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The silence stretched between us, taut and uncomfortable.

Cassiel seemed content to wait, as if he had all the time in the world.

Maybe he did. The concept of an angel—an actual, biblical angel—standing in front of us was too much to process all at once.

My mind kept rejecting it, searching for other explanations, other frameworks that might make sense of what we were seeing.

Growing up, my adoptive parents—Declan and Moira Byrne—had drilled into me the taxonomy of the supernatural world.

Ghosts were remnants of human consciousness anchored to our world by trauma or unfinished business.

Vampires, werewolves, and their kin were biological aberrations, twisted reflections of humanity.

Demons were corrupt spirits from another plane of existence.

But angels? They were myths, stories told to children to help them sleep at night.

The good guys who never showed up when you needed them.

“If you're an angel,” Cade said finally, breaking the silence, “then where've you been? Why haven't we seen your kind before?”

It was a good question, one that had been rattling around my own head. If angels were real, where the hell had they been all this time? Where were they when people were dying, when demons were possessing innocent victims, when monsters were tearing families apart?

Cassiel regarded him for a moment before speaking. “We exist because humanity needed us to. The universe does not craft saviors, but men do. We are the answer to a prayer no one remembers saying.”

I blinked, trying to parse the cryptic response. It sounded like the kind of pseudo-profound bullshit you'd find on a self-help poster. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means,” Cassiel continued, his gaze moving between us, “that faith creates as much as it sustains. The collective belief of billions across millennia has power. Real power.”

Moira had approached the supernatural with a cold, clinical detachment.

Her lessons on angels were particularly harsh—she'd call them “humanity's greatest self-deception.” Angels were myths, she taught, stories invented to help people sleep at night while monsters prowled outside their doors.

Declan had been even more direct: “Faith is for civilians, not hunters,” he'd say.

I'd internalized their teachings the day I watched a werewolf tear through a hunter outpost in Wales, killing three of our own while the youngest among us whispered prayers that went unanswered.

Declan had pulled me aside afterward, his words still clear in my memory: “In this world, boy, the only things you can count on are your own strength and a loaded weapon.”

If angels existed, they were worse than useless. They were negligent.

Cade frowned, his brow furrowing in that way it did when he was puzzling through something complicated. “So, what? You're just... wish-fulfillment? Some kind of supernatural placebo?”

“If that helps you understand, then yes.” Cassiel's face remained impassive, but there was a hint of something almost like condescension in his tone. As if we were children trying to grasp calculus.

I shook my head, frustration building in my chest. This was getting us nowhere. Every answer just raised more questions, none of which seemed particularly relevant to the immediate situation: we had a self-proclaimed angel standing in a dead man's body, and no idea what it wanted.

“No. No, this is bullshit. Even if you are an angel, why are you here? Why now? And what the feck do you want with Edward Hayes?” My voice rose with each question, anger and confusion feeding each other in a cycle I couldn't seem to break.

Cassiel's eyes darkened slightly, a storm cloud passing over a cold sky. “I am here because of you, Sean.”

A ringing started in my ears, like the aftermath of a too-close explosion. “Me? What the hell are you talking about?”

Outside, a distant rumble of thunder punctuated the question, as if the night itself was responding to the tension building in the room. The brief respite from rain was ending, the first fat droplets beginning to spatter against the windows once more.

Cassiel stepped forward, moving with that unnatural smoothness that marked him as other-than-human. Cade's hand instinctively shifted toward his weapon, but Cassiel paid no attention to the gesture. His focus remained entirely on me, as if Cade were merely a piece of furniture in the room.

The floorboards didn't creak beneath Cassiel's weight. Dust didn't stir as he moved. It was as if the physical world acknowledged his presence only reluctantly, unsure what to make of a being that didn't fully belong to it.

“I was not sent to interfere,” Cassiel said, his voice steady and assured. “I chose to.”

My jaw tightened as I struggled to maintain my composure. Every instinct screamed danger, but another part of me sensed something different. Not safety, exactly, but not immediate threat either.

“Why?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes.

“Because something is coming. Something that has been set in motion by forces you cannot comprehend.” Cassiel's gaze was penetrating, like staring into the depths of a glacier. Ancient. Cold. Unfathomable. “The prayer revival was not what it seemed. Brother Michael is not what he seems.”

“And what is he?” Cade asked, his voice tight with suspicion.

“An archangel. Fallen. Diminished. Desperate to restore what he has lost.”

“Like you're any different?” I shot back.

Cassiel's expression didn't change, but the temperature in the room dropped several degrees. “I am being more honest with you than most of my kind would be.”

“Your kind,” Cade repeated. “Angels.”

“Yes.”

“So you're saying those men who died, with their eyes burned out...” I began, connecting the dots into a picture I didn't like.

“Brother Michael hunts them. Drains them.” Cassiel's voice remained even, but there was an undercurrent of something like disgust. “He seeks to restore his grace by consuming human souls.”

“The prayer revival,” Cade said, realization dawning on his face. “It was a feeding ground.”

“Yes,” Cassiel replied simply. “Those who died glimpsed his true nature during the revival. They became marked by the experience—their souls forever changed. Perfect for his consumption.”

“But not you?” Cade asked, skepticism heavy in his voice. “You're not feeding on souls too?”

“I am responsible only for Edward Hayes,” Cassiel acknowledged, gesturing to the body he now inhabited. “He was already marked for death. Michael had targeted him. Hayes knew he was living on borrowed time.”

“So you what, offered him a deal?” I asked, disgust rising in my throat. “Possession instead of death?”

“I offered him purpose,” Cassiel corrected. “A chance for his death to mean something. He accepted.”

