Page 28 of King from the Sky

“It’s the blood. Its lion’s blood that makes it work. That is why it wouldn’t do anything. I’ve got the lion’s blood on my hand.”

“Wow, I guess that does make sense.”

“I dunno, but I’ll take it. I just hope I’m right and it works.”

He sat the Seplika down on the floor and Emily shone the flashlight over the pad. The blood was bright red, splattered all over his skin, giving them an eerie look that made her queasy. Emily never got this way around animal blood which she came into contact from time to time, but knowing that it had come from a person—well, a human hybrid anyway—made it all much more violent and distasteful. She had actually passed out at the sight of blood before, but she was hoping that she could keep it together this time.

Alex finished inputting the information and he stood back to wait. The red glow was getting a bit brighter. It was tough to look at and it created an odd clash with the brightness from the flashlight so Emily shut it off. Now the eerie red light was the only thing lighting up the darkness of the warehouse.

Emily looked around at the darkness as they continued to wait. Even though she was there with Alex she could not help wondering what was hiding in the shadows beyond the red halo that surrounded them. It was like a very fine line that cut off where the red ended and the total black began. Anything could have been hiding in that light right then.

“I think it’s working,” Alex said. His voice held more hope than certainty though and Emily felt the gnawing inside of her that this was going to come to another dead end. She really wanted this to be the one thing that brought everything together, mostly because she wanted Alex to not feel like he had failed. He had never shown her that he ever felt harsh or negative emotions with himself, but she could tell that he was just ignoring those feelings that came from so far within. If he did complete the missions then it was very likely that he was going to go back to his kingdom and it was even possible that he was not going to invite her to go along with him. As much as she didn’t want to see that happen, she wanted his unhappiness even less. His joy and well-being meant more to her than she ever thought someone else’s feelings could.

So Emily held her breath and willed this damn thing to work. But the red light grew dim and then there was only darkness. She waited a beat before turning on the flashlight because she did not want to see the look of sadness flash across Alex’s face, not even for an instant. She wanted to give him at least a few minutes to try to hide it and to wipe the pain away before settling on that sweet smile that he was bound to flash at her.

Emily turned on the flashlight and held it on the Seplika. The gold color was magnificent in the light contrast to the dark around it.

“I don’t get it. What else does it need?” Alex asked out loud. He placed his hands on his hips and squatted down beside it and stroked the magical object gingerly. What was it going to take?

“Having problems, big brother?”

The voice cut through the silence and pierced Emily’s heart with terror. She jumped and found herself running towards Alex’s side dropping the light to the floor. It was at this moment that Emily noticed the dark giving away to the light outside. They had left the door open to the warehouse and she could now see in the absence of the flashlight that the sun was starting to rise. In a few more minutes it would definitely be more light than dark. She was relieved by this fact that twisted its way into her mind in a matter of nanoseconds but she was terrified by the intrusion of a new person to their secluded activities.

And did he say brother?

Alex stood up guarding Emily behind him. The look on his face was one of concern mixed with rage and frustration.

“Josh,” Alex said as his eyes adjusted to the light.

Josh smiled at him as he walked closer to the center, his features now being illuminated by the light on the floor. The shadows that danced across his face were similar to the demonic ones that Emily had seen on the walls just minutes ago, but they appeared to be less menacing as he moved slowly shifting his weight from side to side.

“Haven’t seen you for a bit, big bro. It seems you left everyone in a panic when they discovered that you were gone,” Josh said.

Emily noticed that Josh looked a lot like Alex, but he was a bit thinner and he seemed to have a more menacing demeanor. She wondered if it was because of what she knew about what Josh had tried to do to Alex, or if it was just because Josh had that cocky swagger that was beyond confident and zeroed in on total arrogance.

“I had some business to take care of,” Alex said. The anger in his voice was seething through his gritted teeth. Emily felt the tension in the room thicker than a pool of fog wrapping around her.

Josh smiled as he stood there carefully surveying the scene between Emily and Alex. He appeared to be able to read their every emotion and thought in their eyes. His gaze moved from Alex then over to Emily. He locked eyes with her and she could see him clearly now as daybreak was well under way and the darkness in the warehouse had faded except for the darkest recesses in the back corners. Josh was even more slender than Emily had initially thought he was as she took him in again with her eyes, still gauging and trying to formulate an exact opinion of him.

“Well, I can certainly see you did,” Josh said pointing to the Seplika. He was eyeing it as if he had planted it in hiding himself. He clearly knew far more about it than Emily wished he did. It made sense, being Alex’s brother that he might know a lot about the Seplika, but given his evil nature that was not information that Emily was at all happy with him having. She wanted to wipe the smug smile off his face and make him eat the Seplika. Just thinking about what he had tried to do to Alex was driving her crazy. How could they stand there and pretend to have a civilized conversation with this monster? Alex should have been ripping his head off right then, but instead he seemed almost interested in what Josh had to say.

“You knew I came here for the Seplika. You knew it all along, didn’t you?” Alex asked.

Emily was not aware that Alex’s advisors did not know anything about the Seplika or where it was located. She had always just assumed that they knew about it, but did not think it was important enough to risk losing their king over.

“Grandpa told me those same stories, knucklehead. It was not hard to find you.”

“So, why are you here? You going to try to finish the job that your two lackeys couldn’t?” Alex asked. Emily had never heard that level of malice in his voice and it was a bit disturbing to her, but she understood perfectly well where it was coming from.

“Well, sometimes if you want something done right…” Josh said trailing off.

“Do you really need to be king that badly?” Alex asked.

“Well, yeah. It is something I’ve always wanted. Hell, I know it means nothing to you because you are just too noble to care about such things. You are such a melodramatic rebel cliché,” Josh said.

“It’s better than being an egotistical narcissist who wants absolute power and will stop at nothing, no matter how devious, to get it. That is a cliché.”

“Right you are. So, I guess we do have at least one thing in common. Well, two things if you count our taste in women. Damn, where did you find this pretty little thing?” Josh asked.