Falling Angels

Chapter One Twenty-five years from now…. The room where my extended family — blood relations or not — had gathered pulsed with a kind of shocked silence. I think we were all still trying to piece together what we’d just seen on the TV screen before someone had blacked out the transmission. I knew I was. Who — or what — had those dark, looming shapes actually been? They’d moved faster than any human being I’d ever seen, that was for sure. Because of my family’s history, I assumed the worst. Not all visitors from beyond the stars were benign like my father and grandfather. Otto, who had made himself scarce for the past quarter-century or so, now blocked the screen and regarded us calmly, perfect features impassive, arms crossed. Or rather, he seemed calm enough, although I noticed that he wouldn’t look directly at anyone. Maybe he wasn’t happy about having to address such a large crowd all at once — my aunt’s family room had been filled to capacity, couches and chairs crowded with my cousins, my aunt and uncle; my parents; the Olivers and their children, Michael and Taryn. My mother was actually the first person to speak. She rose from her chair, fine brows pulled together, full mouth compressed into a taut line. Otto, who had once been the spirit guide of our long-time family friend and my sort of adoptive aunt Persephone Oliver, was probably number one on my mother’s list of people she couldn’t stand, so I understood her anger. After all, it was Otto’s fault that my father’s powers had been stripped from him and he’d been exiled here on Earth, forever unable to go back to his life among the stars. Anyway, I didn’t question her anger. I might have even felt an echo of it myself, although my resentment was by nature secondhand, a grudge born from her and my father’s pain, and not because of any loss I’d personally experienced. Hands on her hips, which were still as slim as they’d been in pictures of her when she was my age, my mother glared at Otto and said, “Oh, we need to talk? What happened to not interfering in matters that don’t have anything to do with us? You seemed to be pretty strict about that, once upon a time.” “Kirsten — ” my father began, but Otto only shook his head. “Circumstances have changed,” he said, his tone cool enough, although something about it seemed to cut right through my father’s protest. Our unwelcome visitor’s gaze swept the room, and once again it seemed to rest on me for a second longer than it should. Despite the situation, and despite knowing that — well, according to my parents, at least — Otto was possibly the biggest asshole this side of Alpha Centauri, I couldn’t help feeling a little flush rise to my cheeks as I stared back at him. Jerk he might be, but he was also absolutely gorgeous. His were the kind of dark, exotic looks you didn’t get a lot of here in Sedona, with those chiseled features and long-lashed brown eyes. The silent connection between us was broken as soon as he turned to look back at my mother. In a way I was glad; no one had been paying much attention to me, but I knew a flush had risen to my cheeks, and that wasn’t something I really wanted to try to explain…especially since I wasn’t sure I could explain it even to myself. “I understand you are upset,” Otto said calmly, “but I had hoped that tempers might have cooled after more than twenty-five of your years had passed.” His reply only seemed to irritate my mother further. Scowling, she opened her mouth to speak, but Persephone, who was wearing a somewhat resigned expression, cut in before my mother could say anything else. “Maybe if you could just tell us what’s going on, Otto.” For some reason, he frowned. Then he said, his tone sharp, “Please, we are far past that particular subterfuge. ‘Otto’ was only a persona and a name I took on to make you believe I was someone from your world’s past. My true name is Raphael.” Well, I had to admit that “Raphael” did suit him a lot better. Nothing could be further from the sixteenth-century Turkish eunuch he’d pretended to be than the godlike person standing in front of us, so “Otto” had seemed like kind of a ridiculous name for him. Persephone shrugged, the metallic threads woven through the scarf she wore glinting a little with the movement. “All right, Raphael. Whatever makes you happy. I’m guessing what we just saw on TV was interference of some kind by our old friends the Reptilians?” “Precisely,” he replied. “When Martin and Kirsten drove the Reptilians from this place, they did not go all the way home. Instead, they — ” “So where exactly is ‘home’?” Paul asked. That was probably a question he’d been pondering for longer than I’d been alive, and I could tell he’d been itching to ask it. Otto’s — that is, Raphael’s — mouth thinned. I got the impression he wasn’t too pleased by the interruption. “What your people refer to as Alpha Draconis, if you must know.” Paul, in contrast to the gorgeous but scowling Raphael, looked like someone who’d just won a bar bet. “I knew it,” he muttered under his breath, but he settled back against the back of the couch, apparently content to let Raphael continue with his story now that his question had been answered. “As I was saying,” Raphael continued, now sounding as tetchy as someone with such a warm tenor voice could, “after their defeat, the Reptilians did not return to their home system. Instead, they set up a base on Mars, where they could continue to monitor your world from a safe distance.” “Only now it’s not so safe, is it?” Lance put in. “No. Neither safe for you, nor for them.” “Who attacked the astronauts?” The words were out of my mouth before I even realized I was going to ask the question. So far, this discussion had included only the grown-ups in the room, and I’d gotten the impression that the younger generation was supposed to stay out of it. But all of us “kids” were in fact adults, even my cousin Melissa, who at nineteen wasn’t old enough to drink but was definitely an adult in the eyes of the law. Anyway, I figured we had just as much right to be involved in the conversation as anyone else. “Are they dead?” Raphael’s dark gaze slid back toward me. