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Remiel took me for a flying lesson. My wings were weak and tired easily. It felt weird to use them this way, but good to stretch them out. We flew to his office. It was a silent trip because it’s hard to have a conversation while flying; there’s wind rushing past your ears, noise from the ground below, and I didn’t have the lung capacity for flying. I wasn’t terribly athletic because I hadn’t needed to be, and I could feel it. My lungs ached by the time we arrived at his office. Flying was much, much faster. I understood why my uncles preferred to fly rather than drive anywhere.
I was gulping air as we walked from the roof to the floor with Remiel’s office. I would have said I was panting, but the word didn’t do my labored breathing justice. Remiel smiled at me. I ignored him.
Remiel had a large office with an attached conference room. There were two computers set up in the conference room, as well as some white pull-down screens and two projectors. There was a box of markers and a couple of whiteboards. He pointed to one of the computers. It was attached to a larger flat screen TV and one of the projectors.
“Flying gets easier,” Remiel said as he walked around to the other side of the table.
“Hey, I have a question. Jerome said all demons are angels. Is he right? What does that mean?” I asked.
“Yes,” Remiel frowned. “Human souls get an afterlife in Heaven or Hell or some variation of it. Supernatural souls don’t, they are tied to the Stygian. Angels, vampires, werewolves, etc., all go to the Stygian when they die. They don’t remember being alive and on Earth, and the Stygian warps the soul, making it demonic.”
“Why?” I asked, feeling like a two-year-old.
“Because the universe is a cruel master,” Remiel said as if it explained everything.
“How so?” I asked.
“The universe requires energy, lots of energy. Magic is a form of energy. Every soul—whether human, supernatural, or witch—contains magic. Because humans have such short lifespans, they get to go to Heaven or Hell and their souls continue to live there for a time. Think of it as an extension of their lives on Earth. Supernaturals don’t usually have short lives; as a result, our souls enter the Stygian upon death, allowing the universe to continue to siphon magic from us.” Remiel was staring at the table.
“Which is why demons have magic.”
“Yes,” Remiel said. On that unhappy note, we began to look through all the surveillance footage. Suddenly, I stopped, thinking about my conversation with Jerome in the bathroom of my parents’ house. I paused my feed and told Remiel to do the same.
“This morning, I commented to Jerome that even if the killer was a supernatural, you’d catch him,” I said.
“Uh huh,” Remiel answered.
“Well, I just had a thought, it can’t be a supernatural unless it’s an angel or Nephilim.”
“Why?”
“Because of the metal shavings,” I suggested. “No one allergic to silver or iron is going to put a container full of its shavings in their vehicle and drive around. But since angels and nephilim aren’t allergic to silver or iron, the killer could be of angelic stock or could be human—that’s it.”
“Sound reasoning,” Remiel said. “It’s unlikely they are driving around wearing a respirator or gas mask, so I think you’re probably right—but angels do have a very mild reaction to silver.”
“I only react to silver when there’s magic involved,” I said, remembering the mild flare that had happened when I put on Jerome’s magical pendant for the first time. The silver had gotten warm and emitted light for a couple of seconds and then I hadn’t noticed it again until I’d traded it out for the sun pendant that he’d made me. Rinse and repeat reaction to first one.
“Considering you couldn’t feel or follow the magic, we’ll go with human and police officer,” Remiel said. Unfortunately, the video cameras weren’t good enough to show me their irises unless they walked up to the door. Meaning that I couldn’t tell just by looking at the people driving down our road who was human and who wasn’t, unless, the person had something that made it obvious they weren’t human—like freaking wings. Some of the Fey have wings, but not all. They have membranous wings, like an insect or bat. Not the feathered monstrosities that angels carried, and I was noticing that, sometimes at a distance, the wings of the Fey weren’t really visible on the camera.
I put the footage into fast forward again and set it rolling. I found it surprising that my neighborhood didn’t have more traffic. I’d watched three straight hours in fast forward and only seen a single car, which had belonged to Lyzette. By the time we took a lunch break, my eyes felt like they had been sandblasted. My head was starting to hurt. I was stiff from sitting. Lunch was ordered in, and Remiel kept examining my black eye and busted lips while we waited for it to arrive.
“Not to be insensitive, but there is an issue we need to discuss,” Remiel said after a few minutes.
“Oh hell,” I said, dropping my eyes to stare at his feet. Insensitive? Yep, I was not going to like this conversation.
“Is Jerome okay with being introduced as your son?” Remiel asked.
“Um, what?” I asked, suddenly confused.
“It’s been a year, and none of us know how to introduce him beyond Jerome. Hey, this is Jerome, my niece’s ... Yeah ... What? Adopted son? That always sounds wrong, especially since his mom was still alive. Mostly, we’ve been trying to avoid it, but there have been a few times that it’s gotten complicated.”
