by C. G. Blaine
Copyright © 2019 by C.G. Blaine
Published by Gray Page Books LLC
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at www.cgblaine.com
Cover Designer Murphy Rae, www.murphyrae.net
Copyediting by Madison Seidler, www.madisonseidler.com and Jovana Shirley of Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
Proofread by Christina Hart of Savage Hart Book Services
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
e-book ISBN: 978-1-950847-04-4
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
FIfteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Epilogue
Playlist
Acknowledgments
About the Author
This Preview
To Emmily, for believing in angels.
And in me.
In the beginning, there was only darkness. Then there was bullshit.
And just so we’re clear, “darkness” was never really darkness. Most of the Bible and other religious texts are metaphors and symbolism or misinterpreted completely. The apple Eve eats? A metaphor for the burden of knowledge. Jonah being swallowed by a big-ass fish? A tale of second chances. Watcher Angels teaching humans about art and technology before God wanted them to know and being punished for it? Now we’re getting to some facts. Although the story falls apart on the Nephilim topic.
Another one humans got right, to a degree, is the crystal ball. Those things are real. They only show you the present, need to be connected to a particular soul, and are inconvenient as fuck to use in public.
I lean against my motorcycle, parked against the curb, and light a cigarette. Hannah Kelley has another twenty minutes left in whatever bullshit class she takes on Thursdays at two-fifteen. As I gaze into the clear orb at her, she twirls a strand of auburn hair around her finger, diligently taking notes on the lecture. Back when she was a sophomore in high school, she’d pass notes back and forth, giggling with her friends. Teachers caught her more than once and sent her to detention. She’d sneak out early and smoke behind the school or end up in a senior guy’s car, fogging up the windows.
But that’s not her anymore. Now she hangs on every damn word the sixty-year-old professor says. She’ll wander to the front after class, making sure she wrote something down correctly. His eyes will drop to her chest, the smile and nod he delivers not at all in response to her question. She’ll accept it as one, though, and scurry away.
A gorgeous five-foot-nothing blonde struts by my bike for the third time in the last half hour. I tuck the crystal ball in my jacket and follow her down the sidewalk toward the building Hannah’s walking out of. The blonde’s flattered I’m paying attention, but it’s short-lived.
It always starts in my chest. A warmth that almost makes me feel whole again. I look at my hand, palm up, fingers stretched out. The heat shoots down my arm, and the tips of my fingers emit a white glow. Divine light. I only enjoy the sensation for a second before I scan around. A city bus is closing its doors at a stop a block away. Given Hannah’s trajectory, she’ll walk right in front of it when she crosses the street because she’s watching her fucking shoes instead of where she’s going.
The blonde tries to say something as I jog past, but I wave her off. Women tend to take a backseat when your eternity is on the line. My jog turns into a fast stride by the time Hannah reaches the corner, and we collide. Our impact knocks her back from the curb, and the bus passes. The power fades from my body within seconds of her being safe, the loss as painful as ever.
I glance at her over my shoulder, her surprised eyes meeting my glare. “Watch where you’re going.”
“Sorry,” she says.
She should be fucking sorry. After thousands of years, she’s the last thing standing between me and home, and she almost ruined it by stepping in front of a bus.
And this is why I hate Hannah Kelley. My forever is tethered to her life.
Some days I want to fast-forward through. Or some weeks, months, years. This is one of those days. Or weeks, months, years.
As soon as the apology leaves my mouth, I want to add, you’re an asshole. But the guy’s already crossing the intersection. I watch him gliding away as if he hadn’t almost knocked me to the ground and then looked at me like I’d insulted him by existing. His dark hair and even darker eyes were familiar in the way a moment reminds you of a dream. An incredibly angry and intimidating dream.
I let it go, checking for traffic before I step into the street. Since I wasted time asking my professor a question he answered by staring at my chest, I’m late to drive Terra to work. Music floods the hallway when I rush into our dorm room. The naked guy in her bed scrambles for his jeans, and I shield my eyes with a hand, walking to my side.
“Sorry,” I say. My mantra for the day. But my apology goes out to Terra for being late, not the guy with a heart tattooed on his ass. I drop my bag, and once he makes his exit, I spin around.
Terra’s pulling on a white top that does little to conceal the red bra underneath. “Are you sure you don’t want to come out with everyone later tonight? It’s just a movie, not a rager or anything.”
“I’ve already fulfilled my required two social events for the month. Try again in October.”
She wiggles her jeans up over her hips. “We should have renegotiated at the beginning of the school year. I’m shooting for four outings a month senior year.”
“Good luck on even reaching three.” I toss her a sweatshirt off the floor and follow her out.
