I, Jequon: Part One of the Nephilim Chronicles Page 13

  He turned his attention to the blood typing and DNA analysis, noting the name of the laboratory where it was performed: Alpha Analytic Labs in Phoenix. A reputable outfit.

  SPECIES: primate / human? RACE: inconclusive. BLOOD TYPE: AB+.

  Human, question mark?

  Henrik wasn’t going to hold his breath for definitive answers, but it was high-time he read the letter:

  Dear Henrik,

  Brotherhood material, you’re not. But neither are you stupid.

  After reading the preamble to Nahor’s Revelation, you will begin to understand the necessity of Cynthia’s capture and any subsequent rough treatment. For though you profess to seek the truth regarding the End Times, your allegiances may nevertheless prove too strong to betray without further incentive.

  Perhaps, in the process of completing your work, you will realize the error of your ways. Perhaps not. But irrespective of the fate of your soul, know this: Your captor’s eagerness to inflict abject misery upon Cynthia is held in check only by your diligent cooperation in translating our scroll in its entirety.

  Sincerely,

  The Bostonian

  My allegiances? The error of my ways?

  Any disciplined restraint he’d shown earlier gave way to an almost panicked curiosity. Henrik bent to work on the scroll’s preamble, transposing the Golden Age Biblical Hebrew into handwritten English he scrawled onto a legal pad.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  There are two stairwells leading down from the second floor balcony of Hernandez’s complex, one at either end of the building. Mercy locks up and turns in the direction of the nearest stairwell. I step in front of her. Place a hand on her hip and gently turn her in the opposite direction.

  “Let’s take the long way down, in case the building manager is looking to see if you’re really Cynthia.”

  The first set of stairs passes directly under one of the old man’s windows. Mercy seems to understand.

  “You want me to follow you over there?”

  “No. We’ll ride together in my rental.”

  “What are you driving?”

  “A Mustang convertible.”

  “I drive an Audi R8. We’ll take my car.”

  “Are you parked legally?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Then we’re taking my rental. If something did happen to Cynthia, then whoever’s responsible probably knows you’re close friends. They might recognize your car. Might wonder who’s riding with you. I can’t have that. Better we blend-in in my rental.”

  Mercy makes a face like she’s about to argue with me, then thinks better of it. A relief. Now I don’t have to worry about a GPS tracking device attached to the undercarriage of her car, or if she has a weapon stashed under her driver’s seat.

  On our way out of Pacific Beach we stop for some supplies at a Halloween costume warehouse. For what they don’t stock, a used sporting goods store further east on Garnet. Two wigs, a couple of nylon track suits, some costume jewelry, and a little makeup for Mercy. Simple disguises. We’re going for a Jersey-Shore-on-vacation look.

  Twenty minutes later and we’re already just south of downtown, about to ascend the curved incline of the San Diego Bay Bridge. The top’s down. At 68-degrees, it’s almost too cold for it, but neither of us complain.

  I decelerate to the speed limit and take in the skyline from one of the best vantage points in the city. Mercy asks me to change lanes.

  “You don’t like the view?”

  The concrete guardrails are low, but so is the Mustang.

  “I’m a little scared of heights.”

  She’s gripping the shoulder restraint with one hand, white-knuckling the side of her seat with the other. Eyes riveted to the center divider. Shallow breaths. No color in her face.

  More than a little scared.

  I move into the passing lane. I’m not some douchebag who gets a kick out of scaring people, and I need her to stay cooperative.

  “Better?”

  “Much. Thanks.”

  In Mercy’s defense, it is a long way up. Thirty mission-style concrete arches extend some two-hundred feet out of the water to support the road bed. At the bridge’s highest point, it’s tall enough for an aircraft carrier to pass underneath.

  Mercy’s fumbling inside of her purse for something. A second later she’s holding an iPhone. She swipes her finger across the bottom of the screen. I snatch it and fling it over the side of the bridge like a ninja throwing star. It’s all in the wrist. And now I don’t have to worry about her getting in touch with Hernandez before I do.

