The Irispire Portal Read online

  Kyle grabs my wrists to restrain me. He lifts my hands from my forearms, revealing the exposed flesh where I was scratching; raw and bleeding. Visible are the thin strings of muscle tissue and ripping tendons, stretched, thin, and frayed.

  I want to ask Kyle to help me. I want to beg. I want to plead, but my mind is now a prisoner of my tortured body, a captive of the pain. Soon, I won't even have my mind anymore. Already my thoughts are becoming mixed-up and invaded by flaming visions of demons. Frightening shadows take me away from Kyle's maintenance barn.

  I am taken away where? I have no idea. I see my past, my entire life — all five hundred and twenty-three years existing at once. Every day of my life is happening at the same time. I see Emily young, old, dying. I see Alphonse and Gertrude, our kids, growing up, growing old, growing dead. I see their children and their children's children burning and turning to ash.

  I have to make it through this. My mother didn't. She's there, lying dead in her living room. A Glock lies beside her. The top of her head is blown off. The entry point is under her jaw; blood is pooling everywhere.

  Then comes an intense squeeze inside my stomach, making me roar. Something is ripping me from the inside. I look down. My flesh splits. A demonic wolf is pulling my insides out of me — blood and organs, red, slick, and glistening wet in the surrounding firelight. The wolf’s got black wings, a snub snout, and fire for eyes. It growls and then roars before its maw, and sharp teeth dig into my flesh once again. Soon there will be nothing. Soon my mind will go. I have to make it through.

  I wake up. The nightmare is over, and I am alive. Wait, how am I still alive? My eyes flutter open, and the darkness of the sleep state blends into the black of this room. I hear hollow echoes, the sound of water dripping on a stone. The smell of sweat, pus, viscera, and fecal matter, all masked by cleaning agents, and antiseptics mingle thickly in the air. As soon as I take in a full breath, my airways clamp down. I gag and cough; the inside of my throat sets my pain receptors afire.

  I am lying on a table. Folds of fabric pinch the skin of my naked back. A blanket scratches at the skin on my legs. I try and make some bigger movements, but my body is stiff, and every muscle complains about every twitch. It's as if I ran three triathlons back-to-back and did a thousand push-ups at the end of each leg. Cold air brushes against my skin. My thermal suit is shredded.

  I roll off the table, and my body lands heavy on a hard concrete floor. My top and bottom teeth crash into each other from the impact. I try to get up, but my entire body doesn't want to work properly. I'm an infant learning to use my limbs all over again.

  I try to squirm my way to a light shining through the bottom of a door, but eventually, I give up and roll over onto my back. The concrete is like a giant block of ice underneath me.

  Where the hell am I? Where is my sword?

  "Lights," I say.

  A hanging lamp sputters to life with electricity. Even though the light is weak, it still attacks my eyes as if I was staring at the sun. It takes a moment for me to blink the blindness away and look around. I sure ain't in Kyle's maintenance barn anymore. Unless they have a torture/interrogation chamber in the back I haven’t seen.

  There is a sink to my left. The naked drainage and feed pipes are coming out of holes in the wall. The lip of the sink has brown hard water stains dribbling out. White rags, stained with dry brown blood, hang from the edges of the sink. The walls are gray concrete with a smattering of dull white paint chips still clinging on. There's a metal tray-table on wheels, the kind used by car mechanics. What's on top of the tray table is a mystery to me, but based on the litter of bloody gauze all over the place, I can make an educated guess that it's a bunch of surgical tools. Though, I don't care how good a doctor you are, no amount of medical treatment could have brought me back from the place I was at.

  It takes a minute for me to engage my core muscles enough to sit up. It takes two minutes more for me to get myself to a standing position. The head rush isn't helping with the process of trying to balance. The pain of movement is unbearable, and I look around for my sword to give me some relief, but The Destroying Angel isn’t here. I go through the one-step two-step drill, and slowly make my way to the mirror above the sink.

