by T. Frohock
Sir George Abellio. The name resurrected a memory. Sir George. He was known as Sir George in his last incarnation, during the twelfth century.
Could this be from a nefil from that past life? Perhaps a rogue seeking to reconnect with Jordi? And if so, were they friend or foe?
Better safe than sorry. Jordi traced a sigil of protection over the box and hummed a chord. The red and gold vibrations of his aura charged the glyph. Only then did he feel safe to use the hotel’s letter opener to pry the wrapping free.
Behind the paper was a plain white jewelry box. Lifting the lid, he removed the wadding to find an identical pair of silver brooches wrapped in tissue paper. One was polished to a high shine while the other was black with tarnish.
Despite their conditions, they both depicted an intricately carved angel standing over a lyre. Unlike other angelic drawings from the period, this angel possessed three sets of wings and the feet of a raptor—an accurate depiction of a Messenger in his true form.
The angel on the brighter pin held gemstones set within the silver: jacinth in the right hand and an emerald in the left. The stones sparkled brightly beneath the room’s electric light.
The other brooch had sustained damage deeper than tarnish. An indentation in the center made it appear as if someone had struck the brooch with a blunt object. Both the jacinth and the emerald were loose in their settings. Neither stone had clarity.
The banner over the angel’s head in both pieces bore the inscription: Amor vincit omnia.
Love conquers all.
“Love tokens,” Jordi murmured. He caught the scent of fire and metal from a blacksmith’s forge. A hammer struck the anvil with a measured rhythm, like the slow steady beats of a heart. The fires silhouetted a giant of a nefil. Jordi recalled those blunt hands and questioning whether the smith possessed the finesse to craft jewelry. Evidently he did.
Shifting through the tissue paper, he found a typewritten card at the bottom of the box. The note said: Wear your pin so that I will know you in this incarnation. We will judge the traitor in vehmgericht. Watch for me.
Jordi scowled at the word vehmgericht. The vehmgericht were the secret trials the nefilim once used in Germany to root out traitors to the angel-born. Mortals had eventually adopted the word and the custom during the Middle Ages to protect their feudal rights.
But in the beginning, vehmgericht belonged to us.
Jordi scanned the note again for any clues. The signature was nothing more than a hand-drawn symbol composed of a vertical line with two more lines branching upward to the right to make the rune Fehu.
“The letter F?” Why use such an archaic symbol in place of a signature? Jordi reached for the wrapping paper again. The package was sent from Offenburg, Germany.
Salvador mentioned Durbach. Jordi rose and grabbed his bag. Rooting through the side pockets, he found three maps: Spain, France, and Germany. He opened the German map and searched for Offenburg. Within moments, he found Durbach—six kilometers northeast of Offenburg.
Picking up the brooches, Jordi held them side by side. Whose name might begin with F? He kicked off his shoes and drew his feet onto the bed as he turned the pins first one way and then another. Nothing came to him.
“Christ burning in shit, but I hate riddles.”
The quickest way to discover the meaning behind the incarnation would be to read the stones. Unfortunately, the ability to divine the history of jewels was a daimonic skill, and Jordi didn’t trust the daimons in Barcelona. Any one of them would sell him out to Guillermo for a peseta if they saw something to gain from divulging the information.
Good thing he didn’t need them. An ingenious nefil always found other avenues to the same destination. Being more resourceful than most, Jordi had experimented with various substances until he found that opium quickly led him into lucid dreams.
Time to chase the dragon and see where he leads, Jordi thought as he opened his bag again. Beneath a false seam was a metal case next to a small tin of cocaine. Jordi removed both and placed the cocaine on his nightstand before taking the case to the desk.
He opened the lid and laid his equipment on the blotter: a stubby candle, a pin, some foil, and a paper straw. The foil and straw always left him feeling cheap and dirty, like a street addict chasing a high.
Exceptional times call for exceptional means, he thought as he selected a small brick of opium. Love tokens sent across distance and time qualified as extraordinary.
