by Joy Nash
The last of the poor sot’s blood leaked hotly from his body. Wisps of steam rose, wraith-like, from the congealing liquid. Arthur turned away, doubled over, and vomited on the grass.
This time, he had no memory of the killing.
The last minutes floated in darkness. He tried to look past it, to the moments just before. He remembered leaving Cybele at Tŷ’r Cythraul. Her blood had triggered his deathlust, but the urge to rip the head off of something had diminished as he put distance between them. He’d hoped that this time, he’d remain in control of his magic.
As he’d flown, he’d sifted through the ancestral memories churning through in his brain. Try as he might, he could see nothing beyond the single vision of his father hiding his mother’s touchstone. His frustration grew. The deathlust returned. He tried to resist. But in the end, the urge to kill overwhelmed his resolve. He’d turned his attention to the ground, searching for a victim.
Thankfully, he hadn’t been near a town. Dawn had just been breaking. A wash of golden light bathed the countryside. As the sun peered over the horizon, Arthur had spotted a massive bull, grazing alone in a fenced pasture. He dove for the creature.
Halfway to the ground, he’d become aware of seething anger. Not his own anger. The emotion had been pouring off a man he’d not previously noticed. The bloke was engaged in repairing the stone fence that separated a pasture from the road. He spat curses as he worked, spewing an ugly mess of hatred and petty grievance. He hated his boss, his wife, his lover. His mates were goddamned motherfucking losers.
As Arthur hovered above him, the laborer hefted a large stone. His grip wasn’t true. The stone slipped from his grasp and smashed into his leg. Bones split with a sickening crack. He collapsed, screaming. His agony washed over Arthur in a beautiful, brutal wave.
Even now, in memory, the dead man’s pain called to Arthur’s demon nature. Doubled over, with his back to the corpse, he fought it. Beads of sweat dripped down face. He swallowed thickly. Dark lights shifted under the thin skin on the back of his hands. His eyes burned. The black tips of his wings were just visible in the periphery of his vision. Any human unfortunate enough to catch a glimpse of him would likely need therapy for years.
With an effort, he pushed his body upright. He dreaded turning around and looking again at the corpse.
He did it anyway.
Blank eyes stared at him out of the disembodied head. Had he gone for the kill instantly? Or had he toyed with the injured man? The former, he thought. He remembered hovering on the cusp of a dive, his entire being focused on the man’s ugly mood. Pain, fear, anger, hatred—such emotions were opiates to a Nephil. He remembered the deathlust burning in his heart. Itching on his palms.
And then...nothing.
Arthur felt heavy, as though he’d added the dead man’s weight to his own. He turned away, to look past the stone wall, and farther, into the pasture. His nausea returned. He grabbed the top of the wall.
The bull lay no more than thirty feet away, as bloody and dead as the man. Its massive head, like the man’s, had been ripped from its body. One shoulder had been chewed to the bone. So he’d killed both, Arthur thought dully, and remembered neither. Damn it all to fucking Oblivion. He’d survived his Ordeal, but what did it matter if he couldn’t control—or even remember—the magic he’d won?
His shoulders slumped. His conscience burned. He’d betrayed every lesson his father had ever taught him. What would Tristan say, what utter disgust would he feel, if he could see what his son had become?
For the first time in seven years, Arthur was glad his father was dead.
***
Maweth and Lucky were seeing who could bounce the highest, without using wings, when the office door opened.
“Shhh!” Maweth slapped his palm over Lucky’s mouth. “He’s back.”
Lucky’s eyes widened. Tentatively, Maweth lifted his hand.
“But it’s only been a couple of hours since we got back from—mmmph.”
“Quiet.” This time Maweth kept his palm in place until Lucky nodded. He hauled the cherub to the back wall of the mirror. “Don’t talk. Don’t move, either.”
Lucky was right. For crap’s sake. What was Dusek doing up? The three of them—Dusek, Maweth, and Lucky—had been out all night. The misadventure had started just after sunset. The master had mounted the stairs to the roof, shifted to demon form, and taken off into the sky. He’d flown from Prague to England, the quicksilver mirror dangling from his neck the entire way.
