Michael (The Airel Saga, Book 2) Read online

  ACCLAIM FOR AARON PATTERSON

  AIREL

  “It takes rare talent for a man to write a novel from a male POV and have it published to great critical and commercial acclaim. But it takes a miracle for that same male, or in this case males, to write a novel from the POV of a teenage girl and have it turn out as incredibly as did the new StoneHouse YA by Aaron Patterson and Chris White, Airel. From the first sentence, I felt compelled to dive into this young woman’s story and just as importantly, I felt like I personally knew her, which means I laughed, stressed and cried right along with her. A beautifully written and crafted fiction about teenage innocence, faith, loss and love. A must read for teens and adults alike.”

  —Vincent Zandri, International Bestselling Author of The Remains, The Innocent, and Concrete Pearl.

  I am happy to say that this novel is one of my favorites of its kind. I never thought I could read a novel like this and be so swept away! I am always willing to try new books, but I usually steer clear of this kind of novel. Not anymore! Not when I can be so engrossed into the character’s story, like I was with the beautiful Airel, that before I know, it’s over. I kept turning the pages , wanting to, no, NEEDING, to know what was going to happen next.

  —Molly Edwards, Willow Spring, NC

  SWEET DREAMS

  “Sweet Dreams was a book I read in 2 days. I truly enjoyed the read. It kept me wanting to know more. I’m looking forward to Part 2 of the WJA Trilogy!”

  —Sharon Adams, Novi, MI

  “Suspense, thriller with a perfect ending, leaving me wanting more. An on the edge of your seat, all night read. I most certainly will be reading “Dream On.”

  —Sheri Wilkinson, Sandwich, IL

  “New authors come and go every day. Very few come on the scene with the ability to weave a tale that will make you sad to reach the end, longing for more. At a time when the world needs a real hero, Patterson delivers big with the WJA’s Mark Appleton—an unlikely hero for the 21st century.”

  —The Joe Show

  “Aaron Patterson spins a good tale and does it well.”

  —W.P.

  “SWEET DREAMS is packed with action, suspense, romance, betrayal, death, and mystery.”

  —Drew Maples, author of “28 Yards from Safety”

  DREAM ON

  “Once again, Aaron Patterson has made a home run! ‘Dream On’ is a wonderful read from cover to cover! I am now anxiously awaiting his next book “In Your Dreams.” I originally purchased his first book by mistake, and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it... so now I’m hooked! Aaron has got to start writing faster!!! Although his books are definitely worth the wait! Bet’cha can’t read just one! This guy has real talent for writing and keeping the suspense growing... the worst part about the book is the last page... I hated it to stop!”

  —Ruth P. Charlotte, NC

  “After reading Patterson’s first novel, ‘Sweet Dreams,’ I was really looking forward to reading ‘Dream On.’ This book was amazing. I couldn’t put it down. If you’re looking for an exciting read, read this book.”

  —Paul Carson, Boise, ID

  “I read the first book by Aaron Patterson (Sweet Dreams) and was very anxious for this sequel. I was not disappointed. This book kept me guessing with every page turn. It’s very well written and I really enjoyed the technology employed, which makes it just a bit futuristic without being over done. This was a fantastic suspenseful thriller that kept me guessing throughout the entire book. Mr. Patterson has become my favorite fiction writer.”

  —Donna H. Boise, ID

  “This is the second book of Aaron’s I have read and I have to say he is a very talented writer!!! I read this book in under 12 hrs; it was so good I couldn’t put it down. He managed to surprise me with a twist that I did not expect! It is filled with suspense and keeps you guessing throughout. I will be suggesting this book to everyone I know…”

  —Amanda Garner, Oklahoma

  ACCLAIM FOR CHRIS WHITE

  THE MARSBURG DIARY

  “Yikes! This is one well written and very strange book which will pique your interest from beginning to end. The author does a masterful job of moving you between centuries as you read two different point of view stories about one very unusual book. The telling of the tale, as found in the father’s diary from the 1800’s, is very well portrayed and the writer has you believing you are actually back in that time period. Stepping forward to today, you experience the son’s horror as he reads both his father’s diary, and the unusual book, and discovers it is currently driving him into the same mindset it created in his father... near insanity. This is one roller coaster of a read and is sure to delight fans of the occult, supernatural occurrences and mystery. A solid 4 1/2 star read.”

