The Magic Number

by Natalie Gibson

  Camilla spent her days there and her nights in her room, both with Nanae. He was exceedingly easy to live with, speaking only to answer her questions and meeting almost every one of her needs without her having to ask.

  He was slow to respond. “Who?”

  Camilla wondered if he was getting enough sleep. He shared her bed but was lying awake whenever she looked at him. He seemed so tired, so weak. Each day, when they came down here, he rested in the “bed” he’d made. He had cleared away the stones—stones no man should be strong enough to lift—from a corner roughly the same size and shape as his prostrate body. He would strip down and lie in the dark, rich dirt for as long as she needed to work. He hadn’t taken her blood again since that morning with Izzy. She didn’t broach the subject. “Your mother.”

  “Ki or Nintinugga?”

  “Earth is the great mother to all of us. I mean Nintinugga.” Camilla had looked her up, but the stories she found were just mythologies and parables. Nintinugga being Nanae’s mother meant that he wasn’t just from an ancient race of people—he was ancient, born-at-the-same-time-as-civilization old.

  Nanae closed his eyes and tried to remember. He had the memories that he used to pull magic through her body but remembering his mother in actuality was different.

  “My father said he saw her from the throne room of his maker and fell for her instantly, both literally and figuratively. He gave her a share of his own healing ability, though she was a human healer before that, restricted to physical means of healing alone. She set broken bones, pulled rotten teeth, helped in childbirth, evaluated and diagnosed illness. She did not have the skill of herbs, but her friend did, and they worked together. She was beautiful.” He paused and looked at Camilla across the room. “She looked very much like you. She had the same hair, in a time when humans so rarely had light hair, and the same eyes, green with yellow flames around the iris. Small, delicate, yet somehow impossibly strong and sturdy, she didn’t speak much and shied away from public life. She loved children and had many before my father fell, but only one with him.”

  Nintinugga wanted so many more, but Raphael could only give her one son. She could have had more, but Raphael could not stand the idea of another’s hands on his woman. Nanae recognized jealousy as the emotion that had stolen his mother’s dream. He vowed never to act that way, and fate had put his will to the test with his own Sinnis. Nanae liked Israel. Camilla had chosen well. He was glad they would have each other after he was gone. “She sang too. After my father shared his abilities with her, her songs healed, not only bodies, but emotions; some said she healed souls.”

  Too bad they would never see what Camilla was capable of with Nanae’s power. She might be able to heal the core illness in mankind—hate—but Nanae was determined not to force her into holding half his Beast. Instead, Nathalia would send him to his death with the whole Beast, and Camilla would be free to raise her child with Israel.

  Camilla walked through the glow in the center of the room that emanated from the women who lived there, though lived might not be the right word. They existed within the collected magic of a thousand orgasms. They held that magic to be used by the Daughters. Being inside that sphere was always euphoric, but Camilla’s current state intensified the sensations. Pregnancy intensified her sense of smell and her sex drive. She hadn’t expected either, but her job still had to be done.

  Touching one of the women, Camilla pulled what didn’t belong, the petrification, from the Capacitor into herself. For a moment, she could not move—so strange a feeling. Then, in sudden panic, she wondered what her baby felt. Her body shared everything with her baby, and because it was so small, the tiniest amount of toxin could kill it. Maybe the stillness she felt would completely petrify her baby.

  Her stillness and panic ended with the slightest movement in her abdomen. If she hadn’t been so focused on the area at the time, she would’ve missed it. Looking up, she found Nanae standing just outside the magical sphere. He knew the rule; he mustn’t breach the perimeter. He would though, if she or her baby was in danger.

  She went to him but was intercepted by another Capacitor. Camilla looked around the glowing woman at Nanae.

  He knew what she was asking, because he answered, “The babe is well.”

