Black Halo (Grace Series)

by S. L. Naeole

  “You only say that because you’re Irish,” Chips hooted.

  “I think you must have some kind of guardian angel watching out over you, Grace. I’ve seen enough movies to know that when psycho meets pretty, only the supernatural can keep you safe. Either that or a really well-placed firearm,” Salsa said with a far off smile floating across his face.

  The conversation went on like this through the rest of class, carrying over outside as I found myself walking with the three of them down the hallway and out the front doors, Robert trailing behind with a perplexed expression on his face. It was only when I spied Graham’s waiting form did I realize what had happened.

  “Okay guys, my ride’s waiting for me,” I told them and motioned towards Graham with my head.

  They all looked between Graham and Robert curiously, but chose to say nothing and instead waved and said their goodbyes, with Salsa winking as he rounded the corner towards the other side of the student parking lot.

  “What’s with the dweeb trio?” Graham asked as I approached him.

  I ignored his question and instead asked him one of my own. “Where’s Lark?”

  He frowned and stared at his shoes. “She’s going with Stacy to her doctor’s appointment.”

  I understood his disappointment all too well. “Well, that shouldn’t take too long. She’ll be back soon to help you clean up your house, and until then, I’ll help.”

  His mood brightened almost immediately and he grinned. “Cool. Let’s get started right now. I’ll go and get the car.”

  I started to object, to tell him that I’d walk with him to the car, but he bolted and I silently cursed him because I knew by the feel of two eyes burning into my back that he had done this on purpose.

  “He likes you.”

  I took a deep breath and counted to ten before I turned around to face him. “Who likes me?”

  “Shawn. He likes you. His mind is filled with images of your face.”

  I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. “Shawn? Salsa? I doubt that. He’s got a girlfriend. Besides, he knows how I feel…”

  I bit my tongue and looked away, silently cursing myself for my near slip. Of course, it didn’t matter that I had stopped myself—he saw the thoughts, knew what I had meant to say.

  “Grace…”

  I held my hand up, not wanting him to say anything more, but he pushed my hand down, his fingers not releasing mine. The brief contact sent flashes of fire through my arm and directly to my heart, hurtling it into a mad dash.

  “Grace, I have to leave. I won’t be here tonight to watch over you so I want you to be extra cautious.”

  I pulled my hand out of his and rubbed my arm vigorously, trying almost desperately to rub the tingling sensation out, to erase the feeling from my skin. “I don’t care if you’re going to be there or not, Robert,” I lied. “I told you it was okay to follow me around during the day, but I didn’t give you permission to skulk around outside while I’m sleeping.”

  I saw him stiffen, saw his body go rigid upon hearing my words. But then, just as quickly, he relaxed and smiled, a sad smile that hurt to view, it was so beautiful. I turned around and whispered a silent prayer of thanks when I saw Graham’s rusty green clunker pull up to the curb.

  “Stay at Graham’s house tonight, Grace,” I heard Robert say softly as I walked away. Don’t be alone tonight.

  I wanted to shout at him that the only reason I would be alone to night was because he had given me no choice, but I held my tongue and walked towards the car.

  I saw Graham’s head lift up, his gaze directed beyond me, and I growled in frustration as I saw his head nod once, then twice. “Don’t listen to him,” I demanded as I climbed into the passenger seat. “Do not listen to him, Graham.”

  Graham said nothing as we pulled away and headed home, his eyes continuously glancing in the rearview mirror as though he were running from something. I turned around several times just to make sure that he wasn’t, and felt the anger rising in me at having my life being organized by my ex-boyfriend and my best friend.

  For the first time, Graham pulled into the driveway of his house and parked the car. He didn’t say anything for a while, just sat there and stared at the steering wheel. I glared at him, vowing not to leave the vehicle until he promised he wasn’t going to listen to whatever it was that Robert had told him to do.

  Graham leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the backs of his hands, a low groan coming out of his mouth. “This sucks!”

