Elven Blood (Imp Book 3)

by Dunbar, Debra

  “What?” Wyatt grabbed the paper out of my hand.

  “See?” I pointed. “He only assumes corporeal form to appear to women and tell them their pregnant. Isn’t that just hysterical? He’s got a stork fantasy going on.”

  “I think it’s just Mary,” Wyatt said, searching the paper. “And sometimes he announces John the Baptist’s conception.”

  “Yeah, he’s a stork,” I laughed.

  I froze, staring at one of the papers. “Holy shit on a stick, look at this.” I thrust it at Wyatt.

  “Yeah Samael, also called Samiel, sometimes the fifth archangel listed with the other four. He’s only cited in a couple of places….” Wyatt’s voice trailed off and he looked up at me in surprise. “But you said your name was an assumed identity from a human you Owned. Samantha Martin.”

  “Yes, but angels don’t believe in coincidence. And Gregory vehemently refuses to call me Sam.”

  Could it be? Could Samael be the other brother, the younger one who died in the wars? How could he stand to be around me when my current name was a constant reminder of how much he’d lost?

  “It doesn’t mean anything. He only calls you cockroach because it’s derogatory and it pisses you off.”

  “Still, I go by Sam here, among the humans.”

  “There is a Satan mentioned as one of seven archangels in a few documents,” Wyatt commented. “Some identify Samael as this Satan.”

  “But Gregory’s brother died in the war with the demons. If he was this Samael, the fifth brother, then he wouldn’t have been the Ha–satan, the Iblis.” Or would he?

  “Are you sure, Sam? Did Gregory ever say which side his brother was on? We humans have wars that fracture families; it could have been the same with angels.”

  I thought back on my conversation with the gate guardian, and with Eloa. Did he die in the wars, or was he lost? And nobody had actually said the demons had killed him, or even which side he’d fought on. I’d just assumed that. I remembered playing with lightning, in a thunderstorm with Gregory last August. He’d told me I reminded him of his youngest brother, told me of his impish behavior. Perhaps I’d been wrong. It would explain a lot of Gregory’s odd fascination with me.

  “Maybe there was always an Adversary, an Iblis, on the Ruling Council and before the wars, this Samael held that office.”

  Wyatt nodded. “So Samael was part of the Ruling Council, as the Iblis, and when you all split, his place was held for him. Originally it was seven angels, and now it’s six angels and Satan. Same players, just one got banished.”

  Wyatt’s words filled me with a strange sadness. Gregory’s younger brother … was he this Samael? Had he been the Ha–satan, the Iblis, then he would probably have been the leader of the revolt. His own brother, the Iblis. The one who’d nearly severed his wings. The one Gregory had almost cut in half. How could things have gone so wrong that two beloved brothers almost killed each other? Over what? What could have been so important? Millions of years and he was most likely dead, with me in possession of the sword and the title. The Iblis.

  “So now it’s my placeholder.” I frowned. It made sense. I’d always assumed that the Iblis was a military title that came about during the war, but perhaps it had existed before then. Someone to test, to push back against the angels on the Ruling Council. But the spot had been vacant for over two million years. Why had they not replaced the Iblis with someone else, even temporarily? Why had that chair remained empty for so long?

  “So what angel was supposedly the Iblis?” I asked Wyatt. “Was it always this Samael?”

  “Some say so, while some say Morningstar, or Lucifer. In the Old Testament, he seems to be an angel, sort of like God’s thug. In the New Testament and Christian lore, he’s the archenemy. He’s everything that’s evil and nothing that’s good.”

  I hated stereotypes. I’m sure the angels had had a hand in that portrayal of us.

  “He tempted Eve in the garden of Eden, caused the fall of humanity.”

  “Oh that is such bullshit!” I interrupted. “The demon wars were fought and we were banished long before humans were given the gifts of Aaru. It’s just like those asshole angels to blame that one on us. It was them. They fucked it all up, falling into the sins of the flesh.”

  “That story is here too, that it was the fault of angels who fell into sin.” Wyatt assured me. “In modern times though, most humans hold Satan responsible for the fall of Adam and Eve.”

