Transgression

by Brandy C. Ange

  Olivier gulped.

  “She still has Nephilim blood,” Amelia argued in a reasonable tone. Bale softened when she spoke. “Surely she could at least try holding a blade to see.”

  “For the council, it is not only a matter of Achaia’s safety that she remain ignorant,” Bale said firmly. “The matter is not up for debate.”

  “What? Do they think Achaia would wage war on the council or something?” Olivier laughed. His laugher stopped when he was met with a serious look from Bale.

  “They couldn’t possibly,” Emile gawked.

  “She was not raised Nephilim. She has much to understand, and prove, before she can be trusted. In addition, she is unaffiliated, and half human…” Bale listed her transgressions, be them of her own doing or not, “as such, she is a liability,” Bale said sternly. “This argument is finished.” Bale laid his hand down on the table firmly, though not striking it.

  Achaia sat back a little stunned. She met Olivier’s eye across the table. His face screamed that this was unjust, but he remained silent. Emile was staring incredulously at Bale, Amelia was gesturing for Yellaina not to pursue the issue, as Yellaina looked like she was about to speak. Noland, however, was staring into his plate of leftover pirozhki, apparently submissive, but Achaia wondered if he wasn’t just deep in thought. She remembered, too well, the way he had stood up for her in front of the council, to think he would cower before this one man. Unless, of course, he agreed with him… Achaia winced at the thought.

  “If you are all full, you are dismissed. I trust you are capable enough of working out your own schedules.” Bale stood abruptly and left the room without another word.

  15

  Of Heritage and Hate

  “Train yourself to let go of

  everything you fear to lose.”

  -Yoda

  They only sat in silence for a moment, staring at each other, when Amelia pushed back her chair and stood up, “follow me.”

  Without question, Achaia pushed her own chair back, threw her napkin on her plate and stood. The tiny servant girl from before entered the room to clear the table, as they were leaving. “Where is your library?” Amelia asked her.

  The girl looked a little lost. Amelia looked to Yellaina, who repeated the question in Russian. The girl responded, and Yellaina gave them her directions in English. Achaia followed Amelia down several halls and flights of stairs into a grand and beautiful entrance hall, nothing similar to the way they had come. This room was bright, and airy with a dome shaped ceiling. The walls were ornately clad in gold, and the staircase they entered on was mirrored on the other side with one equally massive, which they climbed to exit.

  The east wing was colder than the west wing, and obviously less lived in. After a few more haunted looking halls, they reached a set of heavy looking double doors that were engraved with angels, the way the servant had described. Amelia pushed the dusty doors open to reveal the most stunning and abandoned library Achaia had ever seen. The ceiling was higher here than even the entry hall. The walls were lined with books. The only spot of wall not covered with thousands of dusty old books was an enormous fireplace. Like the rest of the house, it was a work of art. A mosaic of tile, it looked like, buried under the dust and cobwebs. Achaia could stand in the fireplace, it was so large, without hitting her head.

  “I’ll have to ask the servants to clean this room if we are to use it for lessons,” Amelia coughed on the dust. The room smelled musty like mildew. Aside from the walls, there were rows and rows of shelves holding even more books. There were also tables with ornate candle sticks, and yet more stacks of books. In front of the fire, and by the windows there were sets of overstuffed arm chairs. The windows themselves were so filthy, they hardly let in any light from outside. The room was cold, and felt a little like the set of a horror film.

  Achaia laughed to herself and took out her phone. “Have you ever seen The Blair Witch Project?” Amelia shook her head, but when she looked over and saw the phone in Achaia’s hand, she laughed. The two huddled together next to one of the book shelves and stared into Achaia’s camera.

  “We found the library,” Achaia whispered, taking a few stuttering breaths. “I’m so scared.” Achaia muffled her laugh in her hand, so it sounded like a scared sort of wine.

  “I can’t breathe. It’s too… dusty.” Amelia looked frantically around at the room, shaking the camera.

