To be fair, I never asked her. Or anyone else. My error was that I completely overlooked Evelyn’s closer surroundings. I was satisfied with palace full of guards and gave no second look to the people around her. Well, now it was too late for that. With a grunt, I rose. “We need to move.”

  “Where? And what about Evelyn?”

  “Later. Come.” I stepped to the door and my knees gave out.

  Lillith caught me under the shoulder, holding me thanks to her aether-imbued strength. She could do that now. We headed to the entrance into the underground refuge. Barely conscious, I opened the door, and led her in.

  We closed it behind us and Lillith half-dragged me through the tunnel. We reached the dome, where Elena was already running toward us with two women next to her, towels and ointments in hands. This time, I didn’t mind the seer telling them I would come.

  We entered the dome and Lillith dropped me.

  With a grunt of pain, I collapsed onto the ground. Elena and the two women rushed to me. Elena shouted something at Lillith.

  But the girl ignored her, walking hypnotized toward the stones with carved out prophecy. She looked at the images, one by one, and stopped straight in front of the one of the angel flying above the fire. She touched the stone, collapsed on her knees, and exploded into tears.

  Chapter 9

  ELENA and her girls didn’t have a transfusion. But they had a needle and a string, with which they sewed my wound and put me onto a semblance of a bed. Lillith sat on a bed near mine, huddled against her knees. She’d cried out all her tears, and now just stared into nowhere.

  I focused on regaining strength, re-weaving the aether patterns I used to strengthen my body. We could not spend the night here. With a tired grunt, I sat up on the bed. “We need to move.”

  Lillith didn’t react.

  I rose, stretched, and then sat next to her, putting my arm over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  “The prophecy.”

  “I know.” I formed a sad smile.

  “And you told me. But I didn’t believe you. At first, I thought that you were the savior who would save the slaves in Ubar through a miracle. You weren’t doing that, so I thought you needed me to guide you to it… and then I read Azrael’s legend. I read every single text twice. By everything the legend says, he is the most powerful man in the world, as you said, the eternal legend who shaped the world into what it is today, the chairman and the founder of the Hand of God.”

  “But the miracles aren’t there.”

  “Exactly.” She took a long sniff. “When the Holy Land came under an attack, he didn’t fly there and smite the heathens by himself. Instead, he politically arranged raising of armies of multiple nations, which spent months marching there, a third of them died fighting, and then they marched back. And then eight more times.”

  I smiled and hugged her tighter. “Is that why you stopped talking about saving everyone?”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “After being crowned king, Charlemagne was lazy and drank too much wine. And then he met Azrael. The angel presented himself as a common priest, who was cleaning up the king’s table after one night of drinking. Hung-over, the king started babbling about his grand visions of how he would unify Western Europe, how he would change the world. Azrael told him that no one would follow a drunkard. Embarrassed, the king said the wine was stronger than he was, that he couldn’t help himself. To which Azrael asked him, what made him think he could change the world, if he couldn’t change himself. And Charlemagne understood, stopped drinking, and ended up unifying Western Europe, becoming one of the greatest kings in history.”

  “And you thought that if I could free Evelyn, it would be the first step to rescuing the other slaves.”

  She hugged her knees tighter. “But you’re not the savior. I am. And I can’t even save myself.”

  “Azrael wouldn’t drown in self-pity though.”

  “Right!” Lillith wiped her face with the back of her arm.

  “Angels are brave.” I let her go and rose. “Come.”

  She swiftly arranged her hair with her hand and followed me. Before leaving, I grabbed the bag with ice and the man’s arm. Inside the dome, people ran around, shouting, some crying. Many came here to hide from the fires. Among them, I spotted Nalini, who hid in embarrassment when Lillith appeared.

  I searched for Elena, who was trying to calm everyone down. I walked right to her. “Pack your things. We’re leaving.”

  She stared at me in disbelief. “What do you mean?”

