“And how do you know that? Some angel power or something?”
Kreios did not respond.
“That’s what I thought.”
“It calls to you Michael, does it not?”
Michael suddenly felt naked. The angel knows too much.
“You are growing weak. It is written all over you, boy.” The angel snorted. “What will your decision be?”
Michael pretended not to be alarmed, but it was mostly for his own pride. If Kreios knew of his mental problems of late, there was no telling what else he might know. “I have an idea of how we might be able to destroy the Bloodstone, but I need your help.”
Kreios dropped his hands. “Speak.”
* * *
Elsewhere…
IN MY DREAMS, I walked among the crumbling foundations of a building made of stone. It had been burned and was still smoking, its roof and doors—all those things that made it a place of safety—consumed and converted to smoke and ash and carried off to eternity by the winds. Most of its walls had been thrown down but some still stood, spaces for once-beautiful panes of colorful glass now empty, gaping open into the gray netherworld outside.
As I looked on, time revolved around me, and the ruins cooled and the floors in the building rotted and fell and decayed. From their detritus, from the ash of those fuels which had refused to fully burn but had instead fallen directly into the center of the building, I saw tender green shoots pushing up through the black ground.
The place felt vaguely familiar, but I didn’t know why.
The sun pierced through a high round window that had been cut into the gable. There was no glass to restrict the life-giving warmth of this beam of sunshine. Like a fountain of life and warmth, it flowed down and around the leaves and stems and roots of the green shoots, caressing them and urging them upward into itself.
The walls were taller than I had first thought. The destruction was not as complete as I had imagined, and the building these foundations had been designed to hold could have been immense. If only . . .
Then I noticed an open space off to the side. There, resting against one wall, were large shards of mirror. They leaned at all angles, their reflections showing in one piece, the sun; in another, the gray skies; in another, the blackened stone of the walls. As I approached, most of them reflected bits of me.
I drew nearer and could plainly see that each reflection was different. Each one showed a different me—I was an infant with lots of dark brown hair, dozing in my father’s arms. I was a little girl wearing a sundress in the kitchen with my mom and she was making jam, the smell tart and bright. I was a scared freshman walking to class on my first day of high school, hiding behind my long brown hair, my arms crossed over a thick American history text. I was the pariah who had just buried her best friend. I was the girlfriend of Michael Alexander.
Darkness stole in. There was subtraction, and I felt loss for the first time.
Looking around, I saw that the plants were there, but they were still. They had gone mostly dormant and dead brown. The sun hid itself above and beyond the clouds. The walls around me were dry and cracked; they looked as if they might topple over in a stiff breeze.
I suddenly understood why this place felt so familiar to me. This building is my life. And it was in ruins.
I looked back to the mirrors now, and the strangest thing was happening. The whole assembly began to rotate like a pinwheel in the wind, and I understood that each of these versions of me had fallen short of El’s plan for my life. The pinwheel became a saw blade.
I began to gasp for air; I fell to my knees.
The spinning mirrors now started to rotate independently, a jagged kaleidoscope showing millions of versions of me, of Airel, the invisible girl, now reflected and on display as she truly was, no masks, no lies, and no illusions. Just me. Just me and everything I had done and missed in life. I felt like an utter failure.
Then the kaleidoscope sped up and became merged into one image: It was me—it wasn’t me. It was like me—it wasn’t like me. Perhaps I was like it—maybe that was more accurate. It was masculine, it was feminine, it was neither. It was a presence.
I was very still. I was filled with more fear than I had ever felt before; I was filled with joy to bursting. She?
“Stand.”
I stood, slowly. “Who are you?”
“You already know.”
I was silent, my mind flitting like a bird from one branch of thought to another—school crushes, funerals. Weddings, family trips, my first loose tooth. Relationship drama. Grades. Seasons. I realized that I was only one of many created beings for whom everything had slipped out of control. This happened to everyone. It was normal. Intentional. Part of the design. How could that be part of the plan? Isn’t it imperfect? Flawed?
