Cynthia Hand - Hallowed

Just thinking about it now makes me want to slug him.

“So what do you think?” Angela asks. “Can he join us?”

Tough call. But mad or not, I’m pretty curious to find out what exactly he knows. Since we don’t seem to be communicating well these days, this might be the best way. I turn to Angela with a shrug. “Sure. Why not?”

“We have to make this quick,” Jeffrey says, slinging his backpack down onto one of the chairs. “I’ve got practice.”

“No problem.” Angela suppresses another smile. “We’re just waiting for—”

“I’m here.”

And there is Christian, striding down the aisle with his hands in his pockets. His eyes roam over the theater like he’s considering making an offer on the place, inspecting the stage, the seats, the tables, the lights and riggings in the rafters. Then his gaze lands on me.

“So let’s do this,” he says. “Whatever it is.”

Angela doesn’t waste any time. “Come join me up here.”

Slowly we all make our way onto the stage and stand in a circle with Angela.

“Welcome to Angel Club,” she says melodramatically.

Christian does his laugh/exhale thing. “First rule of Angel Club, you do not talk about Angel Club.”

“Second rule of Angel Club,” chimes in Jeffrey. “Do not talk about Angel Club.” Oh boy. Here we go.

“Hilarious. You’re bonding already.” Angela is not amused. “Seriously, though. I do think we should have rules.”

“Why?” Jeffrey wants to know. Always with the attitude, my sweet little brother. “Why do we need rules for a club?”

“Maybe if we knew what the point of the club was,” adds Christian.

Angela’s eyes flare in a way I’m familiar with — this is not going according to her carefully constructed plan. “The point,” she says in a clipped tone, “is to find out all we can about this angel-blood stuff, so we don’t like, you know, end up dead.” Again with the melodrama. She claps her hands together. “Okay, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page. Last week our girl Clara here stumbled upon a Black Wing in the mountains.”

“Crashed is more like it,” I mutter.

Angela nods. “Right. Crashed. Because this guy puts out a kind of toxic sorrow, which, because of all Clara’s touchy-feely skills, took away the lightness she needed to fly, so she fell, dropped out of the sky, right where he wanted her.”

Jeffrey and Christian are looking at me.

“You fell?” asks Jeffrey. I must have left out this part of the story when I told it at home.

“Touchy-feely skills?” asks Christian.

“I have a theory that Black Wings are incapable of flight, by the way,” Angela continues.

Clearly this is not the question-and-answer part of this event. “Their sorrow weighs them down too much to get airborne. It’s only a theory at this point, but I’m kind of liking it. It means, if you ever came across a Black Wing, you might be able to escape by flying off, because he couldn’t chase you.”

What she needs, I think, is a chalkboard. Then she could really go to town.

“So Clara was incapacitated simply by being in the presence of a Black Wing,” she says.

“We should learn if there’s anything we can do about that, some way to block the sorrow out.” I’m definitely on board with that idea.

“And since Clara and her mom defeated the Black Wing using glory, I think that’s our key.”

“My uncle says glory takes years to be able to control,” Christian says then.

Angela shrugs. “Clara did it, and she’s only a Quartarius. What level are you?”

“Only a Quartarius,” he replies with a hint of sarcasm.

Angela gets this glint in her eye. She’s the only Dimidius in our group, then. She has the highest concentration of angel blood. I guess that makes her our natural leader.

“Okay, so where was I?” she says. She ticks it off on her fingers. “Objective one, find a way to block the sorrow. That’s mostly a job for Clara since she seems to be extra sensitive to it.

I was with her when we saw the Black Wing at the mall last year, and I didn’t get anything from him but a mild case of the creeps.”

“Hold up,” interrupts Jeffrey. “You two saw a Black Wing at the mall last year? When?”

“We were shopping for prom dresses.” Angela heaves a meaningful look at Christian, as if the whole incident was his fault somehow because he was my date.

“And why did I not hear about this?” Jeffrey asks, turning to me.

“Your mom said it would put you in danger, knowing about them. According to her, when you’re aware of Black Wings, they become more aware of you,” Angela answers for me.

He looks skeptical.

“So she must think you’re all grown-up, since she told you about them now, right?” Angela offers helpfully.

I think about the stony look on Mom’s face the morning after the fire, when she told Jeffrey about Samjeeza. “That, or she thought it might be necessary for Jeffrey to have a clue about Black Wings in case one of them shows up at the house wanting revenge,” I add.

“Which brings us to objective two,” Angela segues smoothly. She glances at me. “Did you finish the book I gave you?”

“Ange, you just gave it to me at lunch.”

She sighs and gives me a look that conveys what an amateur she thinks I am. “Can you get it, please?”

I hop down to fetch the book out of my backpack. Angela decides that maybe a table would be more comfortable to get down and dirty with the research, which she evidently means to jump right into. We reconvene around a table, and Angela takes The Book of Enoch from me.

She flips through the pages. “Listen to this.” She clears her throat. “It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful.

And when the Watchers, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamored of them, saying to each other, ‘Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children.’”

“Okay. Enter angel-bloods,” I comment.

“Just wait for it. I’m getting to the good part. . Then their leader, Samyaza, said to them,

‘I fear that you perhaps may be indisposed to the performance of this enterprise; and that I alone shall suffer for so grievous a crime.’ Does that name sound familiar?” A shiver zings its way down my spine.

“That’s him, then, Samjeeza? The angel who attacked Mom and Clara?” Jeffrey asks.

Angela sits back. “I think so. It goes on to talk about how they married the human women and taught mankind how to make weapons and mirrors, and showed them sorcery and all kinds of taboo stuff. They had tons of kids, which the book describes as evil giants — the Nephilim — who were abominations in the sight of God, until there were so many of them and the earth became so evil that God sent the flood to wipe them all out.”

“So we’re evil giants,” repeats Jeffrey. “Dude, we’re not that tall.”

“People back then were shorter,” Angela says. “Poor nutrition.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” I say. “How could we be abominations? How is it our fault if we’re born with angel blood in our veins? I thought the Bible describes the Nephilim as heroes.”

“It does,” Angela answers. “ The Book of Enoch isn’t in the Bible. I have a theory that it might be some kind of anti-angel-blood propaganda. But it’s interesting, right? Worth looking into. Because this Samjeeza fellow is right in the middle of it. He’s the leader of this group of Black Wings called the Watchers, which, according to some other research I’ve been doing, is a band of fallen angels whose basic job is to seduce human women and produce as many angel-bloods as possible.”