Angel

LORA

The moment the girl with orange hair runs and seizes my arm, I know that school won’t be the amazing, magical place that I had imagined. For one thing, her grip is tighter than Dad’s chains. And the look she gives Ludi is loathsome.

She pulls me down the stairs and then behind them.

“Are you Ludi Crous?”

I blink in the sudden darkness. “Um. No. That’s my brother. The one you pulled me away from.”

Her face appears out of the gloom. She reminds me of a fox. “Your brother?”

I nod, self-conscious. “You’ve heard of me and my brother?”

“Who hasn’t?” She paces circles around me, like a predator teasing its prey. “You’re the odd kids. Everyone’s heard the rumours.”

I immediately get defensive and worried. Were the rumours about my parentage? Did they know I was a hybrid?

I was pretty sure I had done a good job of keeping that secret. But what about Ludi? Are the rumours his fault? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. “What rumours?”

“Oh, this and that,” she says airily, with the tone of someone describing their boring day yesterday. “But I can stop them all.”

I’m interested, I’ll admit. “Stop the rumours?” If they’re bad rumours, I’d be glad. But if they were, say, people thinking I’m the nicest person alive? That wouldn’t be too bad.

As if she reads my mind, she grins like a fox. “Unless you don’t want them to stop. They’re not good rumours, Lora. Kids are saying you’re… well, I didn’t say this. But they’re saying you got transferred here after being expelled from your last school for vandalism.”

At least they haven’t suspected I’m a hybrid.

To be honest, this is isn’t very bad. I was homeschooled before this, so clearly I haven’t been transferred and I’m not a vandal.

But still, it’s not stuff I’d like said about me.

“And that you’re the daughter of Satan, and your brother is your evil minion,” Fox Girl adds.

I freeze. They’re not far off with that one.

“I need to stop them,” I say firmly. Dad’s #1-rule-that-even-Mom-agrees-with is that no one can know about your species. Since Angels and Demons aren’t supposed to get married, who knows what people would do to a hybrid?

Fox Girl smiles as if this is all amusing to her. “I thought so. Join our club. It’s called the girl’s club. Or, well… the Haters. I’m Harley Deltas, the Leader of the female clan. Look for Isaac Crafters if I’m away, he’s the leader of the MaleClan. We meet at recesses, or sometimes we have ‘official and drastic meetings that disrupt your classes because they’re so important’ kinds of meetings.” While saying this, she writes on a scrap of paper, and when she’s done she hands it to me.

This is a lot of information at once. What kind of club has CLANS? No book I’ve read said anything about Clubs having Clans!

“We’re the most advanced club in our district.” Harley flashes another smile. “Even the Teachers know not to mess with us. I’ll see you at the gymnasium, recess, then?”

She sneaks past me and walks off without waiting for an answer. I’m left holding a scrap of paper with neat writing scrawled on it. I look down at it.

The h8ers club meets at the gym, look for Harley Deltas or Isaac Crafters or Macayla Denevires if Harley is away. Listen on the announcements for any sudden meetings.

I spot Ludi and then run at him. “How could you let that girl take me?”

We’re in the cabin, after our first day at school. Sure, I don’t think that Harley was too bad, but she’s causing my views on good and bad to disrupt each other. I mean, she seemed nice enough.

Ludi looks really confused. “You’re right here.”

I feel impatient. “At school, rotten maggot!”

“Don’t call me that,” Ludi glares. Ugh. “Are you talking about that girl with the orange hair?”

“Duh!” I can’t help but roll my eyes.

“Aren’t you friends now?” Ludi tilts his head.

“No way! She’s horrible. Got this club called the Haters.” My mouth flies open and speaks. The angel in me doesn’t like Harley. Does that mean that the demon side does, and by wanting to be friends with Harley means that I’m becoming evil?

I hope not. I hope that I can have a friend that’s not so nice without going full demon mode. I shake my head. “I mean - I might - Maybe.”

“I met a Hater too. They asked me to join.” He grumbles.

