The Tamar Black Saga – Book Seven
Rise Of The Nephilim
BY NICOLA RHODES
© copyright 2011 Nicola Rhodes
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.
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In the same series
Djinnx’d
Reality Bites
Tempus Fugitive
The Day Before Tomorrow
Faerie Tale
Anything But Ordinary
Rise of the Nephilim
Pantheon
~ Chapter One ~
On one of those late summer days, the kind that seems hotter than ever, if only because you were expecting it to be cooler by now, a girl of the teenage persuasion, very much so, in fact, extremely teenage – you know what I mean, stomped down the back steps of her magnificent home and dropped unceremoniously onto the bottom step with a look of deep chagrin on her face.
She was dressed almost entirely in black, as becomes the disaffected youth of any era. She may have been pretty, or even beautiful, it was hard to tell underneath the thick layers of makeup, which she wore like protective armour. “Keep away”, her whole appearance and demeanour seemed to say. “I bite.”
Nevertheless, a boy about two or three years older than herself (around eighteen years, not quite a man, but no longer a child) with jet black hair like her own and a gentle expression dared her wrath and sat down beside her giving her an enquiring look.
‘Parents!’ she huffed expressively, rolling her eyes. This was a standard beginning for a fifteen year old diatribe. ‘If they aren’t going off to save the world from pixies or dragons or some such shit, then they’re grounding you for turning the library into an indoor swimming pool.’
This was a less standard continuation of the diatribe, but the boy never batted an eyelid. He was used to this sort of thing. He suppressed a smile as she continued.
‘I mean it’s not like I did it on purpose!’ wailed the girl, giving her companion a sly sideways glance to see if he was following her. He raised his eyebrows at her sceptically.
‘Oh, all right,’ she conceded. ‘But I was going to turn it back. I mean what’s the big deal anyway?’
‘Your Dad’s mad keen on all those old books Iffie, you know that.’
Iphigenia Black turned her father’s soulful blue eyes, ringed heavily in black kohl pencil, on her companion. ‘I think mum thought it was quite funny actually,’ she said. ‘But they always stick together. – Parents!’ she reiterated, waving enough rings to knock out a buffalo.
Iphigenia was going through what Tamar, who had read every book on child rearing printed since 1902, referred to as a “phase”. This “phase” consisted mainly of her dressing like a fugitive from a crypt – cobwebs and all (in fact most of her clothes seemed to be spun directly from this material) wearing enough metal to make up a suit of armour and listening to the kind of music that made your ears bleed. Denny, rather predictably, saw all this rather differently from Tamar. He thought his daughter was cool.
Despite taking her mother’s name – Black being so much cooler than Sanger*
*[(It had been suggested by Jack - Finvarra’s boy, who had been a mere three year old curly mop when she was born and whom she had grown up with, that Iffie combine these names but the results - “Sack”, “Slack” or possibly “Banger” had not been encouraging. – Double barrelling i.e. – “Sanger Black” or “Black Sanger” had not even been considered, which was probably just as well. Black Sanger, Denny said, sounded like a species of monkey.] – Iffie, as she was usually called, adored her father. He was, she thought, the coolest, bravest, strongest and yet the gentlest, sweetest man in the world. The feeling was mutual. Her mother was more remote, the disciplinarian. And yet Iffie knew, deep down, that her mother’s love for her was fierce and protective. For her daughter’s sake, as Iffie knew well, Tamar would scheme and kill.
Jack rubbed his head thoughtfully; these conversations were getting more difficult as Iffie grew older. He himself, being not human, but, in fact, a genuine Faerie Prince (although that is not as romantic as it sounds) had never really suffered from teenage angst which is a purely human complaint. And yet she always turned to him to moan at as if he would understand. He did not. All he could do was listen with his habitual courtesy and try to restrain some of her wilder notions. Perhaps this was the best thing he could have done after all.
‘I don’t think Dad’s actually keen on all those old books,’ she said now. ‘He just thinks they’re important or something.’
‘Then perhaps they are,’ said Jack mildly. He had a profound respect for Denny as did most people who lived in close proximity to him.
‘Whatever,’ said Iffie, signalling that she was fed up with this subject now.
‘Still, it was a pretty impressive spell,’ said Jack placatingly. ‘I bet they were impressed underneath.’
Iffie shrugged. She had been born without powers since neither Tamar nor Denny had been born with their powers and they were unable to pass them on genetically. The only thing, Tamar had said, that we may have passed on is a predisposition to acquire power from some haphazard event – like we did.
But, rather than trust to fickle fate, Hecaté the goddess of witches had taken a hand, and from the age of three Iffie had been trained by her as a witch. Twelve years of intense training from the goddess of witchcraft herself had made Iphigenia Black, at only fifteen years of age, the most accomplished witch who had ever lived.
And, although she had no actual native powers, she did have a strange immunity to the powers of others that she had no doubt acquired before she was even born, simply to shield her from her mother’s fiery spirit that could destroy, at a touch, an ordinary human. Somehow, nature had found a way.
