The Nephilim (19 page)

“And unfortunately for him, the world has become a more secure place. It's harder these days to make counterfeit money that looks the part or passes the detectors. Harder to pull off a robbery. Harder to maintain an alias. Harder to stash lots of money in overseas bank accounts.”

“So for a while he’s been looking for an edge. And then one day along comes Katarinka Nelos.”

“How he found her I don't know. But he does know about your people – just as he knows about mine. Our guess is that he keeps an ear to the ground, listening for rumours of another nephilim appearing with skills he can use. The how though doesn't matter. What does matter is that he did. The girl is a godsend as far as he's concerned. He wants her back at all costs. And he doesn't want anyone to know about her or what she can do. Not when he's probably got big plans for her. She's his ticket back to the life of the super rich.”

“That's where you came in. You knew about her. You're an FBI agent with an expertise in tracking down fugitives. He knows she might have let slip something about his plans for her. And you took her from him – he's got to be pissed about that. Whether he realises you're a nephilim or not I don't know. But he knows you're a danger to his plans. So you had to be dealt to.

Likewise the Treasury agents. They knew about the girl's connection to him, therefore they also had to go. So he put together a clever little plan to get rid of you all. Playing you all like puppets, pulling at the strings and getting you to do what he wanted. As a result he now has three Treasury agents hanging in the wind, no longer any threat to him, their department tied up in knots, while you're wounded and also out of the picture even if you weren't killed as he'd no doubt hoped. Meanwhile, he's still somewhere behind the scenes, working on his next plan. Getting the girl back I expect. It seems at this point like it’s all going very well for him.”

She painted an interesting picture he thought, and it all made sense in a twisted sort of way. It explained so much that hadn't made sense before. But the woman hadn't given him a single piece of evidence for what she was saying, and he hated not having some facts to hang a story on. Especially when what she was telling him sounded like a fairy tale.

On the other hand she did seem truthful, both as a person and in what she was saying. He was usually good at spotting that. Of course he did have the ability to compel her to tell the truth. But  using it came with a cost. It would reveal what he was, or at least confirm it to her. Plus she would resent him for it. It was better to simply ask the questions in the usual way and then ask in his own unique way later if he needed to.

“And how would one ageing thief do that?”

“He's not just one ageing thief. He's an organisation. Benedict has moles and stooges throughout any number of agencies. He probably has some even in your own bureau. Remember, he's a former spook whose been doing this for decades. He will have paid informants, people he can blackmail, corrupt agents and a few politicians in his pocket as well. He will have forged himself whatever credentials he needs to give himself access to every database he needs. Why do you think he never gets caught?”

“The fact is that he knows every move the FBI and Justice make against him even before they do. The chances are that he even directs them one way or another. Laying false trails specifically for them to follow. Helping them find the clues he wants them to find and making certain they're blind to the rest.”

“Those three agents are being completely honest when they say they thought they were working on official Treasury business. Even now we know Treasury is desperately trying to paint a picture of them as bungling incompetents because they need to hide how badly they were compromised. But the reality is that even within their own buildings, over their own phones and using their own systems and resources a completely fake task force was created using their own agents. Budgets were arranged, resources assigned and papers were issued. The agents were even issued with hand cannon and trained in urban tactical assaults all through their department's offices.”

“And those agents were also taught to fear you. Make no mistake, when they came to arrest you, they really did think their lives were in jeopardy. They'd been living in terror of you for weeks by then.”

Terrified of him? That made no sense, even given what she'd said, and yet he believed her. It also fitted well with what Cassie had said – even though she'd mentioned nothing of the rest. Suddenly another thought occurred to him.

“All right Agent Dylan, let's pretend that everything you've just said is true -.”

“- Ooh I love it when we pretend that!” She did everything except bat her eyelids at him.

Garrick ignored the sarcasm as he struggled on. “There's still one thing you haven't explained. I know why Benedict is my problem and Katarinka's problem. But why is he yours?”

“Because of our mandate.” She sighed a little as she said it, and then made herself a little more comfortable on the seat, as she put her thoughts in order.

“You guys have two rules, given to you by the Choir. You can't use your abilities to cause harm and you can't tell anyone about yourselves. Funnily enough we have the same two rules – from the other side of course. We can't let you use your abilities to cause harm and we make sure no one knows about you.”

“And funnily enough we were also given those same two rules by the Choir.”

“By the Choir?”

That last caught Garrick by surprise. The first part he could almost understand. Governments would have a vested interest in hiding the nephilims' existence from the people. If people knew about them it would cause chaos, and then there would be all the religious uproar to deal with. But that the Choir were involved? That seemed unlikely. But even as he shook his head she nodded.

“The Choir don't really talk to normals,” Garrick began uncomfortably. Of course, it wasn't quite true. They spoke to them all the time. Whispering in their ears about doing the right thing. Arranging little coincidences and events to persuade people that their cause was right. That was how they operated. Doing things subtly. But people were mostly blind to them. And when something funny happened that might hint at the right choice they mostly ignored it or put it down to coincidence.

