The Nephilim

by Greg Curtis

  The official story was that she'd taken a tumble during the battle, but everyone knew the truth. Everyone except the outsiders of course. If they had known the truth they would never have believed it. Not just because of the whole angels thing. But because it was simply wrong to punish someone for acting in self defence. She hadn't even killed anyone. Both men were crippled but alive and in custody. But trying to earn her any mercy from the Choir was like trying to hold a river back with a tea spoon. It wasn't going to happen.

  Patricia's office was full when he arrived. Apparently the deputy director hadn't travelled alone. The office was in fact filled with men in dark suits, much like Garrick’s usual attire. But at least they seemed relaxed, sitting around in her thick leather chairs with cups of tea, chatting amiably.

  That easy mood however, changed the moment Garrick walked in. Whatever pleasant conversation that had been going on before abruptly died. Instead, as one they all turned to stare at him with long faces, and he had the worrying feeling that they were about to tell him that he had a dog and that it had just died.

  “Deputy Director.”

  He greeted his guest politely and nodded to the others as well, not knowing who they were. And then he waited to learn whatever bad news it was that they had come to bring him.

  But of course that had to wait. There were the normal routines to go through, most of which revolved around asking how he was getting on with his injuries and the children. Patricia had told them that he was helping out with grief counselling and would in time help them beef up their security. While the story was given to help to explain why he was currently staying at the school he'd left ten years before, it was also sadly true.

  What Patricia hadn't said and what he also hadn't yet told them, was that he wouldn't be returning to the bureau. That could wait until the time was right, and for the moment he was still on full salary. In truth he didn't want to tell them. His plan, though it felt a little shady, was to fail the physicals and get himself kicked out on disability. Given the number of shooting injuries he was taking lately it wouldn't be hard for anyone to believe. Unless of course by some miracle the Choir could be convinced to change their minds. But that really would be a miracle.

  It was some time before anyone actually managed to get around to discussing the reason for their visit. And when they did they began with a question that came out of left field.

  “Special Agent have you had any problems with your home?”

  “Problems? With my home?” He didn't know what the man was getting at. “Apart from the fact that there are press staked out around it day and night?”

  “No. I meant electrical issues, water failures, gas issues. That sort of thing.”

  “No.” Garrick shook his head wondering why he was asking. “The house is a few years old but it's still in pretty good shape.”

  “Any strangers around your home?”

  “Of course.” Garrick couldn't work out why they would even ask such a question. “The press have been camped outside my home for over a month. That's why I've not been staying there. Why?”

  “Because at six o'clock this morning your house blew up.”

  Patricia gasped, Maricia turned pale and Garrick felt suddenly weak.

  “Blew up?” He asked though he didn't really want to. It was just his brain working on automatic as he tried to make sense of what he was being told.

  “A gas explosion that turned the entire house into a fire ball and shook the neighbourhood. Some of the photographers staking out your home were injured as they sat in their cars. A couple of your neighbour's roofs caught fire. And your house was completely destroyed.”

  One thing about the deputy director, Garrick thought – he didn't sugar coat things.

  “We can't prove it yet. The arson investigators haven't finished. But initial thoughts are that a device was fitted to your gas line with a cell phone trigger. We're guessing someone was watching the house and waiting for you to return there. Apparently something went wrong and it was triggered early.”

  As the deputy director gave him the details, Garrick just sat there growing more and more shocked. It was surreal. It was just too much. And he could also feel a touch of hysteria just starting to leak around the corner of his mind. Eventually it started to force itself out.

  “I'm homeless?” He had to work hard to suppress the hysterical laughter that was trying to burst free from him as he said it. It wasn't easy.

  The deputy director nodded, uncomfortably. “Your truck was destroyed as well.”

  His truck too? That just seemed a little too much to Garrick.

  “Let me get this straight. I've been shot three times. My career's in ruins. My reputation is shot. I'm a laughing stock on the nightly news. This nut case has tried to murder me three, no make that four times. And now I'm homeless? And carless?”

  He couldn't believe it. Even as he listed off the catalogue of misfortunes that had plagued him for the last few months or so and knew they were real, he still couldn't quite seem to believe they had happened. It just wasn't real. It couldn't be.

  “We can't prove that this has anything to do with Benedict.”

  Of course they couldn't. But everyone in the room knew it was his doing. Who else could it possibly be? Still, Garrick managed to hold back the sarcastic reply that was trying to rip itself loose from him.

  “Deputy Director, could you please just catch this bastard!”

