The Nephilim: Book One (3 page)

"Yeah," Mona caught her
breath and fixed a sleeve that had fallen from her shoulder, "It's about
time to go."

Sophie looked back to Michael who
went to her, "I hope I see you again here sometime." He squeezed her
hand then shot an anxious look at Mona.

"You'll see her," Mona
pushed and Sophie went straight to her cousin and followed her out of the club
without even a goodbye to the others.

Outside, it was bare save for the
sizeable man who had bade them entrance. His large brow was furrowed above
sunglass-covered eyes and his massive chest puffed out. He asked Mona if she
wanted him to walk them home. She declined and grabbed Sophie's wrist, much
like earlier in the club, and led her toward the street. Sophie noticed just
how out of the way the club actually was as Mona tugged her along in a hurried
state through a narrow alley and out onto the main street.

"Is something wrong?" she
asked in a hushed voice.

"Huh?" Mona slowed and
laughed casually, "Oh, no, why?"

Why? Sophie was puzzled; Mona was
acting noticeably strange. She sighed, "Well, we really got out of there
quick."

"Oh," Mona let go of her
cousin's wrist as they made their way down the sidewalk, "Well, I just
thought you wanted to go home. Maybe you were uncomfortable or something."

"No, not really," Sophie
half-lied, "I was okay." She looked around at the people who passed,
shadowed by nightfall. There were fewer than when they had begun the night.

Mona slipped her coat on, passing
Sophie’s to her, and hesitantly ventured, "I know we weren't there long,
but did you, uh, have fun or whatever?"

Sophie was intrigued by her
cousin's attempt at niceties, "It was different."

The sounds of the city fell away
from them and their footsteps echoed on the sidewalk in the barren streets
closer to home. "It's okay," Mona shoved her hands into her jacket
pockets, "You can tell me that you hate them. Sometimes I don't even like
them very much."

"No, it's not that,"
Sophie stared up at the crescent moon, surprised she could see it over the city
lights, "They're just not like other people."

"Yeah, sorry about Danielle.
She can be a bitch sometimes."

"Oh," Sophie thought it
strange she referred to her friend so harshly, "That's fine."

"But, um," Mona attempted
to touch on another subject, "Michael, what'd you think of him?"

"He's all right," Sophie
peered over at Mona, "A little strange."

"Strange?" Mona chuckled
delicately, her mood shifting, "Strange how?"

"He's really," she looked
away and somewhat laughed, "friendly."

Mona was oddly upbeat, "Yeah,
Michael's like that."

"He is?" Sophie began to
wonder, "With everyone?"

"Don't get the wrong idea,
whatever he said, he was sincere." She looked skyward and dug a little
deeper into her pockets, "He's a really good guy."

Sophie didn't reply, but now away
from him she felt judgment of his character would need much more time to mull
over. In the distance a car horn sounded and some shouting arose then died
away. Their footsteps became prominent again as they came closer to their
building.

Mona laughed a little and Sophie
asked what was so funny, but Mona just asked her another question, "Do you
like him?"

Sophie was taken aback; this was
the first interest Mona had taken in her since they had met, "How am I
supposed to know a thing like that? I just met him." She looked away,
guiltily, not even sure what Mona meant.

Mona smiled with satisfaction,
"Yeah, I guess you wouldn't know. You just spent a lot of time alone with
him up on that roof."

She was right; they had been up
there. Alone. "Oh! Mona, I'm so sorry," Sophie stopped walking and
grabbed her cousin's arm, "I didn't mean to desert you for so long. You
were so nice to bring me tonight. I'm an awful cousin, I know, but—"

Mona shook her head,
"What?" She grinned, amused.

"There was this guy and he was
like high or something and grabbing his throat," Sophie mumbled apologetically,
"Michael just suggested—"

"A guy grabbing his throat?"
Mona narrowed her brow.

"Yeah, but some woman helped
him. I didn't see them later, must have gone home or something. Why?"

"Yeah," Mona nodded,
"No reason. Listen, it's okay, really," she shook her head, "I
was fine keeping Danielle out of trouble."

