“All right, then. I suppose …” She looked at him with brief vague suspicion, but let it drop in the end. She sighed heavily again. “I suppose you know best.” Another sigh as she contemplated the situation. “I guess it would do me good to get out of here anyway.”
He nodded. He didn’t want to oversell it.
They stood.
“Okay, then. Africa? Amazing. I didn’t know they did anything in Africa.”
“Oh, wow, hon. You should Google it. You’d be amazed.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Use Google Images. Search for Cape Town, two words. You’ll be stunned.”
“Really? Where are you staying there?”
“Oh, it’s in a nice out-of-the-way spot called Simon’s Town. They’ve got a few little hotels there right on the water. Little café called Bertha’s. Should be fun.”
“Wives can’t come?” She gave him an elbow in the rib.
Oops. “Ah … no. Sorry. The company just wants us men.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Just you barbarians. Fine, go. Go and smoke cigars and drink Scotch and gawk at bikini-clad women. Just come home to me, all right?”
“Hey,” he said, “have I ever told a lie?”
Again, the eyes rolling. She turned to walk to the kitchen for the phone, talking over her shoulder at him. “Just bring the man I married back home to me. That’s all.”
Conversation over. Whew.
“And one more thing,” she said, wheeling back toward him suddenly and walking directly up to him. “I love you,” she said, and kissed him savagely.
When she pulled away, he was quite breathless. “Whoa, Nelly.”
She turned back to the phone with a wicked smirk on her face.
He swatted her butt as she walked away, making her howl in shock. He cackled devilishly and then stalked away toward the den. God, how he loved to flirt with her.
But now it was down to business.
He ducked into the office and turned around quickly, listening for the sounds of his wife talking to her sister on the phone. Yes, she had called and they were talking. He closed the door most of the way and began to pack a single black duffel.
The bookcase pulled out from the wall in an arc, hinged like a door, revealing a hidden safe behind. He turned the dial of the combination lock. It opened to his touch, revealing his passports, his stash of various currencies, and a matched set of daggers. The South African passport, a stack of about a quarter million rand in large notes, and the daggers—these all went into the duffel.
His passport was diplomatic, naming him as a South African national. Security checkpoints would allow him to pass completely unmolested when he flashed the document. He closed everything up, replacing the bookcase and rubbing his foot over the carpet where it had left a sign of its movement in a perfect semicircle. Smart was so simple sometimes.
The FBI had of course been either infiltrated or fallen prey to its own considerable bureaucratic girth. That was inevitable. Idiots. In any case, it was now time to take matters into his own hands.
His beloved wife would be safe at her sister’s house, he would fly to Cape Town based on intel he had gathered from his own sources, and things would play out however they would play out. No matter what. Daddies didn’t leave their children at the mercy of murderous kidnappers, slovenly predatory teenage boys, weird, unexplainable news stories with bizarre common threads, or any other malicious force under the sun. He would rescue his little girl, by God, come hell or high water.
Time to pack the clothes.
And you know what, it probably wouldn’t hurt to pack the twelve-gauge in there, either, on second thought. Follow up on that threat I made to that boy. He stopped and thought for a moment. I’d better grab the pipe cutter in the garage and shorten the barrel. With that, he also made a mental note to grab the hollow-point rifled slugs for ammo. They could blow a pie-pan-sized hole in a bull elk at fifty yards. Imagine what one of them might do to a kidnapper. Or an unfortunate boy, should he prove to be guilty of harming one hair on his little Airel’s head.
CHAPTER VIII
Arlington, Oregon—Present Day
AFTER MUCH INTERNAL DEBATE about what to do with the body of the boy, Michael decided to steal a boat. He slipped into the water with the corpse and swam sidestroke, his trailing arm dragging the lifeless husk along behind. It was the only way to avoid the well-lit paths of the park, the lighted docks of the marina.
