“That was you.”
“You allowed it, Solomon. You could have repelled me at any time. You had the strength before I changed the world, just as you did afterward, but you waited. Why? Because you wanted it. You wanted all those people to die.”
He’s trying to make me upset. And it’s not working. I have been freed of my guilt. His tactic can’t work. He must see it, so why is he—
He’s keeping me talking.
The shofar’s hiding place is behind him!
I glance around him quickly and see a tendril snaking out toward the alcove. It’s almost there!
I propel myself forward, swinging the flaming sword in an arc, not so much to strike Nephil, but to force him into action. He lunges to the side, pulling himself just out of reach. I circle the monster, keeping track of its ten black tentacles. Three cling to the ceiling, the rest flail about like agitated snakes. But one still reaches for the alcove. That’s where I focus my attack.
I feign a charge at Nephil. He drops back and leaves the single limb exposed. A gust of wind carries me sideways, and I swing without looking. I feel nothing as the blade slices through the air, but Nephil suddenly lets loose a scream that is unlike anything I’ve ever heard before—one part human shriek, one part...something else. The scream of a demon.
It’s so charged with energy that I think Nephil has never truly experienced pain before. He once had a Nephilim body, a warrior like the others, but pain is a delight to them. And it wasn’t Ninnis’s body that I cut, so the pain he’s feeling isn’t human pain.
I look to the side and see the severed two-foot length of tendril turn to dust, scattered by the wind holding me aloft.
I didn’t just remove a limb. I cut away part of his spirit.
I could kill him. It would be easy.
Though it would likely mean killing Ninnis, too. As the temptation grows, I realize that Nephil is right. There is still darkness in me. I might have been freed from the Nephilim corruption, but I am still human, capable of making mistakes and doing evil. But I can also turn away from it. Killing Ninnis, and Nephil, in this pure place goes against everything I’m fighting for.
But I have no problem causing the beast pain.
When I set my angry eyes back on Nephil, I see fear in his eyes. It lasts just a moment. But it was enough to swell my confidence.
With the sword held high, I charge, hacking at the air, aiming for his limbs. Each swing comes closer than the previous, but he is on the defensive now, acutely aware that this weapon poses a very real threat.
Our dance shifts across the ceiling, but never moves far from the shofar. He’s not giving up. Is the shofar really that powerful?
I swing hard at a tendril, but it pulls away just in time. The missed blow twists me in the air. Before I can right myself, a second tendril lances out like a spear. The black needle-sharp tip pierces my chest, punching through muscle and striking the bone of my ribs. A gust of wind carries me back before it can go any farther.
I wince in pain, but don’t shout. I won’t give Nephil the satisfaction. I glance at the wound. A killing shot, directly over my heart. If I’d been just a little closer...
This sword might be capable of destroying Nephil’s spirit, but he is, and always has been, capable of killing my body. We are both at risk. Nephil shifts away from me. The tendril he used to strike my chest coils back. He extends Ninnis’s tongue and swipes the tendril across it. A streak of red is left behind. My blood. He closes his mouth and revels in the taste. A smile emerges. “I will miss the taste of human blood when you are all gone. Perhaps I will keep some of your friends alive that I might drink of them.”
He charges, fueled with bloodlust. Burning with anger, I surge forward to meet him.
24
We meet like two middle school kids having a fight on the playground, flailing and striking without much thought. I’d never taken part in such a fight, but I’d witnessed a few. The outstretched striking fists, the heads leaned back in fear, the utter chaos and senselessness. The fights were violent, but rarely ended with severe injuries given the relative inexperience of the combatants.
This is not the case with Nephil and me.
Black dust sprays away as I sever the tips of his limbs.
Rivulets of blood trickle down my body as I’m cut, punctured and bludgeoned.
One of my thoughtless strikes comes close to reaching Ninnis’s head, and the monster flails back, just out of reach, but in doing so loses its grip on the ceiling. Nephil falls momentarily before a single tendril shoots up and finds purchase. I take stock of the monster. Several of the black arms are shorter than they had been. I’ve whittled down his reach. He looks tired, perhaps limited by Ninnis’s old body, though Ninnis handled it just fine.
His moment of weakness fills me with a kind of sinister anger. I could hack off the one limb and let him fall. How well could he fight while Ninnis’s body was broken? I could rush him, right now, and plunge my sword into his chest, killing them both. There are a hundred different ways I could end this fight, and maybe even the war, right here and now.
No one else needs to get hurt.
Or killed.
No other families need to be broken.
Children can stay with their parents.
The human race can recover.
And what would be the cost? The corruption of some subterranean oasis that managed to stay untouched by the Nephilim? It’s a small price to pay for the salvation of mankind.
I know this for a fact.
But I don’t believe it.
Why! I shout internally, watching Nephil recover. I’m frozen. Unable to deliver the final blow. What is it about this place that I can’t—
My subconscious does the work my conscious is unwilling to do, slipping the puzzle pieces gently together, revealing the image that I hadn’t yet considered. When the answer is revealed, I whisper, “It can’t be.”
But then I look around and realize it is.
The unspoiled landscape.
The kindly lion and the fearless deer.
