Airel (27 page)

Chapter XII

1250 B.C. Arabia

The Seer peered into the red light pulsing from the bloodstone, as if in the midst of it was the answer for which he was searching. He was filled to brimming with black rage. Within his tortured mind the staccato ringing of his Brother, his master resounded:
“Slave, fool! The Sword was within our power—and you failed to keep it!” 

The face of the Seer became old and withered again: “I have not failed us. It is you who failed to foresee what Kreios would do—” He doubled over in mid-sentence as scalding pain ripped through his body. He coughed and spit, and thick blood boiled on the ground.
“Where are our nine spies? Have they returned?”
He was writhing in agony until this new thought opened his eyes. 

He did not know where they were. They should have been back with prisoners by now. The Seer struggled to his feet, the pain ceasing. He pulled his hood up, so as to hide the face of the almighty Seer from those who might want to see who he actually looked like. He walked out from his tent into the night air. It was disgustingly fresh, even in the midst of their encampment.

On a distant hilltop a small fire was dancing, sending its light up through the night sky. He could hear singing—the two escaped prisoners mocked him. No fool would sit and sing around a fire in plain view so soon after escaping from the most powerful horde army in the world.
“And where are my nine?!”

Yet there it was. No shouts. No sounds of battle. Only singing, and the flicker of a campfire, star-like from this distance. The Seer growled, turned and grabbed his newest replacement captain of the guard. “Send twenty more Brothers with their hosts and bring me back the Sword—kill anyone in the enemy camp and bring me their heads. Tell them not to return empty-handed unless they wish to die.” He spit out the words with so much hatred that some blood sprayed against the guard’s face.

“Yes, master.” He scurried off and spread the word. In the next moment, twenty of the Brotherhood stood before the Seer, ready for battle. He waved his hand toward the firelight. The group moved out and disappeared into the forest.

***

Kreios and Yamanu had made camp for the night on the rise of a small open hillock, in perfect view of the enemy, and had lit a fire, not worrying if horde scouts saw them or not. The idea was to attract some attention and leave a trail. Besides, they were hungry. Yamanu stirred a stew made from fresh herbs, select roots, and a grouse he had killed. They talked and sang in thanks to El with loud voices as the stew simmered.

Kreios, a resounding baritone, and Yamanu, a tenor, sang songs they had used to sing as children before they had left paradise. Their voices rang out clear, strong, over the ravine, and reached all the way to the horde camp—making the patrols uneasy. Kreios knew there was power in the songs of angels.

Yamanu dipped his finger in the warm stew and a look of pure delight crossed his face as he touched it to his lips. “Wonderful, my friend. A few more moments, and we may even draw out the Seer with this fine stew.” Yamanu breathed in the aroma and closed his eyes, savoring the smell. They began to sing again.

***

The Brotherhood twenty made a clicking sound as their wings twitched. They found the nine that had been dispatched prior, and joined them. The intelligence the nine had gathered confirmed that indeed there were only two angels. The horde contingent agreed to a multi-pronged attack on the escaped prisoners: they would surround them and destroy them.

Before long, the Seer could observe their black forms ascending the hillock against the far-off camp, and he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. 

As he expected, the singing stopped. A flash of white light lit up the night sky. After a mere instant, all was silent once again. The sound that reached the Seer’s ears made him tremble deeply: again, it was the sound of singing, only this time more intense.

He cursed and coughed, and in a fit of rage began to attack the four guards that had been assigned to keep watch over his tent. All four were soon dead. Blood ran down the Seer’s robe. He breathed raggedly and allowed black saliva to drop freely from his mouth. Kreios was mocking him—and for that he would pay—dearly.

***

As Yamanu and Kreios sat cooking their quaint dinner over a warm fire, singing childhood songs with happy hearts, the twenty and the nine drew near, encircling them. Kreios and Yamanu could smell them over the stew, and the mingling of stench with savory scent turned the stomach. 

Kreios had only to draw the Sword. Nearby, hiding in the forest were the one hundred Shadowers Yamanu had promised; the best and most gifted. With them stood another seventy angelic warriors who did not agree with the council’s decision, and insisted on following Kreios and Yamanu into battle. As he drew the Sword and held it high, the skirmish began. 

