Black Halo (Grace Series)

by S. L. Naeole

  “Odette,” Ameila said as she pointed to the girl. “Though not her original name, time has branded her as such, so Odette she is. She was a shape-shifter who could take on the form of any creature, though she preferred that of the graceful swan. The darkness you see here, that became the evil Rothbart who cast a spell upon Odette and turned her into a swan. Rothbart never existed, but it made it easier to accept as a story a beautiful woman being cursed with the body of an animal than a young girl born with the ability to change into that form all on her own.

  “So you see, Grace, biblical story or famous ballet, it is proof that stories of the Nephilim do exist.”

  “So, is what you’ve just told me a story, or is this a history?” I asked, needing to hear her speak, to fill the silence threatening to shatter what little resolve I had left that kept me from screaming out from all that she had already told me.

  “I do not tell stories,” she said simply. That would be as much of an answer as I’d get and I wasn’t about to ask for anything more.

  As darkness began to settle around us, Ameila walked over to a lamp and touched its shade, the soft light flickering on instantly. She seemed on edge, something I had never seen before. It made me feel quite uneasy.

  “You’ve seen so much in the short time since you’ve been on this earth, so many things that one so young should never have to. I wish…I wish I could tell you that from this moment forward that things will only get easier, but I can’t. Your darkest days have yet to come, and I am fearful of it.”

  “Why?” I hesitated to ask.

  She raised her eyes to me and in the lamplight, the silver became gold and I knew.

  I sat in the semi-darkness with Ameila by my side for quite some time before the rumbling in my stomach reminded me that though I was among angels, I was still human, with human needs. Ameila’s eyes lit up at the simple sign, and I groaned inwardly.

  “I have a new method of cooking that I think you will enjoy immensely, Grace,” she said cheerfully, glad for the change of mood.

  “Oh…good,” I struggled to say as she coaxed me into the kitchen.

  She pulled out a stool for me to sit on and I balanced myself on it, dreading the display that was about to take place before me. She smiled—grinned like someone who’d lost their mind, actually—and wiggled her fingers as she walked towards the refrigerator. She pulled open the freezer door and retrieved several containers.

  “Voila, my new method of cooking: pre-packaged and frozen meals. I ordered them this morning. Which would prefer? There’s a vegetarian lasagna, a penne with scallops and garlic cream sauce, and a chicken Marsala over farfalle?”

  I stared at her in amazement and guilt and chose the chicken.

  “Excellent choice. I only ordered dishes for one, since you’re the only one who truly needs to eat here, but if you have guests over, you can always call up for delivery. There’s a list of numbers beside the phone of the places that know this house,” she explained as she placed the container of chicken and pasta into the microwave.

  As the whirring of the microwave filled the quiet of the kitchen, I watched Ameila as she, in turn, watched the spinning dish. Her face held a look of an almost irreversible sadness and I felt a slight prickling at the base of my neck when she turned to gaze upon me.

  “Grace, I know it seems like such an inopportune time to discuss such things, but I feel that I must ask you when you plan on turning. Robert hasn’t spoken to me about it, but I feel that the sooner it is done, the better. We can only keep your mortal self safe for so long. Lark has yet to experience her call, but when she does, she’ll leave.

  “I have my own call that I must answer, and cannot be here with you at all times, either. Robert has more flexibility with his call than most—he has others who can help fulfill his duties—and so he will be the one who will be with you far more than Lark and I, but if you were to turn, you’d be safer from the reaches of Sam.”

  “Ameila, I-”

  She shook her head curtly, already knowing what my answer was. “I see. I am disappointed, Grace. I thought that perhaps you would have seen just how advantageous this would be for you, especially after what I told you this evening.”

  “Ameila, you don’t understand,” I began, but the ill-timed beep of the microwave signaled that my chicken had done reheating.

  “I understand, Grace,” she said calmly as she pulled out the steaming hot plate of food, the plate sizzling in her hand. She laid it out in front of me, a fork and knife appearing beside it as though out of thin air. “Robert hurt you and now you want to hurt him back. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that you’re human…until you do things that remind us.”

  “If you knew that Robert and I weren’t dating anymore, why then would you tell me anything about the Nephilim, or about how Robert and I could together physically?” I asked, anger staining the words.

  “Because you still wanted to know, and I promised you that I would answer all of your questions; I didn’t put any conditions on my promise.”

  Her head rose as though someone had called her name and she looked out towards the back of the house. “I must leave now, Grace, but before I go let me leave you with this question. Why did it hurt you so much to know that you could never be physically intimate with Robert as a human if you no longer plan on being with him?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, ready to recite a long list of reasons that would have never been good enough, but she was gone.

  I sat alone in the kitchen, a plate of cooling food in front of me, and I couldn’t eat. I pushed the plate away and headed upstairs to Lark’s room. It was empty, as I knew it would be. I walked over to the large bag beside the bed and gathered some clothes; I felt an intense need to wash off the feeling of guilt that I didn’t feel I deserved.