“Like the baseball game,” I sighed. It seems that even in this day and age, a white woman walking with a black teen raises eyebrows. A bunch of white people, several with wings, hanging out with a black teen raises even more eyebrows. At one of the baseball games, a server with our catered box seats had slipped Jerome a note asking if he needed help. Then security had shown up toward the end of the seventh inning to check on his welfare. Someone had reported we were kidnapping him and holding him hostage to make him perform magic for us, ensuring the Cardinals would win the game. Thankfully, they had called the police and the police officer that arrived had known Remiel, Uriel, and Azrael, as well as Janet and the lawyer that was handling Jerome’s legal guardianship transfer. The organization had sent an apology letter to Remiel, Jerome, and Valerie, but we’d missed the last two innings.
This was made worse by the fact that my family was big on affection. They were huggers, even in public. Jerome was a dark-skinned African American teen. His mom had been Northern African, tracing her roots to Algeria, and light skinned. She’d warned me when they first moved in that people sometimes asked if she was his biological mom because of the difference in skin tone. I had told her it wasn’t a big deal, and it had only taken me a month to realize I was wrong. Jerome and I had both fallen into the habit of telling people he was my adopted son and letting them sort it out in their own heads to the best of their ability. But I understand Remiel’s question. His mom had just died. Would that change how he wanted to be identified to strangers when it came to me or my family? Would the term now be painful for him to hear? I shrugged.
“I know, you probably hadn’t even had time to think of it yet,” Remiel said.
“Honestly, I think we’re both more focused on just getting through this minute than anything else. I didn’t even know what she wanted for her final wishes. I’ve been trying to ignore this outcome for the entire year I’ve known them. Instead, convincing myself, Jerome, and Valerie that this would never happen. But it did and I was unprepared for it.” I wiped at a tear.
“Yeah.” Remiel looked at his hands. “Valerie talked to all of us about it. Not about your optimism on the situation, but about how we could help you once it did happen. She was worried about how hard you’d take it.”
“No offense, but can we talk about our killer instead? It’s been a day. I’m still not prepared to talk about it or deal with it. I need to focus on other things.”
“Understood,” Remiel said and there was a buzz from the phone on his desk. My stomach growled.
“Mr. Remiel, there’s a young man here with some strange looking friends. He says you asked them to bring in lunch. They have several bags of food.”
“Ah, excellent,” Remiel said. “That would be Jerome and the US Marshals, send them in. We’ll eat in the conference room. No wait, have them wait for a minute while we get some stuff cleaned up. Wait like two minutes and then send them in.” Remiel was already walking away from the phone and into the conference room. He shut both laptop lids, took a picture of the whiteboards with his phone and then hurriedly erased them. He was wiping away the last word when the door was opened by an efficient looking woman with her hair pulled up in a severe bun and a scowl on her face. Beside her was Jerome. I couldn’t help but smile.
“Martha! Come in too, please!” Remiel yelled through the open conference room door.
I stood and walked over to the conference room, leading the food parade. Joyce, Remiel’s receptionist, was behind me a step or two. She continued to scowl, and as soon as she saw Martha, she turned and left. Martha was Remiel’s private secretary. He technically shared the office with three other investigators, but Martha only worked for Remiel. She stood in the conference room, her spine as stiff as a steel rod. The scowl never leaving her face.
“Yes, sir?” She looked at me and then at the group of people. “Do you need petty cash to pay for lunch?”
“Absolutely not,” Remiel said. “I want to formally introduce you to some of my family. You’ve met my niece, Soleil, and this is her ...” He paused and looked at Jerome.
“I’m Soleil’s adopted son,” Jerome said, and his eyes looked shinier than normal.
“This is Jerome,” I took the bag from him and put it on the table.
“I’m going to be training Soleil and with summer break starting at the witches’ school, I think we’ll be seeing quite a bit of Jerome, and I wanted to make sure you knew he was family.”
“Very good, sir,” Martha said, then she turned and left.
“I guess the rest of you are chopped liver,” I commented.
“Martha is very stodgy,” Remiel said.
“She doesn’t like me,” Jerome replied.
“She doesn’t know you,” Duke answered quickly. “Once she does get to know you, she’ll like you.”
“Martha is convinced all witches are evil for some reason. I think after getting to know Jerome, she’ll still think 99.9% of witches are evil. I don’t even think he could thaw her heart, but I wanted her to realize I expected her to treat him with the respect she treats me with, even if he is a witch.” Remiel told Duke.
“Plus, he wanted to know how I wanted to be identified,” Jerome said, a sly look on his face.
“Um, what?” I asked.
“I could hear you when I walked into the reception area. You were talking about whether I wanted to be identified as your adopted son or not. You said you didn’t know; we hadn’t gotten that far with life yet.”
“Fan-fucking-tabulous,” I glared at my uncle. Sometimes, I forgot Jerome had amazing hearing because he was a wizard.
“I had wondered about it, too,” Jerome told me. “I thought about saying I was your son, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to say I was adopted or not to avoid the incident like we had at the baseball game.”
“People suck,” I said, taking a seat and letting the Marshals into the room. “Do you have thoughts on the matter?” He handed me a carton that was marked Pad Thai Fajitas and I took it. Then he handed me tortilla shells.
“I think people suck.” Jerome answered and sat down.