Part 10 (1/2)
Chapter x.x.xI.
Boise, Idaho. Present day.
When the door opened and I saw Michael Alexander stand up stiffly, I stood paralyzed, hoping with everything in me that what I feared was not happening, that this was al just a bad dream. He was staring at me with an unsettling mixture of awe and disbelief.
”Your head... the...” His voice was soft, questioning and scared. ”It's gone, I mean it just disappeared!” He reached out, muttering something incoherent, trying to touch my forehead. But I ducked and took a step backward. He lowered his eyebrows and folded his arms across his chest.
”Airel-”
My mind refused to function. Despite the fact that I needed it more than ever at this very moment, it hid like a stupid kid on his first day of school, refusing to come out from under the bed. Should I pretend that I didn't know what was happening? Play innocent? Or should I fess up to the only person I was comfortable fessing up to about this subject? Why can't I let myself bring Kim in on all this? But with him... I looked at the gorgeous guy standing before me. Maybe I knew deep down that he would understand it... or me. If that was possible. There was no getting around it, though-I was a turncoat. A backstabbing fiend, for sure, because I was total y tras.h.i.+ng the feelings of my best friend for...some dude...
I reached a trembling hand to my forehead and touched the place where, seconds ago, a large goose-egg throbbed. It was smooth, cool to the touch.
Healed.
I stood there with my best impression of a confused, blank look on my face. I looked up at Michael, who was standing so close to me now that I could smel his skin.
”I, uh...” The bril iant words that flowed from my lips in that moment would have made the great poets of the world stop, slack-jawed, and gaze at me in wonder and amazement at the bril iance of my answer. Michael had a tentative hand on my forehead and touched ever so gently the spot where my fatty welt used to be.
”Does it hurt?”
”No...” I responded, leaving al kinds of loose ends. What blanks would he fil in?
”Weird, it's gone. Like it was never there. You sure that doesn't hurt?” He pressed harder to test out his theory.
I pul ed away, breaking free, and scowled at him. ”Wel ...what. So it's gone. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. Maybe I didn't hit it that hard anyway.” Pretty weak, lame and worst of al , chock ful of maybe. It sounded like a lie to my own ears, and from the grimace on Michael's face, I knew that he didn't believe a word of it either.
”Come on, Airel, what's going on? You know more than you're letting on and now you're lying to me.” He sounded angry and a little hurt as wel . I sighed loudly and pul ed on a few strands of my hair, and shoved my left hand in my back pocket.
I decided right then that I was going to tel Michael everything and hold nothing back.
I could not stop thinking about him and was afraid that if I didn't let him in on everything I would lose him. Lovers don't have secrets-right? And that's what we were becoming, quickly. How could I keep secrets from him?
I didn't want to lose something with him that, at this point, hadn't even happened yet. I didn't want to risk the destruction of something that felt so fragile in my heart, especial y by keeping such an important part of myself from him. He might even be able to help me. I knew I was reaching for reasons to keep him close.
I sighed, surrendering. ”Michael... I'l tel you on our date.” Hook, line, and sinker. ”I just need some time to think things over.” I nearly begged him with my tone of voice, ”Please don't be mad! And don't worry, I'm fine. I promise I wil tel you whatever you want to know. Just not now.”
Uh-oh. I had promised. And when I promise things, planets start to pop out of their orbits. It's serious business. That's what this was now, things were getting...complicated.
He looked at me with a calculating gaze. Then, as if weighing his options, nodded with a smal smile. ”Okay.” He took my hands in his and enfolded them. ”But you promise to tel me everything?”
”I promise.”
Chapter x.x.xII.
Eagle, Idaho. Present day.
The picture above the bed was large. It was an original painting; the master who had produced it unknown. On the canvas, simply depicted, was a drawn sword. It stood against a black background, alive, s.h.i.+ning and luminescent even as a representation in oils. It was the Sword of Light. It hung above the ma.s.sive bed in a stone alcove in an ornate bedroom of immense size; the architecture ancient, stately.
A kil er lay sweating under the painting, spittle dripping, tears flowing from twitching eyes. The mattress, as wel as the thick blanket that covered him, was damp with the manifestation of his toil. The room was wel above ninety degrees, but he stil s.h.i.+vered. His hair plastered itself wet against his scalp.
