Unearthly (10 page)

Angela sits down at the edge of the stage, her legs dangling over into the orchestra pit. She keeps her eyes downcast while she tells the story, her face turned slightly away, but her voice is steady.

“She thought she was safe,” she says. “But that night she dreamed of the man standing at the foot of her bed. His face was like a statue, she said. Like Michelangelo's
David
, impassive, sad in the eyes. She started to scream, but then he said something in a language she couldn't understand. His words paralyzed her; she couldn't move or make a sound. She couldn't wake up.”

I sit down beside her.

“And then he raped her,” she murmurs. “And she realized it wasn't a dream.”

She glances up, embarrassed. One corner of her mouth lifts.

“So the downside is that I wasn't exactly conceived in love,” she says. “But the upside is that I have all of these amazing powers.”

“Right,” I say, nodding. I've never heard of such a thing happening. An angel raping a human? I can't imagine it. The night is starting to take on a weird sort of
Twilight Zone
feel. I came to work on a history project, and now I'm sitting on the edge of a stage with another angel-blood as she spills her entire life story to me. It's surreal.

“I'm sorry, Angela,” I say. “That . . . sucks.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, as if she can see it all in her mind.

“So if your mom is human and you've never seen your dad, how did you even know you were an angel-blood?” I ask.

“My mom told me. She said that one night, a few days before I was born, another angel appeared to her and told her about the angel-bloods. She thought it was a crazy dream for a while. But she told me as soon as she saw that there was something different about me. I was ten.”

It's not really the kind of story you want to hear from your mom. I think about the way Mom told me about the angel-bloods, only two years ago, and how hard it was to accept. It blows my mind to think about what I would have done if she'd sprung that kind of information on me when I was a kid. Or if she'd been raped.

“It took me a long time to find out anything else,” Angela says. “My mom didn't know anything about angels besides what it says in the Bible. She said I was a Nephilim like in Genesis, and I would grow up to be a hero like in the days of Samson.”

“No haircuts for you, then.”

She laughs and drags her fingers through her long black hair.

“But you knew about the Dimidius and Quartarius and all of that,” I say.

“I've picked up the facts here and there. I consider myself a bit of an angel historian.”

It's quiet for a minute.

“Wow,” I say.

“I know.”

“I still think we should do our history project on Queen Elizabeth.”

She laughs. She turns toward me and pulls her legs up and sits Indian-style, so close her knees brush mine.

“We're going to be best friends,” she says.

I believe her.

I have to be home by ten, which gives us hardly any time to talk. I don't even know where to begin, the questions come so fast. One thing is clear right away: Angela knows tons about the angels, so much of the history, the powers they're rumored to have, the names and ranks of different angels who appear in literature and religious texts. But in other areas, things about angels and angel-bloods that you can only get from the inside, she doesn't know much at all. She and I could learn a lot from each other, I realize, being that my mom only tells me what she thinks is absolutely necessary, if that.

“You did all your research in Rome?” I ask.

“Most of it,” Angela says. “Rome's a good place to find out about angels. Lots of history there. Although I met an Intangere in Milan last year, and I learned more from him than any other source.”

“Hold up. What's an Intangere?”

“Silly,” she says like I should have guessed. “That's the Latin for the full-blooded. It literally means whole, untouched, complete in itself. So there's the Intangere, Dimidius, Quartarius, you know.”

“Oh right,” I say like it had just slipped my mind. “So you met a real angel?”

“Yep. I saw him and I don't think I was supposed to. We were in this little out-of-the-way church, and I saw him standing there kind of glowing, so I said hello in Angelic. He looked at me and then grabbed me by the arm and suddenly we were someplace else, but like we were still in the church, too, at the same time.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

She frowns and leans closer like she hadn't heard me correctly.

“What?”

“Sounds like he took you to heaven.”

Her eyes widen with sudden comprehension. “What do you know about heaven?” she asks.

I flush.

“Well, not a whole lot. I know that it's dimensional, that it exists right on top of Earth. Like a curtain, my mom says, a veil. She went there once—I mean, an angel brought her there.”

“You're so lucky to have your mom,” Angela says with envy in her eyes. “I have to work so hard to get all my information, and all you have to do is ask.”

“Well, I can ask,” I say a bit uncomfortably, “but that doesn't mean she has to answer my questions.”

Angela looks at me closely.

“Why wouldn't she?”

“I don't know. She says I have to find out these things on my own, by experience, or some baloney like that. Like earlier, you said your father was a Black Wing. I have no idea what that is. I assume it's something like a bad angel, but my mom's certainly never mentioned it.”

Angela thinks for a minute.

“A Black Wing is a fallen angel,” she says finally. “I guess they fell a long time ago, closer to the beginning.”

“Beginning of what?”

“Time.”

“Oh. Right. Are their wings really black?”

“I think so,” she answers. “That's how you know them. White wings equal good angel, black wings equal bad.”

Crazy, all that I don't know. It makes me feel foolish. And uncomfortably curious. And scared. “You just go up and ask them to please show their wings?”

“You command them, in Angelic, to show themselves.”

“And they have to?” I ask.

“Did it feel like you had a choice when I commanded you?”

“No, it just happened.”

“That's how it is for them too, a kind of tool for immediate identification that's programmed into them,” she says. “Useful, right?”