Mostly, it seemed to him, the Choir's words were wasted. But still, the angels said it was what had to be. People had to have free will. For good or ill, right or wrong, they had to be able to choose. At least on the big things. All the Choir could do was make sure that they had that choice. So they whispered and they hinted. They arranged things so that none could say they hadn't known that what they were doing was wrong or that it would come with a price. His people of course weren't so lucky. They might have free will but they weren't allowed to use it. Not in those matters.

“Who said we were normal?” Suddenly the smile was back as if she knew she knew something that he didn't and she was enjoying the sense of power it gave her.

“Then you're -.”

“No. We're not nephilim. But we’re not quite normal either.”

“You guys are the nephilim. We aren't. We're the descendants of nephilim and other people. The abilities our nephilim forefathers had have been lost over the generations. So we are to all intents normal like everyone else. But with one exception:”

“We can see the Choir.”

“Lucky you!”

If she could be sarcastic he figured, so could he. Plus it didn't seem like an advantage to him. Still, what she said made sense. The genetics worked out.

Among the nephilim there were two groups. There were the firsts like him. Nephilim whose fathers were of the Choir. And then there were the descendants, nephilim whose parents were nephilim. In fact probably eighty percent of nephilim living in Olmstead were descendants. But because nephilim were people, and people tended to wander off and fall in love with others not of their own group, there were more distant descendants as well. Those whose blood was maybe only a quarter angelic. And generally it seemed that among those who had one nephilim parent and one normal, there was about a fifty fifty chance of them having an ability – the one thing that separated a nephilim from a normal. Of course the odds got worse the more diluted the blood became.

What generally happened in time was that those children – to all intents normals – moved away and made new lives for themselves, while those of their ancestors who were nephilim became distant memories and family tales. Great Aunt Agatha who could call the animals to her or Great Uncle Bertrand who could speak any language. There were many, many families who had stories of distant ancestors with amazing gifts, none of which were ever taken seriously. Green thumbs, healing hands, the all seeing eye – they were nothing more than bedtime stories for the children.

But that these distant relations could see the Choir? That he hadn't realised. If they were normals then he wouldn't have thought they could. And they seemed normal in all other ways. His thoughts though stopped at that point as his visitor started talking again and he knew it was important that he listened for the moment instead of asking foolish questions.

“Maybe we are a little lucky. But you miss the point. Normal people can't see them. Not unless the Choir specifically want to be seen – which almost never happens. So the angels go about their business, whispering secretly into peoples' ears, telling them right from wrong and hoping that a few of them listen. We though, we see them when they do that. And some of us go and talk to them.”

Garrick's immediate impulse was to ask her why, but he contained it. He didn't think she'd take it well. Cassie certainly wouldn't if she found out and he was somehow sure she would be listening. The last thing he needed was to have a frozen tongue because he'd said something unflattering about the Choir. Better he figured to listen for the moment.

“Our founder was the first we know of that did that. Or at least who did it regularly. And that's where his philosophy came from. Not just the pithy saying. He wrote a number of books about it. His philosophy developed from observing angels and how they went about their lives.”

“The Choir got a little bit upset with him about that. Not the philosophy itself – they welcome that being made known though of course they can't make it known themselves. Just the rest of it, the stuff about how and where he'd gained his insights, which couldn't be made known. Knowledge like that overcomes the need for faith and people must have faith. So they made a deal with him.”

Deal? That seemed unlikely to Garrick. The Choir didn't make deals. They simply told you what to do. Or at least they did with the nephilim. There was no negotiation involved. As a nephilim you did as you were told and you obeyed or you were disciplined. As a normal you were never instructed at all, but might receive some whispered guidance and a few hints. There was no dealing anywhere.

“They had to. We're normal for the most part. That means they have to respect our free will. Even though we can see and talk to them, which somewhat robs us of the need for blind faith.”

She was right he realised. The angels' game was all about respecting free will. But only because they wanted people to freely choose faith and to make the right choices by themselves. But what could they do when people had knowledge that overcame the need for faith? That told them instantly what the right thing to do was? Knowledge that was inherent in them and unable to be denied? That was the very thing they were trying to prevent from happening. In the case of the nephilim the answer was obvious. They gave them rules and expected absolute obedience. In her case he guessed that wouldn't hold. But he wasn't sure what did.

“Our patron's writings were supposedly lost, hundreds of works destroyed as far as the world knew. They had to be because they revealed the existence of the Choir. But in reality we still have them. We would never lose his writings, or those of so many others who've gained wisdom from speaking with the Choir. He was a clever man by the way – I can get you a copy if you like. Because you're nephilim you're allowed to read them. And because we also know we can read them. But no one else can. Diogenes could never tell anyone else how he'd learned what he'd learned. He was allowed to pass on only a little of what he had been told. But he wasn't denied the knowledge. In fact he was allowed to keep learning and pass a little of what he learned on to others. The Choir liked that arrangement.”

“And that arrangement has continued for thousands of years. Those of us who follow Diogenes’ example still speak with the Choir. We learn a few things from them. We reveal some of what we can without revealing how we know it. We save the rest in our hidden libraries and repositories in the hope that one day it will be able to be revealed. And we help keep the secret.”