He was more than simply sick.
The things he saw within his bedroom made him consider death as an exit strategy for peace. But he wondered if what was swimming in s.p.a.ce above his bed would fol ow him when he left this world.
There were three lizard-like demons flying about the room. The two smal er ones were birdlike, over ten feet long at ful length. The third was twice that in size, with huge sharp spines rising from its back. One of its wings was torn and around its neck pulsed the red glow of molten stone. The character of this pendant was decidedly unholy. Upon the face of the creature, if such a thing can have such a name, was the embodiment of hatred, the essence of malice, the expression of self-prost.i.tution to vengeance at any cost.
The demon stood, legs spread on the bed, straddling the man, who was curled into the fetal position. It wielded a long curved dagger, which it moved slowly downward; calculatingly, obsessively, until the tip touched the kil er's chest.
With greater force but no greater speed, the tip of the dagger pierced the blanket, the s.h.i.+rt, the skin, the ribs, and blood began to boil outward from the wound, against the dagger, accompanied by spitting smoke as two realms came into col ision. The wings were vibrating with hideous pleasure.
The kil er struggled, trying to escape but unable. He turned his face toward his enemy, with bulging eyes. The big demon was fixed with burning, red eyes as a hunter fixes on his prey. It was an apparition of black smoke mixed with tar, dripping as if wet.
Sickly green smoke came in bursts from the snout of the thing. It crouched, hovering just inches from the face of the tortured kil er. The pulsing red stone dangled and came to rest upon his chest. The dripping maw housed hundreds of sharp teeth, discolored by putrid breath and coated in filth. Two horns sprouted from the top of its skul and enshrouded its face protectively. A long thin tongue slithered out and caressed the face of the kil er.
The kil er flinched and whimpered something unintel igible. The demon smiled above him and laid back its ears, ripping a scream through the air and the kil er's very soul.
Tengu seized the kil er's shoulders and its claws dug in. The glowing eyes of the demon flared brighter, singing eternal death. The kil er cried out for mercy. Tengu shoved a closed fist into his chest and slithered into the kil er's body as if it were a pool of water, not a body of flesh. The sharp tail disappeared with a snap and a twist.
Bolting upright in his bed, soaked, a kil er opened his own eyes, gasping for breath as if surfacing in the sea. He was drenched in sweat, his heart pounding like a hammer, his right hand curled as if grasping a weapon. Heavy in his mind, glowering and cloudy, he beheld a rotting, staring hooded face -one of the very few things that could cause him real terror-but he would not speak name or t.i.tle tonight. It has to be tonight or never-there is no more time.
Chapter I.
1250 B.C. The City of Ke'elei Kreios knew firsthand Who it was that had His large, powerful, hand under the universe. It is-was-wil be-G.o.d; the Most High. Kreios had looked into His eyes and saw the flame of fire that burned there. He felt the Presence and in those eyes he saw more than he could ever say in one lifetime -even a lifetime as long as his would be.
Kreios feared G.o.d in a way that gave bedrock meaning to the word. The Al -Powerful Knowing Master that ruled and reigned could, in an instant, know every choice that would be made in a single life. Even the earth knew Who had spun it into existence. Kreios knew Him as El, or the power of El. The saying was true that El was all in all.
Kreios's thinking was best done in the air, where the cool scent of the earth fil ed his nostrils and mind. He could think clear thoughts in the blank canvas above, where the land below rippled in undulations and trees seemed to grow from nothing, in an order known only to El.
He was glad that Maria, wife to his beloved brother, was safe-and his daughter as wel , in the hidden city at Ke'elei. Most simply cal ed it, ”The City.”
No more was ever needed. It was the most beautiful place on earth. A long val ey of tal green gra.s.s led up to it in a lush carpet, shouting out with the truest color he had seen since he left home.
They had been in The City for two days now, and Kreios took his morning flight over the vast val ey that lay nestled between snow-capped peaks rising sharply, like teeth, toward the sky. On the north end was a sheer cliff of rusty red that stood in stark contrast to the calm green val ey. It reminded Kreios of what he had seen in parts of the world where deserts gripped the earth and the sun was king.