Angel -
Chapter6
LORA
As I stuff all my things into my bag, I think of what I have done. I’ve attacked a mortal girl. She’s just a human. I used my hybrid form to hurt. What if I kill someone next? I could be well on my way to being at very least a demon. Worst case scenario, I could turn devilish while hiding in Oakview, kill Ludi, Mom and Dad, and then join Salan and Satan in taking over heaven. But it won’t happen. That won’t happen. You have Ludi, and Ludi helps you be good. I repeat this to myself in a firm voice over and over again.
By the time I’ve finished packing all the things that I’ll need into a small red suitcase, Ludi and Dad are already out the door.
“I told him we’re going to the grocery store and we’ve run out of bags to use,” Dad says. I know who he’s referring to - Uncle Salan. “I’ll take care of Spot and Speckle-I want you two to run quickly and get the centaur and anyone else. Only one person each, got it? I don’t think we’ll come back, so I want you to choose your friend carefully.”
He thinks we won’t come back here. But we will. We have to. We might be the only demon-angel hybrids on earth. If we can’t stop them, we’re giving up the lives of a thousand innocent people. But for now, I can’t start an argument, as Salan’s in the living room currently.
So I nod. I can’t think of anyone in the Haters that deserve to come with us and hide for a few years. I might as well take my brother’s second friend-that Grayson kid. I mentally apologize for thinking he was a weirdo.
We rush to school, nearly knocking over the principal.
“Did - you - know - that - Erin - was - a - centaur?” Ludi pants as he races beside me.
“I read about them in a book. She had all the signs when you were telling Mom and Dad about her.” I say.
“But - she’s - a - girl! Centaurs - are - always - boys!” Ludi pants.
“Well, she might not be full Centaur!”
We run around a corner, and we run into Harley. I feel doomed when I see the vice principal beside her.
“This young lady says you attacked her with fire, that you had wings, horns and a tail.” Says the lady, named Ms. Gregsphere.
I don’t answer.
“It’s urgent, Ms. Gregsphere,” Ludi says nervously.
“Urgent? I think that this is urgent, not whatever you have to do,” Ms. Gregsphere says sternly. “Now, if you’ll accompany me to the office, we can see what really happened. I don’t think this is likely, but I do know that someone will get in trouble today.”
I sigh. We have no choice…
Ludi seems to know what I’m thinking because he grips my arm tightly. “No, Lora-we can’t-it’s against the rules-we’ll be in so much trouble-”
“There is a war going to happen, Ludi,” I hiss at him. “We’re going to have to make sacrifices. Toughen up.” Ohhhh, this is against all the rules in the books I’ve read!
“Now, that’s enough of this charade!” Ms. Gregsphere exclaims.
I close my eyes briefly, then exhale. I feel my wings burst out first, then the tail starts to swish and I’m aware of the horns on my head. It’s a funny feeling at first, in the hybrid form.
Ms. Gregsphere screams as loud as she can before she starts laughing. “I suppose you went to Cosplay Costumes, huh? Well, you’re not allowed to impersonate a devil, young lady, and using a costume to terrify a fellow student is against our rules, most definitely!”
I grin, and push myself to the final stage.
The flaming horns and tail.
That scares her alright. It’s worth it just to scare this woman. She throws her hands up and runs out of the hall. Harley backs against a wall of lockers, and I feel pity rise up inside of me. She’s just a girl, influenced by the people around her. I’m very certain that she wasn’t a stuck up baby the first second of her life.
“You can go,” I say gently. “I won’t hurt you. And I’m sorry for what I did before. I was in a panic.”
Harley doesn’t answer, but she goes considerably less pale.
“Do you know where Grayson Parkers is?” Ludi asks.
“I’m still confused,” Grayson yells, “why Ludi and his sister are kidnapping me!”
