I, Jequon: Part One of the Nephilim Chronicles Read online

  Unfortunately, Henrik wasn’t able to oblige all of her baser needs. It wasn’t because he was impotent, thank God. His equipment worked mostly fine, much of the time. His restraint was due entirely to the restrictions demanded of him by the Brotherhood. He could spill no seed until after his initiation into their ranks. Although this seemed like an odd and arbitrary sacrifice for membership in a religious fraternity, for access to their holy texts Henrik would’ve happily given up much more than ejaculation. Poor Cynthia didn’t have these restrictions, however, and the best he could offer his hot-and-bothered little hottie was his finger, or if she was especially persistent, his tongue. He feared, of course, that she’d eventually tire of these limitations and leave him. But for reasons not entirely clear, she stuck around and made due with the “rabbit” he purchased for her, and with regular assists from the jets in her apartment complex’s hot-tub.

  And so it went.

  Henrik doubted it would last. Like a teenage summer, time would take her from him. And if not time, then his involvement with the Brotherhood would drive her away. But until that moment came, he would savor being in love.

  A nausea-inducing hour later, his escorts finally eased back on the throttle and the craft idled into an unknown port. Henrik listened for any ambient noise that might clue him in to their location, but it was useless over the smooth growl of the outboards.

  Thug One opened the door to the hold and placed a bulky headset around his neck.

  “Put these on. Hope you like metal.”

  Henrik did as he was told and clamped on the earmuff-style headphones over his hood. He wanted to tell the man, that no, he didn’t like heavy metal, that he found it altogether lacking in musical artistry. Keeping his mouth shut seemed more prudent. Now effectively deaf as well as blind, he had to let the man guide him by the arm. He tried to filter out a scent from the salt and damp of the ocean air. The aroma of seafood or steak emanating from a nearby restaurant, perhaps. But his own sour breath overpowered any other smells wafting by on the other side of the hood. The escort placed his hands on a metal railing and then guided his foot onto a slip-resistant tread so narrow it was really more of a rung. With nothing but touch to guide him upward, and still a little seasick, Henrik felt dizzy and hesitated.

  The escort pulled the left can away from his ear a couple inches. “Climb! Dumbass.” Then he let it snap back against his head.

  Henrik climbed. Ten steps all told. He reached the top and held on to a taught wire cable for balance as Thug One shimmied up behind him. Then the other escort, who’d already gone up the ladder, tugged him forward by his shirt sleeve and led him across a textured-fiberglass surface. They paused briefly. Over the din of drums and guitars and some idiot screaming, girls, girls, girls! Henrik could just make out the metallic jingle of keys.

  They led him down a metal stairway. Then at the bottom, they corralled him over a few feet of plush carpeting; Henrik had expected steel or fiberglass, since by now it was now clear they weren’t on a dock, but rather, an even larger boat than the one he’d just been on. He heard the sound of keys again before they shuttled him through yet another door and into another room, this one without carpet to cushion its metal floor.

  There was an odor in this room. An odor strong enough to penetrate the hood. It reminded Henrik of a cramped airplane bathroom, with minty dried-piss-on-plastic overtones. And there was another even stronger scent, contributing to, but distinct from the first. A familiar scent. A scent that shamed him.

  Before he could identify it, Thug Two pulled the headphones from his head and said, “You can take off the hood now.”

  Henrik heard him close the door and lock it. He registered no sound from the other side. Then he heard Cynthia. Right next to him.

  “Henrik? Is that you?”

  She sounded scared.

  “Wait. I need to remove this hood first.”

  She didn’t wait. She tore into him. “What the hell is going on, Henrik? Tell me! Tell me now!”

  He was shocked by the venom in her voice. “Will you just calm down for a minute? I can’t see anything.”

  “That’s because it’s pitch-fucking-black! Now answer me: why I am here?”

  Henrik finally managed to pull the hood loose. Total darkness, just like she said. He stretched his arms out for a wall or something else solid to hang on to. But Cynthia didn’t give him a chance to get his bearings, or even finish a complete thought for that matter.

  “What’s going on? And don’t tell me you don’t know! Don’t fucking lie to me, Henrik!”

