Michael (The Curse) (The Airel Saga, Book 3: Part 5-6) (9 page)

“Maybe it’s not important right now. I wish I had the answers. But I’m looking for my own answers too.” He was quiet for a moment. “Just remember that you’re special.” He squeezed my hand.

“It’s funny. I always wanted that, looking back. Though I never would have admitted it. I would have said to anyone who asked me that I only wanted to be real, normal, find my own way to fit into the world. And now that I
am
special, different, there’s no going back. And that’s
real
clear. It feels like all I want is whatever I can’t have. I just feel so unsafe.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“Really?”

“Totally,” he said.

“I guess I can see that. I mean, I see how you could. You’ve been through a lot. We both have. You, probably more than me.”

He was silent for a moment. “I know that sometimes life makes you break your word. No one can say what they will or won’t do. Not with any guarantees.” He was silent again for a moment. “If I know anything, I know that most of the crap we’ve been fed is a total lie. You know, like you were talking about.”

“Like what? I bet you really want to tell me.” I smiled at him. I could tell he was getting riled up, that side of his personality I had seen so briefly on our first date.

“Well, okay, I know you well enough to know that you’ll appreciate this. Let’s just look at our cultural obsession with fame. That whole
American Idol
thing. I mean, the minute anyone shows the slightest talent for singing, and this is just a little for-instance here, but people always just assume if they have talent, that automatically means they should be rich and famous. But that’s stupid. There’s all this pressure to do the impossible. I mean, whatever happened to singing a song just because you want to express a feeling, tell a story, enjoy doing something well?” He took a breath. “People just don’t think. They don’t realize what they give up to chase after stupid stuff.”

“How about you sing me a song right now, then?”

Michael grimaced.

“No?” I was enjoying making him squirm.

“Um, nope. I just love you. Do you believe me?” He looked at me with those eyes and I melted a little.

“I believe you. I do.” I was overwhelmed by my feelings again. “I mean, I tried so hard to turn my back on you, to force myself to stop caring about you, but I just couldn’t. And I don’t care if …”

“If what?” he asked.

“What is it about you?”

“Airel.”

“Okay, here it is. I don’t care if … if in the end, it doesn’t work out like we planned.”

We were both quiet then.

“I mean, I just want to be with you, get to know you more. And if we end up one big fat mess, at least the ride will be fun. You gave up everything you ever knew for me. I mean, that’s true love, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Sure sounds like it to me.” He looked at me and squeezed my hand. He brought it to his lips and softly kissed me there, making me crazy. “Well,” he said, “here’s to today.”

“And living in the now. Right now. Right?”

“Right,” he said.

“Deal. Sun Valley up ahead. Wanna stop?”

“Sure,” I said, looking at the clock on the radio and trying to breathe. “Almost midnight.”

“I guess we should get a midnight snack or something, but what’s open?”

“Maybe a convenience store?”

Michael pulled into a gas station and parked under the lights, shutting the engine off. “Man, that’s nice and quiet,” he said. He looked at me, mischief suddenly in his eyes. He turned back to Kim and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Hey, Kim!”

She jumped out of her seat, screaming, “Bogo. It’s Bogo. Bo…. Wh—where?”

Michael just laughed, slapping his thigh as he got out of the car and stretched.

I shook my head at him. “That’s real funny, funny man.” I turned to Kim. “Sorry, Kim. You can kill him later.”

She wiped the drool from her mouth and got out, mumbling.

***

AIREL’S HAND FELT GOOD. Michael could feel her heartbeat thrumming away through her fingers. He looked over at her as they browsed for plastic-encased foodstuffs—doughnuts, chips, chocolate, trail mix. Her skin was perfect. Smooth and beautiful. She was talking, and the way her mouth moved made him want to stare at her and nothing else.

He looked back to the shelves of junk food.

The dark voice inside whispered again. He couldn’t tell what it said, but it scared him enough just knowing it was there.

His scar throbbed. He wondered if it would ever heal. Was this his curse? Was he to carry the voice and the scar with him as a payment for his betrayals? He bent his head to stretch his neck, flexing, trying to make the knot between his shoulders go away.

“You wrote in her Book. They will come for you. This will not go unnoticed.”