“How do you know all this?”

“Phen told me. He's the angel I met in the church. He warned me about the Black Wings.”

She stops abruptly, dropping her eyes.

“What?” I prompt gently. “What did he say?”

She closes her eyes briefly and then opens them. “He said that they might try to find me, someday.”

“But why would they want to find you?”

She looks up.

“Because my father was one. And because they want us,” she says. Her gold eyes are suddenly fierce. “They're building an army.”

“Mom!” I scream the minute the door of the house closes behind me. She comes running out of her office, alarm all over her face.

“What? What is it? Are you hurt?”

“Why didn't you tell me there's a war between the angels?”

She stops. “What?”

“Angela Zerbino's an angel-blood,” I say, still spazzing out. “And she told me that there's this war that's going on between the good and bad angels.”

“Angela Zerbino's an angel-blood?”

“Dimidius. Now answer my question.”

“Well, honey,” she says, still looking confused. “I assumed you knew.”

“How would I know if you didn't tell me? You never tell me anything!”

“There's both good and evil in this world,” she says after a long pause. “I told you that.”

I can see how carefully she's choosing her words, even now. It's infuriating.

“Yeah, but you never told me about Black Wings,” I exclaim. “You never told me that they go around recruiting or killing all the angel-bloods they come across.”

She flinches.

“So it's true.”

“Yes,” she says. “Although I think they are more interested in the Dimidius.”

“Right, because Quartarius don't have much power,” I say sarcastically. “I guess I should be relieved, then.”

Mom's still processing. “So Angela Zerbino told you she was an angel-blood. She just told you?”

“Yep. She showed me her wings and everything.”

“What color were they?”

“Her wings? White.”

“How white?” she asks intently.

“They were a perfect, eye-piercing white, Mom. Why does it matter?”

“The shade of our wings reflects our standing in the light,” she says. “White Wings have white wings, of course, and Black Wings have black. For most of us in the middle, the offspring, our wings are varying shades of gray.”

“Your wings have always looked pretty white to me,” I say. I'm instantly struck with the urge to summon my wings, to see what shade they are, to discover what my spiritual state really is. I sure as heck don't know.

“My wings are fairly light,” Mom admits, “but not as the new-fallen snow.”

“Well, Angela's were white,” I say. “I guess that means she's a pure soul.”

Mom goes to the cupboard and gets a glass. She fills it with water at the sink, then stands drinking it slowly. Calmly.

“A Black Wing raped her mom.” I look at her to see if there's any reaction to that. None. “She's worried that someday they'll show up to collect her. You should have seen her face when she talked about it. Scared. Like, really, really scared.”

Mom puts the glass down and looks at me. She doesn't seem at all rattled by anything I've told her. Which rattles me even more. And then I realize.

“You already knew about Angela,” I say. “How?”

“I have my sources. She hasn't exactly tried to hide her abilities. For someone who's worried about Black Wings, she's not being very careful. And to reveal herself to you like that. It's reckless.”

I stare at her. At that moment it fully dawns on me how much my mother hasn't told me.

“You've been lying to me,” I say. “I tell you everything, and you've been lying to me.”

She meets my eyes, startled by my accusation. “No, I haven't. There are just some things that—”

“Are there a lot of angel-bloods in Jackson Hole?”

She seems hurt by my sudden question. She doesn't answer.

I pick up my backpack from where I tossed it onto the kitchen floor and head for my room.

“Hey,” says Mom. “I'm still talking to you.”

“No, apparently you're not.”

“Clara,” she calls after me in an exasperated voice. “If I don't tell you everything, it's for your own protection.”

“That doesn't make sense. How does being clueless protect me?”

“What else did Angela tell you?”

“Nothing.”

I go into my room and slam the door, take off my coat, and throw it on the bed, fighting the urge to scream, or cry, or both. Then I go to the mirror and summon my wings, gathering them around in front of me so I can see the feathers more closely. They're fairly white, I think, running my hand over them. Not as the new-fallen snow, as my mother said, but still white.

Not as white as Angela's, though.

I hear Mom come down the hall. She stops in front of my door. I wait for her to knock or come in and tell me that she doesn't want me hanging out with Angela anymore, for my own protection. But she doesn't. She just stands there for a minute. Then I hear her walk away.

I wait for a while, until I'm sure that Mom is safely downstairs again, and then I sneak down the hall to Jeffrey's room. He's sitting at his desk with his laptop, typing away, chatting with someone by the looks of it. When he sees me he types something really fast, then jumps up to face me. I turn the music down a notch so I can hear myself think.

“Did you tell her you'd b-r-b?” I say with a smirk. “What's her name, anyway? No point denying it. It will be more embarrassing for you if I have to ask around at school.”

“Kimber,” he concedes immediately. “Her name's Kimber.” His expression stays neutral, but I can see a hint of red creeping into his ears.

“Pretty name. The blond girl, I assume?”

“You didn't come in here just to mock me, right?”

“Well, that's pretty fun, but no. I wanted to tell you something.” I move a pile of dirty laundry off his beanbag chair and sit on it. My breath catches for a second, like I'm breaking a rule, Mom's all-important “don't tell your kids anything” rule, as a matter of fact. But I'm sick of living in the dark. And I'm ticked off, ticked off at everything, at my whole crappy life and all the people in it. I need to vent.