“Life under the sun is found in places like this, Airel. The flaws serve the truth by bearing witness to just how true Truth is. Mountains are mountains not just because of themselves, but because of the valleys that show their size, scope, and grandeur.”
I soaked in this. “But I feel so inadequate. Like such a failure. If I could have had more time . . . I could have done more. I could have been more.”
“You keep trying to do things alone, in your own power, but you miss the real strength. True power only comes by trusting in what is beyond you.”
I began to weep. But why?
“Because I love you.”
“Yes,” I argued again, “but why?”
I felt She smile, and the sun shattered the clouds high above, spilling over me like water, cascading over every part of me, warming me. “I will never leave you. I love you just as you are, but I will not leave you that way.”
CHAPTER VIII
Arabia, 788 B.C.
THE BROTHERHOOD FORCES WERE SLAMMING against the gates, against the walls; they were everywhere at once. The captain of the watch issued the call for every able body to come to the aid of the warriors at the walls, whether man, angel, or halfbreed.
Cries rang out across the gathering night as Yamanu and his cohort approached. He heard the captain on the wall below. “Brace the gate! They are bringing fire!”
Yamanu, Zedkiel, and Veridon wheeled in the air high above the action, and the scene below them was not encouraging. Demon Brothers harnessed to heavy siege works by iron chains pulled, straining to wheel them to the base of the walls. Of these, Yamanu could see that the horde had fashioned at least four ballistae, crossbows so huge that they could fire bolts the size of small trees. The first one had already launched the opening salvo, a beam of wood the breadth of a man’s shoulders and five times his height, the tip of which had been honed to a point, slathered in bitumen, and set ablaze prior to release. It struck the wall beside the gate and held fast for a moment in the joint between several stones, burning and sending flames upward until it fell under its own weight. It rolled back and away, setting the scrub of the forest afire.
The next engine of war released its deadly projectile, this one striking the main gates. It caused them to shudder violently under its impact, its sharp tip piercing one of the cubit-thick assemblies of planks of which the gates had been built. The blazing bitumen went to work, and the gate began to burn.
More bolts flew as the angels descended from the air to the top of the wall. One more bolt struck the gate while two others flew wild and bounced off impotently.
Yamanu lit on the wall’s fighting top, looking around. Already, the horde had erected their breaching ladders and was ascending. Why are they only in human form, and where are the demons? Some had reached the battlements and were beginning to squeeze in between the merlons onto the parapet walk. “Veridon, behind you!” Yamanu drew steel, pointing behind his friend and ally.
Veridon spun on his foe with the powerful mace, a spiked orb tethered by a chain to a rod of iron, dropping the foul man by smashing his brains into tiny bits. “Yamanu, we need a little help from your shadowing arts, old friend.” Veridon moved toward the next intrud
er.
Yamanu nodded. “I am working on it,” he said, running his sword through and killing the next unfortunate enemy to ascend onto the wall walk of the barbican, the gatehouse of the city. He felt at once the drain as the horde gained ground. This battle was going to be hard to win if they were all weakened by the draw of the Brotherhood and unable to fight. “Zedkiel,” he called out, “how are the archers faring?”
Zed landed not far away, having come from checking in with the captain of the watch. He shook his head.
Not good. Yamanu took a moment to breathe and focus. How could he turn back so many? He tried to manifest the fog around them, but it was like using a cold spark to try to ignite wet timber. Something is wrong. Yamanu remembered how, so many years ago, he and his Shadowers had been sold out to the former Seer, and he also remembered who was his prime suspect. Anael. This is treachery most vile. “Veridon! We must stand and fight them hand to hand. I cannot draw the shadow over us.” He hacked a hand off as it reached through the embrasure in the wall beside him. “Something is wrong.”