  Lark’s bathroom was large, with shimmering blue tiles that gave you the impression that you had somehow walked into a deep pool. The large tub that filled the center of the room only added to the feeling and I sighed happily. I couldn’t recall when I had last taken a tub bath. I turned the faucets on and allowed the steamy water to rise as I turned to stare at my reflection in the mirror.

  My eyes appeared hollow, the dark circles beneath them looking like purple half-moons. I leaned in closer to inspect the brown rings of my irises and blinked several times at the golden ring that encircled the outer band. Had that always been there?

  I moved away and sighed at the sight that stood before me. I looked like a corpse, my skin was so pale, my body so thin it was frightening to admit that I had done this to myself.

  The tub was nearly full to overflowing by the time I turned off the water and I sighed as I stepped into the hot liquid. It acted like a balm to the wounds that I didn’t know I had, soothing away the worries and making me forget everything I had heard save for one.

  Robert could never be with me.

  Simply acknowledging the thought felt like a little death. It was all I could do to keep from shivering from the icy truth of this fact in the hot bathwater. Ameila’s question had been a just one—why did I care if we weren’t even together? Why did it ache so much to know that something could never be when I had demanded as much already?

  Perhaps it was because if I was being honest with myself, if I put aside all of my protests and faced the truth, I’d be forced to admit that it was becoming almost painful to be without Robert. As distraught as I felt whenever he was near, it felt even more devastating to not be with him. Angry and hurt though I might be, knowing that he was nearby had offered me a sense of security that I had never known I needed nor wanted.

  And I grew angry because he knew it. There was so much that he knew that I didn’t, so much that he had kept from me under the pretense of keeping me safe…only I had to admit now that there was no pretense.

  I knew now that being with me hadn’t somehow furthered his ambition; rather, it had put him in danger. I pressed my fingers to my lips and shuddered as I thought of all the times I had complained
, all the times I had made him feel guilty for not doing more, and yet he had given in somewhat to please me, knowing the harsh penalties that could arise as a result.

  I pulled the plug on the tub and climbed out, quickly tip-toeing to the shower to rinse off and wash my hair. The steam from the shower filled up the large room very quickly and I fumbled with the shampoo bottle, squeezing a far too generous amount into my hand and began to wash my hair.

  I wrinkled my nose at the scent, the unfamiliar brand far too sweet for my tastes, but I couldn’t complain as it was that I hadn’t bothered to bring any of my own. I rinsed out my hair and turned off the water, opening the door and reaching for the towel that lay off to the side.

  It wasn’t there.

  The steam from the shower made it difficult to see where I was going and I groped along the counter and the wall for anything that felt like a towel.

  A pool of water had collected around me from my dripping hair and in a moment of unnatural clumsiness, I stepped into it, my feet slipping and sliding around on the cold stone floor. I braced myself for the fall, knowing that my head and hands were headed directly for the glass wall of the shower.

  Instead, they were met with the soft, plush confines of a large towel that wrapped around me like a sling before I fell against something hard and forbidding. A strong pair of arms encircled me, pulling the towel around my body and tucking in the ends so that it wouldn’t fall off.

  I didn’t breathe, didn’t move.

  Slowly the steam began to dissipate, the shapes around me becoming clearer, the colors no longer muted by the haze of heat and moisture.

  I turned my head, not to look at who it was that held me, but rather to the mirror, its glass surface fogged up as I knew it would be, preventing me from having to view what I didn’t feel ready to see. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, the scent of soap and shampoo unable to mask the comforting scent of the wind and snow, leather and sweet rain.

  I slowly lowered my head until it rested against the cloth covered surface that was more wall than chest, and I bit back a sigh at the familiar silence that greeted me.

  A harsh pounding at the door of the bathroom caused my eyes to fly open and I saw myself in the mirror, the crisp, white towel wrapped around my body tightly, my damp hair hanging limply down my back, dripping lazily onto the floor.

  And that was all. I was alone, my arms wrapped around me, a self-embrace that felt awkward and unreal.

  “Grace, are you alright? You’ve been in there for hours!” I heard Graham shout from the other side, his voice crackling with worry.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I answered nervously. “I’ll be right out.”

  I reached for my clothes and pulled them on hastily, using the towel that had I had been bundled in to wrap up my hair. As I did so, I caught the hint of leather on my arm.

  Startled, I brought my other arm to my nose, inhaling the complex yet simple aromas that had blended in with the scent of soap. My stomach lurched and I almost gasped as a thrumming began in my chest.

  I pressed my hand against my chest and swayed from the sudden rush of blood. I reached for the counter of the vanity to steady myself and blinked rapidly. Another lily lay on a sheet of paper containing three distinct words in the familiar loose and flowing hand.

  “Anything for you.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I muttered, and then smiled in spite of myself.

  I took the sheet of paper off of the counter and, for some unknown reason, turned the paper over.

  I screamed and watched the floor grow closer to my face as the sheet of paper slipped through my fingers, revealing what was on the back. “Die half-breed.”

