Fallen Angel

Chapter 1: Brannon

Leaning on the wall in the male restroom on the second floor, I waited for Luca to find me. Hiding wasn't easy, not when I was the son of the devil. It was bad enough that I was almost the spitting image of him, I also happened to have the eyes of the damned. Well, not the damned really, it just sounded cooler. I had the eyes of the fallen deities, which I suppose sounded just as cool. There was only a few that had the deep red eyes, that was my father, my two younger siblings and myself. The demons had a bright red colouring that indicated they were nothing more than a boring demon.

The door swung open and Luca slammed it shut, leaning on it as his body heaved. Strands of brown hair fell over his face and into his eyes. I'd seen this kind of nonsense from Luca the past eighteen years, he was trouble with a capital t. He was the second born from a set of triplets, his younger and older sisters were at this school as well. The three of them and their older brother were all the same, brown hair, green eyes and a way about them that had the opposite genders crawling over them for their attention. Sometimes it was their own gender as well.

"Emery's on the war path again and she's pissed big time."

"This floor?"

Luca nodded and walked over to me. Rather than holding his hand, I gripped his shoulder and made us disappear. The door swung open again and we backed away as Mrs Emery walked into the room. Her eyes swung around the small restroom, searching for something. I had a feeling I was holding that something.

"Mister Delacroix, I saw you enter this restroom. Do I need to call your parents again?"

I squeezed his shoulder which was my way of telling him to shut up. Offering my abilities to help another being was against the rules and the woman in front of us had a list a mile long for me.

Mrs Emery, the head mistress of this school was walking along the line of the cubicles, pushing open the doors. She was a hard woman but one that did an amazing job at keeping this place running to a strict regime. The list to get children into this school was really long. I got in because my parents enrolled me when I was a few weeks old. Oh and of course, son of Satan. You know, who would dare refuse the devil?

As for my best friend Luca Delacroix, well that came from being a child of a vampire dynasty. Luca and his sisters had been enrolled just after their birth as well and if that wasn't bad enough, they knew Merryl Emery on a more personal level.

How personal? Well their older brother Castian had been personally tutored by the old crank before this school was founded. They couldn't get away with anything because Emery had their father's phone number on speed dial. And it was far worse than it sounded, Luca's father Nicolas worked for my father. Nick was my father's right hand, the man held the attention of the devil. When Luca got into trouble, I was in trouble by default.

Emery took a sharp and deep intake of air as she moved to the next cubicle.

"Mister Dremain."

Slowly and quietly I began to pull Luca down. It wasn't easy but the woman could detect a deity. Okay so that we are clear, I don't stink but there was something different about deities. I don't know how she was able to detect me but she always did. Luca had tried to find me like she does and he always failed. Maybe I needed to ask his sister Chloe, she seemed to flutter her eyes at me enough.

As we got to chest deep in the tiles I could feel the misty heat of the room below. I smiled broadly, knowing what was below the second floor male restroom. It was the change rooms for the girls, it sat adjacent to the sporting area.

It was the biggest of my rules on that long list that Emery had given me. I was not allowed to disappear and wander through anywhere that there would be someone either wholly or partially naked. I had to respect other people's privacy.

So, I respected it but I also respected saving my ass.

We hit the floor with a soft thud, not gaining any attention from the few occupants of the room. As I pushed Luca's shoulder, I could feel the resistance. He liked being in here and being unseen by all. At least, I thought we couldn't be seen. I turned to see a pair of blue eyes looking in our direction. Bright and deep red hair was pulled back into a pony tail as she stood. Her bag was lifted onto her shoulder, turning to the door I knew that we were about to collide if I didn't get Luca through the wall.

A girl appeared from the shower area, moving to a spot that was in our way. I couldn't pass through people, it alerted them to the fact that they weren't alone. It was like a shiver that crept up their spine fast, like hundreds of spiders running from the tail bone up. That was the memo that went out the first week of every new school year. How to detect when Brannon Dremain is invisible and walking through you. Or as I like to call it, how to make Brannon feel like an outcast.

I pulled Luca to the door, hoping to push him through it. Except that it was already open. The girl that I thought had been looking in our direction was holding it open as she looked at her phone, concentrating deeply. With a mighty push I continued to deal with the reluctant to leave Luca.

Quietly we weaved through the sparse crowd, finding a corner to re-appear in. Luca offered an appreciative smile, one that I saw far too often. It was the thanks for getting me out of the big stinking pile of manure I'd somehow managed to get myself into smile.

"What did you do this time and why were you late?"

"I was searching for something in the library and someone said that Emery had put it into the restricted section."

The restricted section was another name for about to be burned in the furnace. Luca looked around the corridor, searching through the faces before turning back to our quiet conversation.

"So maybe I found a way into the cage."

"And this is where you tell me that you found what you were looking for."

He shook his head, looking a little freaked out. His eyes darted around the corridor.

"You know how we were trying to figure out how Emery knows when you're invisible well I've been focusing on the more spiritual side of what you are rather than you know, flesh and bones. Because you're here when you're invisible but you're not really, you know?"

"No." I said dryly.

"Come on Bran." He huffed. "Like you are kind of a ghost, but you're not really. So I went in search of things that were a little more religious. The restricted isn't for the furnace like we've been made to believe. It's like a proper library for dark beings, there's an area that has a table and a chair, it's got scrolls and really old books. Kind of like your old man's study."

"So it's ancient then?"

He nodded, darting his eyes around again. His lips pursed tight as his fingers rapped against his books.

"I wasn't in there for long, I was too shocked that I'd gotten past the gate. There was someone in there. Someone like you."

I raised my eyebrows, wide eyed and rather shocked. There weren't many like me. My father and my siblings were the only deities on the darker side of life. On the other side there was archangels, they were the only ones to be considered to be a proper deity.

"Did you see this person?"

Luca shook his head.

"I detected them, it was like a creepy feeling. I think it's like how Emery knows when you're ghosting around the place."

This was odd to say the least. It was unlike the archangels to be bothered with books in a school for the non-human children. The books on offer here were rather sub-par in my opinion. Luca was looking around again, when he turned back his eyes widened as he stared behind me.

"Mister Dremain, Mister Delacroix. My office now."