Airel

by Patterson, Aaron

  But Airel had been different. He had wanted that, though. He had wanted her to be different. He had hoped it was just a mistake, a wrongful mark. They had to have botched things somehow; it had to have been a case of mistaken identity. But then he had fallen for her. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  If you love her so much, why did you betray her? His mind flickered backward to his mother—how his father had murdered her in cold blood while cursing her to a slow and painful eternity in hell. The next thought was inevitable, and it hurt more than he could express: like father, like son…

  He had known that trying to negotiate with his father was pointless, but he tried anyway. After a horribly long night, he had barely escaped with his life, leaving his mother to die. James had sealed it up, had demanded and extracted his complete and utter obedience.

  Michael walked into the open meadow and began to climb the long winding stone stairway that led up to the back of the house. He didn’t know he was sobbing, that his tears were falling onto Airel’s face, until he walked up to the big windows and saw his reflection in the glass.

  He abhorred his reflection, felt guilty that he didn’t hate it enough. He pushed the door open and walked into the large ballroom. He then carried his one and only up to her room and laid her gently on the bed.

  Michael was not expecting the fury of the storm of his own grief as it overtook him. He collapsed over the body of his beloved, whom he had murdered, and he buried his head in her wet hair, sobbing, “I’m so sorry! My love, I’m so sorry!”

  He tried to breathe in the sweet smell of her hair and skin, but only caught the scent of death. All he desired was to join her, and he cursed Kreios for bringing him back to a life he no longer wanted to live.

  Some things cannot be undone. Some words cannot be rewritten, and some wounds cannot be mended.

  Michael raised his head, blinking. He looked at her face, still beautiful in death. A thought, both rash and bold, was blooming upon the face of his consciousness. Would it be possible? He rose to his feet, half-turned from her, as if pulled in some new direction, yet not willing to depart. No. He reached down to her figure, lying motionless before him on the bed. “No!”

  He moved toward the door, slowly at first, walking backward, then turning, increasing his pace, then reaching the door. When he passed through it, he turned and ran down the hallway to the stairs, racing down them, half falling with the speed he carried.

  When he reached the bottom, he turned toward the library. “No!” He was racing. He crash-landed in the room before the great fire, which was always lit. Frantically, he searched. “No, No!”

  Running wildly throughout the room, dodging from shelf to shelf, he looked. He searched high and low. It is here somewhere; it must be; I feel it to be true! And yet the lines from Shakespeare echoed back to him:

  Truth may seem, but cannot be;

  Beauty brag, but ‘tis not she;

  Truth and beauty buried be.

  “I do not believe it!” he hurled the words against the real, dashing them against the rotten powers of his mind. He searched frantically on for a moment, then stopped—still.

  Slowly turning, he fixed his gaze on the great roaring fire. Above its licking flame there stood a mantelpiece. On its ledge were a few books, an old-fashioned inkwell and quill pen. He walked toward them.

  Each step produced in the air a shockwave of foreboding, each step radiating outward momentous importance. His hand reached up and out; he closed his eyes, sensing. Farther and farther it reached, fingertips extended. Closer it came, the reach of his hand cutting against time and possibility. At last the tip of his forefinger brushed the surface of a book, and he heard, ringing out into the wilds of his mind a single word: AIREL.

  Michael understood in an instant what was to be done. Taking the book down, he opened it. Taking the quill pen from the inkwell, he wrote three simple words:

  “But she lived.”

  COMING SOON

  BOOK TWO IN THE AIREL SAGA

  There is never an end,

  Life breaks in with gentle force and the old is made new.

  Death is the beginning of life,

  Before we can truly live we must all die.

  Chapter I

  Michael could physically feel his heart rip inside his chest as he was crushed under the weight of his decisions. But what choice did he have? Writing in the book had to be wrong, but he could not lose Airel this way. Not like this; not after he betrayed her to his demonic father, not after all that had passed between them. He had trampled his love for her, had trampled her—and for what?

  His pen scrawled the words:

  “But she lived.”

  Michael watched the page crinkle under his tears as they dropped to the parchment, smudging the ink. This was not what he had wanted, not what he would have ever believed could happen.

  Airel was just another mission, just another cursed threat that needed to be cleansed from the dominion. She was a job, like so many others. But Airel somehow got in, broke past all his defenses and took hold of his heart.

  He had never known love, never really cared about it—not with his demon partner. Airel broke the rules like they’d never even existed. He now was certain: he would kill and die for her.

  He turned and set the book down, closing it. The name on the cover glistened like stars in the coldest sky:

  AIREL.

  It was her book, The Book of her life. Every thought, dream and nightmare.

  He left it there in the library and walked the lonely trek down massive halls of splendor toward her room. It was the most tortured he had ever felt in his life, and he felt the heat of self-hatred grow with each step.

  Michael did not know if what he had done would work. He walked reverently into her room and stared at her as she lay cold and wet on the bed. He was so numb that he didn’t know what he had expected: did he really think she would just wake up and live out a happy, normal life?

