Michael (The Mark) (The Airel Saga, Book 4: Part 7-8) (5 page)

She snapped out of her trance and looked away from the window, finally meeting his eyes. “What’s that?”

“I said I have to take another sales trip. Out of town.”

Realization dawned upon her features, and her countenance both brightened and fell.

It struck him that she was just as beautiful now, if not more so, than she had been on their wedding day. If beauty was in the eye of the beholder, it was mostly up around the eyes, held within the light that dwelt there. It was love, it was intellect, it was …
well, it’s kind of saucy. Sometimes.

“I love you. I’m sorry to do this now. But I don’t have much choice when the company comes calling. At least if we want to, ah—” he gestured to the house they had built “—live here. Still.” He felt lame. He found it amazing that she could fluster him with a glance even after all these years.

“Oh,” she responded finally. “Well, it’s okay, hon. I’ll manage.” She didn’t sound very convincing. “How long?”

“Well . . .” He stood and rubbed his neck with one hand, looking contemplative, hoping she would buy it if he didn’t overact. “It depends on what happens. The executive team will be there, the whole enchilada. The board, some important shareholders, so there’s going to be a meeting of the minds, a strategy session, you know, and then a seminar when some of the more junior sales personnel get there. So it could take a week. Maybe two. But you might consider calling your sister, honey. Maybe see if you can crash there while I’m gone. I just don’t want you to be all alone right now. With all that’s … that’s going on, you know?”

“Do you think she’s still alive?” she asked him abruptly.

Anger and pain pierced right through him. She wasn’t talking about her sister. “Honey, the FBI is all over this. I’m sure Airel’s fine.” He knelt before her again and took her hands in his own. “Hey.” He looked her purposefully in the eyes. “She’s fine, okay? We’re—those people are going to find her and bring her home. I promise.”

She looked away and squeezed her eyes shut, pressing the tears out. She let them fall freely, unashamedly. “You really have to leave now?”

He tightened his lips into a straight line. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t have to.”

She sighed heavily. A quiver of grief made it stutter as it came out. “It’s out of town? How far out of town?”

“It’s international, unfortunately. I have a long flight ahead of me. Plus I have to get down to Central District Health and get inoculated. These guys want to meet up in South Africa.”

“Oh. Is it safe?”

He smiled. “Yes, dear. Of course it is. But you really ought to call your sister, honey. Really.” He stroked her hair away from her face.

“All right, then. I suppose …” She looked at him with brief vague suspicion, but let it drop in the end. She sighed heavily again. “I suppose you know best.” Another sigh as she contemplated the situation. “I guess it would do me good to get out of here anyway.”

He nodded. He didn’t want to oversell it.

They stood.

“Okay, then. Africa? Amazing. I didn’t know they did anything in Africa.”

“Oh, wow, hon. You should Google it. You’d be amazed.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Use Google Images. Search for Cape Town, two words. You’ll be stunned.”

“Really? Where are you staying there?”

“Oh, it’s in a nice out-of-the-way spot called Simon’s Town. They’ve got a few little hotels there right on the water. Little café called Bertha’s. Should be fun.”

“Wives can’t come?” She gave him an elbow in the rib.

Oops.
“Ah … no. Sorry. The company just wants us men.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Just you barbarians. Fine, go. Go and smoke cigars and drink Scotch and gawk at bikini-clad women. Just come home to me, all right?”

“Hey,” he said, “have I ever told a lie?”

Again, the eyes rolling. She turned to walk to the kitchen for the phone, talking over her shoulder at him. “Just bring the man I married back home to me. That’s all.”

Conversation over.
Whew.

“And one more thing,” she said, wheeling back toward him suddenly and walking directly up to him. “I love you,” she said, and kissed him savagely.

When she pulled away, he was quite breathless. “Whoa, Nelly.”

She turned back to the phone with a wicked smirk on her face.

He swatted her butt as she walked away, making her howl in shock. He cackled devilishly and then stalked away toward the den. God, how he loved to flirt with her.

But now it was down to business.

He ducked into the office and turned around quickly, listening for the sounds of his wife talking to her sister on the phone. Yes, she had called and they were talking. He closed the door most of the way and began to pack a single black duffel.