He turned away from the wall toward the heart of the city and beheld sweeping red pulses of lightning striking over it, drawing closer to his position. It was Anael. He was using black arts to destroy the city from the rear, while the main Brotherhood force crashed against the wall upon which he stood.
Kreios, we could use a little help here. I hope you have not abandoned us utterly.
* * *
KREOIS WAS ALREADY ON his way, streaking across a high black sky above the atmosphere from halfway around the globe. He had sensed imminent danger for quite some time. Only now had his sense of duty finally outweighed the reluctance he had long felt toward his kin.
As he accelerated by a magnitude of ten past the speed of sound, his thoughts turned terrible. If Ke’elei has indeed become a target, I fear the worst. There can be no allies left to us if this is true. Only a handful of true warriors can remain. Yamanu and Zedkiel flashed into his mind, their faces anxious and dark.
* * *
URIEL FELT HERSELF BEING spun off, shunted. As she was gathered together into what was once herself, she realized that she wasn’t the one in control anymore. Some other force from within was in control of her. All her particles dangled from strings, which made her dance on a lurid stage. The Bloodstone.
Part of her became fully manifest above ground and part of her remained dispersed underground. On the city wall near the barbican, she was humanoid, wearing a black cloak made of shadows, her shadowing power drawing from and being augmented by her angelic foes, even Yamanu. Beneath the ground, she was infiltrating the soil, soaking her every molecule into the bedrock, the shale, the granite on which the city of Ke’elei rested. Above, on the wall, she advanced on the enemy, dagger in her right hand. Below, she spread herself as thinly as possible over many square leagues past the limits of the city.
Below ground, she waited.
Above ground, she attacked.
Veridon came first. Out of the blackness, she came from behind—he never saw her. The blade of her dagger flashed out against him, striking quick and low, slicing deep into the thigh, severing the femoral artery. He did not cry out, but he did fall fast, the mace he so skillfully wielded clattering to an awkward stop on the pavements.
As he fell to one knee and wheeled around, searching for his attacker, she circled and advanced upon him again from his blind side. The blood was already beginning to pool at his feet, pouring from the artery she had sliced clean open. As she approached the angel Veridon, she watched his body language. He fell slightly forward into a slump, and she could tell that he knew he was dead.
But I’m not finished with you. Not yet.
She moved quickly in the darkness. Her left hand swept around his head and pulled it backward as her right moved in a flourish, a slicing circle that struck at his exposed neck. She melted back into the shadows before a single drop of blood could stain her. Her back to the wall of the keep, she observed calmly as Veridon began to drown in his own blood.
Next.
* * *
KREIOS REACHED OUT IN his mind and heart, looking for the captain of the watch, looking for anyone, looking for Veridon. Although he was drawing near to the City of Refuge, he still could not make contact with any of the thoughts of the angelic remnant. This worried him, and he was not prone to worry.
A burst of blackness then came up out of the ground from beneath him, and he narrowly missed a collision with it by virtue of the speed he was carrying. More dark shapes rose upward toward him. I am getting closer. He marveled at the size of the enemy army. The Brotherhood means business this time. More morbid sectors within his brain began to sound off in alarm that Ke’elei couldn’t help but fall.
“Yamanu. Zedkiel.” Kreios spoke their names into the air as he slowed, the city wall below and before him. “Where are you?”
The scene displayed before him was not encouraging. Brotherhood soldiers walked the battlements of the city wall freely, their hateful swaggering in this place like blasphemy.
The sky was red with the ominous light of the Bloodstone. It hovered over the action like a watchful eye, seeing everything. Then there came a furious, ugly blast of battle horns and the attack changed. The men charged, yelling, and the sound of tearing flesh broke through their battle cry. Wings filled and demons roared as they broke free of their brothers.
“Grant us mercy, El.”
The already massive horde instantly doubled in size, blackening the air with their wings. There was no light, no cry from the angels, no horn of El sounding commands. There was only death and the screams of the dying.
