I, Jequon: Part One of the Nephilim Chronicles Page 9

  But I’ll save them all, anyway.

  Thirty-feet up to the lip of the tube, give-or-take.

  I leap diagonally, as high as possible, planting my outside foot against the first wall, using the friction of its rough surface to spring further up the opposite wall—and again, twice more, zigzagging to ascend the gulf.

  The bottom edge of the pipe leading back into the chamber hits me in the gut and I grunt. Ahead, barely visible through the fog of acrid smoke, embers glow orange-hot inside the wasted auditorium.

  It wasn’t the type of bomb that destroys with concussive force. Guests of the hotel might have heard the explosion; barely, muffled as it was by three stories of solid rock. And maybe the blast dislodged a mote or two of dust from the bottles of single malt in the bar, but that would have been the extent of it. This bomb killed with heat and flame alone.

  Poof. Just like that. Twenty-one of my people smolder out in the cold dark of New York City’s underground, having tasted in death an avoidable, yet destined fire, even now tormenting their souls.

  I have to get out of here, even though I hate myself for the urge to draw another breath as my cousins, my friends, my fucking duty…

  A guttural roar erupts from inside me. A sound like every sorrowful curse ever hurled at God, from every poor son-of-a-bitch who never got to say goodbye to a brother, a father, a child, or a wife lost to His cruel whims; bottled-up and boiled; distilled, drank-down and wretched up at the feet of that smug bastard in heaven, grinning down at my anguish.

  Yesterday in Sarajevo they called me a hero. They were wrong.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  There were certainly nicer ways Mercy could’ve framed the question than, “Where the fuck are you?” Then again, Cynthia’s no-show, plus the two ignored text messages, provided her with ample justification for a rebuke.

  “She’s with us,” replied a deep baritone voice.

  One of their handlers. An arrogant and misogynistic prick in Mercy’s experience. Probably trained by the FBI, or the CIA, or one of the military’s Special Forces units, up until some career-ending snafu revealed his true character and got him booted back into civilian life. In other words, hired help. One of many soldier-of-fortune types employed by the Brotherhood to assist with operations and also, Mercy suspected, convenient scapegoats should the Lures’ activities ever come under scrutiny from law enforcement. Dealing with the handlers was one of the few things she resented about her new life. After completing her training at the monastery and being relocated to her new home in San Diego, Mercy had no direct contact with the priests. Instead, all communication came by way of the handlers, who knew nothing about the SOJ’s true identity or the holy war they were fighting. As far as the handlers were concerned, their bosses were wealthy businessman or politicians they’d never meet, same as any other gig. Which from their perspective made the Lures second-rate support staff; pretty freelancers whom they propositioned at every opportunity.

  At first Mercy didn’t reply. She couldn’t. Her throat closed up, constricting her airway, as if to contain an eminent eruption of bile and blood. No breath, no talk. Finally, she managed, “Where is she.” Not a question. A command.

  The handler took his time before responding. Mercy would not dictate the conversation. He was making that clear. “She’s safe. Her precise location need not concern you right now.”

  With the top up the heat had become stifling in the Audi. She opened the driver’s side door a few inches to let in some fresh air. “If you hurt her…if you so much as give her a cold…I will kill you.”

  “Two things. First, you need to remember who you’re talking to. I’m ex-Delta, and I know where you live. Do the math. Second, why would we want to hurt precious little Cynthia? She’s always done her job without complaint. This is no different. This is business. We’ll do no lasting harm.”

  “Then why am I talking to you instead of her? If this is just business, then she’d be free to call me and reschedule.”

  “That needn’t concern you right now. You, my dear, have other priorities.”

  “I’m not your dear, asshole. I’m not your anything.”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweet stuff. Give me five minutes alone in a dark room, and I’ll make you purr.”

  “Five minutes is all you’d last, and you’d waste the first four trying to find your microscopic dick.”

