The Night Isn't Always Quiet - Chapter 1

I'll stop loving you When diamonds never sparkle And flowers cease to grow When thunder never echoes And rivers don't flow When hearts no longer wonder And hands are never held When smiles are only memories And hope is never felt When trees no longer blossom And stars refuse to shine When God alone commands me Then I'll stop loving you

PROLOUGE

AT FIRST THE WOLVES SEEMED NORMAL. THE ONLY strange thing about them was their small numbers, but every species had those who run their lives differently. They were also too large to be average. They were both at least seven foot long and four feet high. There were two of them; one a silvery grey, the other black as midnight. The grey was big and its muscles rippled visibly under its fur. The black wolf was just as strong, but its muscles were the thin, wiry kind. It looked at lot less dangerous than its companion. The two of them padded slowly through the thick woods they were in. If anyone had been watching closely, they would have noticed that their gait was a little uneven, like they usually did not travel on four legs. Otherwise, they were sleek and graceful as they wandered through the night. Nothing else moved in the wood, which was strange. There was always some activity. An owl on a midnight hunt, a bat rising from its slumber. Cicadas usually chirped all through the long summer nights, but there was no sound. The land held its breath, waiting, it seemed, on the two oppositecoloured wolves. The grey shook the fur on its neck in impatience. Then, if anyone had been watching, they would have gasped in amazement and disbelief. For the wolf stood slowly, transforming as it did so into a boy of about seventeen years of age. His hair was platinum blonde, silver in the moonlight shining through the branches of the tall oaks around him. It was close to the shade of his fur as a wolf, and it stuck up in all directions. His eyes were hazel and sharp; they darted around the clearing he had stopped in, taking in everything he could. his face was oval in shape and his skin was a healthy golden colour, not the pallor you expect from such a blonde as him. He stood in the chill of night bare of chest and foot, with only some ragged denim shorts to cover him. He looked expectantly at the black wolf, who seemed to sigh before performing the same change as his companion. This boy looked around the same age as the other, but they couldn't have been more different. This one had dark hair, longer than the other's, and his eyes were a bright, unnatural green. His face was warm and open, with a smile that never really seemed to leave his face. He grinned now, at his companion as he spoke in a slightly husky voice. “Come now, Lucien. I thought I was the impatient one.” “We are both impatient, brother,” said Lucien One half of his mouth twisted up in a wry smile. “I just hide it better.” “Of course you do. You're just trying to make me think I can match your timeless grace. I already told you that you won.” Lucien laughed at that. “Ah, Jet. If only times were still that simple. I thought Yasmyn said that this was the place.” “She did. Yasmyn is not usually wrong.” “We have wandered around for hours though. Surely if an archangel were here, we would have found it by now. Or it would have attacked us.” “Perhaps it was simply waiting for a time when we were vulnerable,” said Jet. “Like now. Can you not feel the heaviness hanging like an omen over the wood? That is not just some grizzly bear!”

“Yes I know, but we have found nothing on the ground. Maybe it is time to take to the skies.” “Lucien,” Jet said, “that is the best idea you've had all night.” They both changed into their wolf selves and performed another impossible feat. Instead of touching the ground, their first bound launched them into the air. They climbed quickly, and soon they were above the trees. There was a sudden blur of black, and the archangel was on top of them. The dark wolf, Jet, moved just as fast and before the archangel could attack, he had his jaws around its neck. From there on, Lucien assisted in the killing of the beast, all still in mid-air. It was quite easy. A single archangel was a simple opponent for two aerewolves. The pair returned to the ground soon after, where they disassembled the archangel. Jet was the first to change to human this time. After Lucien had copied him, he sat on the roots of one of the old trees around him. “This isn't even hard anymore,” Jet said, eyes on the pile of dead archangel. “We didn't even get a good fight. This one was too slow.” “You can't be a hero all the time. Sometimes you just have to take the easy way out,” Lucien replied, sitting beside him. “The rest of us do it all the time.” Jet elbowed him in the ribs. “I know you want some glory too, Lucien. Or do you want to live your life in my shadow?” “You wish you were that talented. Come on, lets go. Everyone's probably wondering where we are. Anyway, dead archangels always creep me out.” “Just my luck. I get stuck with the only aerewolf ever born that's scared of a dead archangel.” Jet changed and leapt into the air before Lucien could get his hands around his neck. He was already high in the sky when Lucien caught up to him, and the brothers ran home in a good mood. Behind them, the animals of the wood slowly reappeared. They all examined the dead archangel and they all took a piece of it with them, so they could destroy it in their own way. And so peace came once again to the small piece of land.

