Michael (The Airel Saga, Book 2) - By Aaron Patterson Page 0,104

he said.

“Excuse us,” I said. Michael and I made our way around him toward the door.

“Sorry,” he said. He then turned to his work as we boarded and began doing all those little checks that pilots have to do in order to get the airplane ready to defy gravity.

Cape Town, South Africa, present day

After the refueling stop in Jo-burg, as the locals called it, the plane carrying Airel’s father had only about another hour’s flight to its final destination.

The 747, a city with wings, set down on the tarmac in Cape Town on a mild afternoon. Massive thunderheads loomed in the distance and a shroud of ribbon-like clouds were draped over Table Mountain. There were patches of sunshine that lent places like Hout Bay an aspect of having been lit from beneath, the turquoise color of the sea iridescent.

Though it looked like paradise, Airel’s father knew this was when the real heavy lifting would begin. As the lone sales rep for a clandestine arms and technology house, he did indeed have many tools in his arsenal. And he knew how to ply his trade, as well as the trade of those who bought his wares.

But he didn’t know where to start looking for his little girl.

He knew she had to be here, though. It was clear enough, looking through news reports like the ones he had seen that led him here: Graveyard Massacre. Seventy-five men, two women brutally murdered…Schoolyard Ripper…and all of them with something in common: the same man. Whether it was a grainy photo or a still from security camera footage, he could recognize the blond killer from the BPD report on the original incident at the movie theater. When he finally put it all together it was like a parting of the clouds to reveal pure sunshine. This mysterious blond-haired man had crossed paths with Airel once too often. Now he would cross swords with Airel’s father. To the death.

He didn’t know what the killer wanted with his daughter. He could only assume she needed help and that the killer, if backed into a wall, would eventually lead him to wherever he was keeping her. He had all kinds of tools he could use that made people talk.

Now one problem remained: Where to find the bastard?

Somewhere over the South Atlantic, present day

Before I knew it we were airborne, bound for South Africa, Cape Town direct. It wouldn’t be more than a few hours; Hex was flying us close to mach, the speed of sound.

I was worried about Michael. He had obviously not fared well on our little adventure up the mountain. He sat scrunched in his seat, his eyes closed, beads of sweat on his brow. I adjusted the ventilation so that a cool stream of air washed over his face. I loosened the collar of his shirt a little so his skin could breathe.

That’s when I first noticed the mark on his chest.

My mind flashed with anxiety, my hands pulling at the buttons of his shirt in desperation as more and more of the weird wound showed itself. It was like a star, purple-black at its center with spiral tendrils radiating out from there in red and yellow, that ugly bruise-yellow that attends blunt force trauma.

“Michael!”

It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t responding. He wasn’t just tired. He seemed like he wasn’t all there, like he was…I couldn’t go there. Oh, no. What’s happened? I was going to lose it.

My hands grasped each other and I brought them reflexively up to my chest, next to my scar. Then She crowded into my mind. “You have a wound from the same blade.”

I was stunned. I remembered it, my hands now clasping my chest, rubbing the only scar I would wear forever. It was clear: I could heal. Michael could not. I searched inwardly, racking my brain for an answer.

That’s what happened. I remembered what I had seen in my vision, when I was…what, dead? Kreios healed him with the Bloodstone. I remembered everything; how Michael had howled in pain and confusion as my grandfather brought the Bloodstone to his chest. I sat back in remorseful silence. There were no tears. I just shook my head.

“It was a curse that he laid upon him,” She said. “But he thought that was what you would have wanted…for Michael to carry on…however possible…”

I could tell She was sad. I had never known her to be like that. And it was a heavy thing indeed for a girl to