  “And dark. It’s…” Achaia shuddered, putting her face absurdly close to the camera. “It’s really dark.” She looked into the camera so that it was a close up of her eye, then her nose. She breathed heavily.

  Amelia snickered, then grabbed Achaia’s hand, holding the phone. “What’s that?” Amelia shrieked, shaking the phone before stopping the recording.

  Achaia laughed and sent the video to Olivier, who she knew would get a nerdy kick out of it.

  Amelia chuckled as she walked over to the fire place and grabbed something from the mantel and knelt down. Within a few minutes there was a fire going, illuminating the room. With one of the foot-long, oversized matches, Amelia walked around the room lighting more candles.

  Achaia could finally make the room out for what it was, rather than a series of shadows. She followed Amelia’s lead and took a seat at one of the tables. The stacks of books piled before her looked like they lived inside teepees of dust and cobwebs.

  Amelia crinkled her nose, and sat very still, trying not to touch more than was necessary. “Right…” she rolled her eyes. “I think before we start on the political structure of the Nephilim here on earth, you should probably understand where the Nephilim fit into the Heavenly infrastructure.”

  Achaia nodded and put her phone away. She didn’t actually know what Amelia was talking about, but she assumed it made sense and was right, anyway.

  “In Heaven, there is of course God. God is composed of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Thank the Lord it isn’t my job to explain that to you,” Amelia sighed in relief.

  “Yeah I already tried to take a bite out of that apple on the train. I think plain ol’ acceptance might be best on that front.” Achaia tossed up her hands in a show of surrender.

  Amelia nodded. “Well, think of Him as the star on top of a Christmas tree. Beneath Him, in a sort of triangle structure, there are three, what we call Choirs. Closest to God is the Nephilim. Well, those still in Heaven,” Amelia shrugged. “Just beneath them in rank are the Seraphim, like Naphtali, and beneath them are the Cherubim. Those three make up the first choir.”

  “Cherubim like Cupid?” Achaia asked.

  Amelia shook her head violently. “No. No. No.” She waved her hand in the air as if she could erase what had just come out of Achaia’s mouth. “I see we have some unlearning to do first,” Amelia smiled. “You’re learning about Nephilim, so I’ll leave that for now. Seraphim are warriors, like us. But they are a different breed. They are sometimes referred to as fiery serpents.”

  “And for good reason,” Achaia said nodding.

  “I take it Naphtali revealed himself to you?” Amelia asked.

  Achaia raised her eyebrows and laughed.

  “Not like that!” Amelia said swatting at Achaia’s arm.

  Achaia nodded and snickered.

  “Okay then,” Amelia laughed. “Cherubim are sphinx-like angels. They are full of wisdom. They are our historians, healers, and record keepers in Heaven. They keep the Lords annals. Yellaina’s mother is actually a Cherubim, not a Nephilim. Which may be why she has a non-combative gift, and why she chooses not to train.”

  Achaia nodded, that would make sense.

  “Beneath them are the three breeds that make up the second choir. The Thrones, they are governors and liaisons. The Dominions, managers…” Amelia waved a hand, “and the Virtues. The Virtues take care of creation. They nurture the earth. They are present in things like science…”

  Achaia nodded. “Like gravity?”

  Amelia huffed a laugh. “More like light.”

  �
�Right… another thing to just accept,” Achaia made a big check in the air with her finger.

  “And then there’s the third choir which is made up of the Powers, who are like border patrol in the heavens. The Principalities, they are overseers. And then the bottom of the totem are the Archangels, they are influencers of man. They mix and mingle with humanity inspiring the Lords will, and occasionally bearing messages to them.”

  “We don’t do that?” Achaia asked.

  Amelia looked like she was tempted to be offended, but knew Achaia just didn’t know any better. “No. We are more than messengers.”

  “That sounds like a band name,” Achaia smiled.

  Amelia rolled her eyes, but laughed.

  After about an hour of Achaia badgering Amelia with questions about all the breeds of angles, and Amelia finally breaking down and drawing a diagram (on a blank page ripped from the back of an ancient-looking book) for Achaia to study, the library doors opened.

