Shadow of the Sun (10 page)

“
Wait—what? Jeff’s a Shadow?” I asked. Nothing was what it seemed to be anymore.

Karen nodded. “A very well disguised one. His power is great.”

I remembered back to the incident in the office, the dark one squeezing the life from me—warning me. “If they’re so awful, why didn’t you just kill him?” I asked.

“
Because,” Carmela spoke up, her eyes anxious, “he is—was—a double agent.”

“
I never trusted him,” Karen interjected.

Carmela continued. “He spied on the Shadow of the Sun for us. That was why we left him alone: he gave us pertinent information.”

“
I thought I saw fire blazing in his eyes,” I whispered to myself. Even now, Jeff Vittorio bothered me. My wrist was still sore from where he had gripped it. I would have loved to take him down in some boxer-like style. Bite his ear and knock him out. So what if I had anger issues?

Karen giggled, pulling me from my thoughts. “Yes, he wears sunglasses a lot, and the humans give him a hard time over that. He has a difficult time controlling his anger.” Her voice turned sour. “He was fired after he grabbed you—”

“
Wait a minute. You said he ‘was’ a double agent? What happened?”

Karen nodded. “The Elders and I took care of him.”

“
He disobeyed our orders,” Paolo interrupted, his voice deep with loathing. “I knew it was a bad idea to begin with.”

I shuddered. “When you say ‘took care of him’ you mean . . . ?”

“
We didn’t kill him,” Paolo said, his voice hard as stone. The tone was fitting. “We can’t kill them. We can only bind them or cast them out to another dimension for a while.”

“
Dimension?” I choked on the word. It should be hard to astonish me at this point, but there it was, me all astonish-y. “What do you mean you send them to another dimension?”

Luke spoke up. He had yet to let go of my hand and gave it another squeeze. “Your world is not what it seems.”

Duh, I wanted to say.

He smiled at my expression. “I know you have many questions, and we will answer them, but for now you need to pack your bags. Now that we know who you are, you need to be with the angels on that plane.” I nodded. “Karen will travel with you as your Guardian. She swore an oath. And now that we know your significance, we’ll be assigning another Guardian when the angels awake.”

“
But what if I can’t do this?” My voice was pleading, and I was embarrassed by the sound.

“
I know you can,” Luke said, one golden tear dropping from his blue eye. And with that statement, they all faded from my living room. Karen stayed behind.

“
What exactly do the Elders do?” I wondered.

“
They’re protectors of knowledge.”

That sounded important. She smiled at me, leaned in to give me a hug, and then she was gone, as if she fizzled into thin air. I needed a drink.

CHAPTER 8: SECRETS

My bedroom was fairly basic compared to the rest of the house, with simple sand-colored walls and a high ceiling. I’d never done much to it since I lived alone and rarely had visitors, especially of the male persuasion. But it was still a cozy room. My large king-sized bed, opposite the dresser, dominated the space. Paintings purchased from the amazing unknown artists I had come across during my travels, as well as photos of my family and I doing the vacation thing, dotted the walls. French doors opened up to the sandy abyss outside, and from where I stood, I could see the waves crashing wildly around.

My salary wasn’t huge, but I’d always been extremely good at saving and finding deals. I had purchased this house with very little money, even though it was beautiful beachfront property. My adoptive mother was a great bargain hunter who always told me there was no need to pay the full price for anything, and her advice served me well in finding this house.

My closet was full of business suits, lab coats, and all my other incredibly boring attire. I was in desperate need of a new wardrobe. Because I never really went out, there was usually no reason to buy anything dressy or fancy. Maybe I’d remedy that in D.C.

I had no idea how long I’d be away, so I piled a huge, towering stack of clothes in my suitcase just in case. I stared down at it, hoping that sitting on it would help me close it, and wondered how I would fit a bunch of
new
clothes in there too.

My mind didn’t linger long on those humdrum thoughts. Angels dominated my mind as I thought of them flaunting their talents to humans. The angels came across as mystical, divine, and maybe even god-like, but not at all ancient. It was just too mind-boggling to think about them being several thousand years old.

I had an overwhelming urge to read the Bible and find the stories about the angels. Would I laugh at the fact that some of them were Karen’s brothers? For the first time, I was disappointed I didn’t have the Bible in my house. I wasn’t a religious person and had never felt the need to read the holy book. Thinking about praying to some big man in the sky gave me a good laugh. I wasn’t laughing now, expect for bouts of insane and hysterical mirth that I couldn’t hold in.

I was having trouble concentrating on packing my suitcase. How could I worry about whether or not I would have time to shop in D.C., or worry that I was running low on toilet paper and Jenna would need to buy some more? How could I stand in my ordinary bedroom, around my ordinary things, trying to have ordinary thoughts, when I knew that there was an extraordinary race of angels out there? Or had I just imagined everything that had happened today—from the angels who just left my house to the three bodies sent to the lab? That was still a possibility. I was deeply bothered by the turn of events. Just yesterday I was a normal human woman, interacting with normal, everyday people, living a normal life—well, as normal as one’s life could be in my profession. Now I knew better. I had been wildly thrust into the supernatural, the
real
supernatural, not any of that stuff I had previously dealt with.

