"Yes, Ellspeth." My dad's voice was unusually firm. "We will do whatever it takes to keep you from seeing him."

I could not allow my parents to separate me from Michael. I no longer cared about being a dutiful daughter-all I cared about was Michael and the blood. I felt myself getting furious, felt that expansion I first experienced when I lashed out at Missy. My words and my actions were no longer under my control.

I stood up from the window seat, defiant in the face of their attempt at restraints. "You cannot stop me from seeing him."

My mom rose and got right in my face. She looked the way I felt. "Oh, yes, we can."

"You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"Ellspeth, I think your dad and I know exactly what you are capable of."

Placing my hands on my hips, I matched her expression and then smiled smugly at her. "Oh, really? I don't think that's possible." I didn't wait for her response; I headed straight for the window. I had every intention of flying right out of it, into Michael's arms. I didn't care if they saw. I needed to get to Michael, and I would not let them constrain me.

As I lifted the sash once again, I heard her call out, "You think you're a vampire, don't you?"

Chapter Twenty-seven.

I spun around and stared at my mom. Her eyes were so certain and knowing, yet contained no judgment of me and no incredulity. She knew who I was, what I was. I wanted more than anything to ask her how she knew, but the words stalled on my lips. How could I ask an unthinkable question?

Overwhelmed and confused, I fell back on the window seat. I must have looked as disoriented and woozy as I felt, because my parents' hands reached out to steady me. Through the miasma of the moment, I heard my dad say, "It's all right, dearest. We'll help you."

"Help?" I asked with a laugh. How could they help me? This wasn't some high school problem to be solved with a pep talk and a pat on the back. It wasn't a dilemma that a few sessions with the local psychiatrist could cure. No, my parents couldn't help me. No one could help me, not even Michael.

I felt my dad's arm slide around my shoulder and pull me tight. "Would it help you to know that you're not a vampire? Would it help you to know that vampires-as you think of them-don't really exist?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't answer. The whole setting and conversation was becoming increasingly surreal. Was I actually sitting here in my bedroom at midnight talking with my parents about why I was not a vampire? Or was I having one of those awful hyper-real nightmares in which you know you are dreaming but you can't wake yourself up?

My dad filled in the deafening silence. "I'm going to tell you a story, Ellie. It's from the Bible-from Genesis, to be exact-so we have to take it with a grain of salt. But this particular story contains a nugget of truth, a very relevant nugget of truth. So I want you to listen carefully, very carefully."

I'd grown used to my dad's random quotations-even tolerated them-but I was in no mood. Anyway, a story from Genesis was an odd choice for my dad, who claimed he loved the messages and tales of the Bible, but couldn't stomach how organized religions used them. "You said you wanted to 'help' me, Dad. How is that supposed to help?"

"Just listen, Ellie." It was an order. Since he was typically more inclined toward polite requests, I nodded.

"In the beginning, for lack of a better term, G.o.d sent some of his spiritual intermediaries-we'll call them angels-to mankind. He wanted these angels to protect his newly formed humans, to teach them about His divinity, and to shepherd them to heaven upon their deaths. Instead, these angels became enchanted by mankind. They became enamored of their purity and innocence and, of course, their physical beauty. They were made in G.o.d's image, after all. But most of all, the angels became entranced with mankind's thirst for knowledge, about their world and their origin. Because, you see, the angels knew the answers.

"So, succ.u.mbing to their own pride in knowing the world's secrets, the angels began to teach human beings all they knew about the earth-the constellations, the signs of the earth, sun, and moon, knowledge of the clouds, the working of metals, the use of coin, and the art of war. In so doing, they fell in love with mankind. They even took human men and women as spouses and produced a unique race of half man and half angel. These beings were called Nephilim.

"From afar, G.o.d watched the acts of these angels. And He was mad. These angels had taken His secrets and corrupted His favorite creation, humankind. They had even dared to fall in love with His creation and made a new creation of their own. And what could be more audaciously G.o.dlike and defiant than that? Creation was reserved for His hands alone.

"G.o.d decided that there was only one way to undo the damage caused by these angels. He had to wipe out the now corrupt humans and the half-breed creations, leaving only a select few pure humans. So he whipped up the flood."

My dad said this last word as if it deserved a capital 'F' and as if I knew what he meant. Which I didn't.