  Airel’s corpse was pallid and blue and cold. Michael could feel his gut tighten into a hard ball; he could feel fresh tears well up and sting his eyes. He muttered a curse and ran a hand through his hair. His legs shook, he collapsed and fell to the floor under his overpowering grief.

  “No… please, God,” he prayed sacrilegiously, but honestly—and though it was the first time he had ever called out to El in submission, he held tightly to vague hope. “I can’t go on without her; she’s innocent. This is all my fault!” his voice shook, but through the distortion of tears, he looked and caught his breath.

  Airel bolted upright, hacking and spitting water, arms clawing, lungs sucking air. Wet and tangled hair flew with the force of her gasping.

  Michael froze, stunned, not believing what he saw. He tried to get up off the floor but could not.

  Airel looked around, crazed, as if she had just awakened from a horrific nightmare.“Airel!” It was a whisper that he managed to force past his lips; the only word that said it all. It said, “I’m sorry,” it said, “please forgive me,” and most of all it said, “I love you!”

  About the Authors

  Aaron Patterson is the author of the bestselling WJA series as well as two Digital Shorts: 19 and The Craigslist Killer. He was homeschooled and grew up in the west. Aaron loved to read as a small child and would often be found behind a book, reading one to three a day on average. This love drove him to want to write, but he never thought he had the talent. His wife Karissa prodded him to try it and with this encouragement he wrote Sweet Dreams, the first book in the WJA series, in 2008. Airel is his first teen series and plans for more to come are already in the works. He lives in Boise Idaho with his family, Soleil, Kale and Klayton. His daughter had an imaginary friend named She.

  Chris White has an award for reading 750 books in one school year—from the 3rd grade. So yes, he’s more of a nerd than Aaron. Chris loves history, Sherlock Holmes, and anything that’s not virtual, like old motorcycles and mechanical typewriters. He also doesn’t get why we have these thi
ngs called “smartphones” when all they do is make people dumber. Chris recently celebrated 10 years of marriage with his wife, April, and has two boys: Noah, age 8, and Jaden, age 3, who inspired the Great Jammy Adventure series; the OK-to-color-in picture books. Chris is working on a short story called The Marsburg Diary that will further explore the prologue to Airel, and he is finishing up his first novel, entitled K: phantasmagoria, due out in 2011. Chris has a major crush on Audrey Hepburn, who is now dead. His wife is okay with all of this.

  EXTENDED CUT BACKSTORY:

  Stuttgart, Germany: 1897

  William Marsburg had risked everything for this. He had journeyed over the frigid sea from his home in London, endured horrible weather, wretched roads, and terrifying unexplainable occurrences. But the purpose of all the misery that had come before, that he had endured with his reward in mind, slipped into the void and faded away. He wrung his hands—the book was lost.

  He had been in correspondence with Herr Wagner, who lived in a large house in the country near Stuttgart, for well over a year. Marsburg had been following a lead on a rare book that was in Wagner’s care. They had written back and forth in detail on the subject. William Marsburg had come through the fires of Hell to get here, and probably still smelled of brimstone as he stood talking to the German in utter disbelief. His blood was boiling.

  “I can apologize to you again, sir, if you require it,” Wagner remonstrated in heavily accented English. “But the book is not here.”

  “The book is not here,” Marsburg said.

  “I can state with certainty that you were not the only party of interest…” Wagner looked past him through the window to the rapidly darkening landscape, eyeing the already black forest. He took a large drink of brandy.

  William Marsburg had not yet touched his own brandy, though he could have used it—he was chilled to the bone. “No matter,” Marsburg blurted. “I can only thank you, sir, for being kind enough to allow me to prevail upon your hospitality as my host.”

  “Certainly.” Herr Wagner was still marveling at the fact that Marsburg had evidently arrived at his isolated doorstep on foot.

  “I shall leave early tomorrow. I do not wish to put you out in the least.” Marsburg wanted to say far more than propriety would permit—he wanted to interrogate the man, make him pay for his insolicitude, cause him pain, beat him, bind him and extract the answers he sought; that he valued more than his own life. And though Herr Wagner made a show of protest and offered him his house for as long as he required it, Marsburg knew he was being insincere. The German had wanted him gone as soon as his identity had become known to him.

  A servant showed him to his room. He turned into bed and slept fitfully.

  He awoke in the morning to find his host as missing as was the book for which he had come. The valet, however, soon came howling into the drawing room in hysterics, screaming sacrilegious oaths in frightened German. Wagner was in his room, murdered; flayed like a beast and strung up by his limbs above the bed, dripping. William Marsburg could not stifle a shudder, knowing more than he would readily admit.

  Police came to investigate and found nothing but the unspeakable realities. They instructed Marsburg to remain in Stuttgart until further notice. That night, if he had been unable to sleep well the night before, he slept not at all.

  In the morning, feeling on the edge of illness, he arose for breakfast, courtesy of the late Wagner’s servants. It tasted horrible. He knew, of course, exactly what he intended to do.