It only took about fifteen minutes of swimming under the Interstate bridges out to the docks. He found a wakeboard boat with a large platform on the stern and floated the body onto it. Pulling himself up, he climbed aboard and pulled the body with him, laying it flat on the deck. One minute more yielded the hiding place for the keys, the master power switch, and ignition. A few more minutes and he had cast off.
Allowing the boat’s engine to idle, he piloted it out past the breakwater to the wide open and swiftly moving currents of the Columbia River. Turning the bow to the left, he let the boat slip into the downstream current and cut the engine.
“Good-bye, Marc. I’m sorry.” It was all he could say.
He turned, stepped over the transom onto the rear platform, and lowered himself quietly into the river. He swam with the current, making his way slowly toward shore. By the time he reached it, the sun was beginning to peel the night sky back, opening the day wide at the eastern horizon. He stood on the southern shore of the Columbia about half a mile from the park and his hotel room. He faced the river and looked for the boat. It was drifting quickly downstream from him, farther out in the middle of the river. Before too long, it would crash into the John Day Dam, unless the police or someone else apprehended it.
“Good thing our plane leaves soon.” He began the walk back, his pace rapid.
***
5 A.M. AND I WAS already in the shower getting ready for our flight.
I didn’t sleep very well, or very long. I had weird dreams that I couldn’t remember, and I woke up missing my family terribly. The ache I felt for them went beyond my parents, though. It was like I missed my extended family, people I hadn’t seen since the last reunion—Mandatory Fun Day, I always called it. Come on, I miss these people? Weird Aunt Stella? Cousin Fred and his stupid Trans Am? Granny Beatrice and her flatulence? Really? No, there had to be something more, something different. I wasn’t seeing it; there was some weird blockage.
It had to be the stone. I wished I could have talked to Michael about it, but he was obviously dealing with enough already. I felt bad for him, but then again, if he was stupid enough to carry that stupid thing and think he could remain unaffected, well, I guess I wished him well. I mean, I had no proof of whether or not he had it, but I wasn’t stupid; it was obvious. All it took was one glance into his eyes as he told me to leave him alone. Of course he had it. But I couldn’t be a part of that decision.
Which really sucked. She, what am I going to do?
The answer came back instantly: “Listen. Just watch.”
“Oh, my God.” I said aloud to the shower tiles. “Cryptic and mysterious as usual. You know,” I said, “it’s nice that Yoda lives in my head. It’s a little ridiculous, but I like it,” I said as I scrubbed my hair with what was left of the wholly inadequate hotel shampoo. “But one question, Master She: When do we get to the good part; you know, where I get to levitate you?” Because I’m going to let you drop like a sack of rocks, babe. Deal with that.
Then a single word popped into my head: “Parables.”
Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get that you’re like, teaching me in parables. But it’s pissing me off, all right? I can say so and that’s okay. I swear I could see the smug little smirk on She’s face. Ooo, that made me mad.
I was out of shampoo and my hair, superhuman or not, wasn’t clean. Dripping wet, I reached out from behind the curtain and raided Ellie’s stash of toiletries she had bought on her run to the store. Ah ha. Shampoo … I drew it in with me behind the curtain. “Dang,” I said, loo
king at it. “This is expensive stuff.” How did she come up with this stuff in Podunk Interstate mile marker number whatever? It eluded me, but I used the heck out of that shampoo.
My hair finally clean, I stood there under the stream of running water and thought. What was my beef with Ellie, the electric blue-haired angel girl? I always assumed the worst about her. I assumed she was trying to steal my boyfriend; that she had killed him and set me up to come back and kill my best friend Kim; that she was the villain. But, hello, she was getting us out of town on a chartered jet. For, like, free. What was my problem?
I groaned. Then and there I decided to try harder to be nice to her.
My thoughts swirled relentlessly. I felt bad for Kim. She had been used by that stupid stone. I couldn’t imagine how she felt, how dumb and embarrassed she must have felt about all of it. She looked like she had been through a double-wide trailer park overflowing with angry alcoholic stepdads. Just bruises and scratches everywhere on her. Poor thing. I wanted to make it up to her someday, whenever I could. Because on some level, this was all my fault.