Two miserable hours of swaying and bouncing. Lucky’d gotten so seasick, he’d heaved. Dusek had spent half the night searching for Arthur. Maweth had expected fireworks once he’d been found, but to his great surprise, the Alchemist hadn’t confronted the rogue Nephil. He’d simply hidden in the shadows, watching him, until dawn.
At daybreak, Arthur killed a bull. While he was feeding, Dusek found his own breakfast. A human male. The poor slob hadn’t had a chance. Dusek swooped in and ripped the man’s head clean off his body. Blood and guts sprayed every which way. Then the master chewed a hunk of thigh, snapped the bone, and sucked out its marrow.
Lucky, who’d only just recovered enough to lift his head, had been sick all over again. Even Maweth had been shaken by the viciousness of the kill. And considering Maweth’s vocation, that was saying something.
He sighed. You’d think he’d be used to death by now, for crying out loud. Currently, an average of nine human beings died every five seconds. Maweth was aware of the agonizing last seconds of each expiring life. Even so. He’d rather bear witness to a full year’s worth of normal deaths, than experience just one of Dusek’s unnatural kills.
The flight home had been just as nauseating. Maweth had hoped Dusek would spend a little time digesting his unholy meal, but no. Here he was, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at barely— Maweth glanced at the ormolu clock on the sideboard. Barely noon.
The Alchemist wasn’t alone. Dr. Shimon Ben-Meir, archeologist and adjunct professor to the Institute, accompanied him. Maweth sat up. Interesting. For the past six months, Ben-Meir had been on an expedition in Ethiopia, on the site of the ancient city of Axum.
The Israeli scientist was as academically brilliant as he was handsome. His common sense was a bit deficient, though, in Maweth’s humble opinion. A more astute man would have realized by now that his boss was a demon.
Shimon, dressed in khaki pants and jacket, carried a hard-sided suitcase. Dusty and disheveled, his body fairly vibrated with fatigue and excitement. Maweth edged a bit to one side, craning his neck for a better view.
Gently, as if handling a crate of eggs, the archeologist laid his suitcase on Dusek’s desk. He withdrew a ring of keys from his breast pocket and proceeded to open what Maweth considered to be a ridiculous number of locks.
The top lifted to a nest of foam peanuts and crumpled newspapers. Moving those aside, Shimon extracted a colorful, cloth-bound bundle and set it on the desk. He banished the suitcase to the floor while Dusek cut the cords to reveal a crude wooden box.
“I excavated the relic three days ago,” Ben-Meir said. “I made no mention of the discovery in the expedition log. There is no photographic record, either.”
Dusek glanced up at him, before returning his attention to the box. “You had no trouble taking it out of the country?”
“Some small delay at customs. Nothing a handful of Euros could not remedy.”
“Very good. Show me.”
Shimon produced a pocket knife. He slid the blade under the lid of the box. Dusek, palms resting on the table, leaned close, blocking Maweth’s view.
Frowning, Maweth rose off the floor, trying to see around his master’s bulk. Lucky followed him, wings abuzz. “What’s he doing?” the cherub whispered loudly.
“Shush.”
The archeologist lifted a number of flat stone fragments from a cloud of lamb’s wool. He set the pieces one by one on the desk, matching the edges like a puzzle. The fragments formed a rough rectangle,
about twenty by thirty centimeters. Etchings covered its surface.
“A surprisingly complete specimen,” Dusek said.
“Yes,” Ben-Meir replied. “Intact but for a few perimeter fragments. It was excavated from a strata dated to the first century of the Common Era. The stele itself, however, is clearly much older. I believe its provenance is Egypt’s Old Kingdom. Twenty-third century B.C.E.”
“Excellent.” Dusek retrieved a magnifying glass. He bent close, examining the tablet’s markings.
“You’ll recognize this symbol as the cartouche of the Pharaoh Teti,” Ben-Meir said, pointing to a lower corner. “The piece, I believe, is contemporary to his reign.”
“Some five thousand years ago,” Dusek murmured. “The correct era.”
“Translation will be my highest priority. My starting point—the reason I left Axum so precipitously—is here.”
Maweth flew higher, angling for a better view. His head bumped on the mirror’s ceiling. He barely noticed.
