Girl Enchanted (Book 2 of The Girl Trilogy) (11 page)

I didn’t know what to say, so I just
kept quiet.

“
We’ve been taught about
the outside,” the giant said. “Adam—he is a tri-breed of the first
man. He taught us even though he is forbidden to reveal the
secrets.”

“
Yes,” the zebra girl said
excitedly. “The leaders created him with incantations and DNA
crossings. Adam was born with knowledge. We hate Adam. But we won’t
tell on him to the leaders because we like to know the
truth.”

“
He tells us that we are
forbidden forms. Crossbreeding two different species defies the
laws of the universe. Every creature is only to mate with its own
kind.”

My eyes widened. “But, Adam is a
crossbreed,” I said. “I saw him in another room before I was
caught. He looked half man and half fish like me.” I decided not to
mention that I am part faerie. It seemed to me that the less they
knew of me, the better.

“
You are almost right,” the
zebra girl said. “He is a tri-breed. A genetically altered creation
of the first man. He is one third human, one third fish and one
third butterfly, a unique mixture of the elements of earth, water,
and air. This is also a forbidden combination.

“
Using the bible as their
source, the leaders dug up the bodies of the original man and
woman, Adam and Eve, in the Cave of Machpela. Because of their
purity and high connection to God, their bodies did not decay, but
remained after all these years in perfect form.

“
From these bodies, the
leaders extracted DNA which they combined with the DNA of fish and
butterflies, thereby joining the elements and creating genetic
alterations of the original man and woman.”

“
Why?” I shook my head.
“Why would they do this?”

The giant scratched his thick mess of
brown hair and explained now, “With their creations they could gain
access to the Garden of Eden and eat from the Tree of Life, thereby
establishing eternal hell on Earth. With eternal evil in place,
they would gain power over all.”

“
I have heard something
about this legend, but what I learned was a different variation.
Don’t the leaders you speak of need all four elements, earth,
water, air, and fire, to gain access to the garden? From what you
said, the newAdam and Eve only have three of the
elements.”

“
Yes, you are right,” the
zebra girl responded. “But, the leaders are the missing element.
They are fire.”

“
Who are these
leaders?”

“
They are Shaul and Aver
Hainsworth,” the giant said.

11

I choked on the water in my tank. My
mind was spinning. Shaul and Aver created all of these crossbreeds!
All of these underwater warehouses were theirs. How could Shaul not
tell me about this? My emotions flipped and flopped between hatred
and love. Was he just using me as part of a selfish plan? No, it
couldn’t be possible—it just couldn’t. There was some reasonable
explanation.

“
Are you Ok?” the zebra
girl asked.

I wasn’t Ok, not even a little bit. My
mind was racing in a lot of directions trying to make sense of it
all, but I nodded to the zebra girl, anxious to hear the rest of
the story. I wanted to get as much information out of her as
possible. As best I could, I tried to put my feelings aside and
focus. “I’m fine,” my heart was racing and I felt the blood rising
in my cheeks. “I’m just not used to being trapped like
this.”

“
You better get used to
it,” the giant grumbled and then continued with the story, “Our
leaders, Lord Shaul and Lord Aver…”

I choked again on the
water. ‘
Lord
Shaul
and
Lord
Aver!”
This was just too much. How could any of this be true?

The giant was still speaking, “…they
are the direct descendants of the devil. These brothers are the two
serpents alive today who each possess half of the soul of the devil
who seduced Eve into eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and
Evil. Either serpent can enter the garden with the genetic
abominations that they created of Adam and Eve.

“
The problem is that the
leaders created genetically matched parents—the mother was half
human and half butterfly while the father was half human and half
fish. These parents, Telly Belle and Zikron Baro, were assigned to
care for their Eve tri-breed in one of their bigger cages. They did
the same for the Adam tri-breed, with other genetically matched
parents, but those caretakers did not rebel. As the story goes, the
female tri-breed’s parents fell in love and escaped with their
genetically matched daughter.

“
But, shortly thereafter,
the serpent people found them. Telly and Zikron were banished from
returning to the facilities and forced to live their lives apart.
Telly was confined to Aurora Springs, a land of the same
crossbreeds. They call themselves faeries. And Zikron was banished
to Azkelon. They are never permitted to see each other
again.

“
The leaders sent a serpent
woman by the name of Patravia Dressemme to take the Eve tri-breed
from Telly Belle and raise her as her own daughter. They felt that
the Eve tri-breed would be better taken care of by one of their
own…”

I was shocked at what I was hearing.
My mother was a serpent! It couldn’t be. She was a religious
fanatic, bent on destroying the serpent people. Was that all a
guise for her true intensions? Could it be true that she wanted
hell on Earth? Does she care that I would become a tortured slave
for all eternity?

What a liar she was and in so many
ways! My entire life had been an illusion and Patravia knew this
all along. Oh, how I hated her!

The pain in my heart was so great.
Shaul, Aver, my mother were all terrible traitors. I wanted to cry
and scream. I wanted to throw up, the betrayal was too painful, but
I had to cover my emotions so that the giant and zebra girl would
continue giving me information. Oh, how could I bare so much
betrayal? I had to stay calm. I just had to.

I felt my lip quivering lightly. I
wanted to hit myself, to make the pain physical rather than
emotional. But, with whatever mind control I could muster up, I
held the rest of my face still with no expression whatsoever.
Aching inside, it didn’t look like they suspected
anything.

The giant cleared his throat of phlegm
and continued, “Another problem manifested for the serpents though.
Zikron was bitter about losing his lover and child, so within the
last year he has been calling the possessors’ of the four elements
to him with the song of the siren…”

So the music in our
minds
is
coming
from my father in Askelon like Telly said. At least that part of
the story was true.

