Chapter VIII.

Stan stood hunched over, his lips wet with blackness, a smirk on his bruised face. I could see the glowing red stone dangling around his neck. "You are an abomination, a curse, and I am here to carry out my orders." His bloodshot eyes twitched back and forth like a whipped dog.

Kreios! I searched for him frantical y.

Kim struggled to her feet and scrambled to my side. "You must have a death wish, you creepy little man!" She was trying to look tough. "Airel wil tear you apart!" I elbowed her in the ribs and muttered under my breath.

I swept her behind me with my arm and instinctively crouched, in my fighting stance. She doesn't know what she's saying and I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Kreios had told me to run if I ever met Stan alone. He was speaking in two voices, so obviously the Seer was with him. My spine tingled as my body poured adrenaline into my fear.

"Come here, girl," Stan's eyes glowed red even in broad daylight; his pupils cat-like and piercing. He held a length of heavy chain in his hand.

"You real y think I'm just going to go with you?" I could hear Kreios coming. I stepped forward slightly, to try to fend the vil ain off, but he didn't budge an inch.

"You're crazy," I said through clenched teeth, trying to signify my courage. I could feel everything; every beat of my heart, every fiber of nerve and muscle in my body. I was a coiled panther ready to unleash raw fury-and deep within me, I could feel She gathering up al the frustration, anxiety, disappointment, and crushing powerlessness I had felt ever since I had begun my change, and distil ing it into hate for the evil one that dared to stand before me. I wanted to kil , for the first time in my life, and what's more I was ready to do it, couldn't wait to begin.

When Kreios landed, it was a seismic event. There was maybe twenty feet of open s.p.a.ce between me and my attacker, and Kreios landed right in the middle of it, cracking the earth deeply, making the boulders shudder. The swirl of light that danced around him almost looked like wings, but it moved around his body as if the light itself was protecting him. His jaw clenched.

He held no weapon in his hand, and he was clothed in the same simple robe that he had worn for my training. "This time, brother, you will bow to your Maker or I wil take more than your wing."

The Seer laughed maniacal y, extricating himself out of Stan as if his body was a used container, kicking him aside when he was through, sending the heavy chain he had been brandishing into the gra.s.s. Kreios lunged in attack, and the thing backhanded him with one ma.s.sive movement. Kreios flipped over, righted himself, and hovered in the air.

"Airel! You must take Stan; it is the only way." He looked at me, and in his eyes was strength and trust. "You must walk through the door, child. Walk through it and take that which awaits you there. It is your destiny."

This is getting real. And it was getting hard to believe.

Time stood stil in that moment of my existence. My eyes wide open, there appeared before me, somewhere or somehow between the real and the supernatural, a door. It was made of a single piece of wood and stood apart from everything. There were no handle or hinges, as far as I could tel . I looked at Kim; she was frozen and didn't seem to be able to see me. The trees were stuck, motionless. I reached my hand out to the door, and as I did, it opened to me.

I could only believe one thing as it swung open and revealed what was on the other side: this was the Sword of Light. The Sword of my grandfather, an angel of G.o.d, who had once lived in paradise, heaven, in the company of G.o.d Himself.

The Sword was bril iant; it il uminated me, my spirit, my mind, and cal ed to me. I strode through the door, a pet.i.te girl of seventeen, and wrapped my hand around the grips. As I pa.s.sed through the door, it evaporated, leaving me once again at the top of the cliff, Kreios, the Seer, and Stan before me, Kim behind me, al frozen as if I had been taken out of time. And the Sword was immense, but seemed to shrink and grow light in my hands. I sensed that it would do the work; al I had to do was hang on.

I moved the blade in a wide arc over my head, feeling far more wise and graceful than I ever had; I felt like a warrior. And I knew that I was. I took to my fighting stance, this time with the Sword in my hands, and closed my eyes.

When I opened my eyes again, I was stil holding the Sword. Everything was slowly starting to regain its momentum around me. I saw a branch move in the breeze. I looked at Kim, who was looking at me as if she had seen a ghost, her finger trying to point at the Sword, but failing, shaking and fal ing back to her side. "Kim. Stay out of the way, okay? Go hide!" She ran to a nearby stone outcropping and disappeared.

The Sword was featherlight in my hand. I felt warmth and power fil ing me. It was not red like anger, or white and wonderful like love-but something else entirely. It didn't even have a color-not one I could put into words.

Stan sneered, unsheathing the same black dagger he had had at his house, stepping toward me in a sideways crouch, dagger in his leading hand.

"The Brotherhood wants you alive. They wil have to understand if I bring you back dead-I had no choice, you see-you attacked me!" He snarled, snorted and spit.

