Halo Read Free Page B

kind, although she didn’t look a day over twenty. She was a seraphim, the order of angels closest to the Lord. In the Kingdom, seraphim had six wings to mark the six days of creation. A gold snake was tattooed on Ivy’s wrist as a mark of her rank. It was said that in battle the seraphim would come forward to spit fire on the earth, but she was one of the gentlest creatures I’d ever met. In her physical form, Ivy looked like a Renaissance Madonna with her swanlike neck and pale oval face. Like Gabriel, she had piercing rain gray eyes. This morning she wore a white flowing dress and gold sandals.
    I, on the other hand, was nothing special, just a plain, old transition angel—bottom of the rung. I didn’t mind; it meant I was able to interact with the human spirits that entered the Kingdom. In my physical form, I looked ethereal like my family, except my eyes were as brown as river stones and my chestnut brown hair fell in loose waves down my back. I’d thought that once I was recruited for an earth posting I’d be able to choose my own physical form, but it didn’t work that way. I was created small, fine boned, and not especially tall, with a heart-shaped face, pixielike ears, and skin that was milky pale. Whenever I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, I saw an eagerness that was missing from the faces of my siblings. Even when I tried, I could never look as removed as Gabe and Ivy. Their expressions of grave composure rarely altered, regardless of the drama unfolding around them. My face always wore a look of restless curiosity no matter how hard I tried to look worldly.
    Ivy crossed to the sink holding her plate, as always moving as though she were dancing rather than walking. Both my brother and sister moved with an unstudied grace that I was incapable of imitating. More than once I’d been accused of stomping through the house as well as being heavy-handed.
    When she’d disposed of her half-eaten toast, Ivy stretched out on the window seat, the newspaper open in front of her.
    “What’s news?” I asked.
    In reply she held up the front page for me to see. I read the headlines—bombings, natural disasters, and economic collapse. I felt immediately defeated.
    “Is it any wonder that people don’t feel safe,” Ivy said with a sigh. “They have no faith in one another.”
    “If that’s true then what can we possibly do for them?” I asked hesitantly.
    “Let’s not expect too much too soon,” said Gabriel. “They say change takes time.”
    “Besides, it’s not for us to try and save the world,” Ivy said. “We must focus on our little portion of it.”
    “You mean this town?”
    “Of course.” My sister nodded. “This town was listed as a target of the Dark Forces. It’s strange the places they choose.”
    “I imagine they’re starting small and working their way up,” said Gabriel in disgust. “If they can conquer a town, they can conquer a city, then a state, then a country.”
    “How do we know how much damage they’ve already done?” I asked.
    “That will become clear in time,” said Gabriel. “But so help us, we will put an end to their destructive work. We won’t fail in our mission, and before we depart, this place will once again be in the hands of the Lord.”
    “In the meantime, let’s just try and blend in,” Ivy said, perhaps in an effort to lighten the mood. I almost laughed aloud and was tempted to suggest she look in a mirror. She might be as old as time, but sometimes Ivy could sound quite naïve. Even I knew that blending in was going to be a challenge.
    Anyone could see that we were different—and not in an art student’s dyed-hair-and-kooky-stockings kind of way. We were really different—out-of-this-world different. I guess that wasn’t unusual given who we were . . . or rather, what we were. There were several things that made us conspicuous. For starters, human beings were flawed and we weren’t. If you saw one of us in a crowd, the first