  “I promised your grandmother that I’ll take you out of Ubar. And I’ll fulfill that promise tonight. Go pack.” The seriousness in my voice seemed to have convinced her. Her face betrayed doubt, but if I was telling the truth, she couldn’t risk refusing.

  She nodded, told the women around her something in Arabic and left.

  I motioned to Lillith. “Help her pack.”

  “Sure!” Lillith skittered after Elena.

  With these two busy, I headed toward Edna’s chamber. I didn’t like accepting her deal, but I wasn’t in a position to refuse opportunities. Without knocking, I entered.

  The old seer sat on her bed, wearing a faint smile. “You seem to have made up your mind.”

  I closed the door. “Why do you want me to kill you?”

  “When you grow as old as I have, you start pondering your own death. You want to give it some meaning. And joining you as one of the many souls you devour is better than all my other options.”

  I sighed, stepped to her, and grabbed her mouth. I forced my aether into her, blending my power with her life energy. “Your soul is mine.” And I drew the mix into me, devouring her life and her soul.

  I let go of the body that swiftly dried into a husk. I felt no difference other than the small jolt of power this gave me. Wondering if that was what the old seer wanted, I left the room, closing the door, and searched for Elena.

  She was finishing packing in her small room, Lillith helping her in silence. I stopped inside the door. “Hurry this up. We have to move.”

  “Why the rush?” Elena asked.

  Screaming echoed from the tunnel I used to enter. There was no way Sayf’s men wouldn’t be able to track me here, and now they were arriving.

  “Because of this.” I motioned with my head. “Come.”

  Elena’s belongings fit into two larger satchels. She had a third one, into which I put the bag of ice with severed arm, and then put two satchels over my back. Elena took the third one. “We need to take Grandmother.”

  As she stepped by me, I caught her shoulder to stop her. She looked at me and I shook my head.

  Her face slackened and eyes watered. Since she heard my conversation with Edna on the first day, she knew. “This way,” she said in a barely audible voice and turned in another direction. Lillith and I followed.

  Screaming from behind us intensified.

  “They found this place!” Elena shouted.

  Obviously. “We need to get to the Western exit.”

  Elena looked at the panicking women swarming through the dome, then back at me. There was no way we could help them, and she knew it. Elena sighed and her expression hardened. “This way.” She led us into a long tunnel. We rushed through the darkness, and my stomach hurt like hell. The wound was sewn so I wasn’t bleeding, at least not too much, but I’d still lost a lot of blood and felt weak.

  We opened the door, walked out of the tunnel without closing it, and filed out into the street. The city was still in an uproar. Electricity was still down, fires roared through the night, and water distribution was reduced to the base that worked without power.

  I headed up the street and we strolled toward the exit we originally used to enter Ubar. As we advanced up the slope, we got a better view of the city.

  Lillith tugged at my sleeve. “Did you… do this?”

  I said nothing and kept walking.

  “How could you?” she shouted, running alongside me. “Hundreds will die because of this.”

  “Things went wrong,” I said and sighed. Her face fell and eyes watered. “Look, Lillith, I am not a good man. I don’t know how to do things the right way or how to make the world a better place.”

  “And you told me…” her voice faded.

  Gently, Elena caught her by the shoulders. “The Harbinger destroys, but the Savior will save everyone who survives.”

  “There is no savior,” Lillith whispered, dropped her gaze, and continued walking. The alternative to coming with me was to get captured and be a slave, again. She didn’t have good choices.

  We got closer to the exit. People flooded into the tunnel, retreating from the city. That made sense since even if some slaves escaped, they would easily catch them in the desert. We blended into the crowd. The satchels we carried were a bit different from what everyone else carried and I didn’t wear the white thobe all men did, but the crowd was too dense for us to be spotted.

  Elena kept up with me, but Lillith lagged behind, struggling to force her way forward. I grabbed her by the hand and led her, using my other arm to fight the way forward. We passed the tank guarding the exit and walked through the tunnel.

  This time, no guarding spirits showed up.

