I knew Rafael very well, or at least, I liked to think so. I knew Damian and I had bonded with Rachel. But Matthias, one of the First and the other leader of the flock, remained a mystery to me. He was always slightly aloof, and I was surprised he had been the one to approach me tonight. Try as I might, I had never quite been able to block out the conversation between him and Rafael in the park, where he had warned his friend to stay away from me.
I studied him for a long moment, as he looked at the glorious work of art before us. “You wanted Rafael to stay away from me,” I finally said. “I heard you, one day in the park. Now, after learning of you and Rachel, I find that odd.”
Matthias gave a frustrated sounding sigh. “That was before I knew you, Lyla. You have to think of things from our point of view. The Fallen are timeless. When we do find someone to share our light with, or befriend for an extended period of time, they are usually a very special person, unique in their belief and understanding of God, as Rachel is, as I now know you to be. But think how it appeared
then
. My closest friend, an angel who almost never associated with humans, was routinely disappearing and refusing to tell us where he went. Then we find out he’s spending all his time with a
high school
girl
.”
I bristled, but with good humor. “Woman,” I corrected. “I
am
almost eighteen.”
Matthias allowed a brief smile. “Even so, we were still concerned. For your sake, and Rafael’s sanity. It wasn’t until the day you rescued Naomi from the cathedral that I realized how special you were. Please forgive me for my prior doubts.”
“I guess I can understand your panic,” I conceded, because I could. “I keep wondering about all that myself. My best friend thinks I’m going crazy.”
“Rachel was lucky that way. Her parents had already passed away, she had no siblings. She told me that after Dominic died, she had drifted away from most of her friends. It was easy for her to disappear, although according to the accident report, she and Naomi died in that car crash.”
I looked sharply over at Matthias. “Do you often stage deaths when someone becomes a Fallen?” I asked. It seemed wrong, to make everyone suffer through that.
Matthias’s eyes flicked to mine and held. “Yes, people do suffer and grieve, but then they heal. When people go missing, they are mourned forever. There is always that faint hope they will one day return. What if you do go back there, and they catch a glimpse of you? The pain starts all over again. So no, we do not purposefully stage deaths, but if a Fallen is saved from death, we encourage people to believe that they died. A similar thing happened with another flock we knew, in New York during the 1920s. A Fallen named Jez, the leader of the flock, fell in love. Caleb was a sailor. Everyone thought he had drowned, but really, Jez saved him. But it was much easier to allow everyone to think he had died. There are fewer questions that way.”
My heart ached a little at the thought. Would that be the case for me? Would I finally suffer a very public and fatal attack on my life, and Rafael would have no other choice but to save my life? Leaving everyone else to mourn my death?
My eyes found Rafael’s tall form across the room. Unsurprisingly, he was surrounded by women. I was probably the only one who could detect his discomfort, since he kept a graceful smile on his face. But I could see the stiffness in his shoulders, the way his eyes restlessly moved back and forth. He saw me staring at him and gave a secretive, confiding smile, one reserved just for me, as he bent down to hear a woman stooped with age. I couldn’t help but smile back.
Matthias had observed the exchange. “He loves you very much,” he said quietly. “I have known Rafael since the beginning, never been parted from him while on this earth, and never have I seen him like this. He has never cared for anyone outside his own flock, never made any real contact with humans.” He gave a little chuckle and shook his head. “You should have
seen
him after I gave Rachel my light. He was absolutely furious.”
I wished my relationship with Rafael could be as simple and wonderful as Matthias and Rachel’s. The love and adoration they felt for each other was abundantly clear every time they looked at one another. “Did you really go back to ask her to join you? Because you couldn’t just leave her?” I asked.
“Yes. Rafael will do the same. There will come a time when we leave, but I do not doubt that Rafael will feel he has to come back to you. We are not of this earth, Lyla, we don’t fall in and out of love at the drop of a hat. When we finally fall in love, there is no going back. Rafael will not be able to move on from you. He just doesn’t realize it now. But he will after he leaves. And he will come back.”
I tried to let this give me hope, but it felt heavy in my chest. The difference was that Matthias had left with the flock and then realized he needed Rachel. Rafael would be leaving with the idea that he was saving me. He would be determined not to come back.
I smiled at Matthias anyway, hoping it looked sincere. “I hope that’s the case.”
Matthias left to go to Naomi and Rachel, and I continued to walk around as gracefully as I could, dreaming of being rich and famous. Rafael was still surrounded by his adoring crowd, along with Daniel and Joseph, but they looked so uncomfortable I was amused rather than irritated. I could last a while without Rafael at my side. I turned to go peruse the other wall of paintings and almost ran into Eli St. James.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I was mortified. I had almost spilled my glass on him.
He smiled back at me, revealing teeth that, while not as white and perfect as Rafael’s, still lit up against his dark features. “It’s completely fine, Lyla. How are you enjoying the gala?”
I forced what I hoped was a convincing smile. “I’m having a lovely time, Mr. St. James.”
“Please, call me Eli,” he corrected. “And what you really mean is, you’re bored to tears.”
His smile was kind, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, pretty much. It’s probably every girl’s dream to come to something like this, but it’s not quite the way I had imagined it.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” Eli asked, and I nodded. He leaned fractionally closer. “Usually, I’m bored out of my skull as well.”
I giggled.
“Most of the time, I can’t wait to escape to my upstairs den and prop my feet up by the fire with a good book. However, this evening…” He trailed off, and I followed is gaze toward the group of Fallen, standing together. “Magnificent, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” I whispered, because it was true. The Fallen weren’t glaringly good looking, but somehow they still dazzled the eyes. It was as though everything about them, each feature and facet, was magnified. It was in the brightness of their eyes, the fiery gleam of their hair under the light, the way their skin glowed. Every movement was utter grace; they radiated a magnetism that said they were somehow different and special.