  “Will you please keep your voice down? They’re probably listening to every word we say.”

  “I know they’re listening! And I don’t give a shit, because I want them to know I don’t have anything to do with you. Tell them that! Tell them I’m not involved in whatever shit you’ve gotten yourself into. Tell them now!”

  “I will…I have already. But you need to calm down. I can’t think with you so frantic. Please. Just calm down. Everything’s going to be alright. I promise. I’ll free—”

  Henrik’s reassurances were interrupted by a voice in the darkness. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, Henrik.”

  ...she bare him a son in the third week in the sixth year, and he called his name Jared; for in his days the angels of the Lord descended on the earth, those who are named the Watchers, that they should instruct the children of men, and that they should do judgment and uprightness on the earth. —The Book of Jubilees 4:15

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The jungle mazes of the world-famous zoo streak past below the right wingtip. The post-modern skyline of downtown is at eye-level on the left, like some future Atlantis, standing sentry over an ocean biding its time. San Diego’s beauty makes me feel even more alone. Incongruous. A yellow bow of sandy coastal splendor dressing up my gift-wrapped misery. I will spill blood in America’s Finest City and the sunshine will bleach out the stains.

  It takes thirty minutes to de-plane and find my way out of the terminal. Enough time for me to contemplate a rather disturbing pattern. Among the SOJ’s more recent victims, after Lucian, they’re all 1st Gen.

  Statistically, it doesn’t make sense. 2nd Gen and 3rd Gen Nephilim far outnumber 1st Gens, and there are many thousands of Veingels as well. Plus 1st Gens are exponentially more elusive and dangerous targets than our offspring, with their diluted DNA and correspondingly diminished traits. Generations two and three are only one-fourth and one-quarter angel, respectively. In mathematical terms that makes a 2nd Gen’s prowess equivalent to human1.25, and likewise, a 3rd Gen’s is human1.125.

  At first glance, my 1st Gen, 1.5-exponent-advantage over the Garden-of-Eden-variety ape might not seem all that much greater than the 2nd or 3rd Gen’s. Until, that is, you crunch the numbers.

  For example, a 2nd Gen—even if they never drank blood to maintain their youth—could live a maximum of 1201.25 years; 397 trips around the sun, give-or-take. For a 3rd Gen, it’s 1201.125 (218 years). But the same math applied to a 1st Gen Naphil yields a natural age limit of 1,314 years (the age of the oldest living human, raised to the one-point-two-five power).

  And these Power Law governed advantages apply for most human traits. Take running speed. A fit human can manage 15-miles-per-hour; a 3rd Gen Naphil is good for 21-mph; a 2nd Gen, 30-mph; and a 1st Gen, 58-mph. Fast enough for a speeding ticket on most roads.

  Or consider vertical jump. A rather freakish leap of 3.5-feet for a human is easily bested by a 3rd Gen’s 7-foot capability, a 2nd Gen’s 11-foot vertical, or the dunk-from-the-three-point-line, 27-foot high vertical a 1st Gen like me can muster.

  Sensory perception, too. What a human can make out at twenty-feet, a 3rd Gen sees at twenty-nine, a 2nd Gen at forty-two, and a 1st Gen from almost ninety-feet. Ditto for auditory, olfactory, kinesthetic, and gustatory acuity.

  So, for the SOJ to kill five 1st Gens in the course of a few hours is no small feat. Even accepting the possibility that they’ve deciphe
red our language and apparently hacked our databases, it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that they’ve killed twenty-six 1st Gens in a single day, when in the 8,000-plus years previous, they’ve only managed twenty kills.

  I find an ATM and withdraw five-grand from one of my many accounts. Donald Johnson Business Checking, in this instance. When your lifespan is measured in centuries, money is never a problem (hint: real estate). Under a different name, Patrick Daly, I rent a black Ford Mustang GT from Hertz. Pay extra for a dashboard GPS unit. Punch in Cynthia Hernandez’s address into TomTom and listen to the digitized voice. “Turn right, ahead.”

