chapter XVII
“FIRE IT UP, HEX!” Ellie shouted at her questioning pilot as she walked right by, straight to the door. Michael and I followed suit, glad to be done with the return trip to the airfield via the Bowler insanitymobile.
Hex asked Ellie, “Where have you been? I thought you were only going to be a few hours at most!” He scolded her like a worried parent, following along behind.
Ellie stopped abruptly, turning on him. He nearly bowled her spare frame over, but she stood fast. “Listen, Hex, just get us preflighted and out of here like yesterday, okay? I mean, light it up.” She turned and quickly bounded onto the G550.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“Excuse us,” I said. Michael and I made our way around him toward the door.
“Sorry,” he said. He then turned to his work as we boarded and began doing all those little checks that pilots have to do in order to get the airplane ready to defy gravity.
Cape Town, South Africa, present day
After the refueling stop in Jo-burg, as the locals called it, the plane carrying Airel’s father had only about another hour’s flight to its final destination.
The 747, a city with wings, set down on the tarmac in Cape Town on a mild afternoon. Massive thunderheads loomed in the distance and a shroud of ribbon-like clouds were draped over Table Mountain. There were patches of sunshine that lent places like Hout Bay an aspect of having been lit from beneath, the turquoise color of the sea iridescent.
Though it looked like paradise, Airel’s father knew this was when the real heavy lifting would begin. As the lone sales rep for a clandestine arms and technology house, he did indeed have many tools in his arsenal. And he knew how to ply his trade, as well as the trade of those who bought his wares.
But he didn’t know where to start looking for his little girl.
He knew she had to be here, though. It was clear enough, looking through news reports like the ones he had seen that led him here: Graveyard Massacre. Seventy-five men, two women brutally murdered…Schoolyard Ripper…and all of them with something in common: the same man. Whether it was a grainy photo or a still from security camera footage, he could recognize the blond killer from the BPD report on the original incident at the movie theater. When he finally put it all together it was like a parting of the clouds to reveal pure sunshine. This mysterious blond-haired man had crossed paths with Airel once too often. Now he would cross swords with Airel’s father. To the death.
He didn’t know what the killer wanted with his daughter. He could only assume she needed help and that the killer, if backed into a wall, would eventually lead him to wherever he was keeping her. He had all kinds of tools he could use that made people talk.
Now one problem remained: Where to find the bastard?
Somewhere over the South Atlantic, present day
Before I knew it we were airborne, bound for South Africa, Cape Town direct. It wouldn’t be more than a few hours; Hex was flying us close to mach, the speed of sound.
I was worried about Michael. He had obviously not fared well on our little adventure up the mountain. He sat scrunched in his seat, his eyes closed, beads of sweat on his brow. I adjusted the ventilation so that a cool stream of air washed over his face. I loosened the collar of his shirt a little so his skin could breathe.
That’s when I first noticed the mark on his chest.
My mind flashed with anxiety, my hands pulling at the buttons of his shirt in desperation as more and more of the weird wound showed itself. It was like a star, purple-black at its center with spiral tendrils radiating out from there in red and yellow, that ugly bruise-yellow that attends blunt force trauma.
“Michael!”
It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t responding. He wasn’t just tired. He seemed like he wasn’t all there, like he was…I couldn’t go there. Oh, no. What’s happened? I was going to lose it.
My hands grasped each other and I brought them reflexively up to my chest, next to my scar. Then She crowded into my mind. “You have a wound from the same blade.”
I was stunned. I remembered it, my hands now clasping my chest, rubbing the only scar I would wear forever. It was clear: I could heal. Michael could not. I searched inwardly, racking my brain for an answer.
That’s what happened. I remembered what I had seen in my vision, when I was…what, dead? Kreios healed him with the Bloodstone. I remembered everything; how Michael had howled in pain and confusion as my grandfather brought the Bloodstone to his chest. I sat back in remorseful silence. There were no tears. I just shook my head.
