URIEL: The Price (The Airel Saga, Book 6) (Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (13 page)

Jordan’s lack of interest with the demon standing in his office was alarming to John. When their eyes met, Jordan offered a sympathetic smile. “All this is coming as a shock to you, I’m sure. Just give me a moment to wrap up some personal business with our friend here, and then I’ll answer all your questions.”

Pierre—the demon—laughed, dark slime dripping down its chin. It snapped its jaws at John, making him flinch and cringe. If dragons could laugh, this thing did so. And than the beast gyrated as if beginning a lurid dance, folding inward on itself. When it stood still once more, it had become a teenage boy. The image before John’s eyes was familiar to him, even though he was naked. That’s the kid Airel went to school with, that Dirk Elliott boy who was all over the news.

“Hey, Mr. Cross. You seen Airel? We had a date, but she never showed up.”

John took a step back as the thing moved toward him.

It danced sickly again and recovered into an image of a beautiful redhead with skin like pure cream. “Or does this suit you better, John? We could have a little fun, you and I—”

“Enough,” Jordan said.

The woman arched and hissed, transforming back into the beast. “The Stone, Jiki. Now.”

“Come,” Jordan said.

The demon obeyed, its gaze locked onto Jordan’s hand as it reached behind the counter.

As the monster drew near, Jordan Weston seized it by the throat, dragging it toward the windows. John didn’t know what to do or say. As they approached, one of the large panes slid away, revealing the narrow balcony outside. A blast of air invaded carrying with it the dust and noise of the world.

The demon flapped and clawed at the floor in vain. As Jordan held the demon in his iron grip, John saw that his arm was mostly bone and rotten flesh.

With great power, Jordan Weston flung the demon out over the cable rail into thin air.

John stood staring, feeling the tingle of the moment run its fingers along the full length of his shocked body.

Jordan turned back toward him, smoothing his hair down, and as he did, John could hear laughter. It sounded like a little boy laughing as if playing a game. The window closed and sealed, and in the red light of a smoke-veiled sun, John saw the beast—Pierre, Dirk Elliott, the redhead, the dragon—flying away unharmed.

Jordan Weston’s eyes were on fire.

John was a deer in the headlights.

Jordan walked to the bar, drew a breath, and held it. “Where was I, where was I?” He fumbled around a bit with bottles and glasses and then stopped, staring into space. “Ah. Cocktail?” he asked John.

John cleared his throat. “I could use one, if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, good. I knew you would say that,” Jordan said. “After we’ve had a few drinks, we can talk. You and I have a lot to catch up on, and not much time.” He smiled and rubbed his arm, the one that looked to be dead. “And don’t worry about Valac. He’ll be back, but by the time he regroups, it will be too late.”

CHAPTER VII

Mountains of Hijaz, Present Day

THE ANGEL OF EDEN stood like a tower of bronze as the Eden Detachment gathered near him on the garden wall. The air was taut. The Brotherhood horde had finally mobilized. Men and demons chanted in withering black speech as they approached, and yet the angelic host waited for their captain to issue orders. The wall of Eden could withstand any army. Although they were outnumbered, they were still blessed by the power of El.

Even so, he could feel it wane, and he knew his men could too.

Time had run out.

Flame burst from below as the Angel of Fire engaged the front line of the Brotherhood advance.

“Fly,” he whispered, and like a storm, the angels poured down from the wall, loosing a hail of spears and arrows. Blades of swords and axes hacked and crashed into the black fog of membranous wings and foul flesh below.

He could feel now more than ever the power in the drain. The Brotherhood was sucking him and his forces dry. He drew his sword and dropped into the melee. The sounds of close battle were unmatched. It had been millennia since he had drawn cold steel in anger. He looked around for the young one as he hacked through talons and scraping swords, men dying. He saw him in the distance, flying in great loops as he had been trained, striking parallel to enemy lines, flanking them, taking ten or more at a time. Good boy. To his other side, he beheld one of his other old guard, removing enemy heads with the two-bitted battle axe, flying, spinning, hacking at demon flesh like a harvester. Men and beasts were thrust through with angel blades, and there was the sound of bones breaking, grist in the mill. There was no music as terrible as this. There was no mere talk. There was only death’s threshing floor, and these honorable Defenders of Eden were the winnowing fork.

