“So it’s kind of like a ghost town,” Aaron said, still listening to the haunted cries upon the wind.

“Yeah, it is,” Lorelei answered.

“What did your friend Lehash call this place?” he asked, his nose wrinkled with displeasure. “A little piece of paradise? I’m not seeing that at all.”

Lorelei looked about, a dreamy expression on her pale, attractive features. “It may not look like much,” she said quietly, “but it’s lots better than what I left behind. I’ll take this over the nuthouse any day of the week.” She abruptly turned and continued on her way.

Her words piqued Aaron’s curiosity, and he sped up to walk beside her. “Did you say you were in a nuthouse?”

Lorelei didn’t answer right away, as if she were deciding whether or not she wanted to talk about it. “A pretty good one too—or so I’ve been told,” she finally said. “I was seventeen, on the verge of my eighteenth birthday, and everything I’d ever known turned to shit.”

Aaron could hear the pain in her voice and immediately sympathized. He understood exactly what she was talking about. “It was the … the power inside you… the whole Nephilim thing.”

She nodded. “I didn’t know it then, but I finally figured it out after one of my last hospital stays. I was on the streets and had stopped taking my medications and things started to become clearer. ‘Course that’s what crazy people not taking their medicines always say.” She laughed, but it was a laugh filled with bitterness.

Aaron suddenly saw in the young woman a kindred spirit and wondered if her story would have been his if not for the whole prophecy thing.

“I was drawn to this place,” Lorelei continued. “As the drugs that I’d been pumped full of left my system I could feel the pull of Aerie—I was seeing it in my dreams, along with all kinds of other nonsense that I’m sure you’re familiar with.”

“Were there those that attempted to harm you?” Camael chimed in, making reference to the Powers. “Trying to keep you from reaching this destination?”

A lock of white hair drifted in front of her face, and she swept it away with the back of her hand. “I got really good at avoiding them.” She turned to the angel. “At first I thought they were just manifestations of my paranoid delusions, but when one tried to burn me alive inside an old tenement house I was crashing in, I realized that wasn’t the case.”

“You were lucky to have survived.”

Lorelei agreed. “I think that the power inside was helping me. Without the drugs, it was growing and helping me to find a place where I could be safe.”

They passed an enormous mound of burned and blackened wood that had been piled in the center of the street. Aaron could see that some doors and windows, railings and banisters from some of the houses had made it onto the stack. He looked from the charred pyre to her.

“We had problems with some local kids,” she explained. “Liked to use the place to party. We were afraid their little bonfires would eventually burn it down.”

“What did you do?” Aaron asked.

Lorelei extended her hands and small sparks of radiant energy danced from one fingertip to the next. “After I finally got here and realized I wasn’t crazy, that I was Nephilim, I learned that I had an affinity for angel magick. My father and I did some spells to scare the kids away. This place has a real reputation now, even worse than it had before.”

“Your father? Who?…”

“Lehash,” she answered. “Pretty cool, huh? Not only was I not insane, but I hooked up with my dad the angel, and suddenly everything began to make a weird kind of sense.”

The words of the Archangel Gabriel echoed through Aaron’s mind—You have your father’s eyes—and Aaron wondered if the mystery of his own parentage would ever be revealed to him.

On a tiny side street they stopped in front of a house with powder blue aluminum siding, strings of Christmas lights still dangling from the gutters.

“Is that my car?” Aaron asked, moving past Lorelei toward the vehicle parked in front.

Gabriel beat him there and gave the vehicle the once over. “It’s our car, Aaron,” he said, tail wagging. “I can smell our stuff.”

“One of the citizens retrieved it from the Burger King parking lot.” Lorelei gestured toward the house. “This is where you’ll be staying.”

Aaron gave the house another look and felt his aggravation level rise. He didn’t want to stay; he wanted to continue the search for his brother. They had done nothing wrong, and Belphegor had no right to keep them here. “How long are you planning to hold us?” he asked, staring down in growing anger at the manacles fastened around his wrist. “If I’m ever going to find my brother—”

“You’ll stay as long as the Founder says you’ll stay,” Lorelei interrupted, crossing her arms in defiance. “As far as we’re concerned, you’re the ones responsible for all the killings. And, until we know otherwise, you’re not going anywhere.”

“That’s crap and you know it,” he growled, the angelic presence perking up within him. It would never miss an opportunity for conflict and he had to steel himself against the urge to let it free. He had no desire to feel the effects of the manacles’ magicks again.

“If my father had his way,” she interjected, “you’d still be locked in that basement, Chosen One or otherwise.” Lorelei took a step closer, fists clenched by her side. “What makes you think you’re so damn special anyway?” she demanded.

“I didn’t ask for this!” Aaron pushed past the woman, heading in the opposite direction.

“Where are you going?”

He stopped, but didn’t turn around. “I need to take a walk. Besides, Gabriel is hungry and I wouldn’t mind a bite to eat myself. Is there anyplace around here where we can get some food?”

Lorelei didn’t answer right away, as if she were considering not letting him go. Aaron decided that would be a very bad idea on her part, for his angelic nature was already coiled and ready to strike. Looking for trouble.

“You’re heading in the right direction,” she finally said. “Take a left onto Gagnon. You’ll see the community center at the end of the street. Should be able to get a sandwich or something there.”

“Thanks,” he said, starting to walk again. Gabriel followed close at his side, but Camael remained with Lorelei. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Yeah,” Lorelei called after him. “You will, and as soon as you get used to the idea, things’ll be a little easier for you.”

CHAPTER SIX

Camael watched Aaron leave and could not help but share some of the Nephilim’s discontent.

“So, what do you really think?” Lorelei asked as they stood on the sidewalk before the shabby house. “Do you seriously believe that he’s the Chosen One?”

He turned away from the boy and his dog walking off in the distance and met her gaze. “I believe there is something special about that one,” he answered.

“I had a cat when I was eight that was pretty special, but it doesn’t mean that she was the Messiah.” Lorelei’s tone dripped sarcasm.

Camael chose to ignore her jibes and instead addressed the dwelling before them. “This is where we will be staying then?” he asked, as if in need of clarification.

“This is it,” she answered. “One of the sturdier homes, no leaks and still unchristened by local youths brave enough to come here.”

“It will do,” he said, and then was quiet. He hoped that his silence would act as a dismissal to the female half-breed. The angel did not feel like talking; there was much he needed to reflect upon, and he found her presence distracting.

“You didn’t answer my question,” the Nephilim piped up, eager to press the sensitive issue. “Do you believe he’s the One in the prophecy?”

“It matters not what I believe,” he said, his pale blue eyes locked on hers, “for it appears you and yours have already made up your minds about the boy.”