Whisper (The Whisper Trilogy) Read online

  “Take my hand, Calliope. We should get you home to rest now.”

  Was he kidding? I was in full on destroyer mode. “What? I’m off the clock here?”

  “You can’t destroy them all.” Before I knew what was happening, he had taken my hand landing us back in my bedroom, where it was demon free.

  “I was so gonna kick that demon’s arsenal, Silas.” I stomped. What was his deal, apparating me out of the ring when I was just warming up? Yeah, I totally acknowledge the crazy on so many levels of that comment, but seriously…

  He flapped his fairy wings over to my bedposts and landed with a sigh. “Calliope, I meant what I said. You simply can’t destroy them all.”

  “What are you talking about? I was on fire out there.” I hopped onto my bed and crawled over to where he was perched near my pillows. “How many necks did I snap?”

  “Ah, dear child…”

  “Not a child, dear fairy.”

  He gasped – the horror - and eyed me shamefully. “Not a fairy.”

  This guy was so easy to get to. I stifled a giggle. “Seriously, why didn’t you let me have my way with that mob?”

  Silas then gave me a lengthy and kind of preachy explanation. I think he was really into the sound of his own voice. His point was this – although there were demons everywhere, I couldn’t just be a random demon hunter; way too general, impractical really. My demon of choice, or actually assignment to be exact, was called the Rayser. Raysers preyed specifically on youth. Not small children – that’s an entirely different brand of demon, apparently. Raysers attacked the least sensible and the most easily swayed– teenagers. We catch a lot of slack for being hormonal all the time, and it was true - the excess of hormones made it loads easier for the Darks to mess with our already confused brains. It wasn’t just puberty though. Who’d have thought those parents back in the stone ages were right when they guessed their daughters were plagued by demons?

  Fatigue had gotten the best of me somewhere in the middle of Silas explaining that Raysers were one of the more intelligent (although not really smart) forms of demons and that they mostly played to a person’s insecurities and deep set fears. Sleep had taken over, and a minute later it seemed now, it was morning.

  Sunlight and crazy colors were streaming in through my window – again making it hard to forget how much life had changed for me. I mean, there were literally colors I’d never seen before casting a glow around my room. And, the sounds… Buzzing bees sounded like a symphony. The birds were harmonizing. It was so unreal, and yet…

  None of the events of last night were even a little bit fuzzy in my memory. I could still fell the leathery skin of the creatures I’d killed last night.

  I sat up on the edge of my bed and looked around then. Even after the highly educational demon field trip, it was just… well, a whole lot of crazy.

  “I know it is a lot to process, Calliope.”

  Why did he insist on calling me that? “It just seems so unreal.”

  “Most of your kind feel that way at first, but you get used to it, and it becomes your reality.”

  Did he say my kind? Like I was an extra terrestrial or something? At first I scowled at him and the slightly English lilt to his words, but then I got kind of quiet, wondering... “What am I?” I asked him.

  “You, my dear, are an angel too.”

  Wow, he was way off. I could give him a grocery list of reasons why that wasn’t true.

  “Humans have a certain image of angels, and…” he gestured towards his tiny form, “as you can see it’s not exactly accurate.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. He had a point there. He was not the muscle bound Greek god I would have expected an angel to look like. No, Silas was definitely no Hercules. He was more of a Jeeves… in a white suit with pink handkerchief.

  “And, there are many kinds of angels, Calliope.”

  I could tell by the tone of Silas’s voice that it was time for angel history 101.

  “We, well, Jules and I, are Micros. Our main purpose is to coach angels such as yourself. We’re small but as you have witnessed, mighty. We don’t get in the way of battle, but we do well on the sidelines, directing, helping until you are ready to be on your own.” He cleared his throat, getting ready for round two. “You are an Arc. Arcs are protectors of the young, and believe me, dear – this generation needs protecting more than ever before. The enemy has such a stronghold over them specifically. He knows that this is where he can gain the most destruction and steal the most souls.”