Kreios barreled right at the Seer, taking him on without delay. The two tumbling bodies fel out of sight in the forest, behind a smal rise. I could hear branches breaking; maybe whole trees from the sound of it.

I studied my enemy. Stan was not just any man. Not only was he being propped up by supernatural-unnatural-power that found a home in the Seer, but he was also the father of the lover who had left my heart in a heap of ashes.

My enraged heart was now looking at the target for the blame-Stan. And not only Stan, but the being known as the Seer. I focused my pain on him as the cause of it and charged forward with a shout that surprised me.

Stan's guard was inadequate at best, and as She guided me through my body's motions, I stabbed with a thrusting motion and felt the Sword take over, driving the point of the blade in. I could feel ribs break under the force of the blow.

Stan howled in pain, dropping his hands. I moved fluidly to the side, forcing the point of the blade to pivot on the rib, ripping him apart inside and opening him up. Stan fel to one knee and gasped, eyes bulging. The Sword was withdrawn from his wound. I felt almost like a spectator as I watched myself move like someone who knew what she was doing; who could handle herself with a weapon like this. I swept the Sword out and around to the side, spinning back to my opponent, keeping the Weapon between us. It was amazing how easy it al was.

"You think you can kil me that easily," he croaked. The wound began to heal right before my eyes, though a deep crimson scar remained. "As long as I have this-" His voice cut off as he fondled the red bloodstone that hung around his neck. Then a new cut emerged on his neck: long, with five points at its end. It began to bleed. It looked like claw marks, or maybe invisible strong hands.

Kreios.

If I kil ed Stan, the Seer would die as wel ... or will he just retreat into the red stone? I couldn't remember. Stan got to his feet and smacked me with more force than I would have thought he was able to muster. I thought I would fal , but my body moved into the motion his strike had created, moving with it, spinning back around, using it to reset my fighting stance.

"We must coordinate our kills, Airel! The Seer must perish first, otherwise he will escape into the stone."

In our macabre dance, we had exchanged positions; the rocky cliff now stood behind the wild-eyed man. Maybe I can back him up and push him over.

Will a fall of that height kill him? It might knock him out and drown him...

I swung the Sword powerful y, meeting the edge of his jagged dagger in a spray of sparks. The tip of his weapon was cut; it sailed off into the lake below. He tried to counterattack with a quick jab, but missed. I swung again, bringing the tip of the blade in an arc up from the ground to the sky, pushing him back.

Stan twitched and cried out, slapping at new wounds on his body. He was limping and favoring the side where I had hit him and smashed his ribs.

Evidently the healing power of the bloodstone was not working fast enough. His ribs are still broken.

I pul ed up and kicked him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. He doubled over; I raised the Sword high overhead, and clubbed him on the back of his skul with the end of the handle. He slumped to the dirt in a wrecked pile. Unconscious.

I wasn't even breathing heavy.

And then the Sword of Light vanished right out of my hands. It was gone. Was it ever there?

The angel and the demon tumbled into the undergrowth, away from Airel. Kreios knew that he must be quick if he was to be victorious. A ma.s.sive aspen broke their progress, snapping off three or four feet above the ground, the tree top fal ing with a shiver.

Kreios grunted, grabbing the Seer by the neck, ripping at it, feeling the black blood trickle and spray, and the smel that rode along with it.

Clods of dirt flew through the air. They struggled, Kreios climbing onto the demon's back, but Tengu flung him off. Kreios rushed him, faked left and lunged right, striking again at his neck with his left hand, using the hold to swing himself around onto the demon's back. Kreios could feel his strength begin to fail; the demon soaking it out of him quickly now.

Kreios got a foot planted in front of him, shifted his weight, then forced Tengu forward mightily, sending him headlong into the dirt; the angel riding the back of the demon. The Seer choked and gagged, holding his ribcage. A gash appeared there, and Kreios could see the broken ribs jutting out. Airel was doing better than he had hoped.

Tengu tried to flop over on his back, arching himself desperately, trying to extend the seconds, to weaken the angel. Kreios simply enlarged his grip on the neck of the demon, holding his head now in the crook of his elbow. He reached and dug thumb and forefinger into both of the Tengu's eye sockets, digging them in as deeply as he could reach.

The Seer screamed in total agony, blinded and bleeding from the damage, his eyebal s ruptured and leaking.

Now that the demon had been immobilized, Kreios changed positions. He wearily placed a knee on each shoulder blade, pinning him to the forest floor.

