URIEL: The Price (The Airel Saga, Book 6) (Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (8 page)

She wouldn’t have called it liquefaction as scientists in the 20th century would do, but in this case, a name for the phenomenon was irrelevant, semantics. Combined with what Qiel was capable of doing, what he was indeed now doing above ground—calling the seas up from the depths of the earth, those immense gates El had opened in the Great Flood—Ke’elei’s destruction was imminent.

In short, her power to dissemble was hijacked by the overwhelming power of the Bloodstone. When she had taken herself apart and blended with the Stone in her attempt to steal it, the damage was total and immediate. She became an automaton, a slave. And the stone held the bit, the bridle, and the whip.

The moment had arrived.

She had deployed herself in a radius of several leagues in the bedrock under the city. Now with a single thought, she triggered her power, and every particle of earth she touched came unglued. As gravity called the mass downward like sand in an hourglass, Qiel called the sea upward from below.

It would create a sinkhole leagues across, and it would devour every man, angel, and demon within reach of its jaws.

* * *

ABOVE GROUND, URIEL MOVED as a shadow. She could feel the ground begin to tremble underfoot. The Brotherhood’s main force had breached the city wall in three places, not the least of which was the main gate. The barbican was now engulfed in flames. Demons flew, dropped from the sky, and took the city from above. The angelic army was growing weak and would soon be overcome.

Uriel heard the rushing of water but paid no mind. She had one task remaining, and than she knew the Bloodstone would cast her aside like so much trash. She had never felt so conflicted before. The last thing she had to do was the last thing she wanted to do.

Yamanu. Teacher of the shadowing arts. He stood not far off, leaning against an archway, breathing in ragged gulps, his back heaving with many sorrows. He was weeping. He no doubt wept for the fall of the City of Refuge, for the loss of so many of his kind, for Anael’s heartless betrayal—one compounded, no doubt, into many over the centuries, given what she knew of him.

Uriel could feel Zedkiel’s sword in her hand as she approached her uncle to take his life. She could feel a tear escape and roll down her smoke-smudged cheek as she understood what she was going to be forced to do.

* * *

QIEL DESCENDED FROM THE heights to the city, having opened the floodgates upon the Brotherhood. Ancient ones—creatures that would live on only in later man’s fairy tales as dragons, dinosaurs, and monsters—now stalked the forests. The seas welled up from below and permeated the battlefield, destroying most of the enemy’s main force and giving the monsters of the sea great advantage.

Qiel had learned and done much since that day in the tower, when he first discovered his affinity for water and its power. He discovered a kinship with sea beasts; he was able to control Leviathan with his mind. He could summon the floods from below and make the skies precipitate.

And he had learned he was desperate. While he harbored animosity for his mother because of her failure to protect him, both from outside forces as well as himself, he would do anything to find her and free her.

Desperate things.

Even things with little hope of success.

Like breaking the Brotherhood from the inside.

In the forest below, men drowned in a tidal wave he produced with his mind. Water twisted around him like the arms of an octopus as he grabbed demons out of the air and tore them in half. Others he slapped to the ground, sending daggers of frozen seawater deep into their flesh. His control over the element was incredible even to himself. Somehow the water knew what he wanted, and it responded with total obedience.

But one last foe remained to Qiel.

Anael.

He hovered over the city wreathed in red lightning, striking out at any, man or angel, who dared to venture through the streets. Qiel could feel the earth tremble beneath him, and it caused him to dread. If his mother was dead, he feared what he would do. Pray, Anael, for your sake that she lives.

There remained to him yet one more way to wage war against this enemy. Precipitation. As Qiel thought it, the rains began and heavy hailstones fell. At first, they were light and spitting, but it soon augmented into a monsoon, drenching and pelting everything in the valley. Anael raged on in the sky, striking out against the innocents below him with bursts of lightning one after another.

Qiel did not understand with his reason why in order to seal the victory he needed to force Anael to touch the earth, but he knew it nevertheless. He sensed by instinct that it was not enough that Anael was now soaked. Bring him to ground was all he could think, so he did.

