Michael (The Curse) (The Airel Saga, Book 3: Part 5-6) (22 page)

Then, like a lightning bolt out of a pitch black sky, a simple thought came to him:
Airel.
Love. He breathed in deeply, but it was ragged and spastic, as if he’d just been weeping his heart out. He exhaled and a tear escaped and ran down his cheek. He wiped it away with his hand and realized that he knew what he had to do. And why.

CHAPTER XVI

I OPENED MY EYES and stared at the ceiling. For the briefest of moments I could remember everything. Then it was gone, “like a fart in the wind,” as Kim would say.
What did I miss?
I felt dirty, like someone or something was watching me. I knew we were being followed—I could
feel
it. Was it the Brotherhood? Was it right now? I didn’t know.

Kim had snuggled up with most of the blankets in her sleep, leaving me chilly and naked on the bed. Becoming more aware of my surroundings, I panicked:
Is Michael in the room?
I covered myself as best I could and looked around. I spied Ellie in the bed opposite. She was sleeping.
Do angels sleep?
I guessed so; I had seen Kreios sleeping. I crossed my arms over my chest and sat up slowly.

I looked closer at Ellie. She was out cold. I figured maybe we would miss dinner. At least some of us would, anyway, and I was capable of getting some takeout for the rest of our little group so they could have something to eat whenever they woke up. As for me, I was hungry. Freaking starving.

But I was naked.
Yikes.
I looked around again. Last I knew, Ellie had been on a mission to get some gas-station clothes. Sure enough, there on the desk chair sat several shopping bags, and it looked promising. They were a big step up from convenience-store quality. They were mall quality.

Go Ellie.

I grabbed the bags and made a dash for the bathroom. I never was the kind of girl who could walk brazenly across a women’s locker room, whether anyone was aware of me or not. I didn’t know how some women could do that. I was too shy for prancing in my birthday suit—it always made me uncomfortable. But what else could I have done? I wasn’t going to get dressed right back into my filthy clothes after I had showered.
Gross.

I shut the bathroom door behind me and flipped on the light, rummaging through the haul of stuff Ellie had brought back. I was stunned. It was like I had been out shopping myself. There were a couple of pairs of designer jeans, some really cute little tops, even some accessories like a little packet of hair ties. And—thank God—some high-quality unmentionables.
Where did she find this stuff?
Did Arlington, Oregon, have a Victoria’s Secret? It was crazy, and everything fit perfectly. The other bag had some shoe boxes inside.
No way.
Again, I was stunned. I pulled out a pair of sturdy lightweight hikers with an aggressive tread on the sole. They fit my feet like they had been custom made.
Insane.
I ran my fingers through my hair and tied it back loosely with one of the hair ties.
Lookin’ good.
I didn’t know what to think.

I checked my reflection one last time and then turned off the lights.

I quietly left the room and went down to the lobby.

Michael was sitting in a chair by the coffee maker, reading a newspaper. He looked clean and fresh, wearing jeans and a button-up shirt. He saw me and smiled, folding the paper and setting it down. “Hey. You get a good nap?”

I nodded and hugged him, laying my head against him. I could hear his heart thumping in his chest. “You smell good,” I said, relishing the familiar. “So you’re catching up on sports, or…?” I motioned to the paper.

His eyes sparkled. “Comics,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Nerd.”

He kissed my cheek, setting me afire. “Where’s everyone else?”

I pushed him away gently. “Everyone else is still sleeping. I figured why wake them.”

“Cool.”

I could tell he was going to ask me something important, something potentially awkward.

“So,” he said, “you want to try that date again?”

My heart skipped a beat when I realized what he had said, and my mind flitted back over all the—well, the Audrey Hepburn moments we’d had. The awkwardness I had felt. It was like he was asking me out for the first time. Um, again.

“On one condition, Mister. This time, no thuggish fights in the parking lot.”

He laughed, a musical sound. “No worries. So, what’ll it be? Pizza? Or pizza. That’s, like, all they have here.”

“Hmm.” I rested my chin on my finger, thinking. “Let’s see here. I’m gonna go for pizza.”

