The Divine Whisper (6 page)

“Really?
You don’t think you’re pushing it a little?”

Shaking her head, she smiled in his direction.
“Nope. Not at all.”

They both laughed, and Gemariah settled more comfortably into the seat.
“Fine, you win.”

There was a comfortable silence for the next few minutes, until Tori spoke up.
“So, what’s the plan when we get there?”

Gemariah had his hand resting on the head of his
ax, and was idly pulling the edge of the bit under his fingernail. “Well, first we need to isolate the girl.”

“Obviously,” Tori answered as if it was ridiculous of him to even mention it.

“I only brought it up, because I’m not sure how this can happen while she’s at school.
There are people everywhere.” He reached over to change the radio station, and got his hand smacked away before he could get there. “Wouldn’t it be more practical to do this at her house or after school somewhere?”

She looked over her shoulder to check for traffic beside them.
Once she was done switching lanes, she finally answered. “If you were at the meeting this morning, you would know the answer to that.”

“Well, I wasn’t, so enlighten me.”
He couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist.
I was just stating facts.” She grinned, and quickly looked in his direction. “Or better yet… keep going. I saw this amazing looking dessert that included nuts and layers of pastry. It looked absolutely delicious.”

“Baklava?”
He couldn’t suppress the shock in his voice as he said the word. To hide his reaction, he quickly coughed and cleared his throat.

“That’s it.
How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess.”
He could make Baklava, and had on many occasions, but the thought of working with the phyllo doe always made him shudder. “My apologies. What was said in the meeting this morning?”

Tori smiled as if she had just won a battle of wits.
“Well, we decided that the school was a more controlled environment.”

“With all those people?”
He jumped in as soon as she stopped talking.

“Are you going to let me finish?”

“I thought you were done.”

“I stopped to take a breath… that’s all.”
When he said nothing more, she went on. “Someone would notice if something out of the ordinary was happening at the mark’s house, but somewhere that has more people, not everyone is paying attention to what’s going on around them.”

“What about in between school and her home?”

Tori was already shaking her head before he finished.
“It’s too unpredictable. We don’t know exactly what she does in that time.”

Gemariah was about to pull out his hair in frustration.
“Exactly! Then why are we acting right away and not observing her routine for a few days?”

Tori scoffed at the idea.
“You’re kidding, right? There is a possible demon hanging out around Trinity. Do you not see the significance here?”

Of course.
He needed to get his head back in the game, because he had missed that key point. The situation had just gone from bad to really fucking bad.

Not too long ago, their world was turned upside down when Malachi confronted and battled his great-grandfather, Azazel.
In all the chaos beforehand, Azazel had Trinity killed while Malachi was helpless to do anything.

When it was all over, Azazel was gone, but so was Trinity.
That’s what they all thought anyways… Apparently, unknown to any of them, they all had one soul mate that could be turned into a nephilim, bound to them forever. Trinity was Malachi’s, and they had already mistakenly started the turning process before she was killed. That was the only reason she was able to be brought back.

Of course, to be brought back, there was a catch.
The turned nephilim was an exact equal to their partner. Feelings, thoughts, pleasure, pain… everything was shared. It also included death. The only way to kill a turned nephilim was to kill their counterpart.

It was for that reason, why everyone was worried about discovery.
If the high profile players for Darkness figured out how to make more nephilim, and that they were virtually indestructible, everyone would be in for a world of shit. That was why they were trying to keep Trinity separated from everything. If there was a demon planted in the school, it was safe to say that there was already some speculation going around.

To him, it sounded like too much of a responsibility.
To change a soul mate and be forever bound to them… He would pass.

Thinking of Trinity, he had a new resolve and with determination, he mentally started running through the layout of the school.
He had gotten to know it well from the time he was assigned to watch over Trinity. “Okay, so what’s our best option for getting her alone?”

“I’d say, the best way is to head to the office, show our badges, and ask for them to call her down.”

“You don’t think they’ll be somewhat leery of handing over a minor to officials without their parents present?” Gemariah could already see how that scenario would play out.

Tori looked at him expectantly with eyebrows raised.
“Maybe there’s something we can do to make them feel a different way. Better yet, what
you
can do.”

He thought about it and figured it could work, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable with it.

Every nephilim inherits certain powers from their celestial bloodline. They all have numerous abilities, but one stands out above all others. For him, it was the ability to control other’s emotions with a single touch as well as being hyper sensitive to what others were feeling.

All too well, he remembered the time before he learned how to build a mental barrier.
They were extremely hard years, and he still didn’t know how he came out in one piece.

He had used his abilities on many different missions, but he could never shake the nagging feeling of deceit with each person that was unaware of what he was doing.

“Fine. She gets to the office, then what?”

Tori thought for a minute, before shrugging.
“We’ll just ask if there’s someplace private we can go to talk with her. Demon’s that possess children are usually weak, so we should be able to evict it easy enough.”

He was quiet for a moment while he thought about their current assignment.
“Does it ever surprise you that demons are able to possess children?”

