“When I first woke up you said Brethren like their presence on Earth is commonplace.”
“They’re not commonplace but there are still a handful of them around. Most Nephilim aren’t aware of that because they purposely make sure you don’t know about them.”
“But you obviously do.”
“It’s my job to know.” His vague response told me nothing.
“What job is that?”
“The same as yours. I’m a Nephilim.”
“Obviously not one from Atlanta.” His clipped answers were beginning to annoy me. And raise my suspicions.
If he was a member of the Atlanta Sect we wouldn’t be strangers to each other. The Society’s sects sort of operated like close-knit family units. Everybody knew everybody.
“No. I am from the Orlando sect,” he said finally giving up some information about himself.
“So you’re a new transfer?”
“Kind of.”
“Have you met Bennett yet?”
“Yes.”
“Does everyone in Orlando know about Brethren?”
“No.”
“Then how do you?”
“I’m special.”
Maybe. But not the good kind of special. God, I was about ready to bang my head on a wall.
I rubbed my forehead between my eyes. I was tired, hurting, and didn’t possess the mental fortitude at the moment to do this. If he’d met Bennett then that was good enough for me at the moment. I knew Bennett well enough to know that he had double, triple, and quadruple checked him out before he ever set foot in the city.
I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and saw that there was an available Uber a block away. Good. It was too late for the train to be running still and I really didn’t want to have to wait for a car.
“Well, I will see you around. Thanks for saving my ass tonight. I guess I owe you one.” I shouldered past him toward the front door. As I did so I caught him grinning out of the corner of my eye, flashing those deep dimples embedded in a smile I bet had charmed the panties off of many a females.
“No problem. It’s a rather sweet ass, so really, it was no sweat off my back.”
I paused, momentarily stunned, then kept walking towards the door. Deliberately choosing not to acknowledge that particular statement. I didn’t turn around to see so I couldn’t know for sure, but I got the distinct impression that his undiluted blue eyes were checking out my ass as I left.
CHAPTER FIVE
I Don't Do Partners
The Society’s headquarters stood as a renovated house in the Atlanta neighborhood of East Lake about three-fourths of a mile from the exclusive East Lake Golf Club. It sat nestled between Downtown and Decatur and was a paradoxical mix of old and new, rich and poor, urban and suburban, black and white, dangerous and safe.
East Lake was historically an affluent African-American neighborhood, but devastation claimed it when the drug epidemic of the 70s and 80s swept across the nation. The gang epidemic that followed on the tail end of it in the 90s all but dismantled it. East Lake began to rebuild itself to the standards of its former glory a decade and a half later when gentrification of neighborhoods close to the downtown city limits became all the rage in Atlanta. Wealthy individuals, Black and White alike, had flocked and were still flocking to the previously dismantled, but now new, posh and hip place to live.
Gentrification was how my mother’s side of the family, the Sinclairs, had doubled their already vastly accumulated wealth since the early 2000s.
Before climbing the steps to the headquarters of the Atlanta sect of The Society I paused, as I always did, to admire the exterior architecture of the house. It towered over me as a massively beautiful structure that had been built to look like the antebellum homes that made southern cities like Savannah and Baton Rouge breathtaking. The genteel coat of powder blue paint covering the outside of the house along with its elegant wraparound porch and the wide steps leading up to it, always made me think of Gone with the Wind. The classic movie was one of my favorite period pieces from the Civil War era.
One day, when I was older and an actual real, real adult with a husband and kids and maybe a dog, I was going to own a home like the one before me. Raise a family in it and fill it with warmth and laughter and cherished memories.
An emotion tasting bitter on my tongue settled in after that thought, that dream that would inevitably be deferred and never realized. I was a Nephilim and an active member of The Society. I hunted daemons five out of seven nights of the week. I was good at it, but eventually a daemon would come along that was better. Stronger, faster, more powerful. Hell, one had already come along last night. It had to be by the grace of the Most High that I was still breathing, instead of lying dead on a backstreet in Five Points drained dry. I was sure that if I ever met the Brethren or another one like him, my luck wouldn’t hold a second time.