  “You know, on second thought, a little lasting harm wouldn’t endanger the mission too much. Guess I’ll take my ‘microscopic dick’ and fuck Cynthia’s ass so hard she has to wear a diaper the rest of her life. While I’m boring her out, I’ll be sure to mention how you could’ve volunteered to take her place, but you insisted she’d be better suited for the job.”

  Mercy didn’t say anything.

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought. Sweeeeeet. Stuffffff.”

  She couldn’t risk putting Cynthia in any more danger. Besides, her best comeback would be the one she planned on delivering in person once her friend was out of harm’s way. “For the wages of sin is death—Romans 6:23. Bang-bang, motherfucker.”

  For now she’d play along. “So what are my other priorities?”

  “That’s more like it! Maybe now, I’ll just shoot a load in her mouth and call it a day… You see how powerful a positive attitude can be? Right, right, riiight…priorities: ‘You’ve got a date for the prom.’ That’s straight from the powers that be. They said you’d know what to do.”

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  “As a matter of fact, there is one more thing they wanted me to tell you. If you screw up, you’ll never see Cynthia again.”

  And to Gabriel said the Lord: “Proceed against the bastards and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication, and destroy them: the children of the Watchers, cause them to go forth from amongst men, and pit them one against the other that they may destroy each other in battle, for length of days shall they not have.” —Book of Enoch 10:9-11

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I find my way out of the labyrinth of sewers and utility tunnels and into the streets of Manhattan, looking to passersby like an extremely well-fed homeless person. With my pants still damp with sewer runoff, wearing the stench of barbecued flesh, I must smell the part, too; as invisible to any SOJ assassins still lingering in the city as I am to the suits and blouses streaming by oblivious.

  I try to queue up the badass-about-to-do-damage soundtrack that’s been my frequent companion of late. But for the first time in my life the signal’s weak, an AM station lost under a bridge of despair.

  No more than one-hundred-fifty-eight 1st-Gens still breathe. Hell. Maybe fewer. If the SOJ did, in fact, decipher our language, and if they also managed to hack into our network. How else would they have known about Mount Hermon? They could’ve hit every single safe house, residence, and donor den in our database. Simultaneously. 9-11 style.

  I have failed my people. Again. And again and again, ten times over. I should have trusted my instincts and defied the Council’s reactive policies a long time ago. Hide-and-seek isn’t working. Noted. Maybe seek-and-destroy will.

  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  Damn-straight, Dylan Thomas. I’m not dead yet.

  All I’ve got to go on is a name and an address of the Lure Lucian got careless with—Cynthia Hernandez. San Diego, here I come.

  The plane is sitting on the runway and we’re cleared for takeoff. My phone starts to vibrate. Tucked in my back pocket, water-proofed with a knotted-off condom, I’ve forgotten all about the no-frills clamshell mobile.

  Shit.

  It’s not exactly a secret anymore that people can be tracked by triangulating their cell phone pings back-and-forth between nearby towers. The SOJ might be using this method to determine my location. I decide it’s not worth stressing over, though. At best they’ll know I’m at LaGuardia. Which doesn’t do them much good considering the one-hundred-plus flights that leave here every hour. Still, it would be better if
they assumed I died in the firebombing of Mt. Hermon, and if I answer the call they’ll know better.

  I free the device from its protective sheath just as it vibrates a second time. It’s not a call. It’s email. More than one.

  I navigate on the tiny LCD to: inbox (8) > messages (8) > photos (8).

  The screen can only show groups of five text-links at a time, next to a scrollbar. Pathetic and antiquated in today’s world of smartphones, but fancier devices with their glass screen and delicate internal drives simply aren’t durable enough for my needs.

  I select the first link and depress the little select-button above the keypad. The link text consists of a familiar name punctuated with a file extension of “.jpg.” A spinning hourglass icon appears, and now the screen refreshes with a pixilated but unmistakable portrait of a fellow 1st-Gen: Kokabel.

  His forehead flaunts the SOJ’s sadistic new brand, gloating in the language of my people. Taunting me. Just as they had the Council by sending photos of Lucian’s demise to Artemis and Ezequeel. Mystery solved.