From the middle of the sky directly over Anael’s head, Qiel caused the rains to intensify, and under this waterfall Anael became completely submerged and began to fall. Qiel could feel how he was suffocating within it, and it made him smile.

The force of the waterfall’s weight carried the traitor down and down, closer to the earth. Anael hovered a few handbreadths above the ground, the waterfall crashing over him. Then with a cracking peal of thunder, a thick red arc of lightning surged from the ground, through the gathering waters, and into Anael.

He fell, quiet and motionless.

Qiel allowed the waters to subside.

Pinning him down with daggers of ice, Qiel drew near. Anael’s arms and feet were bleeding, turning the water puddled around him to red. The ice daggers stuck out of his flesh like huge nails. “You took my mother,” Qiel said. “Where is she? Does she live?”

Anael coughed up blood and laughed. “She is your mother no more, my son. She now belongs to the Bloodstone.”

Qiel did not understand what the old man was saying. “Shut your mouth. You turned me into this monster. You activated these powers. Now you shall reap your just reward.” When Qiel raised his hands to strike, Anael lifted his hands and smiled, and Qiel hesitated, thinking. Mother only ever told me the smallest bits and pieces about what we both truly are. He was hungry to know the nature of the blood that now ran in his veins.

Anael gurgled. It was a laugh. “He hesitates. But why?”

Qiel growled. “Why does a young man seek a sage, old man?”

Anael sneered. “Answers. You hunger for an answer to the riddle of what you are. Oh, what’s to become of me?” he mocked. “Come close, my son. I have the answers—I can tell you everything you want to know.”

“What price? Your life, I suppose?”

Anael coughed up more blood and shook his head. “No, boy. I want yours.”

Qiel could not mask his surprise.

Anael waved a hand, dismissing his fears. “A simple trade—your life for your mother’s.”

Qiel lowered his hand. It wasn’t strictly in surrender, but the gesture also wasn’t devoid of consideration. “Why?”

Anael writhed in pain. “I die, and you torture me with ridiculous questions. Time is short. Yes or no?”

“Who am I that you would want me over her?”

Anael gestured to the chaos around them, above and below them. “You are a perfect contradiction—a Son of El with the blood of the Brotherhood running through you. You are a half-breed able to wield the power of El and to resist the curse of the Brotherhood.” He moved his hands as if casting a spell. “Imagine.”

Qiel had to admit that he had already done such things. And more.

“You are the next Seer, my son. The heir to the throne.”

Qiel clenched his fists and stepped backward. “No.”

Anael’s eyes reddened as his features fell slack. “You will, boy. Or your mother will surely die.”

* * *

KREIOS FOUND HIS OLD friend lying facedown in the rain. This was the last of the pureblood angels of El.

Save for one.

Kreios. And Kreios would be the last.

Yamanu was dead, struck down with Zedkiel’s own sword. Kreios, El’s Angel of Death, knelt over the warm corpse of his companion and lamented all. He was not given, but an instant to grieve. There was a mighty rumble as the ground gave way beneath everything he could see.

Kreios took slowly to the sky, hovering and staring in shock as Yamanu’s body was taken down and consigned to this mass grave, his end, their end, the loss of everything Kreios and his kind had ever had together. It all crashed in upon itself and sank down into the ground, swallowed up by the earth.

Ke’elei was gone.

CHAPTER XV

Elsewhere

THERE WERE PEOPLE IN my room, talking excitedly. I searched for Mom. She was not in her usual chair by the window. I couldn’t turn my head or move, so I was limited to what I could see from my back.

Someone said, “Keep administering CPR. Tell the nurse to get a defibrillator in here now.” Silence. Then, “How long has she been like this?”

“I don’t know. We check in on the patient once per shift,” a woman said.

More commotion. Somebody said, “Clear,” several times and there was a thumping sound. Two men came in with a stretcher and bent down. My mom was lifted into place on it and taken out in a big rush as I screamed for her in the silent hell of my own head. I caught a glimpse of her face—it was drawn, hollow, lifeless.

I was alone in the room. I cried and cried, but the tears never surfaced on my face. I cursed my father for not being here. Where is he?