He nodded as if I had said something very wise. “Good call.”

“I could eat a whole one all by myself,” I said. I loved that I could be a pig and not worry about … about being a pig. I could be
me
with Michael, and I loved that.

CHAPTER XVII

WE FOUND A TABLE near the back of the small hometown pizza joint and sat down. The place was moderately full—farmers, road crew guys, fishermen, and just-passin’-through types filled various booths and tables. An ancient Rock-Ola jukebox hurled the occasional hatefully catchy earworm 80s power ballad at all of us whenever someone dropped in some quarters, which was too often for my taste. The waitresses hustled from table to table with frilly little salmon-colored aprons around their waists. It didn’t take much imagination to see them taking orders with pad and pen, lit cigarettes dangling from their lips, held fast by their filters in the bond of thick blood-red lipstick, thus completing the cliché. I mean, why not, after all?

One of them, a rough bulldog of a woman with pock-marked jowls and strands of gray hair rebelling against the bun that held most of it at bay, came and curtly took our order. She then swooshed away in a storm of polyester and Aqua Net hairspray.

“So,” Michael began, “what do you think about Ellie?”

It was abrupt; it made me suddenly cautious. I brought my guard up by taking a sip of Coke, hiding behind the glass and speaking into it. “What do you mean?” My voice tumbled out of the glass amplified. It embarrassed me.

“Well, I mean you two seem to have your differences, ya know? I couldn’t help but sense the drama.”

I huffed. It was mostly a laugh. “Yeah. Well, I honestly don’t know what her problem is. Can we talk about something else?”

He looked frustrated. “Yeah, I guess.”

I thought about how she had insisted on dividing us up along boy-girl lines at the hotel. “Look. I think she’s who says she is, okay? I mean, like her or not, she’s the real deal.”

Michael’s expression was a clear question mark, and it hung over both of us. “But what was going on back there on the train?”

I thought about it, wanting to give him my best answer. “It was crazy. I don’t even know. It’s like all this … this evil … just came out of nowhere.” I wiped beads of condensation from my glass down onto the table, spinning it counterclockwise as I did so. “I guess after the devil was done down in Georgia,” I blamed the jukebox with an accusative glance, “he decided to take a little train ride in Oregon, huh-huh.” I laughed crazily at my own pathetic joke and made a face.

He didn’t laugh or even crack a smile. “Yeah,” he said, and that’s all he said.

“What.” I knew there was more.

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you do.”

He acknowledged the truth with a little shrug. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Just okay.”

“You’re holding out on me.”

This time he sighed heavily. “Sparkling conversation. First date.”

“Second,” I corrected him into my glass, taking another sip.

“Second,” he acknowledged, drumming his fingers on the table.

“And don’t try to change the subject. Go on, spill it,” I said. I tried to sound encouraging, optimistic. It came out too harsh.

He sighed again. “I just don’t know...” He looked like a little boy sitting there, like a little boy whose dog had just been run over and he didn’t know what to do with himself.

I reached out and touched his arm. “What is it?”

We were interrupted by the waitress. She placed a hot pizza down on the table with a couple of plates, called us both “hon,” and walked off after confirming we needed nothing else. We dug in greedily, forgetting the line of conversation for a moment. But it came back. I wouldn’t let it die.

“Do you think we can trust her?” I asked.

“Ellie? Ha,” Michael said, “yeah, we can trust
her.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?” I gnashed another bite of gorgeous-tasting pizza in my mouth.

“It’s Kim you should be worried about.”

“Mff?” I asked through my food. It helped me mask my shock.

“Kim. Dude. She’s the reason …”

I swallowed. “What? Tell me.”

He simply shook his head. “Can’t we just enjoy ourselves for one evening, just the two of us? Why do we have to talk about this?”

“Because it’s important?” I was a little incredulous.

“More important than taking a much-needed time-out? Come on, we’ve been running from—” He lowered his voice and came closer. “We’ve been running for almost a week now. Running, like common criminals. From … from all kinds of … of things. And people. Can’t we just have one night? A few hours?”