  I take off what's left of my torn thermal suit and stand there in my underwear. I examine my body — touching, stretching, poking, and flattening. Everything looks horrendous. I had scars before, but fresh and ghastly ones have appeared on my neck, arms, legs, stomach, and chest. They look like they came from deep claw marks, thick, raised, pink and bubbling, but they've healed pretty clean.

  There’s no way I should have survived.

  Six

  I am walking down a dimly lit corridor with a blanket wrapped around me. The air is warm, and heavy with moisture. Hums and clunks echo from steam pipes running up and down the hallways. As I approach a corner, two voices, speaking in Elven, are coming from twenty feet away. One voice I know to be Kyle's. The other voice has a thicker accent and is female.

  I continue to sneak ahead, keeping close to the wall. The noises from the steam pipes mask whatever noise I could be making. There aren't many who can sneak up on an elf. I can. Kyle taught me, and I've had a lot of time to practice the skill. He also taught me to speak and understand Elven. Beautiful language. I edge towards a doorway where light is coming through.

  "Every time I think that you've transcended your human failings, you do something utterly foolish and confirm them," scolds the female voice.

  The voice belongs to Larastrumbala Uthanasa, Kyle's sister. More correctly, she’s his half-sister. I call her 'Lara' for short. She hates that. But then again she hates me, so even-stevens.

  "I don't need a lecture from you, sister," returns Kyle

  "Oh, you don't need a lecture, do you? Perhaps you need a lesson then. A lesson the erolith would be willing to give you. They are coming for you Kylanthansa Uthmandir. And they will give you no quarter. If you would have let him die—"

  "You do not understand, Larastrumbala," interrupts Kyle. "There's something far more sinister going on here. They were ogres that he killed! Not people. Three of them! I saw them myself, look again!"

  "You do not need to show it to me again," says Lara. "It does not change the fact that you broke our laws. And used your magic to change his destiny."

  "I know. But do you not see what this means? Look at these monsters fighting him. It's plain as day that whoever created these ogres has something far more threatening than anything we have ever seen. Not only does it take an enormous amount of arcane energy to make such abominations, but they were also carrying a bomb for crying out loud! If you would tell father that—"

  "Tell father? Father cannot save you."

  "I do not need him to save me," returns Kyle. "I know what I did, and I would do it again if given a choice. But please, as a favor to me, apprise him of the situation. There is more happening here than meets the eye, sister."

  "Favor?” says Lara. “You talk of favors? Let me tell you, Kylanthansa. Warning you erolith soldiers have been dispatched to come after you is the only favor I can do for you. This burden is now yours to bear, and I don't have to tell you of our methods.

  "Your 'friend' used Azrael to shed living blood, Kylanthansa. He was meant to die! That is the consequence of his actions. Who do you think you are to change his fate thusly and break The Treaties yourself? Not only that! You..."

  I have to say something. I peer around the corner and see Kyle and Lara talking to each other as if they were both in the room. There is a floating rose colored crystal floating in between them.

  "All right," I interrupt, in Elven, stepping from around the wall and entering the room. "I'm going to stop you both right there because I think if I let you continue this dialog, it will become a slapstick, back-and-forth moving picture where you both want to kill each other and then realize you love each other in the end. Now, don't get me wrong; I would love to watch that moving picture. You both definitely should contin
ue whatever this is. However, this is not the time. Maybe when, oh I don't know, elite elven soldiers are not coming to kill us, you could continue this diatribe, and I could watch while eating snacks."

  Lara looks at me with utter disgust. She's elf through and through. Ageless, traditional, obtuse, unforgiving, and doesn't like humans very much. But damn she is beautiful. She has smooth ebony skin, enchanting violet eyes, and gorgeous full lips. She's wearing an elven gown — black with yellow trim — naturally draping over the edges of her beautiful body which is full at parts, and slender in others. And somehow the gods knew to put what where.

  "Ah well if it isn't Azrael's Bearer," Lara says in English. "I see that you have been learning our language. You are doing quite well..."

  "Thank you."

  "...for a lesser species," she finishes.

