The Demon's Lover ✓

Lover - Four

2011 © Sonia Bartlett ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Chapter 4

Getting things done was something Christian excelled at. In many ways this was because, from the age of a small child, he'd known that there was no one to lean on for him. With his birth, he'd lost his mother, and soon after his father had been captured. When his guardian, the old precognitive Hemon, died Christian was forced to realize he was alone.

It was this solitary existence that had taught him the ways of the world. Satan had thrown him upon the mercy of his own kind, a mere orphan who was completely dependent upon the good will of others to support himself. When Christian reached his majority he turned away from everything and started searching for his father.

And now, he thought stonily, I'm one step closer to finding him. Two thousand years of searching and he was so close he could taste it. Something inside him told Christian his father was in America. This was why he was currently sitting in the expensive chartered helicopter heading to the Grand Canyon.

The 'copter was to take him to what was appropriately deemed the 'Bowl'. It was the widest part of the Grand Canyon, and also the deepest. Taking an aerial view of the canyon it looked exactly like that: a bowl, albeit a mile deep and eighteen mile wide one.

Sighing, Christian lounged further down in his seat. He couldn't get her out of his head. No matter how he tried. Just when he thought she was gone for good, her soft blue eyes would flash to the front of his thoughts. The slightly confused, vulnerable expression in their almond shape when she'd all but collapsed to the ground now haunted him.

He could not rid himself of the image and the worst part was that he had no idea why. Christian shook his head. In his over two thousand years, he had never once been unable to clear his mind of everything but the search for Lukale. But then again, he had rarely thought of anything but.

A static along his headset made Christian sit up and turn to the pilot. "We're heading over the Bowl now. We should be passing over the heart of it in a moment. I'm to drop you at the ranger's site about a mile to the west of here," the pilot said.

Christian nodded before looking out the open side of the helicopter. The sight that met his eyes was breathtaking in the midday heat, but Christian was never one to get anything taken from him - even his breath. An array of plateaus and valleys formed together over thousands of years; a river that had carved its way into history and into the depths of mother earth; a sparkling assortment of rocks, each layer a different and fascinating color - all combined in one magnificent vista such as no one had ever seen elsewhere. All Christian had no interest in, and all he overlooked.

All he was interested in were the caves.

"Beautiful, ain't it?" the pilot grinned, noticing Christian's rapt attention. Little did he know his thoughts were misdirected.

"Yes," Christian rapped out. He paused before adding, "I hear there are caves down there."

"Yep," the pilot nodded. "This was carved out by the Colorado River for the past 17 million years. Less than a thousand ago the Pueblo people, Native Americans you know, settled in the caves left from erosion. They though this place was sacred...made pilgrimages to it and such."

Nodding, Christian continued to search the ground for sights of those caves. They were flying a mile above sea-level, but with his advanced senses seeing two miles away in perfect clarity was in no way a struggle for him. "What about mines? Tunnels and such?"

"Well," the pilot said laconically, "When Roosevelt declared this as a national park, there was no mining allowed. If such a mine existed, it was shut down long ago... and it would probably not be stable at all. But there is a legend...nonsense naturally."