  The Capacitor bent slightly to kiss Camilla. She allowed it. The Capacitors were in a constant state of arousal because of the white energy flowing through them. She used the contact to check the woman and remove the small amount of hardening that had begun. When Camilla took it into herself, it was less striking than before. When she pulled from the kiss, a small mark on the Capacitor’s cheek caught her attention. It couldn’t be cancer, or her ability would have removed it.

  She stepped out of the boundary. Nanae picked her up. Resting her head on his chest, she asked, “What’s your birthmark?”

  Almost imperceptibly, he stiffened. He had promised to always tell her the truth, so he answered. “A gift from my parents. All Nephilim have one. A necklace to be given…” He paused for a moment. When he started again, he didn’t finish that sentence. “My father, like all Shinar who loved human women, cried a single tear at his half-breed child’s birth. That blood-red tear hardened immediately and was strung on my umbilical cord—half my father and half the part of my mother that would never age or deteriorate.”

  THE LITTLE girl in the metal cell wore a pink dress and matching bow. Both were a little bedraggled now that the man was finished with her. He pulled her up by her hair. “Stop crying, you little whore. You know you liked it.” Using his other hand, he backhanded her so hard that her head jerked around farther than should’ve been possible. He dropped her then and turned to leave, buckling his belt as he did.

  “I cry because that is what you desire. I did like it. It was just what I needed, but I cannot appear as though I enjoyed it because that is not what you wanted.” Her voice was little and matched the form she was in, but it wasn’t her true voice nor her true form. The slight glow to her skin was the only give away that she wasn’t completely human.

  The man stood at the door waiting for the other guard to open it. He spoke to the girl without turning back to her. “I can’t wait to see what James has got in store for you. I’ll be watching the whole time.” When the door didn’t open, he banged on it with his fist and yelled, “James! I’m done. Your turn!” Still nothing. “James! Open up.”

  Silence filled the empty space before the crackle of the intercom penetrated it. “You are a sick man, Oliver.” Oliver laughed, but his cheer faded quickly. “That thing in the cell you just raped is over three thousand years old. That’s a thousand years before Christ.”

  The girl behind him muttered a curse in an ancient tongue and spit.

  “We’ve only managed to hold her because she’s almost starved to death over the last six months. Guess what she feeds on, Oliver.” The voice paused for effect. “That’s right, Oliver. Sex. She feeds on sex.”

  “Quit screwing around, James. This ain’t funny. Open tha damn door.” Oliver banged on the door once for each word in his last sentence for emphasis.

  “James is tied up at the moment. You are hereby stripped of your fellowship. Your body will rot in that metal room. Luckily, you won’t be alive much longer.”

  Oliver turned to look but wished he hadn’t. The girl was floating in the center of her cell. Her dress and hair were perfectly prim again. Her smile was terrifying. Then she spoke, and he realized what terror truly was. “Stop crying, you giant whore. I know you’ll like it. No wait. That’s not right. You know I’ll like it?” She shrugged and grinned at him. “Oh, well, doesn’t matter.”

  “Wait. Wait! This is not what I desire. You have to do what I want.”

  “Aww, Oliver. That part is over now. I fulfilled your desire. Now I only have my own desire to lead me.” She looked down at her prepubescent body, smoothed her dress, and then looked back up at him. “I think I’ll stay like this. It just feels right to let her,” she gestured down her to
rso, “be the one to kill you.”

  Oliver heard the girl scream, but her mouth wasn’t open. It was only after her tiny hands were around his throat and the sound cut off that he realized it was him screaming like a little girl.

  Brian clicked off the monitor and turned down the volume. The security camera would record everything for future study if the Paion needed it. There was no need to watch a man get torn to shreds by a little girl. Few men would be able to stand the sight, even if it was fuzzy on a tiny black-and-white screen.

  “Sir?”

  Brian spun around to face one of his men, who held the bound and gagged James. He dug a pack of cigarettes out of the inner breast pocket of his military jacket. He put one in his mouth and lit it.

  “Should we throw him in with her too?”

  James struggled at the suggestion, yelling “No!” and “Please!” and the like through his gag.

