The Nephilim: Book One (10 page)

Adam, who had so far lingered at
the edge of the candlelight in silence, spoke up, “That doesn’t explain how you
ended up with her twenty years after she disappeared.”

“Right,” Mona shrugged, “I don’t
know the details, just that Agrippa wanted Sophie when he was alive, and that
apparently didn’t change after he died. The plan was to return you to your
demon form so that you could bring him back.”

“How?” Sophie narrowed her eyes: it
certainly didn’t sound like a thing she’d do.

Mona shook her head, “They told me
little more than the location of where it was supposed to take place. I was
given my instructions to babysit you, keep you away from all astral beings, and
play house until clues of your former existence surfaced. You were brought to
us, unconscious and human, shortly after I was given to Naomi. When you woke
up, you already believed this story about your family dying in a fire and this
entirely human life. You were very convincing.”

“So my family...they’re not real?”

Mona stuck out her bottom lip, “The
day you told me you saw your brother I was worried you had seen a demon. I told
the others, put them on alert, but it wasn’t a demon who began to show himself.
I would like to tell you that you made up the whole thing, but I can’t be sure.
I can tell you this, though,” Mona spoke purposefully, “If they have that book
it’s not good. They never expected to get it before they had you, so I can’t
say what they’ll be able to do with it if they can figure out how to read the
thing. I can tell you this: Agrippa died at the hands of Meririm, your father.
If he comes back, he’ll want revenge.”

Sophie focused on her hands. She’d
balled them into tight fists at their words and could feel her nails biting
into her own skin. "I have to get it back.”

"No way, it's too dangerous.”
Verrine crossed her arms and fell back into the couch.

"Not for me," Mona
reached into her shirt and revealed the small vile she’d taken from the shop
they’d visited on Earth. Inside, a light green liquid swirled. "This
potion, with one of Sophie’s hairs, will make me look physically identical to
you. It's only for a short amount of time, but it's enough to get up to the
apartment to steal the book."

Verrine snatched the vile away,
"Human magic? Why do you have such a thing?"

"I thought I’d need it to
disguise Sophie if things went wrong," Mona grabbed the small tube back,
"Now that we’re here, this may be a better use. They'd kill me on the spot
if they saw me now."

Verrine made a face at her,
mumbling, "One less of you."

Mona ignored her, "I can sneak
into the apartment, try to find the book. If they see me, they won’t hurt me,
and I’ll have a better chance at finding it and getting out. It's the best
thing we've got."

"I don't like this,"
Sophie half whispered, "I don't want you to get hurt. Shouldn't the real
me go?"

"No!" A resounding cry
echoed from the trio.

Sophie half smiled at their worry
and shrank back in the sofa, "Okay, fine."

Adam finally spoke again, "You
know, Mona, it’s not a bad idea." Verrine scowled at him, but he
continued, "The book needs to be away from Agrippa and his followers. It
would make safest passage back with us."

Sophie groaned slightly, "But
you’re risking so much."

"Sophie," Mona looked
back at her solemnly, "After all that I've put you through, this is the
least I can do."

***

Verrine watched Adam as he leaned
against the doorway of one of the little bedrooms of the house. Inside, Sophie
had fallen asleep, hard and fast, after Mona left. Verrine spoke in a hushed
voice from where she stood in the hall, "Sophie may have decided to trust
you without question, Adam, but I'm just confused."

He didn't take his eyes away from
the bedroom, "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean!"
she spat out in a loud whisper taking a step toward him, "How in Seven
Hells are you here?"

He peered over at her, "Same
as you."

"You know very well how I got
here, but you...you were executed, Adam. I know you're good, but no one is
above Heaven's harshest punishment."

"Shh!" Adam hushed her
with narrowed eyes, "What if she hears?"

"So?" Verrine hissed,
"I’d rather she remember on her own, but If she can't we'll just have to
tell her anyway."

Adam gazed back in at Sophie
cuddled down into the blankets with her honeyed hair spilling over the pillow.

Verrine smiled in spite of herself,
"I see your feelings haven't changed."

Adam stared a moment longer then
replied, "I was meant to be executed, but my brother helped me escape. I
stayed here and on Earth. Obviously I couldn’t return: only a few know I
escaped and everyone else thinks I’m dead. I spent my time searching for her. I
didn’t know what form she’d be in, but I knew I’d find her," he reached up
and fiddled with a string around his neck, "I wanted to keep her safe,
from a distance. I thought if she was human maybe she’d just get to live a
normal life, but I knew it was impossible when I realized she was living with
strigori."