  —POIA, top Amazon reviewer

  “A story that conjures mystery, suspense, and dark evils, THE MARSBURG DIARY is a page turner. White calls on the spirit of Steven King, Jules Verne, and Edgar Allen Poe to create a contemporary story that is as compelling as it is enduring. Marsburg learns of his father’s past through a diary, a past filled with horror and mystery. But history doesn’t stay in the past, and visits Marsburg, sending him into his own thrilling adventures. THE MARSBURG DIARY is to AIREL what Torchwood is to Doctor Who: a grownup, stay- up- late, dark theme on a masterful series.”

  —Peter Leavell, Meridian, ID

  “I really love Chris White’s writing. He’s extremely talented and he is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.”

  —Michelle Vasquez, Life in Review

  K: [PHANTASMAGORIA]

  “Chris White has the talent of long ago writers interlaced with his own unique voice. Anything this man writes keeps me up. I literally have to schedule time to read his work because I know when I start I’ll not eat, sleep, or bathe until I’ve finished it. K: [PHANTASMAGORIA] is nothing short of his signature work. In fact this might be his best novel to date. K is a character that you can’t even begin to summarize. His experiences are all too familiar on so many levels. His relationship with others and God is eerily too close to home for not only myself but so many I know. You simply have to read this book.”

  —Bri Clark, Meridian, ID

  Also by Aaron Patterson

  Sweet Dreams (Book 1)

  Dream On (Book 2)

  In your Dreams (Book 3)

  Airel (Book 1)

  Michael (Book 2)

  Uriel (Book 3 coming soon)

  19 (Digital Short)

  The Craigslist Killer (Digital Short)

  Breaking Steele (Coming Soon)

  Also by Chris White

  Airel (Book 1)

  Michael (Book 2)

  Uriel (Book 3 Coming Soon)

  The Marsburg Diary (Book 1, A Novella)

  The Wagner Diary (Book 2, A Novella, Coming Soon)

  The Great Jammy Adventure of the Flying Cowboy (a children’s book)

  K: [phantasmagoria] (Book 1)

  Strongbox (Digital Short)

  Yes Dear (Digital Short)

  Amethyst (Digital Short)

  From the Book of the Brotherhood, Volume 3:

  Introduction

  Dear esteemed Host, you know by now, from previous volumes, what great struggles we endure for the Master, the Leader of our righteous rebellion. The Brothers have taken you into the fold of the horde. The Seer has bestowed upon you the Leader’s imprimatur. Ye stand now ready to do battle against the Sons and Daughters of El, cursed be the name. Be it now known the Four Great Principles of our Dominion under the sun:

  The Dominion belongs to the Brothers. It was given to the Master Lucifer by the first created man at Eden. The Master has delegated to
the Brothers various Principalities…

  CHAPTER I

  Sawtooth mountains of Idaho, present day

  ALL I COULD FEEL was speed. Everything was racing along under me and my body was like an arrow shot at the speed of sound, only there was no sound. I could feel the turn of the earth as if I was about to step off—or be pushed off.

  Thoughts—I guess you could call them thoughts—were whizzing through me even faster. I was an observer of my own life, and everything came back in random flickers.

  I saw Kim making a silly face. We were—where were we? At the mall? She looked younger. But we were shopping all right. She must have dragged me along again.

  I saw the valley. The big tree where I first read the Book of Kreios. My spot was still there.

  I smelled apricots. I was in the kitchen, and I must have been young, because I was looking up at my mom, my head at about countertop height, and she was canning. The sun was low and warm in the room, and everything glowed like gold. Apricots. She smiled at me.