  “Good lord, no. She’d have his nuts for dessert. It’s bad enough we can’t retrieve Oliver’s body. I’m not sure we can contain her as it is. She’d be unstoppable if we gave her four mountain oysters.”

  James relaxed. Brian put his cigarettes and lighter back inside his jacket and pulled out his service revolver. He put two bullets in James’s head. “Burn his body. Get somebody in here to clean up this mess.” As his men moved to follow his orders, Brian turned the volume back up. The moist squishing noises told him not to turn the monitor back on yet. The slaughter wasn’t finished.

  He pushed the intercom button and spoke into the microphone. “I am truly sorry that Oliver bothered you, Kishargalanna. I never meant for any harm to come to you. You have been most cooperative and deserve better treatment than that. Please accept his body and prana as my apology.”

  He leaned back and finished his smoke. He hoped the cell would hold her. An ancient Lilitu was hard to come by and even harder to keep. She could be very useful. At least they had gotten enough blood from her to create the tranquilizer.

  “I CANNOT rest. Your tiny baby is strong, but not strong enough that I can lose consciousness.”

  “Our tiny baby,” Camilla corrected. She rubbed her belly protectively. She knew Nanae couldn’t go without sleep for as long as it would take for their child to be born. What else was restful besides sleep? She thought about all he had told her about his kind and came up with a plan. She would switch her schedule around to work with the Capacitors at night so Nanae could spend his days in communion with the earth and sun. They would spend full moon nights in the open so that Annu could strengthen him. He needed to feed too, and she wondered for the hundredth time if her blood no longer tasted good to him now that she was pregnant. She thought she stank and had been taking more showers, but most mothers-to-be reported increased sensitivity to smell. “On your knees,” she ordered.

  Nanae obeyed. No position made them the same height, but this made him only a foot taller. He sat back on his heels. Face to face, she reached out to touch his features. Avoiding his sexy mouth, she traced his strong masculine chin, his broad high cheekbones, his perfect statuesque nose, and the curve of his eyebrows with her soft fingertips. Laying her head on his shoulder, she slipped one arm around his neck and one under his arm, and hugged him. He hugged her back, encompassing her whole torso with his bulky arms. She mouthed the rejuvenating words of healing on the skin of his neck.

  Nanae was stricken by how good it felt to hold his Sinnis Ina Ummum Zumru. He relished the simple experience for a few seconds before it triggered the Beast’s survival instinct. Incisors burst into his mouth. Hunger struggled against its leash, and Camilla only made it worse by nuzzling and nipping at his neck. She knew what he needed and was offering it freely. He was glad that she was a woman of so few words, for if she had said the words aloud, he wasn’t sure he could’ve controlled the Beast. He pushed her away with more force than was necessary.

  Camilla was propelled back against the bed and sat with an involuntary humph. She took a deep breath and stood. She was not giving up. The agreement was that Nanae would give her a baby, and in return, she would provide for the healer. She threw down a pillow in front of the window and pointed to it.

  Nanae was looking at her with what she could only describe as contempt. His eyes glowed red, flames burning in their depths. His lips were parted, teeth exposed, but his jaw was tense, muscles twitching. He snarled and sniffed.

  There was no tang of fear on her. Her blood was not laced with intoxicating adrenaline. She wasn’t frightened of him at all. It was only because she wasn’t that Nanae could win his struggle with the Hunger Beast. He stuffed it back down with effort and shakily knee-walked to the pillow. With his head and shoulders above windowsill level, Annu’s light spilled down on him. She was not yet full and therefore could not give him strength, but she was encouraging, nonetheless.

  Camilla watched the tension drain out of his face before approaching him from the rear. She stepped up, one of her feet on each of his calves, her body pressed against his. Only their clothing separated them. She ran her palms over the well-formed muscles of his shoulders and down the outsides of his chiseled arms. She massaged his delts and traps in rhythm with her feet, which now kneaded his lower crus. Her fingers worked their magic, melting away the tension in him. She moved to his neck when he bent his head forward to rest his forehead on the windowsill. When she slipped her fingers into his hairline, working his scalp, she began to hum absentmindedly. The wordless song took on a shape of its own as she pressed her fingers out and drew them back in.