If they asked him to join, and he said yes, I would be able to see him every day! Holding the excitement inside down, I ask him “Yeah, they asked me too. What did you think of it?”

He mimes vomiting, and I frown.

“You’re not going to join, are you?” Ludi asks suspiciously, seeing my frown.

I shrug. “Maybe. Some friends are better than no friends.”

“What if they’re terrible, sucky, bullying friends?”

I feel my angel side shaking her head. Relax. Having a few friends isn’t demonic. What is somewhat evil, however, is not giving people a chance. At all. I decided to annoy him for his selfish decision.

“Still friends, aren’t they?” I say. Then, because I can, I flip my hair. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to work on some studying.” And I stalk past him.

I didn’t want Ludi bugging me about Harley all day, so I quickly scanned a spell of Dad’s to lock things, and I used it on my door. Now Ludi can’t get in and annoy me.

But the knock that I hear isn’t Ludi’s normal banging. It’s a soft tap.

I swallow. I know that tap. It’s Mom.

Of course, Ludi ran to Mom to get her to tell me to stay away from Harley. I was so sick of him interfering with my personal life!

But I can’t keep the door closed on Mom. I just can’t.

I wave my hand and the spell fades away. Mom comes in, her soft wings folded.

“So Ludi told me about the kids,” Mom says, coming down into my room. “He says you’re thinking of joining them.”

The little snitch. I nod. “Harley doesn’t seem that bad to me! Sure, she’s a little rough, but she’s a leader and I think I could learn a lot from her! Besides, Ludi’s just mad because he’s read all the middle school books and he thinks that there’s this ridiculous bully-good-guy thing going on, which I didn’t explain right but you know what I mean!”

Mom frowns. “No, I don’t. But Lora, I’m not here to give you trouble. I just want to ask you something.”

Maybe she wants me to feed the goats. I think.

“I don’t want you to feel like Harley is the only choice of friend you’ll ever get. There will be others, maybe even better people. Do you feel like you’re forced to befriend Harley?”

“It’s not evil to have a friend that’s not the nicest!” My mouth flies before I think.

Mom stands up.“If you still want to befriend Harley, that’s fine.” She says gently.

“Can you tell Ludi to mind his own business?” I ask. And also, making friends with Harley is not going to change the world!

Mom looks down. “He’s worried about you. And, to be honest, I am too.”

And that is all she says before she leaves my room. This disarms me before I can get angry about her interfering too much in my friendships.

Why are they worried about me? Does Mom know that I’m listening to both my demon and my angel side? That must be what she meant.

I stand and walk to my window, fighting the urge to punch it in. I should be able to make friends without my ENTIRE family getting angry about it! For Grandfather’s sake, Harley isn’t a demon! I’m a hybrid, I can handle a simple girl!

But maybe they’re right. Maybe Harley isn’t the right person.

Shut up, angel!

The next few days are uneventful. Harley Deltas and her best friend Macayla Denevires are sick, and so is the leader of the MaleClan Isaac Crafts. Because of this, there weren’t any meetings, but I did meet up with a few other girls from the same group and they were like Harley and Macayla-just enough leadership issues to be interesting.

I’ve seen Ludi a couple times, hanging out with some kid with brown hair, tan skin and grey eyes, and a girl with curly blonde hair and blue eyes. They look like weirdos. I should tell Ludi to think about what kids he wants to hang out with. I mean, not because I’m trying to control his life, but who knows what kind of bullies could swoop in and bully him and those kids?

Today, Emelie Ales and Ceara Didaskolo were on the phone with Harley and Macayla, and I’m standing right beside them so I heard their conversation.

Emelie flips her long blonde hair and speaks into the phone. “We’ve taught Lora all we can about becoming one of us. Can’t wait ’till you’re here so we can perform the Ceremony and officially let her in.”

Ceremony? This annoys me slightly. Having grown up learning the rituals and ceremonies of the demons I know probably enough to correct everything they’ll do wrong. Not that I know they’ll do everything wrong, but maybe I should be leading the ritual. Like in Spiritual Rituals of the World, it shows a diagram of humans getting rituals wrong nine times out of ten.

