THE TEMPTING

by D. M. Pratt

  Robert held Eve tightly.

  “No!” the child shouted.

  “You better come right now. You have your lessons and you know how upset Doctor—” Azura said and stopped herself, her eyes shifting to Eve.

  “No!” the defiant two year old shouted.

  “Please let him go.”

  Eve gently opened her arms, but the child clung on tighter than a monkey to a pole. Azura extracted her son as gently as she could. She whispered something into his ear and the boy relaxed and went obediently into Azura’s arms. The shift caused Azura to drop all she was holding. The two women bent down, Eve helping her gather her things.

  “There’s a school here?” Eve asked.

  “If you call it that.”

  “What kind of school?” Eve asked.

  There was a long pregnant pause. Azura studied Eve’s face. Eve could see her thinking as she put the last few things inside her bag.

  “I’m considering schools for my son,” Eve said.

  “You have to be … invited. It’s for the highly gifted. Parents aren’t even allowed to visit the children once they go in,” Azura said. “It’s okay though, I guess. He’s smart and strong and…”

  “Azura!” a man’s voice called from across the playground. “You’re going to be late. You two need to hurry.”

  Eve looked up and followed Azura’s gaze to a stern man waiting in white. Behind her the last of the children entered the tower.

  “Azura, may I ask you a question?” Eve asked.

  “We have to go.”

  “Of course, I just wondered … if you lived here.”

  “We all do,” she replied. “Come on,” she added to her son and turned to go.

  “Please take me with you,” the little boy said to Eve.

  His arms reached out to her and his eyes held a look of fear and sadness that ripped Eve’s heart out.

  “Bo, behave,” Azura said.

  Hearing the child called Beau sent a shiver down her spine.

  “You call him Bo?” Eve asked.

  “Short for Robert,” Azura said. “Sounds nice, don’t cha think?”

  “Azura!” The doctor called out to her again. This time more impatiently.

  Eve watched as Azura hurried away and caught up with the doctor who stood impatiently waiting for her. They spoke. The conversation was rapid fire. It appeared to be an agitated exchange and twice the Doctor looked up at Eve. Robert or Bo, never took his eyes off of Eve. In a few seconds they were inside the door, which closed solidly behind them.

  Eve’s head started pounding. Why did a strange child want her to take him … beg her to take him.

  Eve moved toward the door then thought better and circled around to the lakeside, thinking she might not be noticed as much if she came up around the back.

  Once off the path the same mud that had trapped her back at the bayou squished up into the thick grass. The grass started to thin the closer she came to the lake. Eve glanced into the front lobby as she passed. The entry was two stories high, a circular atrium with a black and white floor. A coiled stairway with an oak-railed balcony connected the first to the second floor. She tried the door, but it was locked and a key card was needed to get inside. Eve couldn’t help but notice that the key pad was very new.

  The sound of the children’s voices somewhere in the back beckoned her forward. As she drew closer it was what they were chanting that slowed her pace. They were speaking in Farsi or Arabic, maybe Egyptian. She wasn’t sure other than she knew it to be based on one of the Middle Eastern languages. She’d done three articles for the magazine about the Middle East and two interviews with interpreters. She’d even done a quick, three-week intensive on Middle Eastern and Saudi culture when a Saudi sheik came with his entourage to experience Mardi Gras and Louisiana hospitality. The words were definitely some version of one of those ancient languages, but which one Eve couldn’t begin to tell. She’d dated a Persian from Iran for a minute, but this was different. Eve listened harder as she inched closer. She felt the light shift and dim as the afternoon sun began to sink low over the lake. It turned the sky to shades of lavender, peach, rose and gold. Each color reflected back to its source perfectly mirrored in the lake. The wind stopped, the water stilled, adding to the eerie silence interrupted only by the voices of the children.

