Silver Smoke (#1 of Seven Halos Series) (38 page)

Pilot looked at Rykken, puzzled, but Rykken was watching Brie. Pilot sighed. He wondered if Rykken was always looking at Brie and he had never noticed until now.

"Is that all?" Pilot asked.

"No. But it's like it's written in code or something." Brie crumpled the paper, throwing it at Pilot's wastebasket and making the shot.

Rykken walked over to the trash can and fished it out, smoothing the letter flat against the wood on Pilot's desk. He folded it twice so the paper would fit back in its envelope.

Brie folded her arms across her chest. "That was fun. We should go talk to Thessa now."

"Do you want to talk about this?" Pilot asked.

"I want you both to promise me something," Brie said. The alarm on Rykken's face reflected what Pilot felt.

"What?" Rykken and Pilot asked in unison.

Brie's gaze sharpened. "No more secrets. From now on, we tell each other everything, no matter what. If today has proven anything, it's that we have to trust each other." Brie held her hand out, palm down.

Pilot looked at Rykken, who shrugged. Pilot put his hand on top of Brie's. Rykken put his hand on top of Pilot's.

Brie put her other hand on top of Rykken's. "Thessa's." Pilot felt a tug at his arm getting sucked through a vacuum. The rest of his body followed, and when he opened his eyes again, he was inside a house with white furniture and mahogany floors.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Brie didn't realize what she'd done until she was standing in Thessa's foyer. Mirrors lined the walls on either side of her, creating reflections within reflections.

"Whoa," Pilot stammered, nearly falling over. He caught himself on a small table, almost knocking over the tall vase sitting on top of it.

"You could have warned us," Rykken added, looking a little dizzy himself.

"I didn't mean to bring us here." Brie walked toward the living room. "I just meant to say that we should leave."

Pilot's sour tone was a warning to her. "Don't ever do that to me again."

Cora walked out of the kitchen, Clara right behind her. "Pilot?" Clara said with surprise.

"You brought your earthlie brother?" Clara said in confusion. "Thessa told me you were coming alone."

"Pilot knows everything," Brie said.
Or he would soon
, she thought. Brie didn't want to overwhelm Pilot by telling him about the trip she was taking with Rykken and Sirena, and she didn't want him to alert the other Hallows or James.

"You can't tell an earthlie about us," Clara said. She seemed to be in a good mood. "That's against the law."

Brie pursed her lips, tilting her head to one side. "So is my existence," she said dryly. She didn't mean it as a joke, but Brie thought she caught a curl to Clara's lips.

Pilot, on the other hand, was still a wreck. He eyed Cora with distrust. "Can I speak to you later?" he asked her.

Her eyes widened. "Sure," she replied. Cora's eyebrows twitched, like she was turning something over in her head. "Thessa and Sirena are waiting for you upstairs."

Brie walked up the stairs confidently, and the boys following her. She didn't feel confident though; she was about to find out who her real father was. If he was alive, she would soon be visiting him to learn more about her mother's past. If he wasn't... she was still faced with the daunting task of leaving behind the safety of the island, her family, and the Hallow's protection to face the unknown. Either way, she knew in her heart that this meeting marked the beginning of the most difficult and dangerous time of her life.

Brie knocked on Thessa's bedroom door. When Thessa opened the door, surprise flickered on her face, but she barely missed a beat.

"Come in," she said. "I wasn't expecting all three of you."

Brie, Rykken, and Pilot filed in. The room was different than it had been the first time Brie saw it, when Thessa was sick and lying in her bed after the Homecoming dance. Now, it held comfortable couches and a table with cheese slices, crackers, chips, olives and pretzels.

"Pilot!" Sirena exclaimed, nearly choking on an olive. She put her hand over her heart. "You scared me.

You look so much like James."

Pilot tossed his dark brown hair out of his eyes, cracking his neck to the side. "You look so much like my mother," he said, with an edge in his voice. Suddenly, Brie realized how things looked—Pilot's own aunt had barely spoken to him, even before Brie learned she was a Hallow.

