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.
“Goodbye, 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 from 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. There and then 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.
She broke in. “Obviously you triggered something in him, too…” I couldn’t argue that. Something about me made him a little crazy. Crazy enough to kill his own father, crazy enough to try to kill himself when he thought I was gone. Dead. As dead as that little boy. Marc.
Then the thought entered my brain that no matter what, at some point I was going to have to face facts. Given what I had discovered about the change I had undergone, and indeed was still experiencing, I was going to outlive my lover by perhaps thousands of years. No matter what, I would lose him eventually. He too would be dead in my arms one day, his glazed-over and lifeless eyes looking up into the heavens.
Just like Marc. And I might hold Michael that same way and weep the way he had done. And I might ask El why, too, just like he had. Ask Him if it would ever be enough. I wondered then: Do I still want to go through with all of this?
I couldn’t believe my selfishness. It was repellent to me.
I had never known love. Judging by how I was acting, not really. I had never tasted true and abiding love, not once. No, scratch that. I knew I had felt it. It was when I was sinking into the deep, when I was dying. I had seen it in his eyes then. It was simple. Love was simply doing whatever it took. No matter what. That was all. And Michael had done it. When it hadn’t been enough, when his best efforts fell short, he had kept on trying, he had persisted, even in spite of the fact that I had died. It was his brave and bold action that had brought me back, and against all possibility. Somehow he had attained something higher. I knew it to be true.
Further, and I knew this to be true as well, I had not. I hadn’t shown him love. Not truly. Not if I was thinking of abandoning him in the time of his greatest need. I could see clearly then, as I looked into my own eyes in the mirror, the eyes that had come about as a result of his influence upon me— for good or evil, it all somehow had to submit to El’s will in the end—that Michael had done everything for me, that he had borne much grief, many sorrows, so much stress, and so much pain and emptiness for me. All for me. It was impossible, really. Unbelievable. Incredible. How could I walk away from him now?
No way.
I set my jaw and glared at myself in the mirror. Airel, grow up. Be a good girl now. And for God’s sake: stand by your man. If ever there was a time to do so, it was now.
I had some apologizing to do.