Human (21 page)

"Your eyes," the woman said, clearly not daring to come closer to me. What was wrong with my eyes now? Oh, right. They must be that demonic obsidian black. How did I know? Well, I assumed if I had the angel features in Hell, then why not have the demon features in Heaven? My mixed DNA was so messed up.

"I came to see my sister," I said, ignoring her remark. "Who are you?"

"I'm Nissia,... your mother." She took a tentative step towards me, but it was my time to be shocked. No, my mom was back on Earth, not here in Heaven. This woman had basically given my sister and me to the unknown people, tricking them into believing we were their daughters. I wasn't going to run to her and throw myself in her arms.

"Where is my sister?" I backed up as she reached out for me, my wings appearing behind my back and nearly unbalancing me. Glancing back, I realized the feathers were as red as blood. Aw, that was nice. Not. I was an angel in Hell and a demon in Heaven. Gee, thank you Mommy.

"She's in my palace. I'll take you to her, but can't you hide those?" Her eyes fell on my wings. I sighed, concentrating on making them disappear.

"Take me to my sister. That's all I'm asking," I said, afraid that she was telling me all these things to stall me. Christina had told me to hurry, so that meant I didn't have time to chat, even though part of me was dying to know more about my biological parents.

"Come," she said, taking my hand, and this time I let her do it. She guided me through the trees like she perfectly knew her way, avoiding roots and thorny bushes. We emerged on a busy street, except the whole street and people looked like they were taking part in a movie about ancient times. The road consisted of dried mud, and the small houses were probably of the same material. But there were also quite a few big buildings that resembled Greek temples, their whiteness sticking out in all the brown of the village. People were dressed mostly in togas similar to Nissia's and some were wearing old-looking battered tunics. I really hoped not every part of Heaven looked like this.

"How do those trees grow there if it's always sunny?" I frowned, sweat already appearing on my brow.

"Magic." She smiled. Ah, yeah, perfect explanation for everything. Magic! I fought the urge to roll my eyes. We climbed the marble stairs that led to a temple-looking house with amazing columns, statues of angels and decoration. A few angels gave me a startled look when they met my eyes, but they didn't try to attack me or run away. Nissia's hand in mine must have meant something to them.

As soon as we entered the house, or the palace, how Nissia had called it, I stopped feeling awkward. The furniture looked just like a human modern one, albeit expensive and fancy one. There was a white leather couch in the middle of the room, right in front of a huge plasma TV. The door to the kitchen was open, and I could see a beautiful black-haired woman pouring herself a glass of juice, her purple toga fitting perfectly to her ebony skin.

"Astra!" Nissia yelled. "Come meet my daughter."

I cringed at the word
daughter
. The woman came out of the kitchen, smiling broadly at me.

"Ariel, this is my cousin, Astra," Nissia said.

"Nice to finally meet you, Ariel," Astra said, not bothered by my black eyes. She extended her hand to me, and I took it.

"Umm, nice to meet you too," I said, although I wasn't sure was that the truth. They both seemed like really nice people, I mean, angels, but my sister had been crying, and I needed to find out why.

"Ariel?" I heard Christina's voice and looked up, seeing her standing on top of the stairs like a breathtaking goddess. I always knew my sister was beautiful, but now she was practically glowing, except there was sadness around her eyes.

"Christina!" I ran towards her, hugging her into a tight embrace as soon as I reached her.

"Ariel! It's you! You really came for me!" She sobbed, not letting go of me.

"Shhh, it's all right. I'm here now. Nothing's going to happen to you." I couldn't even describe how relieved I felt to finally be able to see her and hug her. "Did they hurt you?"

"No." Christina shook her head. "But angels want me to stay here, to be one of them."

"And you don't want that?" I glanced at Nissia and Astra, who were looking up at us, straining their ears to hear what we were saying.

"No," Christina said, wiping away the tears. "I miss our parents and my friends... even school! I don't want to live here. It's so hot outside, and I'm bored. It's like I'm stuck in ancient times! They have some things from our world here, but it's not the same. Mother says there is a part of Heaven more similar to the human world, but I can go there only if I'm officially an angel of Heaven. And that would mean I might not be able to go back to Earth. It's not sure I'd be able to go home, even though I grew up there."

"You're not staying here," I said, glaring at Nissia.

"We're not the ones keeping her here," Nissia said. "I only want what is best for you two, but in four hours the most powerful angels will come here and force me to acknowledge you as my own."

"Ah, so you wouldn't acknowledge us otherwise? What? Too much of a scandal for an angel?" I said bitterly.

"It is, but it's not that. You have to get out of here as soon as possible, Ariel. It's not safe for you to stay. Your demon part would get you in trouble. Angels would try to use you," Nissia said. "You have every right to hate me for leaving you in the human world, but it was the only thing I could have done."

I wasn't sure should I thank her or just be pissed that she had abandoned us. But she was right; my life here wouldn't have been nice. And it wouldn't be nice for any of us now.

"All right," I said. "I'm taking my sister back to the human world. But if you're not keeping her here, then why is she still in Heaven? Surely you could have opened the gate and let her out."

"I couldn't let her go back alone. Amadeo said there were demons after her. I wasn't going to risk her life."

"Why didn't you just run away?" I looked at Christina. If she was good at sneaking out of our house during the night, she was able to get to the gate too. She lifted her left arm up, a golden bracelet shining on her wrist.

"What is this? A prison?" I inspected the bracelet, trying to get it off, but it was impossible.