Verrine screwed up her face,
"Shouldn't she know all this?"

"No," Adam looked back at
Verrine, "Because of my selfishness her life is forever ruined. She’s
safer not really knowing our past. She has a chance at something better without
me. No ties after this is over."

"Fine," she spoke coolly,
"When’s over?"

"When she’s back home and
Agrippa is finally destroyed." He clenched his fist by his side.

Verrine sighed and began to walk
down the hall, stopping to glance at him to be sure he followed, "Well
that’s all very valiant of you, and I can’t say I’m surprised. I’ll keep my
mouth shut for her sake, but only for as long as it benefits her."

"You were always exceedingly
helpful," he mumbled, following her back out to the main room.

She could hear the sarcasm in his
voice, and it made her smile, “It’s good to you again too.”

Chapter 9

"So, do you think that
whatever it is we’re about to do is going to work?"

"It doesn't matter what I
think. Naomi sent us here and we'll do just what she says."

Silver haze encircled the women as
they walked along a poorly marked path. Patches of deadened earth could be seen
in their footfalls, scattered with a few strategically placed cobblestones.
Finding them was difficult, and the two scoured the ground as they traveled in
the misty abyss.

"You sound mad," Danielle
spoke offhandedly, skipping ahead of her and stopping, her fuchsia pigtails
bouncing, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Rose sneered back at the girl’s
eager look then continued to search. After a moment she growled, "It’s
just Naomi. She has a very high opinion of herself and treats me as if I’m just
another of her minions. It gets under my skin."

"Yeah, she sucks,"
Danielle hopped along beside her, barely looking at the ground anymore,
"Maybe we should kill her."

Rose froze, looking over at
Danielle as the girl continued to skip along. She shook her head and huffed,
searching again for the path.

"Wouldn’t it be fun?!"
Danielle chirped, jumping up and down in place.

"Quiet," Rose chastised
in a harsh whisper, "We don’t need any attention drawn to us."

Danielle glanced around at the
smoke. She couldn't see further than a few yards, but that was sufficient for
her, "Nobody's around. Plus, what do
we
have to be afraid of?"
she flapped the edges of the cloak she wore with a cackle.

Rose rolled her eyes, "This is
the Transcendental Plane, accessible to everyone and everything. It seems you
forget that we're hunted. We don't have many friends outside the borough."

The pink haired girl's eyes flashed
red as they scoured the area, then returned to their normal dark brown,
"Well, since you haven’t told me where we’re going, how am I supposed to
be worried anyway?"

Rose searched the ground for the
next cobblestone, "We’re going to The Order."

Danielle gasped, coming to a stop.
Her hands flew to her mouth, covering it as she squeaked then shot into the
air, "How cool!" With a little dance, she ducked down her head, threw
her hood up, and ran around Rose in circles, laughing.

"Hardly." Rose huffed,
"She’s sending us in lieu of herself which leads me to believe," she
stopped suddenly, "we're going to be in a bit of trouble."

As she ran with her head down,
Danielle miscalculated and went headlong into Rose. She immediately popped up,
but instead of an irate scowl, she saw a wide-eyed, foreign expression on
Rose’s face. She quickly jumped behind her companion and grabbed onto her
cloak, "What is it?"

Rose peered back over her shoulder
at the crouching girl with a smirk, "I think we're here."

Ahead, tall spires poked out from
the mists high above them. Rose boldly ventured forward into the shadow of the
building, the mist that swirled at her feet dissipating. Danielle watched the
deep violet of her cloak disappear into the dark blanket thrown by the
stronghold, then hurried to catch up to her, cooing breathlessly, "I've
never been to The Order before." She peered up at the grand door they
stood before, black against gray stone walls, and Rose slowly reaching up to
knock. "Oh, are they going to help us find Sophie?"

Rose stopped abruptly, her eyes
flashing green, and grabbed Danielle's collar, "Listen. You will keep your
mouth shut when we are inside. As far as any of them are concerned, you are
mute. Do you understand?"

Danielle winced then grunted. Rose
bore her eyes into Danielle a minute longer, then dropped her and rapped on the
metal. After an agonizing stretch of silence, the massive door cracked opened
with a groan into darkness. A single deep, blue eye shone from the shadows.

