It didn't take long to here from Jake. That Monday, I found a note stuffed into my locker in his scrawling print.

The Angel Came

The Angel Saw

The Angel Fell

I crumpled the note, stuffing it into my backpack to show Gabriel and Ivy later. People seemed to be acting differently toward me today. Guys who usually tried flirting with me averted their eyes. Girls seemed nervous when I talked to them. A few of Jake's followers actually bowed as I walked past them. It was weird and it had to stop. At lunch, Maghen ran up to me with a weird look on her face.

"Azrael! I can't believe you and Jake kissed at the dance and you didn't tell me. You're so lucky!"

"Maghen, I don't think I am. I...How did you know?"

"It's on face book. One of the girls on the prom committee was taking pictures all night. Everyone's seen it."

"That explains a lot..." I muttered. "Look, there's nothing going on between me and Jake. Just the opposite. I won't be hanging out with him anymore."

"That's a shame. He is sooo cute."

"Some how...I don't think so."

On Tuesday morning, Xavier had breakfast with us.

"Jake isn't normal. What he said to me at the dance...I had thought I recognized him before that but I went anyway...I think he might have once been one of us."

"If you're right you mustn't try to deal with him alone." Gabriel told us seriously, rereading the note, "We don't know what he's capable of."

"Can't be too dangerous, "Xavier muttered, "He's pretty scrawny."

"You know appearance has noting to do with it." Ivy looked at him sternly.

"So what do we do?" Beth asked, lacing her fingers with Xavier's.

"We can't do anything. Not without drawing unwanted attention to ourselves."

"We need to keep an eye on him. The accidents are happening more frequently. They might be because of him."

"Like the car accident?" Bethany breathed.

"But he wasn't even at school at that point." Ivy sighed.

I thought back. "No...He only had to be in town. Remember that night when we ran into Molly on the beach and I left? I saw him."

"If that's the case then no one needs to approach him. We need to be very careful about this." And with that, Gabriel left the kitchen.

After the dance, Jake's popularity sky rocketed. Instead of getting a few more followers over a number of days, the number doubled. All of them had this vacant and dark look to them, pupils dilated, dark circles under their eyes, hollow looks. Barely human anymore. They only perked up when they saw Jake, practically worshiping him and doing whatever he wanted them to do.

More acts of violence were happening around town too. It seemed like the more followers Jake got, the worse the town became. The doors of St. Mark's were vandalized, windows of downtown businesses and offices were shattered, homemade explosives, food poisoning... Wherever the disaster was, Jake was always there, watching from the side lines. He seemed to thrive on making our job more difficult for us and I couldn't help but feel like it was to get back at me for rejecting him. But the worst was yet to come.

On Thursday afternoon, I was waling down an empty hall way when I spotted a dark hooded figure with black wings protruding from his back. I immediately recognized one of my reapers. He held two small sickles in either of his pale, bony hands. His wings were significantly smaller than mine at about four feet each. I stalked toward him and stopped behind him arms crossed.

"Turn and face me." I ordered.

He turned in surprise and I saw one of the newer ones, Achmetha, meaning "Brother of Death.", "A...Azrael." He crossed his sickles over his chest and nodded to me in respect.

"What are you doing here, Achmetha?"

"I came here to reap. A girl committed suicide. Uh...Taylah McIntosh."

My eyes widened in recognition and my face paled. That was one of Beth's friends.

"Azrael, are you alright?"
"Have you already done it?"
"Yes. She was just judged."

"The verdict?"
He shook his head sadly and I sighed. I didn't know what Taylah had done to deserve eternal punishment at her age, but there was nothing I could do for her now.

"Thank you, Achmetha...Now go get back to work. The dead wait for no one."

"Ok...And, Azrael? Be careful. It may have been suicide, but she didn't do it."

With that he flapped his wings and rose into the air, flying down the hall, fading away more and more the further he got until he completely disappeared. I sprinted down the hall until I came to a large crowd in front of the girls restroom. Beth was already there with a horrified look on her face as I joined her. Many of the students were either crying or staring in disbelief. Dr. Chester stood near the bathroom door with two police officers. One of the officers was talking to none other than Jake, who was answering his questions with fake sympathy.

"I can't think how it could have happened in a school like this. It's come as a shock to us all." I caught him say other things like "tragedy" and "inform the family" before the officer finally turned away. All of his followers, despite their blank faces had laughter in their eyes and that was what made me break Gabriel's new "don't approach him" rule. I walked over to him with a glare on my face.

"Ah. Hello Azrael." He smirked.

"I need to talk to you. Now." I grabbed his wrist and pulled him down the hall and into an abandoned class room.

"What's wrong, Princess? Finally change your mind?"

"Why did you do that to Taylah?"

"Who?" He looked momentarily confused, "Oh..The little blonde brat. I just gave her a nudge in the right direction. Not my fault she decided to listen and slit her own throat. What a mess." He saw the angry look on my face and laughed, "If if makes you feel better, she wasn't my first choice."

"It doesn't."

"I had originally chosen someone else but they had a little..." His hissed, "Divine protection."

I bared my teeth. He meant Maghen. My feather would protect her from death by reaper. Even if Jake tried to kill her, it wouldn't have any affect o her because no one but me could seperate her soul from her body.

"Don't you dare touch her!"

"Ooh. Struck a nerve?"

"Jake, or whatever your real name is, I swear, if you lay a hand on her I'll make you regret it."

He came closer and grabbed my chin, putting his face close to mine with a sick smile on his face, his green eyes shining at the though of a challenge. "Prove it, little angel." He let go of me roughly and walked way, confidence radiating off of him.

Gabriel and Ivy already knew what happened to Taylah by time we got home.

"We have to act now. This has gone to far." Ivy said.

"And what do you propose we do?" Gabriel asked.

"We have to stop him." Bethany's face was more serious than I'd ever seen it, "Destroy him if we have to."

"We cannot simply charge in and destroy him. We're not permitted to take a life without reason."

"Azrael is."

My siblings and Xavier turned to me when Bethany said that and I held my hands up in surrender. "I can't take that risk. If I try to kill him he might have his followers kill other people or themselves. I wouldn't put it past him."

"She's right." Ivy whispered. "We can't risk human lives."

"He's threatening Xavier's!"

"Beth, what are you talking about?" I asked her and she pulled out a note in Jake's handwriting.

When angels' tears do flood the earth,

The gates of Hell shall see rebirth.

When the demise of angels doth impend,

The human boy shall meet his end.

"I found it in my backpack this afternoon..."

"Is that proof enough that there's something seriously wrong with this kid?" Xavier asked darkly.

"None the less, we can't do anything."

"What does he even want with you?" Beth asked me.

"Azrael turned him down." Gabriel said, "Someone like Jake Thorn is used to getting what he wants. Right now his vanity is wounded."

"And he's taking it out on Venus Cove. He said that Taylah was his second choice. The only reason he didn't kill Maghen was because she had one of my feathers."

"You talked to him?!" Gabriel's eyes hardened, "You have no idea what he might have done."

"And we have no idea what he'll do if we let this go on!" I sighed, "An angel would be the perfect prize for a demon. That means we, and everyone we care about, are in danger. Xavier should spend the night tonight so that Jake doesn't catch him alone."

My siblings did not object so Xavier called his parents to let him know that he was spending the night at a friends house. According to Bethany, Bernie would have never let him stay over otherwise. That made me think that she and Gabriel would have gotten along splendidly. If Jake was a demon like we thought, then destroying his human body should send him back to Hell. The problem was that no matter how much he scared and angered me, if it came down to it, i didn't think I'd be able to do it.