chapter VII
MICHAEL FOUND KIM ALONE near sunrise in the massive ballroom. She was looking out of the ornate windows under the waterfall. The moon hung in the sky obscured by haze, giving it a halo. Angels were on his mind.
“Kim,” he called out from a good distance away. Still, she jumped—even though he had tried to give her fair warning. “Sorry.”
“You say that a lot.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Sorry.”
She rolled her eyes.
“How are you? Bruises healing up all right?” he asked.
“Yeah. I guess so. And look who’s Mr. Dad all of a sudden.”
Michael considered asking himself what he did to deserve this. And then he thought better of it. “You look like you’re deep in thought.”
“Yeah. Go figure. The ditz has a brain.”
“We missed you earlier. In the library.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Okay,” He actually blushed.
It was quiet for a moment, and Michael looked out the window to the valley below. It was beautiful. The grasses were black, but the mind made them green somehow, a mixing of nerve impulses and memory; a sense of what was right and orderly in the world.
“I grew up being taught that the Sons of God were to be banished from the earth,” he said. “El gave the earth to the Brotherhood, not the Sons of God. The reason was never important. It was just how it worked.”
“Where’d you find that verse? First Book of Crap, chapter one? Hello—Michael: God didn’t give the earth to anyone but Mankind. Then Adam and Eve chose to give it away in the Garden, and all of us got to inherit that. It’s Sunday School 101, dude.”
He couldn’t help but be shocked. “Wow, Kim.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said, turning back to the scene below. “You weren’t expecting me to be smart, right?”
“Kim. Is it just an act?”
“Don’t start on me, dude. I am who I have to be in order to fit in. But I have a brain. I can figure things out.” She looked down, regret written on her face. “I just can’t believe I never figured you and James out.” She took a breath. “Airel is more delicate than you know. You need to be careful with her. She overthinks everything. I know her. I know her a lot better than you do.”
“Okay, truce.” He held up his hands.
She smirked. “So. Be careful with my friend, dude.” Her eyes took on a sparkle. “And try not to get her killed again, okay?”
Michael shook his head. “Only if everyone will stop cracking death jokes.”
“Deal.”
“Deal.”
“All right, Mr. Recovering Satan-oholic. If that’s what you call yourself. Tell me more about where we’re at and where we’re going. I’ll get behind you if you have a good enough plan. Otherwise I’m taking Airel out of here whenever she wakes up, and we’re going back to her parents. End of story.”
“All right, what do you want to know?”
“You can start by explaining to me just how everything freaking worked, dude. Why Airel? Why James? Why all this death and crap? If the Devil’s in the details, then show me the cards he’s trying to play.”
He sighed. “Okay. My bloodline is connected to the Bloodstone; all of it interacts with them— with her kind. It activates them, makes them change into immortals, but only in their teen years. During adolescence. Otherwise we miss our chance. And it’s weird, because the Brotherhood, which is like—I don’t know, a secret society—is going around activating the Sons of El, helping them find and access their power, which could destroy us. I mean them. But they do that for one reason only: to destroy El’s agents on earth. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“The Brotherhood exists to hunt them down and kill them, period. When they think they’ve found one they send out pairs, like investigative teams. I was a team with ‘James,’ who was an Infernal. It was my Brother.”
“‘It?’”
“Well. I wouldn’t call a demon a he or a she. It’s a beast. A spiritual manifestation.”
“Oh…”
“Kasdeja,” he said. “That was the Infernal’s actual name.”
She looked at him blankly.
“Stanley was paired with the Seer, Stanley was his host. He was like a general. Or a commander in chief. It’s complicated. But the Infernals are a little further down the ranks; they’re like captains.”
“Whatever.”
“Hey, you asked.” Michael wanted to apologize again, but he figured he’d been doing enough of that to irritate everyone including himself. “Anyway, what would happen is, I would drop in, try to get close and let Stanley’s stone do its work. Once I was sure a change was going on we would initiate the job.”
Kim had a horrified look on her face.
“I know, but this was normal for me.”
“Normal? These are people, and that is twisted. I mean, you killed people. Really killed them. People!”
“Yes, I did. But to me…back then…they were things. Not people.” This is not going to end well.
“I see,” she said, then became very quiet. She crossed her arms and locked her gaze on the graying view through the window. The sun was beginning to lighten the night sky and a low mist began to creep out over the grasses of the meadow. “So what’s your plan?”
“The plan.” He breathed in and out. “I think we need to find Kreios. And I think we need to get out of here.”