He sipped at the coffee carefully, ignoring her good-natured barb. Something was bothering him, and now was as good a time as any to find out what.

“What’s the matter, Lehash?” she asked. “Something’s got your dander up even more than usual.”

The angel looked up into the early morning, powder blue sky, as if searching for something. “Belphegor’s been talking ‘bout how he thinks trouble’s coming.” He took another swig of coffee and glanced back to her. “I believe it’s already here.”

She was confused at first, but then realized the meaning of his words. “You can’t blame Aaron and Camael anymore. The deaths of other fallen have continued around the world since they’ve been here. And besides, reports that have trickled in say that the killer wears armor—blood-red armor.” Lorelei felt a chill creep down her spine and shivered.

“And our troubles are just beginning,” Lehash said, finishing the last of his drink. “Kind of like the early tremors I felt that morning in San Francisco in 1906—and we know how that one turned out.”

Lorelei sighed, her father often used historical catastrophes to make his points; the Hindenburg and Titanic disasters were quite popular with him, as were the Boxer Rebellion and World War II.

“Did you ever stop to think that their coming might be the beginning of something good?” she asked. “Y’know there’s talk among the citizens that…” Lorelei stopped, suddenly not sure if she should continue.

“Talk about what?” he asked, his voice a low rumble, its tone already telling her that he wasn’t going to care for what she had to say.

“That Aaron … that he might really be the One.”

Lehash scowled and handed her back the empty mug. The golden pistols formed in his hands again, and he turned away to resume his target practice.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “What could possibly be wrong if that were true?”

Lehash did not answer her in words. Instead he began to fire his weapons repeatedly, with barely a moment between each of the thunderous blasts. The remaining targets disintegrated, as did the trees and branches that they had been positioned upon.

Then, as quickly as he had begun to fire, he stopped, whirling around to face her. “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen, Lore. I’ve been living for a very long time now, and the thought of some messiah suddenly making everything all better…” He shook his head.

Lorelei moved toward him, words of disbelief spilling from her lips. “Are you saying you don’t believe in the prophecy?” she asked incredulously. “The whole reason that Aerie even exists, and you don’t believe in it?”

He lowered the smoldering weapons, and held her in his steely gaze. “Aerie and its people are about the only things I do believe in these days.”

Lorelei was speechless. She had only learned of the prophecy on her arrival in Ravenschild, but the promise of something other than the harsh world that she’d grown up in had given her the strength to continue.

“I fought during the Great War, Lorelei,” he tried to explain. “And not on the winning side. I can’t believe that God—even one merciful and just—could ever begin to forgive us for the wrong we’ve done.”

She didn’t want to hear this; she didn’t want the hope that she kept protected deep inside her to be diminished in any way.

“The prophecy says—”

“Fairy stories,” he retorted. The guns had again disappeared, and he grasped her shoulders in a powerful grip. “What you’ve got to realize—what we’ve all got to realize—is the only thing we have to look forward to is a world of hurt, and not all the prophecies and teenage messiahs in the world are gonna keep it away.”

“But what if you’re wrong?” she asked, pulling away. “What if Aaron is the harbinger of better times?”

Lehash scowled. “If you believe that, then I have some serious doubts as to whether you really are my daughter.”

The words of a powerful angelic spell that would have caused the ground to split beneath the fallen angel and swallow him whole, danced at the edge of her mind. It was ready to spill from her lips, but Lorelei stopped herself, instead turning her back upon her parent and starting back to the house. As she made her way through the brush, a part of her wished for him to call after her, to apologize in a fatherly way for the harshness of his words, but the more realistic half got exactly what it expected.

He had begun his target practice again, the blasts of gunfire like the explosive precursor to an approaching storm.

Vilma Santiago felt her eyes grow increasingly heavy, the words of text in her literature book starting to blur. She refused to look at the clock, deluding herself into thinking that if she didn’t know the time, her body wouldn’t crave sleep as badly. She thought about taking another of the pills she had bought at the drugstore to keep herself awake, but she’d already had three, and the directions said no more than two were recommended.

She closed her literature book and slid it into the bag leaning against the side of her desk. Maybe if I can get ahead on my physics assignments, Vilma thought, pulling out the overly large book and placing it on the desk before her.

Vilma would do anything to stay awake, anything to avoid the dreams. Disturbing visions from her recurring nightmares flashed before her eyes, a staccato slideshow of images that seemed more like memories than the fantastic creations of a sleeping mind. She felt herself begin to slip into the fugue state that always preceded sleep, and spastically jumped from her chair. Pacing about her bedroom, she slapped at her cheeks, hoping that the sharp stabs of pain would give her a second wind. Or would this be my third? she wondered groggily.

“C’mon, Vilma,” she said aloud. “Stay awake.” From the corner of her eye she saw her bed and for a split second could have sworn that it was calling to her. “No,” she said. “No bed, you know what it means when you go to bed.” She continued to pace, swinging her arms and taking deep breaths.

As she walked around her room, Vilma saw that a pink envelope had fallen from her book bag when she’d removed her physics text. It was a birthday card from Tina, who wasn’t going to be in school the next day and hadn’t wanted to miss her friend’s big day. Vilma was going to be eighteen years old, but if it hadn’t been for Tina, she wouldn’t have even remembered. She retrieved the envelope and opened it. It was a typical Tina card. “I know what would make your birthday happy!” read the caption over a picture of a man wearing only unzipped blue jeans, his abs and pecs spectacularly oiled.

“You think so?” Vilma asked the card as she studied the handsome figure. She immediately thought of Aaron. It had been two weeks since his last e-mail and she was beginning to fear that she’d never hear from him again, that maybe he had found a new life somewhere, and no longer wanted reminders of the past he had left behind.

Vilma pushed the horrible thought from her head as she tossed the card into the plastic barrel beside her desk. He probably just hasn’t had a chance to get to a computer. In fact she wouldn’t be surprised if there was a message from him now. She had checked her e-mail just a few hours ago, but something told her that maybe Aaron had been in touch since then.

Vilma returned to her desk and turned on the computer. As she waited for the system to boot up, her thoughts stayed on the boy who had captured her heart. She wondered how he would react if she told him about her awful dreams and her fear of sleep—and would she even share the information with him in the first place? The answer to that was a simple one: of course she would. The way she felt about Aaron Corbet, she would have told him anything. It was as if they shared some strange kind of bond.

Maneuvering her mouse she clicked on the icon to connect to the Internet. Maybe he sent me an electronic greeting card, she thought happily and then realized that he probably didn’t even know that tomorrow was her birthday. From the living room downstairs, the old grandfather clock began to chime, and as she waited for her connection, Vilma found herself counting the tolls of the bell.