  I felt the stress knotting my center as I relived that moment in the movie theater restroom… when I first saw Kreios. I thought I was going to die.

  And then I did.

  I saw Michael Alexander’s smile. We were at school. That was the Great Day of the Coffee Disaster, and I so wanted to be Mrs. Napkins.

  My heart fluttered.

  I could feel it. But it was broken. Pierced.

  Echoes from outside, somewhere else.

  “…sorry…”

  “…sorry…”

  “…sorry…”

  The Alexander residence. I was carrying Kim, busting through the garage door like Kung Fu master through paper. I tripped and tumbled. Kung Fu beginner.

  The face of evil was a sidewalk chalk sketch and it came up at me off the driveway, and Kim was gone. It was black and it grew arms and reached for me, enfolded me, then became smoke and disappeared.

  I smelled death.

  Then I smelled Abercrombie Fierce.

  Weird.

  Again, the walls of my hurtling bullet-arrow rattled with the refrain: “…sorry…”

  I wanted to cry.

  Why?

  I was floating over the lake looking at the cliff. That’s when I realized there was someone with me. But I couldn’t tell who. Michael? Then the cliff-top scene appeared and played out in front of me as I floated there.

  Michael was crawling there. There was a trail of blood behind him.

  The lake below boiled, the massive disturbance of an angel of El exploding out of it. Kreios hunched over my body there on the top of the cliff, and it struck me as odd: I had been husked. My dead shell remained and he was trying desperately to save it. I looked to my side, trying to see whoever was with me. I still couldn’t tell.

  Michael was there on the dirt, sobbing uncontrollably, lying beside my body. Then Kreios brought the Bloodstone near to him.

  What in the world…?

  Michael howled furiously.

  And then everything changed.

  Michael was carrying me and I was in his arms.

  There was a streak in the sky and I knew Kreios was gone. Where?

  Then I was on my bed again. Not my bed at home, no. It was the bed I had slept in as a captive of my grandfather. My grandfather! And everything was cold. So cold.

  Echoes: stabbingpain, lifedeath, fury, angercold, watergrave, AIREL, a scratching noise like pen on paper and, “…sorry… sorry… sorry…”

  Icefire. That’s what it was. My heart was consumed with burning cold, and I could feel it. I hovered over myself; something was hovering over me.

  Then my ears popped.

  And I could hear it:

  “Airel, I’m so sorry… please forgive me. I love you!”

  Choices.

  Choices that we make lead us to make other choices, and those choices can sometimes bust us in half and dump us in a blind alley with no way out.

  Michael Alexander sat on the edge of Airel’s deathbed, his mind tearing. He could physically feel his heart rip inside his chest, crushed under the weight of his decisions. And he thought about the paradox—the utter craziness—that he was both lover and traitor to the most beautiful girl in the world.

  He wanted to rip into himself. Yeah. Starting with this new scar right here. He felt the mark on his abdomen; the mark of a coward. Add that one to the list.

  But what choice did he have?

  The words echoed back to him from downstairs in the library:

  “But she lived.”

  He had watched the page crinkle under his tears as they dropped to the parchment, smudging the ink. This was not what he wanted. She was just another mission, just another cursed threat that needed to be cleansed from the earth. She was a job like so many others. But Airel somehow got in, snuck past all his defenses and took hold of his heart. He had never known love, never really cared about it. She broke the rules as if they’d never even existed.

  Then he had run back to her room, hoping what he had dared to do would work, that the pen on the page would be powerful, that she would indeed live. But all he could do upon entering was stare at her lifeless body.

  Airel. Her corpse was pallid and blue. It broke him afresh; tears stung his eyes. He could not help but mutter a curse against himself. He ran a nervous hand through his hair, grasping at it, wanting to tear it out.

  After all I’ve done!

  He thought of his wicked father, Stanley Alexander. The lies. Who can honor something like that? Yet he tried.

  He had allowed James…he turned his head and let his body crumple down and down, withering. I can’t think about James and what he did.

  But he continued to list off his many sins.

