Michael: The Mark (Airel Saga Book Four)

Chapter XI

AS THE SUN ROSE over Cape Town, there was a problem with the Table Mountain cable cars. The system was down, the cables jammed, and a car was stuck up near the top wheelhouse, dangling motionless from the cable 3500 feet above sea level.

Workmen doing the checks that morning in preparation for the open at 8 a.m. had gone missing. Clocking in, one of them was snatched screaming across the industrial floor of the mechanical room into the predawn darkness by something powerful and hideous. His cries were stifled shortly. The next one, alerted by the disturbance, had run into the room and been blindsided, grasped about the midsection by a massive clawed hand. Before he could draw breath to cry out, he was thrown out into the ether off the sheer edge of Table Mountain, falling to his appalling death after a very long drop into nothingness.

Something dark and huge then mounted the cables, draping itself over the stopped cable car like a shroud.

As the sun began to rise, a fearsome cry rang out over the city. It sounded bird-like, but it was loud and it radiated darkness; it broadcast fear and rage. To the few early morning observers on the ground below, who could not see much, it looked like there was a massive tree tangled in the mechanism and dangling down from atop the lone stuck cable car. It fluttered and waved in the breeze.

But it was not a tree, and it was not passively fluttering.

It was the enraged prince of the Nri, the last of his kind, wearing his finest and largest suit—the one with the big wings and claws—"the better to kill you with, my dears"—and he was issuing the call for vengeance.

***

WE HEARD THE CAWING, croaking birdcall of the master of the principality from twenty thousand feet up. Though I had to shake my head at the relentlessness of events, I had learned to set aside my sometimes admittedly bad attitude and just buckle down. Besides, I had my grandfather back, and it was beyond awesome to be alive.

He was more than a little surprised to see me, especially up in the rarefied air he normally tread without me. He had so many questions that I was overwhelmed at first. I tried to begin to explain, but then this creature—Nwaba, Kreios called the prince of the Nri—had bellowed at us and we had to put the conversation off for the time being.

I couldn't help but grin at Kreios as we flew together for the first time.

"I knew you were special, Airel, but this ... I cannot believe it." That just made me grin at him even more.

But the grin was wiped off my face when I saw what Nwaba had done.

There, on a cable car strung out above the city far below, was the biggest demon I had ever seen. He dwarfed the cable car on which he was perched, shrieking at us. In the carriage that dangled below were two figures that at first I did not recognize. One of them was in charge, the other was a hostage. It was obvious from their body language.

But then my newly enhanced eyes picked out something else inside the cable car, stretched out on the floor behind them. I recognized the dress. That little sundress. And the red hair. It was Kim. She looked horrible, like a corpse, and I wondered if she was alive. If they have killed her... I began to think of ways to punish the villains for their crimes, but then Kreios touched my arm. I looked at him and he shook his head. He had seen too.

"Remember your lessons," he said.

I nodded and settled down.

The demon prince spoke.

"Kreios. You have been on a little killing spree, my old friend. Some of the strongest clans fell under your hand. And now you come here. To my house." A guttural laugh. "And the Daughter of El. She has found some new tricks to turn." The demon looked down into the carriage and said something about a "Mr. Emmanuel" or something.

I looked into the carriage as it rocked under the weight of the monstrous demon. The wings of the beast drooped down far below the bottom of the car, and against the backdrop of the wheelhouse perched on the edge of the mountain, with its massive, arched mouth waiting to receive its travelers, the sight was medieval. Dragons and castles filled my mind.

But then two and two clicked together to make four: I recognized the hostage.

No. It can't be him. "Oh, no. Kreios. They have my dad."

"Yes," Nwaba cried. "Yes, I do. And I am unafraid to snuff out his pathetic life." He bared his teeth and hissed at us.

"Be careful, Nwaba. You are not in a position to make threats," Kreios shouted at him.

"Am I not?" the demon said.

With that, the goon in the car, who I guessed was Mr. Emmanuel, then shoved my dad almost entirely out the window, holding him back at the last moment.

"DAD," I shouted, and then noticed that something wasn't right. My dad was standing, true. But he looked like a puppet on a string, asleep, yet he still stood.

"Shall I drop him?" the goon Mr. Emmanuel said. "Or shoot you in the head?" He then aimed a pistol at me with his free hand.

"Keep moving; don't hover," Kreios said, and I took his advice, making little dodging movements in the air that would complicate, if nothing else, a pistol shot at that range, about one hundred feet, which I knew thanks to my new precision eyeballs.

The demon spoke up with a deep, guttural voice that made me shiver. "I want only one thing, Kreios. And you know what that is."

"I do not," he answered.

"Yes, you do," the demon prince shouted. He was enraged. "How could you fail to see the most important piece of the puzzle, angel of El? Of course you know."

Again, Kreios answered him, "I don't know what you want. Whatever it is, demon, I will not give you anything."

Nwaba screamed a vicious tantrum into the clear morning air. "Bring me the Alexander."

Michael? Why would they want Michael?

"Bring me the Alexander, or I will kill her father."

Panic started tearing at the edges of my mind.

Then I heard distant shouting, and I turned to look. There on the service catwalk of the upper wheelhouse, perched on the precipitous cliff, was Michael. He looked like he was ready for a fight.

"Nwaba," he shouted down at us. "I am right here. Come and get me."

Wait. What? How did he get there? And where is Ellie?