This also meant that no kind of magical powers were of any use against her. No spells could be cast on her that would work. They simply bounced off her.
Jack thought Iffie was lucky. He had never really known his mother, and his stepmother, Cindy, whom he had thought of as his mother far more than the unknown real mother that he could not remember, had walked out on his father taking her own son with her fifteen years earlier, leaving his father heartbroken, and himself devastated. She had not been seen or heard from since then. It was something that was never spoken of.
He often wondered about that stepbrother who had looked exactly like him and had even borne the same name. Did he still look exactly like him, or had the long separation wrought differences in their appearance?*
*[Jack, being a Faerie changeling, had had to more or less extrapolate his own face based on the face he had taken as a child; his stepbrother may have grown up looking very different.]
Where was he now? Did he ever wonder about him?
He spoke only to Iffie about these feelings. No one else wanted to talk about it, least of all his father, who had been a broken man from the day she had left.
Iffie gave him a shrewd look. All witches have exceptional intuition and Iffie’s was so well developed as to be almost akin to telepathy. ‘You’re wondering about your stepbrother again aren’t you?’ she said sympathetically.
Jack nodded. ‘I wonder where he is all the time,’ he confessed. ‘How could she just take him away like that?’ he burst out suddenly in an uncharacteristic display of anger. ‘Why did she leave anyway? Families are supposed to stick together.’
Iffie nodded understandingly. If her own mother or father were to desert her,
she felt, she might never recover from it.
She took his hand and squeezed it gently. ‘You’ll always have me,’ she assured him.
* * *
Ashtoreth came and knelt before his mother in the huge and shining circular throne room, built of honey coloured stone; the floor paved in golden streaked marble. Behind her, several pillars rose up, through which could be seen a glittering stretch of ocean beneath a cloudless blue sky. She was sitting on the throne itself; a large square affair built in the same stone as the walls and pillars, but intricately carved and gilded.
This ritual was repeated every day at the same time, but Ashtoreth did not resent it. Indeed, these days, it was one of the only occasions when he got to see her.
She was dazzling, wonderful, like a pure light – a golden goddess truly.
He remembered little about his early life, before she had taken him away from the evil man who had stolen him from her and tried to foist an impostor upon her. When she had discovered his treacherous deception, he and his cohorts had taken her prisoner and forced her to live with him in seeming amity, but she had escaped and rescued him. Brought him here to this shining palace by the sea and here they had remained hidden and safe until it was time for them to defeat the evil ones who had tyrannised over the world long enough.
He was to do this, he understood. The son of an angel, he and only he, had the power to defeat such evil.
But sometimes, early memories would intrude. Memories of a happy home full of laughter and people. Nice people, or so they had seemed. A gentle father a small brother, who was like looking into a mirror and others, including a woman with dark hair and flashing eyes who, had it not been the basest treachery to think so, he would perhaps have thought had been more beautiful even than his mother. And a man with scruffy blond hair who, he thought, had sometimes made his mother cry. He hated that man.
He looked up at his mother who threw back her hood and revealed her face to him, a daily treat; it was such a beautiful face. Then his eyes narrowed, he was there again, lounging on the arm of the throne. He had aged though, Ashtoreth thought with satisfaction. Not like his mother who was as young and beautiful as she had always been. In time, he would grow old and die, or his mother would tire of him as he became an old man. And then it would just be the two of them, forever. But first, there was the great task. He was almost ready; he felt it. He was growing strong in his righteousness. He chafed to begin the battle against evil, was he not eighteen years old now? – A man.
‘My son,’ said Cindy. ‘You are looking well this morning.’
‘Mornin’ Ash,’ added her companion insolently.
Ashtoreth snarled silently, but his mother only smiled – why did she like that man so much? Why did she allow him such liberties?
‘I feel well mother,’ he said choosing to ignore the interloper.
Cindy turned to Slick who had still not revealed his true name to her, and to Ashtoreth’s pleasure said. ‘Why don’t you leave us alone?’ It was an order, as both Ashtoreth and Slick knew very well.
Slick made a sulky face, but he left with alacrity. Cindy’s wrath was not something any sane man would want to incur.
‘Why do we have to have that man around mother?’ said Ashtoreth sulkily.
‘I know you don’t like him darling,’ said Cindy. ‘Why?’
‘He’s not good enough for you mother.’
Cindy laughed. ‘No dear, he is not. But he is our only ally. And you wouldn’t want your mother to be lonely would you?’
‘We don’t need him,’ said Ashtoreth. ‘And you wouldn’t be lonely mother, you’ll always have me.’
In many ways, due to his sheltered upbringing, Ashtoreth was completely innocent.
‘It’s not quite the same darling,’ said Cindy, thinking that perhaps she should have explained a few things to him at some point – it had just never occurred to her to do so. Ashtoreth was not a son to her – he was a weapon, a highly trained extremely powerful weapon that she intended, when the time was right, to use in her revenge against Denny and Tamar. If he died in the execution of that revenge, she would not care at all, as long as they did too.
