URIEL: The Price (The Airel Saga, Book 6) (Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (3 page)

This aborted paper trail concerned Ellie. Everyone left a mark. She knew this because she was so good at leaving just the right amount of information in her wake. If anyone looked into her, they would see enough to satisfy their curiosity, but John Cross was invisible. It was all too clean.

One of her hobbies was hacking. Her years of experience made her elite. She remembered when the Web had first launched, how she was one of the first to realize its true potential. Now like a bloodhound on a scent, she dug into the national database for missing persons and hacked through CIA and FBI firewalls—and not just those, but the shadow companies who served them—to see if there was anyone matching John Cross’s profile who had gone missing or been found. She limited her search to the twenty-year span before John had married his wife.

There were a few thousand John Does missing within that time frame and a few hundred found. But all of these records were either hard copy or microfiche and not available online. She did learn that John Cross worked freelance for the CIA off and on. What kind of man freelances for the CI-freaking-A?

He owned a company—“Revolutionary Technologies, LLC”—and used it to move tech like weapons and guidance chips. If a “sensitive” piece of equipment needed to get from point A to point B, it seemed John Cross was your man. But like most entrepreneurs untrained and unchecked by the Company—the CIA—he was a risk. He could always cut and run. The CIA didn’t like loose ends, and John Cross was potentially a big one. So, Johnny boy. What have they got on you that’s keeping you in line? She wondered if it had an expiration date and how desperate that might make him.

Ellie could see now why he was so secretive. But that didn’t explain his empty past.

She shut her laptop and stood with great effort.

“You are not well,” Kreios said. He was standing by the fire, quietly watching her.

“You scared me.” She wore long sleeves to hide the Mark, but he could read her thoughts. So what’s the point in hiding it from him? “The Mark is back, Father. I fear it has bonded to me in ways beyond what we first imagined.”

Kreios did not betray any surprise. “When I took it from you, I saw that what I was taking bore Michael’s signature. Of all people. It was noble of you to try to save one of them.”

“Yes, well. I have much to pay for.”

“Something distinct remained, though, something old. It was too entangled within you for me to try to remove it. I might have killed you.”

Ellie thought of her past and the Bloodstone that consumed her, the one that also took her son from her. “That wasn’t the first time I’d been marked.”

“I know. That became clear over time.”

“I’m sorry, Father. So many times, I . . . I wanted to come to you. I wanted to explain everything.” She sat back down, exhausted.

“A father bears his burdens.”

“I guess some sins are never forgiven,” she said.

Kreios folded his arms across his chest. “Sins can be forgiven, but scars remain. And neither is forgotten.”

Ellie knew that if she stayed, she would die a slow death—it would be painful. She had little time left to her. She wanted to be of further use before it was too late. “I have somewhere to be.”

“Other than in your father’s house?”

“And you have war on your mind.”

Kreios shrugged. She could see his eyes darken to full black. “The world is thin, and yes, war is coming. You should stay here, daughter. Rest.”

Now Ellie folded her arms. “I told you—I have large debts. I intend to pay them.”

“With your life?”

“I spent my life racking them up. How else can they be paid?”

“You confuse your scars with your sins. They are not the same thing. You do not have to go.”

“You know better than that, Father. I must go. Airel is slipping, Michael is fighting a battle he may very well lose, and you—you I can no longer read.” She narrowed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could on him. “No . . . no, darkness hides your mind from me.”

He walked toward her, his eyes blazing. For the first time in her life, Ellie was scared of him. “I will not lose you again. You will stay. I am not asking.”

“Nor am I.” Ellie thought of the place she wanted to go and disappeared.

* * *

I COULD SEE MICHAEL crying, standing over my bed, looking at me as if I were already dead. I could hear him, see Mom sitting there trapped inside her own mind. But I couldn’t move, couldn’t express how I felt. My flesh was a prison.

The demon I now knew as Dirk Elliott thought I was dead. Or did he? Maybe he wants me alive, and he’s going to come back for me.

