Bad Luck, Baby

32 - Bad Omens

My second ride in Lucian Drake's car was only a slight improvement on the first. I wasn't wearing magical handcuffs, and I no longer believed he meant to torture and murder me; on the other hand, I'd lost Ro to who knew what and where, and I had no idea how Janelle would react to my betrayal.

I hoped she'd understand and forgive me, but I wouldn't blame her if she 'wasn't home' when she saw who was with me when I showed up.

Lucian had advised me not to warn her we were coming, saying that convincing her to help and trust us would be easier in person than over the phone. Considering that I barely trusted me in this situation, I followed his lead.

On the way, Lucian turned the conversation to angels once more.

"The more I know, the more I can help you, Ellie," he said. "Perhaps you don't know this, being new to the witch world, but the power you demonstrated earlier was not human magic. If I didn't know better, I would say it was demonic. So, why did your father keep you such a secret? And what does it have to do with angels?"

With little left to lose at that point, I told him.

"Did you know my dad raided an angelic cult once before?" I asked.

Lucian nodded. "The Brackenmere Incident, yes. My predecessor was in command then, and Oscar was still a young man. There were rumors of a ritual gone awry — of angels burning people to ash." He glanced at his bandaged hand and at the scars lacing mine. "I remember."

I took a breath and turned towards the window. We'd left Lucian's comfortable estate far behind and re-entered the city, and I recognize some of the streets in a hazy, nightmare way. Unheimlich, as the Germans would say: images from another life; familiar, yet strange.

"According to my dad's diaries, the rumors were true," I said. "The cult summoned an angel against her will. She destroyed them, but ended up trapped in the body of the sacrificial host."

"She?" Lucian asked, his jet brows arched with curiosity.

I nodded. "She wasn't thrilled to be trapped here, obviously, but she made the most of it. Got along with my dad alright, I guess; at least at first."

"Your father..." Lucian trailed off, and a sharp, nasal inhalation signaled his surprise. "You're nephilim, then."

Turning away from the window, I looked over at him. "Neffy... what?"

"Nephilim," he repeated. "The offspring of an angel and a human. Usually destructive and monstrous, and historically rare. Perhaps the fact that your mother was confined to a physical form, in addition to the fact that your father was a high witch, aided the good fortune of your birth."

"Good fortune?" I laughed, but Lucian's expression remained sincere.

"High witches are typically 'fruitless trees.' The inherent power they pass along is often too potent for human forms to bear: the woman miscarries, or the man's seed fails to take. But with your mother's nature bound and your father's as strong as it was, I suppose they must have achieved an unholy balance of some kind."

His jet-black brows climbed at least a half-inch up his forehead as he considered these new and apparently profound implications.

"Where is she now?" he asked. "Your mother?"

I turned back to the window as Lucian pulled to a stop at a red light. "Dead. Or... whatever happens to angels when their human host dies, anyway."

"I'm sorry. When did she pass?"

"A long time ago. I was nine."

Silence lapsed for a moment, and my mind drifted as I watched people on the sidewalks and in the other cars, as blissfully oblivious as I had once been, not all that long ago. Lucian's voice startled me as he spoke again.