She wasn’t surprised about the Natural Crown supporters, protesting the New Order that had overthrown their own Hallow government a hundred years earlier. She had served the Natural Crown once. In many ways, she still did.
And as for the Hallow numbers… well, a Hallow woman could only birth two children in her lifetime, enough to replace herself and her mate. The Hallows of old had often said it was Theos’ way of controlling the population, so that Hallows could never outnumber earthlies. But then, that’s why the archangel Michael had also provided the seven stones, a piece of heart from each of the seven archangels—Michael, Gabrielle, Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Zera, and Remy. When formed together, they created Michael’s arch, an arch that could be used to baptize earthlies into the Hallow life.
Only now, the arch was lost, at President Vega’s doing.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “You’ve called me here for counsel? You know what I will say.”
“Yes,” Vega said. “You did not agree with my decision for secrecy regarding the seven stones’ whereabouts.”
She tried to keep her voice under control. “Once the New Order took over, you made sure to destroy Michael’s arch.”
Vega’s smile tightened. “The Natural Crown had used the arch to create an elite class of pure-blooded Hallows for far too long. I had no choice.”
It was true—the royal family that ruled under the Natural Crown was made up of daughters of Michael, the purest and most powerful blood type of the Hallows. Most Hallows had a mix of the seven archangels’ bloods, passed down over time, but Michael’s blood had a special property about it. When paired with another archangel’s blood at birth, it remained dominate to the point where no one could trace the other parent’s blood in the child. Since blood determined the powers and abilities a Hallow developed, the most prized powers and abilities were always kept within the royal family.
This wouldn’t be a problem if the royal family hadn’t turned it into a competition. The pure-blooded women who dominated the family ruled the Hallows. Men were handpicked to join them, to stand at their sides, but never to rule in their places. The crown was passed from mother to daughter. The women of the family would hold contests among the Hallows to determine which men would be inducted into the family next.
Families began to breed pure-blooded children. The Hallows became divided into social classes based on blood, with pure-blooded children having better opportunities than mixed-blooded children. The royal women indicated their preference for pure-blooded men of the highest caliber. After Luci left, Michael never chose another co-captain for their army; but he appointed Gabrielle as his second-in-command. The royal women began to marry sons of Gabrielle almost exclusively.
There was one other way to become a pure blood—to stand under the original stone arch sent from Michael himself, with stones made from pieces of each of the seven archangels’ hearts. The royal family controlled the arch and who could stand under it. They charged hefty prices for the opportunity, allowing only men to stand under it for fear that a woman outside their family could become a daughter of Michael. They also sent these men on the most dangerous Hallow missions to test their worth. Even if the men came back alive, they only had a one in six chance to become a son of Gabrielle and win the hand of one of the daughters of Michael.
This is why the group of mixed-bloods that came to be the New Order overthrew the Natural Crown in the first place. She knew the history behind Vega’s decision as well as he did himself, but there was nothing that could justify his actions. She folded her arms across her chest. “You cannot fight corruption with corruption.”
Vega let out a small gasp, but she could tell he was mocking her. “You would say I am corrupt? That is a bold statement.”
She knew Vega was not accustomed to criticism, but she also knew that a part of him feared her. “The head of your council appointed a stone master and seven stone keepers, so only the stone master would know who had all the stones, and each stone keeper would know where one stone was but not the other six.” She took a deep breath. “And then, when the stones had been hidden at all ends of the earth, you murdered all eight of them. I would say your heart is corrupt, if not your politics.”
“Murder is a strong word,” Vega said quietly. “Each agreed to sacrifice his or her life to protect the secret.”
She met Vega’s eyes, forcing him to look at her. “I doubt they understood how soon their sacrifice would be made.”
“It was an unnecessary and tragic loss,” Vega agreed. “But it’s in the past now. The fertility clinics will learn a way to create more Hallows, I am confident of it.”
At first, she thought he was being sarcastic, but the look on his face told her that he truly did regret his actions. Vega sighed, and she realized how tired the man seemed.
“Using science to create Hallows.” She scoffed. “It’s an abomination of divinity.”
Vega chuckled. “You are an old soul, Thessa, stuck in the old ways. This is a new regime. Change is necessary.”
“Then your appointed council would surely be more helpful than me in whatever matter you wish to discuss.” She had had enough of President Vega; she felt emotionally drained from reliving those terrible moments when the New Order had won and the Natural Crown, the regime she had grown up with, had gone to rest.
But Vega did not dismiss her. “You have refused a seat on my council plenty of times for me to know that you will not help me in these larger matters.” His eyes lit up as if on fire, and she remembered the man who had overthrown an empire. “No, my task for you is much smaller, but just as important. And, in fact, related to this tangent we’ve been on.”
She felt her insides sinking, like her entire stomach had been turned to quicksand. She had an inkling of what the president might ask of her, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to give him what he wanted.
“There have long been whispers of the daughters of Michael blood line surviving,” President Vega continued. “We were both there, of course, and we both saw the entire royal family executed. But there are rumors, rumors that a few of the daughters, babies at the time, were smuggled out before the coup.”
