chapter III
MICHAEL WALKED OUT OF her bedroom questioning his sanity. Am I losing it? Airel’s back and I’m off on some Good Samaritan mission five minutes later? He didn’t want to let her out of his sight.
His feet nevertheless kept going, away, out, taking him farther and farther away from the one person he felt now—and strongly—he couldn’t live without.
The real kicker was that what he was about to do was right inside his wheelhouse: tracking. Because of the job he used to have with James, every demonic memory, every kill, every tactic, every savage act—all of it—was there for the showing and telling in his mind. He had to admit, it had made his “training” in the Brotherhood easy and swift; almost a joke. These things had become second nature, and quickly; maybe because of the fact that Stanley was the Seer, maybe not.
But Airel was like ice that had taken up lodging in the stone of his heart. Love was the spark that would cause that potentially life-giving moisture to warm and expand and shatter all of him. She could wreck him with a glance. He knew it because he felt it.
It was bizarre: being only eighteen, yet having instant access to time immemorial through the daguerreotype of James’s thoughts. It was a demonic and evil perspective of things. He knew that he would have to turn and face what he had done. The demonic pathways in his mind caused him to possess a kind of twisted life experience that made certain things quite clear.
Airel.
She had changed everything. He never saw her coming. One day he was just tracking, shadowing like he was shadowing Kim even now, and then he was falling for one of those whom he had been taught were nothing but a plague to be eradicated.
Even with all that, his instincts were telling him there wasn’t much chance for the two of them. There’s not much chance for anything, really. How can I ever go back? He couldn’t. There were some things that couldn’t be undone.
Except death? That was still totally crazy, and he wondered what it was that had made it work. Was it the book? The pen? He took more steps, consciously avoiding the next thought building in the back of his conscience. El? Sworn enemy.
“Crap,” he said, walking out of the enormous house onto the porch. It seemed like only minutes ago, he had been having breakfast with her. And Kreios…. But that was a different world.
So where did Kreios go?
More questions, and lots of them.
He walked on with them for a time, down the steps.
“Where’s Kim?” He looked around.
He was on the floor of the great valley again. Only moments ago he had carried the lifeless body of his true love…right across these very steps. True love? Do I know what that is?
He shook his head, trying to clear up his thinking. “All right. Where is she?” He looked around for signs in the grass, on the path, skillfully processing divots and pebbles and skids and filing them against the database of his demonically shared memories. “Come on, Kim. Where are you?” He kept walking.
Down the path he went, following thousands of years of inherited instinct and looking for something more solid. A bent blade of grass…a broken twig…even a partial footprint. But there was nothing that said Kim.
At length he found himself breaking out into the clear area at the top of the cliff. If he was looking for signs of activity, here there were plenty. He could sense it all, and it was like walking into the overpowering stench of a field of dead. He could see with his mind’s eye innumerable historical instances of this very type of thing, and it swept over him and drove him to his knees. He couldn’t help gagging; it was so real.
All the decisions he’d made—whether with good intentions or bad—were tallied up before his eyes and it was like that old Hebrew legend: Mene. Mene. Tekel. Upharsin. And he could hear what it meant; that he had been weighed in the scales and found wanting. And perhaps a lesser person— what am I, a man or a boy?—would have crumbled into tears, but Michael Alexander didn’t. He simply stood to his feet, numb. Overwhelmed. He looked out on the lake below, the mountains in the distance. He stood now just past the boulders near the edge of the cliff.
“Michael?” The voice was right behind him.
He spun, instinct driving him instantly into his fighting stance, fists up in the guard.
“What are you doing here?” It was Kim.
He let out a breath and relaxed, forcing his arms down to his sides. “Looking for you.”
Kim’s face showed flashes of unbridled rage. “Murderer,” she breathed, her eyes flashing.
Michael’s eyes widened in comprehension. “No…no, that’s not true—”
“How can you say that?” her eyes filled with tears, her fists clenched at her side.
“Kim, I mean—”
“Shut up! Just shut your mouth!” She wiped at her eyes. “You killed my best friend!”
“Kim—”
“Traitor! Bastard! Murderer!”
Michael grimaced. I guess this is where it starts.
She stalked closer to him and looked up at his face. “I want to kill you!” She was pointing her finger at his chest. “I should push you off this cliff. You don’t deserve to live. You are a…” She stuttered—face flushed.
“Kim, listen to me. Airel is alive.”
Her jaw dropped. Then she stepped back from him, shock spreading across her face. “Liar!” she hissed. “I don’t believe you!”
“Kim, trust me. I am all those things you said I am. I have to live the rest of my life knowing what I did to her. But I’m telling you the truth—she’s alive.”
Kim looked like she was dizzy, and her eyes darted around as if a torrent of different emotions were pouring through her.
“Kim. Can I take you to her? Let me take you to her.”
She eyed him warily. “Why should I trust you?”
He shrugged, harrumphing. “I’ve got no reason for you to trust me, Kim. None at all. Like I said, you were right. I am a traitor and a murderer. And I am a…a bastard. You don’t know how right you are about that. Are you going to follow me back to the house or not?”
“How ‘bout not,” she said, crossing her arms and cupping her elbows with her hands.
I can see how this is going. “Tell you what. Why don’t you head back, now that we’ve found each other, and see for yourself. I’ll wait here for a bit and let you two have some time. You probably need it. I’ll probably see you in the kitchen by the time I get back. I bet she’ll need something to eat anyway.”
She sniffed at him. “Whatever.”
“That’s our Kim.” She’s probably going to make me regret saying that.
Kim turned and sprinted into the woods like a cat.
“It’ll be dark soon,” he called after her. “Better hurry.” He had decided to take his time getting back, coming dark or no. Maybe try to see if El would answer a question or two…
Before Michael could articulate a single question in his mind, watching Kim scurry off, he felt something new within him, a kind of draw to light and warmth. It was magnetic, and as he opened his heart and mind to it, he was surprised at how the light seared his mind, how the warmth burned him, it felt good to be truly honest about all that he was.
But what he was was ugly.
Then he could see what was happening. It was El. He’s here, somehow, right now, he thought panicking, and, completely opposite to everything he had ever known or been taught, without really choosing to, he fell to his knees right there in the dirt.
It felt then to Michael that everything made sense: that he really had more in common with dirt than he had ever dreamt. He felt low, and his decisions paraded before him, accusing him in a strangely familiar voice: “Manipulator. You manipulated Airel.”
Is that me? he wondered.
“You got close and lied to her, charmed her, fully intending to kill…and then you stood by and did nothing until it was too late…and then, dear boy, what did you do? Something very, very selfish…and very, very risky indeed, did you not? Yes, you did. And you know why you wrote in the Book, don’t you? Yes, you do…. You didn’t do it for Airel; don’t kid yourself. You did it for YOU.”
Michael collapsed, his face in the dirt, weeping, trying with all his heart to argue, “No! I did it for her; I love her! I love her with all my heart! More than my own life!”
“Nevertheless, you stood by and watched her die…”
Truth was hard to come by. He didn’t really know up from down. “But it wasn’t too late! I made it right!”
“Did you?”
Michael was silent.
“…or have you made it worse? Some things cannot be undone.”
He felt like he was going crazy, talking to voices inside his own head, begging El like a dog. That one fact, that he felt like begging his sworn enemy for relief, filled him with shame and regret. All he could do was hope that what he had done would work out in the end…that she could forgive him when she saw who he really was.