Silver Smoke (#1 of Seven Halos Series) (3 page)

Brie divided her gaze between the three girls. "You know something," she said, backing away. "All three of you are in on it." For some reason, this revelation made Brie want to escape.
You're one of
us?
Whatever they were—religious cult, secret witch society, voodoo doll worshippers—she didn't want to be a part of it. She backed up, away from the crazy girls. The secluded gazebo felt further from the school every second she stood there. She wondered if even the paparazzi, who stalked her everywhere, would hear her scream out here.

Brie turned to run down the gazebo steps, but she was stopped by a tall blonde girl in high heels, dressed in a white blouse and a navy blue skirt. Sirena walked confidently up the steps, firmly nudging Brie back. She stood in the entrance, blocking it so Brie couldn't escape.

"I didn't tell her," Sirena declared, addressing the cheerleaders. "She found out because she's one of us. That's why I called this meeting."

Thessa collapsed onto the gazebo bench. "Well this complicates things." Cora sat down next to her, looking equally nonplussed.

Clara scoffed. "You can't be serious, Sirena. Her? Her father is an earthlie."

"Is he?" Sirena asked.

Clara's eyes burned slowly into Sirena. "We traced his history. I don't make mistakes."

"Perhaps James is not her father then?"

Clara folded her arms. "That's impossible. She has his eyes."

"Can somebody tell me what's going on?" Brie interrupted. The four girls turned their attention to her, as if just remembering that she was listening.

"Sit down," Thessa instructed, gesturing to the spot next to her on the bench. Brie sat hesitantly.

She wanted answers, but that meant pushing through the fear of what those answers might hold.

Cora reached across Thessa's lap and touched Brie's hand. Brie's pulse slowed as a wave of calm consumed her; she hadn't realized how fast her heart was beating before. "We know you must be freaked out," Cora said. "We can answer your questions, but it's going to take time to explain everything."

Thessa pressed the tips of her fingers from her right hand to their corresponding fingers on the left hand. She flexed her fingers, pressing the palms of her hands together. "Sirena, what is your evidence that Brie is not an earthlie?"

"She used a stamata to throw me off my bike this morning."

Clara looked at Brie incredulously. "Where would she have learned to use a stamata that strong?"

"What is a stamata?" Brie asked.

"I don't know," Sirena replied, addressing Clara and ignoring Brie's question. "She must be an innate. Milena was."

"My mom?" Brie asked.

"That makes no sense," said Cora. "Pilot is earthlie and James is earthlie. Why would Brie be different?"

Clara turned to Thessa. "Maybe Pilot is an earthlie because of the prophecy?"

Sirena snorted. "You've got to be kidding me."

Clara whipped her head around, speaking quickly. "There's a reason there are no sons of—"

"The prophecy should have been fulfilled years ago!" Sirena shook her head. "How long will it take for you to wake up and realize you've been spoon-fed lies?"

Clara's mouth hung open. "Prophecies aren't a science! There's more than enough evidence to take them seriously." She looked to Thessa for help.

Thessa stood up. "It's possible that Milena's genes were strong enough to produce one–"

"Is this your idea of explaining things?" Brie asked, interrupting the nonsensical conversation. She stood up and confronted Sirena. "Tell me what you are," she demanded. "Explain what happened this morning. You promised."

The other girls looked at Brie in shock. Sirena dropped her head, but Thessa locked eyes with Brie, capturing her attention. "Brie, we can tell you what Sirena is because we are the same. So are you—or at least we think so."

"And what is that?" Brie asked with a thin calm, taking her place on the bench again. For the second time today, she felt fully alert, as if someone had shaken her out of the daze that kept her safe after her mother's death.

"We have to start at the beginning for you to understand," Thessa said. "Nothing will make sense otherwise. Can you be patient with your questions, and listen to our story?" Brie nodded. Cora gave her an encouraging smile.

"Long ago, there were two archangels in the Aerial Spires—Heaven, as most earthlies would call it.

The archangels were named Michael and Luci. Michael, of course, is the archangel mentioned numerous times in various religious books, like the Bible and the Qur'an. You've heard of him, right?"

Brie nodded.