She found his complete devotion to her an embarrassment if anything; and if he was going to start being jealous of her company, it would become even more difficult to curb her irritation.
It was a fine line she was walking here; she had allowed him no friends and certainly no girlfriends. His absolute loyalty to her must not be divided. And yet, had there been a girlfriend, at least they would not be having this embarrassing conversation.
Cindy had never heard of Oedipus, but she had a dim idea of what was happening here. Her son was a normal healthy eighteen year old with all the usual drives latent within him. Of course, she had no desire to awaken those desires personally, but neither must anyone else. Much better that he channel these feelings into a passion for his mission.
‘I don’t matter, darling,’ she said now. ‘Nothing matters except what must be done. The battle against evil. Oh my son, you must be ready when the time comes. Do not think about me, or about anything but your great task. Do you understand me?’
‘That ought to do it,’ she thought.
‘Yes, mother,’ Ashtoreth bowed his head reverently. She was so wise, his mother, so selfless and dedicated.
But when he had left her, the doubts began to resurface, faint memories of another life. Apart from the thin man with the blue eyes, whose face he could still see so clearly – making his mother cry – the people he remembered did not seem evil in his memory. They seemed kind, and he thought there had been love in that place. Love for him. But of course, he was foolish, his mother, who was so much wiser than he was, had told him that they were bad. And so they must be. They had pretended love, pretended kindness. He had only been child, how would he have known the difference? His mother was a goddess and his father an angel. How could his cause be anything other than righteous? He was good, and if he was to defeat them, then they must be bad. They must be.
* * *
Denny was feeling contrite about his outburst at his daughter about the swimming pool incident. He had woken up again that morning bathed in sweat after yet another horrific nightmare – the third in as many nights and it had been going on intermittently for some time before that too – and had been in a bad temper all day. Funny how little frightened him in real life, yet a nightmare could still terrify. In the nightmare, he was helpless. Not just his special powers, but even ordinary human strength seemed to have deserted him. And then she appeared. A horrible crone, hardly human, with skinny claws, she pinned him to the bed and ravished him thoroughly – God it was disgusting – all the while saying. ‘Love me, love me, love me.’ She would not leave until he said it.
He had not told Tamar about the nightmare. Given the nature of it – despite how revolting it really was – he was not sure she would understand.
He caught sight of himself in the hall mirror; it never ceased to amaze him. Not a wrinkle, not a grey hair. He looked no older than he had twenty years ago. Of course, he knew the reason. The Athame. As long as he had it in his possession, he would grow no older, not a day older, not even in a hundred years or more. But it was still a strange thing to witness.
‘I thought I was the one with the vanity,’ said Tamar coming up behind him.
‘What?’
‘Admiring your boyish looks,’ she gestured to the mirror.
‘Would you still love me if I was an old fart?’ he asked her.
‘You are an old fart,’ she said. ‘You just don’t look like one.’
‘I’m forty six,’ he said. ‘If I’m an old fart what does that make you?’
‘Amazingly well preserved,’ she said.
‘Forever young,’ he mused. ‘I wonder how it’s going to feel when I get to a hundred.’
‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘When you get to a hundred, you start to feel young again. I think that’s when it actually hits you. You know, that you’ve got
forever.’
‘It’s funny how forty six sounds so old, but five thousand years doesn’t sound nearly so bad.’
‘That’s because it doesn’t sound real,’ she told him.
‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘I might not have forever, like you. If Iffie needs it, I shall pass the Athame on to her one day. No parent should outlive their child.’
Tamar said nothing to this. Although she approved of the sentiment, she had already made up her mind that it was not going to come to that. She had no intention of losing either of them.
‘Where is the little devil anyway?’ she said instead.
‘Not so little anymore,’ he said. ‘Now that does make me feel old,’ he added.
‘Not me,’ said Tamar twirling her hair. ‘People think we’re sisters.’
‘Yeah, and it really annoys her, you know.’
‘She’ll grow out of it,’ said Tamar complacently.
‘Yeah, around about the time she makes you a grandma. How will you like that?’ Denny teased.
‘Fabulous,’ said Tamar. ‘A dynasty. In another thousand years there could be a hundred of us.’
Denny shook his head. She really was unquenchable.
‘An unbeatable, evil-fighting, clan,’ he said. ‘I quite like the sound of that.’
‘We’re going to need a bigger house,’ said Tamar.
* * *
Someone else in the house was looking in a mirror, but it was not at herself. Hecaté was scrying. Not something a goddess usually had to bother with, remote vision being a standard godly power. But she had tried everything else to find Cindy and, so far, nothing had worked. Of course, Cindy was now a goddess too. Or rather, she had the power of the gods – thanks to the power of the stolen Rheingold – which was close enough. In any event, Hecaté could no longer sense her. But perhaps the scrying would work. A sort of low tech back door method of location that Cindy might not have considered it necessary to guard against.
Rise Of The Nephilim (The Tamar Black Saga) Page 1