Nephilim could theoretically have extended life spans. The Archangel half of our heritage meant we didn’t succumb easily to human illnesses and diseases, and if we did they were never lethal. We were under the weather for a few days, healed swiftly, then got over whatever was affecting us. We could be mortally wounded as easily as our human counterparts, but even that didn’t necessarily result in our death. We couldn’t heal ourselves, but if another Nephilim was around, or got to us quick enough before the last of our life force drained from us, they could. Nephilim could heal other Nephilim, just like Nephilim could heal humans. It was the reason why when Bennett had been elected as Sect Leader, his first order of business was to group the Atlanta sect’s members into pairs and demand that they patrol with their partner. And yet for all of our enhanced endurance, we still died young. Tragically and ironically young.
My Dad wasn’t even an active member of The Society anymore. He left it and his duty as a Nephilim behind the day my mother gave birth to me in an effort to protect me from what was the near certain fate of all Nephilim. He’d wanted me to have what chances were more than good I never would if he’d stayed— a long, full life. Ironically, he still died way too young at thirty-two along with my mother, his non-Nephilim wife. Then there was Deacon and Danielle. They’d died too. Two years ago at eighteen.
I physically shook my head to mentally clear my mind. Blinking back the threat of tears, I carefully put those thoughts away. Re-locking them into the parts of my mind and my heart that I usually kept pushed far to the back of the closet, deep down under an ocean of water, and buried within a mountain of granite. I didn’t know why the thoughts weighed on me today, pushing the door of their iron-barred cell open a bit. Maybe it had to do with my near death experience the night before. Whatever the reason, I shoved the thoughts back inside their cell, slamming the bars shut with a loud bang.
Having gathered my wits about myself, I climbed the steep steps up to the heavy wooden door with intricate carvings that were actually symbols of a language so foreign it was not of the Earthly plane. They marked the house as the hidden in plain sight headquarters of the Atlanta sect of The Society. I brushed my hand over the carvings in the spot near the door’s knocker where a tiny piece of jagged silver protruded from it. I allowed the silver to nick my index finger just enough for a tiny drop of blood to bead onto its surface. It rolled into a crevice made by one of the carvings and the door swung open.
The first floor of the inside of the antebellum-style home had long been gutted and in its place was an open area with tables, benches, and chairs scattered throughout. Situated off to the right of the open expanse of space sat a large meeting room with stadium seating and a raised podium at the head of it that was large enough to fit every member of the Atlanta sect in it and then some. The room was used for our monthly meetings and for any other time that required us to gather en masse.
I nodded a quick but courteous passing greeting to a few of the Society members milling about the first floor whose gazes happened to lock with mine by chance. Then I hurried past the informal gathering area where a lot of members cas
ually hung out when they had a little time to kill. To the left of the gathering area was a winding wooden staircase lined on both sides with a wrought-iron bannister. I took its steps two at a time to the second level of the house. It was always an awkward adjustment for the soles of my feet whenever they transitioned from walking on the dark cherry wood that covered the first floor and the stairs to the carpet lining the second floor that was so plush I had to fight the urge to lie down on it and take a nap every time I walked on it.
The super comfy carpet was only one of the things that made the second floor of the house much more akin to the actual inside of a home than the floor beneath it. The hung curtains, cherry blossom and cinnamon scent, and family portraits that decorated the walls also made it feel lived in. It served as the personal residence of the Atlanta sect’s leader, who was required to live at the city’s headquarters, and his family.
Bennett’s wife was named Charissa. Like him, she was a Nephilim. They also had two kids, a boy and a girl, both of whom would follow in their parents’ footsteps because it was their destiny from birth to do so.
