Earth Angel (Angels and Seers: Book One) Read online

Chapter 7

  We immediately reappear in my livingroom, with the same feeling of “the universe shifted” that accompanied our first dimensional hop. Nothing seems amiss, and I don’t hear any voices that would indicate the presence of intruders. If Jonathan is gone, Sam has excellent timing.

  “How do we know they were ever here at all?” I ask, wandering around the room to examine it more closely for anything out of place.

  “Oh, they were here,” Sam assures me. “Their energy signatures are all over this place. It’s just like I thought it would be. Jonathan came here with Daniel and Jasper, his two seconds in command. They didn’t just go through this apartment. They explored every inch of the building. But they’ve been gone for at least ten minutes now.”

  “Won’t your blood start to lead them back here, now that we’ve returned? They can’t have gone far.”

  “They think I’m not here, so Jonathan will have the blade sheathed for the moment. I believe they’ve gone to attempt to get information on my whereabouts from my family.”

  “That sounds alarming. Shouldn’t we warn them?”

  Sam shakes his head. “My father is king of the Earth Angels. He has an army of his own at his disposal. He will be able to keep three angels in check. If they come back with their army, that’s another story, and we’ll deal with it then, if we need to. My family is safe for now.”

  “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

  Though I haven’t met them, I don’t like the thought of Sam’s family being in danger any more than if they were my own.

  “You and I are a different story,” Sam continues. “We can’t stay here.”

  I can feel his eyes on me, even as I move around the room and into the hallway, looking for damage to my home.

  “They’ll be back, eventually. My family won’t give up any information, and they don’t know where I am anyway, since I lowered my vibration. Jonathan, however, knows I was here, even if he thinks I’ve gone now. If he doesn’t get information from my family, he will almost certainly check here again, thinking that I may return. And he won’t wait long before coming back, because he will want to catch me off guard.”

  “That means we need to find a new location.”

  It’s not a question. There’s no way we can continue to stay in my apartment.

  “You’re right. And we’ll probably have to stay away permanently. I doubt this apartment will ever be safe for either of us again, Lucy. Jonathan and his lackeys will have picked up on your energy signature while they were here, and it will tell them you’re a seer. They definitely know you’re helping me now, so they’re looking for you, too. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I knew what I was signing up for when I agreed to work with you. I’ll miss this apartment. It’s where Harry and I lived together. Lots of memories, you know? But there are more important things than an apartment, such as the freedom and safety of the people of the Earth and the angels who protect it. So, we have to go. Any idea where?”

  “There’s a seer family I used to know up in Vermont. Their ancestors took me in once, centuries ago, when my father gave me a brief assignment on the planet’s surface. As heir, I had to learn to protect the planet from both the area of space around it, and on the ground. My visit may still be in their family lore. Going to them is a good place to start.”

  “Won’t Jonathan be looking at other seer families to find you?”

  “Not necessarily. We can’t sense the energy of a seer unless we’re very close to one. There’s no way he knows where every seer on the planet is located, and he won’t want to use valuable resources to find them, at least not yet. I doubt he knows of the family of which I speak. They could potentially be an excellent resource for us. They still knew all the ancient angel magic when I was there, and that was only about three centuries ago, during the early days of European settlement on this continent. Most of the seer families have lost that old knowledge. If this family still has it, they can work a spell to cloak my location from Jonathan regardless of my blood being on his blade. They can cloak you, too.”

  “There’s angel magic?”

  It seems like something I should know, and I’m kind of embarrassed that I don’t.

  Sam nods. “Angels haven’t walked among humans in large numbers in so long, the need to use it mostly disappeared. Only a few families may still know anything. It’s knowledge that’s specific to seer families. The first seer families were given the magic when seers were created, eons ago. It helps them work with us, and to summon us if they require our presence.”

  Boy, my grandmother would love to get her hands on some angel magic. She’d be like a kid in a candy store with that kind of thing.

  “The Aboriginal family may still have some magic, since they’ve been insulated from the modern world, for the most part. We can try them if the Vermont family doesn’t pan out.”

  “The Aboriginal family?”

  “The original seer family of Australia. Unlike the families from the other six continents, this one hasn’t moved all over the world. Some family branches on other continents still retain the knowledge of magic, but not many of them. It happens on other planets, too. Sometimes the seer families on other worlds forget their heritage entirely as time goes on. You were originally supposed to be part of the organizing force of the universe, but things change, even for angels.”

  “Other planets have seers?”

  “Any planet with sentient beings, yes. And the angels they work with are designed to look like them. That’s why the angels you’ve seen look human. We were designed to be similar in appearance to our seers. Angels that work on other planets look like the dominant sentient lifeforms there.”

  “Cool.”

  “I thought you’d find it interesting,” Sam agrees, as we enter the kitchen. “You seem quite curious about the history of everything.”

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking so many questions.”

  “Not at all. I’m happy to answer them, if I know the answers. So many humans have turned their backs on history. They have no idea or interest in where they came from and why. Your curiosity is refreshing.”

  “Excellent! I’ll keep asking you things, then. Just so you know, I can be quite talkative, so consider yourself fairly warned.”

  Sam grins good-naturedly at me.

  “So,” I continue, “how long before we have to leave?”

  “A day, maybe a little bit more. No longer than two. Jonathan will undoubtedly be back before then. We must be gone when he returns.”

  “We should get some rest, then. We need to do some planning before we head out to Vermont. Maybe call the family there, let them know we’re coming? I’ll need to pack, too. Oh, and send my cats to stay with my grandparents.”

  I hate the thought of leaving Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester, my two tabby felines, behind, but maybe I won’t have to be away from them for long.

  “You promised to tell me your plan for getting Jonathan’s blade,” Sam reminds me, gently chiding. He even points his finger at me. My, my, he is picking up on human mannerisms, or possibly remembering them, quite quickly.

  “And you promised to teach me how to shift dimensions,” I tease him, folding my arms defiantly across my chest and raising an eyebrow at him in mock accusation.

  “That I did,” he says, warmly conceding. “Shall we do it now?”

  “Let’s sleep first. We’ll do everything else tomorrow. You’re still healing, and we need all the rest we can get.”

  “You’re right,” Sam agrees. “And if I don’t heal before we leave, the Vermont family may have a spell for speeding it along.”

  “They have that kind of thing?”

  “Of course.”

  Yeah, of course they do. And yet I’m the one with the supposed superpowers? The universe is a weird place sometimes.