“What are you thinking, Michael?” Airel said.

The sound of her voice made him melt. How did she have this power over him? He didn’t know exactly what to do with it, but a part of him desperately craved being wanted, needed, loved. He had never been loved before. “I guess I’m trying to figure out whether I want powdered or chocolate. You know, end-of-the-world-type decisions.”

“Hmm,” Airel said. “I’d say neither.”

“Neither?”

“Yeah, moron,” Kim said, walking up to them from the restroom, “everybody knows she likes the cinnamon ones. Sheesh.” And with that she breezed on by, walking outside.

“She gets grouchy when she doesn’t sleep,” Airel said.

Michael was trying to figure the ins and outs of Airel’s friendship with Kim. But all he could do was shake his head and look back at the doughnut rack. “Well, I like the powdered ones.” He grabbed a little pack of pure white doughnuts. “And I guess we’ll just
have
to get a packet of cinnamon ones too.” He smiled at her. “But what’s Kim’s fave?”

“Hmm. Going for brownie points, huh?” Airel said. “She likes the cinnamon ones too.”

“Really?”

“Yep. It’s actually all that holds our friendship together.” She turned to head toward the register. She turned back slightly and said, “I could tell you wanted to know that.”

Michael dutifully grabbed another one and followed her to the front of the store. He sighed and felt that dark feeling again, the one that made the pit of his stomach ache and throb. It was the call of the demonic. The scar running through his midsection wanted him, wanted him to do horrible things.

“I love you, Airel,” he said in a whisper half to himself as he joined her at the cash register.

“I love you too, Michael, and I like saying it.” She took his hand and held it.

Michael blushed a little. “Me too.”
Okay, Michael, get ahold of yourself. You need to figure out how to find Kreios. And you’d better have a plan for how you’re going to survive him once you find him.

Shortly, all three were back in the black SUV and headed south. To I-84 west. And Boise.

CHAPTER XIV

A HUM.

A low pulse reverberated through my body.

It went in, faded out near to completeness, and then came back stronger and stronger until it felt like it was going to explode me, rattle me to pieces from the inside out.

I opened my eyes and saw it. A monster standing over a sea of blood.

My wrists were broken—both of them. I lifted my hands to inspect the damage, but they hung limply from the ends of my arms. Sharp pain shot up my arm and into my heart. What was this? A dream? I could remember something familiar about this place. The jagged black earth, pointed and clustered like shark teeth. Barren woodlands, gaping mountains ringing the valley where I stood. And a smashed cage all around me.

The robed creature was motionless save for one hand, which was lifted up against me, pointing at me.

I stepped forward. The sea of blood flowed in waves and was about to cover my feet. But it wasn’t blood—it was thousands, millions of small red stones. Each one pulsing, each one moving in hideous, orgiastic rhythm to one another.

Bloodstones
.

I could hear them as they moved. They grew in number, sounding like shards of glass clinking together. The red color was striking against the black landscape, vivid. The sky was a gray smudge, crowded with clouds.

Take it, Airel. You are the end.

I heard a familiar voice in my head, but it wasn’t
She.
It was another.

Something about the whole scene was different this time. The robed figure was smaller. I walked closer to it, the Bloodstones breaking under my feet like the bodies of enormous insects. “What do you want? Why am I here?”

It continued to stand with hand outstretched.

I walked closer still. With each step of my hiking boot, the wet crunching sound made me want to scream in disgust. It sounded horrible. “There are so many…”

You are the key, Airel. You died and yet live. Now another must die.

I was close now. Its head was down, the hood covering all. I couldn’t see what—or who—it was. “Who are you? Key to what?” My hands throbbed with pain—otherwise I would have reached out and pulled back the hood.

The Bloodstone tide was rising; it hummed and pulsed through me louder and louder, rising up to my knees. I couldn’t breathe.

The hand came down.

The head was lifted up. Inside was total blackness. No eyes, no face. Just nothing.

“The key.” It said. No. Not
it
; I
knew
this voice. It couldn’t be.

Now the pulsing grew exponentially. Bloodstones boiled out from under the robe of the creature. The tide rose up to my chest. I tried to get free, but my hands screamed in protest each time I reached down to push up from the billowing pile.

