Court of Nightfall (The Nightfall Chronicles #1)(7)

"On three," my dad said from below. "One, two, three!"

I pulled with everything in me.

And, by the Orders, the thing actually started moving. It startled me so much that my hand slipped, and I dropped my end.

My dad grunted and my mom centered herself to grab both sides, her body draped over the top of the weapon as her muscles flexed and she pulled the box out by herself.

I scrambled to help, belatedly, and assisted in getting the tail end safely on the ground as my dad climbed the stairs with the dolly.

I stared at my mom. Shocked. Amazed. Speechless.

She didn't even look at me, just helped my dad get it on the dolly again. Like all of this was totally normal. She looked at my dad with a serious expression. "Are you sure?"

He nodded. "They will come."

She held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded as well. "Okay, then. Let's hurry."

I helped them push it to the truck, though they clearly didn't need me. Because apparently I'd been born to superheroes. Or mutants. Or…

Oh my God. Did my parents have para-powers? I'd seen the coverage in the news like the rest of the world, but living in rural Montana we didn't see much in the way of Zeniths. I heard a rumor once that a guy in town was arrested for making his beer cans dance in the street, but no one ever corroborated it. Likely someone was just on drugs and seeing things.

But how else could I explain what they could do?

And then I felt a tiny twinge of jealousy. If I had a para-power, maybe it would have helped with my eyesight. Maybe it would have made my dreams easier to accomplish.

As we got to the truck, my mom looked at me, a frown on her face. "I'm sorry, honey. You weren't supposed to find out this way."

What have I actually found out? I wondered. "Was I ever supposed to find out?"

She bit her lip. "I have to go back to the bunker for my armor. Let's get this in the truck quickly."

I threw open the back of our truck, which resembled a small moving van. My parents bought it for the same reason we had the bunker, “in case.” In case the world ends and we needed a big truck for some reason. In case tragedy struck. Always in case.

I thought they were nuts—normal in most respects, boring even—just a little extreme about this particular issue. But I chalked it up to history. They remembered the Attack on Diamond Head just over ten years ago. They'd seen the devastation wrought by the Nephilim War a few years after that, in which the Nephilim had been destroyed completely—in which their dangerous, blood-sucking race had been eradicated for good. I remembered too, of course, but I was a kid, sheltered from the enormity of it by my parents. But they had this bunker before those things happened.

And now… Now I knew they had other reasons for their extreme cautions and preparations. My parents made short work of getting the weapon into the truck while I watched and wondered.

"Who are we protecting this from?" I asked.

My dad looked down at his horrible ring, the Token of Strife. "An old friend."

I was about to ask more when the crack of thunder filled the sky. All three of us looked up. The clouds caught the rays of the setting sun, bursting with the colors of the retreating day. But then they changed, shifting, spinning like a whirlpool in the air, forming a funnel.

"They're here," my dad said, his voice too calm, too quiet. Too controlled. Because I could sense that whoever 'they' were, it was bad. Really bad. And my heart skipped a beat, shifting and bumping erratically in my chest.

But I couldn't pull my eyes away from the sky as the center of the whirlpool lit up and a beam of golden light blasted down into the field beside our house.

Even without Evie whispering the colors in my ear, I would have known. The golden light of it burned into my soul.

And then a figure emerged from the light clad in shining golden armor, holding a sword in the sky like an avenging hero.

No, not a hero. As the golden wings unfurled, as the light brightened and radiated around the figure, I saw the truth.

Not a hero.

A Nephilim.





Chapter 3


Checkmate


The Nephilim emerged from the beam of light, and others followed. They wore similar armor but they didn't have wings or a sword. Instead they walked toward us with long silver guns in their hands, guns that weren't made by humans, guns I had never seen before. I stood in shock. Nephilim didn't exist anymore. They'd been exterminated during the war. And this one, I'd never seen anything like it, not even in news clips and videos. The wings were bigger, brighter, more glorious than anything I'd ever seen or imagined.

My dad moved to stand in front of me and my mother. "Go. Now! I'll hold them off."

My mother looked at my dad, her face filled with such sorrow it choked my heart. It was the look of someone saying goodbye.

Forever.

I turned back to my dad. "If you're staying, I'm staying."

The Nephilim and soldiers were still a distance away, trudging through the overgrown grass that surrounded our house. But they would be here soon enough.

My dad gripped my shoulders as he faced me. His torture ring dug into my skin. "We can't win this, my little Star."

I wanted to argue, but with a tear trying to escape his dark eyes, I couldn't.

"It's too late for that," he continued. "Get the weapon to safety. Don't let this be for nothing."