“And a Heather.”
“Ah, yes. Heather in the thirties was a riot.”
“Stop,” Wood says. “What does that mean for me? For Declan? Are we immortal?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Dad says somberly. “When God agreed to make us immortal, there had to be some sort of balance. We stayed this age forever, never changing, while we watched our children grow old and die.”
Wood rolls his eyes. “Figures.”
“You want to be immortal, son?” mom says. “This isn’t an easy life. Watching the people you love die is something I don’t wish on my worst enemy.”
Wood opens his arms wide. “The life I live now isn’t easy. You taught us to be Pursuers. It’s probably the hardest life you could have chosen for Declan and I. At least being immortal, I’d get a little downtime every once in a while and not feel bad about leaving the world to fend for itself every now and again.”
“I know, son,” is all dad says, his eyes drab.
Candy clears her throat. “Do you remember all of your children?”
It feels like such a harsh question. How could they not, though? They aren’t like Strix. They don’t reincarnate. They simply live ageless forever. Damn, when I really think about it, it’s probably a worse fate than they bargained for.
Mom averts her eyes from our penetrating gazes. “Every single one.”
Feeling a bit guilty, I look down at my lap, not ready to tell him the other part of the story I just recently learned myself.
“Maybe training you to be Pursuers wasn’t fair,” dad rationalizes. “But we knew the truth about what was really out there. How could we not go out and help? It’s our job to help rid the world of the violence of monsters. Your mom and I have been Pursuers since evil was brought into this earth.”
“When Lucifer fell?” Kai prods.
Dad’s eyes squint and mom looks away, out into the woods strewn before us.
“I’m afraid not. When God purified the Earth, that meant everything. The good, the bad and the ugly.”
“Then how?” McKenna asks.
“Your bible has a lot of information wrong. Yes, Lucifer fell. Yes, God cast him out. What it doesn’t mention is Lucifer, along with your mom and me and the other couple, survived the flood. No one forgot the nastiness we endured. And sadly, as our children became older, our stories did as well. Together, we’d tell tales of the horrible that was cast upon us before the flood, but our first daughter, Ava, she was the one who tainted our new life with bad.”
He sighs, his hands shaking now. “She was a pastor of sorts. As she became an adult, it was as if Lucifer himself was whispering in her ear. She told us many times he did, in fact, speak to her. She thought she talked to him frequently. I think she might have loved him. She became obsessed. She was simply a puppet in his play and we were all spectators on the outside watching.”
“Wait,” Wood stops Dad. “Was Adam and Eve the other couple that survived?”
Dad laughs. “No. Because they were the first to disobey God, they were the first to go. In hopes of purifying the world, they were suspects number one and two.”
“Didn’t work too well,” Wood states under his breath.
“It didn’t, and I hold a lot of guilt for what I brought into this world. Ava was my responsibility, and I should have protected her from it.”
Mom puts a hand on dad’s arm. “No. You know as well as I do that Lucifer would have gotten to her no matter what we did. She wanted him. She was born with a black heart. Clay in his hand. All he had to do was show her a glimpse of what he could do and she was his.”
McKenna eyes find mine.
“Maybe so,” Dad utters. “But we didn’t think anything would happen. We were so very wrong.”
“What happened to her?” McKenna asks, pushing the wisps of hair away from her face.
His face ashen, Dad turns to McKenna. “She died as all of our children have, but the damage was already done. She’d infected too many people, changed the world too much.”
“It’s not your fault, dad,” I say.
Wood sits back down and combs his hand through his hair. “This is a lot to take in.”
Candy nods and Kai looks away.
“That’s not all,” dad offers.
“Dammit, dad.”
“I know, son.”
“What else?”
Dad pulls at the collar of his shirt. “Declan,” dad’s voice cracks, “he’s a—he’s…an angel.”
