chapter XIV
A HUM.
A low pulse reverberated through my body.
It went in, faded out near to completeness, and then came back stronger and stronger until it felt like it was going to explode me, rattle me to pieces from the inside out.
I opened my eyes and saw it. A monster standing over a sea of blood.
My wrists were broken—both of them. I lifted my hands to inspect the damage but they hung limply from the ends of my arms. Sharp pain shot up my arm and into my heart. What was this? A dream? I could remember something familiar about this place. The jagged black earth, pointed and clustered like shark teeth. Barren woodlands, gaping mountains ringing the valley where I stood. And a smashed cage all around me.
The robed creature was motionless save for one hand, which was lifted up against me; pointing at me.
I stepped forward. The sea of blood flowed in waves and was about to cover my feet. But it wasn’t blood—it was thousands, millions of small red stones. Each one pulsing, each one moving in hideous orgiastic rhythm to one another.
Bloodstones.
I could hear them as they moved. They grew in number, sounding like shards of glass clinking together. The red color was striking against the black landscape, vivid. The sky was a gray smudge, crowded with clouds.
Take it, Airel. You are the end.
I heard a familiar voice in my head, but it wasn’t She. It was another.
Something about the whole scene was different this time. The robed figure was smaller. I walked closer to it, the Bloodstones breaking under my feet like the bodies of enormous insects. “What do you want? Why am I here?”
It continued to stand with hand outstretched.
I walked closer still. With each step of my hiking boot, the wet crunching sound made me want to scream in disgust. It sounded horrible. “There are so many…”
You are the key, Airel. You died and yet live. Now another must die.
I was close now. Its head was down, the hood covering all. I couldn’t see what—or who—it was. “Who are you? Key to what?” My hands throbbed with pain, otherwise I would have reached out and pulled back the hood.
The Bloodstone tide was rising; they hummed and pulsed through me louder and louder, rising up to my knees. I couldn’t breathe.
The hand came down.
The head was lifted up. Inside was total blackness. No eyes, no face. Just nothing.
“The key!” It said. No. Not it; I knew this voice. It couldn’t be.
Now the pulsing grew exponentially. Bloodstones boiled out from under the robe of the creature. The tide rose up to my chest. I tried to get free but my hands screamed in protest each time I reached down to push up from the billowing pile.
I looked over my shoulder. The huge valley was filling up with them. Red as blood. Boiling in from everywhere. The sound was deafening. “No. NO!”
It reached up with long white fingers and pulled back the hood. Red hair billowed out. Kim smiled at me with flaming eyes. She grabbed my arm.
“No—No—NO!”
I jolted awake.
The seatbelt yanked me back, giving me whiplash. I growled in confusion and rubbed my shoulder where the belt had dug in.
“You okay?” Kim was leaning over me, looking up from the back seat. She had her hand on my arm but I pulled it away, hugging myself.
“Geez! Fine, I was just trying to be nice.” She sat back in her seat, folded her arms and pouted. “I’ll just sit here in the super comfy plastic straitjacket chair, don’t mind me.”
“No, no, sorry. I just had a nightmare…” I reached back and took her hand, pulling her forward. “I’m sorry, Kim. I was just scared from the…er, dream.”
Michael glanced over at me while driving. I gathered he had been watching the whole thing. “You were saying something about a key in your sleep.” He eyed me suspiciously.
“I can’t remember,” I lied.
“Well, it was freaky. You were mumbling incoherently and then just screamed. Loud.”
“Yeah, I just about peed my pants.” Kim said with a snort. “Where are we? I think I dozed off too.”
My stomach tightened into a little ball. I wonder if she had the same dream. Nah, she would have told me…unless she can’t remember. I settled back into my seat and pretended to stare out the window.
We stopped at a truck stop in Mountain Home to eat breakfast. I excused myself for a moment and took a little walk through the chrome section. Truckers…only a truck stop has a chrome section. I looked around at all the accessories that could be bought and plastered onto those enormous freight trucks. It was crazy. There were those ubiquitous chromed mudflap girls, a totally skanky silhouette of a woman. I had to move on; I was so out of place; it creeped me out.
I walked outside and watched the traffic coming and going on the freeway; the eighteen-wheelers pulling in to gas up. That’s a life lived on the run. I wonder if that’s all I have left. After a few moments to myself and some fresh air, I had begun to feel a little worse.
What am I doing? This is not the best plan…letting myself fall even more in love with Michael. If anything, I should be pulling away, watching, thinking it through, waiting to see if we ever could make it. I should be smart about all this…but I can’t help myself. It was like the undertow at the Oregon coast on those summer vacations when I was just a girl, a dangerous sweeping pull that I couldn’t help or control.
Kim found me. “Hey girl.”
“Hey. You feeling any better?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m not homicidal anymore. Sorry about all that.”
“Oh, no worries,” I said, rolling my eyes. “As long as we have cinnamon mini doughnuts.”
She didn’t get it. Joke fail. D’oh. D’oh-nut. Wow, Airel, get a grip.