  As soon as there was reasonable opportunity to take his leave, he dismissed the servants to quarters and began searching the house. He was not a man to be kept from what he wanted, especially after having traveled through so much adversity. And he could not allow himself to flee, though he could taste his desire for it, until he had at the very least satisfied a lust far darker and more compelling: his lust for the book.

  It was a dark day; the heavens seemed to mourn both the loss of the master of the house and the manner of his passing.

  Down long corridors, past hideous wooden gargoyles and demonic statuary, over creaking floorboards, he crept. He searched using only what daylight made its way past the shutters into the house. After hours of searching, only one possibility remained: the cellar.

  His breaths came in short intervals as he realized what he must do. He risked discovery by the servants as he exited the back of the house and stepped into the snow. Though only fine rays of sun filtered through the thick clouds, the light was focused on him, as if announcing his plan to the world.

  He stepped lightly toward the side of the house, where a single heavy door was situated over the steps that led to the dankness of the cellar. Brushing off a crust of snow from the frozen iron ring on the door, he heaved upward, snow sliding off noisily into a pile beside it. He glanced roundabout him and, seeing no one but the dog, descended quickly down the stone steps, allowing the door to close softly over him. It was like, he supposed nervously, being buried alive. He wondered offhand if that was what his own funeral would be like—with none in attendance, none to mourn his passing but the dog.

  In the stifling darkness , he reached his trembling fingers into the pocket of his greatcoat and found his sterling matchbox. He struck a match and it flared up, revealing the icy puffs of his breath, then a taper candle set on a ledge. He could not see much in the darkness beyond. He took a deep breath and tried to reject the overpowering idea that he would share Wagner’s fate, only in slightly different gruesome detail down among the roots, stones, and mud.

  He lit the taper and stepped forward cautiously into the icy darkness. It did not take long to look past barrels of flour and barley, jars of pickled beets, bottles of wine, toward a single wall with bits of plaster peeling from it.

  He moved toward the wall, examining things closely on the way as he looked for clues. Behind a large barrel, he saw what he was looking for. There were cracks in the plaster in the shape of a square, where it was darker, fresher. He rolled the barrel aside with his free hand and set the candle on top.

  He ran his fingers along the edges of the cracks. The plaster was moist, crumbling off and smearing on his fingertips. He cursed the old German, so freshly dead. “He hid the book here for some selfish reason, no doubt,” he whispered his abuses into nothingness. He wiped his grimy, sweaty hands against his clothes.

  He searched for something to scrape the wet plaster from the wall, finding a stave from a whisky barrel. He looked around for enemies, deciding in the end that surely he had not been fated to get this close only to be struck down. He turned to his work and began to scrape the plaster away, revealing the lath boards beneath. As he stabbed at the crumbling wall and one of the boards broke, revealing a hollow behind.

  He broke more boards away and gasped. There, revealed by the light of his candle, was a dark chest. It was small, about the size of a book. “At last!” he hissed, then cursed himself for making so much noise.

  He pulled the box from its stealthy hole with a little effort and laughed in spite of himself. “This is it!”—he knew it. The bronze clasp gave way easily as he opened the lid. Inside was an antique book, hidebound. It was glorious, and he gasped again in worshipful awe. Once more he looked around into the edges of the darkness for sinister signs that the enemies he had made over the course of the last year of his life were awaiting him. His hands were dirty and sweaty, and he knew that he should not touch such a treasure with such hands... nevertheless he proceeded. His whole body shook as he reached slowly into the chest.

  His finger grazed the cover and he shouted in shock, recoiling in horror. Eyes wide, he froze and cowered, shame-faced that the game was now over. Or was it? He looked to the door, then back to the book in awe. “What is this?” His whispers licked the gilded edge of the book.

  Had anyone else heard it? He waited—for what felt like eternity—for the servants to come running to investigate. He shivered, feeling suddenly colder. He looked down at the chest that held the object of his desire
and considered. This had been such a simple little quest. So innocent. He could never have guessed at any of this. In fact, he felt small…and did not like it. Resolved at last, he reached down and closed the chest with malice.

  He stood and regarded his situation for some time, running over his “choices” in his mind. What happened, however, was inevitable. He reached down, grabbed the little chest, and placed it inside his greatcoat.

  He burst from the cellar, leaving the door to crash down on its hinges, muttering profanities in his haste. The candle's flame was now the only life in the cellar.

  He walked straight into the house and very hastily packed his only bag, burying the chest deep inside. He grabbed his satchel, with its own newfound valuable contents, and rang for the valet. When he came, Marsburg informed him that he would depart “at once.” Servants and footmen were soon scurrying every which way in the now heavily falling snow in front of the house. Marsburg looked on with impatience as the coach and horses were made ready.

  He raced to the Stuttgart station and the soonest departing train to anywhere. He had taken that for which he had come.

  The candle had been knocked askance by his frantic exit, finding a bit of cheesecloth, broken lath boards, dry timbers; and flames were spreading in the cellar. Soon it would consume the entire house, leaving nothing but a smoking black crater.

  But as William Marsburg took to the rails to fly away, his mind was ringing with a single deafening word; the word he had heard when his finger grazed the cover of the book: