by A. Catherine
She nodded and walked away. I scanned the entire diner, looking for that devilish smirk, but saw only humans. I looked out the window, down the dark street but saw no sign that he had followed me.
But when I turned back in my seat I nearly jumped out of my bones. “Fuck me!” I squeaked.
Kale was sitting across the booth, an arm draped over the back of the seat and the other tapping on the table. He was smirking at me, and it infuriated me.
“Well, if you insist. But I’d suggest a change in venue unless you like having an audience,” he purred. “If so, me likey.”
I growled. “Do you have to just pop up like that? There are people here.”
He shrugged. “No one noticed. Why are you so jumpy?” he asked.
I sighed deeply, my shoulders tense.
“You followed me,” I stated.
“Were you trying to run?” he giggled. “Are we that bad?”
My eyes widened only for a second before I caught myself and avoided his gaze.
“I just wanted to go for a jog. I didn’t think I needed a babysitter for that.”
“I agree. But with another prison open, I still have to keep you safe. But I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. Which is why I stayed in the Ethereal realm instead of revealing myself, it was only when you took off in a panicked run that I figured I’d drop the act,” Kale explained.
He picked up the small dessert menu from its placement behind the condiments and perused through it.
“I am curious, you shouldn’t have been able to see me while I was Ethereal, unless somehow you crossed into it accidentally. If I had to guess, I’d say maybe Nephilim grace made it possible for you to have barely crossed the veil. It’s impressive. And not impossible.”
The waitress returned and plopped down a plate of cherry pie with a dollop of whip cream on top and poured coffee into a mug.
“Can I get you anything, sonny?” she asked Kale sweetly.
The son of Lucifer offered the old woman such an authentically human smile, it almost made me forget just how dangerous he was.
“I would love to try this lemon tart, if you still have some?”
She blushed. An elderly woman—blushed.
“Coming right up!” And then she was skirting off to the kitchen.
I gaped.
“What?” he asked me as if that didn’t just go against everything I now knew about him.
“Nothing. I just wonder how nice she would be if she knew the devil’s son was who was talking to her,” I blurted.
His eyes darkened, the smile that remained on his lips crept away from their deep color.
“I see. Someone told you.” His head tilted, regarding me like I was a mouse for him to devour. “So that is why you’re skittish. Are you afraid of me now, then?” he asked with only a hint of humor in his voice.
I scowled at him. “What I wanna know is why you felt the need to hide it? I assume everyone else knew all along.”
He hummed and poured a little salt on the table.
“It didn’t seem important.”
“That’s debatable.”
Kale chuckled as he drew shapes in the salt with his finger.
“Does it really make a difference whether I’m a demon or something else? I think it just makes me that much more interesting.”
I shifted in my seat, angling more away from him. “It makes a difference to me.”
“Oh yeah? In what way?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but words didn’t come out, so I closed it again. He wasn’t looking at me, his gaze was solely fixed on the salt he was pushing around. The old waitress returned and set down a small plate with a round yellow tart on it.
“Enjoy.”
Kale smiled that human smile again before she turned and walked away. He picked up a fork and dug right in, shoveling the tangy dessert into his mouth. His eyes spotted my pie and he jerked his chin towards it.
“Their cherry pie is marvelous. Positively sinful. I wouldn’t let it go to waste,” he stated.
I made no move to pick up my fork, instead I looked out the window at the street where the busyness was already dying down to barely anything.
“At what point did you start following me?” I asked.
He chewed as he spoke, “As soon as you left the warehouse.”
“How did you know I left?”
“I had a tether of power on you, it jerked me awake when you exited the compound,” he answered.
“A tether of power?”
“I can send small ribbons of my power outwards, sort of like a net. That way, I can keep track of those around me. Comes in handy when your home is chock full of angels.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I wasn’t quite ready to dig deeper into that. But it made my spine lock knowing that he had his own little alarm system in place for me without my knowledge.
My brows furrowed. “You were asleep?”
Kale rolled his eyes and chuckled, licking his fork clean.
“Yes, unlike the angels I actually do need to sleep. Only for a few hours at a time, but I think we can both agree the beauty rest is working for me,” he smiled teasingly.
He picked the crumbs off the plate and popped each one into his mouth until it was completely clean, then he pushed it aside and slid my pie towards him.
“If you’re not going to eat it…”
“Why isn’t Gabriel back yet?” I asked.
He gave me a knowing smile. “I don’t know, he hasn’t checked in since he went to heaven.”
“Isn’t that something we should be worried about?”
His grin widened. “Not yet. Travel in the Heavenly realm is more complicated, I’ll let you know when we should be worried. Are you missing your white knight that badly?” he teased as he took another bite of pie.
I glared and crossed my arms. “He’s better company.”
He pouted and put a hand to his heart. “That hurts, honey-eyes. How will I ever recover from these wounds?” he chuckled. “Surely I’m not that bad to have around? You didn’t seem to mind when we were flirting in the library.”
I bristled at the memory. “I didn’t know what you were then.”
“You didn’t much trust me then either, yet you still talked to me. I think you liked the danger of it.”
“Which comes with your kind, no doubt. The hellborn are the masters of temptation, right? Maybe I should start asking if you had me under some kind of thrall then?” I countered.
His eyebrows raised. “Oh, and if you were, would you assume that you are free of it now?”
I straightened my spine and lifted my chin. “Believe me, I won’t be falling for your mind tricks anymore.”
He snorted. “We’ll see about that.”
We stared at each other for a moment, but I broke eye contact first, looking back out the window into the dark street. I heard him finish the pie, and he even got a hold of my coffee and downed it in one gulp.
And then he just sat there. I could feel his eyes on me, but I refused to look at him.
I spotted a group of women coming out of a bar across the street. They were wearing skin-tight dresses or low-cut tops with skinny jeans. Some of them clearly inebriated. They giggled and laughed together as they began walking down the street.
They were enjoying a normal night out on the town. Completely unaware of the invisible world of monsters and supernatural beings that lay just beyond their eyes.
I missed that ignorance, that freedom.
“You’ll get used to it,” Kale stated quietly.
I didn’t deign to look at him, I just continued watching the humans.
“Used to what?” I asked, equally as quiet.
“Feeling different. Feeling separated from all of them. Eventually, it’ll just become your way of life,” he explained.
“You would know?” I asked pointedly, lacing my tone with disdain.
He wasn’t fazed. “I’m the only one of my kind. I pretend to be on equal ground wi
th demons, even with the archangels. But I will always be something else. There isn’t even a name for what I am. Not a real one. They can call me the antichrist, the Little Horn, Prince of Darkness, Heir Inferno. The list goes on and on. But they’re all just using placeholders for something no one understands.”
I gave him a side glance, not meeting his gaze. “What about Lucifer? He created you, right? Wouldn’t he know what you are?”
In my peripheral vision I saw him shake his head and turn it away from me.
“Lucifer experimented with something he himself didn’t fully understand, and the result was me. In his mind, I’m a weapon for him to wield against his foes, nothing more.”
Although I heard the hint of sorrow in his voice, I told myself it was nothing but a ruse to gain my rapport.
“But there have been others like me, in the past. Iaoel said that there used to be Nephilim all over the world. But after the...Fall, they eventually disappeared, right? I am only alone because of that, but it’s possible for others to come into being,” I said.
I meant the words to pick apart his logic, that we weren’t the same and he couldn’t use that as a way to build trust with me.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Think of it anyway you like, my point still stands. Eventually, over time you will stop letting it bother you. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll feel normal again before the end of your life cycle.”
I turned to look at him finally, and though he still held a firm smirk on his lips, it was dulled. A phantom mask he held over something else I couldn’t pinpoint.
“Is this some backhanded attempt to make me trust you? Or pity you and let my guard down? You think if you tell me a little bit about your daddy issues and try to claim that we’re not all that different from each other, that suddenly I’ll negate the fact that you’re supposed to be evil incarnate and we’ll go skipping through fields of flowers singing My Little Sunshine?” I bit out.
All humor erased from his face, replaced with cold, brittle irritation.
“You find out one thing about me that you don’t like and suddenly you know who I am, based on a fable?” he accused.
“This one fact isn’t something small like that you put pineapple on pizza.”
“No,” he snapped. “But I’m sure if it were something small and stupid like that, you’d still manage to find some way to spin it so you could use it as a justified prejudice.”
I huffed. “I only just barely started getting used to the idea of angels and demons. Now I have to wrap my head around…whatever it is you actually are.”
“Oh, thank you, I guess we hellborn filth should be grateful for your tolerance.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“No, you said I’m evil incarnate. For someone so religiously educated, I’m honestly mystified that you’re being so quick to believe an old book of fairytales.”
“I never said I believed it. You’re twisting my words!”
“And now what?” he continued on with a level of lethal calm that made my skin crawl. “Now that you realize how far down in the pit I really come from, how deep my origins truly go, now you’re already swaying-lenience is beyond redemption? How fucking righteous do you have to be?”
My breath caught in my throat, and I felt a twisting uneasiness coiling in my gut. I didn’t know how to convey what exactly it was about this knowledge that was bothering me. But it definitely wasn’t that.
“I’m not saying that that is who you are—”
He snarled, “You don’t know me at all.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying!”
He ignored me, and just kept blowing through another rant.
“You don’t know any of us. Your religious studies are biased and mostly made-up bullshit. Yet you still refer to them as fact, as if you haven’t already been plunged into the immortal world that goes against every teaching ever written.”
He chuckled darkly. How did this go wrong so quickly? How can I get him to understand…
“Next you’ll start believing that the almighty god actually knows all and can wipe the humans off the map with a flick of his hand. Well, guess what, princess, nearly everything you’ve ever learned is wrong.”
His finger pointed out towards the skies.
“Your precious angels are just as flawed as the hellborn, even the gilded archangel knight you’ve got on a pedestal, has glorious flaws that render him as imperfect as me.”
I was still as a board, my chest closing in on itself. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation like this. I felt terrible and confused all at once, wishing I could just shrink into a dark corner and never move.
But Kale continued his monologue, “Religion is an illusion, Heather. It gets its strength from depriving you of your instinctual desires and making you small. Its teachings and all of the purity posse put you in a box and tell you that your confinement is a blessing from the heavens.”
His nostrils flared as he spoke, and small sparks of lightning flicked across his fingers.
I pressed further back into the cushioned seat, fear rushing through my veins. I really don’t know Kale at all. What he is like when he is angry. I’d seen him defend me against a monster—two monsters.
But he was also the Heir Inferno. A hellborn Prince. What if his earlier camaraderie was an act?
Kale read my body language, his pupils dilating as he registered the fear in my eyes. And then something shifted in him, his shoulders slumped slightly, and he sat back, almost defeated.
“I would never hurt you, Heather. I need you to know that.”
Kale’s tone was firm, but also broken in a way I didn’t understand. Remorseful even.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded—choosing to believe him…for now.
He was quiet for another moment, waiting for me to relax some before his gaze turned distant again, and then he resumed his speech.
“Religion tells mortals that I’m the epitome of darkness and evil. That my very existence is to bring chaos to the world. Maybe they’re right. But I’ll tell you something about evil, Heather,” he paused, tapping his finger on the table—slowly.
“Evil, it only exists when people abuse their free will. It comes when we choose to give in to it. We all make choices every day that define us.”
I said nothing. His tone growing heavier as he went on.
“I don’t let what I am, what they say I am, define me. So, you can choose to hate me or to trust me as you see fit, I don’t care. But maybe take those religious biases with a grain of salt. Choose to have an open perspective. And maybe not get yourself killed while you’re at it, okay?”
I was staring at him, and he at me. We sat like that for a few moments, not saying anything. Eventually I looked away from him when the waitress placed the bill on the table and walked away. She may have said something, but neither of us seemed to notice.
The atmosphere between us was thick. I wasn’t entirely sure where I should go from here.
His words hit a few chords, that was for certain. But I hadn’t yet made up my mind. I needed time to process.
While I did, I might be better off with the angels, ideally Gabriel or Jade.
Eventually I swallowed and said, “Maybe the angels should take over protection duty for now.”
He kept his facial features neutral, but orange flame flickered in his pupils.
He straightened his back. “Sorry, but you’re not staying at the Marriot hotel. We all have responsibilities beyond just protecting you, and unfortunately the angels have more to get done than the hellborn do. So I can’t guarantee that we can accommodate for you.”
He looked me up and down, and then a mask slid over his features, taking all of the previous emotion with it.
“But we will do our best to stay out of your way.”
With nothing else to say, I dipped my chin once in thanks.
Kale’s jaw was tense, but other than that he had become a cold and unfeel
ing statue.
“I’d suggest you start your jog back to the warehouse before the storm comes in.”
Before I could respond he disappeared in thin air. Probably simply crossed into the Ethereal realm, but still remained on watch. I sighed and looked down at the bill, he had conveniently left a few bills on it to pay the tab.
When? —I had no idea.