It had to be.
I stood there in the shower, shaking my head in awe of how drastically my life had changed, and so quickly. It was all because of my Michael. My love.
I closed the tap and started to towel off.
How is this going to work?
Had he indeed chosen to be with me? To leave the Brotherhood? If so, why all this evidence to the contrary?
“Circumstantial evidence, you mean.”
Okay, whatever. I mean, he was carrying the Bloodstone on him. If I had read my grandfather’s Book correctly, whatever man—or woman, I gathered—carried the Bloodstone was linked to unspeakable evil. Perhaps the dark prince himself. I shuddered. I recalled how the Seer in those old stories—in that historical record—had been linked to the demon Tengu. But Kreios had killed him. If demons could be killed. I had to admit to being massively confused.
I wished with all my heart Kreios were there with some answers. Because, of course, the real question I was asking brought me back around to the gigantic question mark that hung over my relationship with Michael: Could a demon be reformed? Or, put more plainly, was there any hope at all for the son of the Seer?
Especially when he’s carrying the stone that corrupted his father. To the point where Michael had to kill him to be rid of him.
I pondered all this and more. What sort of legacy might the elder Alexander have handed down to his son? How much of that was above the surface, visible? And how much of it lay beneath, waiting to strike?
I felt hideously selfish for asking what came next, but there was a fine line between self-preservation and plain selfishness. What have I gotten myself into? And I had crossed that line, apparently. Dang.
I looked into the foggy mirror for an answer. I wiped it off and peered into my new impossibly perfect face. Really, if I was honest, everything I was becoming was because of Michael. My new face was a gift from him. Part of the reaction, the activation he had triggered. The bond we shared. I saw now that at first what I thought was love or attraction was the bond that formed when I was activated, but it changed somewhere along the way. I was in love with him, even though I knew he hid some things from me. He was doing it to protect me—or so I hoped.
She broke in. “Obviously you triggered something in him, too…” I couldn’t argue that. Something about me made him a little crazy. Crazy enough to kill his own father, crazy enough to try to kill himself when he thought I was gone. Dead. As dead as that little boy. Marc.
Then the thought entered my brain that no matter what, at some point I was going to have to face facts. Given what I had discovered about the change I had undergone, and indeed was still experiencing, I was going to outlive my lover by perhaps thousands of years. No matter what, I would lose him eventually. He too would be dead in my arms one day, his glazed-over and lifeless eyes looking up into the heavens.
Just like Marc. And I might hold Michael that same way and weep the way he had done. And I might ask El why, too, just like he had. Ask Him if it would ever be enough. I wondered then: Do I still want to go through with all of this?
I couldn’t believe my selfishness. It was repellent to me.
I had never known love. I hadn’t, judging by how I was acting, not really. I had never tasted true and abiding love, not once. No, scratch that. I knew I had felt it. It was when I was sinking into the deep, when I was dying. I had seen it in his eyes then. It was simple. Love was simply doing whatever it took. No matter what. That was all. And Michael had done it. When it hadn’t been enough, when his best efforts fell short, he had kept on trying, he had persisted, even in spite of the fact that I had died. It was his brave and bold action that had brought me back, and against all possibility. Somehow he had attained something higher. I knew it to be true.
Further, and I knew this to be true as well, I had not. I hadn’t shown him love. Not truly. Not if I was thinking of abandoning him in the time of his greatest need. I could see clearly then, as I looked into my own eyes in the mirror, the eyes that had come about as a result of his influence upon me— for good or evil, it all somehow had to submit to El’s will in the end—that Michael had done everything for me, that he had borne much grief, many sorrows, so much stress, and so much pain and emptiness for me. All for me. It was impossible, really. Unbelievable. Incredible. How could I walk away from him now?
No way.
I set my jaw and glared at myself in the mirror. Airel, grow up. Be a good girl now. And for God’s sake, stand by your man. If ever there was a time to do so, it was now.