  She came to the very last window; French, prewar with metal casings. It had four panes each and curved metal handles that cranked out to open. The metal frame had been painted over so many times, the thickness of the paint made it hard to close. The last window was slightly cracked tempting Eve forward. Carefully, she peeked in and saw seven or eight boys and girls who looked about nine or ten in size sitting in a circle. They repeated the same words over and over again, speaking together and carefully articulating each syllable.

  “Body, mind,” Eve said, translating two of the words she understood.

  The next few words were Persian, but not Farsi or Arabic. They were older, more ancient. She felt sure of it. Suddenly, the last word stuck out.

  “… Nephilim …” the children said.

  Nephilim, she thought. “That’s what Miss Clarisse said. I know this word.”

  “What word?” a voice said behind her.

  Eve turned and found a thin man in a white lab coat with thinning hair and dead, dark eyes staring at her.

  “Are you lost?” he asked.

  “I saw how beautiful the sunset was and wanted to walk down to the lake to get a better look,” Eve said, lying.

  She could feel the nervousness in her voice. She could tell from his icy, even stare, he wasn’t buying the lie.

  “Really?” he said, turning his gaze momentarily to the sunset. “Yes, it’s beautiful.”

  Another moment of silence and he gestured for her to walk closer to the banks of the lake for a better look.

  “Come. We can walk together. Are you a patient here?” he asked.

  “Yes, well, not now. I meant, I was a patient,” Eve said.

  She really didn’t want to get closer to the lake. She just wanted to get the hell out of there. Besides his beady eyes, he had a strange smell. She looked at his ID badge.

  “What kind of doctor are you, Doctor Schuler?” Eve asked.

  “PhD, not MD. I’m an educator,” Dr. Schuler said.

  “I heard the children speaking …” Eve stopped.

  “Ancient Assyrian,” Dr. Schuler said, finishing her sentence. “They’re learning Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Latin and Sanskrit.”

  “Why would they need to learn dead languages, Doctor?” Eve asked.

  He smiled at Eve. “These languages are the foundation of the world’s greatest modern languages. We have found, when the children learn the basic etymology of these particular languages, it opens a host of neurological pathways and triggers brain waves escalating the ability to learn and retain all information, not just derivative languages, but also math, science, music. The pathways allow access to several of their higher cognitive functions.”

  “Higher cognitive functions?”

  “My apologies, surely I’m boring you,” he said.

  “On the contrary, I’m fascinated. I would be very interested in learning more.”

  Again there was a long pregnant pause. He studied her the way a frog studied a dragonfly right before he devoured it. Eve’s phone rang in her pocket. She grabbed it and read Cora’s name in the screen.

  “They’re looking for me,” Eve said as she quickly sent a text back saying she would be right there.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name?” Dr. Akin Schuler said.

  “Eve Dowling,” Eve said offering her hand.

  “Yes. Eve. A pleasure to meet you,” Dr. Schuler said.

  He took her hand and Eve shivered as if someone had laid a cold dead fish against her fingers. The iciness made her look into his eyes.

  “Please come back again, Ms. Dowling,” he said. “Have a lovely evening.”

  Dr. Schuler turned to w
alk back into the tower, stopped and faced Eve.

  “Please be careful driving back. People can be so reckless on the roads at night,” he said, smiling with that same weird creepiness before he went back inside.

  Eve hurried back up the path glancing one last time at the gathering of children inside the room, who were now standing. They looked so emotionless.

  She crossed the quadrangle and her phone rang again. This time it was Beau. She answered.

  “Hi, we’re just getting ready to head home,” Eve said into the receiver.

  “I thought when we spoke you were heading back,” his voice said through the tinny speaker.

  “They wanted to run a few more tests for infections on Cora,” Eve said, talking as she walked. “She just called and they are all done. We’re all fine. Let me go get everyone in the car and we’ll be home in a few hours. We’ll be tired and hungry, but we’ll be safely home.”

  “Drive carefully, but hurry. I need to kiss you and hold Philip and Delia.”

  “I could use a few kisses myself. Miss Clarisse came down. She’ll take Cora and Delia so you’ll be stuck with Philip and me,” Eve said smiling at the thought.

