Nephilim Children

Chapter 5

The rest of dinner passed in blur- mostly Mum talked and I tried to pay attention, with poor results. It took me two minutes for me to realise Mum had asked me if I had liked my birthday presents she had given me over dessert- a digital camera, an iPhone, and- ironically- a thick book on mythical creatures. I had feigned excitement for all of them, except the iPhone, which I had wanted for ages. The book creeped me out a little, so I didn’t spend too much time looking at it. It was such a coincidence that Mum should give it to me on the day I wake up with wings on my back. I kept remembering back to that lunchtime in the library, when May and I were searching for legends of Fallen Angel’s children.

Realisation hit me like a ton of bricks to the chest- I was only half human. If my mother was a human, then my father was… a Fallen Angel.

Mum said that Dad had died when I was very little, only a few months old. He had been rich though, and everything he had was given to us, including his vast money. That’s why Mum only worked a few days a week, just for upkeep. She had never told me how much money she had gotten, but I suspect now that it was always a lot. Everything we had was ours- the car, the house, the pool, and the land, all of it. Mum had finished paying off the mortgage years ago, and since we were hardly ever home we didn’t have very big electricity bills.

But, how did my father have so much money if he was and Angel? Did Mum know about him? Did she suspect anything about him? Does she suspect anything about me? I had to find out. But, in the meantime, I knew I should just act normal, or, human, at least. So I pretended to not see the glares from the waitress and a dark looking bloke who was obviously the cook, and probably the ‘Boss’. His eyes were neon green and had slits for pupils like a cat’s eyes. He was a brute, too- the veins in his neck and arms stood out from thick bands of muscle, and his right ear was mangled by a thick, angry red scar. He was bald and his scalp was tattooed with swirls and lines that looked like Chinese characters. It was so easy to see this that I wondered what other people thought of him, and how he would be judged. I looked around again at the people in the restaurant, and noticed funny- and, frankly, scary- things about them too. One man sitting at the bar had tufty feline ears on the top of his head. Two boys about my age in the corner of the room had long claws and glowing yellow eyes. And there was a table full of beautiful, pale women, all with dark red eyes and sharp teeth. So, after my quick and rather frightful look around the room, I decided I knew why nobody here stared at anybody else.

Mum surprised me when she said, “You can see them, can’t you?” I looked at her, not quite knowing what to say. She just nodded solemnly and continued to eat her chocolate mousse.

“What are they, Mum?” I asked quietly over my own dessert- an apple tart with vanilla custard and berries. She stayed silent for a while, and I wondered if she had even heard me when she spoke.

“The boys in the corner, their lycans- werewolves. Our waitress is one of the Lower Fae, that’s why she works here. The man with her is a troll, one of the Greater Trolls, a good soul he is, too. The man at the bar, he’s probably a shape-shifter or a wizard. And those women over there are vampires, and not the good ones either.”

I shuddered delicately. Maybe this place wasn’t so great after all. I mean, sure, they made good food, but it was a little dangerous. What if a normal person came into this place? If someone on the sidewalk had a hunger for ‘Italian’ food?

As if reading my mind- and I wouldn’t be too surprised if she could- Mum answered, “Normal people, apart from you or I, don’t like coming in here. To them, this place looks like an old, run down day-care centre, and it looks really creepy. That’s why we’re safe in here from prying eyes.”

“But how can you see this place then? If we’re normal, how come we can see?”

“We have always been able to see through the magic these people use. It runs in the family, Nic, and you seem to have the Gift too.” She smiled weakly at me, and I knew then that she didn’t want me to be exposed to her psychotic world, where vampires and trolls and werewolves and faeries existed.

“Is that why you gave me that book? So I know stuff about what I’m getting into?” Mum nodded. “So this is how it’s going to be, then…”

We got home at about midnight, and I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I slept for twelve hours.