There goes that random, insane laughter again.

There was a faint ringing sound from my cell phone, snapping me from my musings. It had always bothered me when people made their ring tones into songs or weird noises, and as technologically advanced as I was, that was one strange habit I refused to succumb to. It rang again, though I could barely hear it; the sound was muffled. I had no idea where I had put it.

It rang again, and I threw clothes around, hoping I’d find it under one of the piles. I quickly searched the floor and the bathroom. As I entered the kitchen, the ringing became louder before it stopped all together.

Sighing, I sat on a bar stool at the island. I snatched up a banana from the bowl of fruit and devoured it. I was starving; I hadn’t eaten since yesterday. I completely forgot about my phone and thought about how empty the house felt without the angels. It was as if all the warmth they had brought with them had been sucked into a black hole when they left.

Hercules sat on his haunches and looked at me, his tail wagging. He was my only company and had been following me all through the house as I packed.

“
I’ll miss you too, buddy.”

He pranced on his front paws and moved closer so I could pet his head.

Absently, I stared at the answering machine. The screen display showed zero messages. That, and the message I had received earlier from Adam, was just another reminder of my very non-existent love life. And even
that
relationship had just been an additional attempt to connect with another person. But again I had failed miserably. As old as I was, I was still fairly naïve about love and men and relationships. Of course I had dated, but each time it had ended disastrously, as Karen had witnessed earlier.

My whole life, besides the support and love of my family, I had been alone. When you’re several feet smaller and several years younger than your peers in school, they seem to shy away from becoming friends.

I had graduated from high school when I was twelve. How was I supposed to relate to a bunch of hormone-enraged kids when all I was interested in was riding bikes with my sister or thinking of new science experiments to try out? My family and I lived in Ohio at the time, and they did everything they could to help me advance in life. Yale, among other prestigious schools, accepted me without question, and Yale just happened to have the programs I was most interested in. My family uprooted so I could go to school there and was as encouraging as ever. They had faith in me and knew I would make them proud. But since my move to Oretown, I hadn’t really seen my parents as often as I’d liked, though I received emails from my mom on a weekly basis.

When I moved away, they were finally able to move wherever they wished and begin living their lives unhindered by their genius daughter. After they had followed
my
dreams for so many years, they were now able to follow theirs. My mom started up a business in Charleston, South Carolina, where she helped restore old buildings in the historic district. She loved to include pictures of her current projects in her weekly email. My father began boating and gave tours out on the water. It was great to know they were happy and living
their
dreams instead of mine.

There were only two other important people in my life. My cousin Nicole, who was my age and never held my genius against me. We met when I was first adopted, and she held my hand through some tough times when I was trying to remember my past and move on into the future. The other person was Jenna. She was adopted only two years before me and was four years older, but she treated me as if I was the same age. I always respected her. Okay, make that three: Jules, my neice.

As far as friends went, I didn’t have any. As an adult, I had been able to achieve some casual relationships with people, mostly co-workers since I didn’t create opportunities to meet people outside of work, but I never did find a true friend. After being alone most of my life, I accepted it and filled the void by diving into the world of fantasy, wishing it to be true.

I’d come full circle. My wish had come true. Now I had angels in my life and a mission. The way the Elders had talked to me was as if they thought I had known about them my whole life. They hadn’t hesitated in revealing themselves or pleading openly for my help—the help of a
mortal
. They seemed to expect me to accept everything as they pushed me into this new world.

I was freaking out but probably handled it better than a normal person would have. I had spent my life constantly reading stories about the supernatural, and I’d always desired those stories to be true. It was easier to believe them when I wanted them to be real anyway. Regardless, it was a lot to take in, and as I sat at the island, I tried to come to terms with it.
This is your life now: the divine intervention that you begged for. Wasn’t this what you wanted all along?

The faint sound of my phone ringing startled me, and I jumped, nearly toppling over the barstool. It rang again, and I searched the clean granite counters, but there was no sign of it. By the next ring I was frustrated. I stared at the stainless steel fridge and then, curious, opened it. My keys and phone lay on the top shelf next to the milk. I must have put them there after going out to the car to find my phone. Feeling like an idiot, but somewhat amused, I snatched up the phone and answered. The metal was cold against my ear.

“
Hello?”

“
There you are,” Jenna exclaimed on the other end. “We’re just down the road. Are you still home?”

“
Wow. That was quick. Yeah, I’m still here.”

“
Well, I was having a bad day and was ready to get out of town.”

I caught myself nodding at the phone. “I understand. I’ll meet you outside.”

Jenna pulled into the driveway only seconds later. Jules unbuckled her seatbelt and tried to open the door, but the child-lock was on, so Jenna had to open the door from the outside. Jules’s impatient frown deepened as she waited to be released. Finally, she bounded out of the car and attacked my leg, wrapping her skinny arms around me.

“
Hi, sweet girl. You want to help me?” I asked her with a grin.

She jumped up and down in excitement. “Yes, yes. Please.”

I helped my sister grab her things and gestured for Jules to enter the house. Hercules slid across the floor, and I seized Jules and held her in the air momentarily to avoid the inevitable collision before putting her back down. She shrieked with happiness as Hercules greeted her.