  “Holding my breath until you two get here,” Beau said, and hung up.

  She opened the door to the main hospital, shaking off the uneasy feeling that clawed at her. She wanted to find her son, Cora, Delia and Miss Clarisse and get the hell out. She wanted to find out what the Nephilim was and what it had to do with the Gregoire line.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The drive home was long and boring, but the eerily prophetic warning from the creepy doctor heightened Eve’s senses so much so, she drove a little slower and a lot more carefully. Along the way she passed a stop sign and saw the aftermath of an eighteen wheeler truck that had smashed into a minivan. The van was crushed beyond recognition and whoever was inside could not have survived the impact. She, like all the others who passed, found herself unable to look away from the carnage and death. For a moment she let her mind race into a “what if” … I had been driving faster, might it have been Philip and me? The thought rattled around her brain for the next twenty minutes, harking back to the incident with the alligator. In the end, she decided that if she wasn’t psychic, she was lucky and blessed and grateful for it.

  Eve arrived home, her body aching from all the tension and adrenaline of the day. Beau was asleep in the big chair that centered the front parlor a bouquet of sterling silver roses sat in a vase nearby. She loved the romantic in him. Quietly, Eve slipped upstairs, fed and bathed Philip while Aria readied the small, sweet nursery for Philip’s repose. Eve touched one of the toys from Beau’s childhood. She’d found them stuffed inside old, dust covered trunks and stickered suit cases, some that reached generations back in the Gregoire family. Lovingly, she’d brought them back into the light of the world. Some were so fragile they could never be played with again. There were trains and carriages, trucks and cars sitting with their worn wheels, chipped and missing parts, dolls and animals with faded faces and missing eyes, loved and played with by distant members of the Gregoire family.

  Once he was cleaned and dressed in his favorite pajamas, Eve took Philip and rocked back and forth in the glider, smiling at her son as she softly sang a song her mother had sung to her.

  “I love you forever. I love you for always. No matter the journey your Mommy I’ll be. And when you are sleeping and when you’re awake, imagine the magic of all you can be. We’ll ride up on ponies and sail on the sea; grow wings and fly into starlight. I’ll love you forever. I’ll love you for always. I’ll love you forever, just as you love me,” she sang.

  Her voice drifted into a whisper just as Beau slipped into the room. He smiled and kissed her forehead and stroked his son’s pale blonde curls. Beau looked into Eve’s eyes and gently kissed her lips. He started to speak, but she placed her finger to his lips and nodded to the sleeping Philip. Beau slipped his arms under hers and lifted his sleeping son, gently carrying him over to his crib. Eve stood, stretched and crossed behind him, watching the sweet love and care Beau had for his baby boy. She slipped her arms around Beau’s waist as he laid Philip on his little pillow. Together they covered him and gave him one more kiss before they slipped out of the room.

  In the hall, he hugged her as he said, “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been okay today.”

  She could feel the love and sadness in his embrace.

  “I promise, no more picnics in the bayou,” she said.

  Eve took him to the kitchen and fixed Beau a bite to eat. They shared the horrors of the day - both hers and his. The lawyers, the court, the problem with the pepper farmer and how he wanted them to increase the yield. Beau said he wished he’d studied agriculture at university. They talked as they brushed teeth and hair and slipped into pajamas. Eve smiled. She felt like an old married couple and decided she wasn’t ready to shoulder that mantle just yet. But truth be told, it was a harrowing day and she was so exhausted she fell asleep in the middle of her sentence.

  Eve drifted in and out of sleep. The alligator, crawling into her dreams, kept awakening her. Laying in the dark, her mind spinning, she started thinking about the hospital, the children, and the things Azura and the weird doctor had said. And, as for Dr. Honoré, she would make an appointment tomorrow. She couldn’t remember going to Algiers. It was just across the Mississippi, but there was never a story assignment or a reason until now. Yet, something deep inside her said, “Yes, you did.” She had been there once before. But when and why? These were the thoughts that kept her awake the rest of the night. Dr. Honoré told her that her concussion and coma could have triggered “higher cognitive functions” and “precognitive thought” was a possibility. Maybe the crushed alligator was something she did with her mind. After all there were numerous documented stories of mothers lifting cars when their children were trapped inside; “hysterical strength” was one term she’d found.

