Chapter 1

Coldwater, Main present day

I thought going to high school would be piece of cake. I had lived through a time when the English language was beautiful and I was alive for every scientific discovery. And, hell, I was even a part of many historical events. But instead of breezing through, I slacked off. I purposely lived up to the "bad guy" image. I would give the wrong answers to questions because I knew I would make her uneasy. I had done my research. I knew exactly what she liked or didn't like. I knew once I made my move, she would be nervous around me. And that was exactly what I needed. And today was the day I put my plan in motion.

I hated her. But I needed her. She was the answer to what I had wanted since the day I fell. Without her, I was forced to inhabit a body for a two weeks just to experience physical feelings.

I am a fallen archangel. If being thrown out of Heaven by your friends wasn't bad enough, they had also torn my wings from my back as I fell. I had lain on the ground for days. Not only because I was shaken by the violence I had experienced when I fell, but also because something was not right. When my body met the hard earth, I only felt a slight vibration through my body. I could not feel the grass on my face nor the tears that I could see running down my face. I knew then that the rumors of fallen angels turning human when they fell had been wrong. What was I supposed to do?

Eventually, I learned the only way I could feel was by taking over a human body. However, I found out very quickly that the human body is not resilient. After a few hours, the human would die. Soon, I learned of nephilims, the unholy offspring of a fallen angel and a human. If I got a nephilim to swear fealty during Cheshvan, I could take over their body for that two weeks and feel every physical human feeling I wanted. But after Cheshvan was over, I was only left with an even emptier feeling. I wanted to be human and I would do anything possible to become human.

I slouched in my chair, looking at nothing in particular. I was no one had tried to make friends with me the first day of class. In fact, almost everyone in all of my classes avoided even looking at me.

I had already mind tricked the Coach to change the seating chart and place my next to her. What better time to make my move than during the sex education topic in Biology. This was going to be fun.

The bell rang and Coach began to "teach". He was a joke of a teacher. I zoned out. There was nothing this man could teach me that I didn't already know. I was focused on who I was going to meet tonight when I heard the magic words fall from Coach's mouth.

"Nora, you've been sitting beside Vee since the beginning of the year." I smiled as the girl bobbed her head. "Both of you are on the school eZine together." Nora nodded her head again. I could not avoid the smile that crept onto my face. "I bet you know quite a bit about each other. In fact, I'll bet each of you knows the person sitting beside you will enough. You picked the seats you did for a reason, right? Familiarity. Too bad the best sleuths avoid familiarity. It dulls the investigation instinct. Which is why, today, we're creating a new seating chart." I was amazed at how this little speech I gave Coach sounded exactly like him. No one would be the wiser.

There were protests across the classroom. Vee, Nora's best friend protested the loudest. I was pretty sure she was a Nephilim. The only worry I had in my plan was that Nora knew exactly what her friend was and capable of. If she did, then my plan got significantly harder. If Nora knew anything about this world living under her nose, it was going to be significantly harder to draw her too me. She would be suspicious of me from the start.

As the class shuffled around, I got up and walked to Vee's old chair. Nora's grey eyes caught mine and I saw the shock I needed to see. I dropped my book on the table, slung my bag onto the floor by my chair and slipped into the still warm seat.

Nora turned towards me. "Hi. I'm Nora." I turned my eyes onto her and smiled slightly for I knew at this point in time, she had just sealed her fate. I saw the reactions play across her face. Her genuinely friendly smile turned south as she realized I was not going to reciprocate the friendliness. As fear crept into the corner of her eyes, she turned her attention back to Coach, who had started talking again.

Those eyes were the same eyes I had come to loath. They were the same eyes I saw in the mirror for two weeks every year. And as I glanced down at her wrist and saw the same birthmark I saw for two weeks, I knew there was no going back. I had to finished what I came here to do. I would put an end to this.

"And like all science, the best approach is to learn by sleuthing. For the rest of class, practice this technique by finding out as much as you can about your new partner. Tomorrow, bring a write-up of your discoveries, and believe me, I'm going to check for authenticity. This is biology, not English, so don't even think about fictionalizing your answers. I want to see real interaction and teamwork." Coach said this while making his way back behind is desk and sitting down. He then turned his focus onto whatever was laying on his desk.

I looked at Nora through the corner of my eyes. She was started bouncing her pencil in her hand and then dramatically dropped her elbow onto the table and the placed her chin onto her fist as she huffed out a sigh. She was a stubborn girl. After I snubbed her when I first sat down, I knew she was not going to like me no matter what I did. I settled for making her believe I was assuming things about her. In fact, since I had been watching her for a year, I knew everything about this girl sitting beside me. I opened my notebook, took out a pen and began to write in short hand knowing if she looked over at my paper, she would not know what I wrote.