Fear tore through me. I struggled to get back to my body, but nothing worked. Dirk had damaged me badly, maybe permanently. I was so tired. I dreamed, remembered, and wept for the life I might never experience. Michael was standing right there, but I would never get to tell him I was sorry, that I loved him.

Ellie said something to him and then they left the room. My heart broke. What if he never comes back? What if I don’t?

CHAPTER IV

Arabia, 788 B.C.

URIEL HAD NO MEMORY of this state of being.

Then the perspective switched, and she hovered above herself. I am overtaken—possessed in every way—by the Bloodstone, by evil. The perspective switched again and she flew high above it all, watching what happened next.

At the center of her being was a flame. She understood it to be her heart, and just as she understood this, she watched as its light was snuffed.

But it didn’t go out. It was merely redefined. What was once light and truth was now darkness and untruth. And there was a difference between untruth and lies, for lies were ultimately creative and therefore, subject to the kingdom of El. Untruth, however, was a simple opposite. And simple opposites were clean and free.

High above, observing, she knew all of that to be blatant fraud, but in her memories she could see how and why she bought it, believed it, why it had seemed sensible, even logical.

Her light became darkness. Therefore, her darkness became light. And now she was free from all restraint, all sense of remorse, guilt, fear, and doubt because there was no tomorrow, no eternity, nothing but what pleasure could be derived in the Now, the Self.

She lived for whim. She was like the wind.

And then—thirst. Hunger. She wanted only one thing. Destruction. The hatred she first felt when she was activated by the Brotherhood now came rolling back over her, a thousand thousand times stronger now, and she knew where she would go and what she would do.

Ke’elei would fall and at her hand.

Uriel was only slightly aware of herself as she swirled down and down, beneath the folds of the ground, entangled with the grasping fingers of the Bloodstone. She had no rest from its wickedness; there was no place to which she could run from him and be safe. Her mind was beginning to bend in unnatural ways now, and her thoughts were beginning to come from somewhere outside herself.

The dual presence moved deep below the City of Refuge and began to spread itself like a disease in the bedrock.

* * *

“NEVER LET IT BE said that our forces lack imagination,” said Piankhy, the commander of the armies of the Brotherhood, his countenance lit in red by the presence of the Bloodstone. He brooded over its captivating lust-ridden beauty in the seclusion of his campaign tent on a little knoll in the wood a few leagues from Ke’elei.

This strategy, which he was just now beginning to understand, was new—it was unique.

The Brotherhood horde that had massed itself in its hundreds of thousands at the gates of Ke’elei was only one element of a two-pronged attack. The other element, the crushing blow, would come when the servants of El least expected it, and from impossible places.

Victory was assured. The Fallen, the angels who were not cursed, would become extinct today. This bitter feud would end and the true Nephilim would reign over the earth as it had been promised.

His Nubian armies had subdued the whole of Egypt, and like Alexander would hundreds of years later, Piankhy hungered for more. His mystic enthusiasms had led him to new depths, and his court magicians had uncovered new possibilities for conquest that made the natural world’s wonders pale in comparison.

But it came at a price, for Piankhy would not be able to wallow in the selfsame glories as did the previous bearers of this precious stone. No, he would not be Seer. He would be forced to stand off at a distance as the Bloodstone moved and worked autonomously. He didn’t understand all the details, but he did know that there was no room for an additional inhabitant now. There was already a confusion of presence in and around the Bloodstone, a duality that at times made things . . . difficult for him.

Most of that did not matter, for his hunger in regard to the cog set of war was great indeed. So he had folded his Nubian armies into the Brotherhood and made dark pacts with unseen forces under the cover of night. His power multiplied, and as they marched over deserts and high, wooded plains, terrorizing and pillaging as they went, the plan had been made clear in his mind.

He would lay siege to the City of Refuge and he would subdue the armies of the servants of El, this unknown god. Whether his armies were the main force today, or the diversion, was meaningless drivel. He would drive his forces over and through those walls, those gates, no matter what opposed him.

At the end of this day, Piankhy would own the victory; he would stand above all as the strongman.

