“Why did you defy me?!” Pawah yelled when they finally made it back to their house. Every servant within earshot instantly ran out of site, catching Nebedtka off guard when one nearly ran him over to leave. Aisha brought up the rear and stared coldly into his eyes before turning her attention back to her husband and daughter.

“What are you HIDING from me!?” Laini countered, her anger just as fueled as Pawah’s.

He stood motionless for a moment, clearly unable to find any words that would calm the situation down. Laini stood in clear defiance, her chest and chin raised, mouth in a perfect upsidedown ‘U’, nostrils flared: she would accept nothing short of the truth.

“Father…” Nebedtka sighed and took a step forward closer to Laini but he didn’t look at him. He only stared at the ground before slightly turning his head. “Our whole lives you have told us of the things that dwell in shadow...Laini and I...we simply wish to understand it more. I write these things and study them just as diligently as you but to see it...to touch it. To be able to better relate what it feels like to be in such a presence...is that not just as important?”

“My son, please!” Pawah glared through his brow. “All I wanted was to keep you two out of their reach. Away from their influences and poison because they will hurt you if they could.”

“Do you truly think us incapable of the truth? And this poison you speak of...that is not at all what I experienced just a few hours ago...that entity was filled with grace...it didn’t want to harm us. Perhaps provoke questions but it was not malicious or evil in any sense that I understand…” Nebedtka shook his head and stood closer to Laini.

Aisha let out a long and heavy sigh that caught everyone’s attention.

“I was the one who told your father not to let you two stumble into that life,” she said. Laini and Nebedkta both felt their shoulders drop and stared at their mother. She hardly ever spoke of any of these things; hardly even remarked on it even when Pawah would relate stories to them. “I knew he wouldn’t be able to keep you from the stories but I did ask him to keep you away from having to actually deal with these beings.”

“Why?” Laini huffed. “If you knew and believed...why did you sit there and let me question him and hurt him because I couldn’t?”

Laini rounded on Pawah who lifted himself up from the gesture.

“I wanted to stop questioning you. I wanted to understand ANY measure of what you deal with and then you speak to me of power and light and that creature remarking on ‘what I am’. What does that mean?” She felt herself begging despite her feet planted firmly on the ground.

Pawah and Aisha exchanged glances.

She finally rolled her eyes and motioned for him to do as he would. Pawah nodded and took in a breath.

“Laini…” he started before putting his hand over his mouth. “Have you seen anything...a man, perhaps? One that resembled a Hebrew or a Greek and then vanished?”

Her hands dropped to her side. She felt her breath taken from her before she was able to slowly nod.

“Yes, actually…”

Pawah’s face distorted and he looked very upset.

“We do not have a name for these particular beings but the Hebrews, as I understand it, call them ‘mal’akh’ and the people who can see them? We don’t have a name for them either,” he hesitated before walking closer to Aisha. “They are powerful in a way that I can barely describe. And, all of the Hebrews we have asked don’t seem to know what we’re talking about...except...for the blood drinkers who have had dealings with them.”

Aisha snarled.

“Wherever these people show up, death usually follows,” she huffed. “This man, these...people came through our village chasing a creature that ripped through the heart of us. I can never…”

Her eyes grew distant; she was clearly remembering something horrific.

“It was like the darkness was alive and reaching for us...a thing that easily towered over the tallest man it had these horns that were even higher…” she motioned with her hands to try and illustrated what she was recounting. “There was this green flame from its mouth that it would bellow out and it would dissolve the flesh on contact…”

“I was chasing after the mal’akh and the man he was with; that is how I met your mother. We both made it to the village just before the demon vanished. The mal’akh tried to chase it but it was too late,” Pawah squeezed Aisha’s arm, trying to keep her from faltering.

“And instead of helping...this man, this...beast...he began to kill anyone the demon didn’t. He claimed the demon would come back and finish what it started and couldn’t let us live until he figured out why it was ‘collecting souls’.”

Aisha grew angrier with every word.

“The only reason I survived is that your father yanked me into the woods and we ran,” she grit her teeth.

“I saw him again years later in Cairo and he walked right up to me and thanked me for saving Aisha,” Pawah swallowed hard. “He said that ‘your girl-child...she is one of us…’”

Laini stared hard at both of her parents as they spoke, her eyes narrowed and focused

“I swore I would not allow that to happen. I won’t allow you to become a monster.”