The intimate second floor landing was a place most of the sect’s members never dared to venture. Our Sect Leader was by all standards fair in his dealings with the individuals he led, but he was also a hardened, ornery sonofabitch when it came to getting his way and did not lightly abide his authority being questioned. He would accept your input on drafting the rules and deciding where the lines in the sand were drawn, but once they’d been agreed upon, that word became law and he’d see to it that it was upheld. If you even toed the line that had been drawn in the sand, he would rip into you, and if you smooth crossed the line, he would not hesitate to literally rip you a new one.
For that reason, all sect members respected and trusted Bennett as their leader, but his presence was too intimidating for most of them to remain in it longer than necessary. Which was why not too many people ever became close to Bennett Dubose or his family.
The second floor was their private sanctuary and the only reason for a person to be on it was if they intimately knew the Duboses. Not many did, but it wasn’t because they were ugly, or pretentiously snobby about their lofty position within the Society. They were quite the opposite in fact. Perhaps the most welcoming, down to earth people I’d ever met. Most Society members just never gave themselves the chance to see that side of them because they were too intimidated by the rigidly stern air Bennett had about himself.
In truth, Bennett was mostly bark and little bite. Underneath all the layers of scariness was a curly, soft teddy bear. I smiled, amused by what Bennett’s reaction to that description of him would be if I ever said it to his face. He would probably look at me in outrage, then snarl and beat his chest just to make a point.
Bennett, Charissa and their children were like family to me. They’d both been childhood friends with my father and though he’d broken with the Society when I was born, the three had remained close. They’d even inducted my mother into their trio, turning it into a quartet. When my parents died, Bennett and Charissa made it a point help fill the void that they left, becoming a second, and very, very cool, set of parents to me. And when they eventually had kids of their own, they still didn’t push me to the sidelines. They would have even tried convincing my grandparents to let them adopt me, but Bennett knew that growing up in The Society was something my dad did not want for me.
He left The Society when I was barely a few hours old, but I was never ignorant of its existence, my lineage, or his past involvement in it.
At thirteen, the age that children who grew up in The Society start training to hunt down daemons, I’d gone to Bennett and told him that I wanted to start training too. He’d said no, Dad wouldn’t want it. I’d pestered, then begged, then pleaded with him to change his mind. A full month went by and he still would not budge.
Then I switched tactics. I pled my case to Charissa and made it a strong one— not being in The Society didn’t make me any less of a Nephilim or a target. My father’s untimely demise proved that. Better I learn how to protect myself and have a fighting chance when a daemon happened upon me than be caught completely helpless and unable to defend myself. No one in The Society thought my parents’ deaths were by chance. A daemon attack like that wasn’t something that just happened as a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We all knew my dad had been targeted, but nobody ever discovered why. Who’s to say the daemons that attacked my parents won’t come back for me one day to finish the job, I’d told Charissa. She’d taken my renewed plea to Bennett with the new light I’d shed on it along with some feminine wiles of her own, and he finally relented and let me start training.
My grandparents did not and could not know about The Society though. I’d needed an excuse for not coming directly home after school and staying out for hours at a time. So I pretended to have gotten a job after school in the city, and yeah that went over just as well with my grandmother as I knew it would.
Sinclairs do not work menial jobs and what other type of job is there for a teenager to do? Is how she’d responded. My grandfather, however, had supported it, saying it would build character and help instill a strong work ethic in me. I trained with the rest of The Society children who’d turned thirteen that year and at eighteen, along with everyone in my training class, I became a full fledged, active member of The Society of Nephilim.
I didn’t bother to knock on the partially closed door that lead into Bennett’s office. He stood off to the side of his desk, speaking with Frank, his second-in-command about something. He was turned to the side, giving me a profile view, but even that was broad and commanding.
“Alex,” he said mid-sentence of whatever it was he discussed. He waived a hand dismissing Frank and telling him they would resume the conversation later.