“Not really.
A demon can only stay in someone that’s too weak to fight them off or has a mean spirit to begin with.” She shrugged to show her indifference. “This one could go either way. It could be that she’s weak, but I’m betting on the latter; teenage girls can be real bitches sometimes.” She looked over and winked at him before continuing. “Trust me, I once was one.”

Gemariah absorbed her words, and closed his eyes to start running through the plan in his head, trying to figure out any details they might have missed.
It was Tori’s next words that brought his thoughts to a halt.

“We could always bring Trinity in to help us.
She could be a good asset, if you th—”

“No.”
He didn’t let her finish talking, and his tone left no room for argument. This was something that was non-negotiable. “Malachi would flay me alive if anything happened to her on my watch. Knowing her, she would do something stupid and get herself in trouble.”

“You two are so protective of her.
There will be a time when Malachi and you will have to cut the cord and let her contribute. She can’t die unless Malachi does, so what’s the problem?”

“Just because she can’t die, doesn’t mean she can’t get hurt.”
Tori was right about one thing, he thought. He was protective over her, but it was because Trinity and he had grown so close. At first it had been because she was so close with Malachi. After a while, they had gotten to know each other and had formed a bond all of their own.

He wasn’t alone in it either.
Gideon had also become overprotective, except Gemariah believed that it was more over guilt than anything else. At a time where Gideon should have been protecting her, he left and she had been attacked. Since then, he had been doing whatever he could to make up for it.

“Everyone gets hurt sometimes, Gemariah.”

“Not if I can help it, Victoria,” he shot back. Ignoring her glare over using her full name, he looked out the side window when they started to pull into the school parking lot.

Tori drove slowly, as not to draw attention to them.
Finally finding a parking space not far from the front doors, she pulled in and shut off the car. “You ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
He reached over and opened his door. Stretching out of the car, he observed his surroundings for anything unusual. When nothing caught his eye, he shut the door, and started walking to the front door, only to be stopped by a hand on his arm.

“Whoa, Buddy,” Tori exclaimed.
“Don’t you think it may raise questions if you walk in there with an ax at your hip? This is a small town, and has minimal security, but I still don’t think they would like a weapon of that magnitude in their school.”

He looked at both of them up and down.
She was dressed in black leather pants and a tighter than necessary top and he was in normal clothes, but being a six foot eight inch man never helped him blend in. His ax was the least of their worries. “What about your bow?”

In response, she moved the bag she was holding in front of her, to show him how she was getting it in.
“Women carry all sorts of purses and bags, big or small.”

“Clever.”
It really was, but that still didn’t help him get his ax inside. “I guess I’ll have to leave it. You’ll be the only one that can send him back, if it gets out of hand.”

She nodded in agreement, and started to walk.
After leaving the weapon in the car, he hurried and fell into place at her side.

The moment they made it through the doors, Gemariah could feel all eyes on them.
Sure enough, when they turned toward the office, everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch them approach.

Stepping up to the counter, they waited for someone to gather their wits and come over to help them.
He smiled, and successfully brought all the women’s attention solely in his direction. Mentally doing Eenie Meenie Minie Moe, he picked one particular woman to the right, and winked. He heard a gasp somewhere from within the office, and the woman he winked at turned the delicious color of a red apple. He always had the same effect on women. Sometimes it was a curse, but mostly he had fun with it.

Finally, a middle aged woman cleared her throat before walking up to the counter.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a voice that was hardly above a whisper.

“Yes, we need to talk with Katelyn Roberts.
Could you please call her here?” As she was talking, Tori pulled out her identification, and held it up for the woman to see.

She must have recovered whatever initial shock she felt, because her eyes were sharp as she examined the ID.
“CCA? I’ve never heard of it.”

Of course she hadn’t.
It stood for Control and Containment Agency, but the true name was classified. Reaching over, he lightly touched her wrist and opened his mind. The contact brought her attention back to him, and without his barrier in place, he got the full force of what she was feeling. In that second, he felt confusion, worry, and a hint of arousal. In return, he pushed forth acceptance to overpower the others. “Be glad you haven’t,” he admitted.

After a short pause, she moved down the counter to grab a pen and a small piece of paper.
“What was the student’s name again?”

“Katelyn Roberts.”
He kept his voice smooth and steady, as not to alert her to something abnormal.

She wrote down the name, and moved to an open computer.
Not a minute later she pressed a button on the phone and asked a “Mrs. Carrigan” to send the girl to the office.

It shouldn’t be too much longer
, he thought.

You should probably inform Trinity that we’re here, and tell her what’s going to go down.
That way, she can run interference if we need.

Tori wasn’t looking at him when she projected, instead she was showing indifference as she stared at the opposite wall.
That was one of the perks about being a nephilim. When nephilim grow close to another one, they are able to talk through their minds, also known as projecting.

So far, since Trinity’s transformation, she had been able to project to everyone except Tori.
No one knows why, but Tori didn’t seem too concerned. She just took it all in stride and never showed what she was feeling.

Gemariah walked over to the side, away from the counter, and started to look at the yearly group shots of all the students in the school.