  UMBRAGE

  The weekend came quickly. No other incidents occurred after the note in the bathroom, but the chaos that ensued because of it lasted long enough to have taken up the same amount of time and energy as a dozen.

  “I wanna know how he could have gotten in to write that,” Graham had shouted at Lark and Robert as he paced the room angrily, his hands rapidly running through his hair to keep from doing other things. “She’s here because you’re supposed to be protecting her—he got to her again; here, in this house! If she’s not safe here, where is she?”

  Lark had done her best to try and reassure him, standing in his way and acting like a make-shift road block, her hands staying him when all he seemed intent on doing was wearing a path into the floor. “He was never in the house, Graham. We would know.”

  “Then how did he write this?” He grabbed the sheet of paper from the bed and slapped at the words on the back. “Die, half-breed. He’s a murderer and racist? That’s just perfect, isn’t it?”

  Robert’s face had remained calm throughout Graham’s outbursts of anger and frustration, but the mentioning of the note put a deep scowl on his face. “That is not something that Sam would write. Whoever wrote this, it wasn’t Sam.”

  “You’re defending him,” Graham announced incredulously. “I can’t believe it. He tried to kill your girlfriend three times, man. Three-freaking-times! When are you going to see that he’s no good? Are you even capable of doing that for someone who isn’t human?”

  Robert sighed and snatched the paper out of Graham’s fingers. “This isn’t from Sam. I’ve known him for centuries. I would know if Sam had written that or not.”

  “So then who did it? Who wrote this, and how did they do it while it was in the locked bathroom?”

  Robert looked at his sister, his gaze intensely focused on the unspoken thoughts that passed between them. As if on cue, his eyes closed. Lark’s eyes closed as well, minute, rapid-fire movements beneath her lids almost undetectable as she searched for the thoughts of the person who had written the note, or someone who knew about it.

  Graham and I stared at the two of them, looking as though they had fallen asleep while standing up, frozen in time and statue-like. Graham occasionally approached Lark’s still form, his fingers reaching out hesitantly to brush against Lark’s skin, his eyes focused on the faint beating that could be seen beneath the flesh of her throat.

  “I’m still alive, Graham. Be patient,” she had said through gritted teeth, and he backed up obediently.

  “Sorry,” he muttered before shoving his hands into his pockets and pouting like a petulant child who had been refused a piece of candy.

  “The chatter is very lively,” she murmured, her head ticking as it followed the multitudes of voices that she was allowing in. “There’s some hint that someone knows something, but I can’t figure out who yet, the thoughts are too jumbled.”

  Graham groaned at the cryptic statement. “What do you mean by jumbled?”

  She opened her eyes and sighed. “Imagine taking every single puzzle in the world and then dumping them all into one very large box. Then try and put every single puzzle back together. That’s what I’m dealing with here, Graham, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to be able to put this puzzle together before something else happens.”

  This didn’t sit too well with Graham, who was now convinced that I would be much safer at home with him and argued the point very loudly, only to be shut down by Robert’s cold and calculated response.

  “You’ll remove her from this home over your dead body.”

  The result of that threat went over as well as can be expected, with Lark immediately coming to Graham’s defense, and Graham suddenly insisting that perhaps Robert had helped whomever it was that had written on the back of his note, since no one had yet to explain to him how someone could have written something without even being in the same room.

  Robert surprised me when he calmly walked over to Lark’s writing desk and retrieved a sheet of lavender paper. He crumpled it into a ball and threw it at Graham, skillfully beaning him in the head with it. “Open it,” he barked, and Graham did it, albeit begrudgingly.

  Robert’s expression never lost its seriousness as he stared at Graham’s face, the effect he was looking for close at hand.

  “Holy-how-
you’re-I,” Graham stuttered as his gaze bounced from the paper to Robert.

  “What is it?” I asked, and walked over to see for myself what had been written.

  A caricature portrait of Graham filled up the entire sheet, the lines, as expected, were comprised of lettering forming one singular word that repeated itself throughout the drawing.

  “How’d you write doofus with such tiny letters?” Graham asked, more impressed than he was upset at the insult.

  “How do you manage to breathe without someone reminding you to exhale?” Robert replied, his voice saturated with disdain.

  “That wasn’t nice,” I hissed, angry that he’d speak to Graham in such a way after everything that he’d done so far to keep me safe.

  “You’re right,” Robert said apologetically. “I’m sorry, Graham. It was wrong of me to say such a thing about you. The drawing is still correct, though.”

  Graham laughed at this and shook his head. “Grace, don’t make the guy apologize for something that was funny. At times like this, never, ever diss the funny.”

  Lark and I looked at him, our expressions almost identical. I felt my head turn from side to side in absolute confusion, while Lark simply stared at him, a bemused smile forming on her lips.

  “Grace is safe here, Graham,” Lark insisted. “She’ll never be left alone, and we’ll find out who wrote that note soon enough.”

  That had been enough for Graham, who believed without a doubt that Lark would never lie to him, and so he had finally left the house and headed back home, knowing that with the exception of Stacy and my dad, there was no longer a need to keep up the act that I was still at home.