Raziel shook his head. “No one is lying to you, Mason. This is a matter of urgency. You need to leave this place, and soon.”

  I scoffed, rubbing my temple with the heel of one hand in frustration. “Or what? More of your angel buddies are going to show up to try and kill me?”

  He sighed. “I told you: I don’t agree with what my brethren did. And besides, that’s not all you’re going to contend with. This world is full of supernatural entities that will seek you out, to corrupt you. Not only angels. Demons will come, as will the gods of old myth. Perhaps mages, too, powerful ones who will recognize the blaze of your spirit.”

  I laughed uproariously, my chest almost hurting with every bellow. I wiped a finger under my eye, finding it even funnier that Raziel’s face was steadily falling, frowning at me in disapproval.

  “Who are you kidding? You don’t seriously expect me to believe any of that.”

  His face didn’t change, and when he spoke again, his voice was cold, challenging. “This is no joke, Mason Albrecht. The awakening of a nephilim is no laughing matter.”

  “A nephi-what? Words. Just more of your crazy buzzwords.”

  Raziel lifted his chin, sniffing and pursing his lips in defiance. “One who is half human and half angel. The child of the union between a fallen angel and a human woman. And in your case, the heir to a kingdomless throne.”

  I covered my eyes, then my mouth, wiping at my tears, afraid that letting myself laugh at that would mean that I was finally losing it.

  “You are insane,” I said slowly. “No, that light? That’s just a hallucination. And I’m not anybody’s heir.” I hugged my arms to my chest. “I’m just some guy in a shack who’s freezing his nuts off.”

  “Are you?” Raziel stepped forward, coming too close once again. “Are you, really? Then why haven’t you shooed me off the property completely? Why haven’t you attacked me?” Raziel’s head tilted forward, eyes staring so hard into mine that I found myself backing away, clutching at my doorframe. “Why haven’t you severed my head from my shoulders with that sword of yours?”

  I froze. He couldn’t have seen the thing. Only the other three psychos were around for that, for the part where I hacked off someone’s arm. My head whipped around to look at the floor where the limb had fallen. No blood. But how? I felt the sword between my fingers, felt it as it cut through flesh and bone.

  “Where’s your defiance now, Mason? Where is your denial? You have access to the Vestments, the armories of heaven themselves. After all you have seen, after all you have done in these fifteen minutes alone, do you truly believe that you are still only human?”

  I looked down at my hands, then back up into Raziel’s face. This couldn’t be real. None of it.

  “What the hell happened here?”

  My heart jumped as a voice called from clear across the lawn. It was my landlord, Mr. Navarro. Fuck. How was I going to explain the catastrophic state of the shack he rented to me for peanuts? I clutched at my hair, turning in place, surveying the destruction. I could offer to fix everything, make it better than before. That was my bargaining chit.

  When I turned away from the doorway, Raziel was bent close to me once more, his eyes hard, serious. “Follow the light, Mason Albrecht. You have no choice. This is your destiny. Find your father. Find Samyaza.”

  “The door!” Navarro wailed, only a few feet away from us now. “Who kicked that door down? Mason, what happened here?”

  “We can explain,” I said, holding my hands up in a placating gesture.

  Navarro frowned at me. “Who’s ‘we,’ exactly?”

  I turned my head to the left, just about to get Raziel involved in the conversation, but he was gone. In his place was a single feather, drifting gently into the grass.

  3

  “This place is trashed, Mason. Are you in a gang? Was there a fight? Is that what happened here?” Mr. Navarro raked at his thinning hair, his eyes huge as he looked around the inside of the shack. I followed in his wake, scratching at my chest, then wincing at the pain of my still-tender skin.

  “I can explain,” I said, which was probably the worst lie I’d ever told. Where would I even begin?

  Navarro shook his head. “I don’t think I want to hear it.” His eyes traveled up and down my body. “Where is your shirt, Mason? What’s happening to you? Are you on drugs?”