But than a giant white demon, chalked and enrobed in mossy tangles of decay, came forth from the enemy ranks. Each of its hands was like the branches of a great dead and fruitless tree. It advanced and stood face-to face-with the Angel of Fire.

Right at the Gate.

He watched as fire subsumed the angel’s form, shielding him and blinding his foes. “Get back!” he commanded his men, giving the Guardian of the Gate of Eden ample space to maneuver.

The Angel of Fire swelled with a flourish, a great heavenly sword in each hand, coming to his ready position.

The giant demon took hold of his prey and tore it in half.

The hope of victory abandoned him as he watched the most powerful of Eden’s angels become snuffed like a wet wick. El, where is the help we were promised?

He dodged a slashing tail and flew toward the giant white demon.

It turned toward him, looking bored.

Is there no end to evil? Every death of the Eden Detachment was relayed to his mind; he could feel every death. The young one and his old friend might still be fighting, but exhaustion was pounding in on all of them. It was no use; they would stand guarding the Tree, and he would be the last to die defending it. It was better this way, to die doing what they were created to do.

“You need not die, Captain of El,” the giant white demon spoke, its voice like the rasp of dead leaves in a cold wind. “Show us the Tree and we will let you live.”

Eden was a place of many secrets. “I will never surrender the Tree or Eden.”

“I will rip it up by the roots; you shall watch me do it.” It kicked the flaming corpse of the Angel of Fire as it stepped toward him, flicking his sword away and laughing.

He flew a little higher and circled around, searching for his soldiers. He called out for his old friend and heard nothing. The young one was now gone, he was sure. He didn’t want to admit it, but they were all gone. Now there was no denying it—the Eden Detachment was lost. The noises of the battle drew to a quiet, and he could feel only the remnant of the six who stood in guard around the Tree.

“Still believe in your God?” The white demon snatched him out of the air by the neck and lifted him high as a trophy for his horde to behold. They greeted the white demon with a cheer, holding up their dead in response. It turned back to him. “Where is your God now?”

El, help me. He was so weak, he couldn’t answer his captor. He stared across the mass of men and demons, at the broken bodies of his soldiers, and prayed for mercy.

But none came. The gates were broken down, and he was powerless to do anything but watch as the Brotherhood stormed into Eden.

But they did not get far.

Just inside the gate, his captor spun, crouched, and growled low. He then saw what the rest of the horde army saw—a blaze of white speeding toward them.

“What is this?” the white demon said.

It was Kreios. With thousands of the damned in his wake.

The white demon cursed tossing him aside. “Kreios!”

Above the Gate of Eden, the lines were drawn in the sky. Kreios and Cain stood at the front of the Host of the Damned, an army of warriors who couldn’t be vanquished by any but the word of El. Opposite these was the invasion force of the Brotherhood.

The white demon spoke. “You can see with your own eyes that I have already won, Kreios.” It sniffed the air. “And I do not sense the Sword of Light in your possession. What brings you to this battle hoping for victory, Kreios the Fallen? Kreios the Rebel?” There was Brotherhood laughter at this taunt.

Kreios the Angel of Death glowed blue around the markings of his neck and arms. “Asmodeus, you will not see the sun of another day. I came for your Nri Brothers. And now I come for you. It is time to make an end of your kind once and for all.”

CHAPTER VIII

Dubai, UAE, Present Day

JOHN COULD HEAR SOMETHING in his head, feel a presence. It made the hair of his arms prickle. They had descended four floors to the 150th of the Burj, where a door opened onto the rear of an auditorium. He stepped inside as Jordan Weston held the door and smiled. The far wall was a bank of windows, and the room was empty except for a small pedestal under lights in the middle.

“What is this?” John was loose now. He had pounded those drinks down too quickly, and he regretted it. He had come here for answers to questions, but now he wondered what price revelation would exact in exchange.

Jordan’s eyebrows came together. “You know what it is, John. I suspect a part of your mind has always known.”