  We exited the tunnel and got to the newly repaired outpost. They even replaced the tank. I pulled Lillith to me, lifted her up, and put her on the tank’s hood. “You too.” I told Elena and swung myself up. The tank’s turret stated turning. But I already got on its top, imbued my fingers with aether, and broke the trapdoor’s lock.

  I opened and a man beneath was trying to pull out his gun. I grabbed his neck, broke the spine by twisting my wrist, and threw him out. Inside the tank were two more men. I slid in, hit each one in the throat, breaking their spines, and threw them out. I killed them this way because this produced no blood and thus, to Lillith, they would look as if they were only unconscious.

  The crowd started shouting but didn’t run. Lillith held her face in her palms, sitting on the tank’s hull, while Elena was trying to get her up.

  “Elena. Make the crowd run,” I said, stretched my arms and grabbed Lillith. I lifted her up and put her into the tank.

  Elena stood into the trap door and started shouting in Arabic. At first, there was silence, and then the crowd started shouting back. Some people started trying to climb up on the hood. Elena shouted something again.

  This wasn’t working. I caught Elena’s robe and pulled her down into the tank. “Their fault.” Her face hardened but she only bowed.

  I slid into the cockpit, hit the start button and the engine roared to life. On the monitor, I saw the crowd of people surrounding the tank. I had no way to get out of here without running them over with the tank. My chest tightened. I didn’t want to do this, but what choice did I have. At the very least, I positioned my body so Lillith wouldn’t see the monitor. I had to move, no matter who was in the path.

  “Angels are brave…” Lillith muttered and stood up into the trap door. In an explosion of light, a halo burst above her head and the wings of light shot out of her back, each wing over dozen feet long. “Yarkd!” she shouted, and her voice thundered through the building. Glass in all windows shattered and for a moment, my ears fell deaf.

  The people fell off the tank and the crowd started running, desperately falling over each other to get away.

  That cleared the path in front of the tank. The little angel saved dozens of people. With a silly smile, I pressed the movement button and the tank bolted forward.

  Lillith withdrew her halo and wings, squatting into the tank. She huddled against her knees.

  Elena stared at her with wide eyes, mouth gaping. “You… you are the savior.”

  “No.” Lillith put on a sour smile. “I’m just a naïve, little girl.”

  Not so naïve anymore. And that was my fault. My heart sank into my stomach and I steered the tank to head toward the coordinates where I told Isabella to leave me the plane.

  On the screens in front of me, I noticed two jeeps left the outpost, heading toward us. I locked the tank in its speed and direction and snaked up into the turret. Elena got into the cockpit, sitting on the navigator’s seat while Lillith pressed herself against the side, as if trying to disappear.

  I loaded the shell into the cannon and started rotating the wheels next to the firing screen. The turret turned and I aimed at one jeep. They realized and started moving sideways. But the tank had advanced aiming algorithms, so after I locked the target on one jeep, the cannon kept adjusting its position.

  I moved so Lillith wouldn’t see the screen and pressed the button and the turret shook. Within a split second, the jeep exploded. I took another shell and reloaded the cannon.

  “How can you do this so easily?” Lillith asked, voice weak.

  “By being forced to,” I said and locked the target on the other jeep. “We will get caught if we stay. And I will not let them enslave you again.”

  “That sounds good.” She smiled sadly. “So, why does that feel like evil?”

  I pressed the button, the turret shook, and the second jeep disappeared in an explosion. “Sometimes, there is no good solution.”

  “I am an angel. I am supposed to find one.” She shook her head. “But I cannot see any. And neither can I see any way to change you. Why did the Heavens make me an angel if I cannot do anything?”

  “Perhaps, your time to do something has yet to come.” I smiled compassionately. “I am ageless. And, being an angel, you will stop ageing somewhere around twenty years of age. So, maybe now, your purpose is to watch and learn and the time to change something will come sometime later in the future. Perhaps, one day, you will save a thousand times more people than I will ever kill.”

  She smiled faintly. “Who are you that you don’t age?”