  He banged his head against his hands several times before turning to look at me, his face mottled with emotion. “I don’t know how you did it.”

  “Did what?”

  He closed his eyes and returned his face to the wheel. “This. Deal with Lark and Robert and a best friend and trying to make things work without hurting anyone. I have Lark in my head telling me to let you work things out with Robert on your own, and then Robert tells me to not let you out of my sight, and you’re over here hating me because of that.

  “I don’t know what to do—if I listen to Lark and something happens to you, I’m pretty certain that Robert will kill me. If I listen to Robert, Lark is going to think that she can’t trust me. Either way, I’m going to hurt you and that’s the last thing I want to do. Is this what it was like with you?”

  I gave him a half-smile and nodded. “Every single day.”

  “And I didn’t make it easy on you, did I?”

  I shook my head and he laughed. “I understand now why humans and angels stick to their own kind—this is just way too complicated.”

  “Graham, nothing about this is supposed to be easy. If it were, it wouldn’t be worth it.”

  He smiled. “I hope so.”

  ***

  Darkness hit quite early. Graham and I managed to clean out the living room of empty bottles and cans, but ran out of places to store them as we moved towards the kitchen. Realizing that there was no way to cook a proper meal while the house still reeked of stale liquor and who knows what else, not to mention the fact that the last time Graham’s refrigerator held anything edible was probably before Christmas, we ended up back at my house for frozen pizzas and tossed salad.

  “There’s about two weeks of work in that house,” Graham complained as he shoveled a slice of pizza into his mouth.

  “Not if Lark does it,” I reminded him. “I’ve seen her clear away an entire wedding reception and tent in less than twenty minutes with her mother. Well, I didn’t actually see her do it, more like watched as things just started disappearing.”

  Graham’s eyes grew large as I described yet another detail about Lark that he was unaware of. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. It’s something else, really, watching them work. You’d swear they simply snapped their fingers and everything just magically got put away, but it didn’t. They just move that fast.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that I pretty much stand no chance of outrunning any of them if I happen to tick them off?”

  I shook my head. “They’re not like that, Graham. You can’t upset them the same way you can upset someone like us. They’re incredibly patient—they have to be in order to do what they do, be what they are—and they’re capable of reading our minds and seeing our pasts so they can figure us out in the same time it takes us to blink, which makes it easier for them to choose how to behave around us. They’re created to handle our human weaknesses of anger and rage and jealousy without experiencing any of their own. It’s part of what separates them from us.”

  “So explain Robert’s jealousy then.”

  That caused me to pause. I looked at him and couldn’t stop the smile from forming on my lips. “He’d fallen in love. It was something he’d never experienced before and that opened the door to a whole bunch of related emotions, jealousy included. At least, that’s what he told me.”

  “And what about that Sam guy? I get that he’s supposed to be doing his job and all that, but from what you and Robert argued
about, he’s got it out for you—why? Why is he so angry? And how did you even get away from him if they’re that fast?”

  I pushed the cold slice of pizza on my plate around as I tried to figure out how to explain things to him when I didn’t quite know the answers to them myself. The look on his face, however, told me that it didn’t matter what I told him, he just wanted to listen and that was how I knew that it was okay to tell him the truth.

  “I really don’t know, Graham. I wish I could tell you that it’s because he was jealous, that he was heartbroken over a lost love or that he was angry, but from everything I’ve learned about him, I honestly don’t think he’s capable of feeling anything. He told me so many lies I don’t know what is and isn’t the truth when it comes to him.

  “As for how I was able to get away from him, the truth is that I didn’t.”

  Graham began to choke on his salad and I hurriedly poured him a glass of milk, which he downed quickly. “What do you mean you didn’t?”

  “I mean I didn’t. I’m not alive because I escaped, Graham.”

  He pushed aside his plate and reached for my hand, squeezing it comfortingly. “You’re alive because Robert saved you.”

