by Meg Collett
“So you’ve already been asked to marry someone else,” Clark said. He picked at the ground, his eyes following the progress of his fingers.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Clark said with a shrug, his eyes still on the ground.
“Clark—”
“Hey, Clark…Sophia.”
Clark looked up to see Michaela standing on top of the hill. The meeting with the Archangels and Nephilim must be over. She was watching him carefully. He didn’t know how long she’d been standing there, but she must have heard some of their conversation.
“Hey,” he said.
“You should go,” Michaela said, staring pointedly at Sophia.
“We were just talking,” Sophia said defiantly. Clark blinked at her in surprise.
“I’m not trying to be rude,” Michaela said. “But go.”
Sophia slowly rose as though she was waiting for Clark to ask her to stay. He didn’t open his mouth or move. Finally, she gave up and turned away. Her steps were much louder when she left than when she had come, making Clark think she was meaning to stomp off down the hill. Michaela took Sophia’s place next to him.
“That didn’t look happy,” she said, watching Sophia make her way back to the main house.
Clark sighed. “Tell me about it. Nephilim are weird.”
“What happened?” Michaela asked, her eyes on his face.
“She said I couldn’t marry her.” Clark’s voice was dry, without an ounce of humor, but Michaela still snorted with laughter.
“Did you ask her or something?” Michaela arched an eyebrow.
“No. I tried to kiss her.”
“Quit pouting. Nephilim are weird. You don’t need that kind of crazy,” Michaela said. She patted his back. The motion was stiff and awkward coming from her.
“Why does it have to be so hard sometimes? Like why can’t people just act normal and not complicate everything?”
“I know what you mean,” Michaela said with a sigh.
“So what happened with you?” Clark asked after a moment of silence.
Michaela leaned back on her hands, her eyes on the skies as Clark’s were moments before. “Gabriel came back. He sent for the Archangels, which I’m grateful for, I guess. They need to be here, but I just wish things were more normal, you know? They treat Gabriel like a saint, and I get treated like crap. So, I got mad and left. Gabriel followed me to my room and we talked. That’s when…well, you know.”
“I actually meant what happened in the meeting, but thanks for sharing all that.” Clark rolled his eyes at Michaela, who seemed surprised for a moment. Then she hit his arm and laughed.
“Okay, fine. You don’t want to hear about my love life,” Michaela said, smiling.
“No, I do. Just not when it’s more interesting than mine, because that’s just sad.”
They were quiet for a long moment. Clark enjoyed sitting next to Michaela and her steady, quietness again. Having her back outweighed all the agony of waiting for her to return from Charleston.
“There’s a big storm coming,” Michaela said, her voice growing serious. “It’ll be one of the last plagues the Aethere can send. We don’t have much time to prepare, but the Archangels and I decided it would be the best time to attack the Watchers. We hope the storm will give us enough cover to make the our ascent to Heaven unnoticed. But that means we will have to leave you and the other humans and Nephilim unguarded. The storm shelter will need to be ready by then. You’ll need it for protection during the storm and from the Watchers if we fail.”
“You’re going to sneak into Heaven?” Clark tried to keep the skepticism from his voice.
“If we can get past the Watchers and into Heaven, we might have a chance of taking out the Aethere.”
“Will you be going? Because you keep saying ‘we,’” Clark said.
Michaela stayed quiet for a moment. “Yes. I’m the only one other than the Aethere who can open Heaven’s gates. Raphael is going to carry me.”
“Does Gabriel know about this?”
Michaela stiffened beside him. “No. Why?”
“That’ll be a fun conversation for you,” Clark said, snorting. “How long do we have?”
“Not long. Maybe a week or so.”
“I hate storms,” Clark said.
“I know.” Michaela wrapped her arm around Clark’s shoulders and squeezed. “This will be a bad one too.”
“Do you think the plan will work?” Clark asked.
Michaela hesitated for a long moment. “I don’t know. But we have to try.”
21
Clark couldn’t breathe in the house. It was impossible to walk from one room to another without getting run over. The frenzy had put him in a sour mood.
The Nephilim’s house was a picture of activity. The creatures bustled about, carrying supplies, food, or filtered water. The fires in the house had long since gone out in favor of propping all the doors open with pieces of furniture. Through every door, groups of half-angels tried to pass through toting their massive, teetering loads.
No one had slept or even sat down after the meeting. Everyone was working twice as hard now to pack the underground shelter before the storm came. So much stuff had gone down there, Clark doubted anyone would actually fit. Nephilim had dispersed this morning to warn neighboring towns and farms. Some had even set off to other parts of the country to warn other Nephilim communities like the one in Pennsylvania. Their journey would be long, because airports and bus terminals had been shut down.
Nephilim strongholds were all over the world, secreted away into forgotten spots. Clark was astounded to hear how many Nephilim existed across the globe. It was a staggering number considering the angels had worked so hard to kill them all. Working with the international Nephilim would be impossible given that the United Nations had effectively put the United States in quarantine.
Clark capped off another new jug of filtered water. He slipped a new, empty container beneath the steady drip before even one drop fell on the floor. He was getting better. A Nephil passing by reached down and picked up the full gallon of water before Clark could even ask.