The pit in her stomach twisted until all the energy had drained from her body. “I have not heard this.”
President Vega smiled. “That is why I need you to open your ears.” He took several steps forward, admiring a statue of the mother Mary, his back to her. “You played your cards right through the war and stayed neutral. You’ve fallen in line with the New Order, but you still have the trust of the Natural Crown supporters.”
“Trust that was earned by not betraying them,” she pointed out. “And trust that hinges on me being their ally, which I am not.”
“Either way,” he said, “You have a better chance of discovering whether there is any truth to these rumors than anyone else on my side.”
Vega’s words struck her as funny, as she had never considered herself on his side. “And if I refuse?”
Vega spun around, his expression dark. “I have let you be for far too long, traipsing all over the Americas and hiding from the Hallow public. I allowed it only because I respect you and know that you have had your heart broken.”
She bit back her fury, but she could not bite back her words completely. “The New Order played a part in that.”
“And I have given you sixty-five years to move past it,” Vega said firmly. “Now,” he said, raising his voice, “It is your duty to the New Order to accept this request.”
She paced back and forth, staring at the tiled floors, thinking about what he was asking her to do. If it were only her in this world, she would refuse in a heartbeat and let Vega do whatever he wanted to her. But she had Clara and Cora to think of, too.
Still, she hesitated. Bes would not have wanted her to help Vega, and she certainly couldn’t produce what he wanted.
“You know,” Vega said. “I’ve always wondered how you disappeared so easily into the Americas. In fact, I tried to t
rack you multiple times. Yet, you and those two daughters of Bes’s were nowhere to be found.”
She stopped pacing. Now he had her attention. “What are you on about?”
“Just in the last month, though, I tried again,” Vega said. “And this time, it worked. Whatever you were using to protect yourself, whomever you had allied with for so many years to hide your family—the link is severed.”
He stared at her as her heart’s beat sped up and her mouth went dry.
“The only means of creating this type of protection is through blood magic,” he said quietly. “Which is not only illegal, but must be bound to a person. And when that person—”
“What do you want?” Thessa interrupted. “No more games or veiled threats. Speak plainly or let me go.”
“Your loyalty,” Vega said, annunciating every syllable. “Your power. The daughters of Michael.” He stepped toward her, lifting her chin with his finger. “And if you won’t deliver what I want, I’ll take your ex-husband’s daughters to do so instead.”
He stepped back, brushing off an imaginary dust from his jacket. “I’m sure the New Order would be very interested to investigate your disappearance.”
Thessa inhaled, exhaled. He had her cornered, and now he was threatening Clara and Cora directly. There was no telling how they might suffer because of her.
She looked him in the eye, holding her head high. “It appears I have no choice but to accept. As you wish.” She bowed to him.
He smirked, and she realized she couldn’t stand being there another minute. He knew too much—he had guessed too much, or he had kept a closer eye on her than she knew. Her family was in greater danger than she suspected. And she would not let Bes down...
“I must leave, now,” she said, trying not to appear shaken.
“With Theos,” Vega said with a smile. She did not return it with her own.
“I will contact you in a month,” he told her, before disappearing into thin air.
But she did not need a month or his well-wishes to discover the identities of the women he sought—the daughters of Michael.
She was the one who had smuggled them out all those years ago.
Chapter 5 - Brie
Brie tapped her foot nervously against the metal leg of her desk chair. In three minutes, she would be on her own for nearly an hour for lunch.
The morning had been chaotic, with several students leaving school for hours to change into fresh clothes, the returning to their first few classes at sporadic times.
This had been a blessing for Brie, since she was able to blend in as she went through her classes. For each one, she had chosen a seat toward the back of the class, away from curious eyes, where she could doodle in her notebook without the teacher noticing. Sure, there were still a few whispers amongst her classmates, and not a single person introduced themselves to her—but other than that, the morning had passed with little incident.
From the other students’ reactions, she knew how her behavior made her look—cold, unfriendly, snobby. She wasn’t ready to talk, though. She didn’t want anyone to offer her condolences for her mom, or worse, ask her questions about her life. She didn’t know who to trust. She couldn’t really trust anyone.
The lunch bell rang, jolting her from her thoughts. She could keep her head down during classes fairly easily, but lunch was a different story. She would have no choice but to speak to whomever took pity on her for sitting by herself, because she definitely wasn’t going to hide out with her brother and the water polo team.
She left class, filing toward the quad with all the other students, but chickened out with just a few steps.
She ducked into the girl’s restroom instead, checking the stalls to make sure no one was already there. As she stared at her reflection in the girls’ restroom mirror, Brie wondered if she could hide there for the entire period. She pulled up the gossip story about her that was posted on Zoey Fromme earlier that day, claiming she’d gotten breast implants.
It was ridiculous. Obviously, she hadn’t.
She tugged at her blouse, wishing she had taken Annie’s advice and gone shopping for new school clothes. It was loose and baggy, highlighting her thinner-than-usual figure. A turn to the side revealed her rib cage and the edges of her pelvic bone. She sighed. Her appetite had disappeared after her mother’s death.
