Michael (49 page)

He was more than a little surprised to see me, especially up in the rarefied air he normally tread without me. He had so many questions that I was overwhelmed at first. I tried to begin to explain, but then this creature—Nwaba, Kreios called the prince of the Nri—had bellowed at us and we had to put the conversation off for the time being.

I couldn’t help but grin at Kreios as we flew together for the first time.

“I knew you were special, Airel, but this…I cannot believe it!” That just made me grin at him even more.

But the grin was wiped off my face when I saw what Nwaba had done.

There, on a cable car strung out above the city far below, was the biggest demon I had ever seen. He dwarfed the cable car on which he was perched, shrieking at us. In the carriage that dangled below were two figures that at first I did not recognize. One of them was in charge, the other was a hostage. It was obvious from their body language.

But then my newly enhanced eyes picked out something else inside the cable car, stretched out on the floor behind them. I recognized the dress. That little sundress. And the red hair. It was Kim. She looked horrible, like a corpse, and I wondered if she was alive.
If they have killed her…
I began to think of ways to punish the villains for their crimes, but then Kreios touched my arm. I looked at him and he shook his head. He had seen too.

“Remember your lessons,” he said.

I nodded and settled down.

The demon prince spoke.

“Kreios! You have been on a little killing spree, my old friend. Some of the strongest clans fell under your hand. And now you come here. To my house.” A guttural laugh. “And the daughter of El! She has found some new tricks to turn.” The demon looked down into the carriage and said something about a “Mr. Emmanuel” or something.

I looked into the carriage as it rocked under the weight of the monstrous demon. The wings of the beast drooped down far below the bottom of the car, and against the backdrop of the wheelhouse perched on the edge of the mountain, with its massive arched mouth waiting to receive its travelers, the sight was medieval. Dragons and castles filled my mind.

But then two and two clicked together to make four: I recognized the hostage.

No. It can’t be him.
“Oh, no! Kreios! They have my dad!”

“Yes!” Nwaba cried. “Yes, I do! And I am unafraid to snuff his pathetic life!” He bared his teeth and hissed at us.

“Be careful, Nwaba. You are not in a position to make threats,” Kreios shouted at him.

“Am I not?” the demon said.

With that, the goon in the car, who I guessed was Mr. Emmanuel, then shoved my dad almost entirely out the window, holding him back at the last moment.

“DAD!” I shouted, and then noticed that something wasn’t right. My dad was standing, true. But he looked like a puppet on a string, asleep, yet he still stood.

“Shall I drop him?” the goon Mr. Emmanuel said. “Or shoot you in the head?” He then aimed a pistol at me with his free hand.

“Keep moving; don’t hover,” Kreios said, and I took his advice, making little dodging movements in the air that would complicate, if nothing else, a pistol shot at that range; about one hundred feet, which I knew thanks to my new precision eyeballs.

The demon spoke up with a deep guttural voice that made me shiver. “I want only one thing, Kreios. And you know what that is.”

“I do not,” he answered.

“Yes, you do!” the demon prince shouted. He was enraged. “How could you fail to see the most important piece of the puzzle, angel of El? Of course you know!”

Again, Kreios answered him, “I don’t know what you want. Whatever it is, demon, I will not give you anything.”

Nwaba screamed a vicious tantrum into the clear morning air. “Bring me The Alexander!”

Michael? Why would they want Michael?

“Bring me The Alexander, or I will kill her father!”

Panic started tearing at the edges of my mind.

Then I heard distant shouting, I turned to look. There on the service catwalk of the upper wheelhouse, perched on the precipitous cliff, was Michael. He looked like he was ready for a fight.

“Nwaba!” he shouted down at us. “I am right here! Come and get me!”

Wait. What? How did he get there? And where is Ellie?

CHAPTER XII

THE DEMON PRINCE WASTED not a single passing thread in the web of time; he launched from the wires, flinging himself at Michael Alexander with a single mighty stroke of his great wings.

The cable car was thrust into severe bouncing motions as Nwaba pushed off, bobbing on the wires like a weight on a bungee. It fell, then launched upward and then back down again violently.

The passengers inside were all thrown in different directions.

Mr. Emmanuel fell back, his grip on the bait man John broken by the forces at work. He crashed into the opposite wall of the car. The impact knocked the breath from him.

Kim, the host of the Bloodstone, slid into his feet. Either dead or unconscious, he didn’t know and he did not care.

