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.
Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong!
The clock tolled midnight, and she saw that there were no messages from Aaron or anybody else. Vilma was overcome with disappointment and the realization that she was now a year older. She stared at the computer screen, wishing a message to appear, but it didn’t happen. “Happy Birthday to me,” she said sadly.
She prepared to disconnect from the Internet and her bleary eyes traveled to the right corner of the screen where it showed the time. The clock read 11:59 p.m. and she offhandedly wondered if the clock downstairs was fast, or her computer’s clock slow. Then, just as the disconnect message came up, the clock on her screen changed to 12:00 a.m. — and every one of her senses inexplicably came alive at once.
Vilma tossed her head violently back and the chair tipped over, spilling her onto the floor. The assault came upon her in waves. The sounds in her ears were deafening, a cacophony of noise through which she could just hear the panicked beat of her own heart and the swishing of blood through her veins.
What’s happening to me? Vilma thought as she struggled to her feet, her hands pressed tightly against the bludgeoning invasion of sound. Is this some kind of bizarre reaction to my lack of sleep, or the drugs I’ve taken? she frantically wondered. Smells were suddenly overpowering—cleaning products from the kitchen, wood stain from the basement, bags of garbage in the barrels outside. She gasped for breath. The light of the room was blinding, and she lashed out at the lamp on her desk, knocking it to the floor.
I’ve got to get help! Vilma panicked. She needed a hospital… She would wake her aunt and uncle…
Her hand was on the doorknob when she heard a voice from somewhere in the room behind her. “The seed of a seraph stirs to waking as the clock tolls twelve,” it said in a language that she had never heard before and should not have been able to understand—but did. “This new day is the day of your birth, I’d wager.”
The hairs at the back of Vilma’s neck bristled. She didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to acknowledge this latest bit of insanity, but she could not help herself. As she slowly began to turn, a strange odor suddenly permeated the air. It smelled of rich spice and something rotten. It smelled of decay.
Vilma saw that there was a man inside her bedroom. He was dressed in dark clothes and wore a long raincoat despite the fact that it had not rained in weeks. His hair was long and combed back upon his head. His skin was deathly pale and seemed to glow in the limited light, and his eyes, if he had any, were lost within dark shadows that sat upon his face. Vilma had seen this mysterious figment of her madness before, perched in the tree outside her window: watching, waiting.
“You’re not real.”
“Think what you will,” he answered in the ancient tongue as he started toward her. “It is no concern of mine. My charge was to wait and watch for you to blossom—and that is exactly what you have started to do.”
She closed her eyes and wished the figure away, but still he moved toward her. A scream about to explode from her lips froze in her lungs, and Vilma watched in stunned silence as speckled wings of black and white gradually unfurled from the figure’s back.
“Come along, little Nephilim,” said the man who could only have been an angel. “My master has plans for you.”