Nora Grey is a descendant of Chauncey. Chauncey is my Nephilim vessel. Chauncey swore his fealty to me in 1565. Even though Chauncey feels like a slave to me, I am the one who is the slave…

"What are you writing?" I hear her ask from beside me.

"And she speaks English," I respond as I continue to write

To break this bondage Nora must pay the price. I must...

As she leans in to read what I have written about her, I quickly tear out the page and fold it in half and slip the page back into my notebook before closing it. I knew she's irritated so to add fuel to the flames, I reach for the page she had in front of her, balled it up, and tossed it into the trash can by Coach's desk. I smiled in satisfaction as the ball made it into the trash can. As I turned back to her, her eyes flash in anger before opening her notebook to get another page.

"What is your name?" she asked. Which name do I give her? My real name or the one I had gone by for years. The one who's story would really shock her. As I smiled remembering those days, she looked up at me. "Your name?" she asked again.

"Call me Patch. I mean it. Call me." I smirked as I winked at her. Why not have a little fun while leading the girl to her doom.

"What do you do in your leisure time?" she asked.

"I don't have free time," I tell her, which was a complete and utter lie. If I had free time I was usually at Boo's with Rixon. But there was no way I was telling her that. The less she knows about me, the better.

"I'm assuming this assignment is graded, so do me a favor?"

I was not going to this girl any kind of favor. She was related to that man. However, I saw a chance to make her uncomfortable. "What kind of favor?" I asked. Trying hard not to laugh as the look upon her face, I decide to lie. "Free time. I take pictures." I laughed inwardly at my little joke. During my surveillance, never did I take pictures of her, but you see it all the time in movies. As she started writing on her page I spoke up.

"I wasn't finished. I've got quite a collection of an eZine columnist who believes there's truth in eating organic, who writes poetry in secret, and who shudders at the thought of having to choose between Stanford, Yale, and… What's that big one with the H?" Of course I was talking about her. And she knew it too. The look on her face said it all. I was so right about her and she had no idea how I knew the stuff I knew.

"But you won't end up going to any of them," I said.

"I won't?"

I grabbed her chair and listened to the chair scrap against the floor as I pulled her closer. I leaned my mouth close to her ear. "Even though you'd thrive at all three schools, you scorn them for being a cliché of achievement. Passing judgment is your third biggest weakness."

"And my second?" I could hear the anger leaking from her voice as she kept her face turned away from me.

"You don't know how to trust. I take that back. You trust- just all the wrong people." I smirked. She would trust me. And I was definitely the "wrong people".

"And my first?" I heard through clenched teeth.

"You keep life on a short leash."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're scared of what you can't control." I whisper.

I leaned back before resuming our questions. "Do you sleep naked?" I asked her. I already knew the answer was no but the more I could shake her this class period, the better.

"You're hardly the person I'd tell."

"Ever been to a shrink?"

"No." she lied. I knew every time she went to see the counselor at school. She was a terrible liar. I could hear it in her voice and she flexed her fingers like she was trying to let the guilt of lying go.

"Done anything illegal?"

"No. Why don't you ask me something normal? Like… my favorite kind of music?"

"I'm not going to ask what I can guess." Or what I already know from watching you I think

"You do not know the type of music I listen to."

Oh but I do. "Baroque. With you, it's all about order, control. I bet you play… the cello?" Even though I asked, I knew.

"Wrong." I smirked as I watched those fingers flex again.

"What's that?" I ask touching the birthmark with my pen. The birthmark that was my salvation.

"A birthmark."

"Looks like a scar. Are you suicidal, Nora?" I knew she was nothing of the kind. I just wanted to see how ruffled I could get her feathers. "Parents married of divorced?" giving her no option for the truth.

"I live with my mom."

Not satisfied with her answer, I ask, "Where's dad?"

"My dad passed away last year."

"How did he die?"

She flinched and I knew why. "He was – murdered. This is kind of personal territory, if you don't mind."

I immediately felt slightly guilty. Even though she was just a tool in my plan, I might have pushed the line. "That must be hard."

The bell rang and without a glance backwards, I grabbed my book and threw my backpack over my shoulder and walked towards the door.

"Wait," I hard Nora call. I didn't respond. I needed to get away from her. I'm not going to feel guilty for her. If I start feeling guilty for her, my plans have gone out the window. If I feel guilty I cannot do what I need to do.

"Excuse me! Patch! I didn't get anything on you." I spun around, grabbed her hand and scribbled my digits on her hand. When I let her hand go, she pulled it back and looked at it like she was trying to comprehend what the seven numbers meant. When she realized it was my phone number, she looked at me and said "I'm busy tonight."

"So am I," I smiled and turned around and walked down the hall. Even though I was a ways down the hall, I still heard her yell, "I won't call! Not – ever!"

I laughed because I knew that was a lie as well. She had one of the highest GPA's in the school. She was not going to let her pride get in the way of finishing this assignment. She was going to call whether she wanted to or not.