In those same woods, Clark St. James needed directions. Since early that morning, he’d wandered through Kentucky’s Mammoth National Park until he’d wandered himself lost. But he had a bottle of Jack Daniels, and that made being turned around in the dark almost an adventure.

His pink hair tickled his face in the night’s stiff breeze. The wind caused the branches of the pine trees to tilt below the gleam of the moon, dancing the shadows across the path. The sight, or maybe the whiskey, made him dizzy and slightly nauseous. Twigs broke beneath the feet of Kentucky’s nocturnal animals. Clark took another shot of Jack for luck against hungry bears.

Clark didn’t hike much. Actually, he hated nature. He wouldn’t be out there, surrounded by trees and bugs, if he didn’t have a good reason—and he did. For over a year now, Clark had dreamed the same nightmare over and over. He woke countless nights with his chest heaving, vomit thick in his throat, and a scream on the tip of his tongue. Every night he dreamed of his mother, which wouldn’t be so bad if she hadn’t died twelve years ago. More than anything, he needed the dreams of his dead mother to stop.

“They better,” he warned the woods, his words slurring slightly.

They might, Clark hoped, if he proved to himself that Michaela’s body wasn’t in a cave deep under Kentucky bluegrass. He knew all about Michaela and the angels, because he wasn’t a typical human. He was a Descendant of Enoch.

The Descendants of Enoch were like the mythical tiny mice that cared for lions. Since the beginning of man, they’d been the angels’ Earthly caretakers. Long ago, Enoch had written the story of the Watchers in the Book of Enoch. He had been the first man to witness the angels, the first to be confided in, and the first to be trusted. His sons and daughters had carried on the tradition ever since.

Clark spit on the ground and took another shot. He didn’t give two shits about Enoch.

Thinking about the angels and Michaela reminded Clark of the dream. Visions sprang uninvited into his mind before he could burn them away with another gulp. He shivered and stumbled on a root; but when he looked down, there was no root. His mother’s body lie face down in a stream.

Her pale skin shone, giving off its own sort of moonlight in the dark space around her. He heard water crashing in the distance and the soft trickle of the stream next to him. He stood close enough to see that every strand of her flaxen blond hair was wet and plastered to the side of her face. Though her eyes were closed, a soft smile set the curve of her delicate lips. She wasn’t breathing.

Blood ran heavy and thick across her bare back from unseen wounds. The blood mesmerized Clark, because it wasn’t red; it was gold, a bright, brutal richness. He knew what angels’ blood looked like, and his mother was not an angel.

The scene stuttered, flickered like an old, grainy film. When Clark focused again, Iris St. James’ sweet blond curls were replaced by a wild, wind tangled black mane, and Clark saw the body of an angel with her back shredded to bits. But it wasn’t just any angel, it was Michaela—he knew this with dreamlike certainty. He watched as she took a tiny, shuddering breath.

This was the part where a scream would build in his throat, and Clark would wake up.

No matter how hard Clark fought sleep, fought his father, fought to the bottom of a bottle, he couldn’t keep the images of his mother’s dead body away. It was the reason he had come to the park, to convince himself nothing extraordinary was out there.

Not Michaela. And not his mother’s dead body.

He took more than a couple shots, and when he pulled the bottle from his lips, he gasped, and whiskey dribbled down his chin.

Clark refused to think of anything but the sweet tingling of whiskey in his blood and the belly-warming swirling in his mind. No more Mom. No more dream. He started humming the theme from Mission Impossible.

“Oh man, I’m drunk.” Clark drew the words like that was a great revelation.

Suddenly, a scream ripped through the woods like a freight train, and it wasn’t his. It was too loud to be a wolf—the agony in the sound was too human to be a bear. With the scream, the woods grew deadly still, silent as a grave.

Even the breeze stopped. Goosebumps prickled Clark’s skin. His ears rang, and a soft clicking started from the back of his head.

The clicking grew to a steady hum. Clark turned in a circle, looking for the source when the scream pierced the forest again. Clark’s whiskey-tinted vision saw the shifting, boiling shadows grow fangs as the loud humming vibrated the earth beneath his feet. The leaves rustled in the trees without the aid of wind.

Clark gulped. He stood frozen, clenching the neck of the empty whiskey bottle, unable to decide if he should run or hide. It didn’t help that the ground tilted from too many shots of Jack. He was trying to decide when a few bars of “Welcome to the Jungle” erupted from his jacket pocket. His satellite phone’s ringtone was deafening in the dark woods.

The humming turned into screeches as thousands of little animals surged into the sky. Too large for bats, the birds’ furious flapping pummeled Clark with gusts of wind. He covered his ears and clenched his eyes.

Finally, the birds flew far enough into the sky that the distant humming calmed again. The earth stilled except for Clark’s shaking legs. His phone beeped to signal he had a missed call. He opened his eyes and looked around.

“Holy shit. Did anyone else see th—?” Clark started.

With a soft, sucking crumble, the ground beneath his scuffed boots let go.

At first, Clark thought he was fainting, but he never lost consciousness, only the solid feel of the forest floor.

His stomach ripped upwards and threatened to empty its contents as he flailed in the open void. It seemed as if Hell itself had gobbled him up. The cold moisture of the air whipped by him. Somehow, with his bad luck, Clark had fallen through the roof of a massive cave.

Clark was crashing toward a rock floor, falling to his death, and all he could think about was that he had dropped his whiskey.