“How generous of you,” I muttered. “But if this Michael is just some fallen angel trying to recharge his batteries, why all the drama? Why come to us instead of dealing with him yourself?”

“Michael is not the true threat,” Cassiel stated, his tone matter-of-fact. “He is merely a symptom of something far worse that approaches.”

“Then why bother mentioning him at all?” I pressed, frustration building. “Why not cut to the chase about whatever this bigger threat is?”

Cassiel's eyes narrowed slightly. “Because understanding begins with what you can grasp. Michael's actions are just the beginning—a ripple from a stone that has not yet been cast.”

I studied Cassiel, trying to see past the human face he wore to whatever lay beneath. “So you possessed Hayes to, what, warn us about this Michael guy? You could have just sent an anonymous tip.”

“I needed a physical form to intervene directly,” Cassiel replied. “And I needed to find you.”

“Me?” I asked, tension coiling in my gut. “Why me?”

“Because you are crucial to what comes next,” Cassiel said. “Because of what you are.”

My patience was wearing thin. “And what exactly am I, according to you?”

Cassiel's gaze seemed to look through me rather than at me. “You are not fully human, Sean. You never have been.”

The intensity of his stare was unsettling, like being examined under a microscope. “I'm nobody special.”

Cassiel studied me with those ancient, inhuman eyes, then answered, simple and absolute. “Because you are a Nephilim.”

The world seemed to shift beneath my feet, reality tilting off its axis. I took a step back, my breath catching in my throat. “What?”

“Half-human, half-angel,” Cassiel clarified, as if I might not understand the term. “A child of two worlds, belonging fully to neither.”

“That's not possible,” I said, the words sounding hollow even to my own ears. “I'm human. The Byrnes adopted me, but I'm human.”

“The family that raised you believed that,” Cassiel said. “They did not know the truth of your origins.”

I shook my head, rejecting the very idea. “No. No, that's crazy. I'd know if I was...” I couldn't even say the word. It was too absurd, too far outside everything I'd believed about myself.

“I do not expect you to accept this immediately,” Cassiel said. “But you must be aware. You must be prepared.”

“Prepared for what?” I demanded, struggling to keep my voice steady.

“For those who will come seeking you,” Cassiel replied. “There are forces gathering that will stop at nothing to find someone of your lineage.”

Cade was watching me now, concern etched across his features. “Sean?”

“It's bullshit,” I said firmly, more to convince myself than him. “Just another monster trying to get in our heads.”

“I do not need you as a vessel, Sean,” Cassiel said. “I need you to be aware of what lies dormant within you. Others will come. Others who will seek to use your nature for their own purposes.”

Cassiel didn't elaborate further on my supposed heritage. He just looked at me, waiting for me to process what he'd said. But before I could formulate a response, his gaze flicked to Cade, and something in his expression changed.

His face, until now composed, twisted into something colder, more severe. “And you... I was not expecting you.”

Cade raised an eyebrow, defiance masking whatever uncertainty he might be feeling. “Cool. Glad I could keep things interesting for you.”

Cassiel's voice dropped, becoming quieter but edged with something sharp. “You are an abomination.”

The words hung in the air like poison, and I saw Cade's smirk falter for just a second. A flash of something raw and wounded crossing his face before he masked it.

“Yeah, well,” Cade replied, rolling his shoulders in a deliberately casual shrug. “Join the club.”

Cassiel didn't look away from Cade, his gaze fixed and unwavering. “You walk with something unnatural inside you. I can feel it.”

“And what, you think you get to decide what's natural?” Cade shot back, his voice tight with barely contained anger. The mark on his chest pulsed visibly through his shirt now, a dull red glow that matched the rising tension in the room.

Cassiel took a step forward, and I could feel the air pressure change, the temperature dropping several degrees in seconds. But I held my ground, moving more firmly between them, hand raised.

“Enough,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “I don't care what you are. I don't care why you're here. But you're gonna start giving me real answers, or we're done.”

Cassiel stopped, regarding me with those ancient eyes. For a moment, I thought he might simply push past me, or worse. But then something shifted in his expression—not softening exactly, but recalibrating.

“Very well,” he said finally. “What do you wish to know?”

“Everything,” I replied. “Starting with why you're really here.”

Cassiel's gaze moved between us, assessing. “I told you. I am here because of you, Sean. But also because of what is coming.”

“What, the apocalypse?” Cade asked, the sarcasm not quite masking his concern.

“Yes,” Cassiel replied simply.

The single word dropped like a stone into still water, sending ripples of disbelief and dread through me. “You've got to be kidding.”

“I do not 'kid,'” Cassiel said, the colloquialism sounding strange in his formal speech.

“Okay, so the world's ending. Again.” I ran a hand through my hair, trying to process. “What does that have to do with me being... whatever you claim I am?”

“Nephilim,” Cassiel supplied. “And everything. You are a bridge between worlds, Sean. Neither fully human nor fully angel. In the coming war, such beings will be... valuable.”

“Valuable how?” Cade asked, eyes narrowing.

“As vessels. As weapons. As keys to doors that should remain closed.” Cassiel's gaze fixed on me again. “Or as tools to ensure those doors stay shut.”

“Let them come,” I replied, though the bravado felt hollow. “We've dealt with worse.”

“Have you?” Cassiel asked, the question hanging in the air between us.

Before I could answer, the sound of approaching sirens cut through the tense silence. Someone must have heard the gunshot and called the cops.

“We need to go,” Cade said urgently, already moving toward the door.

I backed away from Cassiel, keeping my eyes on him as I retreated. “This conversation isn't over.”

“No,” Cassiel agreed. “It has barely begun.”