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said he was wearing mascara or something. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a man with lashes that thick and black. Then I wanted to shake myself, because what the hell difference did it make anyway? I shouldn’t be focusing on trivial details like that, not when something so much more important was going on. “No, they’re not dead,” he replied, and a sort of collective sigh of relief filled the room. “But do not think the Reptilians saved them out of altruism. Since being banished to Mars, they have been unable to collect any human specimens. Now several humans have fallen into their hands.” “My God,” Persephone said, while my friend Taryn shot a frightened look at her mother. I could only imagine how hard this must be for the two of them — both psychics, both probably being bombarded from all sides by the worry and fear and confusion flying around the room. Even I could almost feel it, and I definitely wasn’t psychic. Yes, I’d inherited a few peculiar talents from my parents, along with their alien blood, but reading minds wasn’t one of those gifts. At least, not in the way Taryn could. I knew my parents shared a special kind of psychic link that allowed them to communicate without speaking aloud, but that was because of their soul bond. I’d only be able to read the thoughts of my soul mate, and so far he didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry to appear. My father stood up then. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a sweater and his favorite pair of scuffed lace-ups, the ones my mother had been bugging him to get rid of forever, but in that moment, I could see how he was clearly of the same race as Raphael, tall and perfect and somehow ageless. I’d sort of taken his appearance — and my mother’s — for granted, since they were my parents and I looked at them every day. Seeing them now, though, I realized how much they really did stand out from the rest of the group who’d gathered at my Aunt Kara’s house, and wondered why I’d never noticed before. I supposed I should count myself lucky, since I’d inherited those same looks, thus guaranteeing that I’d probably get carded into my forties the way my mother still did, but that was a story for another day. In the meantime, I wanted to hear what my father had to say. “You said, ‘circumstances have changed,’” he reminded Raphael. “How so?” For a second, Raphael hesitated. I could almost see him running over possible answers in his mind, wondering how much to tell us. After all, my father and my mother and I were of his race, or at least partially so, but everyone else there was just a mere human in his eyes. Well, except for Grace and Logan, who were Reptilian/human hybrids, even though they didn’t look it. Anyway, I guessed that Raphael didn’t want to reveal too much in front of any of them, even if he had come to us for help. At least, I assumed that was why he’d appeared out of the blue like that. Why else would he show up after so many years? “It is…possible,” he began, sounding somewhat hesitant, “possible, I’ll admit, that perhaps we were somewhat too strict when it came to interpreting our rules about non-interference.” My father’s eyebrows lifted, and my mother frowned, then said, “Seriously? That’s what you’ve decided, after taking Martin’s powers away and making sure that neither I nor my daughter were ever able to explore a universe that should have been ours?” She sounded bitter, and I couldn’t blame her. Not that I really wanted to have grown up anywhere except Sedona, since it was what I knew. Some people might have thought it was exciting to be three-quarters alien, but I didn’t know if I possessed the courage to leave the world where I’d been born and travel among the stars the way my father had. Not that I’d ever been given the option, of course. “It is not what I personally have decided,” Raphael said, that waspish note back in his voice. “Rather, after certain other events transpired in the interim, many members of the Assembly realized that we might have underestimated the ambitions of the Reptilians.” “I thought you said they just went to Mars and set up shop there,” I said. “The group that had its base here in Sedona, yes,” he replied. “But of course, they were only a very small fraction of the total Reptilian population. Perhaps spurred by their defeat here, they have expanded more aggressively in their own sector of the galaxy, and subjugated many who did not have the fortune to be protected by those such as your mother.” At those words of praise — indirect as they were — my mother sent a startled glance in Raphael’s direction. Probably, the last thing she’d expected to hear him say was anything positive about the way she’d managed to call on her powers to drive the Reptilians out of Sedona. She’d had to summon a strength she didn’t even know she possessed to prevent those hostile aliens from gaining access to the peculiar energies at work here. “At any rate,” he went on, “we did nothing to dislodge them from their base on Mars, since it seemed that they were only observing and not taking any direct action against your people.” “Until now,” Paul said, his voice grim. “What we just