The bookcase pulled out from the wall in an arc, hinged like a door, revealing a hidden safe behind. He turned the dial of the combination lock. It opened to his touch, revealing his passports, his stash of various currencies, and a matched set of daggers. The South African passport, a stack of about a quarter million rand in large notes, and the daggers—these all went into the duffel.

His passport was diplomatic, naming him as a South African national. Security checkpoints would allow him to pass completely unmolested when he flashed the document. He closed everything up, replacing the bookcase and rubbing his foot over the carpet where it had left a sign of its movement in a perfect semicircle. Smart was so simple sometimes.

The FBI had of course been either infiltrated or fallen prey to its own considerable bureaucratic girth. That was inevitable.
Idiots.
In any case, it was now time to take matters into his own hands.

His beloved wife would be safe at her sister’s house, he would fly to Cape Town based on intel he had gathered from his own sources, and things would play out however they would play out. No matter what. Daddies didn’t leave their children at the mercy of murderous kidnappers, slovenly predatory teenage boys, weird, unexplainable news stories with bizarre common threads, or any other malicious force under the sun. He would rescue his little girl, by God, come hell or high water.

Time to pack the clothes.

And you know what, it probably wouldn’t hurt to pack the twelve-gauge in there, either, on second thought. Follow up on that threat I made to that boy.
He stopped and thought for a moment.
I’d better grab the pipe cutter in the garage and shorten the barrel.
With that, he also made a mental note to grab the hollow-point rifled slugs for ammo. They could blow a pie-pan-sized hole in a bull elk at fifty yards.
Imagine what one of them might do to a kidnapper.
Or an unfortunate boy, should he prove to be guilty of harming one hair on his little Airel’s head.

CHAPTER VIII

Arlington, Oregon—Present Day

AFTER MUCH INTERNAL DEBATE about what to do with the body of the boy, Michael decided to steal a boat. He slipped into the water with the corpse and swam sidestroke, his trailing arm dragging the lifeless husk along behind. It was the only way to avoid the well-lit paths of the park, the lighted docks of the marina.

It only took about fifteen minutes of swimming under the Interstate bridges out to the docks. He found a wakeboard boat with a large platform on the stern and floated the body onto it. Pulling himself up, he climbed aboard and pulled the body with him, laying it flat on the deck. One minute more yielded the hiding place for the keys, the master power switch, and ignition. A few more minutes and he had cast off.

Allowing the boat’s engine to idle, he piloted it out past the breakwater to the wide open and swiftly moving currents of the Columbia River. Turning the bow to the left, he let the boat slip into the downstream current and cut the engine.

“Good-bye, Marc. I’m sorry.” It was all he could say.

He turned, stepped over the transom onto the rear platform, and lowered himself quietly into the river. He swam with the current, making his way slowly toward shore. By the time he reached it, the sun was beginning to peel the night sky back, opening the day wide at the eastern horizon. He stood on the southern shore of the Columbia about half a mile from the park and his hotel room. He faced the river and looked for the boat. It was drifting quickly downstream from him, farther out in the middle of the river. Before too long, it would crash into the John Day Dam, unless the police or someone else apprehended it.

“Good thing our plane leaves soon.” He began the walk back, his pace rapid.

***

5 A.M. AND I WAS already in the shower getting ready for our flight.

I didn’t sleep very well, or very long. I had weird dreams that I couldn’t remember, and I woke up missing my family terribly. The ache I felt for them went beyond my parents, though. It was like I missed my extended family, people I hadn’t seen since the last reunion—Mandatory Fun Day, I always called it.
Come on, I miss these people? Weird Aunt Stella? Cousin Fred and his stupid Trans Am? Granny Beatrice and her flatulence? Really?
No, there had to be something more, something different. I wasn’t seeing it; there was some weird blockage.

It had to be the stone. I wished I could have talked to Michael about it, but he was obviously dealing with enough already. I felt bad for him, but then again, if he was stupid enough to carry that stupid thing and think he could remain unaffected, well, I guess I wished him well. I mean, I had no proof of whether or not he had it, but I wasn’t stupid; it was obvious. All it took was one glance into his eyes as he told me to leave him alone. Of course he had it. But I couldn’t be a part of that decision.