  “Stop,” she softly pleaded to herself.

  Finally, her mind quieted. In that momentary silence, one word spoken by the group of children at the hospital came back into her mind. Nephilim.

  “Nephilim,” she repeated out loud.

  Miss Clarisse had forbad it even to be uttered. She knew that word. But why … and from where?

  Quietly, Eve slipped out of bed and into her cream-colored cashmere robe with corded ribbons of cocoa velvet trimming its edges. Normally she wouldn’t have liked such fancy things. She’d always been a cotton, terry cloth and flannel kind of girl, but this felt like slipping into warm, fuzzy fluff. It was a gift from Beau and it always made her feel warm and good.

  Eve went down to the front parlor, which she’d converted into her office. From here she managed the day to day details of her life from the renovation to her impending wedding. She used it to oversee the redo of the big house and handle some personal business; things she still needed to get done for herself and most importantly, there was the wedding. Secretly she thought, after the wedding and Philip got settled into preschool, perhaps she’d write some articles or, heaven help her, a novel in her cozy office. Beau, as modern a man as he was, wasn’t very keen on the idea of her working. He wanted her to help with the Estate and, of course, more children. She too wanted more children and that the house be filled with the sounds of laughter, family and music. But that was someday. For now her desk was covered with letters, linen invitations and requests to use the house for cultural events from charitable foundations already affiliated with the Gregoire name, family trust and friends. The Estate’s “duties” alone were more than enough to occupy her time.

  Eve fired up her computer, Googled the word Nephilim and found hundreds of pages of information; references in the Torah and Old Testament of the Christian Bible said they were the first creations, fallen angels, people of the fire, giants, the bloodlines of Noah and Ham. According to one group of writings, the great flood was sent to destroy their lineage, but the bloodline survived through Ham
’s wife and spread through their children and their children’s children. Others said the great flood erased them all. The biblical references also described the Nephilim as giant, human-looking, immortal beings, one third of whom defied God and were condemned to hell.

  There were multiple passages in the Torah, Bible and Koran that talked about the existence of the Nephilim. She couldn’t find anything that described exactly what they had done to incur such wrath from their creator other than a few passages in the Book of Genesis. According to the ancient writings, the Nephilim became obsessed and uncontrollably sexually aroused by the long, beautiful hair of human women - straight, wavy or curly, black, auburn, red or gold, it didn’t matter. The Nephilim defied their creator and descended to earth so they could interbreed with womankind. It said their offspring became a distinct and separate species; a few to this day still live among humans on earth. Their decedents remain hidden, their powers fading and forgotten, their names and memories torn from the pages of history, their spawn hunted by the Templar Knights until all were erased. Eve sat back and thought of the ancient Gregoire bible. Who were those Gregoire men and women ripped from the tattered and torn out pages and what was their lost legacy?

  Eve’s computer pinged softly as an interesting scientific article appeared on the screen that referenced ancient pictographs, and scrolls found near the Dead Sea. They told of “visitors,” Advanced Beings, who arrived on earth and caused man to evolve from Cro Magnon to Homo Sapien. Scientists tracked DNA in skeletal remains believed to belong to the Nephilim because of their enormous size ranging from 12-to-35 feet tall. Some believed the Nephilim were genetically engineered by these Advanced Beings to interbreed with humans because the Beings were unable to do so themselves. The offspring of the Nephilim and humans were designed to inherit a greater intellectual capacity. Eventually a select few would begin a process that would repopulate the world with a new breed of “advanced” humans who would lead a race of “lesser humans” when the Beings left. Some scientists believed the “lesser humans” were to be used to mine precious metals the Advanced Beings needed for their own world.