CHAPTER ONE

Daylight Doesn't Always

Stop The Nightmares

MALLORY WOKE WITH A GASP. THE DREAM HAD seemed so real. She shook her head and checked the time on her phone. 5:23am. Crap. She didn't have to be awake for another hour and a half, but there was no way she was going back to sleep now. She crept across the hall and slipped into the bathroom. She stood at the sink and examined herself in the mirror. Her thick, red layers were sticking up all over the place. Seriously, Mallory thought, I must have the worst bed hair in the world. She picked up her brush and started running it through her hair while she thought over her dream. It had been a long time since she'd had this kind of dream. She could tell they were different from her other ones, because they were too clear, too defined for her subconscious to be making up. She wasn't that imaginative. Usually Mallory couldn't make sense of the dreams at the time, but a couple of days later a story would come up on the news that matched it perfectly. At first it was just strange things, like the first birth of a panda in Canada. But as she grew older, it started turning more sinister, like murders and kidnappings. And on the day of her seventeenth birthday, she'd had her last one until now. But the thing that was really weird about this one was that it wasn't about anything normal nor was it in anyway similar to the others, except for the perfect clarity of her dream. It was about giant wolves that flew and a person with immense black wings. She shook her head again and swapped her brush for her mascara. She jumped and almost poked herself in the eye with it when someone knocked on the door loudly. “Hurry up, Mallory,” her little brother Nick yelled. “Its almost seven thirty!” Seven thirty? Mallory wondered as she quickly finished her make-up and ducked back into her room so she could change for school. Where'd that hour and a half to get ready go? She quickly got out of her pyjamas and pulled on her uniform. Red and white checked dress, red blazer and a black tie. Too easy. She didn't have time for a sit-down breakfast, so she grabbed an apple after she put on her T-bars. She called a quick goodbye to her mother, who had just appeared in the kitchen doorway, as she ran out the door. School was only a five minute walk away, but Mallory usually dawdled to make it longer. She ate her apple as she walked. When she turned the corner at the end of her street, she saw two boys about her age leaning against the fence. They were both really good-looking and they didn't go to her school,

which was a bonus. One was really, really blonde and the other had thick black hair that kept falling in his eyes. Mallory's fingers itched to push it away. The blonde had deep, hazel eyes, a similar colour to her own. The black haired boy's eyes were a bright, unnatural green. She should have known then and there that they weren't human. They were both really tall and their muscles showed through the thin cotton shirts they were wearing. When she rounded the corner, both sets of their eyes flicked to her for a second, as if searching her for a threat. When they found none, they returned to casually watching the street. There was a strange familiarity around the two boys Mallory couldn't explain. It made her hesitant to walk past them. Before she could, a loud crack made her flick her head to the right. There was a long, jagged line in the road beside her, and it was growing. Mallory froze in surprise, eyes locked on the crack as a single taloned hand grasped the edge, followed by the most frightening thing she had ever seen. It was a person, or at least it had been. It was at least four times as tall as she was. Thick, black, leathery wings protruded from between from between its shoulder blades, so shocking Mallory couldn't pull her eyes away from them for long enough to determine if it was male or female. Scales shone from around its waist and on its shoulders. Long, dark fangs were displayed as it threw its head back and roared at the sky. She shook her head. Surely she was imagining things. Having hallucinations. But every time she opened her eyes again, it was still there. By now she was too scared to scream. The winged creature hardly spared a glance for Mallory. It turned immediately to the two boys. “Stupid, stupid aerewolves, disturbing Telgan's slumber,” it muttered under its breath, its voice gravelly and slightly distorted. They hadn't moved at all. It chuckled, a dark, menacing sound. “So my disguising charms still work. I would have thought they had worn away, with all those years under the ground while the humans poured concrete and steel over Telgan's head. Well, these young aerewolves will have to be enough to still Telgan's anger.” Mallory's eyes widened. If her assumptions were correct, this thing was planning to hurt those two boys, maybe even kill them. She couldn't just stand by and let that happen. But what could she do? She was just Mallory. She straightened suddenly as a strange thought passed through her mind, leaving a burning trail of change behind it. She knew exactly what she had to do, as if she had been fighting these creatures all her life. Mallory dropped her school bag and began running toward the beast, her eyes locked on its scaly back. ~~ Jet looked in surprise at the unknown school girl as she sprinted towards him. There was something strangely familiar about her, like he'd known her in a past life. As he watched, she flung herself into the air and a pair of white wings sprouted from her back. They made her look even smaller than she actually was. He glanced up at Lucien, who was gaping in disbelief at the girl. They should have detected that she was an archangel as soon as she turned the corner. Maybe the archangels had created another, undetectable species. Hence the white wings. Both Jet and Lucien tensed themselves for a fight. But the girl wasn't