She lifted up the bottom of the blouse, seeing that despite her weight loss, her chest was fuller than she remembered.
How did that happen?
“Brie van Rossum?”
She spun around, pulling down her blouse. To her surprise, one of the lavender-eyed twins from earlier that morning stared back at her.
An uncomfortable sensation hit her like an ocean wave pummeling over her head. Suddenly, she felt the urge to get out of the restroom right away.
She averted her eyes, careful not to meet the other girl’s eyes. “I remember you from earlier. You’re one of Sheila’s friends.”
The girl smiled kindly at her, despite her accusatory tone. “You have to ignore Sheila. Everyone knows those gossip sites are a load of crap.”
Brie moved toward the vanity and rubbed some smeared mascara from her face, then applied another coat of black over her lashes using a tube from her handbag.
“But wasn’t that wild, with the sprinkler system going off?” the lavender-eyed twin asked. “It was perfect timing.”
Brie’s shoulders tensed. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she lied. She had pushed the incident from that morning to the back of her mind, trying not to analyze it too closely.
She couldn’t have had anything to do with it. So why did she feel so guilty?
The girl didn’t seem to buy it; she stood at the vanity next to hers, looking at her through the reflection in the mirror. Brie felt as if she was looking through her; that initial feeling she had when the girl first entered the restroom was back, and gaining strength.
“My name is Cora. You should sit with my sister and me at lunch.”
Brie turned toward Cora, looking at her directly. She had an athletic, toned body, warm eyes, and skin the color of dark chocolate. But Brie still felt uneasy. Cora radiated a mixture of energies, and Brie wasn’t sure which ones to trust.
“Can’t,” she said, turning her gaze to the floor. “I’m meeting someone.” Hardly true, but who cared? She could find another restroom to hide out in for the rest of lunch.
Cora scoffed and tilted her head. “Come on,” she said. “I know you have nowhere else to be and no one else to see. Besides, you can’t sit by yourself on your first day.”
She frowned, examining Cora. She smiled back harmlessly.
“Brie, you’ve gotta lighten up. You can’t avoid life at DeRosa forever.”
Brie frowned, wondering how this girl could read her so easily. Reluctantly, she allowed Cora to link arms with her and guide her out of the restroom, down the hall, and into the courtyard where everyone could see them.
In an alternate universe, one where she wasn’t more of a news item than a person, one where she hadn’t made an enemy of one of the most popular girls in school on her first day, the main courtyard would be one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen. It spanned several acres and had wide, breezy spaces with vivid tropical greens that rivaled Central Park. Picnic tables lined the more immediate vicinity where students could chat, relax, and eat. Beyond the tables, an expansive field leading to baseball diamonds, tennis courts, and a gymnasium gave students a place to lay out, practice instruments, or play pick-up rounds of random sports.
Today, though, the entire courtyard seemed to pause at the sight of her. You’re new and interesting, she reminded herself. She resisted the urge to go into paparazzi mode and instead forced herself to smile.
Cora stepped forward, but she stayed frozen in her place. The other girl flipped around, giving her a sympathetic smile. “We don’t have to eat lunch out here if you don’t want to,” Cora said hastily. “There’s Clara, I’ll let her know.” She w
aved to the girl who looked like a carbon copy of her, aside from the expression—where Cora’s eyes were warm and inviting, Clara’s looked like she wanted nothing to do with her.
The two girls met a few feet away from her and whispered to each other. She couldn’t make out much, aside from the word “problem,” but it didn’t matter because something she saw distracted her—a face, one that looked so familiar to her, across the quad. She looked again, but the girl had turned her head, facing in the opposite direction.
The twins seemed to reach a decision and walked toward her in unison. “We’re going to eat inside,” Cora said brightly, tugging on her arm.
She glanced back at the blonde girl who was facing her again, this time blocking her face with her hands. She couldn’t get a clear view…
Clara gave her a sterile, cold smile and scooted her toward the school doors. “Rough first day?”
She didn’t answer; she caught a full glimpse of the girl’s face at just that moment. She looked back at Clara and Cora for a split second before her brain could process what she was seeing. Cora’s expression had turned to recognition, causing her to do a double take at the girl with long, dirty blonde hair standing across the courtyard, watching her.
“Mom?” Brie whispered. It couldn’t possibly be, could it? She looked back at the twins. “Do you see that blonde girl standing there?” She gestured with her head instead of pointing so the girl wouldn’t know they were talking about her.
Clara squinted her eyes in that direction. “I see lots of blonde girls.”
“Do you see the one that looks like my mother?” She didn’t know where the words had come from or why she said them; even as they were coming out, she realized how crazy she sounded. But she had to know that she wasn’t imagining things. She needed to know who the girl was.
Cora and Clara exchanged an uncomfortable glance. Clara’s lavender eyes widened and her eyebrows shot up, as if to say to Cora, do something.
Instruments of the Angels (Hallows & Nephilim: Waters Dark and Deep #1) Page 19