Which really sucked.
She, what am I going to do?

The answer came back instantly:
“Listen. Just watch.”

“Oh, my God.” I said aloud to the shower tiles. “Cryptic and mysterious as usual. You know,” I said, “it’s nice that Yoda lives in my head. It’s a little ridiculous, but I like it,” I said as I scrubbed my hair with what was left of the wholly inadequate hotel shampoo. “But one question, Master
She:
When do we get to the good part; you know, where I get to levitate you?”
Because I’m going to let you drop like a sack of rocks, babe. Deal with that.

Then a single word popped into my head:
“Parables.”

Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get that you’re like, teaching me in parables. But it’s pissing me off, all right? I can say so and that’s okay.
I swear I could see the smug little smirk on
She’s
face. Ooo, that made me mad.

I was out of shampoo and my hair, superhuman or not, wasn’t clean. Dripping wet, I reached out from behind the curtain and raided Ellie’s stash of toiletries she had bought on her run to the store.
Ah ha. Shampoo …
I drew it in with me behind the curtain. “Dang,” I said, looking at it. “This is expensive stuff.”
How did she come up with this stuff in Podunk Interstate mile marker number whatever?
It eluded me, but I used the heck out of that shampoo.

My hair finally clean, I stood there under the stream of running water and thought. What was my beef with Ellie, the electric blue-haired angel girl? I always assumed the worst about her. I assumed she was trying to steal my boyfriend; that she had killed him and set me up to come back and kill my best friend Kim; that she was the villain. But, hello, she was getting us out of town on a chartered jet. For, like, free. What was my problem?

I groaned. Then and there I decided to try harder to be nice to her.

My thoughts swirled relentlessly. I felt bad for Kim. She had been used by that stupid stone. I couldn’t imagine how she felt, how dumb and embarrassed she must have felt about all of it. She looked like she had been through a double-wide trailer park overflowing with angry alcoholic stepdads. Just bruises and scratches everywhere on her. Poor thing. I wanted to make it up to her someday, whenever I could. Because on some level, this was all my fault.

It had to be.

I stood there in the shower, shaking my head in awe of how drastically my life had changed, and so quickly. It was all because of my Michael. My love.

I closed the tap and started to towel off.

How is this going to work?

Had he indeed chosen to be with me? To leave the Brotherhood? If so, why all this evidence to the contrary?

“Circumstantial evidence, you mean.”

Okay, whatever.
I mean, he was carrying the Bloodstone on him. If I had read my grandfather’s Book correctly, whatever man—or woman, I gathered—carried the Bloodstone was linked to unspeakable evil. Perhaps the dark prince himself. I shuddered. I recalled how the Seer in those old stories—in that historical record—had been linked to the demon Tengu. But Kreios had killed him. If demons could be killed. I had to admit to being massively confused.

I wished with all my heart Kreios were there with some answers. Because, of course, the real question I was asking brought me back around to the gigantic question mark that hung over my relationship with Michael: Could a demon be reformed? Or, put more plainly, was there any hope at all for the son of the Seer?

Especially when he’s carrying the stone that corrupted his father. To the point where Michael had to kill him to be rid of him.

I pondered all this and more.
What sort of legacy might the elder Alexander have handed down to his son? How much of that was above the surface, visible? And how much of it lay beneath, waiting to strike?

I felt hideously selfish for asking what came next, but there was a fine line between self-preservation and plain selfishness.
What have I gotten myself into?
And I had crossed that line, apparently.
Dang.

I looked into the foggy mirror for an answer. I wiped it off and peered into my new impossibly perfect face. Really, if I was honest, everything I was becoming was because of Michael. My new face was a gift from him. Part of the reaction, the activation he had triggered. The bond we shared. I saw now that at first what I thought was love or attraction was the bond that formed when I was activated, but it changed somewhere along the way. I was in love with him, even though I knew he hid some things from me. He was doing it to protect me—or so I hoped.