Airel: The Discovering (Airel Saga Book Two)

Chapter IV

Eagle, Idaho—Present Day

WHEN STAN HEARD THE name of Kreios uttered, it shook him to the core. Kreios? Here? The memories of Kreios were part of his inheritance as host of the Seer. He cursed and gritted his teeth. He was both angered insensibly and pierced with fear. Kreios was supposed to have been killed millennia ago—or slinking in the shadows, hiding. Stan had assumed, as had the Seer, that he had succumbed to death somehow.

He growled in pain. His shoulder sagged and his collarbone stuck out, making a little tent under his shirt.

Airel was gone. No matter what he thought or how strong he believed he was, she was faster and much more powerful than he had ever imagined. She didn’t look strong or fast.

He could hear the Seer cursing. Stan forgot about his broken collarbone and ran toward the house—he had no choice but to obey—for now.

The front door hung open and he caught a glimpse of his winged-beast master flashing across the living room in a tangle of light and smoke. Gripping his dark dagger, he peered around the corner and beheld the angel Kreios. His body was glowing with a brilliant white light, and Stan had to cover his eyes to keep from being blinded.

The angel was armed with a long, hooked dagger, and as he stabbed it into the demon’s gut, Stan felt the pain rip through his own midsection. He looked down to see that his shirt was soaked in blood. Could he die if the demon died? He didn’t think so, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He leaped into the fray and slashed with his dagger downward across the angel’s back.

Kreios turned, almost casually. The look of calm on his face stopped Stan in his tracks. He beheld the brightest eyes he had ever seen; they were steeped in more history and wisdom than he could possibly imagine.

The moment Kreios turned his back to the Seer, it seized its opportunity and lunged. Long, rotten teeth sank deeply into his neck. The angel closed his eyes and bent at the knees, and for a second, Stan thought he was going down.

Kill him, you blubbering pig.

The voice stung his mind, sending needles into his skin. In the time it took Stan to grip and draw the dagger back to put some force behind the final blow, Kreios launched.

The angel shot straight up through the second story and out the roof like a ballistic missile. Plaster, wood, fiberglass insulation, and dust ejected out and rained down through the gaping hole, and the whole house skewed off center.

Stan was left earthbound, peering up at them as they twisted left, then right, trailing black smoke. He could not make out much detail, but he sensed through the demon the panic that flooded over its mind.

In the launch, the demon’s jaws loosened their grip, and Kreios used inertia and the resistance of the wind to keep the beast at bay. He tore loose from the demon’s arms, spinning him around so that he could grasp him from behind. “I’ve been waiting a very long time to clip your other wing, brother,” he said as they flew higher.

Kreios grasped the Seer’s lone intact wing and wrenched it out entirely by the root. Stan fell to the floor, arching his back in unbearable pain, howling madly. The Seer was wild with unspeakable rage, spitting and howling furiously.

Kreios punched the top of his head, released him from his grip, and let the struggling demon fall, flapping impotently.

Stan could hear the wind rushing by, the flapping. As the body of the Seer impacted the earth, Stanley Alexander passed out, his body convulsing, then rigid. He could feel his mind straining to make sense of it all, but came up empty.

Is this the end? There was no answer.