The three of them sat down in a row on one of the sofas. "Before we talk about my real dad," Brie said,

"I have to tell you both something. Kennedy has been using Pilot to get to Rykken."

If Thessa seemed worried, she didn't show it. "Interesting," she said. "I would advise you, earthlie, to stay away from Kennedy. She's an assassin for an organized crime group called Silver Smoke."

"Kennedy told me that they served good causes." Pilot's voice sounded strained. "Protecting lives.

Fighting injustice."

"Of course she did," Thessa said. "No one thinks they are serving a bad cause, do they? People only fight passionately for what they truly believe in. Kennedy fights for the injustices she's had in her life."

Thessa sighed. "I suppose I should tell you why Silver Smoke hates the Hallows, at least the Hallows that live and operate outside of the New Order. The monarchy did not tolerate their kind—to be one of them meant an immediate death. The members of Silver Smoke live underground because they were once exiled from our world, forced into hiding."

"What are they?" Brie asked. "I thought they were Nephilim."

"Half Nephilim," Thessa said. "And half Hallow. They are an abomination—neither Michael nor Luci planned for them to happen. Super human blood, loyalty to neither the light nor dark side, mixed with inherently flawed human blood. The mixture of the three types of blood strengthens their powers. They are stronger than either the Nephilim or the Hallows, but their powers are unstable at best, deadly at worst. They are called Trinities."

Rykken rubbed his chin. "It sounds like they were persecuted for something that wasn't their fault though. No one gets to choose what blood they are born with."

"There was one other option," Thessa said. "The stones. Anyone may be baptized again under the stones from the seven archangels. If they survived the ritual, they would have purely Hallow blood coursing through their veins."

"That sounds terrible," Pilot said. "What if they didn't survive?"

"It happened often," Thessa said quietly. "The arch isn't supposed to be used on anyone over a year in age, so it was safest when detected early. But even if the child had grown up, it was worth the risk. It would be better to die than to live a cursed, immortal life.

"Mother nature works in strange ways. The Trinities can't have children and thus can't pass on their instability through reproduction. So they live and wreak havoc and ruin themselves until they are put out of their misery by falling in battle... or by murder."

Pilot shut his eyes and held his temples between his thumbs and pointer fingers. The news must have been hard on him. Brie wondered how Pilot felt, finding out that his girlfriend was basically pure evil.

Sirena eyed Pilot with a heightened sense of empathy. "Our family was ruthless toward the Trinities. My grandfather was obsessed with hunting them down and ridding them from this earth for good. He didn't believe in giving them second chances with the arch—he thought their blood was too stained to be born again into the Hallow kingdom. It was no surprise that when the rebellion started, Silver Smoke sided with the New Order to bring down the monarchy."

"How does it happen?" Brie asked. "The Hallows and Nephilim—they never mix, do they? I can't imagine two of them conceiving children."

"Rape," Thessa replied dully. "Every Trinity I've ever met is the product of a rape." Thessa looked away suddenly, raising a bitten cracker to her lips, but not placing it in her mouth.

Brie's gaze met Sirena's. She wished now that she hadn't brought the boys, so she could ask the burning question she had on her tongue.

The moment passed. "I didn't find out anything new about your birth father," Thessa said, setting the cracker down. "I went to see one of your mother's oldest friends in New York. I thought for sure if she had left a clue, she would have left it with him. But he couldn't remember anything out of the ordinary from Milena." Thessa sighed. Brie felt as deflated as Thessa sounded.

"So I have no options left, save one. I need a sample of your blood, Brie. Yours too, Pilot. Your blood will carry both Milena's DNA and James' DNA. We can compare it to Brie's and identify the differences to narrow down the bloodline, at least. There is a guy named Thomas who owes me a favor. He can get into the New Order's research center and get the test results quickly, without raising suspicion."

"Are you sure?" Brie asked. "Where did this guy come from, and why do you all of a sudden have access to him?"

"I learned something new about Thomas recently that I'm confident will secure his cooperation, even for a task like this."

"Blackmail." A pinch of nervousness rose from Brie's stomach. "It seems risky."