"Angels don't let the unacknowledged angels to get out of Heaven just like that once they're here. It means she can't go out on her own, only accompanied by another angel," Nissia said.

"Why didn't someone go with her then?" Angels were seriously starting to piss me off. They were such control freaks.

"Because none of us willing to help her has the ability to go to Earth. I lost mine ten years ago," Nissia said, her face shadowed by grief. "After a long time on Earth, and then a long stay here, I can't go out anymore."

"Great. So I can take her out, right? No problem." If I was able to get in here like another angel, then I could as well leave as one.

"So if I had come a day later, my sister would be stuck in here forever? And you wouldn't have done anything? How about bribing someone to get her out?" I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Bribing?" She looked horrified. "That's not what the decent angels do. Christina would have been safe here, even if she never got back to her old life."

"So, where can I find my father?" I said, changing the topic. Ifs and whys didn't really matter right now, not when I could find out valuable information to save Devin.

"He should be somewhere in the human world, hiding as always." There was a smile on her face as if the memory of him still made her happy.

"I really need to find him," I said. The fact that he was somewhere on Earth wasn't helping at all. I'd never know where to look for him.

"We met in New Orleans. He was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen and so...intriguing." She paused, taking a deep breath. "I was sent there to investigate a large number of gates to Hell in that city, so very soon I found out he was a demon, but not before I fell in love with him. He was really charming and irresistible, and we felt brave and crazy in love, enough to fight both his and my world. We were silly. But our happiness didn't last long. We were fighting too much, and I decided to go back to Heaven like nothing had happened."

"And?" I raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to continue.

"Then I found out I was pregnant. I got in contact with Asibrius, and we decided it was for the best to find a nice human family for you, safe from the both worlds. We didn't know would you grow up to be an angel or a demon. It was very dangerous to have you," she said. "I fell in love with Christina's father while I was in Heaven, but he died in a war before he found out I was pregnant. He died as a hero, fighting alongside humans in a human war. The building he was in exploded. I was devastated and didn't know what to do, so I put Christina in the same family, hoping to come for both of you when I recovered. I didn't want you to be alone, no matter how much it hurt to leave both of you so far away from me. What I didn't expect was that I wouldn't be able to go back."

"So it's perfectly fine to engage in dangerous behavior, and a problem to bribe someone? How angelic." I didn't know why I was feeling the way I did. Everything she said only seemed to fuel my anger. If all angels were such bad parents, I was really glad my sister and I ended up in the human world.

"Whatever I had done was out of love. Never doubt that. Love is above everything," she said. Yeah, right. How epic.

"But you don't have any idea where is my father now?"

"No, I haven't heard from him for years. But you inherited his visions. You can contact him," she said, walking over to the bookshelf and getting something out of one huge brown book. "Take this. You just have to picture him in your mind, and he'll be able to hear you calling for him." She handed me a photograph of my father.

Asibrius was a good-looking demon, but all of them were unnaturally gorgeous, so that shouldn't have surprised me. His eyes were green on the photo, which meant it was taken in the human world. He had a short dark brown hair and a small black tattoo on his neck.

"How odd." She frowned. Yeah, tell me about it. Christina went to hug her and Astra, who now both had tears in their eyes. I followed her suit, but my hug wasn't as fierce. Christina had probably gotten to know them better and liked them. After all, she'd been here with them the whole time.

"We can't go with you to the gate," Nissia said. "You just run as fast as you can. Do you remember how we got here, Ariel?"

I nodded, taking my sister's hand again. Looking at my birth mother maybe for the last time, I tried to memorize as much of her face as I could. Then we were out of there, running for our lives. Angels glared at us as we nearly bumped into them, but one dark look from me was enough to prevent them from following us. I could bet they didn't see a lot of demons in Heaven. Maybe they thought I was wearing black contacts, if they'd ever heard of those things.

It didn't take us long to get to the gate, and we stepped right through it, not looking back. There was a loud clang as Christina's bracelet fell off and hit the ground. We were back in Amadeo's yard, safe and sound. Thank God my angel part had been enough to get through the gate.

"Just don't tell me all angels are self-centered hypocrites," I said, breathless from running.

"Hey!" She looked at me, offended. "There are some really awesome ones, like Astra. But I didn't fit in there."

"I know. I was joking," I said, smiling. It was good to be back home.

My life almost got back to normal. Christina and I were even going to school again. It helped that our parents had no idea what had been going on with us lately, so they didn't act any different from the usual. Neither demons nor angels had come after us so far, and even Amadeo hadn't said anything when I ran into him on my way to school. Of course, he wasn't really interested in me anymore. Everything was fine, except there was a huge hole in my heart.

"Will you tell me what's wrong?" Italia said, looking concerned. "You've been so absentminded this week. I refuse to believe everything is fine."

I stared at her for a long moment, debating what to do. I could simply tell her everything and let Amadeo wipe her mind if he wanted. Would it make me feel better to tell someone? Yeah, I guessed it would. There was no way I'd distress my sister even more by telling her what was on my mind, but my best friend didn't deserve to be lied to. Everyone in school thought Devin was sick, so he had to stay at home for a while. I'd been trying to contact my father the whole week, but nothing happened. All of my visions were of Devin, no matter what I tried. Devin...

I stand in the middle of Devin's room, watching him as he sits on the bed, hugging my blue dress to himself. He looks up like he can feel me there, but I know he doesn't see me. I want to reach out to touch him, but I can't.