The Nephilim (21 page)

“Anderson?”

“Broke both his legs in a skiing accident several months ago. He's probably in worse shape than you.”

Hearing that Garrick knew she was right. He remembered hearing something about the accident. He also remembered not understanding how it could have happened to a hunter. They were naturally gifted at finding the safe paths through any terrain. Land, air or water, they simply didn't make those sorts of mistakes. But the gossip was that Hercus had a drinking problem. Perhaps that was why Cassie was being so hard on him about his occasional beer?

“Saphron?”

Truthfully Saphron James would have been his first choice for this sort of thing until a few years before. He was an incredibly experienced and capable hunter. But he'd fallen off the radar a few years back while, travelling through Tibet. The last he'd heard was that Saphron was looking for some sort of spiritual understanding. It was a common journey for the nephilim. Always knowing that there was a God, but knowing nothing about him.

“Last we heard he was hiking through Northern India with no phone and no way of being contacted.”

Except of course by the Choir. They could have contacted him in a heartbeat. But they wouldn't. To do that much, to bring him in to hunt Benedict would be to use him as an agent. Their agent. And if he acted to prevent Benedict from doing something, even something reprehensible, it would be the same as if they had done it themselves. Cassie had only suggested that he hunt the man because he was already involved. And she hadn't suggested that he do anything more than observe him.

“Donovan?”

“He's a child!” She stared at him as if surprised he could even suggest such a thing, and maybe she was right to do so. Lucas wasn't yet twenty and that was young for a hunter to be out on his own. “You can't send a child after a monster like Benedict!”

Maybe she had a point. Benedict was cunning and if he knew as much as she said he did – as Cassie had implied – then Lucas would be in a world of trouble. Hunting was one thing. Capturing your prey was something else entirely.

Garrick sighed. “And I suppose you have a plan,” he said glumly, accepting the inevitable rail-roading.

Of course she did. Garrick knew that. She hadn't come to him without some sort of idea in mind.

“Of course. You're injured and you live alone. You're surrounded by a media circus. Why wouldn’t you want to get away and catch up with some friends?  And what the media don’t know of course is that there are a number of gifted healers in Olmstead. It would be perfectly understandable if you were to take a few days away from this circus to spend some time with friends. No one has to know what you're doing. In the end I'm not asking you to arrest the man, just give his location to the authorities and give us the details of his stash. Then, while he's behind bars we can search for any evidence of the nephilim and the Choir he might have and get rid of it. We have enough people all over the world that whatever he's got and wherever it's stored, we can get to it in time with a little luck. All you have to do is find it for us.”

And there it was he thought. The thing she imagined he could do. But which he quite probably couldn't. He was a hunter, not a miracle worker.

“Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. I'm a hunter. I can search out his trail. I can undo his plans little by little. But mostly only his most recent plans. I can find places he's been or where he’s done something recently. But the trail has to be fresh. I can't read his mind. If he grabbed this stuff years ago and stashed it away for a rainy day, I'd never find it. If it's password protected I can't open it.”

“And he could still release it.” He told her that and watched her face fall a little. She had hoped he could do everything he'd just said he couldn't. She had been hoping for a miracle. A quick fix to her problems. But there were no quick fixes. Still, she wasn't without courage and she hid her disappointment quickly. He liked that.

“Besides theres always the blasted rules. If I gave you that information knowing that you would act to prevent Benedict from releasing it, you would be acting as my agents. The Choir won't allow that.”

“Then we'll just have to take that chance, watch his every move while he's in custody, and hope we can move faster and do better than those he tells, because he will probably try to release the information if he's caught. After all, if he's in prison he has nothing to lose. Actually a broken world might be useful to him in helping him escape. That's just the risk we have to take for getting him out of our hair. It's better than the alternative which is that he succeeds in his robbery and then releases the information however he wants without our being able to watch. That would be a total disaster. And we think he's close.”

“Our best option though is if we can stop him doing whatever he has planned for now and prevent him from getting to the girl without him getting arrested. If we can he'll be knocked back. He won't release the information – not immediately. Whatever information he has, its use to him is only for when he has succeeded and wants to remain hidden. It's to cover his tracks. Releasing it early and turning the world upside down will not help him. Unless of course he gets caught. At that point holding on to the information is of no use to him. He’d probably release it purely out of spite.”

Was she right? Garrick didn't know. He didn't know the man. He only knew the stories about him, and most of those sounded like fairy tales. But if she was right and Benedict was behind his shooting, then he had a score to settle with the thief.

“Have you talked to the Choir about this?”

“Of course, but in the end he's human.”

Garrick sighed a little. He understood instantly what she meant. The man was human and that meant the Choir would not touch him in any way. They would not prevent him releasing the information no matter how much it cost them. The most they would do was whisper ceaselessly into his soul about what a terrible thing he was doing. But the chances were that they'd been doing that for decades anyway and he hadn't been listening. Not many people did as far as he could tell.