  I fumed. We always got blamed for everything.

  “Tempting Christ, trying to steal Moses’ corpse. . .” Wyatt trailed off, looking at me nervously.

  “Forget it. I don’t want to hear any more.” I was so pissed. If Gregory had been here, I would have yanked my barrette off and sliced his wings to shreds. Jerks, all of them.

  “Is he dead?” Wyatt asked. “I’m assuming the previous Iblis, this Lucifer or Samiel guy is dead if you have the sword.”

  “I don’t know. It’s not like I’d die if the sword left; I just wouldn’t be the Iblis anymore.” I wished that would happen. The previous Iblis must have been psyched to be relieved of his duties.

  “Yeah, but you must know if he’s dead or alive,” Wyatt continued. “We know whether all of our ex–presidents are alive or not. Don’t you guys keep track of each other?”

  “Not really,” I said with some hesitation. “There are some demons that were alive at the time of the wars. I know a few of their names, but I don’t exactly move in their social circles. One of them may have been the previous Iblis, but I doubt it.”

  “Why? Do you think losing the war was just too much and he killed himself?”

  “We didn’t lose,” I protested. All this misinformation was irritating. “It was a stalemate. I don’t know, I just think he’s dead.” Nearly cutting off Gregory’s wings, and being almost sliced in half in return—his own brother. A long, vicious war with no clear resolution; an eternal exile, never being able to return to Aaru. I can’t imagine wanting to live after all that.

  Wyatt reached over and grabbed my hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “Okay. Let’s just move on and look at the rest of the angels who could be on the Ruling Council.”

  I stared at his hand, numb, trying to shake off the feeling of sadness that blanketed every emotion.

  “Don’t be upset, Sam. I don’t believe this stuff. I know you’re not like that, that you’re not like this horrible Satan of our legends.”

  But I was. I took a deep breath and continued to look at the papers Wyatt had so helpfully compiled for me. Dar was right, there was a lot of overlap. All the angel’s responsibilities and duties seemed to run together after a few moments. Then one of the papers caught my eye and I laughed again, my depression evaporating.

  “Metatron? Seriously? That’s not an angel; he’s one of those Transformer guys.”

  “No, it’s an angel—supposedly one of the greatest; the first and the last, the link between the human and the divine. Some sources say he’s the same as Michael, but others say he’s above Michael.”

  “Nope. He’s a Transformer. That leader of the Decepticons. He totally rocks.”

  “Megatron, Sam. It’s a ‘g’ not a ‘t’: big difference.”

  I looked up at Wyatt. “I think you’re on to something here. The angels are secretly Transformers. Or maybe they’re like Voltron. They all join together in a huge lump to defeat any threat to Aaru.” I envisioned the Ruling Council leaping through the air to stack up into a giant robotic angel. I hoped I was the head.

  “So we’re done with the serious conversation now?” Wyatt asked, gathering the papers together in a stack. “Because I would like nothing more than to put all this angel stuff aside and talk about cartoons and action figures.”

  Me too. I was really sick of thinking about angels. But there was one more serious topic before we could relax and have fun.

  “Wyatt, I hate to tell you this, but there’s a possibility that elf woman didn’t kill the hybrid. Dar revealed some inform
ation, and it may still be alive. I checked, and there are twelve–thousand–four–hundred–and–forty–two female live births within the geographic area and time parameters. I can’t narrow it down any further than that. I need your help.

  Wyatt’s jaw clenched. “No. We’ve discussed this. I’m not going to assist you in finding and killing an innocent person.”

  “It’s not a person; it’s a demon hybrid.”

  “I don’t care,” Wyatt glared at me. “I’m not doing this.”

  “Don’t you see? This creature is dead anyway. If not by my hands, then by some other demon the elves send over. This Taullian guy won’t give up until he has proof, one way or another, that this hybrid is dead.”