"And Luci, as you might have guessed, refers to the archdemon, Lucifer. Or rather, Lucifer refers to Luci. In the days when these tales were written down, earthlies did not consider women equal to men, so all the archangels' names were changed to sound more masculine." Brie nodded again in understanding, and Thessa continued.

"Michael and Luci were co-commanders of the angel army in the Aerial Spires. Marriage is illegal there, but you could describe their relationship as similar to a marriage. They were each other's second allegiance, after their first allegiance to Theos, of course.

"Theos?"

"Theos, as in what you earthlies call God," Clara said impatiently.

Thessa continued. "Theos created a new race—humans—in his own likeness. The humans were like children, helpless and weak on their own, but meant to rule above the Chorus."

Cora saw the blank look on Brie's face and interjected. "The Chorus is another name for the hierarchy of angels in the Aerial Spires," she explained.

"You can imagine how this might upset the Chorus, having to care for and wait on a weaker race than their own. Michael and Luci stood at the center of the controversy, their followers waiting for them to decide whether the army would maintain their allegiance to Theos. Michael was resolute in his purpose and saw no reason to question Theos. Luci, however, had sharp doubts. Without Michael's knowledge, she met with another god, Diabo, in hopes of striking a deal.

"When Michael found out about Luci's betrayal, his anger was immeasurable. Luci had broken both her first and second allegiances by meeting with Diabo. Knowing that he and Luci could never see eye to eye again, Michael challenged Luci to a death battle for sole control of their combined army. The battle lasted many years, as archangels are difficult to kill, and Luci had the help of a rebel faction within the army who did not want to stay in the Aerial Spires. Eventually, Michael cornered Luci, but he realized he couldn't kill his companion, the woman he'd loved and fought alongside for many millennia.

Instead, he spared her life but cast her out of the Aerial Spires for all eternity.

"Luci was weak when she left the Aerial Spires and had no means to take care of the rebel faction that followed her. The archangels needed energy to survive—energy that could only be given by a god. Luci turned to Diabo for help, and he made her a terrible deal. He would take care of her faction of angels and reinstate her as commander of a new army, the archdemons. In return, she would help Diabo steal the minds and souls of his brother's children."

Brie shivered. "That's a terrible choice to have to make. But Theos and Diabo—"

"Are brothers," Thessa said. "And Diabo wanted Luci to steal human souls. Humans were young at that time, and Diabo had appeared to them many times before, tempting them easily. But he lusted after a more devilish plot. He sent his most trusted archdemons, seven in total, down from the Infernal Spires to create a new army on earth—a hybrid breed who would fight to claim human souls on a daily basis. This hybrid race was named the Nephilim."

Brie's stomach twisted as she absorbed the story. "Is that what we are?" she asked. "Nephilim?" The thought of being the offspring of an archdemon made her sick.

Clara glared at Brie, clearly offended by her question, but Cora laughed reassuringly. "No, not at all."

"Let me finish," Thessa said patiently. "When Michael learned of the Nephilim, he realized that he too needed an army on the ground if he wanted to protect Theos' human souls. Michael gathered his six most trusted warriors and took a piece from each of their hearts to form six stones. He sent the stones to earth, along with a stone from his own heart. The seven stones, when fully-formed to their earthlie sizes, stacked on top of each other in a stable arch, with Michael's stone creating the keystone at the top center. The arch was placed somewhere in what would now be considered Western Europe—the exact location has been lost over the centuries. Any human child under one year of age could stand under the arch and be blessed by a flood of water that poured from the stones. If the child survived, he or she would carry the blood of one of the seven archangels—a bloodline that would flow through his or her descendants for as long as they reproduced, making them as strong as the archangels while keeping their humanity and souls intact.

"We are the descendants of this hybrid race, Brie, created by Michael to fight the Nephilim for the souls of all humanity. We are the Hallows."

Brie's head spun over Thessa's revelation. "I don't believe you," she said.

"What?" Clara said.

"I don't believe you. You are all insane."

Cora's forehead crinkled. "But Brie, why would we lie to you?"

Brie could think of only one reason. She stood up and scanned the trees. "Where are the cameras?"