"Sure?"

Mona looked back at her more than a
little bewildered then the face softened, "I'm sure." She steered
them into an alleyway that would cut through to their building. They ventured
into the shadows at a quick pace but were stopped when a figure stepped out
before them. Concern instantly gripped Sophie and she looked to her cousin who.
Mona, however, continued on toward the shape without hesitation. Unconvinced by
her cousin’s gallantry, she glanced behind them and noted two other figures
slinking out from the shadows.

She scurried up to her cousin and
dropped her voice low, "Mona, we’re not alone."

"Hm?" the young girl’s
focus seemed to sharpen ahead of her as if she were seeing for the first time,
"Oh, so it seems."

"Well, uh, what do we do?
Run?" Sophie was clinging to Mona’s jacket sleeve and bent whispering in
her ear, but her cousin was unaffected.

Mona cocked her head slightly to
the right, "Just keep walking and shut up."

Unnerved but compliant, Sophie
released the girl and took a breath as she followed. There was no phasing Mona,
apparently, and perhaps this was typical. Perhaps she was looking too deeply
into the situation. Perhaps the men behind them weren’t really getting closer.

"Hey, you looking for a good
time?" someone from behind them called.

Mona stopped. She sighed and rolled
her eyes. "Sophie, I want you to run."

"What? No! What are you going
to do?" Panic filled her as the men’s footsteps fell closer.

"You don’t need to worry about
me," Mona cracked her knuckles, "I’m going to count to three and you
are going to bolt out of here and down the street. A left at Maple and a right
at Broad will get you home."

She spoke with such calm Sophie
almost complied, but she shook her head instead, "No way." They were
getting closer. "I’m not leaving you."

"Trust me," Mona put a
hand against her back, "Run past him. I’ll handle this."

"No!"

"Damnit, Sophie."

With what appeared to be an
effortless, little push, Mona shoved Sophie away from her, toward the building
to their side. Sophie slammed into the wall with a force she was in no way
expecting, saving her head from hitting with a well-placed, if only accidental,
hand. She slid down the wall as she tried to regain her balance and turn toward
the scuffle.  In the shadows she could see the tiny form of her cousin dwarfed
by the hulking mass of the strange man. He reached out and grabbed her arm and
Mona hardly moved. Had she been paralyzed by fear?

Sophie did not wait to find out and
instead rushed toward the two and grasped onto the man’s arm to pull him off,
but the moment her hands made contact with him she was blinded. Light filled
the alleyway, white and powerful, and though Sophie could feel the stranger’s
arm below her hands, she could see nothing around her. Instead, she felt warmth
growing at her palms then spreading, like fire running through her veins, up
her arms and into her chest where it settled. In that moment she couldn’t
release the man’s arm, but, in truth, she did not want to. She knew, somehow,
that she was hurting him, stopping him, and she was glad. A peculiar smell, a
mix of campfire and rotten eggs, permeated the air about her and somewhere, far
away, there was a throaty, guttural screaming. She listened to the sounds for a
moment as they came closer, rushing at her until suddenly they were merely
inches from her. It was the man, his agonizing screams, and remorse shot
through her with such force that she fell backward, releasing him.

The alley plunged into darkness and
the sound of feet scrambling against the pavement and clumsy, terrified bodies
knocking over debris in the alley as they fled filled the darkness. Sophie sat
in the shadows and waited. She knew she was safe, but something else was
frightening her and it was growing along with the silence. Then she remembered
Mona.

She rushed over and knelt beside
her, looking her over but not sure for what, and questioned her with urgency,
"Mona, are you all right?"

When Sophie finally looked up to
her face, Mona’s eyes lacked their typical analytic glare, now wide and
alarmed, and her mouth, usually drawn into a tight frown, hung open. But she
nodded.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" Sophie
threw her arms around her cousin and squeezed tightly.

Sitting there, limp and astonished,
Mona spoke quietly, "You...you saved me." She placed her hands gently
on Sophie’s shoulders and shifted her away, "Why are you crying?"