Rose hesitated in the quiet until
the eye’s lid dropped down menacingly, then spoke, "We're here to see
Apollyon."

The eye lingered in the shadows
then disappeared as the door swung open in its wake. Danielle looked to Rose
who took a deep breath and put on her most stoic face before stepping inside.

There was an odd sort of yellowed
light to the place as if it were an old, stained photograph. They stood on the
foyer, an empty, circular space with multiple archways jutting off of it,
everything bleary and dim. The one who had let them in stood at the farthest
archway, a woman with a mane of tight blonde curls cascading to her waist.
"He's been waiting for you," she spoke in slippery tones and observed
them coolly. Standing tall and poised, she glared with one icy, blue eye. The
other, however, was wholly white, focusing on nothing and everything all at
once, and Danielle shrank back from her when she saw it. With a slight raise in
her chin, the woman motioned for them to follow and slipped out of the room.

The two quickly fell in line
behind, through the archway and into a large, high ceilinged parlor with
crimson wallpaper and gold moulding. The woman's steps echoed on the corridor's
marbled floor, filling up the silence of the massive space. She moved swiftly
despite the heavy sapphire dress she wore and Rose kept her chin high even as
she rushed to keep up.

A small group sat in the corner of
the room, scattered lazily about on chairs and ottomans. Dressed in a state of
sort of formal dishevelment, they stared blankly at Rose and Danielle, only a
few craning their necks to see like a moving oil painting, and watched as the
two ascended a staircase behind the blonde woman. The group they fell out of
view when they reached the landing.

"Wait here." The woman
instructed, entering a door at the end of a short hall and leaving the two
alone.

Danielle turned to Rose as if she
wanted to say something, but remembered the warning. Instead her eyes darted
around furiously, and she appeared to be holding her breath, a shade of red
showing on her otherwise dark cheeks. Rose watched her contain herself, on the
verge of explosion, then finally sighed, "What is it?"

"I can't believe you didn't
tell me we were seeing Apollyon!" she hissed in a loud whisper.

Rose rolled her eyes, "I
figured that was understood."

"But Apollyon? A fallen
angel?" Danielle's voice cracked.

Rose sighed, "He wasn't exiled
from Heaven, so he’s not technically fallen."

"Close enough!" Danielle
made a tight fist and covered her mouth, "This guy's like major big
leagues, Rose. And are those Elders down there?"

"Yes," Rose ran a hand
through her ebony locks and glanced over the railing, "Just stay
quiet."

Danielle opened her mouth to
retort, but the door creaked, and the blue eye bade them entrance.

Inside, the room was dimly lit by
candles in wall sconces. A large desk and empty high-backed chair sat in its
middle before an immense arched window covered by black draperies. The blonde
woman moved past them and gently sat on the edge of the desk, watching the
girls. They tried not to breath, afraid to break the room's silence.

"You are quite correct that I
was not exiled from Heaven." Both girls spun at the sound of the deep
voice. Beside the door a slender figure stood in the shadows. Dark hair swept
down his back to his hips in soft waves. His voice was like silk, "So, no,
I am not fallen, contrary to what most believe." He turned and his long
tresses swept behind him, "Now, I am wondering why Naomi has sent you to
me and not come herself."

He stepped forward, and candlelight
fell on his face. Shadows formed in the hollows of his cheeks and on either
side of a pointed nose making his already long, thin face stretch even more so,
but despite the eerie light, he appeared only melancholy. Eyes, misty green and
heavy, passed over them, and Rose felt a twinge of sadness sweep through her, a
sort of gnawing in her chest she’d last felt too long ago to remember.

Danielle’s nudge knocked the
feeling away, and Rose spoke quietly, bowing her head, "We have the
book."

Apollyon's face changed subtly, and
he turned to his desk. The one-eyed woman stood and clasped her hands together,
grinning, as Apollyon sauntered to the chair and sat, resting his chin in his
hand, "That is very good."

Danielle heaved an obvious sigh and
Rose glared at her.

“May I?” he extended a listless
hand to them.

“Well, uh,
we
don’t have,”
Rose swallowed loudly, “Not with us.”

"Of course not. But, surely,
that is not all. Naomi would have come on her own to reap the benefits if that
were the long and short of it."

Apollyon's remark made Rose's
muscles tighten, perhaps more for the carelessness with which he said it than
the actual words, "There is something else. One of our own has become
mutinous."