  Olivier walked in, and looked about the room, taking it all in. “Wow. It really is like the set of an exorcist movie.”

  “Well I guess I’m being relieved.” Amelia stood, and brushed off her clothes, as if she felt like she had grown dusty sitting there.

  “Yeah, Noland said you should report to the training room,” Olivier said taking Amelia’s seat. “He’s waiting for you.”

  “When do I get to start training?” Achaia asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Olivier smiled. “I’m your last lesson for today. After this, we’ll have some downtime before dinner.”

  Amelia left, closing the doors behind her.

  Olivier looked at Achaia with a conspiring smile. “There’s a book shop a couple blocks from here, I was thinking of going to check it out; see if they have any comic books!” Olivier looked so excited Achaia couldn’t help but smile. “I would love a copy of The Green Arrow in Russian for my collection.”

  “Nerd,” Achaia laughed, “That sounds awesome though! Do you think I’m allowed to leave? Bale told me to keep to my room.”

  “What Bale doesn’t know won’t hurt me,” Olivier smirked.

  Achaia laughed. “Okay then, how do we sneak out?”

  “We’ll figure out a way, for now, we speak of duty.” Olivier put on his super serious (yet I’m not really that serious) face.

  “Right, tell me Obi Wan, how does one become a Guardian of humanity,” Achaia leaned forward on her elbows, as if truly intrigued.

  “Well it’s a bit like becoming a Guardian of the Galaxy, but we don’t officially have an awesome soundtrack. Though, I myself have a pretty great playlist I train to…”

  Achaia laughed. “Step one: Create training playlist.” Achaia took notes on her phone.

  Olivier nodded importantly. “Step two: Train hard.”

  Achaia nodded seriously. “Of course!”

  “Step three: Get assigned a ‘Charge’”.

  “Okay, so a Charge is the person you are assigned to protect? Who assigns those?” Achaia asked, seriously.

  “Well, the order comes from God, only He knows who is going to play important roles, and need the extra security. We don’t even get told why they are important or what they are meant to do, I guess it’s like time travel, and knowing too much could change things?” Olivier shrugged. “We just get told who to protect, and are expected to follow orders and not ask questions.” Olivier’s mouth puckered in a way that made Achaia think that didn’t sit so well with him.

  “So is there, like, a designated person who talks to God, who divvies out orders? How is it decided which Nephilim gets assigned to which human?”

  “The high elders of the council receive revelation from God and give specific Nephilim their designated Charges, God lays out who needs to go where. They usually receive messages through Archangels, or sometimes, dreams.”

  “So at some point some guy was told that Noland was supposed to protect me, and then he told Noland, and then Noland just tracked me down?” Achaia absentmindedly drug her finger through the dust on the table top as she processed, sketching stick figures.

  “Actually it was my father. He had a dream, and knew that we needed to assimilate into the human school. So we did. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that he called and said he had been visited by an Archangel who said that Noland had received his first charge, and that it was the daughter of Shael ben Yahweh. You can imagine how pleased the council was with that! I think they were all kind of hoping that Noland would screw things up, as a first-timer.” A shadow of anger crossed Olivier’s face. Achaia had never seen him so seriously angry. “Douches.”

  Achaia nodded in agreement.

  “Right, so back to Guardians, and Charges…”

  “Yes! Okay, so when you are assigned a Charge, you have to be careful. It is a bit like being a spy; you have to meet them seemingly naturally. The establishment of the relationship has to be organic, to earn their trust. You have to actually end up caring about your Charge, which is what motivates you to protect them.”

  “Like Noland puts so much effort into caring about me!” Achaia said sarcastically.

  “Noland can be hard to read. But if you keep an eye on the subtleties, I think you’d be surprised.” Olivier looked serious.

  “For someone whose spiritual gift is fire, he isn’t really the warm fuzzy type,” Achaia said.