  Hernandez lives in a part of San Diego known as Pacific Beach, eight miles drive up the coast from the airport. PB, as it’s known to the locals, is a haven for surfers and for trust-funded twenty-somethings looking to party. It’s one of those beautiful but self-conscious places in Southern California where people walk around like the star of their very own reality TV show.

  With light traffic I’m to the Garnet Avenue exit in just under fifteen minutes. The Mustang won’t stand out here in the least. With the uber-affluent community of La Jolla M.C. Escher-ing its way up Mount Soledad to the north, a Lamborghini Aventador wouldn’t draw too much attention. And I don’t stand out, either. Unlike my conspicuousness in Sarajevo, here in Pacific Beach I’m just another buff surfer on my way to Tourmaline, or a muscle-head hitting one of the many local gyms. Blending in is a good thing when you’ve become a walking bulls-eye.

  The Lure’s address puts her on the corner of Opal and Cass St, which, according to the GPS, sits a few blocks in from the ocean, solidly in North PB. The neighborhood trends a little quieter and more residential than the club-choked epicenter of PB I’m cruising through on Garnet.

  I’m surprised she’s not right on the beach. Lures are pretty well taken care of by the SOJ, financially speaking. And for good reason. To get close to us, a woman needs to possess an ease and comfort around wealth. Our tastes, as well as our vices have been refined over a hundred centuries and are top-shelf. Hence, the clubs and establishments which cater to their prompt and unquestioning fulfillment are not inexpensive. A Lure needs to operate in that world like she belongs there.

  Then again, the only Naphil known to have fallen for Hernandez was a 3rd Gen with a thirst for thujone. Perhaps our much younger, less sophisticated cousins are her specialty, in which case party-on PB definitely fits the bill.

  Still, I’m expecting something a little more swank than the L-shaped apartment complex across the street from a seafood restaurant. It looks like a Motel 6 circa 1970; probably converted to studio rentals during one of the real estate booms in the 90’s or early 2000’s. Judging by the narrow spacing between the windows, the units are tiny. They share walls. The white-painted brick looks like it would crumble to dust in the event of a big earthquake, and the dumpsters in back of the fish place reek of spoiling salmon and Caesar dressing. Not ideal when you rely on a sea-breeze to stay cool instead of AC. So Cynthia Hernandez the Lure must travel too much to bother with nicer digs.

  It’s more evidence in support of Yuri’s story, and a rare insight into the enemies’ seductress operation. Because if the SOJ had enough Lures to embed them in all the world’s major metropolitan areas, then that’s exactly what they’d do. It wouldn’t be necessary to keep any one Lure, like Hernandez, on the road so often. Because with several hundred temptresses at their disposal, it would make far more sense to operate on a regional basis.

  Which suggests the enemy’s resources are finite. Constrained by some combination of financing, the availability of suitable women, or the burdens imposed by oversight and the need for secrecy. Bounded, unlike my determination to hunt them down and deliver vengeance.

  I just have to be careful not to let my violent urges overpower the need for caution. Hence the extra five minutes vibe-ing out to Pearl Jam, checking the rearview, and otherwise scanning for SOJ sentries who might be watching her place. None I can see, so I get out of the Mustang and walk up the concrete stairwell to Hernandez’s apartment.

  I don’t really have a plan, and don’t really need one. She’s going to tell me everything she knows about her handlers. And she’s going to be verbose. Believe it.

  There’s no reason to be stealthy in my approach. It’s a big complex in broad daylight. She’ll be used to UPS couriers and pizza delivery guys plodding past her door at all hours of the day. She’s probably still in bed sleeping off the jet lag from her Sarajevo trip. I’ll be up in her face like morning breath before she figures out it’s not a dream.

  Just one problem. Like all the other upstairs units, 14 has a glass-paned door with a venetian blind on the inside for privacy. Kicking it in would not only draw attention from the initial impact, but unlike breaking into a wood or metal door, the sound of shattered glass would keep people’s attention, and give Hernandez enough warning to escape out a back window or draw a pistol.