She and I have come a long way since we were assigned as roommates freshman year. Her sole purpose was to party; mine was just to get through the next four years. Nothing has changed in that aspect, but we stopped hating each other after the first semester. By the end of the second, we were spending time together outside of the room. Enough to upgrade us to the Friends category at least. Last year, we requested to room with each other, and now, I can’t imagine my life without her.
She chatters the entire drive across town to the clothing store, which leaves the silence on my solo return trip all the louder. Any other day, I would turn on the radio. But not today. Today, I tune out the world the best I can. No music, no TV, no movies or books. Nothing that can remind me of them.
The only exception I make is to study, and when I get back to the dorms, I curl up with a textbook.
Linguistics. Some people collect stamps.
I collect languages. I’ve always picked them up quickly. The patterns and similarities stick out in my mind and piece together with roots from others. I speak French, Spanish, German, and Italian. I know enough Latin to be dangerous, and last year, I took a class in Sanskrit.
The words blur after an hour or so, my eyes dry from a lack of sleep. I close them, letting them rest before I switch to accounting.
I jolt awake when the book slides off the bed and crashes to the floor. My eyes search around, and as they reorient to the dark room, they land on Terra’s alarm clock.
Shit. The campus cafeteria closes in twenty minutes.
I grab my phone and pull on a sweater before I rush out the door.
The crisp air helps clear my head from the grogginess of an accidental four-hour nap. Just as I start feeling like myself again, I step into the dining hall, and everything inside me dies. Music plays over the speakers in the ceiling, echoing through the empty hall and bouncing off every smooth surface. It’s one of the many songs they claimed as theirs. One he would dance her around to in the kitchen, singing every word just for her. She’d laugh and throw her head back and then rest it on his chest. All I hear is the music. All I feel is the loss. And all I want to do is run.
So, I do.
I run out of the building and down the sidewalk until it turns into a stone path. I keep going after the trail ends, across a field and through the trees. I’m running away from the way she always smelled like vanilla and how he could make me feel so loved with just a smile. Away from the social worker and police taking me out of class and how my life imploded, and all they could say was, “I’m so sorry for your loss.” Away from everything and toward nothing. I run until I can’t breathe, tears streaking across my face, and then I drop to my knees on the cold, hard ground.
That’s where I stay until I forget what it’s like to lose everything all at once. Until I forget how to feel and remember how to survive without them.
By the time I calm down enough to function again, it’s late. I step into the trees that block the lights from campus. The stars and moon disappear too, hidden by the canopy. I’m not far in when the first shiver shoots down my spine. I stop.
My breathing picks up as the feeling of someone watching settles over me. I think of the stormy eyes of the stranger cutting through me earlier. I force my feet forward, convincing myself it’s just this day. This terrible day that needs to end.
As I follow Hannah out of the woods, a stick snaps under my foot. Her adrenaline spikes again, and she picks up her pace without looking back. The imagined danger sends a surge of energy through me that wanes once the branches overhead open to the expansive night sky. She tips her head back, admiring the handiwork that took eons to perfect, and continues across the field.
I stay hidden behind the trees, watching her until she finds the path that leads to her dorm building and disappears inside. She finally settles down enough to fall asleep around three in the morning, and I can relax.
One day closer to going home.
When you spend your existence shadowing someone else, you don’t require much in the way of an apartment. Mine is fully furnished, though, to keep nosy neighbors and maintenance from asking questions. I drop my keys and crystal ball on the counter and swipe the open whiskey bottle.
A knock on the door turns me around as I walk into the living room. Being the middle of the night, I ignore it and settle in on the couch. The bottle’s barely touched my lips when my phone vibrates. The unknown number continues to ring after I decline the call. If I had a damn pager, that would go off next. Maybe a fax machine or carrier pigeon.
“Tamiel.”
I light a cigarette, disregarding the disembodied voice filling my apartment. I’ve been Kasdaye since before Lydia came into existence, Cass since the nineteenth century, but she uses my old name—the first one given to me—to assert her authority. The Tamiels continue, each more bitter than the last, until she appears between me and the TV.
“Why do you have to be such a dick?” She tosses straight blonde hair over her shoulder, glancing around the apartment, annoyed.
“Sorry, sweetheart, but unless they changed how long a century is, you’re about seventy years early for my check-in.”
Lydia’s usual unimpressed expression is in place. She gives off a powerful vibe for such a small package, shoulders back and straight, chin up to offer an illusion of height, staring me down in her business suit. “I’m not here for your report, asshole. I can’t find Samyaza for his.”
I shrug, downplaying my interest. “Samy’s not here.”
“When’s the last time you talked to him?”