  The sheer disappointment in Jose Roberto Navarro’s eyes made me feel worse than I had all day, at least on an emotional level. The man had taken me in when no one else would. Nobody rents to a snot-nosed teenager, especially a seventeen-year-old with no guardians to cosign. I wasn’t clear on the particulars, but I sure knew that this was the kind of thing that could have gotten Navarro into trouble.

  He let me informally stay in the shack in his backyard, and in exchange, I did a lot of menial work around the place, mostly simple landscaping. It wasn’t a bad way to keep fit, and it meant that I had a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in, and a door that closed.

  It meant that I could do whatever work I could get my hands on, too, which was mostly some construction when they needed another strong pair of hands somewhere in Humpuck, or a little bit of lifting done at the warehouses. One or two times a week he’d invite me in for dinner. I could never once say that Navarro had a bad bone in his body, which made the betrayal in his eyes sting even more.

  “Look,” I started to say. “I’m so sorry about all this. I wish I could explain, but I really wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  He folded his arms, squinting at me in suspicion. “Try me,” his eyes seemed to say. But just as he opened his mouth to speak, another voice cut through the brief silence.

  “Happy birthday, Mason Albrecht.”

  Another intruder. Both Mr. Navarro and I turned towards the door to find a man at the threshold. He was skinny, almost gaunt, and tall, the briefcase hanging loosely from his fingers only lengthening his body. His clothes – uniformly black – clung to him with all the expensive definition of meticulously tailored garments, just a simple but slick combination of a long-sleeved black button-down shirt and pants.

  Navarro looked at me, the confusion and anger in his eyes dampening a little, allowing a slight swell of sympathy. “Um, happy birthday. I didn’t know.”

  I waved my hand. “S’okay. Don’t worry about it.” Then, to the new stranger, I said: “And how, exactly, can we help you?” A little too grumpy. A little too sassy, maybe. But I was having a hell of a day.

  The man tilted his head, sunlight reflecting off his enormous sunglasses, off the long, sleek locks of his black hair. “You don’t recognize me, Mason? It’s me. Your Uncle Bub.”

  My gut response was to start flapping my mouth, to say that I had no Uncle Bub. But the rational side of me said to play along, if only far enough to see what briefcase guy – sorry, what Bub wanted from me and Navarro.

  “We talked about this over the phone, remember?” The man grinned. “I was going to come over and visit on your birthday. We were supposed to hang out.”

  That made it twice that he’d mentioned my birthday. This had to be one of those entities that Raziel had mentioned. Another angel, maybe, or possibly someone from the ‘or worse’ column. My fingers clenched around something that wasn’t in my hand, like they were looking for something to grasp, or to wield. Something to protect me.

  “You’re right.” I forced myself to give him a smile. “We did talk about that. Sorry. It must have slipped my mind. Today didn’t exactly go as planned, as you can see.”

  I gestured around the wreckage of my shack, Navarro following me disapprovingly.

  “I don’t understand,” Navarro said. “He’s always been a good kid, and now this. I said no partying. Strictly no partying, and this is just beyond.” He turned to me, his eyes sad, but serious. “I’m sorry, Mason, but you can no longer stay here. And you ruined my property. I’m afraid I’m going to have to report this to the authorities.”

  My heart sank. “You can’t be serious. Doesn’t me helping out on the plot all this time count for anything? This could get me into so much trouble.”

  Navarro shook his head, his jowls following every turn. “I’m sorry, but that is my decision. I should have known better. Unless you can find some way to make reparations, I’m taking this to the police.”

  I’ll fix up the place, my brain offered as something to say. Give me time, I’ll save up and repair everything that was destroyed by hand. But even as my mouth started to form the words, Raziel’s warning came back. This wasn’t the end of it, and this exact thing could happen again the next time something supernatural showed up on my doorstep.

  And as upset as I was with Navarro in that moment, I didn’t wish him ill, either. He’d helped me out so much in the past. If whatever came after me ever tried to hurt him – God, but I couldn’t ever forgive myself. I pushed my palm against my forehead, disbelieving. Was I really buying into Raziel’s story now?

