Chapter 1
"Jesse, the door is obviously not opening."
"No, I have it- ow, Ariel! Okay, okay, you didn't have to hit me."
"Both of you be quiet. Eric, move. I've got it."
"Watch your elbows, Sasha! I don't think it opens that way."
"Here. It says PUSH. Get out of the way, Eric! Idiots. Vee, help."
"Courtney--oh, this is a heavy door--keep your voice down."
The entrance to the rickety old motel opens with a slow, eventual creak. It is an understatement to say the desk clerk doesn't look happy to see six sopping wet kids stumble into his lobby. I'm tracking in a mixture of blood, mud and seawater on the carpet, but it is already dirty anyway. At least my tattered dress looks remotely normal if you ignore the rips. Courtney, meanwhile, with her long skirt looks like she came from a disaster prom.
"What can I do to help you kids?" the clerk says, standing. He thins his lips so much they disappear.
"A warm bath would be nice," Eric suggests.
There's a good thump from behind me, and I hear Sasha hiss, "Dude!"
I sigh. "Sorry. A room, please."
The clerk narrows his beady eyes. He probably thinks we're teenage runaways on drugs. After all, if you look close enough, two of us have glowing eyes.
"I could just compel him to rent us one," Jesse mutters quietly to me. "It'll waste less time."
I dig my elbow into his ribs with a look of warning. He makes an equally distressful face at me, as if Aunt Nelly will catch up to us any minute now. I doubt a small, smelly room will make much of a difference. If Aunt Nelly has tracked us down, all we can hope to do is run.
"Are you over eighteen years of age?" he questions, tapping open a window on his computer.
"Yes," I answer simply. Well, it is true.
"I will need your name and credit card then," the clerk replies tightly, scratching his blond stubble.
You need credit cards to check into motels?
"Uhm... my name..." I mutter. "Aurora Long."
Courtney snorts loudly. I resist the urge to turn around and throw something at her.
The clerk types my fake name, scowling like he has swallowed something sour.
"Okay," he says. "Credit card details?"
"Uhm..." I turn to Jesse, mouthing, Help.
"Credit card?" the clerk pushes. "Or is there a problem?"
"No problem at all," Jesse says, taking over and smiling with perfect ease. "We already gave you the details, remember?"
I hold my breath as the clerk turns to his screen, frowning. His eyes swivel the details that are obviously blank, but hopefully he is seeing something else.
"Indeed," he finally says.
The clerk reaches below the desk, and I let out my slow exhale
"Your key." He eyes all six of us again, displeased. "Will you need... extra blankets?"
"We're fine," I say cheerily, grabbing the key with 208 printed on it. "And we can show ourselves to the room."
I spin on my heel, ushering everyone out before he can regret giving us a key.
"Payment is twenty dollars per night," he calls after us.
"Okay!" I call back loudly, attempting to drown at Courtney's wry remark: "It's not like we're going to pay it."
"Do you want him calling the cops?" I ask sharply as soon as we're out into the cool night air.
"Aurora Long?" she mocks in return. "If Dr. White comes looking and asking for an Ariel Song, it doesn't take a genius to connect the names."
"I panicked!"
"Shut up, you two!" Vee hisses, butting in. "You're going to wake someone."
I fume, but clamp my lips together.
"Who cares," Eric says loudly, his voice carrying through the silent parking lot. It is empty except for a few motorcycles and some broken windswept tree branches. "We don't have our anklets anymore. I'll sic a lion on them."
It's been four hours since we left Vendetta House, barely escaping with our lives. One hour since climbing off the dinghy that had capsized three times as we sped across the ocean, going from the isolated island we had been trapped on to land by following a couple of fish Eric talked to. We had wandered in from a little beach full of seaweed and driftwood, and walked miles in a strange countryside before this isolated motel came into view.
"Good luck finding a lion out here," Jesse says, yawning.
"Speaking of which," I say, tilting my head up and searching the balcony-like floor above for our room, "does anyone know where here is?"
"Since the giant sign over there says Rotorua Roadside Rest Stop," Sasha reads as we stomp up the metal stairs. "I'm going to guess a place called Rotorua."
Courtney suddenly stops, frozen in place. We all still with her, but she gives no explanation to why she has stopped.
"Courtney?" I ask, turning around. "You planning to move anytime soon?"