Clara's eyes widened before narrowing into sharp slits. She threw her arms up in the air. "You are the
daughter
of James van Rossum. You are
not
famous enough to get spunked or punned, or whatever they call it these days."

Brie affixed her hands to her hips. "If angels are real, and demons are real, what else should I know about? Blood-sucking dead people? Garlic and crosses?"

Clara sneered. "Vampire references." Her lips pressed together firmly aside from the slight upturn at the corners of her mouth. "Vampires are the most ridiculous mythological creatures earthlies ever created. They don't make sense. Here's what really happens—when you die, your body becomes a shell, absent of its soul. The soul is what makes you human—not your brain or your heart." Clara crossed her legs, folding her arms in front of her. "Vampires are anatomically impossible."

Brie glared, annoyed by Clara's condescending tone. "You know what I meant. Replace 'vampires' with anything. Unicorns. Are unicorns anatomically impossible too?"

No, those are anatomically
improbable
." The whites in Clara's eyes took over as she rolled them back into her head. "It's a horse with a horn."

Brie imagined Clara's pupils staring at the innards of her skull, and stifled a giggle.

"Are you two done?" Thessa asked. She looked at Brie. "The story is real." Sirena coughed, folding her arms across her chest. "Or, at least it's what most of us believe," Thessa said, glancing at Sirena.

"The story is what's written in our history," Sirena said pointedly, addressing only Brie. "It's as real to us as the stories of the gods were to the Romans."

Clara's mouth twisted into a cross between a snarl and a pout. "Don't listen to her. The story is real. There's plenty physical evidence to support the history of Hallow and Nephilim beginnings."

Sirena opened her mouth, but Thessa interjected loudly. "Regardless of whether the details of our beginnings are accurate, Brie, the Hallows are a real superhuman race with real powers that can be dangerous, to both you and others. This is serious. I don't know why Milena kept your true nature a secret from us, but it probably means we're all at risk."

"What I don't understand still is how she's a Hallow," Cora said, looking at Brie.

"Well, Milena was a daughter of Michael," Clara said, "and Michael's blood is dominant. It's possible that Michael's blood stayed dominant even when she married a human. It left Pilot an earthlie for obvious reasons, but when Brie came along—"

"But in general, Hallow blood
isn't
dominant over earthlies," Cora said. "To get a Hallow, you need both parents to have angel blood."

"Maybe James had a touch of angel blood too," Sirena said. "That's common for celebrities. Milena must not have known Brie would become a Hallow. She would have told me if she knew."

Cora winced, her jaw clamping. Thessa and Clara both looked at the ground.

Brie took the silence as an opportunity to get her questions answered. "My mother was the daughter of Michael. What does that mean?"

"It means she's a descendant of the Archangel Michael's bloodline," Thessa said, avoiding Sirena's gaze. "But Brie, your safety is compromised. We don't have time for questions. Until we figure out what happened, we need you to do exactly as we tell you."

Brie crossed her arms in defiance. "I want answers to my questions first."

"You'll get answers in time," Thessa said. "But right now we need a plan to hide you."

"I want answers now," Brie insisted. She gestured to their surroundings. "I don't see any eminent danger or death threats, and I can sit here all day. I don't need to go to class."

"No." Thessa's tone was firm. "This is not negotiable. You will do what we say."

Brie shoved her purse onto the bench. "Why should I trust you if you won't answer my questions?"

Clara huffed. "Because if you don't, you will get yourself and your entire family killed, not to mention Sirena, who is technically your aunt. Is that a good enough reason?"

"My aunt!" Brie exclaimed, looking at Sirena in horror.

There was silence for a second, before Clara laughed. "Close your mouth. It's unattractive."

Brie scowled, clamping her teeth together.

Clara's eyes gleamed. "Your lips are too wide to create a comical jaw drop anyway. If that's what you were going for."

"It wasn't." Brie was determined not to let Clara distract her. She looked at Sirena. "So you're my aunt? Explain how you're my aunt."

No one answered right away. Thessa, Clara, and Cora deferred to Sirena, who was rubbing her fingers together nervously. Sirena looked up to see four expectant faces. "Alright, I'll tell her." She sighed.