This time I sighed. I was exasperated but I took another enormous bite of my slice and began chewing it. All I could do was roll my eyes a little in expression of my frustration. “You’re worse than my dad,” I finally said.

“Compliment accepted.”

“Oh, frack,” I said, which proved I was a
Battlestar Galactica
nerd.

He laughed at me and then took another bite. “I’m hungry,” he said.

It was one of those things people said as they were eating; it made no sense really.

I knew he was done talking about the issue at hand, and in that sense what had happened just now was the spitting image of any number of conversations I’d had with my dad. When it was over, it was over. He could be so stubborn.

Still, though. Something Michael said about Kim rang true and deep.

There was something about her that just wasn’t sitting well with me lately, though I couldn’t place my finger on it. That was the primary reason I was going to give him crap until I finally saw it clearly and could therefore admit it.
Why can he see it, and why can’t I?
Was it just because I was so close with her? I ran over the hypotheticals in my head, the what-ifs.

What if you had a friend who … I mean, what if every evil thing in all creation was making a beeline to you, was bent on your destruction? What would be the best way to get to you?

A man on the inside.

I looked at Michael.

We’ve already been through this.
The statement rang out in my head with an upturned questioning lilt at the end of it.

Who better to engineer ultimate betrayal, though? Who better than that person in whom there has been invested ultimate trust?
I had seen a ton of movies, and in every one, the best friend was suspect number one. But this was real life, so was I just thinking this because of my movie habit?

Why is Kim here?
I wondered.
Why would she be so eager to come along on what amounts to the worst imaginable version of a perpetual car chase scene?
I dug around in my feelings, searching for
She,
searching for El, searching for the truth, asking God for answers, reaching out once again for Kreios.

But there was nothing.

Part of me wanted desperately to defend her. Kim was my best friend from way back; nobody knew me like she did, and nobody could ever come between us.
Not even Michael?
Again, it resounded in my mind like a question, and it was difficult to know who had said it.

I shook my head and dug into the next slice of pizza. I was really hungry.

“Hey.” I said after a moment. My wheels were turning, moving on to different topics. “So tell me again how we know Kreios is going to end up in Africa.” I had been wondering this for quite some time. I couldn’t remember if it was Michael or Ellie who had said it first, and I had been meaning to get some clarification. Preferably from him.

“It’s just what I’m thinking is most likely to happen. A hunch. The Brotherhood wouldn’t have sent those twitchy little fast ones—the weird little fungus-covered ones—if things weren’t deadly serious. I think Kreios is in big-time trouble. I think he’s going after the roots of everything that is evil in this world. He’s aiming for one of the most prestigious—I mean one of the most insidious strongholds of demonic power in the whole world. When I was in the Brotherhood … I mean … I know stuff, okay? I have memories that aren’t even my own, because of James.” He paused, breathing, apparently thinking.

“Those—those little twitchy fungusy ones are called anti-Cherubs. They only come from Original lands. Like Africa. Or the Middle East. Like where Eden used to be. The anti-Cherubs are some of the original rebels, like that big guy said. They are pure-blood angels of darkness. Their usual function is to encircle the earthly throne of the Prince of Darkness himself with apostate traitorous praise.” He paused and took a drink to fill the vacuum of silence between us.

“You talk about the devil. We had a brush with satanic power the other night on that road. It’s not a laughing matter. And your grandfather is, like, stirring it up because he thinks you’re dead and he wants revenge. It would only make sense, based on what I’ve seen so far, that he has awakened powers in Original Lands either by threatening them or by actually going there already and fighting them on their own turf. It’s the Nri Clan. They’re legend among the Brotherhood. My f—I mean, Stanley … once when I was younger … um …shared with me … all this kind of stuff.”

His eyes looked distant and haunted. I never wanted him to look at me like that ever again for the rest of his life.

“Anyway, I’m betting if we start in South Africa, we’ll pick up one hell of a trail. So to speak.”

“You think we can find him?”

“Kreios?”

“Yeah.” I swallowed and blinked back tears.