  I need to figure out a Plan B before I become the creepy guy no one recognizes, loitering outside the pretty girl’s door like a stalker. I could easily crank the door handle until the locking mechanism breaks. But any kind of force sufficient to disable the deadbolt would also break the glass. So I’ll knock. No other option. Of course, if she peers through the blinds before answering the door, she’ll make me for a Naphil. She knows what to look for. Still, it’s not exactly a high-crime area. Her guard will be down. Worst case, she gets spooked. And then what? She can’t outrun me. Especially without a head start, which she’ll be giving up by answering the door.

  Three light taps on the glass and almost immediately the knob turns. It wasn’t locked. And she wasn’t sleeping.

  The door glides open to reveal an uncommonly gorgeous woman.

  Who isn’t Cynthia Hernandez.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The door he’d been led through moments before opened, blinding him with light from the adjacent room. Holding up a hand for shade, Henrik squinted into the photonic assault, willing his eyes to adjust.

  “Keep ‘em closed or lose ‘em.”

  He recognized Passenger Seat Thug’s voice. Henrik didn’t know if the man was referring to his eyes or to Cynthia’s, so he squeezed shut his bulbous orbs just in case.

  Right away she screamed for help, hoping perhaps, the rest of the vessel’s hold wasn’t soundproofed like her cell and someone on the outside would respond to her pleas. Henrik found himself worrying she might succeed. He certainly didn’t want any harm to come her way, but he didn’t want her interfering with God’s purpose, either.

  Driver Seat Thug hoisted him to his feet and shoved him back through to the other room.

  “Please, Henrik! Tell them! If you love me, tell them to—”

  The meaty smack of a large hand colliding with a delicate cheek put a stop to that. Cynthia went limp and thudded against the floor. Then the door slammed shut behind him.

  “You can open your eyes now,” Passenger Seat Thug said.

  Henrik did so, and he immediately tried to sneak a glimpse of the escorts’ faces. It was no use. He’d been kept in the dark for too long. All he could make out was two bobbing amorphous blurs as they climbed the stairs. At the top, they paused. Henrik heard them fumble with some keys again. They unlocked the door and then exited the hold. He didn’t hear them re-lock it, and so he concluded the door had an auto-locking mechanism.

  He blinked frantically to speed up the return of his vision, his surroundings strobing into progressively better focus. As his eyes began to adjust, he marveled at the luxuriant space he now occupied. Plush Berber carpeting. A round conference table made of exotic cocobolo wood. Five Aeron desk chairs. And two walls lined with varnished cherry bookcases, each stocked floor-to-ceiling with leather-bound volumes.

  This was in stark contrast to Cynthia’s cell, fully visible through a glass partition separating the two rooms. Bare metal floor. Bare metal walls. A port-a-potty. For furniture, a waist-high craft table constructed from unfinished four-by-fo
ur posts and hastily sawn particle board, plus a couple of cheap plastic stools off to one side like an afterthought. The kind of room where the Geneva Convention held no sway.

  The lighting only accentuated this dichotomy. The lush appointments on Henrik’s side of the glass were bathed in a cozy radiance emanating from halogen sconces. The illumination in Cynthia’s cell was harder to classify. It didn’t so much reflect off of the objects in the room, as the objects themselves seemed to emit a faint sickly gleam.

  “Infrared refraction polymer.”

  Until he spoke, Henrik hadn’t noticed the man standing in the shadowed corner beneath the stairwell.

  “Her room is lit using infrared spectrum, which the human eye cannot detect. As it passes through the one-way glass, the wavelengths are phase-shifted down to a visible frequency we can see on this side. There’s some distortion. But not much.”

  Henrik could have given a church mouse’s derriere about the technology involved.

  “What’s this all about? Why are you holding Cynthia?”

  The man stepped out of the corner and into the light. He wore a form-fitting black ski mask in place of the SOJ-style white silken hood. Another contractor.

  “Because those were my orders. Orders, Henrik. That’s what this is all about. My orders are to ensure you carry out your orders. Much like you’ve proven yourself effective at whatever-the-hell-it-is you do, I have proven myself effective at…well, let’s just call it Motivational Psychology.”

  “I don’t need to be motivated. I—”

  “Not yet, perhaps, but I wouldn’t be here if our employer didn’t foresee your enthusiasm starting to wane at some point.