That had to be it. Not only had Aaron made her sad by leaving, he was now keeping her awake with bad dreams. She wished he were here so she could give him a piece of her mind. And when she was done, she’d hold him tightly and they would kiss.

Vilma imagined what that would be like and felt her heart begin to race and her eyes well with tears.

“Vilma!” somebody called, the voice echoing around the low-ceilinged lunchroom.

She rubbed at her eyes quickly and looked around. From a door in the back corner, she saw her friend Tina heading toward her. The girl was wearing dark sunglasses and walked as if she were on the runway at a Paris fashion show. Vilma smiled and waved.

“What are you doing in here?” Tina asked in their native Portuguese.

Vilma shrugged. “I don’t know,” she answered sadly. “Just didn’t feel like going out.”

Tina pushed the sunglasses back onto her head and crossed her arms. “I bet you didn’t even eat lunch,” she said, a look of disgust on her pretty face.

Vilma was about to tell her otherwise but didn’t have the strength. “No,” she said, her fingers again going to the golden cherub. “I wasn’t hungry.”

Tina stared at her, saying nothing, and Vilma began to feel self-conscious. She wondered if her eyes showed that she’d been crying.

“What?” Vilma asked with a strained smile, switching to English. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Tina reached down, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her out of the chair. “C’mon,” she ordered in a no-nonsense manner. “You’re coming with me and Beatrice, and we’re going to Pete’s for a slice.”

Vilma tried to pull away, but her friend held her arm fast. “Look, Tina,” she began. “I really don’t feel like…” But then she noticed the expression on her friend’s face. There was concern, genuine worry.

“C’mon, Vilma,” Tina said, letting go of her arm. “We haven’t talked in days. It’ll do you good. It’s gorgeous outside, and Beatrice has promised not to talk about how fat she’s getting.”

Vilma chuckled. It felt kind of good to laugh with someone, she realized.

“Let’s go,” Tina said, holding out her hand.

Tina was right, Vilma knew, and with a heavy sigh she took her friend’s hand and followed her outside to catch up with Beatrice. It would be nice to get out with her friends. She needed a distraction.

The three girls headed down the driveway toward Pete’s. Tina regaled them with tales about how her mother had threatened to throw her out of the house if she even thought about getting a belly button ring, and Beatrice, true to form, talked about her expanding bottom.

But Vilma was lost in thoughts of her own. She thought about how nice the weather was, now that spring had finally decided to show, and wondered if the sun was shining as brightly wherever Aaron Corbet was—and if it wasn’t, she wished him sunshine.

Inside the cave, Mufgar of the Orisha clan squatted on bony legs and removed four pumice rocks from a leather pouch at his side. The diminutive creature with leathery skin the color of a dirty penny stacked the stones and, with the help of his three brethren, coaxed the remembrance of fire from the rocks.

The volcanic stones began to smolder, then glow an angry red as the four murmured a spell used by their kind for more than a millennia. Mufgar laid a handful of dried grass atop the rocks, and it immediately burst into flame. Shokad added some twigs to feed the hungry fire as Zawar and Tehom gathered their weapons and placed them against the cave wall until they were needed again.

The fire blazed warmly and Mufgar adjusted his chieftain’s headdress, which was made from the skull of a beaver and the pelts of two red foxes, upon his overly large, misshapen head.

Sitting down before the roaring campfire, he raised his long, spindly arms to the cave ceiling.

“Mufgar of the Orisha clan has called this council, and you have answered,” he growled in the guttural tongue of his people. He leaned toward the fire and spit into the flames. The viscous saliva popped and sputtered as it landed on the burning twigs. “Blessed be they who are the Powers, those who allow us to experience the joys of living even though we have no right to this gift.”

The three others cleared their throats and, one after the other, spewed into the blaze. “Praise be for the mercy of the Powers,” the Orishas said in unison.

“We are as one,” Mufgar said as he brought his arms down. “The council is seated. It has begun.”

Mufgar gazed at the three who had gathered for this calling, saddened by how their numbers had dwindled over the centuries. He remembered a time when a cave of this size wouldn’t have begun to hold the clan’s numbers. Now, that was but a distant memory.

“I have called this council, for our merciful masters have bestowed upon us a perilous task,” Mufgar said, addressing his followers. “A task with a most generous reward, if we should succeed.” He looked at what remained of his tribe and saw the fear in their eyes—the same fear he felt deep within his own heart.

Shokad, the shaman, shook his head. His long, braided hair, adorned with the bones of many a woodling creature, rattled like chimes touched by the wind. He murmured something inaudible beneath his breath.

“Does something trouble you, wise Shokad?” Mufgar asked.

The old Orisha ran a bony hand across his wide mouth and gazed into the crackling fire. “I have been having troubling dreams of late,” he replied, the small, dark wings on his back fluttering to life. “Dreams that show a place of great beauty, a place where all our kind have gathered and we live not under the yoke of the Powers,” he whispered, making cautious reference to the host of angels that were their masters.

Mufgar nodded his skull-adorned head. “Your dreams show a future most interesting,” he observed, stroking the long braid hanging from his chin. “If we succeed in our new task, our masters say they will reward us with blessed freedom. Our independence we will have earned.”

“But… but to achieve this we must hunt the Nephilim,” Tehom stammered. “Capture it and bring it to Verchiel.” The great hunter looked as though he would break into tears, he was so filled with fright.

“If we wish to be free of the Powers,” Mufgar said to them all, “we must complete this sacred chore. Then, and only then, will we be allowed to search for the Safe Place.”

With the mention of the Orishas’ most sacred destination, all four blessed themselves by touching the center of their foreheads, the tips of their pointed noses, their mouths, and then their chests.

Zawar climbed to his feet, frantically dancing from one bare foot to the other. His wings fluttered nervously. “But our task is impossible,” he said, pulling at the long, stringy hair on his head. “The Nephilim will destroy us with ease—look at how he bested the great Verchiel in combat. You saw the scars—we all saw the scars.”

Mufgar remembered the burns covering Verchiel’s body. The scars were severe, showing great anger and strength in the one who inflicted them. If that could be done to the one who was the leader of the Powers, what chance did they have? “It is the task bestowed upon us,” he said with the authority that made him chief. “There is no other way.”

“No,” Shokad interjected, slowly shaking his head from side to side. “That is not true. The dreams show me a world where our masters have been destroyed by the Nephilim.”

Mufgar felt himself grow more fearful. The shaman’s dreams were seldom wrong, but what he was speaking—it went against the ways of the Orishas. Since their creation, they had served the Powers.

“You speak blasphemy,” the leader hissed as he pointed a long, gnarled finger at the shaman. “It would not surprise me if Lord Verchiel himself appeared in this very cave and turned you to ash.”

Tehom and Zawar huddled closer together, their large eyes scanning the darkness for signs of the terrifying angel’s sudden arrival.