“It was a curse that he laid upon him,” She said. “But he thought that was what you would have wanted…for Michael to carry on…however possible…”
I could tell She was sad. I had never known her to be like that. And it was a heavy thing indeed for a girl to have a broken-hearted conscience.
But what kind of life would that be? I protested to her. It was clear that Kreios didn’t really know me. Not if he thought I wanted Michael to live under some irrevocable curse.
Ellie was now at my side, a look of concern on her face. She said nothing. I was glad. I wouldn’t have known how to deal with a conversation then.
Michael stirred in his fever, muttering one word: “Kasdeja…Kasdeja…” He said it over and over.
Finally Ellie said, “I’m sorry, girlie. I think that last run-in with the Bloodstone really did a number on him.”
Yes, it had. It was all that and so much more. Michael had been carrying the load, he had been doing the heavy lifting for all of us. He never sought the limelight, never did what was best for himself, never wanted for anyone else to be too worried about him. He had kept it all to himself.
Meanwhile I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off, bouncing from one crisis to another. But he was steady. I cursed myself out loud. No. I won’t believe it’s too late. Not after all this. Not after all we’ve done, all we’ve endured. We’re almost to the finish line! I couldn’t quit now.
Kreios would know what to do. If anyone would, he would. “Ellie,” I said, “I think he needs water. I’m going to go get him some.”
She nodded. “It’s in the back there. In the cupboard.”
“All right,” I said, getting up and walking to the back. Cupboard, huh? Everything was stainless steel and latched shut against the possibility of turbulence. There was nothing to it but to go through all of them methodically. Top to bottom, left to right. I was glad for a menial task to take my mind off how badly Michael looked, how I was powerless to help him.
The smaller doors hid first aid stuff. Then there were cups, glasses, all of them crystal or sterling silver. There were napkins, plates, and so on.
Across from these my search for bottled water got colder. All that was in these cabinets was what looked like Ellie’s stash of military spec survival gear. I had opened every door on the stupid plane, I thought, until I came to one that was bigger still than all the others. Warmer. I should have started here; this looks like a fridge. And it was.
Once I released the latch and opened the door I stood back bewildered. It was stocked with every imaginable kind of chilled beverage. Plus there was cheese. Lots of it. Exotic stuff like Muenster and Camembert. The bottled water was near the bottom toward the back. I grabbed a couple bottles and made my return journey toward the nose of the plane.
I walked up to Michael and Ellie. “Here you go,” I said, offering her the bottle.
She took it. “Thanks.”
I sat back down next to Michael and tried to get him to take a sip of the cold water. Turning to Ellie, I said, “Dude. What’s with the cheese?”
She laughed. “There’s a lot of it, ain’t there? It’s a weakness. More of a hobby, really.”
“You’re really weird,” I said, and I meant it.
She took it as a joke and laughed, making us both laugh. It was a bittersweet moment. If I couldn’t laugh I knew I would start in with the waterworks; Michael looked like death.
Bishop interrupted us. “Everything okay?” he asked in his thick African accent.
Ellie answered for us. “Yes, Bishop, of course.” She smiled at him and he returned it redoubled, his pure white teeth and pure white crewman’s shirt gleaming against his deep brown skin.
“I’ve just got to make sure you people are well attended to, that’s all.” He smiled and excused himself to the rear of the plane.
When he had gone I said, “I really like that guy.”
“Oh, girlie, Africans are superb. I love them. Did you know there are ten official languages in Zed-A?”
“Ten?” I was flabbergasted.
“Yeah, most of ‘em are tribal; either Zulu or Xhosa or Sutu. Bishop is Zulu. He’s only been with me a little while, maybe four months, but I’ve been really impressed with him.”
I laughed and allowed my gaze to wander to the open door of the flight deck. I had never been allowed to look out the front of an airplane while it was flying. I looked at Michael, then at Ellie. Michael was resting, he had taken a swallow or two of the water and was no longer muttering incoherently.
She must have read my mind. “I’ll look after him, girlie. Go ahead. He just needs rest; I don’t think he knows how to take care of himself.” She motioned me forward toward the cockpit.