  I could see him waver. “No. I’ve got to draw the line somewhere, and this is it. I won’t assist you to hunt down some poor young woman and do her in.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “It’s not a person, I swear. This is a demon/elf hybrid. You know how we demons are, and you’ve already articulated how horrible you think the elves are. Can you imagine a cross? It would be like a tiger and a great white shark coming together. It’s probably already killed several humans. It might be in jail on capital murder charges at this point. We could be stopping it before it goes on some kind of killing spree. This hybrid is a monster set loose on humanity.”

  Wyatt hesitated. Teetering on the edge.

  “What if someone had stopped John Wayne Gacy? Or Ted Bundy?”

  “Promise me you won’t kill her unless you have proof that she’s committed murder. I need your vow on this, otherwise, no go.”

  “I vow on every soul I Own that I won’t kill the hybrid unless I have proof or confession of its committing murder.”

  Wyatt nodded. He didn’t look happy though. “So nineteen years ago? Female births within a hundred mile radius of Leesburg, Virginia?

  “Yes, that’s the twelve thousand number I came up with. In addition to narrowing down the live births, I also need to find a human, Joseph Barakel. He’s the one that accompanied the changeling over. Maybe he escaped the demon that was to kill him. If so, he can tell me for sure whether the hybrid was dead or alive at the changeling exchange and maybe point me to the family so I can find the grave or the hybrid.”

  Wyatt frowned thoughtfully. “If the child is nineteen or twenty by this point, she may be in college, or she may have moved. In fact, the family may have moved any time after the swap was made. So I’ll look at historical records, but after that we may need to expand our geographic search on likely suspects.”

  Crap, I hadn’t thought of that. Why couldn’t humans just stay in one place? If the family had moved, this elf hybrid could be anywhere in the world. The key would be to finding Joseph Barakel and tracking from there.

  “This is going to be impossible.” My mood had turned uncharacteristically gloomy. “We’ll never find this hybrid. Haagenti is never going to give up. I should just go home and take my lumps. At least then you’d be safe. You can meet a nice girl, get married, have kids. Coach Little League like a regular human man.”

  Not that it was possible to even do that. My “lumps” had been changed into a death sentence. I felt even more trapped, more desperate.

  Wyatt’s hand clamped down on my wrist. “I hate baseball. And I don’t want kids. Have faith in me, Sam. And have some faith in yourself. If this hybrid thing doesn’t work, we’ll figure something else out. Don’t give up.”

  He moved his hand down to intertwine his fingers with mine and gave them a squeeze. My mood lightened. “Okay. Let’s see what we can find out in the next week or so. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  13

  I carved into the table with a dull butter knife. A stale Danish pastry sat off to the left, and a half empty cup of black coffee perched on top of a daunting stack of papers to my right. The table had a solid coat of polyurethane on it, so I’d had to dig deep to even make a dent. I would have made more progress with a claw, but the hotel staff kept popping in and out of the room on stupid errands they’d improvised to give them an excuse to gawk at the angels

  I didn’t blame them. I’d gawked for the first hour, too. Even without visible wings, they were awe–inspiring. I’d really only dealt with them one–on–one, except for that brief time when Gregory killed Althean. A group was a whole other thing. My confidence fled. It was abundantly clear I was a scared imp facing down six ancient, powerful beings.

  They’d stared at me for all of two seconds after Gregory ported me into the room then proceeded to ignore me. It was probably for the best. I couldn’t have said anything intelligent at that moment anyway. I’d plopped down at my designated seat and looked through the paperwork as if I were actually reading it while they made small talk with each other and took their seats. I was the only one with a coffee and Danish. It made me feel even more out of place.

  I wasn’t sure what they were discussing. A few moments after the meeting had begun I’d realized that about fifty percent of their conversation wasn’t verbal. After an hour, they had all turned to look at me briefly, their expressions ranging from pity to condescension. From that point forward all their discussion was spoken. Not that it helped much. They all talked at the same time. It was like trying to listen to twenty conversations simultaneously. I wondered if Gregory had clued them in that I couldn’t hear their mind–speech—probably not. He had ignored me since we arrived; hadn’t even looked at me. I felt like I’d been tossed in the deep end of the lake and told to start swimming. I was drowning.