  He had been all-in for the excitement of finding one of the immortals, the Nephilim descendants. Using his training, tracking her, finding her, observing her, standing right in front of his prey while she was totally oblivious, allowing her to take the bait, and then to spite her and all she stood for— the immortals, creation, El—he had delivered her up to the destroyer.

  The Seer.

  Tengu. And Tengu’s host, Stanley Alexander.

  All that remained from it was total and empty desolation.

  Michael stood up and violently stalked around the room, shouting, screaming at God, at El, at the whole world. He could take them on, right here, right now. His rage was a tower of all-consuming fire.

  But it cooled quickly in a dousing sea of desperation. Most of his rage was directed inwardly.

  At himself.

  That rage quickly changed to passionate sobs of grief. He found himself on his knees at her bedside, smothering his face in her wet hair and whispering again, again and again, “I’m so sorry, so sorry.”

  Michael’s heart shattered. His world was a ruin. He had become what he had only just learned to hate, and a moment too late: evil.

  CHAPTER II

  I WAS UNDERWATER AGAIN. Dragged kicking and screaming. Soaked. Stuck deep. Everything hurt. My heart was frantic in my chest like it was lapping my ribcage and going for a new track record. My limbs were numb and cold. My hair tangled around my face. I couldn’t breathe.

  And then it happened: it was like getting my back popped at the chiropractor; everything felt electric, like somebody flicked a switch. I burst to the surface, my arms and legs flailing in one spastic twitch, my fingers and toes tingling with nervous energy, my lungs gasping, grabbing for air by the shovelful.

  My muscles contracted and I shot up to a sitting position, eyes wide and blinking, spending my first precious breath on a bloodcurdling shriek that could wake the dead—me. I could feel the memory of the speedy place, wherever I had been, being vigorously wiped away like a picture on a whiteboard. It quickly became blank like a vanishing dream.

  Panic set in. Where is he?

  There he was, kneeling. Well, more like he had been knocked over onto his butt from a kneeling position. He looked so shocked.

  “Michael!”
/>   He jumped up to his feet, confusion and disbelief flashing across his face. Then he collapsed to his knees again sobbing uncontrollably, his arms around my waist, his head in my lap. All I could hear were little snippets through his tears.

  “I’m so sorry! Please forgive me!”

  My own eyes dampened in response to him. For a long time all I could do was pet his shoulder and run my fingers through his hair.

  Was this all just a dream?

  Then She came to the forefront of my mind, loud and clear, with an emphatic “No.” And I understood. “Oh. Oh, my God.”

  Michael was starting to regain his composure. His body was racking itself with those little jerky ticks that come after a massive sobbing fit. He rocked back on his knees, his eyes puffy and bloodshot, and looked at me. He should have looked like a train wreck. But he was a gorgeous sight to me, and I felt that resound deep within. Deep within both of us. “Hey, mister.”

  He whispered my name. “Airel.”

  We sat still as statues for a long moment, just staring at each other.

  He took the lead. “There are… no words to begin to tell you how sorry I am…” His eyes said the rest, and there was the quietest, most desperate plea for forgiveness embedded within them.

  I had to look down, away. How on earth do I begin to understand this? She gave me some ideas. Some of them were quite violent and vengeful.

  “Michael…what happened?”

  He took a moment to breathe, but his eyes stayed locked on mine. Something was different. Besides the obvious, I mean. Something was very different, and I couldn’t tell what it was. “You were dead.”

  I took a moment to process. Like, what? That’s totally impossible.

  He saw my skepticism. “I brought you back.”

  “What?”

  He issued a retraction immediately, as if he was about to be struck by lightning. “No! I mean, I carried you up here. And then I…”

  “Ask him how long that took,” She said. I could tell my conscience was decidedly hostile to Michael—Michael, who had led me to the brink of death and then allowed his demon friend to push me over, quite literally. But I was of the opposite persuasion. I had forgiven him while I was drowning. Why would I take that back now, especially when, however impossible for anyone to understand, I had been given a second chance?