“Four, maybe five decades?”
A lie she doesn’t buy.
She crosses her arms and juts out a hip, like the cool mom trying to get the kids to rat on each other. “Look, I get it. You’ve been brothers since your beginning, and you cover for each other. But—”
“But in this situation,” I interrupt, “I really have no idea where he is, Lydia. The last I knew, he was bouncing between three states to keep up with his charges. If you want me to, I’ll ask the others.”
I won’t tell her anything even if they do know something, but my offer eases her tension. Over the centuries, the four of us remaining on Earth have learned how to keep her from hovering.
She eyes my crystal ball in the other room. “Since I’m here, I might as well ask about your charges.”
“Charge,” I correct.
“The last time, you reported three,” she says, interest piqued.
“Anthony Kelley passed away thirteen years ago in his sleep at the age of eighty-six.” I tick them off on my fingers. “His sister, Cynthia ‘Kelley’ King, three years later from cancer. And five years ago yesterday, Brice Kelley and his wife were killed in a plane crash.”
She cocks her head to the side. “Why did the plane go down?”
I hold up my hands, already knowing where she’s going. “Lightning strike. A true act of God. Which leaves me with their daughter, Hannah Kelley.”
“The final Nephilim in their lineage. Wow, Cass.” She shakes her head, finding it hard to believe another one of us might make it home. “Well, good luck. Don’t let her die.”
“Or get knocked up,” I add.
Her eyes roll, and then she’s gone.
I polish off the bottle of whiskey and trade it out for a full one. Walking back to the couch, I roll the crystal ball off the counter, bringing it with me. I fall onto the cushions and scroll through my phone to a number Samy texted me from a few years ago. He drops off the grid from time to time. As our leader, the guilt of us being punished still weighs on him even though none of us blame him for what happened. We all knew what we were doing when we decided to help the humans.
The twenty Watchers were sent to Earth to ensure man didn’t fuck up God’s plan. But that meant watching them suffer through disease, famine, and at times, utter stupidity. Samy couldn’t handle it anymore. His compassion wouldn’t let him sit idly by while they died off. So, we taught them astronomy, meteorology, how to forge weaponry, and other sweet skills. Some dumbasses veered from the syllabus, though, and spent the better part of a millennium screwing their way around the world, creating the Nephilim. Legends say the hybrids were giants, but the only thing abnormal in size was their egos. Because they were half-angel, they thought themselves all-powerful, and clans started warring with one another. God’s solution was to flood the Earth—an actual flood, essentially hitting the reset button on creation. God then passed down punishments for us. The playboys were sentenced to live out human lives, and their souls were condemned to sit outside the gates of Heaven for eternity. As for the seven rebels who gave away knowledge, we were “cast into darkness and chains.” A metaphor for no longer being welcome in the light of Heaven, and now bound to the humans we’d wanted to spare. God saved seven Nephilim, commanding we keep watch over them and their descendants until the lines die off na
turally—disease, self-sacrifice, an act of God. Only then will we find redemption and reenter Heaven as angels.
The number Samy sent me rings through to voicemail.
“Hey,” I say. “Lydia let herself into my apartment tonight, looking for you. Where the fuck are you? I think I bought you some time, but let me know if you need me to send her off in the wrong direction. Check in soon, man.”
A tingle trips down my spine, and my hand runs over the orb. Hannah’s restless. Nightmare. They bother her more this time of year, sending out a lot of false warnings of her in distress. My powers react to both actual danger she has yet to perceive and her adrenaline responses, which means, right now, both of us are exhausted. Not that I need much sleep, but she’s pushing my limits.
Once she settles down, I stretch out and balance the ball on my chest. And then we sleep.
Over the next few weeks, our pattern returns to normal. Hannah lets me sleep more than an hour or so a night, and I keep enough distance that she doesn’t begin to recognize my face.
The world around us transitions into fall the first week of October. The leaves change color at such random intervals and different paces that no one would believe it was all by design, each leaf falling off the trees in an ordered sequence.
I try Samy a few more times with no answer, but even so, I hold off on calling Chaz and Rosdan. They’d lie their asses off for either one of us without hesitation, but until Lydia pops back up, the fewer in the know about Samy’s disappearing act, the better.
One morning, while Hannah’s in class, I spread out on a bench outside the building. Despite my claim of being better rested, I doze off, waking to her voice. I peek an eye open, and she’s standing right in front of the bench, facing away from me. Moving would only draw her attention, so I do as any good stalker would and stay perfectly still. She fake laughs, not something she does often. It almost sounds like she doesn’t want to embarrass herself if her snort makes an appearance. Then I hear a guy chuckling along with her, and my eyes fly open.