Michael (35 page)

“This far and no further,”
he said to himself.

He scrambled quickly up the rocks toward safer altitudes, reflecting on the sheer boldness he had employed to rescue Airel’s body from the water, what seemed like only yesterday.
Too late.
Still, he wondered.
Why had I not drowned then? I should have been utterly swamped and useless.
He wasn’t sure why, at this point, he had even attempted it. He had known it was suicide.
Perhaps that was why.
And yet El in His infinite wisdom had tweaked the situation, as He so often did.
But why?

Kreios climbed upward away from the dangerous crashing waves to safety. He could remember: as he had rescued Airel’s already dead body, the way he had actually
gained speed underwater.
It was impossible.

“With El,” he said, finally gaining a rude little path on which he could walk from there on, “all things are possible.”

“And impossible that an angel should be saying so,” he added as an epilogue.
Ah, if she could hear me now.
Which she?
Any of them. All of them.

Rage once again took him by the heart, stabbing its poisoned blade deep into the center of his will, radiating out from there manipulative currents that told him where to go, what to do.

A noise in the hardy shrubs off to his left set him on edge, and he drew his sword.

Just in time, too, because a baboon leapt out at him for crowding its turf too closely. Kreios reacted swiftly with his blade, hacking the unfortunate beast clean in two. It was a pity. He was hungry, but baboon was not a sweet meat. Terrible for food, carnivores.
These are the work of the devil anyhow. Brute savage things.

He left the useless bits of carcass where they lay and didn’t bother cleaning his blade, resheathing it in the scabbard on his back, under his hoodie. The next member of the Brotherhood he encountered would commingle its blood with that of the baboon. It would be two of a kind, then. Fitting. Kreios continued on up the path.

Ascension Island, present day

“Where do we start?” I asked, bewildered.

“Witnesses,” Michael said.

“Wait,” Ellie said. “I need a moment.” She closed her eyes and sat down on the tarmac. Several minutes elapsed.

I nudged Michael. “Dude. What is she doing?”

He rolled his eyes and shrugged. “Communing with her ancestors?”

“Shut up, you two. I’m trying to feel which way it went. I’m trying to do something here.”

“Feel…which way…it…went?” I asked.

Ellie did not look up at me as she rebuked me. “Listen, mate. You have your gifts, I have mine. Don’t interrupt me again; you’re wasting time.”

Humbled, I leaned into Michael’s chest and said softly, “Uh-oh. I’ve gone from ‘girlie’ to ‘mate.’ Now I’m lumped in with you.” I grimaced at him.

“You’re totally screwed,” he whispered.

More agonizingly silent and motionless moments went by. It killed me. Never mind that my friend Kim wasn’t even herself anymore. Never mind that whatever part of her I had loved for so many years was now probably lost forever in the smashing of her mind. She was shattered now, but I still felt crazed about finding her. Even if it was only her body, even if she was just an unholy habitation for some overly ambitious demon. Even if it meant mortal single combat between us, I was desperate to find my Kimmie.

Ellie broke the silence. “East,” she said, her eyes still closed. “It’s east.”

“I know why you’re calling her
it,
but I don’t like it.”

“I’m not calling her
it.
I’m calling the Bloodstone
it.
There’s still a difference.”

My heart was actually hurt more by the prospect that Kim was somehow still there, still suffering under all the garbage being poured out on her. “We’ve gotta
find
her.”

“Working on it,” Ellie said, sitting still. Her tone of voice was as if she was sitting at some control panel, working dials and switches as she gazed deeply at some readout or something.

I was dying to ask her what she was doing and how she was doing it. But my love for Kim, whatever remained of her, surpassed my curiosity.

“Okay, we’re good,” Ellie said finally, opening her eyes. She sprang up from the pavement and grabbed my hand, pulling me along. “Walk and talk, girlie. You too, commando Joe. We need all hands on deck now.”

“What’s going on?” I hazarded a question as we ran toward the hangars.

“Kreios was here,” Ellie said.

“What?! When?”

“Day or two at most.”

I wanted to skip for joy. We were getting close. I wondered why I couldn’t feel him, couldn’t reach him in my mind. It annoyed me that Ellie could and I couldn’t, but should have been able to.

Ellie continued to drag me along; she was faster than she looked. Michael was falling behind, though he was sprinting and trying his best to keep up with us. “Hey,” I said, “wait for Michael. Hey!” The pace wasn’t slowing. “Hey, Ellie, where are we going?”

“I’m looking for a tool!” she shouted at me, exasperated.

We ducked in and out of open doors, around corners, looking for this tool, whatever it was, in every shed and hangar in the area. Occasionally the odd mechanic or private pilot would look up at us as we sprinted from one place to another, popping our heads into and out of doorways.

Finally, around the back of one of the hangars, there was a small shed rotting away in a state of rusty dilapidation, its corrugated metal sides and roof evoking something out of a role-playing video game. Ellie, still grasping my hand, gave a final burst of speed for the structure and kicked the door down. “There!” she shouted in triumph.