  I hit the back-button on the phone:

  abramak.jpg

  david.jpg

  thorbahn.jpg

  ertael.jpg…

  …and a fat-fucking ellipses. A total of eight more cousins I’ve failed.

  I turn off the phone before any more bad news can arrive. Take out the battery just to be safe. Resist the urge to grind the damn thing into a paste of plastic dust and lithium-ion battery juice.

  “Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff.”

  The engines propel us down the runway. The woman behind me is mumbling pleas to Jesus to lift us off the ground safely, as if we were a matchbox replica propelled by the big toddler in the clouds. I look out the window so no one can see me cry.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In an age before society scrambled to find scientific explanations for purported miracles, in the age of miracles when miracles were performed, and witnessed, and needed—in that age—a devout man, belonging to a devout sect among a devout people, stood shackled inside a cave so he could not run. He held a knife two-fisted by the hilt while awaiting for further instruction from YHWY, the One True God.

  Torch light burned invisible in the sunless chamber, overwhelmed by the brilliant illumination of His messenger’s voice, a voice which shone brighter than the white sand desert dunes at mid-day as the angel spoke.

  By blood doth the sons of iniquity confess their fathers’ sins, and so by blood let their judgment be written, that in those last days, the last of the children of man may hear. Thus sayeth The Lord thy God.

  Hearing the angel’s words, the abomination they’d captured from among the Sethites screamed in a tongue Nahor did not know, writhing against the bindings as the knife carved deep beneath its smooth and hairless limb. Nahor could neither halt the butchery any more than speed it up, his hands an instrument of another will.

  Then the angel commanded Nahor to collect the blood in ink-pots as it flowed over the edges of the polished table toward the cave floor. And when the pots were full, which did not take long, Gabriel commanded the Naphil to speak. And the Naphil spoke much in the gibberish of its people.

  By the blood once sanctified, made impure, so let it be written, these words, carried by His angel Gabriel from Him Most High to His loyal prophet Nahor, honored scribe among a loyal people whom have pleased God.

  Nahor knew not what the biter uttered, but the Spirit of The Lord guided his hand as Gabriel forced the creature to confess. Despite the unintelligible source, the words issuing from the quill were in a tongue Nahor knew well. His native Hebrew, although it was the more formal, liturgical dialect spoken by priests and recorded on gevil painstakingly produced in the unchanging manner in which God had commanded.

  Finally, when the torches were but smoldering embers atop twigs, Gabriel silenced the un-man, who went by Sarkatheel among his unclean people, and rested the quill in Nahor’s hand. Now all but the final ink-pot of blood stood empty, the ground wet with much more spilt. To Nahor’s astonishment, the prisoner still lived.

  Behold, Nahor, servant of God everlasting, of He Who authors worlds and ends. Thou hast witnessed a mystery; The Lord delights in thee. Listen now to His words: By faith shall your people reveal the judgment rendered unto the Nephilim on this day; by your deeds so shall they know of the Lord’s wrath.

  In those last days, the blood of the wicked will damn them. For it is written: “The blood is the life,” And so shall it be written in those last days: “The blood is their death.”

  Now hear these Words from the Lord thy God but know them not; for He shall send a prophet in those last days, and the prophet shall reveal a great truth to your people that they may know His love and take comfort when His judgment is nigh.

  And again the man-beast cried out in anguish. And again Nahor’s faithful hand recorded its compelled prophecies. This time, however, they issued forth in an unrecognizable script. Who understood the symbols his hand conspired with the quill to render? Not Nahor, nor the words they formed, nor the unfathomable evils they might describe.

  …Thus sayeth the Lord thy God.

  And when the angel finished speaking, the purpose of the sharpened stake Nahor had been instructed to carry into the cave became obvious. As did the function of the heavy striking stone.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Henrik was in the dark every time he’d met with the Brotherhood. Literally. Two athletic men wearing sport coats and ski masks would show up at his apartment unannounced, blindfold him with a silken hood, and then escort him to and from the location. Even if he’d been blessed with a good sense of direction, their seemingly random turns on unfamiliar surface streets ruled out anything but a wild-assed guess as to where they might be taking him. The trip back from his interrogation at the auditorium started out no differently.