John stared at the red stone hovering above the pedestal as it moved slowly in a pool of red light. His next words were instinctual—his conscious mind did not exercise control over them. “The Bloodstone,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

Jordan’s confirmation felt like a judge’s sentence being read out, and John found in deep, dormant parts of himself a quickening. It was like a broken part of him had been stitched together and jump started, pulling over him a shroud of black smoke.

“It’s the key to everything I’ve spent my life trying to build,” Jordan said. “It’s the reason you’re here. John, haven’t you always felt as if there’s been something missing?”

John nodded, his wide eyes locked onto the stone.

“Well, this is the missing piece. Don’t you long more than anything to put an end to the mystery of who you are, who you were meant to be?”

“But that’s not why I’m here.” John saw a shadow move past the large windows that overlooked the city of Dubai. Another shadow dropped from the top to the bottom, like an insect. Then more. It’s a swarm. Demons.

Jordan put his good hand on his shoulder. “They’re here for you, to witness the anointing of the new Seer.”

“What is this—who are you, and what does this have to do with me? I’m just here to find out about . . . about . . .” John wanted to both fall asleep and run from this place all at once. Evil, palpable, simple and clear was what this man represented, and in his eyes John beheld naked and undisguised the pit of all darkness.

But it wore a salesman’s smile. “You still don’t remember?” Jordan edged his way nearer the Bloodstone, his hand reaching out, but he held back. Fear and longing flooded his face, and he closed his eyes as if in prayer.

John made a play at resistance one last time. He knew it would be his last. “I’m not here for that.” As he uttered the last word, his life of lies, a house of cards, crashed in on itself and lay flat, burying under its paper slabs every care he ever had. There was a wife, there was a daughter somewhere in the distant dark mists, but they were irrelevant.

“You were drawn here by the Bloodstone, John Derackson. It is yours to have, yours to hold.” Jordan licked his lips, and in the gesture John could see—and he began to feed on—the delicious surrender to the clean nothingness of the inevitable.

The door burst open from behind. Curses broke John from his stupefaction partway. He glanced back to see two thin, winged creatures like fungus-covered skeletons flit into the room. These were followed by a young man he felt like he recognized, but he couldn’t put a name with the face yet. The creatures spoke simultaneously. “What is the meaning of this, Jiki? You lied to us.”

There’s that name again—I wonder what it means. John smiled as if drunk, but his mind was clearing up. The simple facts were becoming obvious. He moved toward the Bloodstone.

Jordan’s voice wore the sound of a smile. “Calm yourselves. I have upheld the terms of our arrangement. The Seer will be chosen, just as you wanted.”

John searched his mind for information about the young man. The depths of his thoughts were dark, hemmed in by evil memories of enemies, stumbling blocks he had never been quite able to cast off. Until now. There was a name at the peak of these hindrances, and it was bathed in hideous blue—Airel. He roared in rage, trying to shrug it off. With clenched fists and teeth, he turned toward the young man and spoke his name. “Michael Alexander.”

“Mr. Cross.”

John bristled once more. It was like he was being mocked. And then he corrected the young man. “Not Cross. Derakhshan.”

* * *

ELLIE REFORMED ON TOP of a skyscraper overlooking downtown Dubai and scanned the sky. A dark cloud covered the top half of the Burj Khalifa. She took a second look when the nature of the cloud mass flexed and moved like a school of fish. It was the Brotherhood in full force, swarming the tower, howling and chanting. The Seer is here—or soon will be, if I don’t hurry. She took a few breaths. “Guess I know where to go.”

She reached out for Kreios but felt nothing. She thought of petitioning El, but her heart was divided. The Brotherhood had gathered here just as she had imagined they would, but their numbers were so much greater than she thought they could be. “What are you getting yourself into this time, Ellie?”

Shadowing herself, she took to the air and headed toward the huge tower that stood over the rest of the city like a spike of silver reaching into the sky. Could she get past the swarm and inside to find Michael? He was sure to be in the middle of it all, whether it cost him his life or not. I can relate to those kinds of desperate measures, she thought. Her life had been nothing if not a desperate chain of stumbles. Whatever Michael and Kreios had planned would surely be no match for what she saw before her now.