  “You’re right,” I said, my eyes downcast. “I should go.” But go where, I thought?

  The man at the doorway swept into the shack, stepping carefully over the debris, his heels clicking with every deliberate motion until he was standing just next to me. He draped one arm across my shoulders, and I almost recoiled – who likes being touched by strangers, right? But I had to keep up the charade. Whoever this was, whatever this person was, I knew he’d be capable of hurting Navarro.

  Still, it was tough resisting the urge to throw his arm off my back. There was something curious about his skin, or maybe his blood, the way his body seemed to be constantly humming, almost vibrating. And if I pricked my ears up just right, I swore I could hear a faint buzzing.

  He looked down at me, grinning, then up at Navarro. “I agree that it’s high time Mason moved on from this life. I’ll take care of that. But I’m sure – Mr. Navarro, was it? – that we can come to some sort of arrangement that won’t involve calling the cops.” He held up his briefcase. “Here.”

  That was when I noticed how the man’s shoes, briefcase, the strap of his wristwatch, even his sunglasses had that same odd iridescent hue. If you looked at them just right, they seemed to shimmer in all colors of the rainbow, like an oil slick, or those holographic baseball cards – or a beetle’s shell.

  Navarro looked this Bub man up and down, reaching out cautiously to accept the briefcase. With a couple of clicks, he swung it open, his eyes bulging when he saw its contents. Navarro quickly snapped the briefcase shut.

  “Dios mio,” he breathed.

  “Oh, trust me. God has nothing to do with this.” Uncle Bub smiled, nudging his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “Now, if you’ll allow my nephew here some time to pack up his things so we can leave – maybe half an hour or so?”

  Navarro nodded eagerly. “Take your time, no hurry, no hurry at all.” His eyes met with mine for the briefest moment, and the two of us exchanged our silent apologies, and our silent goodbyes. I knew I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t begrudge him that.

  But as I looked at the man next to me, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Bub kept his gaze trailed on Navarro until my erstwhile landlord tottered his way out of his broken shack, no doubt imagining all the ways he could spend his newfound wealth to build something better in the backyard.

  “That should tide him over quite nicely,” Bub said. He adjusted his sunglasses again. I realized that his hands were clad in black leather gloves that had the same strange sheen as the rest of his accessories.

  “Listen. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know if I should thank you or take off running, but I don’t want any trouble. I’m confused enough as it is with everything happening here, and I’ve just been evicted. Just – I don’t want any more trouble today.”

  “And neither will you run into any, Mason Albrecht. I’m only trying to be a friend.” Bub waved his hand at the empty doorway. “Look at me, being a friend, helping you bribe your way to freedom. Now, start packing.”

  “I’m not sure I want to come with you,” I said, backing away.

  The man laughed, his voice a little raspy, almost tinny. “You always have the freedom of choice, Mason. The human half of you is still entitled to free will, is it not? Something that you have in common with our kind.”

  Our kind. I retreated even farther, the backs of my knees bumping into the side of what used to be my bed. “Who are you, exactly? What are you?”

  The man called Bub removed his sunglasses, and I gasped at the sight of his eyes. They were compound, made up of dozens of little surfaces, like those of an insect, of a fly.

  “My name is Beelzebub. I am the demon Prince of Gluttony.”

  4

  First angels, now demons? Check that. Demon princes. It felt like my head was spinning. I clutched my temples, allowing myself to crumple onto the bed, just in case I got dizzy and actually fell over.

  Beelzebub chuckled. “Come now. That’s a little overdramatic, isn’t it?”

  I looked up at the man, my mouth agog. Beelzebub blinked once, and instantly his eyes were normal, almost human. I found myself blinking, too, wondering if what I’d just seen was even real.

  “I don’t understand.” I gestured at him. “And maybe I was expecting something else from a – did you say that you were the Prince of Gluttony?”