Rose let her words hang in the air,
knowing full well that they were not what he was expecting.

The silky voice challenged her,
"And?"

"And," Rose paused
cursing Naomi in her mind, "The girl has gone astray." She squeezed
her eyes tight, waiting for his anger to berate her.

Apollyon's face did not change. He
stared off into a dark corner and drummed his fingers on his chin, his silence
echoing throughout the room. The woman pursed her lips and her blue eye burned
into them, but she stayed silent.

"I see," he shifted in
the chair and leaned back, his long plaits falling over his shoulders.

Rose swallowed, “We thought the
stone could be of use.”

Apollyon raised an eyebrow at her,
“We? Surely,
she
thought of the stone. What do you think?”

“It’s already in use,” Rose
answered quickly, “Not for us to take.”

“Ah, Naomi, you have disappointed
me.” Apollyon sat quiet, touching his fingertips together in front of his face.
He crossed one leg over the other and pivoted in his chair to either side,
“Rose, you are one of his disciples, are you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes. Rose, you and your companion
here will bring me the book. I am fairly sure that Naomi will fail in reading
it. She must come along as well. In fact, bring the others; I’ll find a use for
them. But before, we need to have a bit of a chat, I think. And you, your
name?”

Danielle perked up, glancing at
Rose for permission to speak. Rose nodded vigorously. “Danielle,” she squeaked
out.

“Yes.” At last a playful grin
crawled across his face, "There is much work to done, isn’t there,
ladies?"

***

Mona stared at the girl reflected
back at her in the metallic doors. Ashy blonde hair fell messily around the
face and bright amber eyes narrowed as they surveyed the form. She had traded
clothing with Sophie before leaving the house and cutting her way back into the
Material World, but felt exposed, as though they were too small. She’d placed
her entry point to this plane farther away from the apartment so as to avoid
attracting attention and had sneaked herself to the building. The process took
longer than she’d planned and now, standing silently in the elevator, she
finally had a chance to look herself over. She reached up and grabbed her two
new breasts, not large but larger than anything she had experienced, and
pressed them toward one another. "How does she manage these every day?"
she wondered aloud as the elevator bell rang.

Mona stepped between the metal
doors into the foyer cautiously. The apartment door loomed before her,
beckoning to her, but she hesitated in going to it. Naomi would be just beyond
that door, she knew it. Her eyes would flash yellow, fangs and claws bared, and
she would pounce on her and rip her throat out. Mona grasped her neck at the
thought then reminded herself she wasn’t Mona, the strigori henchwoman. She was
the one they all sought, practically untouchable.

With a newfound courage, she pushed
the door open, unsurprised as she entered the unlocked apartment. Her heart
beat so loudly she couldn't sense any other beings, but the dark room, at
least, seemed uninhabited. She never realized how uninviting her previous home
had been and how long and eerie the shadows were across the floor until she
stared at them through Sophie's human eyes. But she knew the false body would
only last for so long and ignored her anxious thoughts.

If the book was anywhere, it would
be kept in Naomi’s room. She passed through the sunken living room and to the
doorway of the bedchamber. Through Sophie's eyes, her vision was not as sharp,
and, though she had never feared the dark, suddenly found it quite unnerving.
Something was there, staring back at her from the ebony. Something unknown and
frightening. She peered deeper into the darkness, but it eluded her. The human
eyes were slow to adjust, but finally did, and the moonlight filtered through a
crack in the heavy curtains to create a silvery human outline before her, but
only for an instant, and she was left staring at nothingness again.

Shaking off the trick her mind had
played, she stepped into the room and walked directly to the foot of the bed by
instinct. Kneeling, she lifted the chest's lid and thrust her hand inside. To
her surprise, she touched the rough wood on the bottom of the chest. Her heart
pounded as she slid her hand back and forth, trying to feel for anything, but
found only emptiness.

Something stirred behind her, and
she spun and stood, the lid of the chest slamming down. She peered into the
darkness but saw nothing. Then, suddenly, yellow eyes flashed from the black
and Mona jumped backward into the chest with a shriek. She rushed to cover her
mouth, surprised at hearing Sophie's voice cry out in place of her own. A
figure materialized in the shadows, and Mona squeezed her eyes shut, thinking
her fate sealed.

"Sophie?" The voice was
low and masculine, practically a purr.

Mona's heart pounded and blood
rushed past her ears, forcing her eyes open.