“Sweet fuck me,” Wood drawls, looking at me dumbfounded. “What?” Then his eyes panic when he realizes he just cussed in front of mom and dad. I don’t know why, but he’s always held his tongue around them.
Dad doesn’t think twice about the curse word, probably because he cusses more than anyone I know. “Declan didn’t know until just a little while ago, son, so don’t get mad at him. Many years ago, Declan was a soldier in God’s army. He fought for many years and won a lot of battles.”
“But…” Wood shakes his head and sits back against his chair.
“But he rebelled.”
“Against God?” I ask, terrified to ask. We hadn’t had time to finish our talk upstairs. I’m anxious to know the entire story. I very much wish I could remember it all.
“Yes. Against God or God’s orders—or your high commander’s orders. Declan, you were asked to kill another angel and you refused. You believed everyone deserved a second chance and when Heaven didn’t agree, they cast you out.”
Chills cover my body as my chest tightens. “Like Lucifer?”
Dad shakes his head. “Not like Lucifer. You’re still a holy angel. You still have all of your power, it’s just buried deep within you. We just took you in knowing what you were. It was our duty to tell you when the time was right. You can return to Heaven whenever you want.”
“Why? Why would you take me in if I was some sort of rebel against God?”
“Because we saw the good in you, son. Just as you see the good in everyone.”
“How am I allowed to go back if I was cast out?”
“You did your time. Coming to Earth was punishment for your sins. You were never meant to be here forever if you didn’t want to be. You are and will always be a warrior of the Lord.”
I close my eyes, suddenly feeling overheated. “I grow old, though. I’ve been with you for my entire life.”
“Yes, but you can choose to age. As a child, you didn’t know any other way. You advanced as your brother did. It was pure human instinct.”
“Human instinct?” Wood says. “He’s an angel.”
“Angels, in their cores, are human. Through and through.”
Wood pinches the bridge of his nose. “So, let me get this straight. Declan is some high roller angel while I’m just a lowly mortal with nothing. You guys get to live out your days together and I’ll grow old and die. I got the wrong end of this stick.”
My chest pings at his accusation. He’ll never have nothing. He’s my brother. No identity change could mess with that. Family doesn’t have to be connected by blood. They chose me. That speaks volumes of our relationship.
Candy rubs the back of her neck. “I know the feeling.”
Mom sits up and grabs Wood’s hand, she gives a kind look to Candy. “Don’t you dare say that. You’re both changing the world. You might not be bred from God or whatever, but you’re a warrior in your own right, Wood and Candy, you do great things for humanity. Purging the evil of this world isn’t an easy task. Just because you age at a normal pace doesn’t mean you’re any less than us.”
Wood’s nose flares and he shoves mom’s hand away. In a huff, he gets up and walks out into the front yard, making his way into the woods.
I stand to go after him, but dad stops me. “Let him go.”
“Humans have a bigger effect on this world than most angels,” mom says, her eyes blurry and wet from tears. “He’s doing so much and he doesn’t even know it.”
“He just needs time, Sarah. He’ll be okay.” Dad turns his eyes to McKenna. He pulls at his bottom lip with his teeth.
She tenses next to me, her body going rigid.
“McKenna,” he starts.
“No,” I say. I need to be the one to tell her this. “I’ll do it.”
Candy moves to Wood’s seat and sits down, her foot bouncing on the ground.
McKenna rubs one of her hands on her pants.
“Mighty, how long have you been a Strix?”
McKenna shakes her head. “My entire life. Why?”
My mouth goes dry and my throat constricts. “We obviously don’t know your entire story, and hopefully we can get all the details when we find your parents, but because mom and dad are immortal, a God-given right, they can see through the curtain.”
“The curtain to what?” Candy asks.
“The underworld,” I say.
“Beneath,” Kai corrects.
My eyes slide to Kai. “Right, Beneath.”
Candy shoots a glance at mom and dad with a wrinkled brow. “That’s gotta help with the job.”
“It does,” they say in unison.
