Michael (The Airel Saga, Book 2) - By Aaron Patterson Page 0,109

head to the rear, and climbed backward and upward along the rear of the airplane. He wrapped his prodigious barbed tail around the vertical stabilizer. He then sunk the talons of both feet deep into the tapered rear of the fuselage.

As his clawed hands grasped the tailplane, he was ready: he unfurled his great wings.

The effect was like deploying a massive parachute on a dragster. The plane groaned and snapped in protest as Nwaba wrestled it from the sky.

As he violently slowed the plane, the Nri welcoming committee caught up.

The aircraft then split apart at the massive incisions made by Nwaba’s taloned feet.

Both pieces began to plummet to the sea below. He let the tail section go; it sputtered and spiraled, smoke pouring from its remaining engine. He drew his wings back and chased the front section, looking for flailing humans in the darkening sky.

CHAPTER XIX

Cape Town, South Africa, present day

THEY CALLED HIM MR. Emmanuel. It was the perfect moniker for him. It spoke to his penchant for self-important sacrilege, his megalomania, his fervent belief that all roads led to him. Sooner or later. Wearing a very stylish white fedora, he leaned against the wall in the international arrivals terminal and waited for the mark.

It had been boring, really. He had known Harry would fail. Like a tool, he had served his purpose and then outlived his usefulness. And that was perfectly fine. It was the same with Apartheid, for instance. It had served its purpose well enough for him and his associates. And sure, it was dead, but mostly just on paper. Blacks and whites and coloreds still distrusted one another, still collected in their ethnic cliques. In that sense then it was more alive than ever, and the people now carried the walls with them wherever they went. Success.

Mr. Emmanuel suffered himself to yawn openly, to check his wristwatch. He knew few men wore them anymore; they had become redundant with the advent of the mobile phone, but that was precisely what had brought them back into fashion as far as he was concerned. He noted the time. Any minute now.

His mind wandered, as it did habitually. Perhaps he would change his fashions and use a pocket watch instead. But that would require that he wear a waistcoat, which would necessitate a change of his personal style. Waistcoats weren’t worn with jeans. Not by him, at any rate. And then there would be the question of comfortable shoes. If he had to wear a suit everywhere he went, he would not be able to get away with comfortable shoes any longer, and that would inhibit performance. Perhaps he would have to change his car, maybe even his house as a result. No, the pocket watch was not pragmatic.

And Mr. Emmanuel was deeply pragmatic. He knew the old schools of classical philosophy and he picked and chose what he would adhere to. Was that not pragmatic? And after all anyway, he was a god, so whom should he fear? At least he believed he was. And if he believed, was he not a god? Who could say otherwise? Who would dare correct him?

Except the master.

Yes, but that went without saying. As a matter of fact, he preferred it went unsaid.

To all who resided on the downwind slope of his affectations, he was and would be a god. And that was enough.

His nostrils flared.

Here comes the mark.

Mr. Emmanuel allowed him to pass him by and then followed nonchalantly at a discreet distance.

The mark didn’t know it, but he was completely caged. Mr. Emmanuel flicked a finger and the teeming crowd swerved, carrying the mark toward the mouth of a corridor where he was quickly and inconspicuously tased and then snatched by three strong men. Mr. Emmanuel smirked. A taste of your own medicine, John.

The three thugs were faithful servants. They would bundle John, the mark, into the back of a kombie and deliver him as ordered, to the building.

And Mr. Emmanuel would take the helo to the top of the city tonight, in the same building, the skyscraper his petrol company owned. It was all a shell game; it was delicious.

Sure, sometimes it bored him, but did not the gods suffer boredom from time to time? It was no matter. He would smite someone from his Olympus and then he would feel better. Sleep like a child.

Airel’s father never saw it coming. He should have, if he really knew what he was up against. But he couldn’t dream of the