  Until they put him on a boat.

  A big boat. But not a boat so big as to be slow. Oh, no. This boat was fast. Very fast. And nimble, too. Capable of high speed figure-eights, which the two heavies at the helm must’ve enjoyed immensely given how many times they performed the maneuver.

  Nine, but who’s counting? Henrik thought, locked in a small cabin below deck and considerably less amused.

  When his escorts finally settled on a straight course, and Henrik was free to focus on something other than keeping his balance, his thoughts returned to Cynthia. During the ceremony one of the interrogators said they were holding her to ensure his cooperation. Which meant he’d failed to keep their relationship a secret. It also meant the Brotherhood had been keeping tabs on him. How closely, Henrik didn’t know. He’d never noticed any surveillance. But then, he’d never bothered to check for any, either. He wasn’t the kind of man people paid much attention to. At any rate, they knew he cared about her. But he wondered if they knew just how strong his affection for Cynthia had grown since their first meeting.

  Henrik had been aware of the so-called Podium Effect for some time, but he’d never benefited from it until that wonderful night after the revival in Escondido, CA. For an utterly undesirable man like Henrik, it was the only thing that could explain the interest he’d elicited from the much younger and remarkably beautiful Cynthia Hernandez.

  She’d caught his eye midway through the Post-Tribulation Rapture sermon he’d been giving to yet another less-than-enthusiastic crowd. He noticed her, not solely because of her looks, but because she was the only person of the 50 or 60 in attendance who smiled and made eye contact with him as he spoke. Henrik’s first thought was that she might be mentally retarded or perhaps the victim of a psychedelic overdose who’d found the Lord after losing her sanity. Many churches, especially the Evangelical variety Henrik and his peers frequented, seemed to harbor a higher proportion of Down’s, Fetal Alcohol, and Shaken Baby Syndrome survivors than the population at large. In Henrik’s experience, walking into a fundamentalist chapel increased seven-fold your chances of being cussed out by a Tourette’s sufferer or inappropriate
ly hugged by someone’s slow uncle.

  Cynthia suffered no such maladies. She was remarkable in all the ways that discouraged a guy like Henrik from approaching her. Which turned out not to be a problem, because at the meet-and-greet after the event, she approached him.

  “Hi, I’m Cynthia.”

  “I’m, uhhh, H-H-Henrik Whit—”

  “I know who you are, silly! You’ve captivated me for over an hour.”

  There was no sign of the palpable discomfort most women experienced when interacting with Henrik. He actually felt normal while talking to her.

  “Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.”

  “Anyway, I really enjoyed your sermon…you wanna grab some coffee after you’re done here?”

  And so it began.

  At a nearby Starbucks Cynthia expressed sincere interest in his Post-Tribulation Rapture views. Where she lacked the depth and nuance of his understanding, she compensated with enthusiasm. Her questions were earnest and insightful. She was a great listener, too. Three hours passed with Henrik doing most of the talking. He quoted from scripture, delved into the history of the early Christian church, and patiently explained the various logical fallacies and faulty heuristics his detractors’ arguments suffered from. By the time the baristas shooed them out at closing time, Henrik felt like he’d made a new best friend. And by the time he left Cynthia’s apartment at 3:00 AM, he realized friendship was only half of this new and unexpected blessing. The kiss she planted on his lips when he’d bid her goodnight made that clear.

  What wasn’t so clear was Cynthia’s past. Whenever he inquired about family, or where she grew up, or about any of the hundreds of mundane details men feign interest in on their way to the Promised Land, she’d always change the subject by redirecting his attention to a new outfit, or asking him to dissect another contentious bit of End Times prophecy she’d read about. After three months of dating, all Henrik knew about his unlikely new love interest was that she worked as a flight attendant and she probably had daddy issues. Why else would she date a man old enough to be her father? Plus, she liked sex. A lot.