He watched as the Bloodstone hovered over his open hands in space, lighting the interior of his tent in iniquitous red. It then dissolved into nothing with one clearly understood directive: “Begin.” The Bloodstone had disappeared from sight.

He summoned his generals. Now he issued the order to advance.

* * *

YAMANU AND ZEDKIEL GLANCED at each other as they ran down the streets of Ke’elei, Veridon and a few other stout hearts at their sides. Yamanu knew—they all knew—time was short.

They were in full battle dress, their swords and breastplates gleaming, their massive shields grasped in the hand and strapped to the off-side forearm of each angel of El.

Lesser folk, even some who were not even half angelic, even full-blood men, who had come to the City of Refuge in years past dodged out of the way of this cohort of brave warriors as they ran up the high street toward the Circle of Elders.

They were seeking a final audience with Anael. Yamanu thought that perhaps he might be convinced, one last time, to see the imminent danger at hand and issue an order to fly from here. Yamanu thought he might be convinced—but he had little real hope for it.

The angelic cohort, with Yamanu and Veridon now at its head, spilled into the courtyard, the seats of the court encircled by those ancient Corinthian stone columns of purest white. The tall old oak at the north side had long ago withered and dried up, most of its smaller limbs having dropped and shattered upon the cobblestone floor below. “This is a place of death,” Veridon said, breathing hard.

Yamanu looked around them. “Anael!” he called out. “We seek an audience with the head of the council. Show yourself.”

Zedkiel had joined them by now and began calling out as well. “Anael! Come forth. We command you in the name of El to fulfill your obligation to the people of Ke’elei.” A serious glance passed between Zed and Yam. They trod on dangerous ground now.

A low cackle came from the direction of the great oak. An errant breeze lifted a white wisp like a flag, revealing the position of the ancient one. “You command me in the name of El? Sentimentalities.”

The angels moved quickly toward the oak and surrounded Anael, who was reclined in the dirt amongst the great, gnarled roots. Veridon drew his sword and stepped forward. “Stand, Anael, and bear witness.”

But Anael waved a finger and Veridon’s sword was wrenched from his grip and cast away, clattering to the ground. “Stand aside, little boy, before you get hurt.” He looked disgusted, as if a fly was pestering him. “Who is this that darkens the council’s Circle with nonsense and folly?” Anael appeared to be very frail and aged, his face drawn with many lines. “Why are you young fools bothering me?”

“Anael,” Yamanu said, “the whole of the Brotherhood horde armies are encamped at our very gates. We must fly, or we will all die this very day.”

Anael cackled low for a long time, and then arched an eyebrow at him. “Then,” he said, laughing, “you must go and fight.” He cackled again. “I will never issue the order to fly.”

Veridon roared at the wizened angel in fury. “Why will you not? Thousands will die if you do not! Never mind the loss of the city—we shall concede it. But if we do not fly, we will perish. All of us.”

Anael shrugged. “But it would break the pact we’ve made.” His eyes then turned malicious and red. “In good faith.” His hands came up like claws and a burst of red power, like lightning, exploded from him, leveling the old tree and scattering the angels like twigs. When the dust had settled, Yamanu looked up to behold Anael hovering above the ground on a disc of red light, his hands upraised and grasping a staff of blood light, a lightning bolt that pulsed in red frenzy.

“You trusting sheep.” Anael’s voice echoed harshly off the cold stone of the mountains that surrounded the City of Refuge. “You awaken only now?” He laughed. “It has been too late for you for hundreds of years.”

Yamanu stood to his feet, breathing hard, wondering what he could do to oppose this. He could think of nothing. This was something new under the sun, something he had not foreseen. El, he cried out within himself, what has happened? What new power is this which Anael wields against your servants?

“All you must do today,” Anael said, “is die.”

Then a great clashing sound came from the main gates, and the angels turned toward it. There was a shout, the war cry of a hundred thousand demon Brothers, coming from just outside the city walls.

Yamanu’s eyes were wide with fear. “The final battle has begun.”

CHAPTER V

Boise, Idaho, Present Day