Sophie reached for her own face,
feeling the wetness on her cheek. She brushed it away, "I don't
know," she sniffled, "I was scared. And I didn’t want you to get
hurt."

Mona stared back at her as if she
were seeing her for the first time then closed her eyes and silently led her
home.

Chapter 3

"Mona, I don't approve of
it!"

"You don't approve? Damn it,
Naomi, stop treating me like a child!"

Their voices hissed through the
penthouse as Sophie eased herself from her bed.

"Have you looked in the mirror
lately? You are child! And there's no changing that!" Naomi's tone was
angry and sarcastic.

Mona's irritated voice retaliated,
"Child or not, I can take care of myself and you know that! I was just
doing some research anyway."

Sophie inched her way to her door
and peeked through the crack into the darkened hall. She knew eavesdropping was
wrong, but the urgency of their voices was too much to resist.

"Research? On what,
The
Agrippa
? Getting it will be difficult enough, you don't need to interfere.
You’ve got your job: stick to it."

"What’s the point? You don’t
listen to me anyway."

"That is because we do not
need to wait any longer," she spat out, "We’ve wasted enough time as
it is. I’m doing you a favor by ignoring your little escapades. Remember, I
outrank you, I am your superior, and you will do as I say. Unless, that is,
you’d like
him
to know what I suspect you’ve been up to."

Sophie wondered if she heard their
harsh whispers correctly through her sleepy haze. She couldn’t have been asleep
for more than a few hours as it was still dark. Yet, Naomi’s angry voice hissed
down the hall, "That's the last time you're to leave this house without my
order."

The click of the front door’s latch
sounded and Grant’s voice could be heard, "Keep your voices down, I can
hear you outside,"

"So? Who's going to be
outside?" Naomi snapped, dropping out of a whisper.

"What if you wake her?"
his voice barely made it to Sophie's ears before she rushed to her bed and
slipped beneath the covers.

Although she didn't hear Naomi come
up the hallway she felt her linger in the doorway for a moment. The woman's
presence loomed by her bed and Sophie squeezed her eyes shut, holding her
breath. Naomi shifted then the door clicked shut. Sophie lay, motionless, for
some time, straining to hear anymore conversation, but there was only silence
in the darkness, and she drifted back off to sleep, wondering if she had ever
really been awake.

***

Verrine rubbed at her eyes with a
madwoman’s vigor. It couldn’t possibly be, yet, when they again focused, the
tower stood before her. She glanced about, but saw no one casting an illusion,
no one with a mind to trick her. In fact, no one even knew she had sneaked out
of the castle and was wandering alone in the open fields.

She placed a hand on the wooden
door to the tower and pushed. When it gave way, she jumped back, the creaking
entryway louder than she’d ever remembered. It swung open into a round room,
warmly lit by shelves full of glowing jars in oranges and yellows and reds,
with a staircase at its rear. Verrine felt her heartbeat quicken as she entered
and began to ascend the stairs. They spiraled up tightly and she ran her hand
against the cool stone of the outer wall as she went, the grainy surface
hinting at the place’s validity. This could still be an illusion, she reminded
herself as she climbed higher. It had been so long since she’d seen this place
she had begun to wonder if she’d ever see it again, but her steps hastened with
hope.

The stairs leveled off into another
round room lit with the same multicolored glowing jars. At seven points along
the far wall pillars stood, an orb, differing in size and color, atop each. She
stepped cautiously into the room’s center, debating whether she should announce
herself and risk shattering everything.

“So, you found me.”

Verrine swung around at the sound
of the woman’s voice, her excitement peaking, “You
let
me,” she
contained herself by grasping her hands behind her back though her stomach fluttered,
“How did you know I was looking?”

The woman stood at the head of the
stairs just where Verrine had been seconds before. She laughed, short and deep,
“When have you not been?”

Verrine sighed, a twinge of
embarrassment striking her, “You knew this whole time? Well, clearly you did.”