She blinks twice, shaking herself out of it, and extends a hand for the handrail.
"Rotorua?" she murmurs. "We're in New Zealand." Courtney swallows perceptibly. "This is where I'm from."
"Oh," Sasha says.
"Oh," Eric echoes.
"Oh," I mutter, finding our room and sticking the key in. The knob turns but the door doesn't budge. I slam my shoulder against the wood, only to bounce back with a sore shoulder. "What is up with the doors in this place? It's stuck."
I give the door a firm kick in the middle.
"Careful!" Jesse exclaims. It swings wide open. "You'll break it off the hinges."
"Are we going to talk about your new superstrengths?" Eric says, flicking on the light. "Or are we just ignoring it now?"
"I've always had superstrength," I reply. I blurt it out before I can take it back. "I'm part-Nephilum."
Stunned silence. "Just because I'm also Nephilum doesn't mean I'm going to kill anyone, okay?" I rush to assure. "Relax. I'm still perfectly harmless."
Eric turns to Jesse, who obviously wasn't as surprised as everyone else. "You knew?" he shrieks.
"Hey," I say. "I only found out a few hours ago, and I can't exactly communicate with all of you telepathically."
"B-but," Sasha stammers. "You're a Cambion. You have abilities. I just, what?"
"In short," I say. "My grandmother was a demon--that part you already knew--and my grandfather an angel. My mom is an Eve, at least I think that's the official term. So I'm both Cambion and Nephilum."
There's another second of silence, before Sasha breaks it by saying, "That is so unfair. You already get all the demonic abilities, spirit-seeing, and visions. Now you're Nephilum too?"
I shrug, not bothering to argue that I'd rather be without some of those. "I'm a very special snowflake."
Unlike Cambions, who are demon-human hybrids, or Nephilum, who are angel-human hybrids, being a Daughter of Eve means I get a mix of human blood from the other parent, my dad in this instance.
I am half-human, quarter-demon, quarter-angel. Normal people brag about being one-sixteenth Greek. I brag about being possibly the first person to have a mix of bloodlines from the three original species inhabiting Earth.
Before our narrow escape from Vendetta House, Aunt Nelly had revealed that she wanted my bloodline, convinced that with my demonic abilities, I can lead her army of brain-washed, mindless Cambions to war against the Nephilum in her vendetta. Of course, that was before she found out I was Nephilum too. Now she just wants to kill me.
The Nephilum had murdered her demon mother-it was their job. But ever since the demon population on Earth began dwindling, the Nephilum unfairly moved onto killing demon offspring: Cambions.
Aunt Nelly isn't aware that all second-generation Cambions have an equal distribution of all demonic abilities instead of just one, and that I'm not as special as she had originally thought. I am rare, but hardly a miracle child. Being first-generation, a pure Cambion, Aunt Nelly only gets one ability set, but it is stronger and more concentrated than my entire variety combined. Her concentrated ability, energy, also comes with other things only a pure can do. Aunt Nelly can suck the souls out of Cambions and tether them a section of the House: West Wing.
We discovered that she would use their bodies--and the abilities that came with them--as mindless soldiers that fought only for her will. As if it wasn't bad enough she was mind-controlling her victims' powers for violence, their soul was trapped and unable to leave the place too. Until Sasha and I burned down the wing until there was nothing-in both infrastructure or energy-left over.
I rub a hand over the ridge of my nose, gesturing to the room and attempting to rid the subject away from everyone's mind. It doesn't matter that the inter-species of Cambions and Nephilum might be at war any minute. We can worry about that in the morning.
"It's way past midnight," I say. "I just want to sleep."
"How are we organizing this?" Sasha asks, nodding at the dingy room.
I survey the two single beds, pursing my lips. The motel room is simply one large bedroom with a bathroom. I sure as hell am not sleeping on the dirty floor.
"How about we push the two together," I say, waving my hand at the beds, "and sleep across the width?"
"Wait, wait, wait," Courtney interrupts. "We're all sleeping... together?"
I have to physically bite my lips shut to refrain from snarking something inappropriate.
"We're crashing for one night," I say, exasperated. "I think everyone will keep their hands to themselves."
There's also a slight possibility that Courtney is afraid to sleep in the room as me with this new Nephilum revelation, but she'd rather swallow her own tongue than admit that.
