Airel - Aaron Patterson [112]
“What video?”
“He sent a video to the newspapers and TV stations. It was aired last night.”
I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Kim?”
“Yes, she was on it. Which proves that she’s alive. But we need to find her before anyone else. If the police show up she’s as good as dead.”
“It’s like he wants to be caught.” I wondered if the video was an attempt to flush us out.
“Maybe he does. If he’s as far along as I think he is, God help the police if they try to arrest him.”
I wondered what he was talking about. “What do you mean? How are we going to get Kim back?”
“I think he’s the Seer. You would have read about him in the book I gave you.” I nodded. But I wondered how someone who had lived thousands of years ago could still be alive.
“The Seer is a spirit. He can be killed, but only by one of the Sons of God. We must be careful how we go about our business, Airel. If we kill Stan and leave the Seer without a host, he will be driven into the bloodstone.” Kale looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head. It was too much to take in. If I had read something about it I couldn’t remember it now.
“The stone was stolen from paradise when the Sons of God fell. It is a pure union of Diamond and Onyx that glows red in the presence of the spirit of the Seer on earth. It does not belong here in the earthly realm. It is a talisman that allows him unnatural power, power that he continually consumes via the bridge enabled by the bloodstone between the spirit realm and this one. He uses this power to try to subjugate any created thing he desires to control. He is a demon prince from the substructures of Hell; some believe he may even be Lucifer himself—it is difficult to discern these things. The spirit of the Seer is confined to the immediate vicinity of the red bloodstone. If his host is killed, the Seer will be recaptured by the bloodstone until he finds someone else to enter.”
“So Stan invited this Seer to possess him?” I couldn’t believe someone would be willing to do that.
“He can be very convincing. He will say anything, as I said: you name it, he will promise it. A person who’s drunk or high will let him in without even realizing it. All the defenses of the mind, the gateway to the spirit, are nullified and the doors stand open wide.”
I shuddered. She fluttered in my mind, as if asking for my attention. “What about me? I’m not possessed, am I? I hear this voice in my head—like my conscience, but almost audible to me. I call her She.”
Kale’s eyes narrowed. “I have one, too. She, as you call her, is your inner man. Or woman. I keep forgetting that these days, man means a man, not the race of men.” He gave me another smile, and I was struck by it—there was something in it that I couldn’t quite figure out. It felt warm.
“When you were awakened, your inner woman, your angelic spirit, was awakened in you at the same time. It’s like a sixth sense, only separately cognitive. She is there to help you and protect you. In battle, for example, She will warn you in advance of any threat to your life.”
“So, it’s a good thing.” I could feel her sitting back down and fluttering her wings, folding them under her. They sounded like the pages of a book sometimes, like the fluttering of a bird at other times. It was so bizarre how I could visualize what she looked like, and simultaneously be unable to see her.
“Yes. It’s a very good thing, if you listen to her. In time she will blend with and compliment all of your other senses. It will be simple instinct to trust her and respond to her leading. She also heightens your other natural senses. You may have noticed this already.”
Those were the times when I lost my breakfast. I figured that I started to get sick the day Michael came to school.