Airel - Aaron Patterson [137]
Airel’s corpse was pallid and blue and cold. Michael could feel his gut tighten into a hard ball; he could feel fresh tears well up and sting his eyes. He muttered a curse and ran a hand through his hair. His legs shook, he collapsed and fell to the floor under his overpowering grief.
“No… please, God,” he prayed sacrilegiously, but honestly—and though it was the first time he had ever called out to El in submission, he held tightly to vague hope. “I can’t go on without her; she’s innocent. This is all my fault!” his voice shook, but through the distortion of tears, he looked and caught his breath.
Airel bolted upright, hacking and spitting water, arms clawing, lungs sucking air. Wet and tangled hair flew with the force of her gasping.
Michael froze, stunned, not believing what he saw. He tried to get up off the floor but could not.
Airel looked around, crazed, as if she had just awakened from a horrific nightmare.“Airel!” It was a whisper that he managed to force past his lips; the only word that said it all. It said, “I’m sorry,” it said, “please forgive me,” and most of all it said, “I love you!”
About the Authors
Aaron Patterson is the author of the bestselling WJA series as well as two Digital Shorts: 19 and The Craigslist Killer. He was homeschooled and grew up in the west. Aaron loved to read as a small child and would often be found behind a book, reading one to three a day on average. This love drove him to want to write, but he never thought he had the talent. His wife Karissa prodded him to try it and with this encouragement he wrote Sweet Dreams, the first book in the WJA series, in 2008. Airel is his first teen series and plans for more to come are already in the works. He lives in Boise Idaho with his family, Soleil, Kale and Klayton. His daughter had an imaginary friend named She.
Chris White has an award for reading 750 books in one school year—from the 3rd grade. So yes, he’s more of a nerd than Aaron. Chris loves history, Sherlock Holmes, and anything that’s not virtual, like old motorcycles and mechanical typewriters. He also doesn’t get why we have these things called “smartphones” when all they do is make people dumber. Chris recently celebrated 10 years of marriage with his wife, April, and has two boys: Noah, age 8, and Jaden, age 3, who inspired the Great Jammy Adventure series; the OK-to-color-in picture books. Chris is working on a short story called The Marsburg Diary that will further explore the prologue to Airel, and he is finishing up his first novel, entitled K: phantasmagoria, due out in 2011. Chris has a major crush on Audrey Hepburn, who is now dead. His wife is okay with all of this.
EXTENDED CUT BACKSTORY:
Stuttgart, Germany: 1897
William Marsburg had risked everything for this. He had journeyed over the frigid sea from his home in London, endured horrible weather, wretched roads, and terrifying unexplainable occurrences. But the purpose of all the misery that had come before, that he had endured with his reward in mind, slipped into the void and faded away. He wrung his hands—the book was lost.
He had been in correspondence with Herr Wagner, who lived in a large house in the country near Stuttgart, for well over a year. Marsburg had been following a lead on a rare book that was in Wagner’s care. They had written back and forth in detail on the subject. William Marsburg had come through the fires of Hell to get here, and probably still smelled of brimstone as he stood talking to the German in utter disbelief. His blood was boiling.
“I can apologize to you again, sir, if you require it,” Wagner remonstrated in heavily accented English. “But the book is not here.”
“The book is not here,” Marsburg said.
“I can state with certainty that you were not the only party of interest…” Wagner looked past