The Really Important Prolouge

The bell rang, shrill and demanding in my ears as the intoxicating mix of sweat and perfume filled my nose. The sweat was from the girls last period who had probably had to run a mile on the track outside, and the perfume was the girls probably trying to hastily cover up their stench. Oddly enough, this was always the smell that contaminated the girls locker room, and yet every single time the smell is enough to knock me over.

I pressed against the wall to avoid the girls that were trying to squeeze their way out of the narrow stretch of hallway that was the only exit from the locker room to the gym. The last of the squealing mass had finally managed to leak out of the locker room. The voices faded away in echos as I dropped my bag next to my locker. I sighed.

I was late. Again. Crap.

I am the model student when it comes to grades; I have never had a B on my report card. Behavior wise, I am generally a pretty good person, if you don’t happen to count the endless sarcastic comments I make to my friends when i’m in a bad mood. I have tons of friends, even if half of them are either emo, geeks, or that one person you really want to smash in the face with a brick. I guess i’m pretty, I have glossy brunette hair with intense dark gray eyes, even if my skin will practically never tan. But being late is my weakness. At least today.

And now I have Coach on my bad side.

James Turner is one of the strangest men I have ever met. His clothes are almost always mismatched in bright neon yellows and oranges and greens and one time even purple. He’s in his mid-50’s, so naturally his hair is grey and he is balding, but he tries to hide it with massive amounts of hair gel to slick what hair he has forward, which overall makes him look like he has gross patches of oily fuzz pressed against his skull. He walks with a slight limp, probably because of one of the million accidents that had happened when he was in the army. But even so, with all his quirks, he is one of my favorite teachers. Unless, like today, I just happen to be late for gym. Then, his rank on my favorite scale is about the equivalent as Darth Vader.

Which is exactly why it took me only half a minute to pull on my old holey sweats and an old 2007 black Running Brushy Middle School t-shirt with a cougar on the front. It was a relief to feel my old running shoes, black and green, no less, mold onto my feet perfectly. At least my gym shoes were reliable and constant. They never seemed to fall apart, and they always made my feet feel bouncy and cushioned at the same time. Reliable and constant. The two things that never seemed to apply to anything else in my life. But, oddly enough, that was okay with me.

Because it isn’t like my life is normal. No, normal has been out of my reach practically since I was born. Why, you might ask? Am I an orphan, abandoned at birth? Am I an Olympian champion, forced to retire because of injury? Were my parents brutally murdered when I was an infant, and now i’m a suspect? If these were your guesses, I will gladly tell you that you have been watching way too much TV. Don’t be ridiculous.

I’m just an Angel.

Okay, so maybe that’s a little dramatic. Sue me.

And I know what you’re thinking. I’m probably on a mission to restore peace to the Earth, sent by God himself to unleash his wrath. I have a halo above my head and i’m a good little soldier for daddy.

There’s really no other was to say this so, uh, hell no.

Angels aren’t what you’d expect as a product of heaven. Actually, we’re more of what you’d expect as a product of a Vegas sideshow act with wings. Take coach, for example.

I’ll admit it. As far as Angels go, Coach is actually pretty normal. Usually, Angels are born with more than a few quirks, like the power to be invisible, or read minds, or influence the elements, etc. (Not to mention the wings).

But as far as I can tell, the only thing wrong with Coach(other than having awful breath and and even worse fashion sense) is that he has this nasty habit of setting things on fire when he loses his temper. And I have to give him credit on that, because usually Angels can’t stand to be in the same room as a normal human, much less teach pimply, hormone ruled freshmen at Freakshow Academy. It really isn’t any wonder he loses his temper so much.

Now if I could only figure out some way to not get myself set on fire...

***

“Coach?” I choked out between uneven breaths as my feet pounded the floor, each step sending a new wave of fire through my already scorching legs. Each inhale felt like someone was scrubbing out my throat with steel wool. “Is this really necessary?”

He gave me one of his famous Don’t-Go-There-Unless-You-Want-To-Know-What-Pain-Is stares from his small desk in the corner of the now empty gym and looked back down at his Sports Illustrated. Fortunately for me, I thought I knew what pain was already, having had a Half-Blood slide it’s claws down my wings. Of course, that was right before I sent him and his ego back to the Pit.

I slowed, letting air flow through my lungs again. My heart was beating so hard that I could feel my body shaking slightly as my ears were filled with a deep thud with every pulse. I sighed in relief. The fire in my legs had lessened to a dull throb, and my chest was no longer heaving.

I could feel Coach’s beady eyes boring into my back as I headed for the locker room.

“Kid, you better fly your little butt front and center, or i’ll-” He started in a gruff tone, but I cut him off.

“Have to eat cold leftovers for dinner?” I suggested as I turned on my heel back towards him, my eyebrows raised, daring him to interupt me. He didn’t. He’s never been stupid enough or brave enough to cross me. “Because if we don’t get back to the house soon, Hawke is going to skin us alive, not to mention Aunt Crystle, and then I won’t have time to cook, and you, for some reason, are afraid of the microwave.” I finish, enunciating each syllable for emphasis.

His bushy eyebrows furrow as he glares at me, and out of the corner of my eye, I swear I see his fingers ignite, sending his magazine up in flames. I cross my arms and cock my hip out, giving him an equally threatening You-Know-I’m-Right look.

He just grunts and brushes the dark ash off on his trousers. “Kid, I let you get away with way too much.” I smile. He’s right, he always has let me off easy when the other students aren’t given so much slack. I guess that’s one of the perks of being his granddaughter. “Now go get showered, you smell like Hawke after he came home from chasing that Gorgon across Canada last summer.” I roll my eyes. There’s no way I smell that bad.

What most Humans don’t know is that a lot of the lore that comes from Europe and the middle east really is based on fact. I guess the ones that originally told those stories had to be Angels or Half-Bloods, because Humans can’t actually see Greater Demons or Monsters unless they know what to look for. Although, how anyone can’t see girls with snakes for hair, I have no clue.

But many of the creatures(or heroes, take your pick, Hercules was a Half-Blood) that were in the stories from around the time of Ancient Greece, like Gorgons, are Monsters or Greater Demons. Medusa was a monster. Hercules was a Half-Blood. Hydras are Monsters. Even the Greek Gods were Angels. Well, mostly. I wouldn’t be surprised if Zeus turned out to be a Half-Blood whose daddy just happened to be able to summon lightning.

But, of course, even if I wanted to risk telling them that everything they knew was wrong, it’s not like any human would believe me, right?