Airel: The Discovering (Airel Saga Book Two)

Chapter XV

Boise, Idaho—Present Day

STAN WAS CHEERFULLY IGNORANT, standing over the demobilized police officer engaged in what was, for him, a shiny new hobby: abduction and torture. He held the badge up to the light that came from a single bulb in the tiny one-car garage.

“Lopez,” he read out. The instability in the housing market had done at least one thing for opportunists, and that was that there were plenty of empty, foreclosed homes all over the valley.

Stan fancied himself a man of deliberate action. He had considered the empty house for a week before deciding it would work well for his purposes tonight. Officer Lopez was bound with his own handcuffs, his torso and ankles duct-taped to a metal folding chair. Blood seeped from his broken nose onto his white uniform shirt, soaking in, making a beautiful inkblot image.

Stan thought it looked like a bat; maybe a dragon. This image filled him with a sense of power and fear, a buzz to which he had become addicted.

“Lopez, I am in need of information. I must warn you: if you lie, I will not have any use for you.” Stan chuckled and wiped tar-colored spittle from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I will ask once. Only once.” He opened a small folding knife with a serrated inward curving blade, bent down on one knee, and pulled off one of Lopez’s shoes. The officer tried to protest, fighting the restraints, but the rag stuffed in his mouth made it impossible to discern his words.

Stan took hold of his shoeless foot and held it tight. “Now, now, Lopez; are we not both professionals? Do you not trust me?” he mocked him. “This is for your own good, I promise you that—for you need to see and understand the seriousness of your situation. I need to make it known to you—clearly—that I mean what I say.”

Stan removed the sock from the officer’s foot. In a sawing motion that took several attempts to cut through the ligaments, he removed the little toe from the detective’s foot. Lopez wailed and thrashed, but the gag held, his body bound.

Stan stood up and looked around the empty garage in dull comprehension, his face flashing with alternating surprise and purpose. He fished in the pockets of his suit coat, which he had been wearing for a week now, and produced a cigar lighter. Smirking, he lit the torch-like device and held the flame to the freshly inflicted wound. It sizzled, the smell of burning flesh infiltrating the garage. The detective screamed in pain and Stan gorged himself on all of it, inhaling deeply.

“There, now. We can be friends again,” he chuckled. “At least now I know that when I ask my question, you may prove yourself to be of some use to me.” The Bloodstone swung freely from his neck, pulsing and humming, hovering slightly with each pulse. Stan was super-aware of its presence. All he wanted to do was caress it with lust and desire, but he controlled himself for now.

“I know who you are, Lopez. I know that you are the lead detective in the investigation into the disappearance of an insignificant girl named Airel … the girl who witnessed that murder …” He waved his hand dismissively. “I want to know who took her and whether or not she was alone. If you refuse to answer me, I will dispose of you—and your pretty wife, of course … and I will find someone who wants to live.” Stan looked at him with reddening eyes.

Time seemed so thin to Stan—he was looking straight at something only he could see, and for a time he was not himself. His own reality tended to come and go nowadays; it was something he had come to accept since the Bloodstone had come into his life. Stan looked straight ahead at nothing.

He ran his hand through his hair and glanced down at the cop. Stan’s eyes glowed red, and his face became radiant. In fact, his body was tenanted by the parasitical presence that made him what he was for now—the Seer. His eyes took on an intense satanic red glow, and his face became disturbingly beautiful.

He spoke. “Menial fool. I will remove your gag and wait for your answer. If you scream, you will die.” He yanked the rag from the detective’s mouth and stood before him, his palms facing upward. The pendant rose and hovered in the hollow of his hands. Fear stole into the cracks of the officer’s mind and began to break it apart piece by piece.