There were not enough members of the horde to go around, and the angels made quick work of them. It was over in an instant. The one hundred Shadowers and the seventy warriors then ascended to the campfire, and offered their allegiance to Kreios and Yamanu.

“Kreios, friend of El and brother to the host of heaven. We heard your beautiful singing. May we join you?”

***

The Seer flew into a rage and screamed for the entire army to assemble, to make ready for war. Fear and anger had a common friend: blindness. One can make grave mistakes under their influence. The Seer was now doing precisely that. The tools that he knew how to use so effectively against his enemies now turned against him, naturally.

***

Kreios reached out in his thoughts to the gathered angelic army. He would exercise command in this way. He first searched them to determine if they were valorous warriors, intrepid and thirsty for victory. He found to his delight that all of them were indeed of solid stock, some even angry at the council’s decision. All of them wanted to destroy the horde almost as much as he did. 

The risk of opening up his own mind could not be helped, but he closed off as many irrelevant passageways as much as he could, in order to make his commands clear and concise. He did not want to clutter the field of battle with thoughts of Eriel, with his fear of losing the Sword.

He looked down into the ravine from the hill. It was writhing with the creeping light of enemy torches. The sound of tearing and ripping flesh broke the stillness: the horde had just doubled its size. The demons now stood apart from their hosts. They would act as lightning rods, filtering superhuman power to the men under their control. It was a wet and sickening noise, the reek of the stinking demons wafted up the hill. Kreios complained lightly that he would not get to enjoy Yamanu’s fine grouse stew.

“Some other time, friend and captain. Save your hunger for the roasting of demon flesh in the fires of Hell. Besides, I already ate most of it.”
Kreios nearly laughed at his comic friend. He only shook his head. 

Then, in a loud resonant commanding voice that shook the very rock of the hills, he said, “Stand ready the Trumpeter! Prepare the attack!” The angelic host drew sword, bow, spear, axe, and the hills of the theatre of combat rang out with the sound of it. “Angels! Hear the sound of the voice of the Father and do not fear the cleaving of flesh from bone! Fear not the dark enemy that hides in shadow and deception! Fear only the shame of ignominious and unworthy death!” Shouts and warrior grunts and growls showered down upon the enemy horde. 

Then Kreios issued his first order:
“Demons first. The strength of the men will then fail and their desire to fight will crumble.”
The thought rang out in the minds of the angelic army, and the earth beneath them began to shake as the Sons of God assembled themselves in battle formation.
“You will join the battle in waves so that we can minimize the drain of the horde. Half of you will take to the air with your Shadowers while the other half engages the enemy in combat with theirs. Keep your distance until my signal. I will lead the attack. Yamanu, you will lead the angelic host in the air. When the time is right—we merge and destroy the horde.”

 “What about the Sword?”
Yamanu queried Kreios privately. Everyone within a small radius of the sword would not lose strength.
“Thirteen of the best fighters will stay with me throughout the battle. That many will stay strong if they stay close to the Sword.”
The thirteen angels, singled out and now assembled, agreed to fight at Kreios’s side to the death. He was deeply  touched by their willingness to sacrifice themselves. He knew that this was about more than Eriel, or even he and the Sword. These few men knew that. He wished he could grasp the hands of the angels in his little army to show his gratitude—but he could not. 

Yamanu turned to Kreios and they embraced like warriors. A billowing mass of fog appeared, obscuring the angelic army. Kreios unsheathed the mighty Sword.

Chapter XIII

Somewhere in the Mountains of Idaho, Present day

I opened my eyes, though I didn’t want to. Nothing this day could hold appealed to me. Kale and I left at 4 in the morning and I passed out in the front seat. Crying was hard work, and my eyes felt crusty and swollen. 

My head hurt so badly it felt like someone had used it as a drum, pounding on it all night. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I looked over at Kale. He turned and gave me a sort of half smile. 

“You were talking in your sleep.”

I groaned and pulled the visor down and gasped at my reflection. In most cases, after a night of crying and sleeping in a car I would be a hot mess. I was not, in fact, I looked fine—good, even. I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t say anything embarrassing.” 

“No.”