“Everything has its most opportune
moment.” The woman was tall, taller than most men Verrine knew, but it was one
of her most comforting characteristics, especially in comparison to her own
towering height. Her mahogany skin glistened under the glowing lights, enhanced
by golden raiment, and thick, black curls haloed her face. She came forward and
placed a hand against Verrine’s cheek.

She wanted to be angry, it hadn’t
been fair for the woman to stay away so long, but instead she felt her eyes
well up with tears, “I needed you.”

“Well,” the woman swept passed her,
“I certainly hope you can break yourself of that.”

Verrine sucked in a quick breath,
steeling herself, and suppressed her tears. When she felt the heat leave her
face, she turned, “Then why now, Aris?”

The woman stood by the pillar
farthest to the right, a bright ochre sphere with a fiery marbled surface. She
held a hand close to the orb and her dark skin glowed in its wake. “You are
like the dawn, Verrine. You are warm and loving, consistent, and though your
determination is often mistaken for stubbornness, your loyalty could never be
denied. I’ve watched you grow and learn, and saw you help her so many times.”

Verrine’s breath caught in her
throat. Aris spoke of her missing friend. So this is what she’d shown herself
for.

With a few long strides, the woman
went to a tall chest and pulled open a drawer, “And so I cannot think of a
better being to take ownership of this than you.” Aris turned. She held a book,
thick and worn, bound in leather, its cover revealing nothing about its
contents.

Verrine’s hands flew up to her
mouth and she froze. It couldn’t possibly be. Even as Aris came toward her, the
book extended, she didn’t believe it.

“I just need to know that you
understand what accepting this means.”

Verrine took a deep breath and shot
her hands out, gripping the end of the book. She held the tome with a firm
grasp, afraid it might be ripped away from her, “Of course. It means I can find
her!”

The woman raised her chin, “Yes,
but...”

“Oh,” Verrine read Aris’s solemn
look. She almost released the ancient leather, “You were entrusted with this.
You can’t just go giving it away. And especially not to me. It’d be...it’s
treason.”

“So I must go,” Aris thrust the
book toward Verrine’s chest and turned away, “Do not come looking for me, it
will be fruitless to do so.”

“But I’ve got questions, I need
help,” Verrine followed her as the woman began to descend the stairs. She
nearly had to take two at a time to keep up with her, clutching the book to her
chest in one hand and balancing herself on the wall with the other.

Aris spoke quickly, waving her
words away as if they were nothing, “Everything you need is in your hands. That
book is an extension of her, it’s been bound to her. If she is in the Material
World, you need only go there and it will lead you directly to her.”

“If?” Verrine found herself at the
bottom of the tower’s stairs and stumbled to a halt.

Aris had gone to the door and
opened it, looking back at Verrine expectantly. When the girl did not budge,
she strode up to her and dropped both hands onto her shoulders, “You have
always relied on me for answers, even ones I have not had,” she sighed,
blinking slowly and smiled, “Trust yourself, Verrine.”

The woman embraced her. It was warm
and nostalgic, and as Verrine clung to the book she, for the first time in as
long as she could remember, felt complete.

“All right then,” Aris held her at
arm’s length again and nudged her out the door, “Goodbye, my Verrine.”

The girl stumbled, just slightly,
as she stepped over the threshold. She balanced herself and stood straight
before she turned to wish Aris well, but when she looked back the woman and her
tower had disappeared completely.

***

With a glance at the clock, Sophie knew
she should have a few hours at the library before it closed and quickly changed
into different clothes. She discarded Mona's ensemble on her bed, neatly, too
exhausted at the end of the previous night to change, and pulled on comfortable
jeans and a white t-shirt. She left the apartment silently, hoping she would
get back before anyone woke.

On the street below, she followed
the same path Mona had taken her the night before, but avoided the alley,
shivering as she passed it with long, quick strides. She and Mona had not
spoken since the incident there and her cousin had seemed more distant than
ever when they arrived home, going straight to her room and shutting her door
without a word. The strange conversation she overheard had not helped to ease
her nerves either about what had happened. She had questions but knew no one in
her family could, or likely would, help.

