chapter VIII
I OPENED MY EYES.
I was not on the train.
It was bright; the sun was high, its heat making my skin tingle.
I stood with the Sword of Light blazing like a star in my right hand.
To my left: Ellie, sword drawn, clothed in form-fitting robes. Across part of her neck and face there glowed a design that was reminiscent of a tattoo, only like nothing the world had ever seen. I bristled at her presence. Who does she think she is, anyway?
On my right stood Kreios. I turned to him and he smiled at me. Grandfather. My heart nearly burst with the release: all my nagging questions had found their end; it was like the final resolving chord of a symphony. I wanted to throw myself at him as those lovely tones echoed through the deepest crevices of my mind, wrap my arms around his massive frame and cry—I had found him!
Or had I?
His face, the expression he wore, told me there was something else happening. Something I had not yet seen.
We three stood on a low rise before a wide grassy meadow. Beyond it were broken buildings, the ruins of a once great city. These ruins were roundabout; hemming us in. The jagged and wrecked skyline loomed over the meadow on all sides. It reminded me of a place I had only ever seen in pictures. Is that where we are? Central Park? Is this—or was it—New York City?
I hate nightmares. I thought I had moved past them. It seemed like they were just getting worse now.
Then She showed up, but instead of bursting into my consciousness and pelting me with words, She just painted picture after picture, flooding my mind with images, provoking memories, thoughts, emotions. I saw my life. I saw it for what it was: a mix of illness and emotion, danger and decision. Now everything I had ever known—or thought I believed in—was on its head. I saw a scared little girl in a dress and ribbons hiding behind a curtain, pulling the strings of a marionette below her. When I looked down I saw who the marionette was. It was me. And it was clear I was playing with something I didn’t know how to operate.
What am I supposed to do with my newly long life?
“Will it be a gift to you, or a curse?” She asked.
That depends, I answered my pet voice-in-the-head, considering everything for a long while. Finally I thought, How are Michael and I going to be together when I will outlive him? What about a normal life…a family, one day…kids…and a dumb barking dog?
She posited something then, as if I was a student in her class. I saw a picture of the word NORMAL with a gigantic question mark superimposed on it, and the more I looked at the question mark the harder it was to see the word beneath it.
Oh, I get it. What’s normal even mean?
She smiled. It was something felt rather than seen; it was weird.
I looked around me at the wreckage of the city. From time to time, pieces of rotten skyscrapers finally succumbed and fell from immense heights to the overgrown streets below, raising huge clouds of dust, the crashing more shocking because of the eerie silence in which it sounded. Am I supposed to be some sort of hero…saving people from burning buildings?
I turned to Kreios and looked at him, realizing he was only a figment of my own dream. “Will we ever find you?” I asked him. “And if we do…will you have the answers?”
“So much doubt and worry,” She said, scolding me.
My mind would not stop working. Even in my own dreams, I could have no rest. It’s all just so complicated!
“How do you really feel about Michael?” She asked.
I love him…
“Do tigers change their stripes?”
Cryptic. And freaking typical. Will I ever get past what he was; that’s what you’re asking me. Might he do it again? How can I know? I understand why he told the lie.
“Still…it was a lie.”
My stomach ached. I hugged myself and became aware of Michael’s arms around me. We were on the train and he was behind, holding me with strong, warm arms. Isn’t this enough?
“Is it?”
In so many ways, it was not. This is my demon…my curse.
“Find the answer on your own. It’s the only way you can really know the truth. And let her guide you.”
She was gone. I was back in the city, on the little hillock again. Ellie was to my left, only she didn’t appear to be sinister anymore. I wondered about her, but she didn’t regard me. Kreios was to my right again, staring directly ahead as well.
“Be ready, Airel.” Kreios whispered.
I snapped my eyes back to the front.
There was something in the meadow besides grass and wildflowers. Something dark, something that flowed like a spill. Some noxious fume. I could just pick out details as the tentacles of the thing flowed into the open field and slowly took it over and choked the life out of it, like a gnarled hand grasping to kill.
Anti-Cherubs. Infernals. Brothers. Demons. Still others; an approaching army. The Horde was a single organism that breathed from the same cursed lungs, moving as one.
At their front, in the midst of their leading edge, stood a figure cloaked in red, the pure white of its robe peeking out in the breeze that lifted and teased the cloak. A long black staff was in its hand. The Seer had miraculously returned from his overthrow. Or perhaps a new one has been found.
Three angelic warriors stood against the very essence of evil; all that could be mustered. I pretended to be calm but fear rose up inside me. I tried to count but then realized there were far too many thousands for me to continue.
A stone’s throw away, the leader—the Seer—stopped, holding up a pasty white hand in signification to the Horde. They then halted in their many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. It was a sick greeting, like the kiss of Judas. The hand reached to the hem of the hood and pulled it back.
It was Michael.
I wasn’t surprised. I was saddened instead.
His eyes were ablaze, darker and redder than his cloak. Set in the unfailing beauty of his face, it gave him such a striking appearance of beauty intermingled with hateful ugliness that I desperately wanted to look away; it was more than I could bear. His face was a mockery of beauty, a thin shell only just masking truly baleful intent.
Michael…what have you done? Where have you gone? What’s become of you?
He stepped forward.
I met him stride for stride.
In a conference of commanders before the battle, we met alone on the field. The Bloodstone hung profanely on a tether around his neck. His pasty skin seeped black gooey beads of sweat. His voice was not his own, it was hideous and spastic. “What do you want from me?”
“Nothing, Michael. Nothing.”
He spat prodigiously on the ground and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You never believed in me, did you? You doubted. You worried. Well…” his eyes wandered over my body, giving me the creeps. “Now you have what you’ve always wanted. You were right. It was self-fulfilling prophecy. Besides…” his expression was wicked, “I am The Alexander…”
My heart was frantic; I didn’t know what that meant. Did I make him this way? Was he forced back to the Brotherhood because I couldn’t get past my own fears? Because I had never trusted him?
“Maybe if you would have been able to use more self-control…” His tone was mocking.
A flicker of movement. Ellie stepped forward. To my horror, she began advancing toward Michael.
“Ellie… Ellie, no!”
She looked back over her shoulder and I saw her smirk, but she kept going. Michael held out his hand to her and she took it. At his side, she turned to face me. Her eyes were deep red as well.
I was crying now, searching for Kreios, but he was gone. He had abandoned me again. They had all left me; I was here alone with all this evil. Why was I always the one who got discarded, the forgotten one, the one who never quite fit in?
I wanted to throw up.
Instead I threw down the Sword and fell to my knees. “Michael! I will not fight you…I love you!” I choked on my own sobs as Ellie threw her head back and laughed.
Michael’s face was then stripped, stark fear running rampant across his features. “Stand up, Airel, pick up your Sword!” His voice was harsh.
But I couldn’t. The whole earth had stopped. It was the end of all things, and nothing mattered anymore. The sky began to tear like a veil, rolling back like a scroll…