With practiced moves, he lit the candle, and then daubed a piece of opium about the size of a peanut from the brick with the pin. He transferred the opium onto the foil. Picking up the straw, he moved the foil over the flame. As the opium vaporized, the liquid oozed across the foil’s surface, writhing like a snake. White smoke rose into the air. Jordi followed the smoke with the straw, inhaling the drug deeply.
The sweet taste of opium filled his mouth. He repeated the procedure four more times before he blew out the candle. Knowing just when to stop was what separated him from the addicts.
He waved the foil gently and when it had cooled, he licked the last of the opium from the blackened surface. Once he had returned everything except the candle to the metal case, he adjusted the pillows and sat on the bed with his back against the headboard.
A feeling of peace and well-being suffused his body. As he moved the tarnished brooch to the nightstand, the jacinth fell free of its setting. Jordi caught the gemstone and placed it beside the brooch.
His memories lay behind the brighter pin. He was sure of it. Cradling the shining silver brooch in his palm, he shaped a glyph over the design and hummed a tune. The opium darkened the edges of his song, deepening the amber vibrations to brown.
Concentrating on the angel’s face, Jordi felt the room drift away. The angel’s smile. So serene, loving . . . loving . . . he was my adviser, my lover . . .
Jordi remembered his previous incarnation when he was known as George . . .
George and the angel burrow beneath the quilts and furs to escape the cold. Drowsy from their lovemaking, they are on the verge of sleep when the music finds them.
Light notes drawn from a stringed instrument with a bow travel over the night and through the shuttered window. A distant voice joins the instrument, a tenor singing in another language. It is the third night the enchanting musician has serenaded them from the town’s tavern.
“Arabic. He sings in Arabic,” whispers the angel. “Last night it was Italian. And his voice . . . I have never heard a nefil with such range. He is the one we need. Find him.”
“In the morning,” George murmurs. He has no desire to leave the bed to go wandering through a night made brittle with cold.
The angel, who calls himself Frauja, isn’t dissuaded. “Have I led you wrong yet?”
No. No, he hasn’t.
“You said you wanted the Key,” Frauja murmurs against George’s ear.
And he does want that song—needs that song—because now that he carries the Thrones’ blessing as king of the Inner Guard, he must shut his brother Guillaume into a prison realm, one where he can never again reincarnate in the mortal world. Then there will be no other nefil strong enough to challenge George’s rule.
“You know I want it.”
“Then I need his voice.” Frauja strokes George’s throat. “The whisper of his darkness to merge with your fire. No other nefil will do. Bring him to us.”
The request irks George. The initial arrangement between them required no other nefil, but George doesn’t argue.
If the Thrones discover he is hiding a fallen Messenger, he’ll be driven from his post as king and Guillaume will once more win sovereignty over the Inner Guard. George is playing a dangerous game and they both know it.
Secrets are like chains, George thinks as he slides out of bed and awakens his mortal manservant with a kick. “Find that musician and bring him to me. Take the guards with you. Don’t come back without him.”
The man stumbles from the room half awake. Ano
ther servant enters and adds wood to the fire. Candles are lit.
The covers of George’s bed lie flat. The angel is gone. No one sees him but George.
An hour passes before the manservant returns and leads an unfamiliar nefil into the room. At a gesture from George, the manservant backs into the corridor and shuts the door.
The stranger places his bag at his feet and cradles an instrument’s case in his arms. His clothing speaks of no country, of all countries: a surcoat of black with seams threaded in yellow covers a cote dyed a rich dark green. The loose pants, favored by the Hungarians, are tucked into his worn boots. Long black hair falls beneath a stylish chaperon popular with the Italian merchants, and it suits him well. His eyes are dark and green, surrounded by lashes so thick and black they resemble kohl in the chamber’s half-light.
George remains by the fire and glares at the flames. “Who is your liege?”