  “What the fuck! That’s my phone, asshole! Are you out of your mind?”

  “I’ll buy you a new one.”

  She balls up her fist and slugs me in the shoulder. She hits a lot harder than most women.

  “Who cares? You don’t just take someone’s phone and hurl it out of a moving car.”

  “I just did.”

  “Why? How am I supposed to make a call? Or check my email? Asshole.”

  “Have you ever called Cynthia on that phone?”

  “Of course I have. It’s my phone. I call friends with it. That’s the whole point.”

  “Exactly. Which means, if someone has Cynthia, they’d have your number from the recent call list. And if they have your number and the right equipment, it’s trivial to track your phone’s signal and figure out your location.”

  “Yeah, I know, Patrick. I’m a bounty hunter, remember? I’ve heard of cell phone triangulation.”

  “Good. Then you understand.”

  “The technology? Sure. Your degree of paranoia? Not really. What in the hell could Cynthia have gotten herself into that someone would want to track her friend’s movements?”

  “Too many questions. Remember our deal?”

  True to her word, Mercy doesn’t quiz me further the rest of the way across the bridge. True to my nature, I tally up the number of suicide-hotline signs mounted to light posts every couple hundred yards or so: thirty-six of them. There to dissuade jumpers. San Diego is, after all, a military town. Not everyone’s meant to be a warrior.

  Past the decommissioned toll booths and onto Coronado Island proper, I turn into a bank parking lot so Mercy can take over behind the wheel. We’re still about a mile away from the Del, but I want to start watching for SOJ instead of paying attention to traffic.

  “When we arrive, drive right up to the main entrance and drop me off. Then pull a U-ey and hang a right out of the driveway. Your first chance to turn around will be at the second light down, across from some high rise condominiums. Just keep doing that loop and circling back in front of the hotel until I come back out. If anyone hassles you, give them the finger. Say something befitting a spoiled trophy wife waiting on her wealthy husband. You’re definitely trophy wife material, so the valets should buy it.

  “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, stop circling. Your next stop should be the airport, followed by a medium-sized city in the Midwest you’ve never visited, and that no one but the ticket agent knows you’re going to. Of course, I know full well you’d stay here and keep looking for Cynthia. But at least you’ve been warned. Any questions?”

  “Only about a thousand I know you’re not going to answer.”

  “You’re wise to trust me.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “For the time being.”

  “But not if I want to see Cynthia again?”

  “You’d be betting the long odds.”

  “And my odds if I keep betting on you?”

  “Higher.”

  “How much higher?”

  “You’re scared of heights; I don’t want to frighten you.”

  “That good?”

  “Everything’s relative.”

  “Not everything.”

  She has a point.

  As two of the hotels distinctive red-shingled turrets come into view, I begin to scan the grounds for SOJ lookouts in earnest.

  No easy task.


  Completed in 1888, the Hotel Del Coronado is a massive, white-painted, all-wood beach resort—one of the few remaining—and it still stands as the largest beach hotel on the North American Pacific Coast. Of the six-hundred-plus rooms, a hundred or more have windows facing our approach. A pair of binoculars could be pressed against the pane behind any of them. And it’s not just the Del’s immense size that’s problematic. Its sprawling and asymmetrical architecture offers endless opportunities for surveillance on the sly. Dormers circumnavigating cupolas, pediment protected porticos, archways, bay windows, balconies. Architecture buffs call the style Queen Anne Victorian. I call it ornate chaos.

  New beachfront construction adds to the sensory overload. As do the sidewalks brimming with sightseers and fat-cat hotel guests waddling back from the shops and restaurants we’ve been passing on our way in. Any one of them could be an undercover sentry scouting for a thirsty Naphil.