So I asked, "The flood?"

"Noah's flood," he said irritably, as if CNN had just reported the deluge. Then he launched back into his story.

"Anyway, even though He allowed these wayward angels to live, G.o.d had no intention of letting them go unpunished. He cast them out of heaven permanently and ordered them to remain on earth. To torment them in their new earth-bound existence, He left them with their immortality and their ethereal skills as a reminder of all they'd lost. Except He took away their ability to procreate with humans, of course.

"Many of these angels were furious with G.o.d's command, and decided to retaliate. They embraced their new 'fallen' status, and made concerted efforts to turn the remainders of G.o.d's pet creation-humankind-away from His light and toward their own refracted illumination. These fallen angels taught humans to worship earthly glamours that they could control and manipulate. In time, humans began to think that the ideals of these angels-even the angels themselves-were divine. Humankind no longer truly feared and worshipped G.o.d. Humans worshipped the idols fashioned by these angels-commerce and technology and consumerism and warfare and themselves, of course. And, in turn, the fallen ones captured-sucked away, if you will-humankind's souls.

"But a few of these fallen angels realized their horrible mistake. They decided to try and work their way back into G.o.d's grace by living quietly among humans and redirecting man toward His light. This small group a.s.sessed the damage that had been done to the earth and humankind by the other fallen ones, and fashioned a plan of redemption. Certain angels decided to address the corruption of the financial sector, others dealt with the rise of materialism, and so on-and you can see the fruits of their labors these days in the news. In addition, every angel in this group, the good group, tried to utilize their natural talents to guide humankind to G.o.d at the critical moment-the instant of their deaths. So using their gifts-their powerful sense of an individual's psyche which they derived from touch or blood, their heightened powers of persuasion, and their ability to fly-they reached out to as many dying humans as they could."

I froze. My dad continued talking about these angels, but his voice receded. I could hear only a constant replay of his description of the angels' abilities. Their skills were mine. Was that what I was? A kind of an angel? For some reason, the concept seemed even more foreign than being a vampire. More impudent.

"Gifts?" I interrupted. I needed to better understand who or what I was.

"In the beginning, all of these angels were given certain abilities to a.s.sist them in their work of shepherding souls to G.o.d's light. They were endowed with the gift of flight, so they could quickly reach the sides of dying humans to help them before it was too late. The angels were able to see into humans' minds and hearts, so they could understand how they might a.s.sist the humans in shedding their worldly cares and choosing a higher plane. They gained this insight by touching the human or-more powerfully-by tasting their blood, their life force. And the angels bore strong powers of persuasion, to better influence the humans' final decisions. The angels were supposed to use these gifts for their intended purposes only-to guide souls to G.o.d."

A thought occurred to me. What if you didn't use your powers for their intended objectives, for good? What if you started using them only for your own selfish purposes, like I had with Michael lately? Could that explain why I'd felt so dark recently? Why I'd sort of lost that compulsion to help others? All these questions a.s.sumed that I was an angel, of course. I asked my dad, "What if angels used their gifts for their own purposes?"

My dad paused before answering. I could tell my question kind of disturbed him. "That is precisely what these angels did at first, when they were sent to guard mankind. After all, even angels have free will, the capacity to choose darkness over light. That is why they were cast out. Once these angels were cast out and became fallen, they fully submitted their powers into the service of their own desires. Then the darkness-the urge to serve self rather than something higher-took hold. And that hold was-is-very, very hard to break, nearly like an addiction."

Before continuing, he sort of shivered. Then he pulled himself together and said, "Over the centuries, people in every culture, every society, began to take notice of these angels-especially the fallen angels trying for redemption. Remember, these angels striving for salvation were trying to bring souls to G.o.d at the moment of death. People occasionally saw them in that instant, and attributed to them the deaths they witnessed. People started to fear these angels. Who could blame them? Sometimes, the people watched the beings draw close to the dying and whisper in their ears. Other times, they saw the creatures touch their loved ones as they took their last breaths. And in rare occasions, they observed an exchange of blood between the dying human and the being. Of course, the people believed that the beings were causing the deaths-rather than facilitating the afterlife journeys of their loved ones. People created entire legends around these beings. The myths differed from culture to culture, from age to age. But the core always remained the same, and it gave birth to the legend. The legend of the vampire.