looking at them. She was staring at the empty space in front of them, a look of intense concentration on her face. She drew her hands together into a ball close to her chest and closed her eyes briefly as a strong orange glow appeared around them. She smiled a little as she flung her hands forward, the orange glow plunging through the air before them. There was a loud shattering noise as the glow hit the disguising charms surrounding another archangel, which had its talons just two metres away from Jet and Lucien. This one was much more frightening than the girl. “Telgan,” Lucien spat. This was the archangel he and Jet had been sent to destroy. Now it seemed they had their work cut out for them. Telgan swung his hand around, trying to catch the girl, but he met another orange flash. It toppled under the strength of her magic, and Jet wondered how powerful this seemingly normal schoolgirl was. She was so small next to the other archangel. Another orange blast, and Telgan's eyes rolled back in his head. Three times she had shot Telgan, and had achieved what would've taken Jet and Lucien together hours to complete. Plus, if it weren't for her, they both would be dead. So when the girl fell from the air, both Jet and Lucien rushed forward to help her. Now that they were closer, they could see that her wings were not leathery like Telgan's, but soft and feathered. “Well, that's something you don't see every day,” Jet said. “Even for us. Never seen an archangel with feathered wings before. Or white ones.” “What's an archangel?” the girl asked feebly. “And who are you?” “I'm Lucien, and this is Jet,” said Lucien. “And you should know what an archangel is. You are one.” “What?” she demanded, shooting into a sitting position. “I've never heard of that word in my entire life, and you think you can tell me that I'm something from Heaven?” “Actually, archangels are from Hell,” Jet pointed out smoothly. After a moment, he added, “Only plain angels are from Heaven.” Lucien shot Jet a 'you aren't helping' look and said, “I know its a lot to take in. If you come with us, we'll take you to someone who can explain this better than I can.” “Was that thing I killed an archangel too?” she asked. “Wait. Don't answer that. It was a stupid question. Its not like it would fit in, even if it did play the harp. Or don't angels play the harp anymore?” Despite the situation, both boys laughed. Then Lucien turned serious. “Are you sure you don't know anything about archangels? Anything at all?” “No,” she said immediately, reflexively. Then she gasped. “Actually, I think I dreamt about one last night.” “What?” Jet and Lucien asked in union. “Yeah, I'm sure of it now. It was in a wood somewhere, and it attacked two wolves – a black one and a grey one – but they were all in the air. I know it sounds really weird, but . . .” She trailed off as she caught the shocked glances Jet and Lucien were giving each other. “I think you'd better tell us all you can remember of that dream,” said Jet. The girl swallowed loudly. “Well, when it began I was watching two wolves walk through a wood I didn't know. One was a silvery-grey and the other was pitch black. After a while, they stopped, and the grey wolf stood up and turned into a boy.” She paused for a second and looked up at Lucien, realisation dawning on her face. “He looked exactly like you. You could have been twins.

Unless-” The girl suddenly broke off and pushed herself away from Jet and Lucien. “I can't have seen you in my dreams. It isn't possible. Please tell me I'm hallucinating. Tell me I've had a mental breakdown and now I'm in a mental hospital, imagining all of this.” “Let me guess what happened next,” Jet said dryly, ignoring her pleas. “The other wolf turned into me, right?” She nodded, tears in her eyes. Lucien moved closer and crouched in front of her. “What's your name?” “Mallory. My name's Mallory.”