Black Halo (Grace Series)

by S. L. Naeole

  Mr. Branke refused the hand offered to him and turned pale green eyes in my direction. I saw the flash of anger there, another warning. “I highly doubt Miss Shelley is capable of concern for anyone other than herself, judging by her behavior in school and her treatment of those she calls her friends.

  “In any case, as you can see, I’m perfectly fine. I simply dozed off in the car for a bit, and was having a fairly decent nap, too, until I was rudely awakened by you and your girlfriend.”

  “I saw you,” my voice crept out between the two males, sounding more like a strangled animal than my own. “I saw you—you weren’t asleep. I saw…”

  “Grace, are you certain of what you saw?”

  I turned to Robert, stunned. “I know what I saw.” How could he doubt me? He could see for himself, the vision in my head, and yet he looked at me as though I were speaking about something alien to him.

  He nodded, the motion stiff, curt, as though simply a placatory gesture in front of the obvious proof that what I saw couldn’t possibly be the truth.

  “Robert, he was dead. He was sitting in his car and he was dead. He was bleeding out of his mouth; his eyes were bulging out like he had been strangled-” Saying the words out loud made it seem preposterous, what with him standing there right in front of me, but I knew that I was telling the truth. I hadn’t imagined seeing him dead, of that I was certain.

  I turned to look at Mr. Branke and his eyes were indeed bulging, but this time out of disbelief at the description I was giving when clearly he wasn’t dead, he wasn’t even injured. My eyes roamed over his face and his body, scanning for even the slightest hint of injury, anything that would corroborate my story, but he was impeccably dressed, his shirt smooth, his pants still carrying the pleat that had been pressed into it. Even his shoes appeared to be perfectly polished, as though he had been spending all that time in the car getting them to shine.

  “I can’t believe that I’m standing here listening to this,” he said, his voice cold and grating. “It’s not enough that you have ruined my career, ruined my reputation. No, now you’re having fantasies of seeing me dead, too. I never took much stock in the rumors about you, Grace, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that there might be some genuine merit to them.”

  Robert coughed in disapproval, but his tone spoke nothing of the sort as he consoled Mr. Branke. “I’m sorry that her words have upset you, Mr. Branke. She’s had a very emotional day—her step-mother just gave birth to a baby boy—and I’m sure that exhaustion caused her to see something that wasn’t there out of her concern for you.”

  Mr. Branke cast him a disapproving glance and shook his head. “If I were you, Mr. Bellegarde, I’d ditch this one and find yourself something far more suitable, something that didn’t look like a drowned mouse, something that didn’t cause so much damn trouble. She’s only going to cause you undue pain and suffering, mark my words. Her kind always does.”

  With that he turned and headed back to his car, climbing into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut. The vehicle started up with a loud, rumbling growl that matched in enmity what he had displayed outside when confronting me. The white lights signaling he was reversing lit up, blinding me, and Robert pushed me aside as the car angrily backed up, neatly stopping in the spot I had just occupied before peeling off, black tracks of burnt rubber still smoking on the ground when the red lights faded away.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t defend me.” I didn’t recognize my voice, the disbelief in it causing it to change, deepen. “I can’t believe that you would see what was in my head, know that I had seen it, and still make him think that I was simply tired.”

  Robert didn’t try to avoid my gaze, instead staring at me, matching glare for glare. “I know what you thought you saw, Grace. I see it, I see it as though it was my own memory, but even you know that the human mind is capable of great deceptions. You have memories that don’t even belong to you, memories of events that never occurred, and yet they’re your own.”

  I pointed an accusatory finger at him and let my voice rise in a tone that matched my hurt and anger. “And you said that they were planted there, but there’s no way that this memory, what I saw was planted because I saw it as it was happening, and I was alone, Robert—no one else was here. I saw Mr. Branke get into the car and I saw him sitting in the driver’s seat, dead, with blood coming out of his mouth. Those aren’t false memories, Robert. Those are real. This is real.”

  “How can you be so sure, Grace? Are you positive that you weren’t hallucinating? You haven’t been sleeping well, you haven’t been eating well; you’ve just gone through a very trying and emotional event with Janice and your father. All of those combined make for a perfect environment for producing hallucinations and false memories.”

  He sounded so clinical, so incredibly sure of what he was saying that had it been any other person he was talking about, I would have agreed with him immediately. But it wasn’t someone else he was talking about. He was talking about me, and he was speaking about me as though I were a patient and not…

  “I’m not crazy! I know what I saw, and you’re not going to convince me that it wasn’t real.” It was painful, having to defend myself to him, having to defend what my eyes had seen.

  He said nothing, stoic as always when it came to my own distress and so I continued. “I don’t get it. You kept saying that I was different, that you could trust me, but it always seems to be quite the opposite, doesn’t it?”

  I watched his reaction as the thoughts began to scroll through my head, the individual memories that still stung like fresh wounds.

  “You don’t trust me, Robert. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, but I do now. You don’t trust me; that’s what I’ve been missing this entire time, why I’ve had to go to your sister or to your mother for answers. You didn’t trust me with Graham, you didn’t trust me about the ring, and you don’t trust me now about what I saw. I don’t even know why you told me about what you are. I don’t know why you even bothered to speak to me at all.”