“I have none.” The stranger speaks the language with an accent that is impossible to place because, like his clothes, it belongs to no single country.
“You are a rogue?”
“That is your word, but yes.”
“What is your word?”
“I say I am free.” He meets George’s stare as an equal.
The impunity of the act angers George, but he doesn’t admonish the stranger. Until he is certain of the angel’s game, he will move in a judicious manner. “Play for me.” It is a command.
The stranger seems unperturbed. “Will we exchange songs?”
It is a reasonable request and a matter of professional etiquette that when one nefil plays for another, they exchange songs. In doing so, they are able to gauge the strength and color of one another’s souls.
George isn’t feeling reasonable. “Perhaps.”
The stranger seems to intuit George’s mood. His expression is serious as he retrieves a nearby stool. He brings it close to George’s chair and sits. From the wooden case, he removes a Byzantine lyra and its bow.
“What is your name?” George asks as the stranger adjusts the instrument’s pegs.
“Yago.”
“Where are you from?”
“Nowhere, everywhere.”
“Where did you begin?” George snaps the question like a lash.
“Córdoba.”
Balancing the lyra on his thigh, he draws the bow across the strings, testing the sound, and then he measures George with a critical eye. “Is there something in particular you would like to hear?”
“You choose.”
He chooses a love ballad and renders it with heartbreaking skill. His voice is as much an instrument as the lyra, and he progresses through chords no mortal and few nefilim will ever sing. When he finishes, the final clear notes of his tenor shade the air in viridian hues the same color as his eyes.
The angel appears behind Yago. “Don’t move,” he whispers.
Yago stiffens at Frauja’s sudden presence, but he doesn’t turn.
Reaching out to twine one slender finger in the black of Yago’s hair, Frauja pronounces, “He is the one.”
The angel’s touch is intimate, his smile more so. Worse still, he has revealed himself to Yago like he has to no other.
Jealousy grabs George’s heart with sharp nails and he winces, because . . .
. . . the brooch pricked his flesh, awakening him from the opium dream. Blinking in the predawn light, he looked down at his palm, where his blood smeared the angel’s lips.
The names of Yago and Frauja hit Jordi’s brain like twin bullets, and the pain of his last incarnation flushed through his body. He remembered dying in white light and fire, the sun burning like a thousand mirrors and Yago’s song ringing in his head.
A groan burned deep in his chest and rolled through his throat. He slid his other hand along the coverlet to grasp the cloth, bunching it in his fist.
Oh, God, yes, I remember Yago, Yago, Diago. They are the same. He retrieved the tarnished pin and the jacinth. “You worked for me. We were a team.”
The angel’s eyes gleamed from the pin as if to say yes.
“The Thrones refused to give me an angelic adviser, but I found Frauja.” And now Frauja has returned, Jordi thought as he recalled the note’s signature rune.
Or has he? If Frauja knew where Jordi was, why hadn’t he come in person?
Jordi rubbed his forehead as if he could massage the memories into his brain. The answer had to be the obvious one: because he can’t.
Guillaume and his nefilim had done something to lock Frauja away from the earthly realm. Yago and I died trying to save the angel. Yes, that definitely felt right, but there was something else, something he wasn’t remembering.
Struggling past the opium clouding the fringes of his consciousness, Jordi reached for the tin of cocaine. Two quick hits drove the last dregs of the opium from his mind.
Alert now, he turned the brooch over in his hand. Frauja had somehow found a way to send Jordi a trigger.
But why two brooches? The answer came immediately.
Because Diago needs a trigger.
Heart racing, Jordi rose and began to dress. He and Diago had encountered each other in this incarnation, but their interactions had been few and fleeting. That’s because neither of us remembered our past together. “The second brooch is the key to reigniting his memories. Once he recalls our life together as George and Yago, he will leave Los Nefilim.” Then, along with Frauja, they would judge Guillaume in vehmgericht and bring him to ruin before the Thrones.
