Roma 1906

I watch as she hovers by the roaring fire, the boiling water in the kettle steaming, turning her pale cheeks pink with heat. "So how long have you been wandering?" She asks me in her thick but beautiful Italian voice, staring into the kettle and pushing her damp hair back from her face. It's a good thing angels are naturally multilingual, otherwise I'd be at a total loss. I lean back against the wooden chair, crossing my feet over one another on the hard stone floor.

"A few days." I shrug.

"You've been walking around here lost for days? And you have no idea where your folks are?" She asks with the concern childhood friends might hold for each other.

I smile in admiration, shake my head and stare into her eyes, so blue I almost feel as if I'm looking across at the ocean.

"No. Like I said, we were travelling from Monterotondo, I went to collect fresh water and when I returned to where I left them, they were gone." I lie easily, trying not to be amused by the expression on Laylah's face. She looks so young, maybe only seventeen or eighteen, and my chest tightens as I realize why I'm here. She has her whole life ahead of her, yet I have to take it away. And just like that the Hunter inside me flares up, making my heart convulse with pain. The urge to murder her races through me, and I cling onto the chair so tightly I have to stop myself from snapping it in half.

"Are you okay?" She asks me curiously, and I try to force myself to smile.

"Of course. I just get upset when I think of my parents." I say through my teeth, the words sounding strained. I glance around at the small cottage hoping to distract myself, and when my eyes fall upon a small square of brown-white parchment crumpled on the floor, my erratic feelings subside.

"You did this?" I ask Laylah, jumping up out of my chair to admire the drawing. It's done in charcoal, and the image of Laylah and two others is ridiculously life-like, so much so that even I, hater of all art, cannot help but stare. When I glance up Laylah is blushing violently, rose color against her creamy pale skin, fiddling with her fingers in her lap.

"I know it's not great just yet but I've been trying to improve-"

"It's beautiful." I cut her off, and when our eyes meet she looks away immediately. I clear my throat and lower the drawing. "So where are your parents?" I ask casually. A silence falls over to the two of us, so heavy I feel I could almost cut through it with my knife.

"Murdered."

The word hangs in the silence, but her beautiful blue eyes show no sign of weakness. They appear almost cold, disconnected, oddly uncaring.

"No brothers or sisters?" I ask her.

She shakes her head. "No."

"Boyfriend? Friend? Cousin? Uncle?"

"No."

My breath catches in my throat. Just do it, my knife seems to whisper to me, kill her. She has nothing left to live for. No one loves her, no one cares. No one will miss her. Do it…

I slide my knife out from under my sleeve as she turns back to tend to the kettle. Five seconds, that's all it would take. Five seconds and I've fulfilled my job. Five seconds and… I lift up my knife to shoulder height, bloodlust coursing through me like lightning. Five seconds. Five-

She turns around to look at me, and once again I get a glimpse into those gorgeous, now frightened blue eyes. She looks like a deer caught in the village mob- so fragile. Her scream fills the cottage as she takes in the scene before her, and my heart bleeds for her. Why can't I do it? Why can't I kill this girl? She's no different to all the others- a Nephilim, an abomination.

Evil.

But there is nothing at all evil about Laylah. Nothing that makes me believe she is truly a Nephilim. Though I cannot let her live either, or the others will find her and kill her anyway, far more brutally and painfully than I will. I close my eyes and try to ask myself what Sarah, sweet sweet Sarah would do. My teeth grip together. I know exactly what she would do.

She would let Laylah live.

But I am not Sarah. I am Raphael, hunter of Nephilim, and I have to do my job regardless of my morals.

So without a sound I slam the knife down.

It only takes five seconds.