I tried to block the memory of Michael standing in the kitchen. He had turned toward me, looked me in the eyes and lied, straight-faced. To think that I almost kissed him. I had wanted to kiss him. Even now, I still wanted simply to be with him—that was the worst part—I still loved him. How could he have done this to me? And how could I still love him?

“You okay?” Kale asked. He was looking at me with a concerned expression on his face. 

“Yeah. Just having flashbacks.” I wiped a tear that had slipped past my defenses and smiled as best I could. I wasn’t okay; not even close. I wanted to run and curl up to die alone.
But I might not die.
I might have to live for thousands of years.
It felt like I stood before the yawning chasm of eternity, and it was fast filling up with misery. A change of subject: “How long was I out?”

“About an hour. We’re still two hours out. I did some digging and found out that Stanley Alexander is a defense attorney. He’s widowed; his wife died of cancer, according to her medical records.”

“How did you get all this information?” 

“I have a source.” He let a smirk cross half his face.

“A source?” It was clear that he was not going to let me in on this secret. 

“I think I know where he will be. He has two homes. One of them he rents out, but it’s been vacant for the last six months.” Kale took a sip of his coffee. “No one knows what he’s done yet, but that won’t last long. People he works with, friends, neighbors will have seen that video on the news and recognized his voice, put two and two together and called it in. He hasn’t been seen at work in quite a while.” 

“What video?” 

“He sent a video to the newspapers and TV stations. It was aired last night.” 

I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Kim?”

“Yes, she was on it. Which proves that she’s alive. But we need to find her before anyone else. If the police show up she’s as good as dead.”

 “It’s like he wants to be caught.” I wondered if the video was an attempt to flush us out.

“Maybe he does. If he’s as far along as I think he is, God help the police if they try to arrest him.” 

I wondered what he was talking about. “What do you mean? How are we going to get Kim back?”

 “I think he’s the Seer. You would have read about him in the book I gave you.” I nodded. But I wondered how someone who had lived thousands of years ago could still be alive.

“The Seer is a spirit. He can be killed, but only by one of the Sons of God. We must be careful how we go about our business, Airel. If we kill Stan and leave the Seer without a host, he will be driven into the bloodstone.” Kale looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Do you know what that is?”

I shook my head. It was too much to take in. If I had read something about it I couldn’t remember it now. 

“The stone was stolen from paradise when the Sons of God fell. It is a pure union of Diamond and Onyx that glows red in the presence of the spirit of the Seer on earth. It does not belong here in the earthly realm. It is a talisman that allows him unnatural power, power that he continually consumes via the bridge enabled by the bloodstone between the spirit realm and this one. He uses this power to try to subjugate any created thing he desires to control. He is a demon prince from the substructures of Hell; some believe he may even be Lucifer himself—it is difficult to discern these things. The spirit of the Seer is confined to the immediate vicinity of the red bloodstone.  If his host is killed, the Seer will be recaptured by the bloodstone until he finds someone else to enter.”

“So Stan invited this Seer to possess him?” I couldn’t believe someone would be willing to do that. 

“He can be very convincing. He will say anything, as I said: you name it, he will promise it. A person who’s drunk or high will let him in without even realizing it. All the defenses of the mind, the gateway to the spirit, are nullified and the doors stand open wide.” 

I shuddered.
She
fluttered in my mind, as if asking for my attention. “What about me? I’m not possessed, am I? I hear this voice in my head—like my conscience, but almost audible to me. I call her
She
.”  

Kale’s eyes narrowed. “I have one, too.
She,
as you call her, is your inner man. Or woman. I keep forgetting that these days, man means
a
man, not
the race of men.”
He gave me another smile, and I was struck by it—there was something in it that I couldn’t quite figure out. It felt warm. 

“When you were awakened, your inner
woman,
your angelic spirit, was awakened in you at the same time. It’s like a sixth sense, only separately cognitive.
She
is there to help you and protect you. In battle, for example,
She
will warn you in advance of any threat to your life.”

“So, it’s a good thing.” I could feel her sitting back down and fluttering her wings, folding them under her. They sounded like the pages of a book sometimes, like the fluttering of a bird at other times. It was so bizarre how I could visualize what she looked like, and simultaneously be unable to see her. 

“Yes. It’s a very good thing, if you listen to her. In time she will blend with and compliment all of your other senses. It will be simple instinct to trust her and respond to her leading. She also heightens your other natural senses. You may have noticed this already.”