saw on TV looked like pretty direct action to me.” “It was,” Raphael agreed, “and in doing so, they have opened themselves up for retaliation. We had hoped to avoid such an eventuality.” “But what can any of us do?” Persephone asked. She pushed back a few strands of curly hair and added, “After all, it took five months for that expedition to get to Mars….” Raphael and my father exchanged a glance. I thought I saw amusement in Raphael’s eyes, while my father — his expression was a little more difficult to parse. Eagerness…worry…maybe a tinge of excitement? “Our technology is advanced far beyond yours,” Raphael said then. “From here to Mars is a trip of only a little more than an hour.” Paul’s eyes looked like they were going to bug out of his head. “‘A little more than an hour’?” he repeated. “You can’t use FTL for intra-system travel, can you? Is it some form of gravity drive?” Holding up a hand, Raphael said, “The technology involved is of no concern right now. What does matter is that we reach those prisoners before the Reptilians can do anything to bring them harm.” “‘We’?” my father inquired, again with a lift of his eyebrow that I knew all too well. “Yes,” Raphael replied, apparently ignoring the sarcastic edge to the question. “You and Kirsten and” — he paused for a moment, gaze traveling to me for a second or two before moving back toward my father again— “your daughter Callista.” Shock coursed through me, even as my mother burst out, “Are you insane? Do you think I’m going to let you drag my daughter off-planet on some sort of insane rescue mission? She’s just a kid!” “Thanks, Mom,” I remarked sourly. All right, I knew she was only speaking from a place of worry and fear. But she didn’t really think I was a child…did she? I could vote, drink, get married, or start my own business if I wanted to. At the same time, I was almost glad of her protective mama-bear attitude. I might have been three-quarters alien, but up until that point in my life, I hadn’t done anything more dangerous than attempt some ultralight flying over the red rocks of my hometown. “She is almost the same age you were when you defended this place against the Reptilians,” Raphael said calmly. “That was different!” “How?” “Well — ” She flailed for a few seconds, then sent a pleading look in my father’s direction. “Martin, tell him how crazy this is.” He was silent for a long moment while everyone else looked on. I wouldn’t say the rest of the group were holding their breaths, exactly, but it was obvious that they could all tell this decision was something my parents would have to agree on, and so were trying to stay out of it — even my Aunt Kara, who wasn’t exactly known for her hands-off attitude. Maybe the decision to go also lay between me and Raphael, too, since he wanted the four of us to make up the rescue party, but it was clear that the human contingent, or even the human/alien hybrid contingent, hadn’t been included in this particular invitation. Then my father looked over at me. His eyes, the same smoky gray-blue as mine, were troubled. “Raphael is right in that. You’re an adult. You have to decide what you want to do.” I swallowed. What the hell was I supposed to say? Never mind that I didn’t know how in the world I’d be of any help in rescuing a bunch of kidnapped astronauts from the hands of some particularly nasty aliens. If I’d been invited to do some power shopping down in Phoenix, maybe then I would have been of some help. Yes, my Uncle Lance had made sure I knew how to shoot a variety of guns and maneuver a 4x4 up a rocky cliff face, but those skills, useful as they might be down here in Sedona, still didn’t seem quite what was required for a rescue mission to Mars. Then I sent a quick glance over at Raphael, trying to gauge what might be going through his mind. Did he think I was weak for not immediately volunteering? But his face was impassive. He waited there in those white robes of his, which should have looked foolish in the prosaic surroundings of my aunt’s family room but instead only made the rest of us appear woefully underdressed. I still didn’t understand any of this, not really, and I could tell from the way my mother’s brows were drawn together that she was also having a hard time figuring out what this all meant. That decided it, really. As frightening as what Raphael was asking might be, I couldn’t quite feel all that scared, not when I knew my parents would be going along as well. And maybe if we did as he asked and were successful, he’d ask the Assembly — whoever they were — to lift my father’s exile and return the powers that had been stripped from him. That would be worth whatever risks I might have to take. I lifted my chin and asked, “And my father? I assume you’re going to restore his powers, or what would be the point in his going with you?” A flicker of something I couldn’t quite read passed over Raphael’s perfect features. “You are correct in that assumption. I have been given the ability to return those powers to him, if he agrees to help.” Well, that decided it. Not that I’d really seriously considered leaving the Mars mission’s astronauts to their fate when I apparently had the ability to do something about it, but if this expedition meant that my father would once again have the powers which had been stripped from him before I was even born, then I knew there was only one thing I could say. He was watching me closely and gave the slightest shake of his head, as if to say, Don’t do this on my account. But I’d already made up my mind. I didn’t exactly know what my father had been missing all these years, but if I had a chance to put things right…. “Okay,” I said. “Tell us what we have to do.”