Blood To Blood (22 page)

“I don't know how,” he said.
“Maybe I can just stay here with you?”

I looked to Bodiel. “He
should at least go back and put some closure on his relationships. What about
his family?”

“You'll have to close
chapters in your mortal life eventually,” Knowledge said to Justin. “But you
need not do any of that tonight. Go home and Angel will be in touch with you
soon.”

Bodiel zapped him away before
he could protest. “It would seem,” he said as he rubbed his hands together,
“that although his flesh is now immortal, his emotions and mind continue to be
mortal. Fascinating.”

I shook my head, thinking of
the implications of what just happened and what it meant for my relationship
with Justin. But I couldn’t dwell on it now, there was another four-alarm fire
burning. “Can we get the Mahá back to normal?” I asked. “Why is this
frozen-in-time thing happening? How do I control it?

“It's quite simple, Angel,”
Bodiel replied. “You have acute anxiety disorder. Your abilities get heightened
the more anxious you get, and the resulting display is like a barometer. The
more emotional you feel, the more intense the reaction.”

“You've already figured out
how to get things out of the time freeze and back to where they were the moment
before,” Knowledge said. “Now, you'll have to learn how to control your
reactions so the freeze doesn't happen unless you want it to.”

“My family's been helping me
to stay calm.”

“And they've been doing an
excellent job. There's no reason to duplicate their efforts. Except in this one
instance. When you freeze time, it's an almost instantaneous reaction and
there's no time for them to do damage control. By the time they have a chance
to respond, it's too late. They can't help you. But we can.”

It was almost as if Bodiel
and Knowledge had answered my prayer for help! They exchanged a quick glance
before continuing. “We'll stick to the methods you've been using,” they said in
unison. “We'll help you calm down before things get out of hand. We'll show you
how to channel this power so that you'll be in total control of it.”

“Let's go back now,” Bodiel
said. Before he finished the sentence, we were all back in the great room,
surrounded by my frozen Mahá. Everyone resumed their positions: Moira with her
sword, Shoftiel with his shottie, and Cassandra with her bared teeth.

I started re-circulating the
molecules as I had done in the Garden. “Wait a minute.” I stopped to face
Knowledge, “How do I explain my now-immortal donor to Mom? Surely she'll see
that he's changed?”

“Don't worry about it,” she
said. “I'll have it figured out by tomorrow. And we're just your typical Ancient
One guests, okay?”

“Got it,” I answered before
continuing to stir the air. Soon the gasps were again coming from every human
immortal except me. Knowledge and Bodiel were nowhere to be seen.

“Put that sword down,” I
bellowed at Moira. “And you,” I said to Cassandra, “don't you come to my Mahá
stirring up trouble.” I pointed to the glowing Yah. “My family is still the law
under this roof. You must honor our authority.”

Dead silence from the guests,
many of whom, I supposed, had never heard anyone talk like that to an AO
before. Knowing they could say nothing that would go against the wishes of
Bodiel and Knowledge, a mollified Moira sheathed her sword while Cassandra
glared at me. Shoftiel, sure that Moira was no longer on the attack, put away
his gun. Dad and Mom shot disapproving looks at me while Cici covered her open
mouth with her hand. Nobody else moved. For I second, I wondered if they were
frozen again. But, no. Everyone was just stunned.

I was too exhausted and
hungry to care what everyone thought of my outburst. I motioned to the band to
play something, and asked a shaking waiter to follow me with some pitchers of
blood, before heading straight for my bed.

“I
diot!” Cici said. “What are you thinking?
Don't you know AOs can destroy you in an instant?”

Barely awake, I rolled over
in the California king-sized bed to find my parents, brothers and sisters there
in the room staring at me. I didn't know how to answer Cici’s question without
breaking my promise to Bodiel and Knowledge. I remembered the warning the
angels gave me and the coolness with which Shoftiel pointed his otherworldly
shotgun at my nose. I had to keep my family safe.  The tightrope of secrecy
I’d walked in the past paled in comparison to the one I was navigating now.

“Mom,” I said. “You said
there was a time when the AOs walked among us, even lived with us. Why should
we be so afraid of them now?” Mom and Dad looked at each other.

“She speaks truth,” Memnon
said. It was the first time I heard him say a sentence in English.

“Angelika,” Dad said sharply,
“did the time freeze happen again?”

I sat up. Was I being
paranoid, or were Adrian, Aurora, Menelik, and Memnon farther away from the bed
than everybody else? “Yes,” I answered carefully. “It happened again.”

Keeping my mind locked, I
casually glanced at Cici to see if she registered any awareness of the events
that took place after the freeze started. Like Knowledge said, she had no idea.
“I fixed it though,” I continued. “I think I'll soon be able to control it
completely.” I left out the part about being tutored by archangels.

As if they shared one face,
the twins threw me identical strange looks, and Aurora watched me with guarded
eyes. I needed to work harder to convince them all I was okay. “Listen up,
everybody. I am not Tunde. I am not about to go postal on Mom or anyone in this
family—”

“Postal?” interrupted Memnon,
confused. “What does this mean, this postal?” Menelik slid him an info-packed
glance and Memnon immediately nodded in understanding.  I continued.

“And I'm not going to go
postal on anyone
outside
of the family, unless they try to harm one of
us. Power, protection, loyalty, forever. Right? So please stop staring at me
like I have an extra head growing out of the side of my neck.” I looked each
one of them in the eye, begging them silently to believe me. Eventually, even
Aurora relented.

I zipped into the dressing
room. Cici was already in there. “Wear what you want,” she said. “You don't
have the next ritual until this afternoon and ‘til then everyone’s free to do
whatever they want.” She peered at me for a moment. “There's something
different about you, Angel. It seems like you grew up when we weren't looking.
And even though we’re locked, I don’t know exactly how or when it happened.”

