“We feed off the energies of life,” Camael explained. “Everything that is alive radiates energy—we are like plants to the sun, absorbing this energy to maintain life.”
Aaron thought about that for a moment. “So, since you’re sitting here with me and Gabe—you could say you’re eating right now?”
The angel nodded. “You could say that.”
“I’m not eating right now, although I wish I was,” the dog said irritably.
“Okay, okay,” Aaron replied, preparing to take the next exit. “We’ll find someplace for a quick bite, but then we have to get back on the road. I don’t want Stevie with those murdering sons of bitches any longer than he has to be.”
As he took the exit and merged right, onto a smaller, more secluded stretch of road, Aaron thought about all he had left behind. Every stretch of highway, every exit, every back road took him farther and farther away from the life he was used to. He already found himself missing school, something he hadn’t thought possible. It was senior year, after all, and in some perverse way he had been looking forward to all of the final papers and tests, the acceptances and rejections from colleges. But that was not to be; being born a Nephilim had seen to that.
Aaron caught sight of a roadside stand advertising fried clams, hamburgers, and hot dogs. There were picnic tables set up in a shaded area nearby—perfect for Gabriel.
As he pulled into the dirt lot, an image of Vilma came to mind. Before his life collapsed, he had almost believed that he was going to go out with one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen. They never did have an opportunity for that lunch date, and now probably never would. Suddenly Aaron wasn’t quite as hungry as he had been.
••••
Vilma Santiago sat at the far end of the cafeteria at Kenneth Curtis High School and was glad to be alone. It was a beautiful spring day, and most of the student body had taken their lunches outside, so she’d had no difficulty finding an empty table.
The elusive memory of the previous night’s dream—or was it a nightmare?—teased her with its slippery evasiveness. She hadn’t slept well for days, and it was finally beginning to affect her. The girl felt tired, irritable, with the hint of a headache, its pulsing pain just behind her eyes.
But most of all, she felt sad.
Vilma opened the paper sack that contained her lunch and removed a yogurt and a sandwich wrapped in plastic. She had been in such a state that morning, she couldn’t even remember what kind of sandwich she’d made. She hoped the lunches she’d prepared for her niece and nephew were at least edible, or she would be hearing from her aunt when she got home.
Without bothering to check the contents of the sandwich, she placed it back inside the bag. The yogurt’ll be plenty, she thought as she removed the plastic lid and then realized that she didn’t have a spoon.
It was no big deal, there were plenty of plastic spoons at the condiment table—but the intense, irrational disappointment of the moment made her want to cry.
Vilma had been feeling a bit emotional since Aaron Corbet left school—left the state, for all she knew—a couple of weeks ago. She had no idea why she missed him so much. She had just barely gotten to know him.
She placed the lid back on the yogurt and pushed that away as well. She really didn’t feel like eating, anyway.
There was something about Aaron, something she couldn’t quite understand, but a kind of comfort and calmness seemed to enwrap her whenever he was around. Though they had never been on a date—or even held hands, for that matter—Vilma felt as though a very important part of her had been surgically removed with Aaron’s departure. She felt incomplete. She wanted to believe that it was a silly crush, a teenage infatuation that would eventually fade, but something inside her said it wasn’t, and that just made her all the more miserable.
Vilma sat back in her chair, looked out over the cafeteria, and unconsciously played with the angel that hung on a gold chain around her neck.
According to the news reports, Aaron’s foster parents and little brother had died in a fire when their house had been hit by lightning during a freak thunderstorm. He’d said he was leaving because there were too many sad memories. But she’d known he was holding something back—although she didn’t know how or why she knew this. Not for the first time she felt her eyes begin to burn with emotion.
There had been talk at school, silly hurtful whispers, that Aaron had been responsible for the fire that took the lives of his family, but Vilma didn’t believe it for a second. Sure, he was a foster kid who’d been shifted around a lot. He was entitled to be angry. But, she knew in the depths of her soul that he wasn’t capable of harming anyone. Still, the mystery of his abrupt departure continued to gnaw at her.