The archeologist’s finger hovered over a pair of concentric circles. “Many of my colleagues would identify this glyph as an early notation denoting the sun god Ra.”
Dusek’s fingers, until now spread flat on the table, curled. “But you would not.”
“No. I recognized the truth immediately. The glyph doesn’t represent Ra or the sun. It is an eye.” The archeologist straightened. “The eye of the Watchers.”
SIX
It was full daylight by the time Arthur returned to Tŷ’r Cythraul. The clouds had moved off, revealing a sky of brilliant blue. He stumbled as he landed in the garden, going down hard on one knee. He remained in that position, head bowed, wings brushing the ground, fighting the horror of what he’d become. It was a long time before he felt calm enough to raise his head.
He caught a glimmer of light in the attic window. He rose and allowed the morning breeze to cool the heat of his demon nature. His wings melted into his back. The dark opal light under his skin faded. His humanity reasserted itself.
And he felt...incomplete.
The sensation took him by surprise. When he’d shifted for the first time, during his Ordeal, his demon form had been a nightmare. He’d reverted to his human body with mind-numbing relief. Since then, a subtle shift had taken place. Now his human form felt like a pair of favorite jeans, slightly shrunk in the wash. Vaguely uncomfortable, but not tight enough to get rid of. You wore them, hoping they’d stretch out, unwilling to admit they never would.
It seemed incredible that he’d been away from Cybele and Tŷ’r Cythraul for only a few hours. It felt as though an eternity had passed. Ironic, considering how little he remembered of his travels. He glanced again at the attic window. Was Cybele awake, waiting for him? Or asleep, her body soft and unaware?
Both scenarios made his cock jump. He was fiercely glad she was here. At the same time, he fervently wished she was somewhere else, somewhere safer. He mocked himself with a grim laugh. Consistency of emotion didn’t have the upper hand just now.
He shied away from the thought of Cybele seeing him in his demon form. He wasn’t sure why that embarrassed him. She knew what he was. Hell, she was the same—or would be, after she came through her own Ordeal. Neither of them could help what they’d been born to.
And yet a part of him wanted to run from her. Fly into the dawn and leave her behind without a word. He’d have done it, too, if he thought she’d be safer without him. Unfortunately, she’d be only more vulnerable alone. Mab would find Cybele, and force her into the Ordeal with Rand as her guide.
If Arthur didn’t claim that role instead, there were only two ways Cybele could avoid becoming a thrall. The first was death. The second was an unguided Ordeal. Arthur would die before he allowed Cybele to face either of those horrors.
He was, once again, covered in blood. It streaked his chest and arms, spattered his jeans. The scent of it infused his brain with images of death. He wanted to kill again. Craved the visceral sensation of flesh and sinew ripping from bone.
He went to the well. The pump worked a bit more easily this time. Water spilled into the stone trough. He scrubbed his face and torso as best as he could, and then ducked his head beneath the stream. The shock cleared his mind. He began to feel, marginally, like himself. Whoever the hell that was.
He entered the front hall on silent feet. To his left and right lay the parlor and the library. After a brief hesitation, he entered the library. So many hours spent here. His father, alpha of the Druid clan, had been a Nephil of profound power, as well as a scholar and philosopher. He’d been a master of the three Druid elements: stone, wood, and water. Weather had obeyed his command, and his illusions had been beautiful and intricate. When he called his deepest magic, his illusions became reality.
Even Tristan’s magic had its limits, though. Druidry could transform illusions into reality, but only on a small scale. It couldn’t cause the moon to disappear or create a mountain where none had been before. In addition, Druid transformations were restricted to the physical realm. Druidry couldn’t affect the stock markets or bring about world peace. It couldn’t change a person’s core beliefs or cause them to fall in or out of love. And the transformations lasted only a short time. After a time—a minute, an hour, a day—the new reality faded back into the old.
Arthur’s father had stressed the history of their race and ancestral line. Samyaza, forefather of all Druids, had been the leader of the Watcher angels. His offspring, like all the Nephilim, bore the curse delivered by Raphael. Nephilim possessed no souls. Their lives were limited to one hundred twenty years, after which they passed into Oblivion.
