Michael (47 page)

Outside, thousands upon thousands of Nri demons deposited their hosts on the roof and then clustered upon the building like an ant hill, crawling downward on its obsidian glass surfaces, penetrating through every aperture and crack to its interior, trembling with caustic delight at the prospect of conquest.

The master had issued the call to arms. That hadn’t happened for a thousand years.

Inside the building, now just one floor below the penthouse, the angel Kreios stood nearly omnipotent, in submission only to El. He awaited instructions.

Then in the middle of the night, as a closed door suddenly opens upon a new way—a path anticipated by faith—Kreios understood what he would do. El had made sense of his vendetta for revenge on the Brotherhood; He would make sense of this new thing as well.

Kreios was off like a shot, a bolt of pure lightning.

He pierced straight through the remaining structures that remained overhead, into the sky. The report of his flight was visible for miles around. He flew straight up, the trail he left behind pure white light.

Nwaba’s pathetic little ritual was thrown into chaos as the building shook. The demons on the ceiling chattered nervously, the bait man swung to and fro in his chains, and even Mr. Emmanuel was flustered in the reading of the incantations.

The three Anti-Cherubs wasted no time. They scurried back through the opening in the ceiling, gone. Gone.

Nwaba shrieked his displeasure and rage to the four winds, issuing immediate orders to seek and destroy the angel Kreios. What Brother could bring back his head would be promoted to second in command.

The swarming frenzy of Nri demons that had shrouded the skyscraper in a surging mass of hideous activity now peeled off like wasps, following the trail left by the angel.

I found part of a sandwich on one of the outside tables in the café, which, by the way, was what Bertha’s was; a restaurant. I had assumed it was some kind of clothing store, given how cryptic
She
had become.

My mouth watered as I looked at the half sandwich. I looked around like a thief before wolfing the whole thing down. I figured I could be grossed out later. My body was reminding me of my equally strong desire for a drink of water just then, when my eyes were drawn to something in the distance.

Then I saw it: Something pierced the sky in the distance like lightning. Except it was going straight up.

What is that?

Kreios was drawing the entire Nri clan out from its high citadel, the physical amplifier for its Babylonic power. The skyscraper had served from the time of its construction as a conduit for the transfer of power from the spirit realm to the natural. As such, Kreios reasoned, if it could be destroyed or at least minimized in the battle, the Nri would scatter like roaches when the lights came on. He trusted that El had a plan.

If the feint was to work properly, he would have to slow down and give the demons something to attain. In other words, he would have to let them catch up a little. Once more, he had to demonstrate what he believed with action.

But as he did so, he felt an old familiar drain on his angelic abilities. His heart sank. This could simply not be so.

Now he was entirely exposed in the sky, nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, no weapon in his hand and no clues from El as to what to do next. The more he fell back, the more his strength was sapped. He had gone too far this time. Past the tipping point. They would have him soon, and when they did, his life would indeed end.

Unless El does something.

Kreios fell still farther back. He reached out to El, questioning.

“Just watch,”
was all he heard.

Nwaba watched his entire army depart, giving chase to a single angel. He began to have second thoughts as to the tactical sustainability of his last orders. He considered a countermand, but in the end dismissed it as impractical. Besides, he didn’t have even a single courier to send so that the order could be rescinded. He growled and let it be.

The tower could remain unguarded as long as the primary foe was completely engaged in battle, and that was Kreios.

But is it?
Doubts filtered in around the edges of his mind. Was Kreios indeed the primary source of enemy power, or had Nwaba fallen for a ruse of war? It was too large for him to understand. Nevertheless, he had his instincts. And they were telling him to fly, that it was no longer safe to stay in the tower now. It was a target, and he, if he was smart, would get away from it as quickly as possible.

But where to go?
Somewhere with leverage, that’s where.

He whipped his long thin tail around, skillfully cutting the chains that held the bait man aloft. He fell to the floor a wreck, beside the now fully thawed body of Kim. She was nothing but a cadaver.

The only pulse that remained within her now found its source in the Bloodstone. When the two were united and the transition ritual performed, she could be discarded. Until then she would remain useful, however.

“Mr. Emmanuel, we depart now. Gather these slaves.”

CHAPTER IX

I STOOD ON THE ground slack-jawed, looking at something impossible.

A bolt of pure light, evidence of heaven, shot straight up into the sky.

Kreios.

I spoke my grandfather’s name in awe: “Kreios!”

When I first saw him blasting through the atmosphere on a trail of light, my heart took to flight as well. I remembered his training; that love is the most powerful force in the universe. Indeed, love was all I
could
feel when I saw my grandfather. It was an awesome thing to see him take to the skies.

I let the waves of emotion roll over me. I allowed my heart to roam free in the excitement of knowing that my grandfather was still alive, that I might soon be reunited with him, that he might soon learn the truth about me—that I, too, was still alive. I had to get to him.

I realized then in my reverie that I had closed my eyes.

I opened them to discover that I was more than twenty feet above the pavement.

What the heck?!

Thankfully,
She
interrupted my alarmed thoughts.
“Concentrate!”

I obliged, wide eyed. I thought of the last thing I could remember before I found myself hovering above the street.
Kreios.
I was thinking about seeing him again. Our reunion. I stared at the horizon, at the vertical line described by my grandfather’s incredible flight through the air.

I glanced down. I was now more than one hundred feet above the ground, in the darkness of the predawn sky.
Whoa.
My mind calculated things I hadn’t needed before. It made accurate tallies of altitude with a glance, brought me trajectories and g-force loads and sharpened my vision incredibly. While I was taking it all in,
She
interrupted me again.

“Change of plans. Kreios needs you more than Michael right now.”

I was a gigantic question mark inside.
What?

“Use the Sword. Defend your family. Airel…you were born for this. Awaken!”

Something inside me took hold. It was beyond thought or explanation. It just was. The word she used—
Awaken
—was perfect. I felt like every part of me, both human and angelic, once mere averages and mostly asleep, were now wide awake and aware of everything in my environment.

Wideawake.
That’s what I was. It struck me that there simply was no such thing as coincidence anymore.

My eyes, once wide with new realization, now narrowed into the hard countenance of the warrior. Whatever had happened,
She
was dead right. I could do this.

I concentrated on one thing: speed.

If I could have seen myself, I might have fainted. I was starting to come into my own. The awakening process, much different from mere activation, had given me my wings. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them. With that change had come new powers of observation, like altitude and airspeed over ground, stuff like that. But I had also gained a new set of eyelids. It sounds gross, but they were cool. They slid down to protect my eyes from the sheer force of the wind rushing against them in flight. They were a little like those nighttime driving glasses, only far cooler and much more useful. They sharpened my sight, protected my eyes, illuminated everything.

I was definitely coming into my own.

I focused on where I needed to be: straight ahead ten miles and about twenty thousand feet straight up. I set my jaw and leaned forward.

I was gone, out of there.