  "There is the Lara I know and love."

  "You do not know me," she says.

  "I do not love you either," I say back. "It was a joke."

  "Nyyx, this is not the time," Kyle says.

  Lara smirks.

  I smile back at Lara, with my arms akimbo.

  "To the point, Bearer. You need not worry," Lara tells me. "The erolith are only after my brother. You have, how do you say, bigger fish to fry."

  "What are you talking about, Lara?"

  She cringes at my use of her nickname. She sees it as a show of disrespect.

  "Ah yes, of course," she says. "I suppose this is quite unprecedented. Never before has Azrael's Bearer survived The Rending."

  Images of my mother tearing herself apart, and then shooting herself to kill the pain flash in my head.

  "Your powers are gone," continues Lara. "The humans have lost their defender. I suspect the news has spread to all of demonkind by now. How many have you banished? How many have been waiting for a time when they can get to you? I wonder how many of them waited for a chance to kill your mother. You broke the Omega Treaties. You shed living blood. Nothing is holding them back, and unless they attack our borders what care to we have with what the demons do to your kind — such a great mess created by your carelessness. Now, had you died, all would have been as it should be. But my idiot brother decided to save your life, causing this chaos. You are both fools. The world would be better off if it were rid of you."

  "You know what, Lara. Why don't you suck my—"

  "Nyyx!"

  Both Lara and the floating rose crystal disappear as Kyle dismisses the communication spell before I can finish my sentence. As soon as he does, he falls to his knees; the color drains from his face. His breaths become short. It's a long way to Superior, and Kyle must have used up a lot of arcane juice to communicate that far. Not to mention all the power he must have spent constantly curing me to keep me from dying. He looks spent. I kneel beside him to put my arm around him and help him up.

  "Let me help you," I say

  "You've done enough!"

  He pushes me away. Not very hard. The communication spell left him physically weak. But I reel back as if he shoved me with the force of a tidal wave. A heaviness creeps over me. Kyle was always kind to me. He's the nicest guy I know. For him to snap at me like that doesn't feel good. He doesn't look good, either. I am looking at a man that has lost everything. And it was because of me.

  "I'm sorry, Kyle."

  "You should be," he says. "Maybe my sister is right, and I should have let you die."

  My heart tenses up.

  "Look, Kyle—"

  "No! You look! My half human blood has never given me good standing in Silanthanos. All I had left were my familial bonds, and now because of you, not only am I looked down upon, my life is now forfeit! I was trying to find a diplomatic way to save my life. And you had to open your stupid mouth!"

  What can I say? What can I do? Leave well enough alone, I suppose. Let him work things out on his own, because anything I say can, and will be used against me in his current state of emotion. What makes it even worse is he isn't wrong. Everything he said was right.

  The only reason they tolerated him in Superior (Silanthanos, in Elven) was because his mother was a member of Superior's royal family. But she disgraced the family when she had a dalliance with a human. Kyle and Lara share a mother but different fathers. Their mother was executed for breaking the elves' severe segregation laws. Lara's father decided to keep and raise Kyle until he was old enough to decide his fate, though he was well within his rights to banish him; kill him even. Kyle's stepfather, Rolanthis Uthanasa, treated Kyle fairly and with kindness, though it was mostly out of pity.

  "So what do we do?" I ask him.

  Kyle scoffs. "We? We will die."

  I shake my head. "No. That's not an option."

  "There are no other options,"

  "There's always another option,” I say. “Do you think I’m gonna lay back and let those erolith kill you?"

  "Of course not," he says. "I expect you to be dumb enough to fight them, and without your sword, you will die. After which it will be my turn to get executed."

  "What's with all this pessimism? What happened to the positive-minded Kyle that I know? I want that guy on my team."

  "That ‘guy’ signed his death warrant when he decided to save your life."

  "Okay look, we can sit here talking like this all day, but we really should get moving if the erolith are really after you."

  “Larastrumbala said you’ve lost your power. Is that true?” asks Kyle.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “But it feels true.”

