Michael (The Airel Saga, Book 2) - By Aaron Patterson Page 0,13

here whenever she wakes up, and we’re going back to her parents. End of story.”

“All right, what do you want to know?”

“You can start by explaining to me just how everything freaking worked, dude. Why Airel? Why James? Why all this death and crap? If the Devil’s in the details, then show me the cards he’s trying to play.”

He sighed. “Okay. My bloodline is connected to the Bloodstone; all of it interacts with them— with her kind. It activates them, makes them change into immortals, but only in their teen years. During adolescence. Otherwise we miss our chance. And it’s weird, because the Brotherhood, which is like—I don’t know, a secret society—is going around activating the Sons of El, helping them find and access their power, which could destroy us. I mean them. But they do that for one reason only: to destroy El’s agents on earth. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“The Brotherhood exists to hunt them down and kill them, period. When they think they’ve found one they send out pairs, like investigative teams. I was a team with ‘James,’ who was an Infernal. It was my Brother.”

“‘It?’”

“Well. I wouldn’t call a demon a he or a she. It’s a beast. A spiritual manifestation.”

“Oh…”

“Kasdeja,” he said. “That was the Infernal’s actual name.”

She looked at him blankly.

“Stanley was paired with the Seer, Stanley was his host. He was like a general. Or a commander in chief. It’s complicated. But the Infernals are a little further down the ranks; they’re like captains.”

“Whatever.”

“Hey, you asked.” Michael wanted to apologize again, but he figured he’d been doing enough of that to irritate everyone including himself. “Anyway, what would happen is, I would drop in, try to get close and let Stanley’s stone do its work. Once I was sure a change was going on we would initiate the job.”

Kim had a horrified look on her face.

“I know, but this was normal for me.”

“Normal? These are people, and that is twisted. I mean, you killed people. Really killed them. People!”

“Yes, I did. But to me…back then…they were things. Not people.” This is not going to end well.

“I see,” she said, then became very quiet. She crossed her arms and locked her gaze on the graying view through the window. The sun was beginning to lighten the night sky and a low mist began to creep out over the grasses of the meadow. “So what’s your plan?”

“The plan.” He breathed in and out. “I think we need to find Kreios. And I think we need to get out of here.”

CHAPTER VIII

MICHAEL WALKED ALONE UNDER the rising sun along the path to the little training shack.

He did not choose this life. At least he didn’t know what he was choosing when he made the choice. It was a choice made in ignorance. Is that fair to say? Everything he had ever been taught was an opposite. True was actually false. Up was actually down. He really did believe that the Sons of God needed to be exterminated. Once. But now everything had changed.

The day he had left Airel here now haunted his memory.

He remembered what Stanley—his father?—had said to him after he had hitched all the way back, when he had walked in the door of their—home?—in Eagle. “You’re late,” and that was all. No “Where have you been all this time?” No “I was worried”; nothing. Just an accusation that made no sense. At least it made sense until I found out that I had really only been gone for about a day… not weeks. Michael wondered what was so different about this place. What did Kreios build here… and how? Time ran different, faster—or slower—somehow.

He remembered his training.

We desire the primal. We take the world by force back and back, back to the Chthonic, back to the pre-created darkness of the underworld and the things that spring forth from it. We then shall be Master. Creator. And it shall be a clean nothingness.

If he had one wish now, it was to unsee what he had seen, to undo what he had done. To unhear the voices that still whispered to him out of the folds of his mind.

What had he done to be so viciously thrust into this Hell? It was real enough; painfully so. Did he dare reach out to El again? Would God hear him again? El whispered truth and wisdom to him once, but twice was too much to ask for. After all he had done…. How could he make atonement