  “Well, yes, but that’s not the whole truth. Sam…he took his time; he wanted to torture me, to enjoy my pain. I don’t know what made me think of it, but I stabbed him in his eyes with one of Robert’s feathers-”

  “Wait, you stabbed him in his eye with a feather? Are you serious?”

  I nodded but smiled at how ridiculous that sounded. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to hurt him with my bare hands. I mean, he’s an angel; they can’t be scratched or punched or kicked—we’ll injure ourselves far more greatly than we could ever imagine doing to them. Trust me, I know.”

  “What about shooting them? Dad’s got a gun somewhere in his bedroom closet…”

  Shaking my head, I sighed. “Graham, you’re not listening to me. They can’t be hurt.”

  “But you just said that you stabbed that Sam guy with a freaking feather—that sounds a lot like you can hurt them, Grace.”

  “I said I stabbed him with one of Robert’s feathers. I can only guess that angels can hurt other angels, which is why it worked, but he didn’t die from it. It didn’t even slow him down. He tried to strangle me next, but something stopped him, something I cannot explain.”

  Graham’s face bore a look of skepticism. “I don’t get it, Grace. This Sam guy is supposed to be the archangel of death—why didn’t he just touch you or snap his fingers or something? If his job is to kill people, and he’s been doing it for such a long time, why take the time to hurt you?”

  I began to rub my neck, the memory causing me to feel the ghost of invisible fingers tighten against my throat. “I told you, I don’t know. There’s a lot about that night that went unexplained.”

  “Well, don’t take this the wrong way, Grace, but I’m glad that he took his time.”

  I looked at his hand, still holding mine, and smiled. “I understand what you meant, Graham. I have to admit that there are moments when I’m glad he took his time, too.”

  We sat in silence for a while after that, the pizza turning to cold, congealed grease, the salad wilting in the bowl. We didn’t have the ability to read each other’s minds, but we both knew what the other one was thinking as time passed. We were both wondering how we had ever gotten to this point where we were both grateful for Sam’s sadistic need to cause pain, and what possibly comes after such a thing.

  ***

  Robert’s instructions to Graham couldn’t be avoided as I cleaned up the kitchen. In a compromise—though I certainly didn’t view it as such, considering that I didn’t believe Robert had any place giving Graham orders of any kind—Graham agreed to spend another night on the couch after going back to his place to grab some of the clothes that he had taken back, as well as take a shower.

  I went upstairs to take a shower of my own before finally climbing beneath my covers and falling asleep.

  The dreams came quickly.

  They had started the night of the wedding, the night the truth about Sam came out, always repeating itself like a DVD stuck on repeat.

  I was sitting on a chair in the middle of the large field in the Bellegarde family retreat. I couldn’t move, though my hands and feet weren’t bound. It was the middle of the day; the sun was beating down on me and branding me with its intense heat. I wasn’t wearing anything other than a tank top and a pair of boxers and my skin bore the results of the exposure by the bright red glow it gave off.

  A familiar laugh behind me caused me to whip my head around, the sunburn on my shoulders and neck sending rivulets of pain through my body and I fought against crying out.

  “Poor, baby. Don’t like the light too much, do you?”

  I shook my head without really meaning to. It just happened.

  “Does it hurt? Does it burn?”

  Again, against my will, I answered.

  I felt a hot pressure against my shoulder and I whimpered, biting my lip to remain as silent as possible. I turned to look at what it was that was on my shoulder and I lost the battle.

  I cried out. A hand, withered and frail was pushing down on me, the skin glowing white…hot.

  “Hello, Grace.”

  “S-Sam,” I whispered.

  “Only my friends call me Sam. Are we friends, Grace?”

  “N-no. We’ll never be friends—you killed my mother.”

  The wrinkled skin, powdery with unnatural age rippled as a throaty, airy laugh escaped from the leathery lips that curled over the only part of him that had remained untouched by the strange light that had taken away his youth and his beauty. His eyes were closed, hiding the voids that I had created when I had stabbed him.

