the empty room. A fire crackled in the hearth, indicating that someone had been here.
Thundering, Kreios flew into the room and pinned Michael to the wall a few feet off the floor. Michael was taken aback and Kreios glowed, white eyes flaming. “What do you want here, son of the damned?”
Michael struggled, but it was of no use. “I need your help . . . why are you so . . . ?”
Kreios lowered Michael and returned to his normal appearance. “Michael, I—” He took a few steps away and stared into the fire. It was dark outside, and snow was falling in huge, tumbling flakes.
“I talked with Ellie—”
Kreios spun around. “When? Why did you not stop her—where is she?”
Michael held up his hands. “This was a couple of days ago, and no. I don’t know where she is. I was hoping she was here.”
“Continue.”
It was Michael’s turn to be angry. “Where were you? Airel is in a coma and you hide here? She needs you, Kreios, or did you forget that she’s your granddaughter?”
Kreios lowered his head. “I should kill you for what you will become. But there are other matters . . .”
“No, there is Airel. No other matters, not the end of the world, not some stupid Bloodstone—only Airel. I’m leaving; I have no choice. Who will be here to make sure she’s safe? Not you, apparently.”
“She is safe enough. As long as she sleeps, no harm will come to her.”
The Airel Saga Box Set: Young Adult Paranormal Romance Page 79