  A chunk of the polyurethane popped off the table and I looked down at my drawing with satisfaction. I almost had the trunk of the tree done. This stupid meeting was probably going to take long enough to carve a whole forest into the table. With a sigh, I scraped the knife over the table again, wondering why it sounded so loud. That’s when I realized the angels had stopped talking.

  I peeked up and saw them all staring at me.

  “What?”

  The dark–haired angel exhaled dramatically. He had short, spiky, pitch–black hair and shocking blue eyes. He would have been really hot if he didn’t scowl so much.

  “Are you for or against?” he asked. I decided to call him Dopey.

  “Are you all still discussing the dude who petitioned to change choirs?” I asked. “I didn’t realize I needed to weigh in on that one. I mean, it’s kind of an internal issue, isn’t it?”

  Dopey frowned. “ We finished that topic four pages ago.” He nodded at the stack of papers supporting my coffee cup. “We’re on item one–twenty–eight.”

  Shit. We had three hundred and thirty three to cover. We’d never get done. I had a vision of us as skeletons, all fused to the hotel chairs, a foot of dust covering the table and papers. Moving my coffee cup, I leafed through the stack. One twenty eight—something to do with punishment for anyone harboring Nephilim.

  “What Nephilim? I thought you guys hadn’t decided on the werewolves.”

  The red–haired woman spoke up. She was the only woman in the room. There had been a few more when I had arrived, but they’d changed to male immediately after.

  “We haven’t decided on the werewolves, but there are other Nephilim. We’ve defined the term to mean any offspring of an angel with another species.”

  “So if an angel knocks me up, is our kid included?” They all stared at me in horror. “Because then I should probably recuse myself from this vote. I wouldn’t want to condemn my own offspring.”

  The woman’s face went just as crimson as her hair. I decided I’d call her Bashful. “Not that it would ever happen, but you are considered to be the same species as angels.”

  “Is this a possibility in your near future?” another angel asked, this one with longer, wavy, black hair that shone purple in the light. He had a rather wicked hint of a smile in his eyes. I’d call him Happy.

  “Could be,” I looked him over appreciatively. “I’ll grab your number on our next break and add you to my list of candidates.”

&nb
sp; Dopey tapped a firm finger on the paperwork in front of him. “Fallen angels are sometimes redeemed. We want to ensure that once they repent, they are not protecting their vile offspring from a just fate.”

  “That seems kind of like an internal issue too. I’ll be Switzerland on that one.”

  “It’s not internal when it involves other species,” Gregory interjected. I decided to call him Grumpy, not because he was particularly grumpy at the moment, but because it sounded too much like Gregory to belong to anyone else.

  “Fine. What did everyone else vote?”

  Grumpy started to protest, but Dopey interrupted. “Four in favor, two against.”

  “Well then, I’m against. Not that it makes any difference since more have voted the other way.”

  Grumpy shook his head. “We need a quorum, not a majority. Your vote means we do not have a quorum and the issue now needs to be sent back to committee.”

  Oops. Dopey looked pissed. So did Sleepy and Sneezy. I wondered which of the other three I’d just sided with. I continued to carve as they progressed onto item one–hundred–and–twenty–nine, this time trying my best to follow the conversation. It was a topic I didn’t understand, regarding evolution and vibration levels.

  “I thought you guys took care of the problem with the fallen choir and the Nephilim ages ago. Why are you still fussing over it?”

  “We’ve moved on,” Dopey said, his voice like an arctic breeze. “That issue has been sent back to committee.”

  “We weren’t able to exterminate all the Nephilim,” Bashful replied, ignoring the frosty glare Dopey sent her way. “Some still walk the earth. They are difficult to detect and some believe that their angel parents may be aware of their existence and assisting them to remain undetected.”

  “Item one–hundred–twenty–nine,” Dopey said, waving a hand to cut her off. It was Bashful’s turn to glare now. “Who is for and who is against?”

  I shrugged and went back to my carving, figuring they’d let me know when they needed my vote again.