I looked over my shoulder. The huge valley was filling up with them. Red as blood. Boiling in from everywhere. The sound was deafening. “No. No!”

It reached up with long white fingers and pulled back the hood. Red hair billowed out. Kim smiled at me with flaming eyes. She grabbed my arm.

“No—
No
—No!”

I jolted awake.

The seatbelt yanked me back, giving me whiplash. I growled in confusion and rubbed my shoulder where the belt had dug in.

“You okay?” Kim was leaning over me, looking up from the backseat. She had her hand on my arm, but I pulled it away, hugging myself.

“Geez. Fine, I was just trying to be nice.” She sat back in her seat, folded her arms, and pouted. “I’ll just sit here in the super comfy plastic straitjacket chair, don’t mind me.”

“No, no, sorry. I just had a nightmare.” I reached back and took her hand, pulling her forward. “I’m sorry, Kim. I was just scared from the … er, dream.”

Michael glanced over at me while driving. I gathered he had been watching the whole thing. “You were saying something about a key in your sleep.” He eyed me suspiciously.

“I can’t remember,” I lied.

“Well, it was freaky. You were mumbling incoherently and then just screamed. Loud.”

“Yeah, I just about peed my pants.” Kim said with a snort. “Where are we? I think I dozed off too.”

My stomach tightened into a little ball.
I wonder if she had the same dream. Nah, she would have told me … unless she can’t remember.
I settled back into my seat and pretended to stare out the window.

***

WE STOPPED AT A truck stop in Mountain Home to eat breakfast. I excused myself for a moment and took a little walk through the chrome section.
Truckers. Only a truck stop has a chrome section.
I looked around at all the accessories that could be bought and plastered onto those enormous freight trucks. It was crazy. There were those ubiquitous chromed mud flap girls, a skanky silhouette of a woman. I had to move on. I was
so
out of place, it creeped me out.

I walked outside and watched the traffic coming and going on the freeway, the eighteen-wheelers pulling in to gas up.
That’s a life lived on the run. I wonder if that’s all I have left.
After a few moments to myself and some fresh air, I had begun to feel a little worse.

What am I doing?
This is not the best plan, letting myself fall even more in love with Michael.
If anything, I should be pulling away, watching, thinking it through, waiting to see if we ever could make it. I should be smart about all this, but I can’t help myself. It was like the undertow at the Oregon Coast on those summer vacations when I was just a girl, a dangerous, sweeping pull that I couldn’t help or control.

Kim found me. “Hey, girl.”

“Hey. You feeling any better?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m not homicidal anymore. Sorry about all that.”

“Oh, no worries,” I said, rolling my eyes. “As long as we have cinnamon mini doughnuts.”

She didn’t get it. Joke fail. D’oh. D’oh-nut.
Wow, Airel, get a grip.

“Let’s find Michael,” we said simultaneously, and then giggled like the best friends we used to be.
That’s how it feels. Like it used to be.
I was going to be overwhelmed again soon if things didn’t start looking up. I shivered and was getting mad at myself for getting so worked up over a dream. My mood was in the tank now, when only an hour ago I was just enjoying being and talking with Michael.

We walked back to the kidnapmobile and found Michael horking down a huge egg-and-bacon breakfast sandwich. “Look at this,” he said with his mouth full.

“Ew,” Kim said.

“Holy Captain Chipmunk Cheeks,” I said. “Hungry?”

He swallowed, washing it all down with an enormous swig of soda. “Seriously, look at this.” He pointed to his super-duper phone.

“Holy Bucket, Batman. How many ounces is that thing?” I asked, pointing at his drink. Kim spat and snorted, a burst of mean-spirited laughter. I leaned over to see the screen of his phone. It was an article about a mass murder in Oregon.

My mood got serious. “You think it’s him.”

“Yeah,” he said.

Kim regained her composure too, and looked on.

“It was a group publicly called the Brotherhood of the Chameleon, a secret society. It looks like they had their own campus and everything. The only reason anyone knows anything about them now is because they’re all dead. I guess the investigators were looking for some way to connect all of them. Look at that,” he said, pointing to a picture of the blackened remains of a big building.