"We have no choice," Thessa said. "We need to know who your father is if you are leaving to investigate Milena's map."

"Leaving?" Pilot asked. "Who? Where?"

Sirena looked at Brie with alarm. Rykken, who had been quiet almost the entire conversation, ducked his head.

"How did you know?" Brie asked, realizing a few seconds too late that she had just confirmed the trip with Thessa.

"I see things," Thessa explained. "I see the future sometimes." Thessa walked over to her dresser. "I'm not sure where you are going or what your plans are, but I think I owe it to you to explain how the New Order came into power." Thessa opened one of her dresser drawers and pulled out several needles, tubes, bags, and a pump.

"That looks huge," Brie said, gulping at the size of the blood bag she needed to fill. "Why does your contact need so much?"

"He doesn't," Sirena said. "I'm guessing Thessa wants to create several blood samples for each person, to ensure accurate results and throw Thomas off."

"That's right," Thessa said. She looked at Brie and patted the seat next to her. "Come. I can draw your blood for Thomas while I talk."

*****

The Hallows haven't always been ruled by a monarchy, but the model emerged around the middle ages. The royal family was made up of Michael's children, but there were complications. For a reason no one could determine until recently, the family only had daughters. Then, the archangel Michael's blood had a special property about it. When paired with another archangel's blood in a birth, Michael's blood dominated to the point where no one could even trace the other parent's blood in the child. That made the royal family not only the most powerful blood type of the Hallows, but also the purest. The rest of us all have a mix of bloods, passed down over time, but Michael's bloodline remained pure and intact.

Since our blood determines the powers we develop, the most prized powers and abilities were always kept within the royal family. This wouldn't be as big of a problem if the royal family hadn't turned it into a competition. The pure-blooded women who dominated the family ruled the Hallows—men were handpicked to join them, to stand at their sides, but never to rule in their places. The crown was passed from mother to daughter. The women of the family would hold contests among the Hallows to determine which men would be inducted into the family next.

Families began to breed pure-blooded children. Consequently, the Hallows divided into social classes based on blood, with pure-blooded children having better opportunities than mixed-blooded children. The women indicated their preference for pure-blooded men of the highest caliber. After Luci left, Michael never chose another co-captain for their army; but he appointed Gabrielle as his second-in-command. The women began to marry sons of Gabrielle almost exclusively in their quest for pure-blooded children.

There was one other way to become a pure blood again—to stand under the original stone arch sent from Michael himself; the one erected from the stones made from pieces of each of the seven archangels'

hearts. The royal family controlled the arch and who could stand under it. They charged hefty prices for the opportunity, allowing only men to stand under it for fear that a woman outside their family could become a daughter of Michael. They also sent these men on the most dangerous Hallow missions to test their worth. Even if the men came back alive, they only had a one in six chance to become a son of Gabrielle.

There was a group of mixed-bloods who wanted to see an end to the daughters of Michael. They felt the royal family was building themselves up at the expense of the Hallows they were meant to rule over.

When the faction of Hallows turned against the royal family over 100 years ago, I had to choose sides, as did Bes, my husband at the time. We had worked for the royal family for years because I had a genetic defect that didn't allow me to have children. We had both lived so long and had such knowledge of the royal family that the New Order accepted us readily as spies for their operations.

What they didn't know is that we were double agents, loyal to the royal family and the monarchy. We passed the information back to the royal family, but only enough to help them make plans. We didn't want to give up our own positions within the New Order because then we would be of no help to the royal family at all.

The family made preparations, specifically for their two newborn daughters, Milena and Sirena. When the New Order finally stormed the capital, it was I who smuggled them out, leaving behind the rest of the royal family to fight, and ultimately die.

I hid the girls and returned to Barcelona, only to find that the New Order had won. I was ready to turn myself in and die with Bes, our lives together more than lived. The New Order had taken over my family, my work, and my home. I had nothing left to lose. But we stayed, working alongside the New Order and forming a small coalition of dissenters on our own time. Milena and Sirena stayed in two separate places almost halfway around the globe from each other, in the midst of the New Order's own territory.