  What else was there to say? It seemed that Benedict was remorseless and somehow always capable. Even when his back was against the wall he was deadly. That, Garrick just didn't understand. How could a man on the run, a man low on funds and friends both, with his face plastered on the nightly news and a huge reward on his head, organise a bombing? That was just too much. The thief was simply too good. Too good to be normal.

  Naturally the others told him that they were on to Benedict. That they would catch him soon. It was only a matter of time. And then they told him about how many agents from how many different agencies were out there looking for him. In short, they told him exactly what he would have told them had the situation been reversed. And though he listened politely Garrick didn't want to hear it. It was all bullshit.

  In time the questions started up again, and Garrick tried to answer them as best he could. Most of them were little more than polite conversation. A few had barbs in them as they tried to work out his plans. Ironically enough they were worried that he might go a little rogue and start hunting down Benedict himself. Meanwhile Garrick was starting to wonder if there was any hope for him. Benedict was on the run, low on funds and places to hide, frightened, and yet still he'd now managed to arrange three serious attempts on his life while in that mess. It seemed almost impossible. But Garrick had to wonder; if Benedict had managed this, what else could he do? Was there actually any way to stop him trying to kill him? Or would he eventually succeed?

  A little later, as he headed back to the classroom feeling more than a little sorry for himself, it suddenly occurred to him that had he not been ordered here to Olmstead he might well have gone home briefly to pick up some fresh clothes or his mail. He might well have been there when someone pressed the button. The fact that he wasn't was due to Cassie. That made him wonder.

  Had she been dancing with him? Unable to tell him that his home was about to be bombed because if she did she would then deny the bomber his free will. Unable to stop the bomber from pressing his button for the same reason. But able to keep him out of the way. He could ask her he supposed. Perhaps he would in time. Perhaps after he headed down to the sheriff's station and arranged a new gun for himself – she hated that he carried a gun but it was a comfort to him. But he doubted he'd get a straight answer from her. An honest one? Yes. But one that was of any use to him? No.

  Still, maybe the Choir had their uses.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Garrick sat in the senior student's garden on one of the benches, letting the cool of the night wash over him. The stude
nts were in bed, the academy was asleep, and he was probably the only one still awake. After the news he'd been given that day he simply couldn't sleep. His career was gone – and so was his privacy. His reputation had been shredded until he had become a laughing stock across the country. And now his home and his truck were gone as well. It was as if the last ten years of his life had simply been wiped away, And all because he had been asked to take a girl to school. It just wasn't fair.

  All afternoon thoughts had been churning in his head. Dark thoughts that had nothing to do with law and order, and everything to do with revenge. Thoughts he could never act on. But in amongst the darkness there was one thought that troubled him more than any other. One that had plagued him ever since this nightmare had begun. And one that had to be answered before he could finally end it.

  It was time.

  “Cassie?”

  “You should be asleep child.” Her voice came out of nowhere.

  “And you should be here. We're in the end game now, and I need to finish the hunt. But before I do I need one question answered. You know the question.”

  She did know it. She'd been carefully avoiding answering it from the start. Just as he'd avoided asking it for the most part. But perhaps the most telling admission of hers was that she hadn't objected when he'd said he was going to hunt Benedict again. She knew he had to. Just as she knew what he needed to know to do it.

  “You want to know about Armando Benedict.” She appeared in front of him, looking somehow even more serious than usual. Maybe it was the way the moonlight carved deep shadows into her face.

  “I need to know what he is, because the one thing I do know is that he's not normal. He has a gift. One I've never encountered before. He hunts secrets. He perverts people in some way. He finds weaknesses and exploits them.”

  “He does have a gift. But he's not nephilim and he's not Diogenes. He's normal.”

  “So he's a descendant?”

  It was the only other thing he could be. A descendant who hadn't joined Diogenes. But whose blood had somehow retained the gift. It could happen. He was no expert in genetics, but if there was a chance that a gift could be passed down through the generations, even when the nephilim blood was incredibly diluted, than that was what he had to be. A sport. A throw back. He wasn't surprised when Cassie nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “Then he should be capable of seeing you?”

  “Capable yes. But he refuses.”

  “There's more isn't there?” He knew there was, even if he didn't know what it was. He could feel it in the scent of the thief. And he could almost see it in the angel. And when he thought about it, it was also there in her words. How could Benedict refuse to see?

  “He's a mistake. Our mistake. Sometimes we lose sight of the rules even when we know we cannot ever allow that to happen.”

  Garrick said nothing. He knew the truth was coming and he didn't want to interrupt it with questions. He waited patiently.

  “We have many rules that we must obey. Many that you don't know about as well as the ones that you do. And one of those rules is that we must never have relations with nephilim or their descendants. The consequences can be dire. And we never share our love with those who are too young. The damage can be too great for them to recover from.”