  Wait a minute –this was starting to get weirder. “You mean, the devil? As in Satan? ” I was definitely losing it now. I mean, my parents took me to church, and I was confirmed Catholic and everything. I even had a Lives of the Saints book in my dresser somewhere. But the real devil? Come on….

  “Lucifer himself.” Silas almost whispered.

  “Come on now… So, you’re telling me all of this exists, angels, demons, God and Satan?” I guess on some level seeing should have been believing, but I still wasn’t totally sold. Wasn’t there some guy in the Bible like this? Tom somebody? I seriously needed to start paying attention in my Catholic Ed. Classes.

  “Here there and everywhere, Calliope. They are all around you, all the time.” He flew over and perched on my knee. “You can sense the changes in yourself, by now I am sure.”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes, true to my teenage form yet, “Do you mean the amazing music outside and the colors? Or do you mean the eavesdropping I’ve been doing in random people’s heads?” Silas just smirked at me. Like this was funny! I found no humor in my new freakishness. “Yeah, I’ve noticed some subtle differences.”

  “Well, these are all part of being who you are.” His tone was almost tender then.

  I swallowed. An angel. Me. Callie Evans, demon slaying protector of teenager’s souls. Who’s idea was this? “Silas?”

  “Yes, Calliope?”

  “Why me?”

  His subdued fatherly chuckle annoyed me, but I was eager to hear his explanation, so I tried really hard not to huff. “Why is water wet? Why is sunshine warm? Why is silk so much more luxurious than cotton?”

  “Huh?” He totally lost me there.

  “Well, scratch that last one.” Silas raised his tiny index finger. “What I’m trying to tell you is that you are what you were made to be.” He paused. “And what you have always been.”

  Lost again, Mr. Confucius. Pretty sure I’ve always been just Callie.

  “Long ago, at the very birth of this world, you were what you are now, Calliope. Your memory currently fails you for reasons you will understand as time goes on, but you are and have for eternities been an angel.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I’m a little confused, Silas. Do you mean I was an angel in a past life or something? Like reincarnation?”

  “No, Calliope. You’ve always been an Arc but you came to earth as a human infant to grow into the teenage girl you have become. A purposeful metamorphosis for a very short time in the grand scheme of things. Your mind has simply been altered for the past sixteen years so that you wouldn’t remember anything until now. Your forgetfulness works in much the same way as how humans may witness you performing acts they may deem impossible or crazy and then forget all of it as if it had never happened.”

  Well, that was good news anyways. He frowned, surely annoyed at the lingering look of doubt on my face. Excuse me for having a tough time believing! Wasn’t it his job to explain this stuff?

  “It’s just that – well, even after everything last night, I just can’t fit myself into an angel outfit, Silas.” I shook my head. “I mean, I don’t feel like an angel. It’s not like I all of a sudden sprouted a set of wings or something.”

  “As I told you Calliope, angels don’t always look as humans have imagined us to be.”

  I eyed him from head to toe. You’re not kidding there, Mister. “There’s just nothing in me that feels like an angel.” I shrugged my shoulders, a little defeated. Come on
, Silas. Give me something I can understand.

  “Okay Calliope, you say there’s nothing in you that feels like an angel. That’s where you are wrong. You feel a certain pull towards the Darks, correct?”

  If he considered the overwhelming urge I felt to rip them to shreds for no apparent reason to be a “pull,” then I’d say yes. “Yeah, kind of.”

  “Well, my dear, this is quite instinctual for you. Although you have never before had a violent nature about you, you feel rage in their presence. Your actions towards the Darks may even seem heinous to some, but they are only natural. It may seem strange to you because at first glance they simply look like – “

  “Mangy, slime oozing heaps of gross?” I finished his sentence for him. As a matter of fact, my negative feelings towards these things were oddly rather strong. Shouldn’t I be all peace love and understanding here? Weren’t angels supposed to be loving, kind and good to all creatures? I shuddered and seriously felt the urge to gag. Kindness? Towards demons? Wasn’t gonna happen. It just plain felt wrong.

