Airel (28 page)

Chapter I

Eagle Idaho, present day

I sighed loudly and looked out the window. We had pulled in four houses down from where Stanley Alexander lived. Maple trees looked like they were on fire in a spray of yellow, orange and red—with only a memory of green from the summer. Pines stood dark green against gray skies, and it felt as if I was on the edge of something.

I climbed down out of the Yukon and shut the door as quietly as possible. The neighborhood seemed empty. Fittingly, there were no signs of the police—they were busy cruising the blue collar areas. There wasn’t even an Eagle soccer mom running behind a stroller. It was lifeless and foreboding. Kale pointed with a subtle jerk of his head up the road. I followed him along the little bike path. 

The Alexander residence was all stucco and wrought iron. Fake Italian, like those wretched casinos in Vegas—my least favorite town in the whole wide world, because literally
everything
is fake. This house seemed to have a similar scent. I wasn’t sure if
She
was helping me or not, but I smelled stench. Cigarettes—no, stale cigar smoke. I searched for Michael’s scent. 

We approached the house. A three-car garage was attached to the right side, and a black BMW sat in the driveway, looking like it hadn’t been washed in quite a while. It was just like a horror movie, when the camera shows something completely normal and innocent, but the mind processes all of it in a different context. It chilled me; the wind gusted through a drift of leaves, and
She
stood up, taking it all in just as I was. 

What do you see?
I asked.

“Be careful; he’s sleeping, but not like you think.”

I could feel a warm augmentation filling my veins with power. My vision became much clearer, richer. Colors seemed bolder, sounds louder, and I could even hear Kale’s heart beat through his silly white Moses robes.
I guess it works… Halloween is right around the corner.
I reached out with my mind to try to read his thoughts. I didn’t know if it would work, but I had to try. All I got was static; nothing worth anything, so I gave up. 

I followed Kale to the back of the house. Everything was wide open in this ritzy neighborhood. No fences or anything between houses. The grass was deep green, having come back from the oppressive heat of summer, and smelled like it had just been cut. I filled my lungs with it. Kale elbowed me to pay attention to what I was doing. I apologized with my eyes.

Before I knew it, Kale had drawn his sword-dagger thing. We entered through a sliding door into the kitchen of Stan’s house. No one sat eating lunch; no one had washed any dishes in quite a long time. Something was rotting in the sink. Probably in the trashcan, too. Kale motioned for me to go to the garage while he stood guard. I knew, even without the benefit of reading his mind, that he preferred to avoid a confrontation with the Seer if we could.

I crept silently toward the white door that I assumed led to the garage. It was unlocked. When I opened it, I saw Kim’s back, her head slumped over on her chest, her body still taped to the chair. My heart failed me.
Too late!
She was limp.
Dead.

***

Upstairs, Stanley Alexander was sleeping. As he lay there, the creature within poked, prodded, and slid free of his body like excrement. It was not the biggest demon by any means, but covetous ruthlessness and the will to act where others would not dare gave him rank and title. None knew his true identity. 

He was called by many names, ‘the Seer’ one of them, and that because of the bloodstone. His wings were long, black, and ragged, and hung around his twisted body like tattered sails on a forgotten ship. He pulled the left one free of the host and noticed for the ten thousandth time that it had been clipped. The memory of how he had lost part of it made him seethe with anger. 

He stood over eight feet tall when hunched over. His eyes were dark red and glowing. A black fume fell constantly from his mouth. Two horns curved downward from the top of his skull, and protected his face from the edge of the sword. The thin tail twitched and bobbed like that of an excited dog. The tip was barbed with a mace-like hook. Thorny scales ran the length of his back ending at his short neck. 

The Seer took the red stone from the sleeping weak husk of a man and held it. He looked into it and frowned with thin black lips. He sneered, and yellow and brown rotten teeth exposed themselves in a menacing grin.

“You have come at last, my daughter. Now I claim and take what is rightfully mine.”
The voice was guttural. The stone throbbed, humming, and he watched through it as Airel opened the door to the garage, finding her best friend. The gasp that escaped her mouth made him smile, revealing crooked and gnarled teeth as he crossed his arms and embraced himself, shivering with excitement. 

Then the stone showed him something else in the house. Airel’s guardian companion. The Seer howled in a shriek of delight and fury. Thick smoke vomited out from his mouth as he crouched, then he threw back his massive head and roared,
“You return to me! My old friend—Kreios! KREIOS!”
 

The cry of the beast woke Stanley from the sleep of the dead. The house shook from footing to rafter. Dust rained down on the Seer, and Stan sat up in utter horror—he had never quite gotten used to it—as he saw what was standing next to his bed. Before he could gather the breath to scream, the Seer dove at him, grabbed his frightened face, and looked into his bloodshot eyes.

“Look at me, you sniveling slob. Look into my eyes. You will bring Airel to me; do not kill her, do you understand?”

“Do not kill her; yes master, I understand.” Stan’s voice was low and droned on. He was a man who had lost his soul and replaced it with nothing but darkness. He stood up and clawed at the open sores that refused to heal, covering his body from head to foot. 

He was already dead; his body was trying to tell him so, but he would not believe it. As his body decayed and rotted, he still moved, he continued among the sentient, he was autonomous—this was evidence enough of his power, at least to him—which made him useful enough for the demon who pulled his strings. The Seer unfurled his ragged wings, enclosing his slave within them. A boiling pool of blackness collected at his clawed feet. 

Stan smiled as he felt his strength returning. He felt unstoppable once more.
Stan is the man—
true master of the Brotherhood. It was his destiny to destroy Airel before she could discover anything more of her true identity. Michael had done a
wonderful
job. Stan swelled with fatherly pride at the thought of his only son. He would move quickly through the ranks, indeed. 