  “Correct. It’s my territory, my domain, if you will. We present ourselves in various ways, wear different bodies as the mood strikes us, because why not? It’s not any different from changing a shirt. Speaking of which, you should really put one on. You might catch a cold.”

  He picked up a T-shirt that had spilled out of a broken cabinet and tossed it at me. I pulled it over my head, shifting on the bed, then getting up to start sorting out my things. Whatever this creature was – a demon, or so he claimed – he wasn’t standing between me and the doorway. If I played along, acted casual, I’d have a chance of sprinting through the door and out to freedom.

  “You said ‘we’ just now.” I picked up a duffle bag, stuffing it with as many of my very basic clothes and necessities as I could muster. “Who’s ‘we,’ exactly?”

  Beelzebub took my place on the bed, sitting primly on the edge of it as he crossed his legs. “Why, the Seven, of course. The hells have many princes, but we – obviously – are the most powerful of them all.”

  I froze as I reached for my wallet. “The Seven? Gluttony. As in the seven deadly sins?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yes. I thought that was obvious. I didn’t think your awakening would have fried part of your brain as well.” He folded his hands in his lap. “But I apologize for my rudeness. I’m here because – well, I thought we could become friends, Mason Albrecht.”

  I shrugged on my leather jacket, a favorite that my mom gave me some time back, one that she’d very cleverly guessed I would eventually grow into. “And what would this friendship involve, exactly? First the angels come and try to kill me, now you’re here to – what, entice me into your service? No thanks, Bub.”

  “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?” Beelzebub chuckled again as he rose from the bed, the proportions of his body very much like a praying mantis, the laughter emanating from his throat laced with that same bizarre, buzzy texture. “You’re extremely lucky that I got to you before any of the other princes did. They’re not the best at dealing with sass. But me, I like sass. I’m also something of a gourmand, if you haven’t grasped that yet.”

  My fingers clenched a little too hard as I zipped up my duffle bag, and I grimaced at him, swallowing the lump in my throat. “You’re not suggesting that I cut off bits of myself for you to eat, are you?”

  Beelzebub laughed full from his throat, the walls of the shack filling with a horrible buzzing, as if there were swarms of flies hovering outside. “Not at all, Mason. That’s just silly.” He folded his spindly fingers together and grinned. “I’m far more interested in tasting your soul.”

  Oh, that was it. I threw my bag over my back, securing it to my shoulder. “Right. I think we’re done here. I humbly decline your offer.”

  The Prince sputtered. “But I promise, it won’t hurt. It’s only a taste I’m asking for. The delights of it, I couldn’t even begin to imagine. A living nephilim just ripening into his power.” He stretched one arm out towards me, his fingers shaking. “The rarest, most forbidden delicacy.”

  “Yeah. I really don’t think so.” My gaze fell on the ground, and I bent over to pick up a piece of debris. “Oh. I think you dropped this.”

  Beelzebub scowled, his fingers clenching in annoyance. “That doesn’t belong to me. What use would I have for a broken table leg?”

  It was a risk worth taking. I threw the splinter of furniture, shaped conveniently like a stake, directly at the demon’s face, pointy end first. Then I turned tail and hauled ass straight out of the shack. I didn’t know if a bit of wood would even be able to hurt him, but if it slowed him down, that would be enough for me.

  The resounding crack of it hitting his face, followed by his infuriated scream, did tell me that it must have worked. It also told me that I had to run even faster, and harder. But where to? At least some place I could be alone, somewhere I wouldn’t be molested by even more supernaturals.

  My muscles complained as I ran, thighs and calves pumping as my feet carried me away from the shack, from Navarro, from what used to be everyday life. It wasn’t the worst routine, truthfully. Boring, sure, and lacking direction? Maybe. The point was to save money, to get myself enough to move away from Humpuck forever, and then – and then what?

  Go to school and get a huge loan? Go straight into working somewhere they didn’t expect me to have some fancy degree? Whatever the hell I was supposed to do with my life, I had to admit that there was some safety in not knowing the future, in not having a deadline to beat.

 

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