  “I suspect he is the all-or-nothing, super passionate, type,” Olivier said speculatively. “He is one of the very few Nephilim who has really experienced emotional pain on a deep level. He has learned to be more guarded than the rest of us. I’ve known him since I was ten, and I still can’t ever tell what he is thinking. Makes him a little scary…” Olivier started talking more to himself than to Achaia.

  Achaia noticed she was chewing on her bottom lip when she tasted salt. “So Charges. You spy your way into their lives, like a creeper, stalk them until you actually become friends, then what?”

  Olivier smiled. “You protect them at all costs. Since we don’t know what it is exactly they are supposed to do, we try to stay out of the way; just encourage them to really be themselves, the best version of themselves. Then someday, we are assigned a new Charge. We assume the current has fulfilled their purpose, and we leave.”

  “You just leave them?” Achaia asked.

  “That’s the hard part of the job, so I hear, and the best outcome,” Olivier frowned. “The worst is, you lose them. Then you’re assigned a new Charge.”

  “Lose them as in…”

  “They die,” Olivier said somberly. He looked down at his hands, fingers laced together on the table. He twiddled his thumbs, and Achaia lost herself just watching them. “On that note,” Olivier chimed back in cheerfully. “Let’s go in search of Russian comics!” Olivier stood, his chair screeching loudly as if in protest.

  Achaia smiled weakly, but stood to follow him. “How are we going to get out?”

  “Old buildings like this always have servant passages, where they could come and go without being seen… we find those, we find freedom.” He smiled mischievously. “You with me Frenchy?”

  A devilish smile spread across Achaia’s lips. “Lead the way!”

  By the time Achaia got back to her room, she was freezing and exhausted. It had taken her and Olivier an hour to find the bookstore, and then it hadn’t even had any comic books. Though Olivier did buy a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in Russian “to help with the language emersion.”

  Achaia was still full from lunch, and decided to skip dinner. Olivier said he would cover for her and create some excuse. Achaia wasn’t sure if Bale would be happy to not have to see her, or if this would just give him more reason to be suspicious.

  She spent the night in solitude and deep thought, trying to figure out if there was any way around the allegiance-pledging. She tried to come up with a way to find her father without the help of the council, or accepting the demon, John’s offer. Her best bet was Naphtali, but she still hadn’t heard back from him at all,
and was starting to worry that something had happened to him.

  She curled into herself in her bed, and pulled her covers up, shivering in the cold. She sighed before climbing out of her bed to mend the fire, jabbing at it with the iron poker. It faught nobly, but was still slowly dying out. She didn’t have any spare wood to throw in, and didn’t know where to find any.

  Finally, she tugged the thin blankets off her bed, and curled up with them on the floor in front of the fire. It had to be at least one in the morning, she didn’t want to wake anyone up, asking for help, like a child who had had a nightmare. Achaia determined to herself, that should she not be able to save her father, she would have to learn to start making it on her own.

  Noland nocked on Achaia’s door and waited, but there was no answer. He tried the handle, and found it was unlocked. He pushed it open a crack and saw that Achaia was not in her bed. “Achaia?”

  He opened the door the rest of the way, peeking hesitantly in case she was dressing. “Achaia?” Noland looked down. There was a mound of sheets and tattered blankets on the floor in front of the smothered ashes in the fireplace. Noland felt a pang of sadness in his chest. No one should have to have slept like that. When he spoke to try and wake her, he forced his voice to sound casual, “Missed sleeping on the floor, did you?”

  Achaia shifted, and pulled the blanket away from her face. There were black smudges on it from the ashes. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Good morning to you as well,” Noland said smiling. “You’ll want to wash up before breakfast.” He pointed at her face. Her red hair was a rat’s nest tangled at the back of her head. He suspected there was a hair tie in there somewhere, but he couldn’t see one.

  Noland offered Achaia a hand, which she took, and helped her to her feet. She twisted left and right, cracking her back and stretching.

  “Why didn’t you come get me to fix that for you?” Noland asked pointing to the fire place.

  “I can’t always be asking you to fix everything for me,” She said picking her blankets back up and making her bed. “It wasn’t that bad.”