Black Halo (Grace Series)

by S. L. Naeole

  Ameila’s smile grew pained, the sadness that formed at what I had just described blatant in her eyes. She patted my hand and sighed with great disappointment. I dreaded then what she was about to say, an intense need to flee suddenly coming over me. She must have sensed it too because her hold on my hand tightened, her expression changing from grave to semi-hopeful.

  “Grace, I’m about to tell you something that will undoubtedly leave you feeling confused and far more frustrated than you already are, but the answers to all of your questions lies in what you’re about to hear. You won’t be happy with them, but you will find a sense of closure and perhaps you’ll see with clearer eyes just what exactly lies in store for you.”

  I closed my eyes as Ameila began her story, her voice flowing in and around me, surrounding me with its soft musical lilt.

  “Angels are creatures that have a great affinity for love. We are born knowing nothing else, knowing a need for nothing else except that first contact, that first glimpse of love unconditional. As we age and learn about what we are, what our purpose is in life and existence, we forget love and instead we replace it with duty and ambition. It consumes us, drives us into distraction so that we forget what it first felt like to love and be loved.

  “So, when it comes back to us, it hits us like a rocket, a burst of energy and heat that takes over everything else, if only for a time. Unfortunately for angels, we, like humans, tend to confuse lust with love because they both incite the same initial feelings within us. Though we are portrayed as perfect by your kind, we are far from it. We are flawed in many ways which is why we have so many laws, so many rules, and the ones who end up getting hurt when we break those laws are those we are born to protect, to teach…to love.

  “But, just like humans, there are those of my kind that rebel against the rules set before them. They go against the rules of God and of our own system of laws and the end results can be as mild as an errant guardian who takes his position too literally to a group of angels who turn life upside down, creating chaos and havoc in both worlds.”

  She paused and I could have sworn she looked flustered, her skin taking on a strangely pink hue that I knew didn’t come from blood rushing to her cheeks but something else. After studying her in her silence I knew it to be the glow of anger that radiated outwards with such intensity it had created a screen of red around her. Her eyes closed as she fought against the growing agitation within her, her hands squeezing almost cruelly on my own, her body vibrating with the fury that I feared instantly.

  “A-Ameila?” I said, my voice low in my throat. I didn’t move, didn’t even blink as she silently endured her own inner turmoil.

  Finally, slowly, she opened her eyes and sighed with relief, though it was plain that she had fought against a supernatural rage that had threatened to consume everything around her, including me, simply because she was remembering something that I would soon learn. Her eyes were tinged with a reddish hue, remnants of the thick veil of anger that had taken over her, and she quickly blinked it away in a shower of ruby red tears that fell into her waiting hand.

  “I’m sorry, Grace. I needed to prepare myself for this—I have never spoken of it to any human and the consequences of my telling you without releasing some of the anger that still flows within so many of us would have been grave, indeed.”

  I shook my head, refusing her apology when none was needed. “I’m only concerned with whether or not you really want to tell me all of this; if it upsets you this much, perhaps I shouldn’t know any of it.”

  The coldness in her eyes told me without words that it was too late to stop now. I would hear the truth, whether I wanted to or not. “Now, let’s talk about the Nephilim,” she said in a grave voice.

  NEPHILIM

  Ameila’s voice was paper thin as she spoke, her eyes focused on something unseen. “The angels that you’ve seen, those of us who walk among you, are the second coming. There were others who came before us, before there were rules and laws that protected us from our own urges. They were the Grigori, the watchers. They came down from the heavens to watch over man, to help guide them down the proper paths, and to shelter them from the storms that come from war and famine, greed and hatred.

  “Some of the Grigori were obedient in their duty, following their call as they were destined to. They acted as guides, as healers, as leaders for man while their civilizations grew and prospered. And then there were others who prevented the humans from living life as they were meant to, free of mind and free of spirit.

  “God did not create your kind to be obedient dogs, Grace. He blessed you with thought and purpose and drive—much like angels in a way—but he also gave you something that is far more valuable than anything else you could possess. He gave you choice.

  “As a result, there were many of the Grigori who became angry at mankind. They resented the fact that humans—with your minds, stunted and ignorant when compared to our own—were allowed the freedom to do as you will, while we are bound by duty and obligation to our brethren, to our call without question and most certainly without doubt, and with punishments that can stretch centuries for failure of this.

  “So the Grigori who had grown to resent man, resent what humans possessed simply stopped; they began to live their lives as dictated not by angelic law, but by human freedoms and the weakness of man. To the humans, they revealed our secrets, our history, our existence to anyone who would listen, anyone who would do as was expected of them and spread the tale. In exchange for this, the humans began to dote on them, forgetting the reasons why the angels existed in the first place.

  “These rogue Grigori, drunk on the idol worship and the power they realized they possessed over man, soon adopted and adapted to the vices of their human charges, turning from intelligent creatures of divine birth into crazed and power hungry creatures whose only goal was to prove that they had the strength to defy God and His laws. They created a heaven for themselves amongst the humans they now viewed as their pets. Their lives were now free from secrecy and they could live openly among the humans in a world of their own making, Gods in their minds and hearts.