Taking the lazy way out, I raise a hand and crash the two beds together with telekinesis. Vee helps too, using hers to flip out the tucked blankets and swing it away.
"Night!" I call, taking the spot by the headboard.
It takes a lot of grumbling and shoving of arms, but after a few minutes, six teenagers have somehow fit onto two single beds.
Vee flicks her wrist, and the lights go out.
***
I jolt awake, a strange sense of unease overtaking me.
"Ariel?" Jesse mumbles groggily. I must have whacked him when I sat upright. "What's the matter?"
"I don't know," I whisper, rubbing my eyes. "Something's wrong."
"You're just not used to being outside the House," he replies. He rolls over to avoid my long hair falling into his face, only to get a mouthful of Sasha's frizzy hair.
I stay sitting, trying to work out what is wrong.
Someone's snore is quietly traveling through the room as I squint into the sluggish, fading dark. I can see quite well, since the sky outside is that weird, murky light before dawn. The clock reads 5:13 AM. If it's not my internal clock that woke me up, then what is it?
A chill runs up my left arm: prickly goosebumps appearing in a trail.
Jesse nudges my leg, annoyed that my hair is still in his face. "Go back to sleep."
I shift my weight to lie back down, and bring my hand up to gather my hair. It is with this movement that I realize there is a pulse going off in the back of my hand, and a sudden flash of déjà vu hits me.
"Get up!" I exclaim, raising my voice. I scramble off the bed, and start shaking the sleeping bodies. "Get up. Now."
"Ariel? What's going on?" Vee croaks faintly, sitting up. Her posture is rigid, but her eyes are foggy and sleepy. Sasha falls off the bed in her attempt to seem alert, and Courtney lifts her head, responding with a snarl. I would laugh at the mess her usually dead-straight chestnut hair is in, but my stomach feels ready to give out from terror and mortal peril.
Eric isn't moving unless you count the rise and fall of his snores.
"I'm serious. We need to leave," I hiss. "Eric!"
I charge my finger with a tiny dosage of energy, and give him a zap.
"Ow!" he shouts, bolting upright. His blond hair is sticking up in one side and completely flat on the other. "Why are we getting up?"
"There are Nephilum coming," I screech. "I can feel it!"
At this, everyone is much more awake, anxiety drawn on their faces.
"How do you know?" Sasha says, shaking her head to clear it and getting to her feet.
I rush to the window, peering beyond the lonely parking lot for a sign of the vicious hunters.
"I can feel it," I repeat urgently. "When the Nephilum attacked the House, I could feel a thrumming at the back of my hand. It's happening again."
"How did they find us?" Eric asks, looking close to lying back down.
Jesse gives him a thump on the shoulder.
"We left the House," I say. "The House's energy was protecting our demonic essence from being tracked."
There's also a chance they're tracking my angelic essence too like last time, but I don't mention that.
"So, what you're saying is no matter where we go, the Nephilum can still find us?" Courtney shrills.
I spin around, wiping my sweaty hands on my stiff dress. "Probably. I don't know!"
"We need to leave then," Vee says quietly, standing. "As long as we can outrun them. I mean, it took them a while to find us here, right?"
"But where do we go?" Eric asks. "Where can we go?"
"Manhattan," Sasha pipes up.
"Manhattan?" Courtney repeats in question.
"Now?" Eric says. "At 5 AM?"
"No, not now. But she's right," I breathe. "Sasha's sister, Bethany, appeared in spirit before we left and told us to go to Manhattan, New York City. Something's got to be there, right?"
"I'm so confused," Courtney says. "Sasha has a sister? Will someone explain?"
She is ignored.
"So we'll get to the nearest airport," Jesse says, joining me by the window and peeking out. "But we may have to deal with them first."
I crane my head to see what he is seeing, and sure enough, silhouettes are blurring down the road.
"Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. What do we do?"
"There's a bathroom window!" Sasha says. "We can climb out there and block off the door and that-" she points to the glass panes I'm looking out, "-window."
"Okay. Everyone out." I nod at Courtney and tilt my chin at the window. She understands, and raises an outward palm, growing thick, bark-like vines over the glass. Let's see the Nephilum try smash through that.
Meanwhile, I hold my own hands together, a blob of water forming a few inches above my skin. I direct the blob onto the knob of the door, and into the keyhole. I rapidly draw more and more water, taking all the vapor from the air until the entire door is covered by a large mass of liquid held only by my concentration. Then I freeze it, and the door is held practically impenetrable by a foot of thick ice.