“Hex won’t mind?”
“Hex? No, in fact he’ll be glad for a change of company. I’ll keep Bishop occupied back here.”
This is cool. I stepped forward, glad for a diversion from all the stress. “I’ll be right back.”
Muizenberg, South Africa, present day
Kreios walked barefoot along the cool empty beach in Muizenberg, the colorful swimmers’ stilt house changing rooms lining the wide sandy expanse above the high tide mark. He could no longer ignore the huge drain on his mind, his body, his will. New thoughts started to take shape in him, new ideas. They were different. Dark and ugly.
It could be that I have overstepped, he began. Like the gentle waves along the shore of Muizenberg, the thoughts were small but consistent and relentless.
He felt the draining pull toward it.
But he also felt El somewhere in the midst of it all. He couldn’t tell if El was the source of the new thoughts—which called him home to paradise, or so it seemed—or if El was in opposition.
Kreios allowed himself a bittersweet indulgence and set his mind searching along all the old corridors of pain and loss within. His bride: the day he had held her in his arms as she expired from a long and fatal childbirth; the day he buried her in the frozen ground. His Eriel: the day she had simply vanished and he could not know if she was alive or dead. Or worse, if she had been ultimately turned by the Brotherhood that had activated her. And Airel. Sweet girl. Too short, his time with her. That had been the case every time.
The depths of his broken heart cried out to El for an answer, and this for the first time since before all this insanity had been set in motion, before the episode at the movie theater, before he had been forced to intervene in Airel’s life. As the heart of the angel of El broke, as he became utterly desperate, as he asked foundational questions, a ready answer came to him.
“Stand and knock.” Kreios heard the voice of El as clearly as when he had been with Him in Paradise. He was alone on the beach, except for a few lone figures in the distance. He wriggled his bare toes into the sand and waited for more. There is always more.
He closed his eyes and willed his mind to become clear and oriented solely on El. Moments passed. And then it appeared: the door.
It was the selfsame door behind which Kreios had always been able to find answers. Of course, it had usually happened that the answer was in the form of a weapon. But this time it was different. This time it was not a weapon. It was an enjoinment. The frameless door opened to him.
The mind of El poured pure light into his angel of death, calling to remembrance all the instances of purpose and power for which he had been created and to which he had been called. Kreios recalled his forgotten itinerant works, especially in Egypt on the night of the first Passover, the night he had moved through the streets of the city of Pharaoh in the middle of the night, looking for lamb’s blood on the lintels, slaughtering every firstborn son. He had forgotten. Until now.
He had forgotten about the conquest of Canaan, too. He had forgotten about his help to the commander Joshua, to the great king David. These were righteous warring men with great quantities of bloodshed on their hands. Kreios was of the same construct.
As El poured understanding into him, Kreios remembered it all. And then the perspective shifted in regard to his current mission. It was not a desperate lone-rogue bursting fit of rage, a reaction to unconscionable Brotherhood transgressions. No. It was instinct. Kreios had been made for such a thing, such a time as this. He had been created for it.
As Joshua had held the javelin aloft, so El now lifted Kreios up. And then El said the rest; what Kreios had been waiting to hear: “See, I have given them into your hand.”
The door faded and he opened his eyes. He could feel his strength begin to return.
“Lift up your eyes.”
Kreios did, and beheld a swarm of birds darkening the sky.
They were headed west. He looked closer at the unusual sight. No. Those are not birds.
No, indeed. They looked like bats, more like. But there was some trickery going on, some sleight of hand, some manipulation of the willing.
There were only two possibilities. One was that the bats were flying low, perhaps no higher than two hundred feet above the ground, and that their wings beat slowly, not enough to keep them aloft. The second solution was that he was not seeing bats at all. He was seeing a hundred enormous demons, their wingspans not mere inches across but whole yards, beating in time against acres of atmosphere, and they were flying considerably higher.
The dark cloud moved west, against prevailing wind, out to sea as the sun set. It was a new wrinkle, and it pulled upward at one corner of Kreios’ mouth.