* * *
BENEATH THE GROUND, URIEL began to convulse. The Bloodstone was manipulating her, forcing her to do things with her gift that she would never do of her own volition. She didn’t want this anymore, yet she also found it to be irresistible.
As she convulsed, the bedrock began to vibrate and split upon its seams. Granite, veins of quartz and gold and coal and diamond, began to crack and move apart. Into these new cracks, she invaded as light pierces shadow. It behaved like light, but it was in fact darkness, and it spread itself into each void like the invisible radiations of the sun. As she worked herself in deeper, more cracks were precipitated, and than more.
The bedrock was becoming very unstable.
* * *
ABOVE GROUND, Uriel moved swiftly toward the angel Zedkiel. He was engaged with a large tusked demon Brother in a contest of swordsmanship. She watched and waited for an opening. It presented itself immediately.
Zedkiel faced away from her. As he crouched to his right to avoid a sweeping strike from his enemy, he prepared his blade for an unthrusting counterstrike in the wake of the demon’s movement. When he stood and extended his blade, his ribs were exposed all along his right side.
She struck quickly with the dagger, stabbing deeply between his ribs into his torso, burying it to the hilt. She left it embedded there and spun away, observing the effects.
Zedkiel cried out in pain, reaching instinctively across his body toward the wound. The tip of the blade had no doubt pierced his heart, for he then froze in anguish and shock. He became a motionless target.
The demon Brother seized the opportunity and took the angel’s head off.
Uriel stepped forward to the headless corpse. Leaving the dagger behind, she removed Zedkiel’s sword from his hand and took it as her own. Now she would finish Yamanu.
CHAPTER IX
Boise, Idaho, Present Day
THE SHOTGUN BLAST SHOULD have killed the thing. 12-gauge, point-blank to the face. But it seemed like all it did was make it angry. John let off a little emotional steam with a blasphemous curse. He pumped the slide, jacking another shell into the chamber.
The beast hissed, “I know your name. But do you?” It roared, slamming a fist the size of a football through the wall. “Do you, Derackson?”
John squeezed off another shot in the darkness at where he supposed its face to
be and then backed away. It had little effect, so he pumped the slide again and took aim. “Wrong house, idiot. Who is Derackson? What are you?”
Laughter. “You are afraid. Good,” it said. Its voice was like listening to swine rooting through rotting scraps. Each time the tail of the thing collided with the walls or the ceiling, the frame of the house shook.
Then another, smaller, slithered from the darkness and flapped its wings, hissing. “We are not lost. We know what we were sent here to do.”
John lowered the muzzle, jabbed forward with it as if it were a sword, and unloaded the chamber into the beast’s midsection.
Now this produced a result.
It fell away from him but only for an instant. It made a grab for the gun as it fell backward, but John managed to hang on to it.
He backed away again, racking the slide once more. He wasn’t sure how many shells remained in the mag; he had lost count. He was down to his last one—maybe two—shells. The beast was gathering itself together for a lunge; it was renewing the attack. John decided he’d better burn another one, even if it was his last. I’ll go down fighting you, whatever in hell you are. And when I’m out of ammo, I’m going to bash your ugly fangs in with the butt stock.
The fountain of fire that issued forth from the Mossberg, illuminating the scene, now only served to compound John’s fears. He really was not hallucinating. He was actually battling with what looked like a freaking carnivorous dinosaur, and there were two of them, real-life black dragons in his own house, for crying out loud.
But he had injured the bigger one, and it went down hard this time. He racked the slide once more and heard his last shell slide into the chamber. He stepped toward the small one and shot it in the face. With a shriek, it flopped down like a fish and John barely managed to get out of the way of its tail. And than it was gone, crashing down the stairs, screeching like a wounded cat.
The big one languished on the floor, a dark shape that writhed in agony, hissing and spitting at him in rage.
The Airel Saga Box Set: Young Adult Paranormal Romance Page 80