  He let out another fatherly chuckle. “As I said, instinctual, Calliope. You are mortal enemies. Good versus evil. You were carefully woven by a pair of all knowing hands. Hands that make no mistakes I should add. Every ounce of you was created to seek and destroy these Darks. Within every fiber of who you are is hatred and disgust for what is most evil, and they are. There is not and never could be a single thread of good in any of them. Nothing you or anyone else does could change these beings. They are void of goodness and everything that is wrong with this world. They were also created. ”

  “To destroy me?” I had to admit; the thought freaked me out a little. I didn’t really dig the idea of being on anybody’s most wanted list.

  “No, Calliope. They were not created to destroy you. As you observed with the Raysers behind the coffee shop, many of them cannot even see you.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  He cleared his throat and looked away, across the room at nothing. There was definitely something Silas wasn’t telling me.

  “You’ll find out more as time goes on, and soon you’ll forget what it was like before. They always do.”

  “So, there are others like me?”

  “Many.”

  Phew. Thank God for that one. I had a feeling my friends weren’t going to dig my new angel persona once they figured it out. I mean, Mila was definitely not going to be down with me playing around in her thoughts even if the phenomenon was limited to times when she was being influenced by darks as Silas had explained. What guy would want to go out with somebody like me? At least there was a peer group out there for me. “So, when do I meet the others?”

  Silas looked taken back. “You don’t.”

  “What!?”

  “Arcs are solitary. Your focus is to be on saving the souls of your peers while remaining totally inconspicuous. This is why your identity isn’t revealed to you until age sixteen. You have to be one of them. You have to move in their circles and understand their mindset.” He looked away, perplexed. “For some reason, no other genre of humans can understand the teenager. They are their own subculture, apparently.”

  “Wait a minute... so I have to just go back to my normal scene and pretend not to notice I see little purply dough balls that smell like garbage waddling around and whispering not so sweet nothings?” Who was this fairy- I mean angel kidding? There was no way I could pull this off.

  “Calliope, this is an eternal position. There is no way around it.” He started nervously picking up random items from my desk and arranging them. I marched over to his little flappy self.

  “What are you talking about, eternal?” I was getting nervous.

  “Eternal as in forever.”

  “Yeah, I take honors English, Silas. I know what eternal means. Forever what? Forever fighting demons?”

  “Well, yes, but… well, all of it.”

  “Details, Silas.”

  He stopped his nervous rearranging and looked me straight in the eyes. “Calliope Evans, from now until the end of the world as humans know it, you will appear to be a sixteen year old girl. You will, on the surface, attend high schools, befriend other teens, join clubs and teams etcetera. You will act largely like any other teenage girl would act. Your purpose is to be on the battlefield, ready to act at any and every moment. You will protect youth from the Raysers and destroy these demons before they can destroy God’s precious creations. This is your purpose, Calliope. This is who you are.” Silas fixed his eyes on mine and fluttered his wings in the air so as to remain face to face with me. Finally he placed his tiny hand on my shoulder and gave me a firm supportive squeeze that was really more like a pinch considering his size. He looked gravely serious as he quietly uttered one last word.

  “Forever.”

  6

  Pause. Rewind. I felt like I had just learned some crucial information here, but I couldn’t put it all together yet. Lots of words. Surface. Battlefield. Protect. Sixteen. Forever.

  Forever.

  For some reason, I felt the need to run. So I did.

  “Morning, honey.” Mom’s voice greeted me as I plowed clumsily through the kitchen where, judging by the delicious smell, she was making homemade cinnamon rolls. I was not to be interrupted by her culinary temptations. On a mission to somewhere away from here, I continued past her.

  “Hey,” I replied. Without even looking at her, I pushed through the screen door, letting it slam behind me. Vaguely, I heard her asking if I was okay. I didn’t have an answer for her. I truly wasn’t so sure.

  When the fresh air hit my face, my feet picked up the pace. I started at a slow jog but soon was sprinting in my flip flops, racing to nowhere. I didn’t know where I was headed but I knew if I could just focus on the speed, the air on my face and the sound of my feet hitting the pavement, I could block everything else out.