Another facet of the curse encouraged instinctive hatred among Nephilim of rival tribes. Where Nephil clans intersected, violence and a struggle for domination was inevitable. Each clan wielded a unique fragment of Heavenly magic inherited from their Watcher ancestor. Raphael’s curse was designed to insure those fragments of magic were never reunited.
The Nephilim who survived Raphael’s vengeance spread out all over the Earth. Samyaza’s descendants migrated to the European continent and became the Druid priests of the Celtic people. Other Nephil lines traveled east, west, and south, but no matter where they settled, their magical powers soon elevated them to positions of honor in the local human cultures.
Nephilim did not reproduce easily, and birthed few females, but through the millennia, the clans endured. Matings of a Nephil male and female produced Nephil offspring, and, because human witches were distant descendants of Nephilim, the offspring of a Nephil male and a human witch also perpetuated the line. Nephil dormants were indistinguishable from human children. Because of this, dormants who grew up apart from the clans often were unaware of their heritage.
Unawares lived short, precarious lives. If a chance near-death experience triggered their transformation from dormant to adept status, they were catapulted into the Ordeal without a guide.
Insanity and death soon followed. But unawares who never experienced an NDE fared no better. A dormant who reached the age twenty-five without transitioning experienced cellular mutations. The result was terminal cancer, with death before age thirty a certainty.
Most aware Nephilim, living among their own kind, viewed the human race as a commodity to be used and discarded at whim. Arthur’s ancestor, Merlin, had challenged that notion. Merlin had viewed humans as his beloved brothers and sisters, worthy of love and protection. It was a radical, even heretical, notion.
Merlin’s life remained shrouded in the past. For reasons unknown, none of his progeny had inherited his memories. Before Arthur’s birth, his mother, Alwen, had been Merlin’s last living direct descendant. This was why, Arthur knew, his father had mated with her. Tristan had hoped his own vast power, combined with Alwen’s heritage, would produce a child strong enough to inherit Merlin’s memories and magic.
Had his father’s efforts been in vain? Time would tell, Arthur supposed. He left the library and wandered into the parlor. It was a large room, wi
th twin fireplaces and comfortable seating. A round table and six chairs nestled in the curve of a bow window. The sideboard bore decanters of whiskey and port, still half full.
He remembered this room alive with the laughter and camaraderie of his father’s relations. The London kin had visited often. He’d been in awe of Percival, his father’s tall, austere uncle. Brax and Avalyn, his father’s younger twin siblings, had treated Arthur like a little brother. Less frequent, but no less welcome, had been the visits of his Scots kin, Morgana and Magnus. The twin brother and sister had been much alike, with shocks of white running through their black hair, and accents almost too thick to decipher. Collum, another Scots cousin, had been a warm, jovial sort. There’d been other relations as well, and several human witch consorts. Their faces and names were all jumbled in Arthur’s memory now.
Unlike Mab. Arthur remembered her from his early years most distinctly. She and Evander had come to Tŷ’r Cythraul rarely, and only when summoned by Tristan. The last visit had occurred a year before Arthur’s parents’ murder.
Arthur, on the cusp of adolescence, had been struck almost speechless by the American’s harsh, voluptuous beauty and the huge, raw ruby nestled sensuously between her breasts. Her eyes were a vibrant shade of blue, her hair, pin-straight and pure black. Her American accent, a Texas drawl, had sent shivers up his spine.
Despite Mab’s blatant sexual appeal, or perhaps because of it, Arthur hadn’t trusted her. She was like a poisonous spider or cobra: beautiful, but deadly.
His instincts had always been bloody excellent.
He returned to the kitchen. This room was the worst. It was where it had happened. Cybele had left an oil lamp burning near the stove. He wished she hadn’t. The flame cast flickering shadows on the walls and ceiling. He could almost feel his parents’ murderer creeping up on him.
He stared at the spot where the blood had been. His mother had been acting oddly for several weeks before that fateful night. She’d been away from the house more than usual. Even when she was home, she’d seemed withdrawn. Twice he’d seen her crying. When he’d asked her about her moonstone—or rather, its absence—she’d pressed her lips together and turned away.