“We’re technically saving you, not kidnapping!” I yell back. Grayson is holding onto Ludi and my tail as we soar through the air on our hybrid wings. Thankfully, I remembered to unlight it. Ludi’s other friend Erin, that stargazer, is already at the meeting spot.
“Saving me from what?” Grayson yells. “Math class?”
“The deadly math class. Sure,” I mutter.
“Something bad’s going to happen soon,” Ludi calls to him. “Like, really bad. It might kill a lot of people.”
I don’t immediately register Grayson’s hand leaving my tail until Ludi yelps and dives down.
“Of all the STUPID THINGS!” I yell, twisting my wings and soar down to him.
“Grayson, how could you let go? We’re saving you!” Ludi lands and folds his wings.
“A fall from that height could have killed you!” I yell. “According to How Much Can Your Slave Handle, anyways.”
“All of the sudden you have wings and a tail and so does your sister and you’re saving me and only me-”
“Incorrect,” I say. “The centaur’s coming, too.”
Grayson does a double take. “Centaur?”
Ludi takes a step forward to him. “Grayson, I know this is a lot to find out all at once,” he says in a calm voice. “But we need you to come with us. Quickly. As in now. We’ll explain later.”
“You had to be friends with a kid like him? Why not one who already knew about Angels and demons and hybrids?” I glare at Ludi, who ignores me. Some twin.
“But-But what about my family?” Grayson asks. “The rest of the people I know?”
“It won’t happen soon,” Ludi reassures him. “We’ll save them. Don’t worry.”
Hopefully.
“We’ll have time to save everyone you know. But you’re my best friend, and I couldn’t imagine leaving without you.” Ludi finishes, reaching his tail back out to Grayson.
“Erin’s coming too,” I say. “So, there’s that.”
Grayson stares at Ludi’s tail for a moment, then he reaches forward and grabs it gently again.
“Sorry we’re late, we had a bit of a hold-up,” I say, flapping to land at the grocery store staff parking lot.
Dad turns, relief breaking on his face, his grip loosening on the goat’s ropes. I’m very glad that he believes us, instead of telling us to calm down. He probably believes us even more now that he’s had a chance to look at Erin. Erin, speaking of whom, is standing off to the side, looks at Grayson with a nervous expression. I extend my wing out to her, attempting to calm her down, but she backs away, shivering.
“We won’t fly, because I can’t and neither can Erin, Grayson, or the goats,” Dad says as Spot and Speckle make goat noises.
“How will we get there, then?” I ask. “Oakview is really far from here if you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ve asked CEO,” says Dad. CEO is actually Hades, who pops into Hell every so often to check on everything. I’m sure that sometimes the other gods come to visit our god and our Angels in heaven. Hades isn’t related to us, but he shares the jobs with Satan and Salan and Dad. “CEO’s lending us his horses.”
Horseback across the continent? This seems unlikely to me, and I open my mouth to say so but suddenly Erin speaks.
“But-But-But we can’t go to Oakview - we h-h-have scho-school and - and our par-parents will worry!”
Dad turns to her. “School will not matter if a war against heaven and hell breaks out. For now, we need to hide my children, and fast.”
Hide us? Why would he need to hide us? We’re simple hybrids. And one of us is destined to be evil, and everything is saying that it’s me, but I refuse to let it be me. Period. It. Will. Not. Be. Me.
Does that mean I’m saying Ludi will be the evil one? I hope not. I hope we can both be good. Not too hard to ask, is it?
And suddenly the ground shakes like an earthquake is happening. Although a real earthquake feels different, says An Earthquake- or an escapee?
Erin and Grayson scream. “We need to get to a shelter!” Erin screeches, leaping to a telephone wire post and hugging it tightly.
Almost as soon as she says it, three large black horses erupt out of the pavement, leaving a gaping crater behind them. They’re harnessed with gold to a black chariot, which is enormous. I recognize them as stallion Arabians, thanks to Know what Horse is What.
Erin and Grayson stare at it. I’m admitting that maybe Ludi and I did too.