  Soon though, I had to stop. My heart was pounding so hard and fast. I kept moving, walking briskly through the parking lot of a Presbyterian church and onto the wooded property behind it. Finally coming to a stop, I leaned into the trunk of a tall oak tree and looked up through leafy green at pieces of clear blue sky. In my stillness the words came back and attacked me with a vengeance.

  Unfair! I wanted to scream. This was so not happening to me. I mean, what had I done to deserve this? I was no angel – you could ask my parents, and they would tell you – I am not helpful, humble or holy (definitely not) in any way. And, seriously? Sixteen forever? How was that supposed to even work? My mother kept track of my cycles for God’s sake. I was pretty sure she’d notice eternal youth. And, what about the teachers at school? Wouldn’t they find it a little strange when they had me on their rosters for a few decades straight? I took my head in my hands, rubbing my temples.

  Great, a headache was coming on. I pushed it away, trying to ignore its presence. I really was not in the mindset or the mood for any demons. I looked up warily, ready to spy a gob or two of gross.

  “Hey.” I heard a voice coming from behind my tree.

  Doesn’t everything in life come down to timing? Lately my life seemed on a train bound for the unknown, forever arriving too early or too late. Here I was, innocent passenger, just trying to keep track of where I was at any given moment. Every time I reached a new destination, I felt the same shock and confusion. Every turn I took, I was unprepared and totally surprised. It was like packing for the Caribbean then stepping off the train into Antarctica.

  “Seriously?” was all I could say at the sight of gorgeous Josh Pride, standing there behind my tree, hands in his pockets, half smiling at me.

  “Happy to see me?” He joked and looked at something on the ground.

  Crap, what was wrong with me? I totally didn’t mean to say that out loud. Focus, Callie. Okay, so how is an eternally sixteen year old demon hunting angel supposed to flirt with a guy? Really, I didn’t even know if that was appropriate. I mean, what would Silas say if he saw me hanging out with Joshua Pride? He’d pro
bably remind me of my new responsibilities and absolutely insist I accompany him to some scene of stinky destruction.

  Note to self: Silas was not the boss of me. I was entitled to some fun, right?

  “Umm, sorry.” I kicked at some loose pebbles near my feet. This guy made me so nervous. I was hot faced and my armpits were sticky. It wasn’t from my run, either. I got the nerve to look up at him. “What’s going on? Do you live in this neighborhood?”

  “Yeah, three streets over. My mom moved us in with her parents.”

  “How’s your Dad diggin’ that?” I asked with a chuckle.

  He squinted those gorgeous black eyes and looked off to the right. “Dad left last spring.”

  My heart sank, and I felt a coldness under my skin. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, it sucks. Took off on his bike one day. Never showed up again.”

  It was quiet for a couple of minutes. I didn’t know what to say before, but now I was totally lost. I could picture him riding a motorcycle, maybe with his Dad, his hair flying out of the back of his helmet. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to lose either of my parents. My heart bled for Joshua for yet another reason now. My cheeks burned, and I avoided his eyes.

  “So, it’s just Mom and me and gram and pop.”

  “Where did you move from?”

  “We’ve kind of been all over the place, but last place we lived was Fort Meyers.”

  “Hmm, near the beach.” I smiled.

  “You dig the beach?”

  “My most favorite place.”

  Without really planning on it, we started into an easy walk farther into the wooded area behind the church. For some reason, the insanity that had taken over my life just melted away. I felt calm and almost normal, and I wasn’t worried about demons rolling out from behind a tree trunk anymore. The butterflies in my stomach were still fluttering like mad but I found I kind of liked the feeling.

  “We used to go to Florida every year, Sanibel Island.” Until about sixth grade, we’d drive down and stay for two weeks. It was like therapy for my mom, who was always in overdrive at home. That woman could plop herself down on the sand and not move for hours. For me, being at the beach was like an unending scavenger hunt. There were so many cool things to find. Every seashell was a treasure. “We haven’t gone for a few years, I guess because of my brothers’ sports schedules.”