“Let’s find Michael,” we said simultaneously, and then giggled like the best friends we used to be. That’s how it feels. Like it used to be. I was going to be overwhelmed again soon if things didn’t start looking up. I shivered and was getting mad at myself for getting so worked up over a dream. My mood was in the tank now, when only an hour ago I was just enjoying being and talking with Michael.
We walked back to the kidnapmobile and found Michael horking down a huge egg and bacon breakfast sandwich. “Look at this,” he said with his mouth full.
“Ew,” Kim said.
“Holy Captain Chipmunk Cheeks,” I said. “Hungry?”
He swallowed, washing it all down with an enormous swig of soda. “Seriously, look at this,” he pointed to his superduperphone.
“Holy Bucket, Batman! How many ounces is that thing?” I asked, pointing at his drink. Kim spat and snorted, a burst of mean-spirited laughter. I leaned over to see the screen of his phone. It was an article about a mass murder in Oregon.
My mood got serious. “You think it’s him.”
“Yeah,” he said.
Kim regained her composure too, and looked on.
“It was a group publicly called The Brotherhood of the Chameleon, a secret society. It looks like they had their own campus and everything. The only reason anyone knows anything about them now is because they’re all dead. I guess the investigators were looking for some way to connect all of them. Look at that,” he said, pointing to a picture of the blackened remains of a big building.
“What’s that?” Kim asked.
“Looks like it might have been an old school or something,” I said.
“Yep. The whole school was burned to the ground. This says over a hundred people died in the fire.”
“Dang; he’s not messing around,” I said under my breath.
“How do they know it was murder and not just a fire?” Kim asked.
Michael handed out the rest of the contents of the bag of fast food to Kim and me. I unwrapped my own massive breakfast sandwich and scanned the rest of the article as I took a bite. “The burned bodies were in pieces—all over.” I smacked my jaws together; I was hungrier than I thought I was.
Kim whistled. “So that’s Kreios? Angel gone bad. Man, remind me never to piss him off.”
“Well, it could be,” Michael said.
“So we’re heading to Oregon. When do we leave?” I asked. I wanted to find my grandfather as fast as we could. I needed to know what I was supposed to do now, where I was supposed to go; I was lost without Kreios.
“As soon as we gas up. We need to get a few things and buy a couple of Tracphones so you guys can try to call home.”
“Where is all this money coming from?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? Kreios has been alive for thousands of years…and I know where to look. I found a stash of cash at the house.”
“Now you tell us,” Kim broke in. “If I would have known that I would have made you take me to the mall!”
“Hello?”
When I heard my mom’s voice I wanted to feel her arms around me so bad that I thought I would die of sheer anxiety. But all I could do was sigh into the phone and say, “Hey, Mom. It’s me.”
“Airel?! Airel, is that you?”
“Yeah, mom, it’s me.”
After a good ten minutes of excited screaming and crying and pleading, Mom and Dad finally calmed down and quit talking over each other. I missed them so much. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen them.
I could tell that Mom was just really glad that I was okay and unhurt. But Dad…that was another story. I had never in my life heard his voice sound that way. I guessed he was beyond angry. Maybe a little of it was directed at me, which was only human, but most of it was directed at the nameless and faceless kidnapper. Well, he was nameless and faceless for now. I didn’t want to see how that particular confrontation would go down.
“Mom, I know. It sounds insane, but really it was all just a misunderstanding.”
“Just tell us where you are. We will come and get you.”
Then the phone changed hands. “Airel, this is Special Agent Gretchen Reid, FBI. We have geolocated your position and we’re on our way to rescue you. Stay put, stay safe, and stay quiet. If your attacker comes back be sure to hide the phone you’re using as long as possible. If he tries to move you, just dial 911 until you get a connection—”
“No! No, that’s—you don’t understand,” I tried to explain. “It was just a misunderstanding and I know I’ve been gone for probably months, but I’m fine. Really, and—”
The phone was quiet. Then the FBI agent said, “Airel, you’ve only been missing for 36 hours. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Wh—”
“We’ll be there in an hour. Maybe sooner if we can get a helo. Stay put.”
I heard some chatter in the background about mental instability. Oh, no! Oh my gosh! I hit the cancel button and ended the call; partly out of reflex and partly out of fear. Oh, NO! Now what have I done?
“What’s wrong?” Michael asked, a look of concern on his face.
I tried to control my breathing. I looked back at Kim, who was passed out again. “Did she make her call yet?”
“No. What’s wrong?”
“Dude, just please keep driving. Get us out of here.”
I didn’t know which way was up. All I knew was my fear. My parents had called the cops on me! And what was all that about 36 hours? How was that even possible? I felt massively unsafe; even more so now that my parents were wrapped up in all my problems. Everything I touch turns to dust, I thought. How could I even begin to explain this to them? I felt so powerless. There really is no going back. If I try to get to my parents I would risk their safety. I could never do that to them…
“Airel, seriously. What is going on?”
“It’s nothing,” I said, eyes locked dead ahead on the road. “It’s just that the cops are after us now.”