“Yeah,” Harley’s voice sounds robotic coming out of Emelie’s phone. “I think Macayla’s buying the candles.”

Candles?

Maybe the look on my face alerts Ceara because she grins. “The ceremony is absolutely gorgeous!”

I immediately open the ritual room to search the ceremony that they’ll use. Most of the rituals in here contain blood and gore, which definitely can’t be what Ceara means. It’s not ‘gorgeous’ standard.

But I freeze when I see that Dad’s in the room.

If you’ll remember, I’m not allowed in the ritual room. Period. Dad is a demon and will flip if he sees me in here.

And guess what? At that moment he turns, and I see that there is a man standing behind him. I can recognize him instantly, and I know that I am doomed.

“Lora? What are you doing in here?” Dad asks dangerously. Uncle Salan looks at me, his tail tip lit on fire.

“I-I was looking for you,” I lie quickly. Satan’s terrifying right now, his tail lashing slowly, his red skin glowing in the red light and his horns gleaming. In a way, he looks like Dad, but his nose is sharper and his eyes are redder and smaller.

“Well, you know the rules,” Dad says, shooing me out with his hands. “No kids allowed in here.”

I nod and back out of the room. I’m amazed my alibi worked because it wasn’t my best work. I knew I should have re-read Catch Your Slave’s Lies Before They Even Say It again. But mostly, I’m scared. Because Uncle Salan is home.

Does Ludi know? Whether he does or doesn’t, I should go talk to him right now. About the kids he’s hanging out with, about Salan, about… well, everything. I don’t think we’ve talked since the incident about Harley.

“Ludi?” I tap my knuckle against his door.

He opens it, and the look of surprise sends guilt crashing into me. “Oh, hey Lora! I didn’t expect… well… I thought you were… studying.”

“Yeah, no… Turns out I’m already ahead of the class…” I look down. “Can we talk for a little bit?”

Ludi smiles. “Of course!”

He sidesteps to let me in, and I look around his room. It used to be so clean, but now it’s a mess. Laundry everywhere.

“I’m just cleaning up before Grayson and Erin come over,” Ludi says, flopping on the bed. There is a half-folded pair of jeans on the pillow.

“Who’s Grayson and Erin?”

“My two friends at school.”

“Oh.” Grayson must be the tan kid. “Um, I wanted to talk to you partly about them. But - but it can wait, I suppose. Uncle Salan’s visiting right now.”

Ludi freezes, his face panicked. “I need to hide,” He gasped like a fish out of water. “Cover for me-I can’t let him see me!”

He made to run to the bathroom, but I grab his elbow. “What are you talking about?”

“Salan-he can read minds-he learned it in a spellbook, that one that Dad leant him - at least I think so-” Ludi struggled. “I don’t want him reading my mind!”

“I get that you’re scared of our uncle, I am too,” I try to reassure him, to calm him down. “But this is a more severe reaction than I’ve ever seen you have! And since when do you read?”

“I took the book he gave Dad and read it - Hybrid Slaves - What You Need To Know-” Ludi wheezes. “It’s under my pillow! Right now! And I read that hybrids are always born in twin form, and one of them always becomes like one parent and the other twin the other parent, because the two souls of the parents can’t mix properly! So, one of us will be an angel and one of us will be a demon!” Ludi pulls away from me finally. I stare at him. Ludi’s read a book before I could? This is mythical!

“And I’ve never done any of the signs that help you realize what parent the hybrid is leaning towards-to be a demon, you have to look somewhat like the demon parent, and you have to have certain-behavioural issues, like snapping and trying to fit in with everyone else-demon hybrids are usually insecure, overly defensive, and quick to anger! I’m none of those things!”

He’s listing everything I am. I realize with a start. I’m insecure. I’m overly defensive. I’m quick to anger. I look somewhat like Dad.

I’m the demon hybrid he’s talking about.