  I scan the room.

  “Did you see what happened with The Destroying Angel?” I ask him.

  He shrugs. “I don’t remember. One moment it was here, then next it was gone. Was that what happened when your mother went through The Rending?”

  My mind reaches back to four hundred and ninety-five years ago. I was twenty-eight years old, married with two kids. I went over to my mom's place for a visit and walked into the living room. My mother was on the floor, convulsing with screams of agony. She'd been tearing at her hair, leaving visible patches of scalp.

  I remember kneeling beside her and taking her up in my arms, rocking her back and forth to make her calm down and stop moving. Her eyes were bulging out of their sockets, her teeth were falling off, and sores infested her gums. I remember feeling helpless as she tore her body apart with her bare hands. She didn't look like the person I'd known all my life. She looked like a monster. Vibrant red blood covered my arms and clothes. It was so thick and pervasive that I could swear it soaked through the fibers of my clothing and seeped through the pores in my skin.

  I remember dropping her writhing body on the floor. Her seizure was so strong, bones and tendons were splitting and tearing. I ran to the kitchen to phone for an ambulance. Then I heard the controlled explosion of a Glock nine millimeter. I dropped the phone's handset and left it hanging by the cord on the kitchen wall. I ran back to the living room to find that my mom had blown her brains out.

  I tell all this to Kyle. His chin drops down to his chest.

  "I know what it's like to watch someone go through that,” I tell him. “And if I had your powers, I would have done what you did. I would have saved my mom. No questions asked."

  "I had never felt so..." he began to say.

  "Trust me; I've been there," I tell him.

  "So what happened afterward?" he asks me.

  "I don't know."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, I have no idea," I say. "I went blank, I guess."

  "And the sword?"

  "It was just there," I say. "It's like it had always been with me. As soon as I touched it, it flooded my mind with all sorts of horrific memories. Not only did I see my mom doing a whole lot of killing, it felt like I was the one swinging the sword. I was wiping out entire cities, killing firstborn, fighting gruesome demons. I was the avenging hand of God.

  "That's what sent me over the edge," I continue. "I left my family. I went insane. I was both good and evil incarnate like I
didn't even have control of anything — no hand on the wheel. I was fighting and banging anyone and everyone. Men, women, whatever. And no one seemed to care or notice that I was walking around with a longsword."

  I see Kyle take all that information in, and then he looks up at me.

  "So if Lara is right, and you lost your power along with your sword, then what happened to you..." he begins.

  "...Is probably happening to someone else right now," I finish.

  "But who?"

  "I don't know."

  "Do you think Astraea will know?" he asks.

  "Maybe," I say. "Wouldn't matter though. Even if Astraea did know, there's no way she can tell me. My connection with her is severed without the sword."

  "You need to find Azrael and her new Bearer," he says.

  I scoff. "Two words: Needle; Haystack. Maybe the sword’s gone. Maybe there is no new Bearer. This has never happened before. We broke The Treaties. There's no telling what kind of divine fallout it entails. The Destroying Angel could be anywhere. And if there is a new Bearer, there is no telling where he or she could be. The sword is a long term problem, and we got a bunch of short-term ones heading our way. How long do you think it will take the erolith to find us?"

  "The question is irrelevant," he says.

  "Why?"

  "Because they're already here."

  Seven

  "What the hell, Kyle?! We've been sitting around here telling campfire stories and now you tell me they’re here."

  "It was never my intention to run," he says. "You do not have to do anything. You could stand there and watch for all they care. This is not your fight. It is mine. They want nothing from you."

  "Well they're gonna get something from me," I say. "You can count on that. How far away are they?"

  "They are circling the area," he answers. "It's only a matter of time."

  "How are they tracking you?"

  "Field energies," he says. "Whenever I tap into Ashyanthinasi, it leaves a trace. How do you think they knew I used my magic to cure you? It took a lot of energy. Too much to go unnoticed. And now they are using the traces of my communication spell. It is only a matter of time before they triangulate the location."