  My only consolation is, if there are lookouts, they shouldn’t recognize us in our disguises. Mercy’s platinum blonde wig, hot-pink lipstick, and wraparound sunglasses do the trick. Hell, she looks like she could turn one. For my part, a half-dozen rolled-up beach towels, three rolls of athletic tape to hold them in place, and a triple-XL nylon track suit have all but tamed my physique, turning my natural V-shape into more of an H for heavy. Add to that a curly black wig, fake mustache and goatee, mirrored lens aviators, an imitation gold chain, and bada-bing, bada-boom! Fat Guido with his gold-digging goomah.

  We turn into the driveway and join the line of vehicles idling their way to the ill-designed porte-cochere. For all the Del’s elegance and style, this car-clogged threshold disappoints, running contrary to the air of leisure one would expect from a four-star resort. Another casualty of paved roads and the automobile.

  Mercy wishes me luck. I kiss her on the cheek for effect.

  “You better not be long.”

  She says it with a pretty good Jersey accent, obnoxiously loud, fully invested in her role.

  I get out and wave off the valet and the bellhops before they can add to the congestion. Stride into the narrow vestibule which leads inside to the lobby, dodging piles of luggage as if this were an airport instead of a historic landmark.

  Fortunately, the foot-traffic situation improves inside the lobby. As does the vibe. The torchiere sconce and chandelier-lit space is all that and a cup of Earl Grey tea. Framed by hand-carved railings of a second floor mezzanine, and paneled in rich, dark mahogany, much like the library of a Basque castle I once owned, it’s the kind of place gentlemen enjoy single-malt scotch in heavy lead crystal tumblers and smoke pipes filled with the finest Stoved Virginia tobacco.

  I’ll miss it.

  Make no mistake. The draw of establishing a safe house in a world renown property like the Del, or the Algonquin, or the George V in Paris, owes as much to convenience as it does to our centuries-refined good taste.

  We seduce those from whom we feed. Ecstasy in exchange for life everlasting.

  Although the proportion of O-neg visitors to the hotel is no greater than the general population’s immune base, the relative number of delicious young women in search of no-strings-attached romance is much higher than you’d find at, say, a Holiday Inn Express. Having the donor database integrated with the computerized hotel registration system freed us from wasting so much time merely identifying the O-neg guests. Not that licking sweat from nubile flesh, and tasting for A or B antigens isn’t appealing. It is. But with Veingel quotas to adhere to, entertaining so many pretty young things before finding an eligible donor started to feel like work. Before we got hacked, we simply checked in to the perpetually reserved, and purportedly haunted, room 3327 and read over the special addendum to the room service menu. Replete with age, height, and head-shots, it was updated daily by a Veingel cleaning lady.

  Nice while it lasted.

  I let the eager beavers behind me peel off for the front desk and the courtyard beyond. Take a moment to admire the flower arrangement establishing the geometric center of the room as I scan for SOJ operatives posing as hotel employees or guests. No one looks suspicious, which is good news, but I’m still getting angry.

  I’m burning up underneath all this physique-blurring bulk. I wipe away the sweat from my brow before it beads up and drips into my eyes. The fact my people can no longer savor the pleasures of this place infuriates me. The fact I look like a Thanksgiving turkey dressed in a parachute infuriates me. And the fact I can’t even take a deep breath with this tape cinched so tight around my waist also infuriates me.

  My pulse pounds a cannibal’s drumbeat. Suddenly all I can think about is killing—snuffing out every smiling sheep in the building just in case one among the dead is SOJ.

  A fire would do it. Disable the retrofit sprinkler system. Barricade the doors…all this wood? Oh, how it would burn. Like my waiting hell. But that’s just the vengeance talking, and I am not my vengeance. Killing innocents isn’t an option I’m willing to consider. Not yet.

  The usual procedure would be to request an extra key for room 3327 from the front desk. But that’s out because I haven’t checked the bulletin board for the name the reservation is under this week. Wouldn’t matter if I had, since the SOJ undoubtedly has control of the hotel computers, same as they do our databases. Fortunately, there are other protocols I can rely on.