Those were the times when I lost my breakfast. I figured that I started to get sick the day Michael came to school. As I thought back I recalled that every time I was got sick Michael was close by. Then the last time at Kale’s house ,when I passed out for 8 days, must have been an overload. Maybe one of the reasons I had always gotten sick around Michael was because
She
was amplifying my sense of smell and the scent of the Brotherhood, Stanley, was probably all over Michael. “So why did I get so sick?”

“When you began to change, your body was rejecting your angelic side; it makes you sick. Being close to someone in the Brotherhood will start the process—Michael’s job is to find our kind—he can feel when someone is turning and feeds off the power. You, however, somehow resist him and his drain on you is not as strong at is should be.”

“Sometimes I would get sick and a second later he would be there, but other times I’ was fine.” 

“I think when you were out for 8 days, that was your system adjusting, allowing your angelic side to take over. I’m not sure if this will make it better or worse for you around one of the Brotherhood.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Airel, If I had my way you would not be here and I would go get Kim by myself. However, I don’t think you will listen or obey me on that particular point, so we’ll go in as a team. I will provide the diversion, and you will keep yourself alive. Your job is simple: get Kim out. I will deal with Stan.”

“But you could be killed! He has superhuman abilities; you said so yourself.”

“I know. This is not about me, though. All you need to know today is what I have already told you.” His eyes softened to a washed out blue-hazel, and his voice flowed freely with compassion. “Obey me.” I flushed at being talked at like a child, and shook my head. I didn’t want Kale to put himself in harm’s way, but I couldn’t stand by and let that monster kill Kim either. 

“No, I’ll listen. Just tell me what to do.”

Kale nodded, obviously pleased.

I looked over my shoulder to the two seats and the straps and tie downs. My stomach turned. 

Kale noticed and gave me a smile in excuse. “I had no choice, Airel. You understand I was never going to hurt you.”

I nodded. “I know; it’s just that it seems like
forever
ago. My family must be beside themselves. What am I gonna do about them?”

“We can talk about that later.”

Great. More mysteries. 

I sighed and thought about what my parents must be going through. I bet the police were involved by now. I could see my mom sitting on my bed looking at a picture of me and crying. God only knew what Dad was doing. I needed Mom, especially now. 

My whole world was being torn apart, but I didn’t have the luxury to dwell on the past.
“Past is perfect; what’s done is done. You must leave it where it is and move on today. Only learn.”
I wanted nothing more than to go home and cry on Mom’s shoulder, lie in bed for the next month, and bathe in my sorrows. 

I started to recognize landmarks and saw a sign:
Now Leaving the Sawtooth Wilderness Area
. My stomach was tight, balled up, and butterflies flipped and flopped inside it.

I had wanted to bring some sort of weapon: a gun or a sword, but Kale refused. “You will be going after Kim, not Stan. Remember that. You should have no use for a gun or any other weapon.” I protested, but it fell on deaf ears. I thought
I
was stubborn, but compared to Kale I didn’t stand a chance.  

He armed himself with a small black dagger that ended with a wicked curve at its tip. He put in its sheath on his belt. He was still wearing his white robes, and he looked positively out of place behind the wheel. “This is comfortable,” he said, catching my disapproving glance. I guessed men were all the same; it didn’t matter how they looked as long as they were comfortable.
Fashion? What’s that?

I was nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. I checked in with my little winged friend and she sent me a wave of comfort for which I was grateful, and I tried to remember to breathe. I focused on Kim, thought of her face in my mind, and recounted all the fun we had together. She was like a sister to me, my best friend. 

“Some things to remember,” Kale interrupted my reverie. “If you fight Stan, you will lose. Most likely he will kill you. If I fail, you must get Kim out of there and hope that Michael did not tell his father where my home is. Do not try to fight. You have not been trained, and you will lose. Do you understand?” Kale’s face was somber and I could tell that he was not joking.
Not that he ever would.

“Yeah, but…”

“Promise me. Run. Do not fight.” I thought in my heart that I could beat him, but Kale was not backing down. I promised.

Kale looked at me. 

Again, there was that old feeling, the same one I felt when I first saw Michael in the coffee shop: Destiny.