I didn’t get it at first. I was looking for some kind of hand tool, falling for, as Ellie had put it earlier, basically whatever my mind expected to find. I didn’t understand fully until Michael finally caught us up, panting furiously.

He placed one hand against the doorframe and looked into the darkness within the shed. “Whoa,” he said hoarsely, “A Bowler Wildcat!”

CHAPTER XV

LIKE I HAD ANY idea what a Bowler Wildcat was. Boys and their ridiculous off-roaders. And of course it was looming hugely in the shed, unmistakable had I known we were looking for a racing truck.

But I found out soon enough that it was indeed a tool. A tool for seriously fast going on any terrain. How did I find that out? Easy: Five minutes after we found the thing, we were racing east across a bumpy field of volcanic rock like it wasn’t even there.

Since it was a two-seater I had to sit on Michael’s lap the whole time, and contrary to what I might have thought, it wasn’t even close to fun. My head banged against the roll cage and the windows, my butt banged against his lap, my head pounded with the noise, and Ellie never slowed down through all of it.

“You’re a crazy driver!” I shouted at her. But I endured it for the possibility of being able to help Kim.

All Ellie did was drop the hammer, accelerating across the rocky undulating hills until it felt like we were either flying or sailing; I couldn’t tell which.

“So where are we going?” Michael asked, his voice cracking against the noise and heat of the cramped enclosed space.

Ellie pointed straight ahead and straight up. “There! Green Mountain! That’s where Kreios was and that’s where the Bloodstone is!” The racing engine roared even louder and we were gone in a cloud of dust.

Schipol, Amsterdam, present day

Schipol airport in Amsterdam was one of the busiest air terminals in Europe. Flights came in from and departed to nearly every continent. Great walls of steel and glass enshrouded it in a shrine to the sleek and modern. People from every tribe and nation walked its corridors every day.

Among them were two men lately of America, specifically Boise, Idaho. They walked and talked. Their layover would last only about one more hour, then they would have to board their plane for Cape Town via Johannesburg.

“You know, at some point I’m going to have to use the restroom,” Harry said to his companion. “What will you do then?”

“You wanna go? Let’s go.”

“What, together?”

“Certainly. Might as well get it over with.”

Harry shrugged and kept walking toward the sign for the men’s room. “What’re you gonna do? Lend me a hand as well?”

“You’re not funny at all,” Airel’s father said.

“I think it’s a fair question, since you’re nannying me.”

“No, Harry. You’re a big boy. I trust you not to soil yourself.”

Harry grinned a little at the perverse
tete-a-tete,
but mostly he grinned at the idea of what he was planning. “You know…friend…I’m going to need a minute or two here…”

He looked at Harry. “Fine. That’s fine. You go back one out and take your time with it. I’ll be waiting at the sinks when you’re done.”

“It’s a lot of paperwork. If you know what I mean,” Harry said. “I tend to take my time in only two areas of my life, and this is one of them.”

“I’m not asking what the other one is.”

They walked into the restroom, Harry leading the way. He selected the farthest stall and walked straight for it. As he turned to close the door, his hand absentmindedly grasped its sleek metal top edge. He did not have time to latch it.

Airel’s father, following Harry, did not hesitate an instant. He removed his pen from his shirt pocket in mid-stride and aimed the point discretely at the door. The other men in the large restroom went about their own business as men do, making no conversation and not desirous of it. He pressed the pen’s engage/retract button as it made contact with Harry’s stall door, releasing a bio-EMP pulse into and through it, energizing the door with a carefully engineered amount of voltage. It was just enough, and not too much, to accomplish a predetermined effect. It had taken years of R&D in three labs spread across two continents to develop the weapon. But of course, these were all just bullet points in a sales pitch, one Airel’s father had cycled through with many a secret and elite client.

The bio-EMP pulse terminated its fury in the center of Harry’s chest, instantly arresting his heart and contracting selected slow-twitch muscles on his body—the specific muscles that produce the fetal position.

Harry thudded into something. Airel’s father opened the stall door to confirm the kill.

Harry was seated on the toilet; he had involuntarily soiled his expensive trousers. His torso leaned back to one side, propped up by the toilet paper dispenser. His head had knocked against the tile wall, his eyes wide and glassy. A trickle of blood escaped the corner of his mouth.

He was dead. Airel’s father retreated, closing the stall door.

It had only taken half a second. It had only taken half a second. Airel’s father swept the room with experienced eyes as he moved smoothly toward the adjacent stall, as if that was what he had been doing all along. When he turned he noticed one man looking in his direction, disturbed by the racket Harry had raised as he had so violently sat down. He shrugged at him, hiked his thumb over his shoulder at Harry’s stall and said, “Lots of paperwork,” and smiled. The man rolled his eyes and left.

Airel’s father entered his own stall and closed the door. Perfect timing. He had to pee like a maniac. He would be landing in Cape Town in about 16 hours. He could maybe catch up on some sleep. He caught a whiff from next door.
Whoa, Harry. You stink.