Vilma jumped as a voice suddenly addressed her. She had been so lost in her thoughts that she’d failed to notice the approach of one of the cafeteria staff.
“I’m sorry, hon,” said the large woman with a smile. She was dressed in a light blue uniform, her bleached blond hair tucked beneath a hairnet. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“That’s all right,” Vilma answered with an embarrassed laugh. “Just not paying attention, I guess.”
“You done here?” the woman asked, gesturing to Vilma’s discarded lunch.
“Yes, thank you,” she replied as the woman swiped a damp cloth across the table and carried away her trash.
Vilma continued to sit, gently stroking the golden angel at her throat.
Maybe that was why she hadn’t been sleeping. Since Aaron left, her nights had been plagued with dim nightmares. She’d awaken in the early morning hours, panicked and covered in sweat—the recollection of what had caused such a reaction a nagging unknown.
That had to be it. Not only had Aaron made her sad by leaving, he was now keeping her awake with bad dreams. She wished he were here so she could give him a piece of her mind. And when she was done, she’d hold him tightly and they would kiss.
Vilma imagined what that would be like and felt her heart begin to race and her eyes well with tears.
“Vilma!” somebody called, the voice echoing around the low-ceilinged lunchroom.
She rubbed at her eyes quickly and looked around. From a door in the back corner, she saw her friend Tina heading toward her. The girl was wearing dark sunglasses and walked as if she were on the runway at a Paris fashion show. Vilma smiled and waved.
“What are you doing in here?” Tina asked in their native Portuguese.
Vilma shrugged. “I don’t know,” she answered sadly. “Just didn’t feel like going out.”
Tina pushed the sunglasses back onto her head and crossed her arms. “I bet you didn’t even eat lunch,” she said, a look of disgust on her pretty face.
Vilma was about to tell her otherwise but didn’t have the strength. “No,” she said, her fingers again going to the golden cherub. “I wasn’t hungry.”
Tina stared at her, saying nothing, and Vilma began to feel self-conscious. She wondered if her eyes showed that she’d been crying.
“What?” Vilma asked with a strained smile, switching to English. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Tina reached down, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her out of the chair. “C’mon,” she ordered in a no-nonsense manner. “You’re coming with me and Beatrice, and we’re going to Pete’s for a slice.”
Vilma tried to pull away, but her friend held her arm fast. “Look, Tina,” she began. “I really don’t feel like…” But then she noticed the expression on her friend’s face. There was concern, genuine worry.
“C’mon, Vilma,” Tina said, letting go of her arm. “We haven’t talked in days. It’ll do you good. It’s gorgeous outside, and Beatrice has promised not to talk about how fat she’s getting.”
Vilma chuckled. It felt kind of good to laugh with someone, she realized.
“Let’s go,” Tina said, holding out her hand.
Tina was right, Vilma knew, and with a heavy sigh she took her friend’s hand an
d followed her outside to catch up with Beatrice. It would be nice to get out with her friends. She needed a distraction.
The three girls headed down the driveway toward Pete’s. Tina regaled them with tales about how her mother had threatened to throw her out of the house if she even thought about getting a belly button ring, and Beatrice, true to form, talked about her expanding bottom.
But Vilma was lost in thoughts of her own. She thought about how nice the weather was, now that spring had finally decided to show, and wondered if the sun was shining as brightly wherever Aaron Corbet was—and if it wasn’t, she wished him sunshine.
••••
Inside the cave, Mufgar of the Orisha clan squatted on bony legs and removed four pumice rocks from a leather pouch at his side. The diminutive creature with leathery skin the color of a dirty penny stacked the stones and, with the help of his three brethren, coaxed the remembrance of fire from the rocks.
The volcanic stones began to smolder, then glow an angry red as the four murmured a spell used by their kind for more than a millennia. Mufgar laid a handful of dried grass atop the rocks, and it immediately burst into flame. Shokad added some twigs to feed the hungry fire as Zawar and Tehom gathered their weapons and placed them against the cave wall until they were needed again.
