Michael (The Airel Saga, Book 2) - By Aaron Patterson Page 0,139
punched with my other arm and sent her to the ground. I raced after her. She wheeled around on the ground and kicked with so much force it knocked the wind right out of me. It felt like dodge-ball, when the kid with the strong arm tags you right in the gut, but a bruise was already forming on my chest. Both of us stood and stared at each other.
“Kim, I don’t understand!” I yelled at her through the sound of my ears ringing and angels slaying demons. “Tengu can’t control you. Throw the Bloodstone away. Remember when everything was normal? Our families, boys, shopping. Don’t you want that back?”
Kim chuckled to herself. Straightening up, she roared into a full laugh, “Don’t you see? Tengu wasn’t ever in charge. He was: the great personification of evil. That’s who commands me! And I won’t let him down. No. No, I’ll let him out!” Kim tore the Bloodstone from her neck and hurled it to the ground.
Shattering, the gem released a blast so strong it shook the hillside. A black wave of smoke came rushing out of it. I held up my hands and sword to block it from coming at me. I sank to my knees to try to keep from falling backwards. Then as suddenly as it came out, it rushed back to the stone.
Standing there was my friend, but it wasn’t her. An aura of black shadow and flame surrounded her. The shadow formed the image of a man’s silhouette.
“Now, Daughter of El. You die.”
Kreios stood over the body of the gigantic winged demon. He yelled in victory and raised his blade. Now, on to the next foe. He rushed a pair of men. He swung with such great force the two men were sent to either side of him. He then stabbed one as the other stood up. Unable to remove his sword he punched the other, crushing his throat, he fell to the ground soundlessly. The other man on the ground wrapped his hands around Kreios’s blade, lodged in his body. Looking down at him, Kreios pulled the blade from his chest.
Warm pain flared in his back, and he turned to meet this next enemy. Another demon stood before him. Stabbing forward and catching the demon in the chest, Kreios felt the wound healing. There! She’s defeating her.
But his hope was suddenly dashed to pieces as he felt the healing subside, the pain grow. The wound steadily got larger. Dropping to his hands, Kreios reached to his back and felt blood oozing from the wound.
A horde of ten demons came at him, grasping for his sword. It was shattered as they fell upon it. He took hold of the shards and desperately flung them at his enemies, cutting them and impaling them with tiny projectiles. Well that worked. Exhausted, he stood, removed a sword from a nearby body, and threw himself again into the fight.
Michael fell to the ground, holding back blood from another wound. The huge black beast before him rumbled deeply with a laugh. The demon had morphed into a dark dragon. It towered over him as it came up onto its hind legs. Its head was crowned with two large spikes jutting backward, black as the night along with the rest of its body. Two small red eyes set into its head glared at him, smelling demon on him but knowing that it was to kill him. Its mouth now stood agape with hundreds of little razor-like teeth.
A burst of red flame spewed from its open jaws and Michael scrambled out of the way just as the grass was scorched into a pile of ash. He ran at the underside of the dragon, slashing upward, covering himself in boiling dragon’s blood. Screaming, he ran away from the wound grasping at his shoulders and left arm.
The dragon complimented his yells with a roar of pain, crashing heavily to the ground on all four powerful legs. The dragon took to the sky in a rush, heaving a large gust at Michael. Being tossed onto his feet by the wind, he grasped at the dragon’s tail as it slid from the ground.
The weightless experience was cut short as he severed the tail, falling hard to the ground once more. He knew that it could not fly without its counterbalance. He was soon proved right: The dark dragon plunged to the earth with a bone-snapping crunch.
“Well… that was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever killed.”