"And you can see how that legend was not too far off the mark with certain of the fallen angels, the ones who continued to serve themselves and reject the light. For they used their gifts to suck away humans' souls and create a civilization that worshipped them, instead of G.o.d."

My dad paused, and in the quiet, I couldn't help but think that this last bit sounded a lot like the musings of Professor McMaster. Since when was my biologist dad a vampire scholar? Or a biblical scholar, for that matter? I looked over at him and noticed that, during the course of his long talk, his handsome face had grown craggy. He suddenly looked so sad and so old that I couldn't possibly challenge him.

He reached out to caress my cheek. "So my lovely daugh-ter, you cannot possibly be a vampire, because there are no vampires. Only fallen angels. Good and bad."

"How do you know all this?" I finally asked, one among the many questions I'd ama.s.sed.

Before answering, he looked over at my mom, who'd remained still and silent during the whole of his monologue. She nodded her head once, and he turned back to me.

"Because humans once called me and your mother vampires."

Chapter Twenty-eight.

No way. My parents were perfectly normal, perfectly terrestrial. No way were they angels, or vampires, or anything else that whiffed of the otherworld. The very notion of my mom and dad as unearthly beings was ridiculous.

In fact, all of this suddenly felt laughable. It was too much, and I could feel the hysteria bubbling up in me. Tears streamed down my face. My stomach ached from the force of my laughter. When I realized that my parents weren't joining in, the hilarity subsided a little bit. But then I looked over at them, somber and respectable and silent in their flannel nightgown and pajamas and robes, and the whole concept of them flying and divining thoughts seemed so hysterically ridiculous that the laughter took hold again.

Finally, I calmed down enough to ask, "You two? Angels?"

"Yes," my dad said quietly. Almost apologetically.

"So, we're like a family of angels? Are you two the good kind or the fallen ones?" I said with a giggle.

"We were fallen. But now we are trying to redeem our-selves," my dad solemnly answered my not-so-serious question.

"Come on." I don't know why I was having such a hard time buying their claims, when I'd thought of myself as a vampire for some time. Except that they were my parents, and parents were supposed to be ordinary and respectable. Especially mine, who were boring academics.

But the more I thought about it, the less ridiculous it seemed. My parents were uncommonly beautiful; people always commented on it. They carried themselves with an unusual grace and calmness, excepting their reactions to my most recent behavior, of course. They dedicated themselves to teaching others how to protect the environment while still feeding the mult.i.tudes. They were the only people whose touch did not give me a single flash. And they were my parents, the ones who'd created me. If I was some kind of supernatural being, why not them? Lately, crazier things had happened.

The thought sobered me up-although I wasn't quite ready to buy the entire notion.

My mom shot my dad a look, and he left the room. My mom and I sat there in an uncomfortable silence as we listened to Dad's slippers clop up and down the attic stairs. He returned bearing a small wooden box covered in metal designs, kind of like the tin-imprinted, wooden trunks Irish immigrants brought over with them on the ships a couple of centuries ago.

Reaching into her nightgown, my mom pulled out a long gold chain made up of open, circular links. I knew that there was a plain, heavy oval pendant, also gold, on the chain too. As a child, I'd loved to play with it, running it up and down the chain until my mother tired of my game and admonished me to be careful with it. Over the years, I'd grown to see it as my mom's one vanity, her one decoration in a wardrobe of simple, functional clothes. But I was wrong.

She twisted the pendant, and it popped open unexpectedly. The little motion made me jump; I never knew that the pendant was a locket. Then she reached inside, pulled out a small key, and handed it to my dad.

He slid the key into the box's lock and opened it with one deft turn. Moving slowly and carefully, he thumbed through the items inside and removed a yellowed envelope. He placed it in my hands.

The envelope was sealed. Working my finger under the one loose corner, I looked up at my dad for confirmation that I could open it. He nodded. Gingerly, I loosened the flap on the back and peered inside. A stack of what looked like photographs rested within.

I slid them out. They were indeed photographs, all of varying vintages. Some were fairly recent-black and whites from the nineteen forties maybe-and some were so old that they were printed in sepia. Flipping through them quickly at first, I thought they were postcards because they depicted so many exotic locations. They showed the pyramids of Giza in the late eighteen hundreds, the Great Wall of China in the early nineteen hundreds, even the Empire State Building under construction, with an attractive couple in the foreground.

