Michael (The Curse) (The Airel Saga, Book 3: Part 5-6) (18 page)

CHAPTER X

Banes, Cuba—Present Day

A COOL, LIGHT BREEZE wafted across the dirt road, bringing with it the smell of salt water and wet grass. Kreios stood still, waiting. It was just past two in the morning and the moon hung full and fat, casting its shimmering light on the sea, long shadows over the landscape.

Beyond the single-lane dirt road, a cemetery was stamped into the earth, bordered by a stone wall in disrepair. From the shaggy grass fed by ancient corpses, jutted sun-bleached marble crosses, stone angels with broken wings outspread over raised tombs, mausoleums, overgrown paupers’ markers. A huge Ceiba tree, its roots climbing like smooth gray buttresses to the massive trunk, stood in the midst of the graves. Its leaves were like six-fingered hands drooping low, shading the dead from the moonlight.

A scuffling noise.

Kreios turned eyes and ears to the lone tree, watching, waiting.

A man stole in amongst the graves in the darkness past a large Spanish stone cross. He looked around him suspiciously as he moved toward a mausoleum, a house for the dead.

Kreios prayed the information he had gained from the dying lips of his last kill was solid, that he would find what he sought and that this foolish idiot would lead him directly to it beneath the graveyard.

Kreios ran swiftly to within a few yards of the man, crouching behind a white stone plinth, moving without sound.

The man heaved his weight against a massive bronze placard on the side of the tomb. Silently it sank in and back, swinging in to one side, revealing a secret passageway. The man ducked inside and began to turn around and close the heavy door.

Kreios leaped to the entrance so fast that the man didn’t have time to react. Kreios withdrew his fist from the man’s smashed face, grabbed him by the shirt collar, and roughly pulled him outside, dashing his brains against the foot of a statue of Gabriel.

He was dead.

Kreios quickly regarded the statue’s likeness. “Not bad,” he whispered under his breath, “though Gabe is not that feminine.” He drew his sword and ducked inside the doorway. Rough-hewn timber steps led down into the wormy darkness.

He felt at once the drain of energy that sounded the general alarm, making his presence known to the demons and men below.

Kreios prayed there was no escape route and charged down the stairs.

Ripping and tearing filled his ears as he descended—the Brotherhood were splitting, separating into demons and men. No two-for-one deal tonight.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to the right, meeting a female directly. He blithely lifted an elbow, knocked her to the ground, and then severed her head from her body.

“Kreios,” something called out his name.

Kreios did not care for conversation, however. He hacked his way deeper into the torch-lit underground chamber, dodging fists and sword thrusts and stepping over freshly made corpses. Black stench hung chokingly in the air as demon after demon expired, leaving behind heavy, wet ash.

Kreios gritted his teeth through it, suddenly taking a blind-side strike across the jaw from a clawed hand. He recovered quickly, vengeance fueling angelic adrenaline, sword held vertically to one side with two hands, pointing up.

A thin and wiry creature stood before him, sneering. “You have no idea what you have started. This is just the begi—”

Kreios’ blade stabbed quickly up through the soft tissue of the thing’s throat, piercing deep into its rotted brain.

“Shut it,” Kreios said.

The eyes rolled dead in their sockets, arms twitching as Kreios withdrew his blade and pushed the body aside.

“Who is next?”

CHAPTER XI

By the Columbia River—Present Day

MICHAEL TRIED TO SLEEP.

But the act of holding Airel in his arms kept his mind racing, his heart slamming in his chest. He pulled her closer and felt her shiver as she warmed to the heat of his body. Soon she was in deep sleep, her breathing coming in soft, rhythmic waves.

He closed his eyes at last, the gentle rocking of the train making his eyes heavy.

Ancient memories—none of them his own—twisted into his thoughts. It was a curse, the Brotherhood, and its influence could never be undone. When a man bonded with his Brother, especially in Michael’s case, and mostly because of his father, an impartation took place. The burdens were his to bear the rest of his life. He could smell the blood-soaked earth of each battle, feel each wound as the host of the Bloodstone died and was reborn. His link to the line of demons that had gone before came with memories that did not end.

