Airel - Aaron Patterson [133]
I could feel the water pour into my lungs, relentless.
MICHAEL! NO, MICHAEL!
My heart and mind screamed out at the one I loved, ripping against the grain. The waves crashed in upon me, and as they did, my eyes met with unspeakable horror: Michael drew the blade out and then plunged it back in, again, again, again. My heart burst inside my chest as I watched.
The demon James writhed and flopped on the surface of the water as I sank below. I could hear its ungodly shrieking through the boiling and squalling waters as I sank. Still I looked to the cliff’s edge, holding out hope as a candle to the hurricane, begging God for mercy—and I saw Michael deliver the final blow, becoming limp, falling from the cliff, tumbling end over end, the sword pulled out and away, tumbling wildly, and Michael hit the water with a sickening smack as I sank.
Blood and water mixed in a drink of death.
Chapter X
The sun blazed overhead, warming the forest glade unseasonably. Kreios could feel his strength returning slowly. His heart stutter-stepped in his chest and he cocked an ear to the disturbance: A scream. His body stiff and wooden, stubborn, he nevertheless jumped to his feet and began to run toward the cliffs.
He reached out but could not find Airel. He sprinted, forcing his body to wake up, straining it.
He arrived at the top of the cliff in time to see Michael toppling over its edge. Kim was there, standing still, dazed and in shock. Kreios was at her side quickly. He laid her down on the earth before she could hurt herself.
He then noticed the bloodstone beside her. It was shining in a constant, piercing crimson light that called to him like the fondest memories of his childhood. He did not dare to touch it. There were more important things—he would not lose another fair young princess in his family line.
He rushed to the precipice, looking down. Beneath him were Michael and James. The demon was struggling as if injured, and Michael was sinking quickly. He was injured as well. No sign of Airel.
Water was a difficult element. It posed a singular set of challenges for one like Kreios. Flight through the air was effortless, second nature. Moving in water slowed everything, made difficult what would be easy in the air; it was like thousands of grasping hands pulled against whatever course of action was decided upon. And drowning was a mortal risk, even for an angel.
He searched again in his mind for Airel, and could not find her. He cursed what his eyes beheld: two of the Brotherhood. And though they were far below, struggling and thrashing in the water, quite possibly even at that moment moving toward their eternal damnation as the jaws of hell opened wide to receive them, Kreios could not justify simply watching the boy die. He could not separate himself from this chain of events.
Michael was beginning to sink beneath the surface. He doesn’t have much longer. Kreios leapt into the air, and far from giving himself over to mere gravity, shot on a bullet’s trajectory into the water; his body stretched out, punching a hole in the surface at impact that yielded the smallest splash.
He was deep before his momentum was checked. There was blood; and the fume of cursed demonic detritus filled his nostrils even here. He looked; and in the distant darkness a chance ray of sunlight played off the dark brown hair of his Airel, the last in the line of his heirs. No! He moved quickly to her side and looked into her face; he feared it was too late. He took her anyway, pushing off the muddy bottom, gaining speed and momentum in the molasses, aiming directly for Michael, who was now sinking toward them. Too late, for both of them.
Kreios did not slow as he intercepted the boy. He simply ran into him, gaining speed, a limp body hanging over each shoulder, and when he broke the surface of the water it erupted upward, outward, droplets