Read Michael (The Curse) (The Airel Saga, Book 3: Part 5-6) for Free Online

whatever happened out there on the cliff?”
    “Sorry.”
    “Don’t worry, Michael. I think you’re a good enough guy. You did save her in the end,” she said, looking at me. “Even if it took you long enough. But can you, pretty please, fill me in on what I missed out there?”
    “Okay. It’s pretty simple: Stanley killed Airel.”
    “I know. I saw that much.” She shivered.
    “So did I,” I said.
    “Then I killed Stanley,” Michael said. “And that’s when everything went wrong. Really wrong. James—my demon—tried to finish the … the job? No, that’s not the right word.”
    “You can say it,” I said. “I was just a job.”
    Michael looked like I had stabbed him. “At first. But that changed…” He was beginning to defend himself, but he let his words fade and stared back into the fire.
    I looked at him. There was something different about him now. Something good. And bad. It was as if he was under a burden or in a restraint. It made him seem like a man and not a boy.
    “Airel, you have completely wrecked me,” he said, his eyes bright and piercing. “I wish … I mean, I never wanted any of this to happen. I found my courage too late to help you. And I was desperate. That’s why I wrote you back to life.”
    I was shocked. “Wait. What?”
    He just pointed to the mantelpiece, the rough wooden shelf above the fire, the inkwell and quill pen … those old books. Call me crazy or stupid, but it had only just then occurred to me that I was alive and kicking for a definitive reason. I hadn’t put two and two together yet. I was normally really observant, smart as a whip, but somehow this one had come at me from my blind side.
    “Michael, what are you talking about?”
    “This,” he said, standing. He walked to the shelf slowly, quietly, with reverence. When his finger brushed one of the books, I heard a shout go out and echo back to me from the deepest recesses of my heart and mind: Michael.
    He took my Book—I knew it was my Book—and gently delivered it to me.
    I opened it and saw what he had done. I saw the three words he had written there:
    “But she lived.”
    The page was warped from his tears. I was stunned. Shocked. “How could you …” I felt violated. “How could you write in my book?” I didn’t even know I had a book. I thought only full angels had them.
    “Airel, I—”
    I was overcome. “I can’t believe it,” I stammered. What I meant to say was something along the lines of this: I can’t believe you’re that bold, that amazingly desperate … for me. The bigger picture started to come into focus. I reached for She. But there was nothing there. I felt completely alone. I felt like my childhood was over and, ready or not, I was now an adult. Far from what I had always thought, it wasn’t glorious. It wasn’t liberating. Nope. It scared the crap out of me.
    I was beginning to hyperventilate. “Michael.”
    He knelt in front of me, naked anxiety on his face. “Breathe.”
    I held my Book open on my lap, dumbfounded. “I have a Book.” Everything about my life, if it was bigger than the universe before, was now impossible. “I can’t believe you did that.”
    “I’m … sorry?”
    Oh, no. He was taking it wrong. So was I. “No. I’m sorry.”
    He took my hands inside his own, wrapping them up in warmth and strength.
    “I just can’t believe you did that. It was incredibly brave. How did you even know? How did you figure it out? How did you find this, and—how could it have even worked?”
    Michael flashed me his trademark smile, the crooked smirk that could melt me in a second. “It wasn’t me. It was El .”
    I was really confused. “It was—?”
    He nodded. “It was El. I asked Him and He told me. I had a … a conversation with Him. After I found Kim.”
    We looked at her.
    She gave Michael a look. “You are so weird.”
    “All I remember is being tackled … falling off the cliff, splashing into the lake. I saw you.” I looked at him. “I