  “The Grigori became lost to us then, for the whole of them fell out of God’s graces solely on the acts of a few. These fallen angels, the lost ones as they are known to us, knowing that they were now denied entrance into Heaven, began to roam the earth as though it were their own playground, destroying and creating without care, without concern for the consequences.

  “And I feel I must share this one bit of information so that you understand how things could become so disastrous in what amounts to a very short time span for my kind: Angels, males in particular, are very…virile.

  “The lost ones, with their beauty and their ability to charm humans, soon found that it was child’s play to woo girl after girl, woman after woman—whether they be virgin, married, widowed, poor, wealthy, peasant, aristocratic didn’t matter. They knew no preference, only that they felt a need, a lustful desire to mate with each and every female human they could find until the earth was littered with the far too easily gained results of these couplings

  “These offspring were the Nephilim; half-angel, half-human children who possessed the divine gifts from their fathers. Some were wonderful children, of course, who possessed the beauty of their fathers and the humanity of their mothers, equally balanced to create a child so indistinguishable from their human counterparts, it remains unknown to this day just how many of them there actually were.

  These Nephilim were blessings upon the people, with their abilities to heal, to teach, to see the future and warn of famine, war, and even the coming of death himself. They were soon indispensable to their villages. The humans for a time viewed these children as gifts from God, and so it is quite easy to see why the lost ones were justified in their belief that they had, in fact, created their own heaven.

  “But while there were Nephilim whose blood flowed pure and innocent, as with all things, there were others who were nothing short of m
onstrosities, evil little perversions that had the power of the divine flowing in their veins. They were giants, demons who terrorized their human counterparts and fellow Nephilim, lorded over them with their unnatural size, strength, and abilities and backed by their fathers who were hungry for control. Soon, the world was thrown into chaos, the natural balance of things having been altered beyond any form of redemption,”

  She stood up and began to pace before me, her movements smooth and graceful in a way that could only be supernatural and divine. It was only in her face that you could see the agitation that bubbled just below the surface.

  “What those lost ones did, what they brought down on the world, it set in motion something that couldn’t be undone, something that changed everyone’s world—human, angel, creature—and not necessarily for the better.

  “Have you heard of the story of Noah, Grace?”

  “Isn’t that the story of the old man with the big boat full of animals?” I said in response, my recollection dismally poor.

  She nodded solemnly though she smiled at my answer. “Most people only know one segment of the story. Noah built an ark and filled it with two of each creature, as per God’s instructions, and lived with his family among the animals while God flooded the earth. What they do not know is the real reason why the floods were brought forth. The story of God being upset at the wickedness of man is only the partial truth.

  “The archangel Uriel, the first of my kind and the only one who was allowed to pass through the gates between Heaven and Earth during the Grigori’s domination and destruction, was given the task of informing Noah of what he was to do, of what God desired of him. Noah was a simple man who loved his God, but also loved his fellow man. It pained him to know that those whom he called friend were to perish for the sins of rogue angels and their offspring, but he was also a man of faith. He believed Uriel’s words, and so did as he was told, obedient and dutiful despite his doubts.

  “He built an ark that held within it the creatures of the world that couldn’t fly or swim during the great flood, and soon he watched as the world he knew drowned right before his eyes, the murder of time burned forever into his memory.

  “Millions died—humans, Grigori, Nephilim—they all perished beneath the rising seas and lakes as God’s punishing rain took with it the immortality of those who should have survived. The innocent along with the guilty were condemned because of the actions of the lost ones and their spawn. Noah then asked Uriel as the bodies began to litter the surface of the water, stretching out for miles all around the ark, ‘why?’ and Uriel could not lie.

  “He told him that the angels had begun to fight amongst themselves, that there were those who agreed with the Grigori about the freedoms that humans were allowed to enjoy that angels were not. We, who had been born predestined, had all this ability and yet no free will to do as we pleased. It had angered so many of us, splintered us, and it became apparent that a war was imminent.

  “‘Do you know what that will do to the heavens?’ Uriel asked Noah, and Noah, ever faithful replied, ‘the sun will disappear from the sky and the world will be covered in darkness’. Uriel was amazed at this answer, for it was correct.

  “Heaven is the hope for the people of the world. It’s the light that keeps tired feet moving, it’s the bread that keeps the hungry working, and it’s the water that keeps the thirsty searching. If the angels in Heaven were to start a war amongst themselves, Heaven would hold nothing for the souls that headed there except grief and suffering—imagine leaving loved ones behind to enter a war zone that you can never leave. This dark knowledge would be reflected in the souls that still existed on Earth, and the darkness of despair and anger would blanket everything, suffocating everything. Faith would die—without faith, we would no longer be necessary, which means that we, too, would die.”

  Ameila returned to her place on the couch beside me and she gripped my shoulders tightly, her expression intense, the silver in her eyes cold and hard like steel orbs suspended in time.

  “Grace, when the angels saw what God was willing to do to everything he had created, everything that we had guarded over for so long, it rattled us all. The flood had a divine purpose, to kill the mortal and immortal alike—wing-bringers, Nephilim, and children were all sacrificed to bring peace to the heavens.