On the other hand Cassie had come to him in the hospital and warned him about Benedict. That suggested the Choir had to be worried. Enough to warn potential victims even if it wasn't enough to ask them to act against him. Or maybe that there was something else going on? He could never be certain of that with the Choir.

“They could at least tell you where he is and what he's planning.”

But even as Garrick said it he watched his guest shake her head, her long dark hair flying about a little, and he knew they wouldn't do that either. It would violate their precious rules. He just wasn't completely sure which ones. Would she be interfering with the free will of a human called Armando Benedict? Or interfering with other humans' free will in the form of Diogenes?

If it was the latter he suddenly realised, he had a way around it.

“Cassie?” He called her, certain that she would hear him but not that she would come. The Choir did sometimes come to some of the nephilim when they called – if it suited them.

“No child.” Her voice came from just in front of him but the angel hadn't come with it – something that just wasn't as disconcerting as much as it once would have been. “I will not tell you simply so that you can tell Maricia. That would be no different to telling her directly.”

And telling her such a thing would be much the same as asking her to act, which in turn would mean that the angel was acting against a human through an agent. He understood that rule. She would not act directly and she would not act through an agent.

She sounded quite certain on that point, and maybe a little disappointed as well. As if he'd suggested doing something unethical instead of simply trying to take a bad guy off the streets and protecting a lot of innocent people. Not that he'd even got as far as suggesting that. Actually he hadn't even managed to ask the question. He guessed he wasn't going to be able to. He was just going to be lectured to about the rules and his many failings.

“You have been spending too much time among the humans and not enough with your own people. You think these clever ruses are a good way of getting around the rules. They are not. Obedience to the law means obedience to its spirit as well. Or had you forgotten that?”

“I -.”

“ – He was just trying to help Cassie.” Maricia jumped in before Garrick could say anything stupid. “You know he has a good heart.”

“He was trying to take a short cut by breaking the rules. He is lazy and stubborn and too often prone to foolishness.”

“He had no father to help raise him and his mother has been in and out of care all his life. And for all that he still tries to do the right thing.”

“You do know I am sitting right here!”

Garrick thought he'd better say something before the two women carried on talking about him like a prize pet and he had to hear his life history and all his faults discussed in detail. He shouldn't have bothered.

“And did I forget to mention difficult?”

Cassie wasn't particularly impressed with his outburst he gathered. Maricia on the other hand was suddenly trying to hide a cheeky smile. She obviously found it amusing. He tried not to turn red or shake his head in self pity. And really, he knew it was his own fault for speaking. He should never have commented and instead have just sat there and taken it. Don't talk back. That was what was expected of a nephilim. Don't argue just take it like a man. Still, there were things that had to be asked and he wasn't going to be cowed in his own home. Not even by an angel. Or at least not again.

“Well, now that you have mentioned my difficult nature Cassie, is there something you can suggest about the other stuff? – before everything turns to custard? … Oh and is it going to turn to custard? Is Benedict going to reveal whatever he knows about us to the world?”

The angel was silent for a moment, and he could almost imagine that wherever she was she was staring straight at him, studying him, looking for whatever defects she could find and thinking about removing them – with pliers. Eventually she answered him.

“Has not Maricia given you a plan young Garrick? Something to work on instead of sitting in your house feeling sorry for yourself?”

A plan? She didn’t say whether it was a good plan or a bad one, he noticed. Nor even if it was one she would support either as Garrick realised. But still, one that she acknowledged that he was free to engage in because it had been suggested by a normal and it was those same normals who would be acting on whatever he could find. Had there though been a hint that it would be of benefit to him? Garrick wasn't completely sure. But it was probably as close as she would ever be able to come to suggesting a course of action for him in this.

“And the other?”

“Maybe.” She paused for a moment and he imagined her looking away, considering what to say. “Armando is a difficult child and he refuses to listen to the words of my brothers and sisters. But I cannot tell you what he knows and what he could or would do.”

Could not or would not? Garrick suspected the latter but he knew there was no point in challenging her on it. In the end they were the same thing for her and he would gain nothing from his questions.

“Then that's what we'll do.”

“Maricia can you pick me up in the morning please? I can't drive obviously. And we'll need a car which can extend its front seat back all the way. Cassie, can you please inform the healers in Olmstead as well as Patricia Holdsworth to expect me? I don't want people to worry when an outsider drives in and I'd rather not use my phone to call her in case anyone's monitoring it.”

Cassie would do that he knew. Because the only people concerned were nephilim and it didn't involve any breaking of their rules. And also because, just occasionally, they did like to help their spurned children.

His decision had been made, though he doubted it was truly his decision. But at least it would get him out of the house and away from the press for a bit. And if the healers at Olmstead could do something for him then so much the better. Maybe they could even change his cast for a walking cast? One with a flexible knee.

First though he had to get through a seven hour drive there with a woman who was no doubt going to pester him with annoying questions. She had the look.