“Because they can see through the curtain, they can see true forms of demons and monsters…beneath their human skin,” I inform.
“Okay…” McKenna urges me on.
“Both mom and dad had a weird reaction to McKenna when we got here and it was because they could see her true self.”
McKenna winces, taking a deep, throaty breath. She had already heard dad and I talking so some of the shock has already set in.
“What does that mean?” Candy sits up straight, her cheeks flushed.
Mom steps in. “I’ve never personally seen something like her before. I’ve come across everything under the sun in my time of Pursuing. She’s something different.”
“Wh…what is she?” Candy asks guardedly.
Dad’s grave expression mirrors my own, and mom has an unfocused stare.
McKenna laces her fingers together, looking down at the ground. “I’m a demon.”
Candy’s mouth falls open and she yelps, standing at attention. Kai steps back, his eyebrows furrowed and mouth open in surprise. He clutches his chest and begins to walk backward toward the steps. McKenna attempts to stop him, but he swiftly turns away, leaving her with a wounded expression. He doesn’t look back as he walks in the same direction as Wood, away from us.
“Not a full demon,” Dad adds, watching Kai disappear. “She’s something different. She’s half something else. Not witch, though she is that, too. I get angelic vibrations from her. There’s a certain air supernatural beings give off, and she has a bit of both. We don’t understand it, but yes. She seems to be part demon. I knew the moment I saw Crone today that McKenna was who I’ve heard so much about over the years. Demons and monsters alike always talked about a demon who escaped. We’d been told to keep an eye out for her if we saw her. We just…never did. It wasn’t until I met her today, all the pieces of the puzzle fit into place. That’s how I knew Crone—Mrs. Carlson, I mean—we’d met a few times before. I was never able to defeat him.”
Eyes shut tight, Candy shakes her head. “Part demon? This doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know how it’s possible. Wouldn’t that make you a Thayan? Or a Mara?”
“A Mara? I think. I’m a girl, so I wouldn’t be a Thayan.” McKenna offers with a question in her tone. Standing, she reaches for her sister’s arm but Candy pulls away, looking wounded. “Honestly, I don’t know all the details. You know as much as I know now.”
Her voice chocked with tears, Candy stands in a rush. “I…I need time to think.” With that, Candy bolts off the porch, taking time away from us.
McKenna walks back to me, her face ashen. After she sits down, I grasp her hand and she takes a deep breath. “Today, as I was helping Kai…” she falters, “kill Mrs. Carlson, I felt this overwhelming urge to keep going. The magic I used, it pulled from the bad, and I…I liked it.”
“Was it Manifestation?” mom inquires and McKenna nods, crossing then uncrossing her legs. “That’s the darkest form of magic there is. It would make sense you’d feel comfortable using it.”
“I don’t want to, though.”
Mom smiles. “I know you don’t, and you must continue to fight its lure. As soon as you turn yourself over to the darkness, it’ll overtake you and your full demon will take over.”
“I don’t want that,” McKenna says.
“Neither do we. Your heart is pure, sweetheart. We can see it. You keep fighting and we’ll all help you stay in the light.”
She smiles timidly. “Okay.”
My mind reels as I recall the story dad told us.
He’s really Noah. The Noah.
“I think I should go talk to Candy,” McKenna says after as we all sit in silence for a moment. “I’m sure she’s upset and I think it’s best I talk to her.”
“I should go talk to Wood, too.”
Dad and mom nod, staying planted in their seats.
“Wood’s going to take it hard, son. Just make sure he knows you still need him. I can’t imagine finding out my entire family is immortal and angelic. He needs to know where you guys stand. No matter what, you’re brothers. Nothing will ever change that.”
Dad’s right. No matter what I am—who I am—it’s not going to change that Wood is my family. He might not be blood, but they chose me. That’s deeper than anything I could have asked for.
I give dad a quizzical look and say, “Dad? Why don’t I remember being an angel?”