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doorway. "That was Abigail. There's been a killing... a homeless man in Chicago. She thinks it's Watcher activity. They're forming a team to investigate and bringing in another Horseman from the area. She wants us there tonight so she can fill us in on the details. I told her we'd come directly at the end of our shift."
    "But I can't," Malini said. "I'm still grounded. I've got to go straight home."
    "I'll talk to your father, Malini," Lillian said. "I'll explain you need to stay late."
    "You mean you'll lie for me, again. What if we get caught? One more slip up and my father could lock me up and throw away the key."
    Lillian glanced at Jacob who folded his arms across his chest, jaw clenched. "That's a chance we'll all have to take. It's the price of being a Soulkeeper," she said.
    Malini slammed her knife down on the workbench and shot them both a dirty look.
    "Excuse me," she said. "I need to use the restroom." She walked quickly, afraid the sting in her eye would turn into something more. The door closed behind her.
    "Malini," she heard Jacob call. She pretended she couldn't hear him.
    "Was it something I said," Lillian asked.
    "Mom, could you be a little more sensitive. She's not…"
    Jacob didn't have to finish. Everyone knew exactly what he meant. She wasn't a Soulkeeper. After months of meeting with Dr. Silva, of mysterious herbal concoctions, physical tests, and more talking than she'd cared to do, nobody knew what she was. The worst part was, no one would admit what she suspected all along: she was nothing. She wasn't a Soulkeeper. No matter how often they included her, or how many tests they did, it wouldn't change the truth. She was nothing more than an ordinary human girl with an overdeveloped sense of smell that just so happened to allow her to detect fallen angels.
    * * * * *
    Malini, Lillian, and Jacob arrived at Dr. Silva's gothic Victorian in Jacob's dilapidated blue pick-up truck. Once they were far enough into the thick of the maple orchard, the budding trees provided enough cover to camouflage the vehicle. Each of them had told a story about where they were supposed to be that afternoon. Each of them lied.
    "Just in time." Dr. Silva held the sunroom door open for them. Her pale eyes were as disturbing as ever but the jeans and pink Henley she wore were a far cry from the head-to-toe black she insisted on wearing before she met Jacob. "Gideon and I are going to open the portal. We need to do it in the tower where there's more space and less chance of prying eyes. Come." She tossed her platinum hair over her shoulder and led the way through the kitchen.
    Malini followed, down the hall, and up the stairs to the library. A tapestry of the four horsemen of the apocalypse hung on the wall. She balked when she saw Dr. Silva charge through it.
    Jacob took her hand. "Close your eyes and jump. Trust me," he whispered into her ear. "The wall's an illusion."
    Reluctantly, she followed his instructions, opening her eyes in a small room on the other side. The floor was wood. A spiral staircase made of wrought iron twisted up the center.
    "Where are we?" she asked.
    "In the tower," Jacob replied, tugging on Malini's hand to usher her up the spiral after Lillian.
    "In all the time I've been visiting Dr. Silva, she's never taken me here," Malini said.
    "I'm sure she has her reasons."
    "Just like you're sure she has her reasons for blowing off our training sessions or wasting my time chatting for hours about nothing."
    Jacob shrugged.
    At the top of the stairs was a large room with a sanded wood floor and windows that stretched to the ceiling like a lighthouse. A desk and bookcase lined the inner wall where the tower was connected to the house and a telescope stood next to the windows. Gideon waited in the center of the cleared space in his angel form, his wings folded against his body. His glow cast the room in a bluish-white aura.
    "Hello Jacob, Lillian, Malini," he said, nodding his head of wild auburn hair in their