Kreios then grasped with iron grip the horns of the Seer's head that sprouted from the top of his skul and wrapped around in front of his face.

"You ceased long ago to be my brother," he said. "The war of endurance is over. And I put an end to you at last." With one powerful motion, Kreios wrenched Tengu's head to one side, pul ing upward, snapping the neck of the demon, kil ing him, and ripping his head off.

Now, like a sc.r.a.p of discarded snake skin, the body of the demon withered, shriveled, and became dust, blowing away in a sudden strong gust. Kreios discarded the large head, letting it rol down the gentle slope a little ways. It came to a stop, then exploded in a whiff of inky darkness, pitiful y vanishing as vapors into the wind.

Chapter IX.

I was standing over the crumpled body of Stanley Alexander when I heard the most awful wrenching sound; a scream that ripped at the heavens and was cut short, as if the soul of it had been torn right out midstream. I was stil trying to figure out what was real and what was not-vanishing doors, then disappearing Swords- seriously, what's next?

As soon as that unholy scream had rent the air, Stan jolted wide awake in a spasm, lurching up from the ground. I jumped back defensively. I reached out in my mind to Kreios and got nothing. Is he dead? I didn't know.

When Stanley Alexander opened his eyes, something was different. It was very bad and it was very new. She was sending me warning signals without words, and I understood that what I was looking at in Stan was unprecedented. What he had become then had never been seen under the sun before.

He got to his feet wearing a wicked smile, and said, "'We' is now me." He moved so quickly that I couldn't do anything. Before I knew it, he had stabbed me. I felt overwhelming pain dashing against my chest. He stepped forward, pushing with the blade. I heard Kim scream from a long way off.

He pushed harder, the black blade digging in further, and I fel to my knees. I gagged, wrapped my hand around the blade to try to stop it from going farther. I felt a pumping, gushing, leaking sensation in my chest that was al at once hot and cool, and my strength faded rapidly.

Stan pul ed the dagger free and walked slowly around me as my wound gushed, blood running down my skin and soaking my clothes. He stood behind me then, with his dagger raised. I sensed what he was going to do, heard the voice of She screaming out in agony and grief, searched with al my heart for the mind of Kreios, but I couldn't move. My heart had been pierced. I was mortal y wounded.

In the background, I heard Kim screaming, footsteps running toward me, but her voice sounded distant and vague. Somewhere deep within I knew she would be kil ed-it was inevitable-but I was now bound to my fate, and a prisoner of the events of my life. So short! I turned to face the unspeakably evil thing that had stabbed me, that would finish my life and end it. His eyes had become livid, death had skinned them over. I fel to the earth on my side and rol ed to my back, my legs askew. He was crazed and twitching, his muscles stuttering as if fighting rigor mortis. He raised the dagger for the final blow, the severing of my head from my body, and al I could do was wait for it.

The sound of tearing flesh, a sloshing wet sound, fil ed my ears. I couldn't tel what was happening, if the sound had come from inside my body as my heart tore itself apart on the line that had been cut into it, or if the sound had come from somewhere else. I wondered abstractly how long a person stays conscious after they're beheaded.

I now began to long for the end. My life had been so very confusing. And fil ed up with pain. And short. It made, al of it, no sense to me. The most random bits of memory flashed into my mind and skipped right out again. Things I would have sworn I had forgotten, things that did not exist to me anymore. Memories of old cla.s.smates from kindergarten, a lonesome bike ride when I was seven, an old book I had held, a dol I used to love. Everything around me was becoming faintly hazy.

A garbled exclamation broke the silence. My eyes flew open. From the open mouth of Stanley Alexander, protruding like an obscene black tongue, was the tip of a sword. His eyes rol ed back in their sockets and blood dripped from the tip of the blade.

The immense and crushing drain on my strength stopped-but I was left with a shattered heart, the violence done against it now complete and total. I both felt and believed that my life had now run its course; the time left to me now a handful of moments.

But Stan had already found his own end. The line he had drawn final y ran out. He fel to the earth and shattered like crystal on impact, the shards metamorphosing into vermin and creeping things that fled to the undersides of rocks, there to hide from the light and warmth of the sun. The bloodstone, in the dirt, rested alone and unposessed, glimmering a deep and blinding red.

I tried to find my bearings, fluttering my eyelids and struggling to sit up. Was it Kreios? Who had kil ed Stan?

"Airel! You're hurt!"

It was the voice of the one who had struck down and defeated my treacherous foe.

Michael.

The black sword that he held dropped with a dul clang to the ground, and he rushed to my side, and fel tohis knees. "Airel." The sound of my name on his lips warmed me completely.