The fire blazed warmly and Mufgar adjusted his chieftain’s headdress, which was made from the skull of a beaver and the pelts of two red foxes, upon his overly large, misshapen head.
Sitting down before the roaring campfire, he raised his long, spindly arms to the cave ceiling.
“Mufgar of the Orisha clan has called this council, and you have answered,” he growled in the guttural tongue of his people. He leaned toward the fire and spit into the flames. The viscous saliva popped and sputtered as it landed on the burning twigs. “Blessed be they who are the Powers, those who allow us to experience the joys of living even though we have no right to this gift.”
The three others cleared their throats and, one after the other, spewed into the blaze. “Praise be for the mercy of the Powers,” the Orishas said in unison.
“We are as one,” Mufgar said as he brought his arms down. “The council is seated. It has begun.”
Mufgar gazed at the three who had gathered for this calling, saddened by how their numbers had dwindled over the centuries. He remembered a time when a cave of this size wouldn’t have begun to hold the clan’s numbers. Now, that was but a distant memory.
“I have called this council, for our merciful masters have bestowed upon us a perilous task,” Mufgar said, addressing his followers. “A task with a most generous reward, if we should succeed.” He looked at what remained of his tribe and saw the fear in their eyes—the same fear he felt deep within his own heart.
Shokad, the shaman, shook his head. His long, braided hair, adorned with the bones of many a woodling creature, rattled like chimes touched by the wind. He murmured something inaudible beneath his breath.
“Does something trouble you, wise Shokad?” Mufgar asked.
The old Orisha ran a bony hand across his wide mouth and gazed into the crackling fire. “I have been having troubling dreams of late,” he replied, the small, dark wings on his back fluttering to life. “Dreams that show a place of great beauty, a place where all our kind have gathered and we live not under the yoke of the Powers,” he whispered, making cautious reference to the host of angels that were their masters.
Mufgar nodded his skull-adorned head. “Your dreams show a future most interesting,” he observed, stroking the long braid hanging from his chin. “If we succeed in our new task, our masters say they will reward us with blessed freedom. Our independence we will have earned.”
“But… but to achieve this we must hunt the Nephilim,” Tehom stammered. “Capture it and bring it to Verchiel.” The great hunter looked as though he would break into tears, he was so filled with fright.
“If we wish to be free of the Powers,” Mufgar said to them all, “we must complete this sacred chore. Then, and only then, will we be allowed to search for the Safe Place
.”
With the mention of the Orishas’ most sacred destination, all four blessed themselves by touching the center of their foreheads, the tips of their pointed noses, their mouths, and then their chests.
Zawar climbed to his feet, frantically dancing from one bare foot to the other. His wings fluttered nervously. “But our task is impossible,” he said, pulling at the long, stringy hair on his head. “The Nephilim will destroy us with ease—look at how he bested the great Verchiel in combat. You saw the scars—we all saw the scars.”
Mufgar remembered the burns covering Verchiel’s body. The scars were severe, showing great anger and strength in the one who inflicted them. If that could be done to the one who was the leader of the Powers, what chance did they have? “It is the task bestowed upon us,” he said with the authority that made him chief. “There is no other way.”
“No,” Shokad interjected, slowly shaking his head from side to side. “That is not true. The dreams show me a world where our masters have been destroyed by the Nephilim.”
Mufgar felt himself grow more fearful. The shaman’s dreams were seldom wrong, but what he was speaking—it went against the ways of the Orishas. Since their creation, they had served the Powers.
“You speak blasphemy,” the leader hissed as he pointed a long, gnarled finger at the shaman. “It would not surprise me if Lord Verchiel himself appeared in this very cave and turned you to ash.”
Tehom and Zawar huddled closer together, their large eyes scanning the darkness for signs of the terrifying angel’s sudden arrival.