They looked like mice running in a cage.
Clark stayed in the bathroom, sitting on the closed lid of the toilet as he watched water drop into jugs. He sighed into his hand, his foot drumming the floor. The outside pond water was routed into the indoor plumbing for showers and baths. Now it was to be used as drinking water. Clark hoped the filtration system worked.
A door closed down the hall. Clark leaned over, peering around the door jam. The Archangels came out of the den with their heads down, their powerful bodies radiating their angelic qualities and stifling the air in the house. Maybe that’s why so many of the Nephilim avoided them, because it was hard to breathe next to them.
Michaela was the last one out. She looked tired. She didn’t exude strength like the others. Her strength looked like it was hard won and forged in steel. Forcing her shoulders back and her chin up, she was brittle. But her muscles were tight and flexed like her punch would shatter both her and the one she hit. Her bones were sharp and prominent. Her blue eyes were snapping and slightly wild above the dark circles under them from where she’d been up all night talking with the other Archangels. She caught Clark’s stare.
She didn’t pause to talk to him as she passed. Nor did she smile. But she watched him carefully, her gaze reading him like a book. Her eyes drifted over his arms covered by long sleeves and then she was gone, leaving nothing but a cold chill in her wake.
Clark tugged his sleeves farther down over his wrists. Not many people knew about his markings, and he wanted to keep it that way. He popped his knuckles and chewed on his nails as he forced his thoughts away from the words on his arms. He refused to think about them as if not thinking of them might make them disappear.
“It won’t work, you know.”
Clark jerked, looking up. Framed in the bathroom’s doorway was Iris. She smiled down at him, her teeth a perfect r
ow of white. Her gray blond hair was braided over her shoulder with a simple leather tie. She wore a long skirt and apron over her simple blouse. A white band of cloth kept the small hairs out of her slightly wrinkled face.
Clark looked away. “What won’t work?” he asked, wondering if she’d somehow read his mind.
“Hiding in the bathroom.”
Iris came in and sat on the bathtub’s rim, her eyes on the steady drip of the off-colored water. The room smelled like bleach. The only light came from the small, circular window above the shower.
“I wasn’t hiding,” Clark said, watching the water drip into the jug. Iris tried to meet his eyes, but he kept looking away, to any other place in the tiny bathroom.
“I have to go,” Iris said. “Before the storm happens, I’m going to warn the other Descendants in your father’s place. He’s too weak to move. But I’ll be back soon.”
Clark only nodded. He didn’t know what to say. This was the first time Iris had talked to him directly in days. The space she’d given him had allowed his anger to simmer and cool off.
“I want you to watch over everyone here and make sure everything goes smoothly.”
“Okay,” he said even though he doubted anyone would care what he had to say.
“Clark, look at me.” He did, his subconscious answering her command, like a little boy trained to listen to his mom. “I’ll be back in a few days. I promise.”
“Okay.” He frowned at a tiny spot over her shoulder just left of her face. It wasn’t looking at her exactly, but it was tolerable.
“I haven’t told you why I left the first time yet, have I?” She spoke quietly now. Her whispers drew Clark’s eyes back to hers. They really were the same color blue as his.
“No,” he said, his voice cracking.
“Close the door,” she said, nodding over his shoulder. He reached around and closed it, making the small room feel suffocating with both of them inside. He suddenly felt foolish sitting on the toilet, but there was nowhere else to sit.
“Okay.”
Iris smiled at him in her tolerant, kind way. She had never said a word about his pink hair or muddy motorcycle boots. She’d barely even glanced at his marks. “Why do you think I left?”
Clark shrugged. His throat tightened and dried out like a desert. His spit clumped in a knot of salvia in the middle of his esophagus, threatening to choke him. He forced it down.
“Come on, Clark. You can tell me.”
Clark racked his brain for something else to say. He had thought about this answer a lot over the last few hours. It had been running in circles around his brain ever since it had left Sophia’s mouth. “Because I’m a half-breed.”
Iris’s face crumpled. Her eyes darkened behind a veil of sadness and worry. She bit her lip and took a deep breath to rearrange her features. Her smile was shaky this time. “No, Clark. That’s not it at all. Why would you think that?”
“That’s what everyone says around here. It’s ‘frowned upon’ to be with humans. There’s a system here, and I don’t fit into it,” he said. He had to swallow again.
Iris reached over and took his hand. Her skin stretched soft and cool over the knobs of bones and ligaments. They were beautiful hands really. Long fingers with clean-cut, unpainted nails. Her knuckles were proportionate. Working calluses lined the underside, but she was careful to not scrape his skin with them.
“No.” Iris shook her head at her word. “Well, yes, actually that’s what they think, but that’s not why I left. I loved your father very much. But you were a part of me. You were everything.” She squeezed his hand almost painfully. “We had tried so hard to have you. We had failed so many times. But I knew…I knew I had seen you in my future. You were supposed to be in this world. Every baby we lost broke my heart, chipped away at me until I was nothing but a thin flapping sheet of hope in the wind.”
Clark couldn’t look away from her hand in his. “Why didn’t you stop trying?” he asked.