Courtney makes a noise at the back of her throat. "I can barely breathe in here. Did you have to take all the water from the air?"
"Do you want tired lungs, or do you want to be dead?"
We dash into the bathroom where Vee is carefully levitating Eric out the large, second-floor window. Sasha is already below, her hands alight with fire in case of an attack.
I levitate Jesse before he can complain, and he goes out the window.
"A little warning would be nice next time!" he calls from the ground.
Courtney is cast out next, and then I levitate Vee as she steps onto the window ledge.
"What about you?" she asks as I get my mental hold.
"Don't worry. I can fly, remember?"
Just as her feet hit the ground, there is a loud thud in the bedroom. A loud, male growl echoes in, followed by a crack that unfortunately sounds like ice.
I leap out the window, using energy to hover myself just before my feet touch the ground.
"Go! Go!" Sasha is shouting at the others. "Come on. Hurry, Ariel!"
I feel thunderous vibrations of broken wood and shattered ice; surprised shouts and quick reflexes working to locate us again.
And we've barely even moved before the Nephilum have surrounded us.
Sasha raises her hands, ready to engulf them with fire, but I stop her with an arm.
"Wait," I whisper. "Let's see what they want."
I spin to survey the group of twenty or so hostile Nephilum circled around us, weapons raised. They all have their signature markings: a black ring of intertwined lines on both wrists and ankles. Each have four, while I only have one on my ankle, earned from killing Dr. Hood, a demon.
"To kill us maybe?" she hisses back.
"We won't kill you yet," says a middle-aged Nephilum with graying hair, stepping forward.
"Gee, thanks," I grumble. "That's so kind of you."
The Nephilum man flares his nostrils.
"You should be thankful we are not pulling you apart right now, demon-blood," he spits. "Enough playing, where is the Libero relic?"
"Say it, don't spray it," I mutter under my breath. He definitely heard it with his Nephilum hearing though.
I take a step back, and a hand closes around my arm, squeezing once in warning that perhaps I should stop provoking them.
"We don't have a relic," Jesse says.
"The entire group that traveled to your island is dead," he tells us. "There is no other explanation for what your leader is defending."
The group that came to the island did say they were looking for a relic too. But Aunt Nelly thought they were tracking an opposing Nephilum spy. She said she sent them away, but if this guy isn't lying, Aunt Nelly killed them all.
"You will hand over the relic," middle-aged Nephilum barks. "You practically reek of Unallegianced angelic essence. The relic must be in your holding."
"Is unallegianced even a word?" Jesse whispers in my ear.
"Silence!" the Nephilum roars.
"Someone's pissed," Courtney mutters.
I bite back the corners of my twitching lips.
"I will not hesitate to end you," he seethes. "Tell me where the relic is."
I sigh. "For the last time, we don't have a relic. Maybe you misplaced it."
"Enough! Attack!"
I barely duck his sudden swing, his fist skimming my ear. I guess that was the final straw. And they move fast. A blur of an arm strikes again, hitting the top of my cheekbone, and my world spins for a second. Seething, I chide myself for fighting so human, and charge my arms full of energy. The back space of the motel alights in several different colors-practically a light show-as our streaks begin to glow. Yellow: I fling out bolts of energy. Behind me, a dark red, as Nephilum trying to attack Jesse fall to the floor, shrieking from white noise in their head. Orange: Sasha strikes with whips made of lava. Green: Courtney is growing vines in every crack of the floor, slithering up the legs of unsuspecting Nephilum, while Vee gives off a deep indigo as she floats them into the air and plucks away the weapons they have forgotten to use in surprise. Eric would give off a bright purple, but he's sort of uselessly standing in the middle of our circle. Or maybe whatever animal he's trying to call can't arrive very fast.
Our defensive attack works well while the Nephilum are stunned that we are actually fighting back. In Vendetta House, we were forbidden to use our powers. Now, I don't know how I ever survived without the rush of power that made me forget I wasn't invincible. Cambions, in history, tended to run off and hide. The Nephilum wasn't expecting us to be any different and are caught off-guard, but then they remember they have guns.
There is a loud bang as a bullet whizzes by, barely missing my arm. I let Vee deal with hurling away their weapons and ignore it, now giving off a blue light by incapacitating more Nephilum with water into their noses.
