visible as a figure. It held aloft the piercing and pure Sword of Light, symbolic of victory.
He could not have imagined for anything in the world what he would behold when he drew near. There, with face burnished to glowing in the warmth of the Sword, was Airel. She smiled proudly at him.
He could do nothing but go to her and weep for his beloved granddaughter, his darling girl. She was dead, but was now alive. He shouted to the heavens with exultant joy, “She is alive! She is alive!” He fell on her shoulder and wept more, wept like a small child. The sun cast them in relief, a shimmering and pure sight.
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