“Hop on,” Dad says with a grin at our dumbfounded expressions.
The ride is quicker than you’d think. All the time I can’t help looking behind us, expecting to see a flying, angry devil chasing after us.
He thinks we’re at the grocery store, I repeat to myself.
But maybe he knows we took Hades’ horses. Maybe Hades stopped by to visit, and they chatted for a few minutes and Hades told Salan that we’re borrowing his horses and then Salan knows something up and then he follows us-
“Calm down, Lora,” says Ludi from opposite me.
“I’m fine.” I lie unconvincingly.
“You’re all tense,” Ludi says. “You’re worrying about Salan coming after us, aren’t you?”
“How’d you know,” I grumble.
“I’m your twin,” he grins.
“Salan?” Erin turns her head to us from beside Ludi. “Who’s that?”
“Our uncle,” I say grimly. “Also related to Satan.”
Erin goes chalk white. Grayson reaches forward and pats her hand reassuringly.
“It’ll be okay,” Grayson said. “We all were created for a reason, and I doubt it was to be killed by Satan’s brother.”
I think about this. Maybe he’s right. Maybe our purpose in life is to stop Satan and Salan taking over heaven. No book ever said anything about having a purpose in life.
But how would we save heaven? Is it possible, even? It must be, that’s why we know about it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Ludi finds the only half-centaur in possibly the entire town.
I slump back, my overworked mind defeated. My belly rumbles quietly. I haven’t eaten since lunch. By now I’d’ve had dinner.
But I can wait. There are kids all across the world that are starving to death, that haven’t had a proper meal in their life. I feel a mad urge to feed them all, to adopt them all and promise that they’d never have to worry about dying ever again because I was going to keep them safe.
But that would be impossible. If only the other people in the world could do something about it… there are hybrids, Angels, centaurs, devils, demons and many more in this world. We all should be enough to help some poor kids.
I sit up straight. My random train of thought has just travelled to a far-fetched solution. Ludi and his friends see me perk up instantly, and they frown. Now is not the time to be perky.
“I’ve just found out how to stop the devils and demons before they take over heaven,” I say excitedly.
“What? How?” Grayson asks, nudging Spot’s face out of his.
“We raise an army of Centaurs, hybrids and maybe hopefully a few Angels!” I say.
Ludi bites his lip and gives me a look that says you’re nuts.
“That’s-That’s crazy-” Erin says. It’s a mark of how nuts their life has just turned that they don’t scream and run away at the word ‘Centaurs.’
“Do Centaurs exist?” Grayson asks, his voice full of wonder.
“Someone in her family is at least three-quarters Centaur.” I jerk my head in Erin’s direction. She pales.
“What?” Erin gasps. “Me-why me?”
“Only people with at least a drop of Centaur blood can read the planets,” Ludi says. “That’s what I’m learning from Lora, anyways.”
“I read Supernatural Beings of Your World a month before this,” I say.
“Anything else we should know about … our new situation?!” Grayson asks.
I look at Ludi, who grins.
“I think that’s all we know so far,” I say.
Ludi’s eyes remind me of what he said yesterday, about me being destined for evil. But I can’t tell them that. They’d be too scared, and we need them to trust us right now if we have any chance of helping them.
“We’re nearly there,” Dad says from up front where he is holding the reins of the three horses. “One more mile to Mom’s place… she’s got a nice house on the edge of the city.”
“Oh my gosh,” Erin says. “I’m going to Oakview! I’ve been wanting to go here since-well, forever!”
I grin at Erin, who smiles back. I think I’ve finally met someone kind, that’s not related to me. Why did I bother with Harley, Ceara, Macayla and Emelie if there were people like Erin and Grayson around?
When we finally make it to the city and climb out of the chariot with numb legs, I lean into Ludi. “You’ve found some really good friends, Ludi,” I say with a smile. “I’m glad I can meet them.
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