I wanted to tell her what
went down when she wasn’t looking, but there was that tightrope again… She
continued. “I know there's more. I'm not even sure why except for something Mom
told me. She said there was a part of you that was hidden away. Inaccessible.”

I remembered eavesdropping on
Cici and Mom's conversation, but I never told her that the two-way thing had
happened. Suddenly, it seemed like I was hiding everything from everybody and
for a moment, I felt very shady.

I still have faith in you
, she was saying in my head.
I know
you're not another Tunde. Or worse than Tunde. Just be careful, sis.

She left me to dress. Demeter
came in, but I waved her away. I wasn’t up for dealing with the groupie vibe
right now. Looking relieved, she darted quickly from the room like a scared
rabbit. Oh well, the Mahá madness cost me a fan.

When I emerged, the opened
French doors to my patio revealed an elaborate spread of various blood types in
heavy, cut-crystal goblets. A warm Pacific breeze fluttered the linen
tablecloth as well as fresh flowers in an elegant vase.

I was hungry, but took a
second to appreciate the view. The deep azure blue of the ocean formed a sharp
line of contrast against the powder blue of the sky. I inhaled the tangy salt
air, along with the scents of various animals, abundant plants, and freshly cut
grass.

“Mind if I join you?” Justin
said, leaping onto the patio from the ground about twenty-two feet below. He
took off his winter jacket and threw it on the floor. It was still wet with
whatever precipitation was falling in Boston.

“W—what?” I stuttered.
“How did you get here?”

“I haven't figured that out
yet,” he mused.  “All I know is I knew you were hungry. I could actually
feel your need tugging at me in Boston.” He smiled as he fell into the seat
across the table from me. “Before I knew it, I was here. I just followed your
scent.”

Wow. “Justin, we’ve got a lot
to discuss, but this isn’t the place to do it. If my Mom sees you, she'll know
you're different, and we can't reveal what happened last night. You're going to
have to go back.”

“You're still hungry, Angel.”
He paused as if measuring something in his chest. “I don't think I'm capable of
leaving you in this condition.”

“You mean to tell me you
can't help coming to me whenever, wherever I'm hungry?”

“I think so.”

“And you can't leave while
I'm still hungry?”

“Sounds about right.”

Seriously? How was I going to
be able to hide him from Mom if he showed up every time I got hungry?

Just then I heard moans
coming from guests throughout the mansion and grounds. I ran over to the south
window to look down on the pool. Guests were collapsing on the deck while some
fell into the water and sunk to the bottom. Good thing they couldn't drown.
Then there was a ripping sound and I felt the approach of something massive,
like a huge boulder of energy rolling toward us.

More AOs,
Cici transmitted.
Meet us in the great
room. Now.

 “Justin, can you wait
here for me until I get back?”

“Yes, I think I can
physically stay here as long as you're not too far away,” he said as I raced
into the dressing room to put on something more Mahá-like.

“By the way,” he called from
the bedroom, “Bodiel and Knowledge are coming.”

“How do you know?”

“They made me. I know when
they come.” Made sense. I threw on my own makeup and put my hair up in a
simple, somewhat tall, bun.

The family was already in the
great room, along with Moira, Cassandra, and other guests. I joined Mom and Dad
just as the doorbell rang. We looked at each other, perplexed. Maximillian, one
of the oldest immortals on the PE staff, made his way painstakingly, and with
as much dignity as he could muster, to the door to open it.

There on the doorstep stood
Bodiel and Knowledge, dressed as if they were ready to spend the day on the
golf course; polo tops, khaki shorts, white socks, and Ray Bans.

“Please come inside,” Mom
said, before she and Dad offered them the perfunctory greeting. They responded
sincerely as if it were perfectly normal to come in through the front door.

Like photonegative images of
each other, Bodiel and Knowledge trained their gazes on me. It was obvious to
everyone that despite their mortal dress and the luggage they cheerfully rolled
in, they were very powerful beings. Fear-filled looks were directed at me by
some of the guests. “It's a pleasure to meet you Angelika,” they said. “We look
forward to seeing the Abilities showcase next, unless there are objections?”

The question was directed to
Cassandra and Moira, who quickly shook their heads “no.” Shoftiel was nowhere
to be seen, probably somewhere cleaning out his crazy gun.

“Excellent,” Knowledge said.
“We will retire to our quarters now, until we are called.”

Mom gestured to staff to take
the newest guests to their rooms and they were led away. You could hear a pin
drop. As they passed by, I noticed they had no scent. How strange. Were all
angels scentless, I wondered? I couldn't remember if Shoftiel had one, but
since he scared the wits out of me, it was understandable that I hadn't taken
the time to explore that side of him. Cassandra and Moira had scents even
though neither had a heartbeat. Perhaps they had a scent because they had
fallen. Or...maybe, Bodiel and Knowledge were masking their scents the way
Adrian did when he was invisible.

Speculation ran wild in
whispered conversations once they left the room. Immortals have a way of
whispering that is hard to hear by other immortals, unless they are telepathic.
To the mortal ear, the whispering sounds like a nearly inaudible hiss. I
wondered what the guests were saying about this latest installment in my Mahá
from hell.

“They are shielded,”
whispered Mom as she led me by the arm to a smaller private room. Dad and Cici
followed shortly and she closed the door behind them. Dad raised his hand and
another door magically appeared in the opposite wall. He quickly shepherded us
into the room, and once inside, the door quickly disappeared. The room was
empty and devoid of windows. There were no corners or edges, no ceiling. It
felt like we were inside an airless, soundproofed orb.

“It's an Aeonion loop,” Dad
explained. “An endless loop of energy contained within a magical parameter. No
one can see where we are or hear what we say.”