  You can never truly understand just how capable the human heart is of feeling hurt, even after you’re convinced that it’s been broken, damaged beyond all salvation. And as I said these words, the scattered fragments of my heart were consumed by this hurt, and I couldn’t stay there, seeing his unresponsive face, so beautiful despite all of the pain it was capable of dealing. I began to walk away, heading back towards the hospital entrance. I was blinded by the lack of trust, deaf to anything but my own heart breaking all over again—what little there was left of it.

  It was futile, of course, to think I could have simply gotten away that easily.

  Futile and foolish.

  CIRCUITOUS

  In all the countless times that Robert had stolen into my room to whisk me away for an escape to the sky or a private moment somewhere, anywhere, he had never done so with such determination and speed that I didn’t realize what was happening until my surroundings appeared to have morphed into something else entirely.

  Gone were the concrete pillars and walls, the driverless cars, or the garish yellow lighting. Gone were the hospital and Dad and Janice, Matthew and Dr. Ambrose.

  In their stead, the familiar site of a black, four-poster bed with a portrait collage of several black and white photographs in matching frames filling in as a headboard.

  “Why am I here?” I asked when I had counted high enough to calm me down.

  “Because I didn’t think it was appropriate to have this conversation in a parking lot.”

  It was a simple reply, an honest one, and yet it angered me. “You didn’t think it was an appropriate conversation to have in a parking lot? It was the perfect place to prove that the conversation was necessary. It was the perfect location for you to confirm to Mr. Branke that I’m just a nut job. It was the perfect location to make me question why I even considered giving you a second chance. Why wasn’t it also the perfect location to discuss just how big of a
n idiot I am for trusting you when you clearly couldn’t do the same for me?”

  A twitch of his jaw, the slight tightening of it was all I’d get in way of any physical reaction. He stared at me, immobile, enigmatic.

  “If your intention was to bring me here so that the conversation could die, Robert, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m done being kept in the dark.”

  I felt my fingers curl into my palm and my breathing slow as I took several deep breaths to steel myself for what it was that I had to say next.

  “I’m not going to do this anymore, Robert. I trusted you with everything. I trusted you with every thought, every memory, even those I wasn’t aware I had, and you couldn’t do the same with me, couldn’t even try. You said you loved me, but love is nothing without trust, Robert. It’s a useless and pointless emotion if you cannot trust me.

  “Even after you lied to me, I still trusted you with my life because, as hard as I have tried not to, I still love you. So much so that it hurts just to say your name and know that when I do, it’s not because I’m with you, but because I’m trying to convince myself to stop feeling the way that I do about you.”

  Robert’s voice, soft but firm filled up the emptiness that mine left behind. “I love you, too, Grace. You can’t even begin to understand how I feel about you, cannot comprehend the depth of my feelings for you. You have no concept of what it is like to feel the way that I do because you’re-”

  I cut him off with a wave of my hand. “Human? That’s the crux of it all, isn’t it? You’re an angel and I’m not, and so everything that I feel is simply incomparable. You can lie to me, but that’s okay because you love me so much. You can make me look like a nutjob and that’s okay because your love runs deeper than mine. You can keep secrets from me but I’m an open book because I’m incapable of comprehending just how much you care for me.”

  “Grace, you’re being ridiculous. This is why our kind isn’t supposed to mix—we’re not compatible emotionally—you can’t feel the same way we do.”

  “I’m through with being made to feel like my feelings are inconsequential because I happened to have been born human, Robert! You’re right! I can’t feel the same way that you do, just like you can’t feel things the same way that I do because you’re not human.”

  Sighing, I turned around to face the door, the blank, white surface far more comforting than the expression on his face. “Look, none of this matters anymore, Robert. I’m going back to my house. I don’t want you to protect me anymore. I don’t want you around me anymore. If Sam finds me there, then so be it. He’ll only be doing what he was supposed to—you said it yourself: I wasn’t meant to get this far and you’ve already risked far too much to keep me alive.”

  I didn’t wait to hear an argument, didn’t want to hear an argument. I simply left him standing there, unmoved, unspeaking, untouched.

  I headed to Lark’s room and began to gather my things, not trying to be orderly, simply quick. As soon as I was sure that everything that I had brought was now tucked into my duffel and backpack, I reached for the phone beside her bed and dialed Graham’s phone number.

  After three rings, I heard him pick up and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Graham, could you come and get me?”

  “Grace?”

  “Yeah. I need you to come and get me, okay?”

  “What’s wrong, Grace? Did something happen?”

  “Could you just come?”

  There was a pause. And then…

  “No.”

  I pulled the receiver away and looked at it in disbelief, as though I would be able to see an explanation there, something that would give me justification as to why that was the response I received.

  “What? Why?”

  “Grace, you’re running away again. It’s time to stop running.” I could hear the strain in his voice, hear how difficult it was for him, but there was also a finality that I wouldn’t be able to get around. “I love you, Grace.”

