Before I had a chance to say anything—do anything—Hanora’s ordinarily silky voice, now serrated like a spear, sliced through the air: “If she’s like us, you can’t possibly feel anything for her!” she yelled at Gabriel. “You’ve told me, you’ve always told me that you can’t. Or you’d be with me! Wouldn’t you?”
Gabriel released my hand and scratched his temple pensively.
Everyone in the room was staring at me. I felt exposed and I wished that I could vanish into the background.
Gabriel’s nonresponse made my eyes well up. Without thinking, I made for the sliding door and was in the garden faster than I knew I could run. Panic overwhelmed me. I found myself teetering at the top of the sloping lawn.
The gray beginnings of night were creeping through; they engulfed me. I jumped as a small bat flew past my head. Staring down at the lit-up property, I observed the pandemonium that had ensued; Gabriel was at Hanora’s side, grabbing her flapping arms, while Ruadhan circled the room with his head bowed down. The news that I was harboring some Vampire heritage had set Brooke off; she was crying and yelling. Jonah seemed to be trying to calm her, and though they were a full thirty feet away from me, I couldn’t miss the multitude of blazing red eyes.
“Sorry. They needed to know.” Azrael came up behind me and rested his hand on my shoulder. I edged away from him.
“Where did you come from?” I said.
“Same place you did and in the same manner. Seems you can mask yourself just like we can.”
“We?”
“Gabriel and I. How interesting that there’s nothing wrong with your Angelic powers in this dimension. Maybe the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree; you are my daughter after all.” Azrael’s words were monotone, drifting to my consciousness.
I started to shake. “Why—?”
“Lailah, they had to know. You can’t stay with them, and I fear if they didn’t reject you, you would never have left. You’re only prolonging the inevitable.” His words were soft, as though he cared about me.
“They wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Let’s consider that, shall we? The boy drank from you. He’s connected to you now and he’ll never stop trying.”
I remembered what Gabriel had told me; I was a drug to him. Now that Brooke knew, she would turn on me. Of course she would.
I began to panic as I thought of the way Jonah had explained my appearance. Worse still, I didn’t know if I was freaking out because of what that implied about my soul, or whether it was because Jonah was actually chasing someone else.
Because the girl he described standing in front of him was certainly not me.
“But to be honest,” Azrael continued, “it’s not them that worry me the most.”
He indicated for me to sit on the metal bench next to him. Now I knew that Azrael was my father, I felt compelled to do as I was told, so I nodded and took a seat next to him.
“Do you know how it was that Gabriel first came to find you?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“He was sent by the Arch Angels to seek you out and to kill you.”
Azrael’s words startled me and I jerked back. “No, that’s not true,” I said. “I was killed by Ethan, not Gabriel. All this time, he’s only tried to keep me safe.…”
The conversation with Ruadhan fresh in my mind caused a spike of doubt to jab me. He had said that Gabriel had confessed to killing the mortal girl he had loved—Lailah—me.
“Gabriel was created and born from light. He cannot kill you by his own hand; but here, on this plane, he has the power to influence others. My guess would be that this Ethan you speak of did not kill you of his own accord.”
“No, it was an accident and then I lost Gabriel—”
“He had you killed,” Azrael interrupted. “He thought his job was done. But it wasn’t, and here you are together once more. The very fact that he has left you in the company of Vampires should convince you.…”
I looked into Azrael’s faded eyes. They seemed tired.
“I don’t believe you,” I protested. “Gabriel loves me, I know he does!”
“He does not love you, Lailah, he is simply on duty. If he wasn’t, he would be fallen, would he not? He exists here immortal and in full capacity of his powers. We Angels are made in pairs. Gabriel has his own waiting for him in the first dimension. You’re keeping him here, away from her. So you must believe me when I tell you that he seeks your end.”
I couldn’t deny it. Gabriel had told me that he had been created as one half of a shared light. A terrible pain flowed through my chest, making it hard for me to breathe.
“And what about you?” I said. “Did these Arch Angels of yours send you to kill me too?”
I had no reason at all to trust Azrael; I hadn’t even known of him until today.
“I returned here to find your mother, my Angel Pair. I have been searching for her for nearly two hundred of this dimension’s years, but her light has drifted from my reach.”
I don’t know why, but I found myself reaching for my necklace and I tugged it above my blouse. Azrael’s eyes immediately focused on my gem and, as he reached for it, it began to glow a luminous white.
“That crystal belongs to Aingeal. She left it for you?” he asked, unbelieving.
“I—I don’t know. For as long as I can remember, I have always had it,” I answered.
“Then I may never find her.” Azrael’s body seemed to lose its elasticity as he slumped beside me. “All I have left now is you,” he said, his voice broken.
We sat together, the icy breeze skimming our cheeks. I looked back to the house. Gabriel was still trying to restrain Hanora, but his face kept searching the garden. Maybe Azrael was right; if Gabriel loved me, why wasn’t he with me now? Why was he with her?
“What should I do?” I asked.
Azrael pulled himself upright and turned my body in toward him. His eyes widened as he said, “Jonah sees your features heavily influenced and altered by the venom that Zherneboh spread. But believe me, it is just the tip of your darkness. You are harboring the most deadly of evils inside you.” Rocking himself on the bench, he continued. “You’ve proven you cannot truly be killed in this form and Zherneboh changed you for a reason. A terrible purpose has been bestowed upon you. It is only when you lose yourself to the void that the evil can be truly ended, and Lailah…” He paused. “You will, and you must, be ended along with it.”