Aleph: 8 books

It's been a summer of storms-- dark and terrible clouds overhead, and turmoil in the hearts of those below. A cry of defeat draws two broken hearts together, to search for a broken angel. Now bound to the Death by a promise and a hostage, Ben can only watch as Heaven's war seeps into his world. After all, what else could a little dead boy do?

Ben is so sick of making mistakes. Everything he does seems to make everything else worse. Suddenly things are starting to change, and Ben's sure he's going to screw that up too. He keeps tripping all over himself, but he still keeps trying. Heartbreak just doesn't stop this little boy from reaching...

For a dead kid, Ben is taking this whole war of Heaven thing pretty well. At least, he thinks so. Believing in angels isn't hard-- he's been hearing stories of angels and demons since he was a little boy. But Nathan is not exactly what Ben was expecting from Heaven, and Ben is definitely not what Nathan has learned to expect from the earth.

All that time. All that waiting. All of it for nothing. Ben's afterlife was supposed to be over almost a year ago. On a lonely highway, amidst shimmering ribbons of water, under a warming sky, the day Ben dreaded finally dawned. He faced the angel, knowing its service was done....

Violence is at a fever pitch in Ben's city. Angels are being hunted, and authorities kept at bay. Innocent people are caught up in what seems to be an endless onslaught, a panicked fray. These dark times bring together old allies in new bodies. Would you like to play a game? Heads will roll. Tails will turn. Call it in the air.

"Swear it, and mean it." "No." Even an angel has no right to ask something like that of a little boy. How could anyone be expected to keep a promise like that? How could Heaven ask so much of someone who's already lost it all? Everything Ben has left is slipping away,...

It's been too easy to get comfortable. Too easy to pretend that what we have will always go on the way that it is. Too easy to get complacent, too easy to lose sight of what's important. Old pains and new ones ache to remind us that everything ends. We do our best to keep that wisdom at bay. There's...

Ben may not have burned any bridges, but there are still plenty of ashes that need to cool before they can go home. With Hagesboro behind them, they wander southward in search of what Nathan needs to pull his head together. The name of the angel that dwells inside him. The name that will invoke its...