I stop short when Eric gives a sharp yell.
"No!" Jesse and Sasha shout in unison. I inhale sharply, whirling around.
The Nephilum woman grins, holding Eric with an arm around his neck and a handgun pressed to his temple. The fighting immediately ceases, the Nephilum seeing that we have stopped moving in fear that the woman might shoot.
"Here's a proposition," she says sharply. "The fact that this relic is returned to us is everything. Give it to us, and I let the demon-blood go."
My mind whirls, thinking of a way out. I can't tell them where the relic is because I don't know where this relic is.
«Don't even bother giving them an answer,» Jesse says in my head silently. «They're planning to kill us whether we tell them anything or not.»
Without turning to look at him, I say, «How do you know?»
«Princess,» he says. I can practically hear the sigh that would follow if we were speaking aloud. «It seems that because I have been reading your mind less, you are forgetting that I can read minds. And so can you.»
"Well?" another Nephilum demands. "We're waiting."
I chew my lip. I'm fast, but am I fast enough?
I must have mulled for too long, because the woman's face hardens. Her fingers twitch over the trigger. A rush of adrenaline fills my veins, strengthening me at my core and spreading like ice in my boiling blood.
The moment before her finger pulls the trigger, I dart out in a blink, grabbing Eric's arm and pulling him back. A slight knee graze is better than having your brains blown out.
The bullet misfires in the air, but the woman, surprised I yanked Eric right from under her grasp, recovers quick and aims her fury at me. She shoots for my heart, but from the giant shove in momentum that is still going, the bullet lands in my shoulder instead.
I yelp, screaming very bad words. There is white-hot pain that pulsates into my bones. But I take a breath, and it fizzes out. The wound is already beginning to close.
I try not to wince as I quickly dig my fingers into the bullet wound and grasp the bullet. With a bit of telekinesis, I shimmy the hot metal out, and fling the bullet at the woman who shot it at me. She jumps back like it's a grenade.
"Next time you shoot someone," I mutter. "Make sure they're not bulletproof first."
"She's one of us," someone hisses.
I back away, preparing to run. I glance over my shoulder to make sure the group is okay. Bruised, but okay.
"No," the middle-aged Nephilum says, an insanely creepy grin breaking out on his face. "A Child of Eve. The Child of Eve that Amanel has been threatening us with."
I freeze. The Nephilum know about Aunt Nelly?
He waves a hand. "Change of plans. You are all coming back with us."
Staring, I am slow to comprehend why.
"No, thanks," Courtney says, faking cheer. "We've got somewhere to be."
His expression darkens immensely.
I slowly charge up my arm with energy again, waiting for the time to strike. But before I can attack again, he's moved into our little circle and behind me. I try move away, but something thin and painful-razor wire, presumably-is looped around my head and pressed onto my neck, tight against the skin.
"All I have to do is put pressure on this," he says, "and you will not heal. It is used to decapitate those of us that go rogue. So do think twice against any sudden movements."
I try crane my head back slowly to see what's happening with the others, but a jerk in the wire makes me stop.
Great.
«You okay?»
«Fine,» Jesse replies, wincing silently. « kind of wish we just let Sasha burn them into ashes when we had the chance.»
"Come, come," the Nephilum holding my wire says cheerily. I make a hissing noise in the back of my throat. "It's not a long walk."
I put one foot in front of the other, feeling like a dog on a leash. It won't be hard to escape from Nephilum. We follow from what we descend. The Nephilum are warriors. The Cambions are devious and cunning. Nephilum can't do anything from a distance-like Cambions can with our abilities-as long as we take away their guns. I simply had to wait until he released me from this wire. Until then, I can only hope he doesn't chop my head off.
__________
Author's Note: Hello! If you have gotten to this point and you have not read the first installment, In Vendetta House, then you have been greatly spoiled and I suggest you read the first one before you are spoiled even further. If you have: Hello! Yes, the sequel is finally up after such a long wait. I'm not sure how my uploading schedule will work, but I will try my best to get a chapter up once every week. Let me know if you spot any mistakes, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter and how you feel about these characters' returns! :) Don't forget to vote and watch for the next update (which will hopefully be soon since it's already written up, I'm just always fretting over sentence arrangement and mistakes.) X