The Seer placed the bloodstone into Stan’s hand. Stan replaced it around his neck. He felt like he was naked without it. Of course, he had plans of his own that did not involve the Seer. He would keep it. With it, he could do anything, go anywhere, and rise to be the most powerful being in the world. 

Slave would be master.

The demon withdrew the shroud of his iniquitous wings, discharging Stan to his work, newly empowered by the unnatural. Stan fished out an ancient dagger from under the bed. He had stolen it; from where, he could no longer remember. These days, he could not remember much—his memories had been mixed and adulterated with those of a thousand hosts before him. In the final analysis, he had no idea who he was anymore. But it didn’t matter. Stan was the
new
Seer,
de facto,
and soon he wouldn’t need the wretched lizard to call the plays, to direct and control the power.
Soon… 

***

I stood in the doorway to the garage frozen in horror—my best friend, dead. I felt like throwing up but held it down.
How could…?
This was all wrong; this kind of thing was not supposed to happen. Reverberating through my bones, calling me back from the nightmare, I heard an unearthly scream that chilled me absolutely—and more than the sight of Kim’s lifeless body. 

“Kreios? KREIOS!”

Images superimposed themselves on top of each other, of the man I was growing to love in the Book, and of the man named Kale who had abducted me and kept me prisoner. His marble skin, blond-almost-white hair, and his odd ways—he seemed so old, but at the same time looked so young. It all crashed into me with violence, stopping me.

I looked at my hand on the door jamb, but my mind saw beyond the physical. What I saw… Angels, half-breed offspring, demons, Ke’elei, an immortal race, Kreios, Kale, Airel.
Could it be? Could he still be alive?
Why had the Book withheld that part of its story from me? Kreios was not merely one of the Sons of God; he was an Angel, descended from heaven itself. He would live forever, unless a demon like the Seer killed him, which even then was not an easy task. Kreios was a fearless warrior, with more skill in battle than I could dream of.

“KREIOS!”
The roar grew louder, and I would have stood there dumbly, frozen, if Kreios himself hadn’t yelled at me.

“Airel! Move! Get Kim out the back!” His voice had changed, ripping through me with the essence of deadly command. It had real physical weight to it.

My head cleared instantly, and I bolted into the darkness of the garage. To my utter disbelief, Kim was moving. Her head came up slowly, and she opened her eyes as I fell on my knees at her feet. Blue and purple bruises covered her face, masked partially by the gag of duct tape. Her left eye was swollen shut, yet she managed a smile. 

“Oh, Kim! I’m so sorry. Oh baby, hang on!” I tore the tape from her mouth, and before I knew what I was thinking, I had torn through all that bound her to the chair, including part of the chair itself. I let my instincts take over, and shreds of tape littered the garage floor, along with whole chunks of chair. 

Kim’s head lolled and she opened her eyes in a groggy slow fluttering. I felt sick to my stomach. 

“Oh how I missed you, Kim.” She stood on very shaky legs, and I could tell she was not strong enough to run with me back to the SUV. The sound of a fight erupted from upstairs in the house, and I heard a scream of pain. The sound was like fingernails on a chalkboard. I cringed and took my bearings, looking around for a way out. 

“Look,” I said in a whisper. “We’ve got to get out of here! I’ll explain later; so just go with it, okay?” Kim looked at me with raised eyebrows; she had no idea what I was talking about. 

I grabbed her and threw her over my right shoulder, like firemen carry fire victims. Leading with my left side, I lowered my shoulder and, like the would-be hero, lunged at the garage door, punching through it like paper. Unlike the would-be hero, I tripped on one of the steel spars that reinforced the door and lost everything. Kim and I tumbled out like rag dolls.
Oops.
I scrambled to my feet and moved toward Kim—we had to get out of there before we were discovered.

Standing in the driveway like a bent-over zombie was what I could only imagine was Michael’s father. Stan. He was grasping a large curved black knife and had a wicked smile on his face. 

“Going somewhere, Airel?” Black goo dripped from his mouth.  “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I must admit… I thought you would be taller.” He laughed and began choking and coughing. I knew I was out of time. I had to do something so I rushed him, again lowering my shoulder like a battering ram. 

Stan was doubled over with both hands on his knees, spitting out blood or something worse as I made contact. The blow landed between his neck and collarbone. I felt a
crack
sound as something inside him broke, dully. That sound filled me with something that had to have come from all the warriors in the line of my family—satisfaction. 

The next thing I saw was his body wildly flying, landing on and skidding across the lawn across the street. He was up and on his feet so fast that I wondered if he was as old and broken as he appeared. 

I didn’t have any time to waste. I turned, scooped Kim up again, and ran to the SUV. Everything was just a blur of colors, but I could still see everything in crisp detail. Kim was screaming, but I tuned her out. I had dumped her onto the passenger seat and slid myself behind the wheel before Stan knew what was happening. 

Like the voice of
She,
I heard the command ringing in my mind—but it was decidedly not
She. “Go, Airel; take Kim and go! I’ll meet you at the house—can you find your way back?” 

I think so.

“Be careful.”

I turned the keys in the ignition and the engine roared to life. Kim had buckled up and was looking at me with mouth wide open. I just looked at her, dropped the shifter into drive, and floored it. The rear tires lit up, I aggressively yanked the wheel left, and executed a totally pro-style burnout u-turn. We were
outta
there. 

I scanned the rearview mirror to see Stan standing like a drunk and screaming curses. I smiled and somehow his outrage made me happy.
Next time, Stan… Next time
.