“They continue to simply fascinate me,” Eli murmured, as we both watched them. “I am a very literal man, Lyla Evans. Though raised Catholic, blind faith has never been my way. The world of science, of fact and proven theory, has always been my domain. But since meeting Damian, I have seen things that, well…”
“Can’t be explained by science?” I offered.
“Precisely. It truly shakes everything I previously believed in. Damian has revealed many things to me, but I can’t help but wonder…” he trailed off, and I looked up at him curiously.
“Wonder what?” I asked.
Eli looked down at me with a small smile, one that sent a shiver through me for no apparent reason at all. “I witnessed Damian healing, healing from wounds that would have instantly killed a lesser being. The researcher and scientist in me can’t help but wonder if there are further ways the Fallen can help the human race than by just running around and fighting demons and rescuing people from car crashes.”
It had been a strange evening, but I was glad that I had gone after all. It would have been hard for Rafael to explain the oddity of Eli St. James to me, and that was the word for the man: odd. It had all been too
normal
, in my opinion; for a man so firmly embedded in the scientific world to so calmly accept the existence of celestial beings like the Fallen. We had just had normal conversations about demons and God and angels. It had all felt like a scene out of some weird science fiction movie.
After leaving the party, Rafael and I had driven over to Natalie’s to pick up Colton and Grace, since her family was leaving the next day to visit her grandparents. She and her mom gave appropriate ooh’s and ahh’s at my appearance. After she’d calmed down a little at my skipping class, Natalie had finally asked me what Rafael and I planned to do for Thanksgiving, since he didn’t have any family in Ohio. I had told her his company was throwing a work party and he had asked me to come as his date for the black tie affair. It was very formal, I’d told her, and I had to really dress up and was nervous and excited about it. Romantic Natalie had taken it from there, saying how lucky I was, blah, blah, blah. Luckily, she had never asked what exactly Rafael and his ‘company’ did, so I had been able to stick to half-truths.
Still, it was kind of cool to show up at Natalie’s in my floor length dress with my hair all curled and done up and feeling like such an adult. Colton and Grace were already asleep, and Rafael and I carried them out to the car like a real set of parents returning from a night out. I tried not to think too much about how much I wished that was really our life.
My parents were already asleep when we got home, and I carefully put Colton and Grace to bed and removed my high heels and dress with a sigh of relief. Glamour had its price, usually in the form of personal discomfort. I pulled on much more comfortable sweat pants and one of Natalie’s field hockey hoodies that had somehow ended up in my closet. It took a while to unpin my hair, but finally all the curls were falling down my back in a messy tumble. I removed all the makeup as best I could and walked into the kitchen feeling fresher, lighter, and as though I looked five years younger.
Rafael was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper one of my parents had left there. I paused and leaned against the doorjamb so I could study him and look to my heart’s content. He still wore his tux, but had removed the jacket and rolled up his sleeves. The navy vest shone brilliantly in the dim light, and I reflected on how odd it was to see him so cleanly shaven with his hair combed and neatly arranged to one side. No matter how many times I looked at him or how long I stared, I could never quite take in enough of him.
It never ceased to amaze me how long and sooty his eyelashes were, how his sun freckles were virtually invisible unless you looked closely at his tanned skin, how the muscles and veins of his forearms were so visible. And most of all his eyes, which looked up at me as he finally realized I was watching him from the doorway. Right now they were greener than ever against the lighter colors of his clothes, the violet flecks standing out in high relief against his dark skin. His hair gleamed cherry-brown, chestnut, nutmeg and other delicious colors in the light, and his teeth were a brilliant white as he gave me a small smile.
“Downtown Christmas tree will be up in a few days,” he informed me, tapping the paper.
I walked fully into the kitchen and sat in the chair across from him, looking at the paper. “I’ll have to take Colton and Grace to see it. They love the giant Christmas tree. So do I, actually.” I scanned the article and then looked up to find Rafael staring at me. “What?” I asked him.
“I was just thinking…” he said, pausing, then, “you looked beautiful tonight.”
I blushed. Looked down and fiddled with the edge of the newspaper. Nearly gave my thumb a paper cut. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“But, I think I like you better like this,” he added, waving a hand.
“Like this?” I laughed and looked down at myself and then teased, because I knew he wasn’t serious, “You mean in my pajamas?”
He grinned briefly and then shook his head. “No. Without all the makeup, the elegant dress and the fancy shoes and hair. It all makes you look so much older, the woman I know you’ll be someday. But you look beautiful with or without it all, and I prefer you this way, without it. It reminds me of the first time we ever met, the first time you tried to invite me to your youth group.”
I flushed, this time for an entirely different reason. “You made me feel so ridiculous! Turning me down and talking about ‘your kind’ and ‘my kind’, whatever that was supposed to mean to me! I wanted to die of embarrassment, especially when I realized you were so much older than me.”
“Yes, approximately one thousand and nine hundred years older,” Rafael said, with a completely serious face, and I couldn’t help but giggle. “Then you came and thanked me for saving you from Austin,” he continued, “and I did my best to be harsh so you wouldn’t try to talk to me again, but it was more for my benefit. As soon as you thanked me, polite as I’d ever seen, I realized you were different. It was when I
felt
you. That was when I started following you, too.”
I studied him, wondering. We’d never really talked about those early days before, the ones that seemed so far in the past, I could barely seem to remember them. “Did you follow me into the library that one day? When I thought I lost Colton and Grace?”