  “I love you, too,” I said softly into the phone before hanging up.

  I stared at the two bags sitting on Lark’s bed, my life contained in two canvas sacks, dark and constricting against a backdrop of brightness and light that had always been just out of my reach.

  “You were right.”

  My body jerked at the voice, but it didn’t betray me in any other way. I didn’t turn to look at him, I was allowed that.

  “You are right. I didn’t trust you. Not when it mattered, not when you deserved it. I was proven wrong each time I doubted you, and each time, I vowed to myself that I would prove to you that you could trust me, even if you never knew that you couldn’t—I broke my vows almost as quickly as they came.

  “I’m sorry, Grace. I know that I could say that with every second that passes through the rest of my existence and it wouldn’t be enough for one tenth of what I’ve done to hurt you, but I can’t let you leave without hearing what I have to say. Please. Give me a chance to explain, and then, if you still want to, I’ll take you home and never bother you again.”

  “What do you have to tell me that hasn’t already been said?”

  “Everything.”

  INNOMINATE

  “Do you know why angels have calls, Grace?”

  I looked at him and frowned. Why was he asking me questions when he was supposed to be giving me the answers?

  “I’m sorry. I was being rhetorical. Let me start over; the reason angels have calls is because we don’t have free will. We cannot choose the paths our lives take, no matter what our skill, no matter what our hopes, our dreams. If not for the call, there’d be thousands of guardians and no seers; there’d be healers but no angels of death. Or, the opposite would happen and humanity would be wiped out.

  “Until we get our call, we’re like children lost in a giant shopping center, looking at all of the stores, having no money to spend, and no parents around to help guide us, keep us safe, but we have a set of rules that we know we must follow. And we do.

  “Most of us, anyway. Some of us…well, we don’t. The ties that bind us to our kind aren’t as strong because we haven’t received our call yet. And this small amount of freedom can act like a virus, spreading inside of us . This is like being that lost child and seeing two paths to take: one path will lead to help, the other to the game-filled, candy-coated unknown.

  “I was meant to be Death because of the origin of my birth, the nature of my birth. Had I been given a choice, I would have become a healer, but then who would I heal when my hands can only save one person?”

  His eyes looked into mine in a way that I could feel, the reach of them tangible. “You mean me.”

  “Yes, you. I accept that you’re the only person whose life I can save, whose body I can heal. I would have it no other way. But, if I had chosen to be a healer and was unable to heal the dying around me, the sick, I’d be an angel without a call, lost.

  “Mother told you about the Grigori—they chose to abandon our laws while still answering their call. The result was the earth being flooded and humanity’s relationship with angels forever altered.

  “But there are those that refuse to answer the call entirely. They’ve tasted free will, they’ve seen the invisible shackles that those whom answer it are forced to wear, and they have no desire for it. The call’s song, first sung in invitation, slowly turns angry and condemning. It in turn changes an angel’s heart into something dark, full of horrible, uncontrollable hate.

  “They lose their ability to hear the thoughts of others, the only thing that gives them comfort from the now harsh and piercing screams that the call has become. Nothing but the blackest of thoughts and ideas, the most ill intended of lies and deceit can now penetrate the incredible anger that fills their mind, and there is far too much of that in this human world to block out.

  “They are called the Innominate, the ones who’ve become so lost to us that they are simply unknown. They are nomadic, existing alone and avoiding everything that lives. They care for nothing, love nothing, an
d you must see that for something that is born to love incredibly, love intensely, that is a painful, horrible thing to endure. There is nothing left for them, nothing but rage, and you now know what comes of that.”

  Robert stopped speaking, his gaze sorrowful and his hand pressed against his chest, as though the heart that no longer beat in his chest pained him. He took a tentative step towards me then stopped, shaking his head before retreating several steps in the opposite direction, his body now resting in the doorway, one foot in the hallway, the other in Lark’s room.

  “I know you’re wondering why I’m telling you this, what this could possibly have to do with the way I have treated you, despite my declarations. It’s simple, really. For all of my existence, every single waking moment was filled with anticipation for the day when I would finally receive my call.

  “Until you.”

  In a fraction of a second, he was beside me, his hands on mine, an intense and avid expression on his face. “Grace, I’ve always been dutiful, obedient, and faithful. I’ve never given anyone reason for doubt or mistrust. But that moment I became aware of you, felt your presence, everything changed.

  “I touched your hair, altered its appearance—the first time I had ever done that for anyone—and the breaking of such a small rule acted like a catalyst for something that I did not know was waiting deep inside me. And then you touched me-”

  “Actually, I crashed into you,” I corrected.

  “Yes, for you it felt as though you crashed into me, and quite right, you did crash into my life, but for me, it was something else entirely. It was like a baptism, the feeling of your human life up against the life of my immortal one. It changed the way I saw things, changed the way I wanted to see things.

  “I took a look at your life, from your earliest formed memories to the thoughts that ran in your mind for Graham. I wanted to see the moments that shaped you, molded you. And when I saw Sam there, saw what took place, what should have taken place, I knew instantly what it was that I should have done.”