“
Since the siren song
began,” the giant continued, “the leaders have lost all control of
their emotions and are constantly drawn to the sounds of his trap.
They can hardly keep themselves from swimming right into the light
and into the porthole of Azkelon. Zikron could destroy their plan
to enter the Garden of Eden. He could trap them in Azkelon
forever.

“
We have all seen it. Lord
Shaul and Lord Aver have lost control. Adam tells us; we sense it.
The music has made them fall madly in love with the Eve tri-breed
and they may even lose further control and surrender to the siren
song of Azkelon.”

“
And you know all of this
from Adam?”

The zebra girl untied the knot in her
long red hair and shook it wildly. “Yes—even though we do not like
him because he calls us abominations, apparitions in opposition
with God, we know he is honest. He is incapable of lying. It is in
his genetic makeup. One of the crossbreeds escaped, but before he
fled, he gave us Adam’s charts to clarify our years of
speculation.”

“
How did Adam convey all of
this information to you? He isn’t even in the same
room.”

The giant and zebra girl laughed
heartily.

I looked at them, feeling perplexed.
“I don’t understand.”

“
We are all connected
through the mind,” the zebra girl said. “Where have you been?” She
looked at me with confusion in her eyes. “Don’t you know
that?”

“
What?” My eyes
widened.

“
You must have lived a
sheltered life—how unusual you are.” She laughed lightly. “All
crossbreeds can communicate telepathically with each other if they
so desire.”

“
So can Adam hear what we
are thinking and saying right now?”

She looked at me mischievously which I
found perplexing, “Not unless we want him to hear us. We didn’t
call him to our conversation, so our words are private.”

“
From rumor, I had heard
that the Eve incarnate possessed only the elements of water and air
and that the devil incarnates possessed the elements of fire and
earth,” I said, hoping I wasn’t revealing too much. “Religious
dogma says that if one of the devil incarnates consummate with the
Eve incarnate and together they produce a son, that son will be the
soul of the original man. This child is the key to the Garden of
Eden. With this child, any of the incarnates can gain access and
either eat from the Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Life or both.
With that power, they can create either heaven or hell on Earth
depending on which tree they chose to eat from.”

They both nodded and the giant spoke
in his low frightening voice, “We read about that version of the
prophesy that you mentioned. Both ways achieve the same goal. If
the serpents kill Adam, they can have you for themselves and
produce a son with his soul.”

The zebra girl interjected,
“Originally, Lord Shaul and Lord Aver thought it was disgusting to
mate with another breed. They wanted their offspring to remain
genetically whole. Serpents know that crossbreeding is a sin and
though they relish in committing crimes against God, they consider
the serpent genetics to be superior to all. At the time of their
decision, they would not even consider breaking their genetic
line.”

Shifting his large body in his seat,
the giant cut in, “But, now with the siren songs controlling their
desires, all they want is to breed with the Eve tri-breed. They
cannot control their passions.”

“
But why have they not
killed Adam considering he must be a romantic threat to them? He
was the husband and soul mate of Eve after all. Adam must be her
rightful partner.”

The zebra girl answered, “I am sure
they want to terminate Adam, but they probably want to wait until
they produce a son with the Eve tri-breed. If they are not
successful, they may need the Adam tri-breed in order to complete
their task.”

“
So you’re saying that once
they have a son with Eve, they will kill the Adam?”

The zebra girl smiled, “Yes, at least
I hope so!” She and the giant laughed again.

I thought it was strange, sociopathic
behavior to want Adam dead just for telling them what he believed.
People are like that too. For some reason, very few want to know
the truth. Most just want to do whatever the hell they want and
bend reality according to their own desires. I could relate in that
sense actually. All I wanted originally was to go away with Shaul
and leave the world both a mixture of good and evil so that we
could enjoy our lives together.

Their desire to wish Adam dead made me
think that his story was true. The crossbreeding of two or more
species must defy the universal laws. It’s not as if he wanted that
to be so—he was a crossbreed himself, after all. If it was just
nonsense, why would they hate him so much? If it wasn’t true, then
they would likely just think he was a fool, maybe they would even
pity him. Maybe his talk could even annoy them. But, no—they think
he should die.

I looked at the giant trying to catch
a tiny fish in his aquarium with his hands. “Can I ask you
something?” I asked hesitantly.

He turned to me abruptly. In a loud
snappy voice that almost sounded like a roar, he said,
“What?”

“
I was just wondering about
you.”

He caught the fish and gobbled it up.
“What about me?” For a moment he looked around. I imagined he was
looking for another fish to eat.

“
It’s just that aside from
another giant that I saw, everyone else in this facility is a
crossbreed of some sort. Are you?”

He and the zebra girl both laughed
heartily again. “You don’t know who he is?” The zebra girl said.
Her blue eyes looked at me sharply. I hoped she wasn’t going to
light me afire.

“
Uh, well—no, actually.” My
body tensed as I waited for her reaction to my response.

To my surprise, she simply smiled and
said, “He is Goliath!” They both laughed again.

“
Who?” I paused for a
moment. “Oh, are you referring to the biblical
character?”

The zebra girl rolled her eyes. “Of
course. Who else would we be talking about?”

I didn’t want to come across as
ignorant, but I must have been day dreaming during that bible study
class at Patravia’s church. (I couldn’t call her mother anymore—not
after learning she was just a ploy in the serpents’ plan. “Didn’t
one of the Hebrews kill Goliath?”