Airel: The Awakening (Airel Saga Book One)

Chapter XXIX

Eagle, Idaho—Present Day

IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN a Rembrandt, perhaps a DaVinci—the painting that hung above the bed had never been authenticated. But it was certainly very old by 21st century standards. The still life depicted on canvas was a drawn sword hovering against a dark background, the subject alive, shining, and luminescent even as a representation in oils.

It was the Sword of Light.

The painting hung as an object of material lust above the bed in an alcove of an ornate master bedroom in a large house. A man lay sweating on the king-sized mattress under the painting, spittle dripping, tears flowing from twitching eyes. The bed was damp with the manifestation of his toil. The temperature in the room soared above 140 degrees, but still he shivered. Hair plastered itself wet against his scalp.

He was more than sick.

The things he saw in his bed chamber caused him to consider death as an exit strategy toward the pursuit of peace—they itched at his mind, hounding and goading him. But he wondered if what was swimming in the space above his bed would follow him when he left this world.

There were three demons. Dragons. The two smaller ones were feathered like birds and over ten feet long. The third was twice that size, a lizard with sharp spines rising from its back. One of its fleshy wings was torn, and around its neck pulsed a red, molten glow. This pendant was decidedly unholy. Upon the face of the creature, if such a thing could have such a name, was the embodiment of hatred, the essence of malice, the expression of self- prostitution to vengeance. 

The demon alighted and stood now, its legs spread upon the bed, straddling the man, who curled into the fetal position. It wielded a curved black dagger which it moved slowly downward, calculatingly, obsessively, until the tip touched the killer’s chest. 

With greater force but no greater speed, the tip of the dagger pierced the blanket, the shirt, the skin, the ribs, and blood began to boil outward from the wound, hissing against the dagger, accompanied by spitting smoke as two realms came into collision. The wings of the demon vibrated with hideous pleasure. 

The man struggled, trying now to escape but unable—the decision had been made already, in ignorance or not; permission had been granted and could not be rescinded. He turned with bulging eyes toward his bidden trespasser. The big demon, an apparition of smoke and tar, dripping wet, fixed on his prey.

Yellow-green bursts of steam poured from the snout of the thing. It crouched, hovering just inches from the face of its new host. Its dripping maw housed hundreds of fangs, putrid and enrobed in filth. Two horns sprouted from the top of its skull and curved to enshroud its face protectively. A long, thin tongue slithered out and caressed the face of the killer. The red stone that hung around its neck now dangled, pulsing, coming to rest upon the man’s chest.

The pathetic mortal flinched and whimpered.

Tengu, keeper of the Bloodstone, smiled in anticipation above his new host, ripping the air apart with a wild, maledicted scream. He seized the man’s shoulders; his claws dug deep. The glowing eyes of the demon flared brighter, singing eternal death.

The man cried out for mercy.

Tengu responded with contempt, shoving a massive closed fist into the wound he had perpetrated upon the man’s flesh, slithering into the new host as if his body were a pool of water, not a warm cadaver of flesh. The sharp tail disappeared with a snap and twist. 

The host bolted upright in his bed, soaked, as if surfacing from a nightmare sea. His heart pounded like a hammer, his right hand curled around something heavy. He gazed down at it in curious terror, opening his hand to behold what he had long desired: the Bloodstone.

Now heavy in his mind but cloudy, he beheld flashes of a rotting, staring face—a horrifying mixture of himself as he was now and as he would be soon—the Alexander.

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You've reached the end of Airel: The Awakening, read the continuing saga in Airel: The Discovering, please check it out here: http://amzn.to/1h70Z7I

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