chapter XVIII
Somewhere over the South Atlantic, present day
I KNOCKED LIGHTLY ON the doorframe.
Hex looked up and back at me and smiled. “Come on in.”
I ducked into the cramped space. There were more lights and buttons and screens than I had ever imagined. I climbed into the empty seat to his right as delicately as I could manage, scared to death I would accidentally hit the self-destruct button. After everything that’s happened so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was one.
“Are we getting bored?” Hex was relaxed.
“No,” I said, unsure of what else to say. I looked out ahead of us through the windscreen into the darkening sky. There were clouds peppered below in the distance, the vast dark sea beneath them, an endless backdrop.
“Pretty soon the stars will be out. Have you ever seen the stars from up here?”
“No.” I was really struggling for words; I felt my heart constricting in my chest. I was worried about Michael.
“Well…pretty soon you’ll see them. We land soon. It will be something you can never forget.”
“Are we there yet?”
He laughed. “As I said, soon. Maybe we start to descend in twenty minutes.”
I was glad about that. Michael probably needed a hospital. I pushed the fear down and looked around at the cluster of controls. There were screens with complicated readouts on them, gauges, levers, buttons, knobs. “How do you keep it all straight?”
Hex laughed. “Lots of practice! It appears to be worse than it is. Look, the altimeter says we’re cruising at forty thousand feet. Airspeed, here, indicates mach point eight. And here,” he said, motioning toward the handlebar thing, “that’s called the yoke. You have one too,” he said, pointing to the one on my side.
I shrank back from it slightly, afraid I would inadvertently crash us. Still, it was really cool and I looked out the windows into the darkness, trying to see land. Ahead, way ahead and down, I could just barely see pinpricks of light through the clouds near the horizon. It must be Cape Town.
Hex went on, “Pull back and we go up. Push forward and we go down. It is easy!” He smiled broadly at me.
“Easy, huh.” My eyes swept over the truly bewildering array of information and controls. I couldn’t see how anyone could fly a plane.
“Just like a car, but we move in three dimensions, not two.” His accent got thicker. “De Wright braddahs, dey tink of dis. Veeeery smart, dem.”
I flashed back to the rain-soaked accident on that Oregon highway. The big African I had killed had talked with the same accent. Far from being charming, as it might have been to someone more innocent, it chilled me. I looked out the window to the right and saw a cloud below us. It was different from the others; it was dark and moving in the wrong direction. The other clouds were all moving slowly front to back as the plane rocketed forward. The dark one was moving with us. That’s weird.
I glanced at Hex and he shot me a big smile.
I heard a noise from the back. Maybe Michael is coming around. I turned to look. I saw only that, if anything, all was not well back there. Michael hadn’t moved, but Ellie and Bishop were entangled in what appeared to be some kind of wrestling match. No, check that. It’s a fight!
I looked back at Hex, a smile still plastered on his face. That’s when it finally hit me that we had been completely set up.
The Brotherhood.
No sooner had I thought it when Hex’s sharp and massive elbow collided with my temple. I collapsed. The lights were going out.
“You cannot hide from us,” Hex said, and then everything went white.
Nwaba was a chameleon spirit. He could be anything he dared, and he was old, very old. He was one of the original rebels that had sided with the dark prince from day one. He too had been cast down from Paradise to the Dominion under the sun.
With that kind of pedigree, there were certain carryovers. He could fly faster than any other Brother, for instance.
He had been waiting in the line of succession for his chance at the Bloodstone for millennia. When it had finally come calling, he was ready. It was electrifying.
Nwaba had to confess one thing, if at all: that he was addicted to the unexplainable, the cultic ritual, the mystical. As such, his experience with the Bloodstone was unprecedented and satisfyingly addictive. From the time he had first heard the call, to which he had instantly given his consent, he had been in two places.
Part of him had remained in Africa, but part of him had been pulled to the host, the frail girl named Kim. And he had existed in duality until she had finally succumbed to the inevitability of his wooing sentiments that in fact were mere echoes of what the Bloodstone itself was saying. Once he had gained a foothold—no indeed, once the Bloodstone had gained a foothold in the host girl—he was truly master and commander; he had been sucked right in. It had happened there on the tarmac in that plane: confluence.
It had all come together there.
He had seen the look on the boy Michael’s face, knew he was too weak to continue. And he had seen the daughters of El there with him. He had seen that one with the Sword of his erstwhile companion Tengu, the weapon the outsider Kreios had stolen away from the Brotherhood. Nwaba would prevail, and the Sword would return to the fold.
To that end he had gathered up a welcoming committee. A small part of his Nri army. One hundred of his fittest and strongest that could fly out to meet the three in the air. It would be easy work. There were, after all, already two of the Nri Clan of the Brotherhood on board the plane.
“Get off me!” Ellie shouted, kicking Bishop in the face. But he tackled her again, this time taking her down onto the floor and straddling her.
He reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved a folding razor knife, opening it up. “Daughter of El, it is time to send you home forever!” He drew back to strike.
Taking advantage of this opening, Ellie punched him in the throat twice, making him gag. He weakened for a second and she scrambled out from under him. She stood and kicked his face with her heel, knocking him backward.
As Bishop howled in furious pain and groped at his eyes, she walked over the top of him shouting, “Airel!”
But Airel was down.
Hex twisted in his seat and looked directly at Ellie, pure unleashed hatred fueling the fire of his eyes.
Nwaba was easily the biggest of the Nri clan. His wingspan was over two hundred feet, when he felt like flaunting it, when he wore the right suit of clothes. Or when it was useful. Like now.
He shot ahead of the pack, upward, aiming to intercept the G550. The Nri detachment had flown west from mainland Africa and then begun to loop around and climb as they closed the distance. He would have only one shot at this. The body of his host—the one named Kim—was with him, securely bound to his belly inside the cocoon he had woven for her, pink backpack and all. He pumped his enormous dark blue wings furiously, anticipating where he would cross paths with the plane.
Shrieking by at nearly mach when he made contact, it was all Nwaba could do to rake his claws along the fuselage, grasping for it. He flicked his leg out and up. A great rapier-like talon shot upward against one of the engines as he slid by, his tail to the rear along the plane’s belly. The engine instantly flamed out and exploded, sending bits of shrapnel everywhere and producing a massive plume of smoke that stained the sky. He folded his wings tight against his body, flattening, reducing drag.
Nwaba wanted to do more. The heat of battle descended upon him, bloodlust filled his mouth, and he grasped for more of the slippery aircraft. He pierced through the fuselage with the claws of one hand, holding fast. He flipped his body around, head to the rear, and climbed backward and upward along the rear of the airplane. He wrapped his prodigious barbed tail around the vertical stabilizer. He then sunk the talons of both feet deep into the tapered rear of the fuselage.
As his clawed hands grasped the tailplane, he was ready: he unfurled his great wings.
The effect was like deploying a massive parachute on a dragster. The plane groaned and snapped in protest as Nwaba wrestled it from the sky.
As he violently slowed the plane, the Nri welcoming committee caught up.
The aircraft then split apart at the massive incisions made by Nwaba’s taloned feet.
Both pieces began to plummet to the sea below. He let the tail section go; it sputtered and spiraled, smoke pouring from its remaining engine. He drew his wings back and chased the front section, looking for flailing humans in the darkening sky.