She remembered seeing the library
the previous night and assumed correctly that it would be easy to find. The
building stood, long and squat, between two much taller buildings with columns
lining its face.

"Agrippa," she whispered
to herself glancing at the people milling about in the quiet of the
high-ceilinged lobby. She veered away from the busy desk and was drawn to a
vacant computer where she typed the word in as best to her ability and waited
for the results to come. The word hadn't left her mind until she drifted off
the night before and was the first thing she thought of when her eyes popped
open to the late afternoon sun. She had no idea why it haunted her so, but it
seemed to be familiar.

A few results materialized before
Sophie and she wrote them on a scrap piece of paper then went off in search of
the books. She raced throughout the massive building as quickly as possible,
collecting the volumes and searching for the word, but found the same thing
repeatedly: Henry Cornelius Agrippa. The man was some sort of occult-obsessed
mathematician, but nothing about him struck her. The information just didn't
seem right. And Naomi's words the night before hadn't been of a man, but a
thing, a tangible item.

Sophie continued to search the
shelves for an answer wondering if she’d imagined the whole conversation. It
wasn’t that unbelievable, she told herself, her memory was more than a little
faulty, and she’d been seeing things.

She came to the last result on her
list in a deserted area on the third floor, and pulled the book from between
others. The shelves looked as if they hadn't been moved for years, but the one
she was after was sitting slightly askew like it had been recently handled. She
flipped through the pages to the index and ran her finger along the entries as
she ventured to a nearby table. When she passed the A's she flipped back to the
front page and began looking one by one.

Title page, blank page, credits and
acknowledgements, an abandoned cart—

Her balance lost, Sophie dropped
the book and slid backwards, promptly smashing her head on the metal
bookshelves. She landed on her back, a metallic ringing in her ears.  After a
moment of immobility, Sophie sat up. Lightheaded, she reached out for something
to grab onto. A hand found its way to hers, gently skimming her palm then
holding tight and steadying her.

"...all right?"

Sophie blinked a few times as the
darkness around her melted away and a voice filled her ears.

"Are you all right?"

She began to focus on a pair of
shoes; brown, then on two, jean-clad bent legs, a white shirt, and a pair of
reaching arms offered for her to steady herself on. She thoughtlessly leaned
against them.

"Can you stand?"

Sophie tried desperately to form
the words, to answer him, but it was impossible when his eyes shimmered so
familiarly back at hers from under the shadow of his coppery hair. She raised
her hand to sweep it away, but stopped herself abruptly and made a fist,
grounded to the spot, afraid moving would wake her. This was, after all, a
dream, wasn’t it?

He took his now free hand and
gestured toward her head, "You hit that shelf pretty hard. Would you like
me to check?"

She nodded at him, and he reached
out to touch her head. She saw he had something scrawled in black ink across
his pale palm, a grocery list or study notes, but they were a blur. He ran his
fingertips gently over her scalp and she found herself sighing audibly.

"Well, not even a bump. 
Pretty lucky."

"Oh!" Sophie realized she
was on her feet with a quick glance at the ground, then looked back to him.
"Thank you," she uttered breathlessly.

He flashed her a simple, comforting
grin, "That looked painful."

Blood rushed past her ears loudly
and her cheeks burned. "Yeah," she squeaked, her humiliation growing
when his smile broadened.

"Are you sure?" His brow
knitted with worry over pale, blue eyes, the way a good friend’s might. He was
tall and broad-chested, but with soft features and a smattering of freckles
across his slightly crooked nose. It had got like that in a fight, she told
herself, then shook her head—how could she know?

She nodded slowly then felt her
head. The pain was gone and she hadn't even noticed it leaving. Strange, she thought,
feeling around in her hair, sure she was missing where she’d made contact with
the shelf: the pain had been searing moments earlier.

Then the book she’d been reading
was under her nose. "Thank you," she said again gingerly receiving it
and hugging it to her chest. As he pulled his hands back she saw the markings
on his palms, both of them she realized. Before they had looked like hasty
scribbling, but now she saw they were tattoos, circular with unfamiliar symbols
in their centers.