I had some apologizing to do.
CHAPTER IX
WHEN MICHAEL FINALLY GOT back to his room, it was 7 a.m. He was distracted and angry. The Bloodstone was gone, picked right out of his pocket, and he had a good idea who was responsible.
Ellie stood waiting outside his door, back leaned to the wall. “Come with me,” she said.
They walked down to the park and sat under the bridge. “We need to talk,” she said. “Come up with some kind of coherent strategy.”
He was starting to respect Ellie. She was pretty smart. He thought that thousands of years of experience might do that to someone. He still held back a little, as was his nature. If he had learned anything from the Brotherhood, it was never to trust someone completely. The only person he let himself trust with all his heart was Airel. His heart swelled with love and pride for his Airel when he thought of the implications. He might not get to share all of that with her, but he would take what he could get.
“All right. But before you even get started,” he said, “I know you took it.”
“What of it?” she said.
“That thing is pure evil—very dangerous.”
“Trust me, I know that.”
“Why did you take it? You don’t trust me with it?”
“That’s not it at all, rookie. I’m following orders.”
“From who?”
She just stared at him with a look on her face that said, “You know the answer to that.” Then she said aloud, “I put it back in Kim’s duffel.”
He was stunned. “What?”
“It has already started to bond with her. We both know that. Trying to keep it from her will only make things worse. Some things are not up to us to decide.”
Michael could feel heat in his chest. Part of him wanted to scream at her, take the Bloodstone back for himself. He felt that using Kim, letting her have the stone, was just cruel. “Why give it to anyone at all? Can’t we just get rid of it, destroy it somehow?”
“Doesn’t work that way, mate. It needs a host; it wants to roam the earth. The Seer is not dead. The spirit, the identity that is the Seer—your father—all of it is in that stone.”
Michael searched his memories, thousands of years of them, for some sort of answer. He knew she was right, but the darkness he felt in knowing that Kim had the stone, knowing what it might do to her, made him feel like a traitor all o
ver again. “And it’s your place to interfere? Ellie, I had everything under control.”
“Oh, yeah? Okay, when did you find out she was hiding it?”
He had no response.
Ellie’s face softened. She put her hand on his arm and sighed. “It’s not your burden to bear. I don’t care what Stanley Alexander tried to pass on to you, mate. It fell to Kim. It fell to her and she accepted responsibility, whether that was done in ignorance or not. She’s gotta live with the consequences of it now.”
Michael sat back and digested this. How could he allow that to happen? Did El know what He was doing? How could He allow Kim’s mind to be cursed? Michael didn’t have a whole lot of personal experience, but he had his training—he knew enough about the role of the Seer in the great scheme of things to know that what Kim would have to undergo would not be good. In truth, he didn’t like any of it. “I give her a few more days. Tops. Before her mind snaps completely,” he said, whispering.
“So be it,” Ellie said with a shrug.
“That’s cold for an angel of God.”
“It’s cold for one of your lot, Demon Boy.”
He winced.
“Sorry,” she said. “But it is what it is; it called, she answered. It is not up to me or you to try to fix it. We must use our heads and turn this terrible thing to the advantage.”
“What do we do, then?” He was genuinely at a loss.
“First, we’ve gotta trust that El knows what He’s on about. He sees the whole picture, we don’t.”
“Okay…”
“Second, we keep moving. Stick with the plan you yourself laid out. We take the battle straight to them. Drive right at the heart of the whole operation.”
Michael sat and blinked, thinking. “Yeah, but … if Kim’s got the stone, wouldn’t we be taking it right to the hands of the enemy? It’s like, exactly what they’ll want. They just want the Bloodstone.”
“Yep. And they’ll do anything to get it, including fratricide on a whole new level. They’ll kill anything and everything that stands in their way to be the first to get at it. That thing is a direct link to the Prince of Darkness himself. It means pure power, and they go mad for that sort of rubbish.”
The Airel Saga Box Set: Young Adult Paranormal Romance Page 52