Michael was yet very young, but in his heart and mind he was ancient and full of regret. This he had never wanted, and it had never, of course, been disclosed to him. It wasn’t in the brochure. But it was truer than truth itself. It was tearing him apart.

The train rocked back and forth like a boat on choppy seas. It was both soothing and uncomfortable to him. He could relate, though. It was like the train wanted to go somewhere on its own, but was trapped on the tracks. With every lurch, it tried to jump the rails. His life was on rails too, he felt. He thought of El, considered praying to Him again, maybe asking Him for answers.

“Sacrilege.”

He opened his eyes.

Ellie was there, standing over them, staring at him. Watching.

He stifled a spasm; she had scared him.

“We need to talk.”
It was her voice, but inside his head. Her lips weren’t moving.

“Are you reading my mind?” he whispered.

She rolled her eyes.
“No, you plonker. Come on.”
Ellie gestured for him to come along with her.

“Oh,” Michael whispered. “Just a sec.” He felt like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar or something, like a kid on his way to the principal’s office. As deftly as he could manage, he wriggled out from his interwoven reclined position with Airel. She stirred a little and then rolled away, nuzzling into the crook of her arm and settling in, snoring softly.

“Well?”
Ellie was already headed somewhere, moving through the maze of crates and beckoning him to follow.
“We’ve got things to discuss, just you and me.”

Michael dutifully followed, though as he began to wake up and become more aware, more present, he began to ask more questions of himself. He wondered if perhaps he might have been smarter to have grabbed at least one sword back there at the site of the crash. He felt capricious for having trusted Kim with his late father’s old 1911 Colt .45—the pistol he usually carried concealed, but had failed to retrieve from her after the scuffle and the chaos back there at the scene of their stupendous wreck. After she had shot that big dude. He had to admit, it was possible that he was walking himself right to the gates of the slaughterhouse with Ellie the butcher.

Ellie had climbed an ascending stack of crates like stairs, crawled along the tops for a bit and then lithely dropped down inside what Michael assumed was an empty space in the midst of them. He followed.

When he got to the edge of the crate tops, he looked down to see Ellie, hands on hips, looking up at him. “Come on down, Demon Boy. I won’t bite. Hard.”

Michael dropped down inside a squared-off area that had been created by the irregular stacking of randomly shaped and sized crates, the “floor” an uneven surface of the tops of crates and boxes below.

“It’s sharing time, Michael.” Ellie’s eyes flashed. It was clear she meant business. “If we’re to work as one, be players on the same team, you’ve got to tell me a few more juicy bits.” She ran one hand through her hair, gathering it away from her eyes.

Her skin was flawless, smooth, glowing and radiating light. She was beautiful, and he couldn’t help but acknowledge that to himself. “Okay …”

“I promise to reciprocate. Don’t worry.”

Her eyes were the bluest he had ever seen. “What do you want to know? Can’t you just read my mind or something?”

“No. I can project when I want. I don’t have the gift of reading.”

Michael sighed and sat down, resting his back against a corner. “I really should be sleeping.” He looked up at her. She still stood over him. “And so should you, Ellie.”

“No rest for the wicked,” she said.

“Oh, for crying out loud, would you sit? You don’t have to act like that.”

“Like what?” She stayed put.

“Like you’re running the whole show here.” He looked up at her, his eyes widening a little in mockery.

“What—and you are?”

He sighed again, exasperated.

“You’re doing a bang-up job, mate. Really, you are. Allowing the police to track us, starting a high-speed chase that nearly killed all of us, being too stupid to know how and why the Brotherhood know where and when we’re doing just what and how often. Yeah. Brilliant grasp of command in the field.”

He was shocked. All he could say was, “What? You told me to outrun the cops. What would you have done?”

“Do you do
everything
you’re told?” Her tone was mocking, but he noticed a hit of teasing in it.

“Would you sit?” he spat, gesturing to the opposite corner of their little conference room.

“Fine,” she said, and sat.

He couldn’t help but think she was quite graceful. Beauty graced her movements; it was simply obvious.

She gave him a look. “Talk, then.”

He sighed a third time. “All right, where do I start?”

She removed her dagger from its concealed sheath and began polishing it with the hem of her sweater. “At the top. Tell me what you know of the Brotherhood, anything that might help us with the royal mess we are about to get into.”

He was irritated at the implied threat of the drawn weapon, intentional or not. “Okay, then. My name is Michael Alexander—”

She cursed and jumped to her feet, dagger at the ready. “Say that again,” she hissed at him.

“What?”

“Your name, Captain Courageous.”

“Alexander.”

Another curse. “Son of Stanley Alexander?”

“Yeah. Why?”

She cursed again and sheathed the dagger, sitting down, pressing her palms to her temples. She muttered under her breath. “This is worse than I thought it was.”

Michael eyed her warily.

“Mate … you’re not just any demon boy. You’re the son of the Seer.”

He shrugged and smirked at her as if to say,
Duh.
“Um, I know?”

“You’re
the Alexander
.”

“Yes. Michael Alexander.”

Suddenly fierce again, she said, “Tell me more.”

He told her as much as he could, wanting to get to the bottom of things with her. He told her how things worked in the Brotherhood, the rank structures, the way the training became manifest in the bond between man and Brother, the way he was a walking demonic encyclopedia. Something within him pulled at his heart, telling him to share as much as possible with her. He thought she would share as well in turn. He needed to know what she knew if they were to have hope for any kind of future that did not involve fighting for their lives at every turn.

But it’s not just that,
he thought as he went over the account of the cliff-top fight involving James, his Brother; how he had murdered his own father. It was more than that. They had become entangled in something for which there were
permanent
consequences. Decisions made now, he knew deep in his soul, would reverberate throughout eternity. And he wanted more than anything to make the right ones from now on.

“Wait,” she said. “You killed your own father?”

“Yes,” he said, “I did.”

“How did you—how did you come to such a decision?”

Michael exhaled quickly, a brief laugh. “He was going to behead her. I killed him first.”

She looked genuinely shocked. “I hadn’t heard that part.”

“That’s what you get for trusting the rumor mill,” he said, not really wanting to know how those machinations worked. Plus, truth be told, he had gone as far as he was willing to go until she gave him something in return for what he had let spill. He was genuinely fearful of telling anyone about how he had written Airel back to life. He wasn’t sure yet just how that story was going to end, what it would mean for her, for him.

“Still though,” she said, searching for something to say, “I suppose … I suppose I should say I’m sorry.”

“Ellie, I’m done. Completely finished with the Brotherhood. My motivations have turned one-eighty and I’m trying to start over.”

“What drew you in? If I may ask?”

“What, into the Brotherhood?”

She nodded.

“I dunno. How much choice does the son of the Seer really have?”

She nodded again.

“I mostly inherited everything, I guess. I never wanted that life. Not really, if I had truly known. It was just all I ever knew. I grew up into it blind. But Airel … changed it all.” His eyes began to fill and he wiped at them with his palms. “She means so much to me. I would do anything for her. I hope I’ve proven that by now—even if it means giving myself up.”

“To the Brotherhood? No.” Ellie’s eyes flashed. “You cannot do that, Michael. That means eternal … the Second Death.”

Thoughts of fire and water flitted through his head, the symbolism of the ages running roughshod over his ragged and tortured mind.
“Water is the first death. All flesh is required to pass through it one way or another. Fire is the second death. All spirit will be refined by it now or be tortured in it for eternity after the end of this age.”
He shook his head, trying to clear the echoes from his mind.

“Do you ever hear voices in your head?” he asked her.

“Depends,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I get ’em. Trouble is, it’s hard to know in my case just who’s talking to me.”

“Right. Who to trust,” she said. “Well, demon—I mean…Michael, you can trust me.”

“I hope to God you’re right,” he said.

“I think you’re actually telling the truth. I can tell you’ve been searching Him out. Talking to Him.”

He blushed.

“Nothing to be ashamed of, mate. Not at all. It’s hard, at first, to know how to listen back, though. No worries. You’ll figure it out. That’s what life is.”