The Black Rider - J.B. Trepagnier Page 0,4
Miss Mabel was part angel, and my mother was a pure angel? My mother was an angel who took up with the Antichrist, then just left me with him. That explained why I never remembered a single thing about her in my patchwork of memories that had come back.
“So, an angel fucked the Antichrist to create a child to help him end the world? What kind of shit is that? I thought angels were the good guys.”
So, both my mother and father were total shits. They probably didn’t even love each other. It wouldn’t even shock me if he donated sperm in a tube to create me just to get what he wanted.
“Ariel, an angel didn’t help the Antichrist. A Harbinger sees disasters, then goes to observe them and help with the fallout. Your father captured her and probably cut off her wings so she couldn’t get away. We found his reports. He attempted to make the Rage Mutation with her blood first. He tortured and terrified her, but angels don’t have a blood type like humans. He couldn’t use her blood to engineer something that would infect humans.
“So, he raped her until she fell pregnant and killed her after she gave birth to you. He harvested what he needed from her body to help him with the Rage Mutation, then threw her in the incinerator. That was the wild card this time. The Antichrist trapped an angel, and he was a lot more careful this time. This was planned out to the T.”
“What does that mean for me if dear old Dad is the Antichrist and Grandpa is Satan? Am I evil?”
If Miss Mabel was really half angel, why didn’t she kill me when she figured out who my father was? Why did Aeron and Leif become my online boyfriends? It sounded like I had evil running through my veins. Something in my blood turned people into Rage Heads. Why were they comforting me instead of just snapping my neck?
“Ariel, Satan is just a fallen angel who wants revenge. Isaiah is the Antichrist, but he’s also a Nephilim, like you and Mabel. He’s half angel, half human. Your mother was a pure angel. You have more angelic blood in your veins than human, and you couldn’t help who your father is. We protect our own. Why would we hurt you?”
“I thought you were Horsemen?”
Leif pulled away from me and stood up. I had no idea why he yanked his shirt off until he started glowing with a bright white light, and enormous white wings burst from his back. His feathers looked so soft, and I was wondering if all of this was some Tequila induced hallucination. I chugged a good bit of the bottle.
“Being the Horsemen are our job, but we are angels too. Angels all have jobs. Your mother must have been a Harbinger if you can paint the future. Mabel’s dad was a Principality. They look out for and guide humans. Mabel should have been called home a long time ago, but her father just kept feeling it wasn’t the right time. I think it was because you two were supposed to meet so you could have a confidant when you ran.”
“Do I have nifty wings?”
Of all the questions I could ask after all the shit they just dumped on me, that was the first thing I blurted out. Way to worry about what’s really important, Ariel. I still had a million questions, and the first thing my lizard brain does was ask about fucking wings.
What I really needed to be asking was how to drop some epic revenge on my father for everything he did. He raped my mother, experimented on me, used my apparent angelic gifts to play the stock market, and he was trying to end the world—someone needed to do something about that. We had the Four Horsemen out there, and one pissed off Nephilim, who just found out what she was and had no idea what she could do.
“How did it get this far this time?” I asked.
Leif went to put his shirt back on to join me on the couch.
“Oh, you can leave that off,” I said, admiring the tattoos on his muscular chest.
Yeah, my priorities totally went to shit after that Tequila and finding out my Grandpa was Satan. I might as well own it.
Leif smirked at me, and Aeron just growled.
“As you wish,” Leif said, diving back onto the sofa with me and resuming playing with my hair.
“Isaiah played