  I make my way up the stairs leading from the lobby. I meet no one in the halls. I see no cameras. Thus far un-harassed, I arrive in front of 3327, the infamous room where Kate Morgan spent her final night among the living and where, according to legend, her spirit still haunts. It’s no accident this is the room my people keep reserved for our exclusive use. The story of Kate’s haunting provides a convenient explanation for why the room is booked years in advance. We’re ghost hunters. Or: We’re mediums here to make contact with Kate. That’s what we say if anyone asks. And as for the strange noises which hundreds of guests have reported emanating from the room? Well, the ladies responsible might not classify their climactic sighs as natural, but they aren’t super-natural, either.

  Time for me to make an entrance. The handle is bare. The door is locked. No self-respecting Naphil would occupy a safe house room without displaying the Do Not Disturb as a courtesy to other Nephilim and Veingels who might be visiting the hotel. Whether or not the SOJ operatives know of this custom, I have no idea. My guess is they don’t. Our databases are just that. Places to store data. Essential data. They’re not an encyclopedia of Nephilim etiquette and culture—most of which, thank our fathers in darkness—is still an oral tradition. So the room is either empty or occupied by SOJ assassins.

  I flatten myself against the wall beside the door just in case someone inside heard footsteps and gets curious. Ease in to the edge of the door jamb where the hinges and the door butt up against the frame. The hallway’s clear, but I could still be spotted through the peephole. I inhale deep and slow and quiet, sampling the air for traces of human scent. A lot of good a heightened sense of smell does me, though, when a dirty room service tray sitting in front of the adjacent room overpowers any telltale whiffs of cologne, fear-sweat, or halitosis. Likewise on the sound front; a TV blaring Sports Center at a thousand decibels masks the meat-moist thud of a beating heart, or the precious percussion of an eye-blink.

  Decisions, decisions.

  I usually gauge intervals of time by my pulse. A second per. But now it feels like I’m counting down instead of keeping track. And the longer I stand here thinking about what to do, the longer nothing useful gets done.

  This isn’t like me. It’s a simple choice. Bust in like a badass, break in like a burglar, or walk the fuck away. And yet here I stand, sweating it out like a prize fighter worried about making weight.

  What’s wrong with you, Jequon? Have you forgotten your father?

  Any second now, hotel staff could appear in the hallway and demand to see a key. Any second now, SOJ hit men could appear in the hallway and shoot me.

  One heartbeat. Two heartb
eats. Three heartbeats.

  I’m still glued to the wall.

  I wipe more sweat from my forehead. I can feel the towels taped around my upper arms begin to sag as they grow heavy with wicked-up perspiration.

  Fifteen heartbeats.

  Damn’t Jequon! Kick it, pick it, or the hell with it.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  I wasn’t even nervous on the way over here. All I could think about was saving someone. Anyone. Like a hitter trying to end a slump, I just wanted to make contact with the ball. I didn’t need a home-run. Just prevent one Naphil from walking into an ambush, have him start warning the others while I stay on the attack. I felt like I knew the next pitch, like I could sit on it, assured of a base hit.

  It’s not an ambush if you know it’s coming.

  So I told myself. I knew I’d blend in with this disguise; knew they’d have to do any killing in private to avoid a media frenzy and a homicide investigation.

  Best case? The Brotherhood doesn’t have the necessary manpower to setup at all our safe houses, and the Del isn’t a deathtrap yet. I can leave a note in the room service menu and alert the next Naphil of the danger when they arrive to feed. Worst case: I vent a little.

  And yet, I hesitate. It’s like my brain and my gut are doing battle. Instincts vs. intellect. Reason vs. rage. One of them has to win out, or I’m not going anywhere. It’s not that I’m afraid of dying. I’m afraid of all of us dying. I’m afraid of a world free from reminders that God’s not perfect after all. We were His first mistake. I don’t want us to be his last.

  That’s what holds me immobile. The enormity of what’s at risk here. The question is, am I going to lock-up now that the pressure’s on? Choke on a chance to save someone?