  “But that was what happened. Armando was sixteen. Small and weak. And he was in trouble and being chased by some older youths with knives. He cried out for help, and one of our number went to him, thinking to guide him to safety. She was young and like all young, less able to steer a proper path in life. So instead of doing what she should, instead of obeying the rules, she went to him.”

  “Although you believe we have abandoned you and choose to leave you at the mercy of those who would do you harm, we have not. We are just bound by the rules. Rules that we know are right. We hope those rules will protect you, and sometimes when they are not enough, we dance as you put it. But the one thing we know for certain is that when we disobey the rules, it can end very badly. This is what happened. One of our number tried to dance with Armando. To help him. But then when her work was done, she forgot the rules. She was too young. And because of her youth a mistake happened.”

  “And from that mistake everything that has gone wrong has followed.”

  In the moonlight and shadows Cassie's face looked somehow almost alien. As though she was wearing a mask. But in that moment he almost thought he saw a shadow of regret flicker across it. A trace of humanity.

  “There was a child produced from the union, a nephilim with a gift greater than any your people have ever seen. A gift the child was unable to handle. That child is with us still, being cared for. But he will never walk among your people.”

  He'd never been going to was Garrick's understanding. Those who were raised by their mothers in the Choir did not ever walk with them. But he had to wonder if maybe there was something else in what she was saying. Something bad. Maybe one day he'd ask.

  “Armando was also affected greatly. Terribly. His gift was awakened and transformed. He was born with the gift for reading the soul, and had the mistake not been made he would perhaps have become a capable healer of the mind in time. But after he lay with our sister his gift blossomed into something far more than that. You call it the hunting of secrets. But it is not truly that. That is just what he uses it for. It is the gift of knowing. When Armando sees another he can know not just his soul but his thoughts. He can see what is hidden.”

  She was talking about a telepath Garrick realised. And not just a simple mind reader. There were several gifts among the people that ran along those lines, the most common being the gift of the one heart or empathy. There were many who could know another's feelings. There were a few who could speak without words, speaking the silent tongue as it was called. But she was talking about more than that. Benedict could see everything within a mind.

  Garrick shuddered a little at the thought. To see what was hidden in a mind, even those things that were not being thought of; that was a powerful ability. And in the wrong hands it was a dangerous one. Very dangerous.

  Benedict's were of course, the very definition of the wrong hands. And knowing what he was Garrick could suddenly see how Benedict had done what he had done. The knowledge of people's thoughts gave him access to passwords and codes, to organizations, and most dangerous of all, to the hidden secrets in people's lives. That was power. Power he had used to manipulate the Treasury agents. Using his gift to find their fears and then using those fears to turn them into weapons against him. But it was in Detective Warren that Garrick could suddenly see the full power of his gift used badly. The detective was a good man and a good officer. But he had been broken. That was why the marks written in his soul by Benedict had been so deep. He had used his gift against him. He had done what no nephilim was allowed to. And he could not be stopped because he was not a nephilim.

  “But as Armando's gift was awakened, the other consequences of the union also occurred,” Cassie carried on. “For a time he lost his reason. And when it returned he was not the child he had been.”

  “Your doctors call it post traumatic shock. But it is truly not. It is simply the consequence of the mind being exposed to that which it is not ready for. That which it can never truly comprehend. Some – most – shy away from that knowledge instinctively. It becomes a terror in their minds that they cannot face. But Armando's gift was in the reading of souls. He not only could not shy away, he saw far more deeply than others could. And because he was so young, that knowledge destroyed him.”

  “What now walks in the body of Armando Benedict today is not the man he was intended to become. Instead he is a truly broken man. But also someone who has pushed all of that terror aside and replaced it with narcissism. Uncontrollable, unmitigated narcissism. It is a need within him. He uses it to drive away the fear. And it is why he will not stop. It is not the wealth that drives him. The wealth is only the façade. It is the sense of triumph. Of accomplishment. It is that which domina
tes his soul and which he must have.”

  “His gift works only partially. It would work perfectly if his mind were not so damaged. But it works well enough when he has a goal to achieve.”

  “And while we whisper to him as we do with all those who have free will, it does not work with him. Because while he can see us as can the other descendants, at his most primal level he refuses to acknowledge what his eyes show him. We can stand right in front of him, talk to him, and know his eyes see us and his ears hear our words, and yet he will know nothing of us. To him we are a part of that great and dark part of his mind that he can never face. So he pushes us away in his fear. He makes himself blind and deaf to us. And he concentrates only on his need. It is the only thing within his soul that he can make sense of, and so it becomes everything to him. And as long as he concentrates on it he does not have to think on the rest.”