She whispered again, drawing me into safer places where I could find rest. I was tired, alone, and unable to control what was happening to me. “There remains before you your darkest hour, Airel. Your resolve and desire will face their greatest testing.” I could feel in She’s voice both sadness and solid reassurance that these things were precisely as they should be. “You will yet be brought to the pinnacle of your life. There you must make your last choice between darkness and light. You will need this.”

As I looked, it was as if I was watching myself from above. There in front of me appeared the Sword of Light. I would know that blade anywhere.

“It is El’s Sword. He offers it freely to you for another season. Airel,” She said. “Wake up—awaken!”

I did, but I was no longer in the hospital bed. I was somewhere else, somewhere beautiful. I saw a door hovering before me without handle or frame. I knew this door . . . long ago I’d seen it in my dreams, in my imagination, as I’d read the Book of Kreios.

I held the Sword of Light aloft for the first time in forever. A shout rang out and resonated within the molecules of the blade, which I noticed was different now. At the bisection of the blade and the guard, right at the hilt, there was a perfect circle cutting through, admitting light, air.

I swung it around a few times. It seemed to make the blade faster. Guadagnare. Stocatta.

I walked toward the door, sword in hand, and it opened. My eyes locked onto the burning black globe I beheld through the doorway. A world on fire.

I was going home. I was going back to where it had all started, and I would put an end to what was not meant to be.

Moments later, pain knifed through me. I could feel the extent of my body, the limits of my frame, and it was awkward and weird. My lungs burned—air was being forced down into me through tubes. My eyes opened and I screamed for help.

* * *

Independence, Missouri, Present Day

ELLIE HAD A THEORY she hoped would buy her a little more time. She was already very weak, so it was a last ditch effort even to try it.

As she dissolved from the couch in her father’s library and scattered to the winds, she isolated the contagion of the Mark in her body, placing it away from her, in quarantine. She knew it was temporary at best, since—and she could feel this—the source it fed upon was her heart, but maybe she could buy a couple of weeks. The Mark’s infection was beyond her powers to overcome. She would do what she could to delay the inevitable as long as possible. Just like any driven human determined to save the world.

She didn’t know what would happen. When she gathered herself back together under a tree in the parking lot of the Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence, Missouri, she had readied herself for anything.

She’d thought it might kill her. But in fact, she felt better than she had in a long time, and she kicked herself for not trying it sooner. I feel like a new woman. Like I’ve just had the best spa day ever.

She walked inside.

The receptionist looked up at her. “Welcome to the largest facility for genealogies in the world. How may I help y—oh, wow. Can I just say . . . I just love your hair.”

“Why, thanks,” Ellie said. “I’m kinda partial myself.” She gave a mild curtsy.

The receptionist, a round, dowdy-looking woman dressed in the full range of browns, giggled. “We don’t get many people around here sporting that look.”

“Well, I’ve stuck with what works. In and out of season.” For thousands of years. “So, ah. . .” Ellie looked around for a nameplate. “So, Brenda. Where are the C’s? I’ve got some research to do.”

“Oh, of course.” Brenda peeled her eyes from Ellie’s electric blue mane and shoved a clipboard forward. “Sign in, and then you’ll want to take the elevator to level two. You’re so dang cute.” Brenda giggled again.

Ellie smiled and registered and went to the second floor. After talking to three different people, she was ushered to a small room with no windows and a computer sitting on a simple desk.

As she looked through the boxes of documents that traced the Cross family tree upward from Airel to John, the trail ended. John Cross apparently had no parents, no family. No past. Which meant, “Extremely complicated.” Ellie grasped at her pounding chest and coughed. Maybe not two weeks. Maybe two days.

She needed to get moving then.

Airel mentioned grandparents—they must have been on her mom’s side.

She thought back to her son. She always wondered what became of him. He must have had children—otherwise, Airel would never have been born. Without angelic blood, the family line would not have been able to continue. But Qiel was lost and assumed dead ages ago. After Ke’elei, she herself had gone off the grid. She’d thought about it a lot, but never so much as she had in the last few weeks.