  “And yet Noah remained steadfast in his faith, despite the carnage that surrounded him, despite the betrayal of weakness from the angels and humans alike, and it surprised us all. From then on, we grew to be a rigid entity. Laws and rules replaced faith and fellowship for we had to ensure that those like Noah would never again be let down by our immortal failings.

  “We had been entrusted to protect the human race, and so we all became watchers—Seraphim, Archangel, Thrones, and others—and we began the cleanup of the world while the rain still fell, erasing the slate if you will.

  “The first and most significant act of the angels after the rain had ended and the sun emerged was the forbidding of any physical intimacies between the human and the angel. Any violation of this brooked instant punishment of death for the human and banishment for the angel, insuring that nothing like the events that had led to the flood could ever happen again.”

  This last part was said softly, as though I wasn’t meant to hear it at all. But I did.

  “So you see, Grace,” she said with a hopeful air, “The reason that Robert pushes you away is not because he doesn’t desire you. It’s that he loves you too much and doesn’t want to lose you.”

  “I see,” I whispered.

  “This doesn’t mean that the two of you cannot be intimate, though. There is a way for you two to be together that would be acceptable.”

  I already knew the answer to that. “I’d have to turn.” My voice was low, rough with emotion and the chaos that her words had caused within me.

  Her hands dropped down to mine, her smile sincere as she nodded. “Yes, you’d have to turn, but that isn’t all. You’re a human, Grace. Humans, turned or not, possess the ability to attract angels because you still retain the one thing we want most of all. It is…difficult for some to resist the temptation that you present.

  “Because of this, we demand that you commit yourself to us, body and soul. To fail to do this will result in consequences that are fatal to both human and angel alike.”

  “Wait,” I cut in, Lark’s words coming back to me as clearly as if she were whispering them into my ear. “I thought the only reason an angel died was because they lied, or did something seriously wrong.”

  Ameila’s forehead puckered as she struggled with how to respond. I could see her contemplate whether or not to continue on as she had before I had interrupted, the decision appearing far more difficult that I would have imagined. Taking a deep breath, she nodded to herself—or maybe she was nodding at something voiced in her head that belonged to someone else—and looked up at me with determined eyes.

  “An angel can die for many reasons, reasons almost as numerable as those for humans. And while we do not dwell on death, we do fear it and for good reason. Painful though a death by lying can be, and as lengthy as dying as a mortal can be, those are not the most dreaded. They are just the most common.”

  “So what is?” I dared to ask though I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to know.

  “Rage,” was all she said. She looked away and stood up quickly, her body vibrating from some pent-up emotion.

  “Ameila, if I asked the wrong question, I’m sorry,” I said, my voice trembling with fear as I watched Ameila’s reaction to her own answer.

  “Angels aren’t meant to understand or feel rage. We’re not meant to experience jealousy or hatred. But there are the rare occasions when we do, and more times than not, we don’t understand it. Jealousy is the more common of the three.

  “But rage…it can physically change an angel, turn one’s heart dead to forgiveness and charity; even love. An angel filled with rage will hunt down the source of its anger and destroy it and every living thing
around it, finally destroying itself once everything else is gone. Do you understand what this means, Grace?”

  I admit to not knowing much when it came to the world that Ameila described, with God and rules dictating sin and what not. But I understood what she was hinting at. “The angel commits suicide.”

  She nodded gravely, her skin almost turning grey with distaste. “A soul cannot enter Heaven when one commits suicide. There are no exceptions, for human or angel. Damned, for all eternity…that is what results from rage, Grace.”

  “And…the Nephilim and Grigori—did their souls make it to Heaven?”

  She didn’t answer for a while, instead her gaze travelled to a slowly darkening window, the orange-red sky blazing like a warning to anyone who dared to look up. After the sun had finally disappeared and the black velvet of the nighttime sky emerged did she speak again, her voice much lower and severe.

  “The innocent and guilty were all condemned.”

  “Why is it that I’ve only heard of the Nephilim from you, Ameila? Where is the description of them in history? I mean, angels are everywhere, and the story of Noah’s Ark gets told so often it’s almost a Seuss story. Why not anything about these monsters?”

  Ameila stood up and headed to a bookshelf that flanked the fireplace that stood in the center of the far facing wall in the living room. Without even looking she pulled down a thick, black, leather-bound book. She opened it, the pages falling exactly as she wanted them to. An image of a boy holding a head that was at least three times the size of his own stared out at us, a large body laying prone on the ground behind him.

  She pointed to the boy, his dark hair full of bright curls, his face smug with pride. “David. He slew the giant Goliath not once, but twice in a battle for a kingdom, for freedom, and for hope.” She waved her hand negligently over the pages and they began to turn, as though a strong breeze had just blown in. When the pages stopped on yet another image, they revealed a girl encircled in a sphere, half shaded, half filled with light, who wore a dress made of feathers, her feet flexed so that she stood on her toes, her arms held out like the wings of a bird. Behind her, a young man stood with his arms reaching for her, a look of enchantment in his eyes.