up the hill with Ariel. They slashed and jabbed at random as demons started to block their path. Having trouble keeping up with her, Michael started to hurdle the bodies that they had to maneuver around. After cutting down a large black snake from his view, he saw Ariel stopped in awe.
Standing at the peak of the hill before it leveled out stood two enormous beasts. Each was ten feet tall with huge rippling muscles. Their upper bodies were humanoid, but their lower bodies were equine. They were huge demonic centaurs, and they each wielded two long black swords.
“I’ll take the big one,” Michael joked half-heartedly.
“Not funny,” Ariel replied. “I need to get to the top. No way will these guys let us past.”
“I’ll distract them while you get to Kim. You know as well as I do that the Bloodstone will call to me once I get close. But get to the top once you see an opening.”
No other demons were coming anywhere close to the centaur guardians. That’s a good sign, Michael thought as he ran at them.
The first demon was the only one to move. He raised his sword and met Michael’s blade with a fierce clang and a shower of sparks. Falling to the ground, Michael barely rolled to the side in time to dodge the demon thundering his hooves where he’d been just seconds ago. Full speed, he ran and jumped on its back, stabbing its leg. Then he started to try to choke the centaur.
“Go!” he shouted, and Ariel started to run for the gap between the guardians. Then the second demon raised his sword. Michael, in a rush, let go off the crippled demon’s throat and seized his sword. He flung it at the other sentinel and watched it sink into his chest.
Ariel had made it past, on to the top of the hill.
A hot shock went through him and he clutched at his chest. The ripping pain was coming from the demon he had impaled. Being half of one he was still connected to them. His father, the previous Seer, had cursed him when he had betrayed him for Ariel. But this pain was new. It felt more real, as if he could hold the sword and remove it from his chest. The other times had been more surreal, mostly in his mind.
This was real.
The colossal being pulled the sword out of his chest and slumped to the ground.
Sighing heavily in relief, Michael looked back at the other one, assuming it had died during the exchange between the other. It had not. It got to its feet and hobbled on its three good legs toward the other one. Crashing together, the beasts merged. A horrible roar came from the heaping black dust as a dark flame burst out of the cloud. Michael ran for his sword and held his position, worried about what was going to come out of the gaseous formation in front of him.
Finally I had reached the top. I had wished that this moment would never come. But it had, and now I had to deal with it.
Kim was floating at the top of the hill. Her red cadaverous eyes turned to me; a huge smile growing on her face, showing that all of her teeth were still sparkly white. “Ariel, sweetie,” she chided as I cautiously came nearer, “Why do you look so sad? You were never sad. Only happy, like me!” she laughed, with two voices emanating from her. She came down to meet the ground, swishing her sword on the ground, flinging dirt with every jerky motion.
“Kim, what happened to you?” I pleaded with her. “You don’t need to do this. Put the stone down and end this now.”
“NO! This is my stone, MINE! And you, Ariel, can come and kill me for it. After all… you gave it to me.” I then remembered the time at the cliff, when Michael had killed James, and Kreios had destroyed Tengu. The stone had been discarded there after Kreios had healed Michael with it.
I was dead when this happened, and was brought back in order to kill my friend. This was wrong.
Then Kim rammed into me.
Thrown by the sudden shock, I grasped at the air and straightened myself. Causing the air to ripple into wings around me I shot back at Kim. I pulled up at the last second and swung at her with my sword. A shower of sparks sprayed off the blades as Kim blocked. I