  “She was dead long before I ever got to her, Grace.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m sorry, that’s something I only tell my friends,” he sneered.

  I stared in mute horror as his hand curled into a fist, leaving one finger pointed outwards. He trailed that finger up my burning throat, along the curve of my jaw stopping when he reached the corner of my mouth.

  “Remember this? I never did get to finish what I started. Why is that, did you ever wonder?”

  I shook my head slightly, the small motion pushing my skin into the razor sharp nail at the end of his extended finger. He pulled his finger back to show me the blood that now pooled at the end of his fingernail and smiled.

  I glared at him defiantly, but remained silent as he brought his finger to his lips, the crimson drop creeping into the deep cracks and forming red streaks across the leathery surface.

  “Miki would be proud of me, don’t you think?”

  Immediately, my vision switched to a battlefield scene littered with the bodies of countless victims, their skin pale and waxy, their open eyes bloodied and staring sightlessly into the endlessness of their own deaths. Off to one side stood a gathering of some of the most beautiful people to exist, the most beautiful people that I’d ever seen.

  Their skin was flawless, their hair—though ranging in different hues from the palest of whites to the deepest blue-black—shone like silk, reflecting the midday sun shining high above the grisly scene. They didn’t speak, though it was quite clear that a heated conversation was being held among them.

  Two faces among the group stood out instantly. Ameila, her long, jet hair pulled back and braided with a leather tie, was arguing with a male angel whose shoulder length burgundy colored hair hung loose around his neck. He was the only one in the group whose wings were out, the white expanse of them shading several others who stood beside him.

  His face was shockingly handsome, but his eyes were what caught me off guard. One was a brilliant gold, while the other glowed radiant silver. His head rose and he turned his gaze in my direction, staring as though he could sense that I was there. I gulped, unable to move, unable to run, only able to star
e back. Finally, he shook his head and turned back to face Ameila, the conversation instantly returning to the same heated level.

  And then there was Sam, his golden hair unmistakable among the sea of gray that the dead bodies created around him. His face was frozen with anger and disappointment—I had a suspicion as to why, but I watched as the silent conversations all ceased, everyone turning to face Sam with grim expressions.

  The one that had been arguing with Ameila shook his head and I watched as Sam lunged towards him, his teeth bared dangerously, his hands forming claws that grabbed at him relentlessly. He stopped in mid-air, hanging there clumsily a though dangling from a piece of twine.

  “Samael, this is for the best. We cannot do this for you—we endanger the lives of those we are sworn to protect if we allow this,” the auburn headed angel said to him, his voice unnaturally soothing and melodic. “You will find another one to love, one of your own kind, and then you’ll forget all about today, all about her.”

  “I will never forget, Lem” Sam hissed.

  The sound caused my head to start throbbing and I fell to my knees, the pain striking quickly, much quicker than it had before.

  “Of course you won’t forget, Samael. It was a figure of speech; forgive my poor attempt at being human. I only meant that this need will fade. You will find another soon enough—you always do—and it will be one of us. I have seen it.”

  Sam shook his head. “I want her.”

  The one addressed as Lem laughed. “You’re acting like a petulant child, Samael. This isn’t about what you want—you have no say in this matter, Juvenile. You think that just because you’ve grown wings you suddenly have a say? We are Seraphim—you are expendable. If you aren’t willing to help us see this deed done now then I suggest you leave us before we decide to turn you instead.”

  Sam’s eyes went cold but he did as he was told and the vision switched once more amongst a blur of colors that swirled around me so rapidly, I had to close my eyes to keep from getting dizzy.

  I don’t know what was my clue, what told me it was okay to open them again, but when I did I was lying on the ground staring into two black orbs as strong and angry hands wrapped themselves around my throat, silencing me and preventing me from breathing.