  Fuck. I shouldn’t have slipped that. I put on a fake smile, and said, “I’m a fallen angel’s son.” Which was irrelevant to the agelessness, but she couldn’t know that. And it also wasn’t lie, so her sense for truth wouldn’t notice anything.

  She said nothing, huddling against her knees, and so I returned to the cockpit to drive the tank.

  Elena was studying me with an inquisitive gaze. “Don’t worry. She will learn.”

  I didn’t want her to. Lillith was ten years old. She should have been going to school and making friends among girls her age. While I made sure she wouldn’t see me doing anything too brutal, she had to know. No matter how much I didn’t want her to, this was going to scar her.

  I drove the tank among the dunes. The plane came into view and I parked the tank by the dune out of the way.

  “Come.” I said and slid out of the vehicle.

  Elena followed me and Lillith peeked out as well. They both stared at the plane. Straight, geometric shapes made the Mistbird’s entire form, with a box-like body and wide, flat wings. As most Secret Society aircraft, this plane was undetectable by radar.

  I drew my phone and already saw the notification that I approached an unclaimed LCorp aircraft. The notification also asked me if I wanted to open the plane. With a smirk, I confirmed, and the plane’s tail opened, loading bay’s ramp descending.

  Elena caught up to me. “You have a war plane?”

  Well, yes and no. No, I didn’t own a plane, but as a top executive of a trillion-dollar criminal syndicate, yes, I could get myself a plane. “It’s complicated.”

  I led them through the bay door and into the cockpit. I sat in the pilot seat. Even Lillith now stared at all the buttons and switches the control panel had. From my flight training, I knew what about a quarter of them did.

  On my phone, I confirmed the notification that I wanted to take over the plane’s control, put in my password, confirmed with a fingerprint on my phone’s scanner, and the control panel lit to life.

  Next to the screen on the main board, I hit the button to close all exits, grabbed the control stick, pressed the start engine button and the plane rolled out. I moved the vehicle from among the dunes, seeing jeeps racing toward us on the horizon. Sayf’s men were still chasing us.

  Calmly, I turned on the autopilot, set that I wanted to take off, confirmed that I was certain the runway was clear of any obstacles, and set the highest flying altitude to thirty thousand feet. I confirmed again, and the acceleration pinned me to the seat.

  Elena and Lillith both fell on the ground, yelping.

  I forgot to tell them to sit down or to hold on. That wasn’t good of me. “Stay down. This will pass soon.”

  Lillith glared at me from the ground, holding herself to the wall. Elena screamed, utterly panicking.

  The plane shook and lifted off the ground. The desert started disappearing around us. And then we passed through the clouds and the acceleration pressure stopped. I got up and helped Lillith up. Elena was pale, voiceless, eyes wide. I gently caught her hand and helped her up.

  They both stared out of the front window in utter disbelief. I sat back down. “I need to make a call now. Say nothing no matter what happens,” I said.

  Neither of them answered, so I hoped they registered my words.

  I pulled out my phone but lacked any signal. And so, I reached out for the plane’s communication panel, activated it, and then typed out six-six-six as the number I wanted to call. The company aircraft used military -only satellites, so they always had signal. I looked around for headsets but found none. I pressed call. Above everything else, I had to ascertain that Lucielle got her first information about this incident in Ubar from me. With that, I could frame the narrative in my favor.

  A beep sounded from the speaker, a click followed, and then Lucielle’s sharp voice cleaved the air. “Who is this?”

  Elena still stared, but Lillith jumped back, her wings and halo of light bursting into existence. She had no idea who Lucielle was, but she still unconsciously reacted to the Devil’s voice.

  “Lucas here. How’re things going in Europe?” I asked.

  “Busy. But you’re not calling me to exchange pleasantries. Especially not from my military jet when you are supposed to be on a vacation. So, what did you do?”

  “Nothing much.” I smiled. “You see, I was really enjoying my vacation by the Red Sea, beach, sun, girls, and all—”

 

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