Jordi glanced at the clock and grabbed his coat. Salvador said that Diago’s train left at six. He had just enough time to get to the station.
29 August 1932
a terrible sound that is no sound
6
Av. del Marquès de l’Argentera, Barcelona
Estació de França
The train station’s majestic ceiling loomed over the crowds bustling between the ticket gates and platforms. As Guillermo led their small party through the mass of humans, the mortals parted before his bulk like schools of fish clearing for a shark.
Diago and Miquel followed in his wake, keeping Rafael between them. Although they had risen before dawn to reach Barcelona, they had only a short time before Diago’s train left for France.
A man in a fedora bumped into Diago. “Excuse me,” he muttered as he hurried past.
Rafael’s fingers tightened around Diago’s, and though the boy said nothing, Diago sensed his fear. The press of bodies was suffocating enough for an adult.
And children are small, easily broken. No one knew that better than Diago. Without stopping, he leaned down and lifted his son into his arms. Guillermo must have caught the movement from the tail of his eye, because he turned and took Diago’s bag. Miquel put his palm on Diago’s back, giving their small family an anchor in the heaving mass of bodies.
Guillermo led them to a small alcove near the entrance to the platforms. In the oasis of quiet, Miquel held his arms out to Rafael, but the child wasn’t quite ready to release his father.
Rafael hugged Diago’s neck. “Do you really have to go?”
He felt his son’s heart pounding against his chest. “You know I do.”
“Don’t come home beat up. Every time you go away without us, you come home beat up. Tell him, Miquel.”
Miquel drew near. “No fighting. You upset Rafael when you do that.”
“I’ll be careful. I promise.”
Rafael’s eyes narrowed, and Diago knew the suspicious look well—he’d worn it enough times on his own face. “Okay. But if you come home beat up this time, I’m going to be very angry.”
Diago whispered, “But you’ll still love me, right?”
“You know I will,” said Rafael. “And Miquel will still love you, too.”
“There we go,” said Miquel as he took Rafael from Diago. “He’ll be home before you know it.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow,” Diago and Miquel said in unison.
Diago
sighed. “A week.”
“Just promise you’ll come back.”
Diago took his son’s face between his hands and acknowledged his fear. “I know you’re scared because your mamá said she would come back and she didn’t. Right?”
Rafael nodded.
“I will come back for you. I will not leave you.”
Rafael’s lip trembled, but he didn’t cry. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Diago kissed the boy and turned to Miquel. Although they had said their good-byes at home, he wished they could have another moment alone. “Take care of each other.”
Miquel leaned close as if to whisper. Instead, he brushed his lips against Diago’s cheek. “Take care, my star.”
Diago’s heart pounded until he heard nothing but his pulse. What if someone saw us? He lowered his head and glanced around. No one seemed to pay them the least attention.
Miquel gave him a sly wink.
Exasperated with his husband’s antics, Diago fussed with his bag so Miquel wouldn’t see the flush warming his cheeks. He should have seen the kiss coming. Miquel loved to push society’s boundaries just to test how far he could go with their affection in public.
Guillermo put his hand on Diago’s shoulder. “I’ll walk you to the train.”
Relieved to be moving again, he followed Guillermo for a few steps before he made the mistake of glancing over his shoulder.
Rafael waved, his face already clouding as he fought back his tears.
Unprepared for the guilt crushing his heart, Diago whispered, “Wait, Rafael needs—”
“Don’t look back, keep going, he’s going to be fine.” Guillermo grabbed Diago’s arm and propelled him forward. “He needs to get used to this. And so do you.”
“I know, but I just need a min—”
The whistle blew.
“I’m taking your last minute before you get on that train.”
Disregarding Guillermo’s advice, Diago looked back again. Miquel whispered something in Rafael’s ear and the boy laughed through his tears.
The constriction in his chest eased somewhat. Guillermo’s right. They’re going to be fine.