“Your father. He kept me strong. He believed in my visions as much as I did. He reminded me every day. His faith in you renewed my faith in myself.”
Clark couldn’t swallow the lump this time. He coughed and tried to cover his cough by clearing his throat. Iris put her other hand over their joined ones. Clark wiped at the lone tear slipping down his cheek. He didn’t think his mother saw, but another one was already forming. He sniffed, clearing his throat again.
“When we found out I was pregnant again, it scared me more than it made me happy, I’m ashamed to say. Every day was a practice in fear and terror of making the wrong move. But the days passed. Weeks passed. Doctor visits came and went. I got big enough that I had to buy new clothes, which had never happened before. The months were passing, and as they went, they brought a new kind of hope; a tentative happiness replaced the wariness my bones carried. Around seven months, I began to pray, to wish. I was so superstitious. I wore the same socks every day the last month I carried you. I wouldn’t take off the locket your father gave me for my birthday.”
Clark looked at his mother’s neck. An oval, silver locket hung on a thin chain. It was polished religiously, he could tell. But the wear and tear of everyday use showed on the delicate metal, worn down by years of finger rubbing.
“I was inside on a Sunday morning doing the dishes. We’d just had breakfast. Your father was at church. I’d never gone.” Iris shook her head again, lost in her thoughts. She chewed on her lip just like Clark did when he was nervous. “Anyway, I felt you move. It wasn’t your normal kick, which always made my day. This was a migration, a sinking, a pulling. All I could do was stare into the suds. I was too scared to move even though I’d almost carried you to term. Your father came home and found me like that, standing in a pool of water, my hands immersed in the water still. I was a blubbering idiot. We barely made it to the hospital. But you were alive. That feeling wasn’t you dying. It was you being born.”
Clark was staring at Iris fully now. Tears dripped off the edge of his chin. His nose was running, but he didn’t care. Iris brushed his tears away before they fell.
“The years I had with you were…indescribable. No vision of the future could have prepared me for how happy you would make me. My life was so perfect. But…” she paused. She searched the room like the eggshell walls had the answers written in the fading paint. “But your father and I knew of my other visions. My time with you was only temporary.”
“Why couldn’t you have just stayed longer? Postponed it, you know?” Clark asked. He sounded young, even to his own ears.
“I did. I waited and waited. Your father, bless that man, didn’t say anything at first. I was waiting too long, and we both knew it. We had our parts to play in order to reach a brighter future where we could all be together again. When your father reminded me, I knew. I knew I had to leave. Long ago, I’d made him promise that he wouldn’t let me fail no matter how hard our futures became. He’d sworn. And your father never breaks a promise.”
“You could have just told me. Why did you have to make me think you were dead all those years?”
“It was easier that way, trust me. You were just a twelve-year-old little boy. It was my mistake I didn’t leave before you had so many memories of me. I apologize for that, because I know I hurt you worse because of it. But it was my weakness. Leaving you was…impossible.” Iris seemed to be trying to swallow a lump in her throat now. “But it was the only way. It was my sacrifice.”
“What would’ve happened if you had stayed?”
“Our futures are ever changing with each decision we make. They permeate into our destinies, which are intertwined with the destinies of countless others. I had seen what would happen in infinite ways if I would’ve stayed. Seeing those were the reasons I knew I had to leave. Because Michaela was always fated to leave those gates open. I was always fated to leave you. You were always fated to save Michaela. And she has to save us all. That’s the only way it can be.”
Iris pulled Clark onto the tu
b beside her, wrapping her arm around his shoulders and tucking him against her side like he was twelve again. She smelled so familiar. His head rested on her shoulder as he always recalled. “Will everything be okay now that we’re together again?” he asked.
Iris was silent for a long moment. “Some things won’t feel like they are okay. They might even feel awful. But they’re right. They’re what we need.”
Clark didn’t hear her through his tears. They were loud, and he was sniffling. Iris pressed her chin onto the top of his head, enfolding him into her warmth.
“They’re what we need.”
22
It was a testament to the odd times when an angel could fly and not worry about being seen. It didn’t matter now that angels were the only news to report. Gabriel flew close to the ground, skimming just above the trees.
Things were getting worse with the lawlessness spreading farther north into parts of Ohio and farther west into Missouri and Arkansas. The military wasn’t big enough to contain the hybrids or keep order in towns filled with terrified people. City governments weren’t prepared for a large-scale disaster, so they crumpled without a fight. It wasn’t the Aethere who tore the world apart—although they tried with their plagues—it was the country’s lack of organization and response ability. Humans panicked. Their fear only made them run faster toward their demise.
Abandoned, useless cars lined the middle of the roads. Some were burned or overturned, profanities painted on their sides. The roads were impassable. Hunching survivors crept alongside the ransacked buildings that once held bustling shops and restaurants. Now, they were the looters’ playgrounds. The survivors were on their own with little to no government aid.
A woman carrying a bundle tightly clutched to her chest saw Gabriel’s shadow and cowered. She looked up, her tear-streaked face was etched in terror. Gabriel swept quickly passed, trying not to scare her further, but he saw the bundle was a baby, its wails muffled by the blanket wrapped over its face.