He had come back! He had struck down his own father to... emotion flooded me, drowning my senses utterly.

"Airel, I'm so sorry..."

I looked into those eyes once again, and instantly I knew the truth. Michael Alexander did love me. He had never wanted to hurt me. He had been forced to betray me, and was probably as confused about al of it as I was.

Michael's face seemed weathered, however. There was a muted look of horror there underneath it al , and as I searched him with my eyes, I noticed James was with him, looking like he had just arrived, standing just behind Michael in his varsity jacket. He had a strange look on his face.

Kim was at his side, saying, "James, what's going on here?" I turned back to Michael, a mil ion questions popping up, and saw something else: fear.

Michael struggled, looking tortured. I looked to James.

Michael reached quickly on the ground for the piercing bright bloodstone, and brought it closer, holding its dangerous and intense light between us, not far from my chest wound.

I was seized with the most unimaginable horrors. My heart felt like it was being welded back together, patched and bolted, and I died a little more, seeing impossible things. I cried out in my distress.

James leaned forward quickly, with glowing eyes, and knocked the bloodstone from Michael's hand, sending it skittering across the dirt, giving me a reprieve. I gasped and tried to gather myself together so that I could thank him, but he looked at me with extreme hostility. "Kil her, Michael! Redeem your mistake."

Mistake?

Michael pul ed back from me, intense sadness fil ing his empty eyes. He looked soul ess, an automaton on a short leash.

"Take up your sword and strike her down!"

I stil didn't quite grasp the situation. I felt as if I had been blindfolded and handcuffed to a carnival ride. James's harsh words were stil not making sense to me.

Michael appeared to be severely distracted as he looked askance toward the weapon; he seemed to be suffering an internal civil war. With sagging shoulders set in the frame of purposeless behavior, Michael bent down for the sword, but stopped short of taking it up.

James growled like a dog. He was enraged; his skin fel away in shreds that looked like old newspapers and torn photographs. Smooth black wings unfurled from his back and enfolded us in a threatening semi-circle. He shook, his arms growing long; huge round paws with long curling claws emerged from his fingertips. The boy I had known as James burst apart from the inside.

"Love-infested innocent! If you lack the strength, al ow me." He s.n.a.t.c.hed the sword from Michael's limp hand as dark steam fel from his mouth. Michael stood there, completely whipped, and looked at me with sad eyes.

A single tear fel to my cheek as I realized the ultimate loss in the situation. I pleaded with him, screaming at him in my thoughts, Michael, don't stand aside and allow this! "Michael," I spoke, my voice choking me, "have you already left me?" Again? My eyes burned with tears. I didn't see the demon. I didn't see Kim. Al I could see was he, my soul, my life-Michael. I would not believe that he didn't feel love for me. He had kil ed his own father to defend me; there had to be something else that held him bound beside his own broken wil .

The demon struck Michael in the face with contempt, sending him sprawling, then turning back to me. "Enough talk! You have been alive for far too long.

Today you, Airel, daughter of El, shal die!" I was reaching up to Michael, trying in vain to sit up. The hideous demon leapt straight at me, col iding with such great force that I could feel my almost-immortal body begin to give in to what was becoming inevitable. We skidded off the top of the cliff in a plume of dirt and dust and stones, fal ing. The water, far below, was going to hurt.

I couldn't fight, couldn't breathe. Al of the strength I once had deserted me. I saw Michael rush to the cliff's edge, reaching out to me as I fel , his eyes shouting a love and sadness so deep, so stricken, that I thought for an instant that he was in more pain now than I ever was. Hate was life to him; he was bred, raised, trained to hunt us down, to kil us. Even as I fel to my death, I decided none of my injuries, be they physical or emotional, mattered.

Michael...

The force of the water on impact further sapped my strength. My eyes instinctively closed as I went hurtling into the surface of the abyss, the demon astride my dying body, the water bubbling around us as we sank. The depths reached for me, to take me down, and down.

I opened my eyes for the briefest of an instant, searching the cliff top for a final glimpse of my lover, his love unrealized. We never really had a chance, did we? I realized how thickly a bitter rust had covered us, locking away lovely possibility beneath a hideous mask.

There was only one thing left to me that was in my power: Michael, I forgive you.

I saw him standing rigid at the edge of the cliff, grasping the black sword in his hands. The blade was inverted back upon his abdomen, and just as I began to sink beneath the spray of the water of the lake, he drove the point of it home, crying out in pain, doubling over. The demon jerked suddenly, releasing me, roaring in fury and pain.

I could feel the water pour into my lungs, relentless.

MICHAEL! NO, MICHAEL!.