Shokad fed the fire with another handful of sticks. “I speak only of what I see in the ether,” he said, moving his hand around in the air. “There is a new time coming, the dreams tell me. We need only pay attention.”
It’s tempting to embrace these new ideas, Mufgar thought, to push aside the old ways and think of only the new. But during his long life on this planet, he had seen the wrath of the Powers firsthand, and did not care to risk having it directed toward him.
“I will hear no more of this madness,” Mufgar declared, his voice booming with power. “Our service to the masters is what has kept us alive.”
Zawar climbed to his feet and went to their belongings stashed across the cave against the wall. “We live only as long as the Powers allow us to,” he said, searching for something amongst their supplies. Finding it, he returned to the fire, where he sat down and opened the small bundle. Inside were the shriveled remains of dried field mice and moles. “When they no longer have need of our skills, they will destroy us, as they did our creators,” Zawar said as he picked up a mouse and bit off its head for emphasis. He offered the snacks to the others.
Mufgar could not believe his ears. Had they all been stricken with madness? How can they speak such treason? he wondered. But deep down he knew. The Powers had no love for them, thinking them no better than animals. “Our creators broke the laws of God by making us,” Mufgar explained in an attempt to restore their sanity with a reminder of their people’s history. “We are blemishes upon the one God’s world. The Powers have allowed us to live—to prove ourselves worthy of the life bestowed upon us by their fallen brethren. When we have done this, then and only then will we be given our freedom and allowed to search for the Safe Place
.”
Again, the Orishas blessed themselves.
“But what of the others of our clan?” Tehom asked, taking a stiffened mole from their rations. “What of those who defied our masters and went to find our most prized paradise?”
Mufgar did not want to hear this. No matter how he himself felt, to question the old ways would certainly bring about their doom. He remembered how he had tried to convince the others to stay, all the time wishing that he had had the courage to go with them. But he was chief, and was slave to the traditions of old.
Mufgar crossed his arms and puffed out his chest. “They are dead,” he sai
d definitely. “They have disobeyed our laws.”
The shaman looked to Zawar and Tehom, who were both chewing their meal of dried vermin, then back to Mufgar. “But what if they aren’t dead?” he asked in an clandestine whisper. “What if they succeeded in finding the paradise for which we so yearn? Think of it, Mufgar—think of it.”
The chief stared into the fire, pondering the words of the shaman. Could it have always been this simple? To steal away unnoticed and find their own Heaven. “Lord Verchiel has said that any who defy his wishes would be expunged from existence.”
Shokad slid closer. “But times are changing, Great Mufgar,” he said. “Verchiel and his Powers are distracted by the prophecy.”
“The Nephilim,” Tehom said in a whisper, spitting fragments of dried mole into the fire.
Zawar, sitting next to him, nodded and flapped his wings. “It is said that he will bring forgiveness to the fallen.” He picked a piece of tail from between his two front teeth. “And our masters do not want this, I think.”
It had been hours since he’d last fed, and Mufgar snatched up a dried carcass from the open pouch. “So you suggest we disobey the Powers, ignore our orders—forsake our chance at true freedom.” He took a bite of the mouse’s head and waited for an answer. The dried meat had very little flavor, and he yearned for his favorite meal. It had been quite some time since he had feasted upon the delectable flesh of canine. Mouse and mole were fine for a time—but the meat of dog was something that he often dreamed of when his empty belly howled to be filled.
“A great conflict is coming between our masters and the Nephilim,” the holy man proclaimed, “and only one will survive. The Nephilim’s power is great. To attack him would invite our downfall.”
Zawar and Tehom nodded in agreement. “Let the Nephilim destroy the Powers,” Zawar said.
“And then we will be free,” Tehom added.
Mufgar swallowed the last of his snack and climbed to his feet. He had heard enough. It was time to pass judgment. He raised his arms above his head again, gazing at the fire and his followers around it. “I, Mufgar, chief of the Deheboryn Orisha, have listened to the words of my clan and have applied my great wisdom to their concerns.”