  Clearly, it was the wrong thing for her to do.

  Before she saw him move, Nanae was up and she was down on the ground. He pinned her with his much larger frame. He easily outweighed her by four times. One hand clamped over her mouth, and one held hers clasped together under her breasts, over her belly. She stayed calm. This was what she had wanted. The predator in him needed to feed, and Camilla needed him to dominate her. She was unbelievably horny, but submissive as she was, she couldn’t ask him for what she needed. It had to be him initiating, or this wouldn’t work for her. She suspected it wouldn’t work for him any other way either. She turned her head to the side, offering him her neck.

  Her pulse pounded, enticing the Beast to bite. It growled. The thin blue vein throbbed just below the surface of her snow-white skin. She was so delicate—a morning glory so easily destroyed by noon heat. It could slice her to bits with its pinkie nail. Nanae watched helplessly from the depths where his Beast usually slept. He could clearly see that the song had enraged the Beast, strengthening it and allowing it to burst free. “I want to kill you,” it said to Camilla.

  “Why?” Her question was muffled.

  “You are so good. I have never destroyed something so beautiful,” was its reply.

  Her twinkling laugh sounded beautiful even from behind its hand. That bell-like sound brought Nanae back to the surface, back to the seat of power. She was not afraid, not even a little. She didn’t care that the Beast called for her death and yearned to see the contrast of her crimson blood and creamy skin. Nanae removed his hand and helped her up.

  “I’m not good or beautiful,” she said. “I’ve been called nice. Cute, maybe, but not beautiful.”

  “For me, there is none more beautiful nor more perfect than you. I suggest you not sing that again. The song enraged it.”

  “The Beast? Why does it want to kill me?”

  “Because you are…” Nanae couldn’t say it aloud. The Beast could never know Camilla was his Sinnis. If it found out, no one, not even Nanae, could keep it from killing her. “Because it suspects you love me, and love is a direct threat to its existence. Even if you do, never say it aloud. No more questions tonight. Let’s go to bed. I must hold you.”

  The summer heat held on even though they were already into October. In Texas, there were two seasons: early summer and hot summer. Nathalia had never minded the sticky heat of the south, even less now that it invigorated her so. She and Eiran lay on the roof soaking in Ud’s rays. Their
quarters, though smaller than two giants of their size called for, had direct roof access. They spent all their time outdoors anyway.

  They spent high noon here every day. Eiran’s wings were stretched wide to give him the most surface area to soak up the sun. Nathalia lay on her side, her body tucked into the crux of his shoulder, her leg thrown over his hips. He rubbed the soft skin of her upper arm with his fingertips, and she traced designs on his chest.

  What are we going to do about Nanae Raphael Maru? Nathalia spoke in their private, intimate way, brain to brain. She spoke the healer’s true name. Eiran was mated and had confirmed his Sinnis, and so he presented no danger to Nanae or any other Nephilim. He would never use the true name to bind Nanae. Eiran had no thirst to quench with a brother’s blood. Nathalia provided everything he needed; his hunger beast was still with them, but it was quietened and satisfied. I know I promised to end his suffering, but I’m not sure I can do it, even eighteen years from now. I can’t bring myself to kill when it is undeserved. Not again.

  Eiran hugged her tightly with one arm and kissed the top of her head. He spoke in her head, though he didn’t have to. He had a voice. She did not; her vocal cords had been damaged beyond repair when he found her. She had sliced through them and almost 50 percent of her neck when she committed suicide to protect the One from an evil man before Genevieve was even born. His relationship with his Hunger is abnormal. I don’t know what is different or why, but I feel it in him. Right below the surface, the Beast strains to get free. I am certain someone will have to kill it. I would that I could do this for you, but the DakuAhu is in pieces.