As I examined the pictures more closely, they appeared too amateurish and informal for postcards. The lighting and focus were often blurry, and the centering sometimes seemed a bit off. The more I studied them the more they looked like snapshots of different couples on their holidays. Why were my parents giving me these? Particularly now.

As if reading my thoughts, my dad said softly, "Look closely."

I stared at the pictures, willing them to make some sort of sense. Then I recalled that the couple was identical in every photo. Different hairstyles, different clothes, but otherwise the same couple looking precisely the same for a span of nearly one hundred and fifty years. Only then did I realize that I knew them: they were my parents.

"Oh, so this is supposed to be your proof of immortality, I take it?" I asked. My skepticism had returned.

"You think these are fake?" my mom said. She sounded stunned and a little hurt.

"Anything can be Photoshopped, Mom."

"You think we prepared these so that we could make up an elaborate lie about being angels?" She moved past stunned and on to furious. "And how do you explain your little flying sessions?"

When she put it that way... The crazy thing was my parents were the most practical, down-to-earth people I knew. Or thought I knew, anyway. I scrutinized the photographs again. There, among the pictures of all the far-flung destinations was one smallish photo of my parents in period garb staring at each other. The joyous expressions on their faces caught my eye, and I took a closer look. They were seated before the white-washed church on the Tillinghast town green, a familiar enough setting. Except that the church was the only structure in sight; none of the other storefronts and homes that surrounded it had been built yet.

I held up the picture. "This is Tillinghast?"

My dad drew close to the photo, and smiled at the memory it evoked. "Yes, that is Tillinghast in the late eighteen hundreds." He handed it to my mom. "Remember, Hannah?"

She smiled back at him. "Yes, we were so happy here, despite all troubles."

"What troubles?" I asked.

The grin disappeared from her face. "Like many New England towns in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Tillinghast suffered from several outbreaks of tuberculosis and consumption. Some of us who were attempting to find a path toward redemption visited here in the early days and tried to bring the many dying over to G.o.d. Unfortunately, these efforts were witnessed by a few Tillinghast townsmen and mistaken as the work of vampires, as your father described." The smile resurfaced. "Still, we loved it here. That's why we came back-when you arrived."

I stared up at my parents, seeing them as if for the very first time. Suddenly, without warning, I believed them.

"You two are angels. Fallen angels, to be exact." I didn't intend it to be a question, but a statement. "The good kind."

"Yes," they answered in unison.

"So you can fly and read people's thoughts? By touch or blood?"

"We could," my mom answered, alone this time.

"What do you mean? I thought you said that angels could do all that stuff."

"They can. But we can no longer do those things. For the most part," my mom said.

"Why not?"

"That part is not really important. We chose a different path."

"What path is that?"

"Part of our path is to teach people ways to care for this earth so it can be saved."

I nodded. "What's the other part of your 'path'?"

"To watch over you," my mom said.

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

What was so special about me that two angels needed to keep an eye on me? Then it dawned on me. Angels weren't supposed to be able to procreate, but my parents obviously 'procreated' me. "Is it because you were able to have a child, even though G.o.d-or whoever-banned the angels from conceiving?"

"Something like that, dearest. We have always felt blessed to care for you," my dad said.

"So I'm a fallen angel? Like you two?" Just saying those words aloud, aligning myself with them, made me feel lighter. Less alone. I was shedding the weighty, dark secret I'd been keeping-and living-for the past couple of months.

"Not exactly, Ellie. You are somewhat different from the rest of us, either those that keep to the darkness or those that chose the light."

"But I can do all the things that you described-the flying, the reading of people's thoughts."

"We know. Now."

"What am I?"

My mom stepped in. "We cannot tell you just yet. It isn't time. But we will. Please trust us."

My dad reached over and touched my cheek. "Maybe it's better for you to get some rest, dearest. We can talk more tomorrow and answer some of your questions. At dinner."

Sleep? Who could sleep with all this revelation? The very suggestion made me mad. They wanted me to sleep on a secret they'd kept from me for sixteen years. A major, major secret. I needed answers about my nature, my powers, and my immortality-for G.o.d's sake. And I needed them now.

"No way. There is no way you're going to spring all this on me, and then expect me to go to sleep." I was as angry at my parents as I'd ever been.