If I was into older guys and he wasn’t like a father to me, the sight of looking at Bennett straight on would have stolen my breath away. Bennett was in his mid-forties but his looks seemed to linger somewhere around thirty five, giving him a virile yet distinguished appearance. Add the toned muscles that had had years to be sculpted to perfection and any other woman besides me would call him sexy. He looked like a middle-aged Chris Hemsworth in Thor.
No sooner than I’d taken two steps into the room, he was on me with lightning speed, gingerly gripping my chin between his thumb and forefinger and turning my head to the side.
“What in the fuck happened?” His voice was a low rumble laced with menace.
“I was patrolling in Five Points. I lured a daemon into an alley and killed him. Then out of nowhere another daemon showed up, but this one…” I hesitated not sure if Bennett would actually believe what I was about to say. “He was a Brethren. I know that sounds crazy because all of our history books and ancient texts say that all of the Brethren that escaped hell were rooted out and sent back by the Archangels when they came to Earth, but I know what I saw. His pupils were dilated but also ringed in silver and he had black wings and fangs.” My voice rose to near panic as I tried to convince Bennett as well as myself of the truth of my words. Then it dipped to something sad and broken, nearly defeated. “He came at me quicker than I could track or react to. Before I knew what was happening his fangs were tearing into my neck. I only got away because I think… I think the feeding distracted him. I emptied 15 rounds into his side. It didn’t take him down, but it dazed him long enough for me to get away. I think I was hurt…really bad. I collapsed on Peachtree and the only reason I’m standing right now talking to you is because another Nephilim, the new transfer, found me.” I sucked in a deep breath, winded.
Bennett leveled his gaze with mine and strangely, he wasn’t telling me that I was crazy, that the Brethren no longer walked the human world and had not done so in a long time. Instead, despite his rigidly calm posture, terror for me and what could have become of me moved within his eyes. He stepped around me and crossed the room to where the door of his office lay ajar. He soundlessly shut it then wal
ked back to stand beside me at his desk. He motioned to one of the two stairs in front of it. “Sit down, Alex.”
I sank into one chair and he sank into the other.
Once his weight was supported by it, his in-control exterior cracked. His shoulders slumped and his large body seemed to fold a little into itself. He scrubbed one hand through shoulder length blonde hair. When he spoke, his voice was thick with guilt. “This is my fault. You could have died last night and it would have been all my fault. I’d have failed you and your father and my wife who would feel the pain of your death as if it were one of her own children. God, Alex, I’m sorry. I fucked up. I should have told you sooner, as soon as I found out, but I didn’t want to add any more shit to your shoulders than you already carry.”
I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but it scared the shit out of me all the same.
“There is a prophecy. Michael, the Commander of the Archangels himself spoke it to us. He appeared incorporeally outside of your mother’s hospital room mere minutes after you were born and said that another war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness will be fought soon. It will be fought for dominion over humans and the Earth they inhabit and will take place on this plane. He said that you will fight in it and in the end you will die, but it will be the sacrifice that you choose to make before you do that decides the outcome. Michael’s prophecy is the real reason your father left The Society. From the time he knew your mother was pregnant with you, he talked to me about how he wanted his child to have what he didn’t— a normal, full life. But he had not yet made the decision to break with us until the absolute certainty of the forfeiture of your life was foretold to him. He reasoned if you weren’t raised in The Society, if you never became an active member of it, then you’d never be involved in the fight that is to come. You cannot die in a battle which you are not a part of. That same day Michael also told us that Brethren still walk the Earth, and the Archangels had only recently discovered it. He didn’t know how they managed to do it or how they managed to hide their continued presence on Earth for so long. He said their presence didn’t concern us and cautioned us against making the knowledge widespread among The Society. There was nothing Nephilim could do about them. We weren’t created to rival them. Only daemons. He said the Archangels would take care of it. We chose not to tell anyone else in The Society for fear that it might further endanger your life. There are those among us who border on fanatical and might think it wise to eliminate the threat you will pose before you can even pose it.”
Craved: A Chosen Ones Novel Page 3