No, what Mr. Emmanuel cared about was the bait man John. He had lost control of him in the swinging motion of the car, being forced to watch in horror as his bargaining chip toppled over the rail and disappeared.

I saw my dad falling and dove after him; there was nothing else to be done. It was horrifying. I managed to catch him, pulling up seconds before we hit the rocks below. He was unconscious, but he was breathing.
What is it with the men in my life needing me to rescue them all the time?!

I had to find somewhere safe for him. I needed to get Kim. I had to help Michael. The more I thought about it, the more the impossibility of the whole thing became clear to me.

“I can’t do everything.” I had to do what I could do and trust El to do the rest. “Please, God. Keep them safe. Michael, Kreios and Kim.”

I scanned the landscape and spotted a boulder-strewn clearing in the nearby mountains. But there was something there that made me gasp.

“Ellie!”

Nwaba the demon prince plucked the boy Michael from the catwalk as easily as an eagle would snatch a trout from a lake, his talons wrapping like prison bars around the boy’s midsection. He flew off with his prey, moving swiftly for the business district of Cape Town, for his high tower.

Thoughts raced through his head; options. Perhaps The Alexander could lead him directly to what he desired most after all. Nwaba touched down on the rooftop of the tower by the big elm. He flung Michael to one side as he landed.

He scrambled away, moving toward the great elm tree, which was in full leaf.

Nwaba chuckled at his fear; it was delicious to him. “Now, boy, we can negotiate.” He now changed, the chameleon lord, into his favorite suit of clothes. His scaly skin became pure white, his tail thinned to a long wire, his face disturbingly humanoid.

Michael began climbing the tree, communicating fear on his face, in his movements.

Nwaba was amused. “What are you doing, boy? Come down, coward!” he pranced and mocked him, cackling wickedly.

He scampered farther up the tree, grabbing for branches, paying him no heed.

“Come now, boy! I won’t hurt you. We must talk, negotiate. I know you are the rightful heir to the Bloodstone. I just want to come to terms with you.”

“You know I don’t have it,” came a voice from within the foliage.

Nwaba was given pause. “So you say,” he said, “But that does not matter. Let us find it together.” He paused again, pacing, his wire tail whipping around. “I know it calls to you, boy. You are the heir. Surely you have heard its sweet whispers…as I have.”

No answer from the tree.

Nwaba crept nearer as he spoke. “Surely, Michael Alexander, you have heard what lies in store. You have seen and heard visions.” He was at the base of the tree, the sticky pads of his hands feeling around for a hold, the claws of his feet sinking into the green wood. He began to climb upward. “You are The Alexander.”

Silence from above.

“I know what conquests can be made. I can still choose a new host, you know that as well as I; you and I can unite and be truly magnificent!” Nwaba articulated his long wire tail upward into the branches of the tree as he climbed, probing for the boy. “Surely you share my thirst for domination.” His voice snapped in contempt for the present situation, for his apparent powerlessness to convince the boy of what he wanted, what he needed.

Mr. Emmanuel regained his feet and began firing his pistol, loaded with .45 ACP magnum load hollow points. First he had taken a shot at Airel, but she was too fast, she was there and then gone, diving after the bait man John. He growled in frustration. Then he took aim at the angel Kreios, who was the only one not moving. The first shot went wide.

The angel moved quickly. Before he could fire another shot, Kreios was inside the car, pushing him away from the door, one iron hand grasping his shirt and the other thrusting his pistol skyward.

He thought fast, waving the fingers of his non-firing hand. The hollow point bullet he had just fired began to circle back around.

“Come now, boy! Do not hide! You cannot hide from me. You cannot hide from the Bloodstone.”

The tail was now far above. It had threaded its snake-like way through the branches, up and over and through, and was now making its way back downward.

“You are The Alexander, boy.” Nwaba saw the boy’s foot resting on a branch before his very face. He smiled. He reached up and grabbed hold of it and then shot forward and up, thrusting his face into the face of the boy, spitting, “It has called your name!”

Michael was unperturbed.

This, for a split second, confused the demon prince.

“Yes, I know,” the boy said. He showed his hand, in which he grasped Nwaba’s tail. It had threaded its way through the tree, up and over a great limb and back down again, and the boy had shrewdly procured it for his own use. “But who are you?”

Very quickly, he looped the wire tail around Nwaba’s head, pulled it tight, and leapt from the tree.