The strange being. He referred to me as a “son of man,” the same language used by angels to describe men in the Bible. He called himself a Kerubim, pronouncing it Keh-roo-bim, but modern man has changed the sound and spelling to Cherubim, and picture them as naked little babies with wings. But that’s not factual. I search my encyclopedic mind for answers and find them quickly in the Hebrew Torah, collectively known as the Pentateuch—what has become the first five books of the Bible’s Old Testament. Cherubim, or Kerubim, were one of the highest orders of angels. They appeared as multi-winged, glowing beings that emanated power. Ezekiel saw them in a vision. The Ark of the Covenant held two Cherubim on its cover, laden in gold, symbols of the very power of God. The last mention of a Cherubim in the Pentateuch is the one that sucker punches me.
After sending them out, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the Garden of Eden. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
The tree.
The being...the angel...stopped us short of the tree. He was protecting it.
The full force of this revelation stuns me. My guard falters. The sword lowers.
I look at the fiery blade in my hand. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. An angel’s weapon.
Edinnu is Eden!
I look down at the jungle, staring through the mist that has grown still. Could this really be the Garden of Eden? Is this the birthplace of mankind? Is such a thing even possible? I realize, of course, that it is. I’d believe just about anything now. I used to be totally science minded, applying scientific theory to every new discovery, but I have seen, touched and battled things that make it impossible for me to not believe in a spiritual realm beyond my understanding.
That is why the animals here are kind. They aren’t just uncorrupted by the Nephilim, they aren’t corrupted at all. And that is why I
can’t kill Nephil. The story tells of the first man and woman corrupting themselves and the outside world, and as a result, all of mankind, but it doesn’t mention the garden itself being corrupted. If I killed Nephil in this place, I would bring human and Nephilim corruption to a garden in which, the story says, God himself would walk. The knowledge disarms me.
And as a result, death nearly comes to the garden anyway.
Nephil lunges at me.
I hadn’t even noticed his slow recovery.
Three tentacles flail out to my right, and I’m forced to keep them at bay. The fiery blade slices through each one of them, but the move was a sacrifice. A distraction. The real attack came in close, the weapon clutched in Ninnis’s hand. Strike. The blade slips through my chest, between two ribs and puncture’s my lung. I feel the organ deflate inside me. It’s a pain unlike anything I have felt before, not so much because it hurts—I have endured unspeakable pain—but because some instinctual part of my mind knows I am dead.
My heart still beats. My blood still carries oxygen to my brain. But the punctured lung will fill with blood, and I will die. Slowly. Like a fish out of water, I will gasp for air and never receive quite enough, until my lung fills with blood and it seeps into its healthy neighbor.
I realize all of this in an instant, but then I see the fire in Ninnis’s possessed eyes and know that I will not live long enough to drown in my own blood. With a quick, sideways yank of Strike, the beast could end me, right here and now.
But he doesn’t get the chance. The wind that holds me aloft reacts to my instincts as much as it does my thoughts. I’m carried away from the blade. I feel the thin metal slip from my chest, and the heavy blood begins to gather in my deflated lung. Feeling light headed, I take a deep breath. While one lung fills, the other makes a sick farting sound as the air slips right out of my chest.
There’s no pain now. Shock has taken over, numbing body and mind.
Nephil laughs at me. “Do not worry, Solomon. I will not let you die.”
Forgot about that. My fate won’t be death. It will be eternal enslavement to the spirit of Nephil. I’ll get to watch as the beast controls me and wipes out the rest of the human race.
As my energy falters, I glide slowly away from Nephil. He keeps pace, never letting me out of striking distance. Or catching distance, I think, realizing he doesn’t want me to fall.
“The shofar and my vessel,” he taunts. “I will soon have you both.”
“No,” I say, but it’s more of a pathetic groan.
I breathe deep. It does little. My vision spins. When I let the breath from my good lung out, it tastes of blood.
I look at the garden below and think that at least they will be spared by Nephil not letting me die. This place will always be an untouched oasis, even as the Nephilim conquer the rest of the planet. The mists part, and I see the tree and the green carpet of tall grass surrounding it. I see specks near the jungle. Kainda, Em, the Kerubim and Ookla.
I’m sorry, I think to them. I failed.
Nephil snickers, slowly closing the distance between us. As weakness overcomes me, I close my eyes and wait for his embrace.
25
A voice reaches me before Nephil can. It’s muffled. Distorted. Distant.
Em?
Kainda?
Kat?
The Kerubim? If anyone is capable of carrying their voice that far, it would be him.
It comes again. Louder, but still indistinct.
“What?” I say aloud. I’m sure the statement confuses Nephil, but the monster probably thinks I’m succumbing to delirium.
Delirium. That’s what this is. I’m hearing things. There is no voice. It’s in my head.
In your head, the voice says.
Your head. Not my head. The voice is my own, but not. It’s as though my thoughts are being projected into my mind from the outside.
Xin, is that you? I think, trying to communicate. He has reached out to me before, helping me at just the right moment. But there is no reply to the name.
Luca? Are you there? The boy can see through my eyes during times of intense stress. Is he watching now? Has he figured out a way to reverse the connection and communicate? If he has, he doesn’t have much longer to say goodbye.
I don’t hear a reply, in my ears or in my mind, but I feel it. No, the voice comes from within, but it’s not my voice. This is some kind of presence. Something other than me. In me. As the feeling radiates out through my core and down my limbs, I’m reminded of when Nephil possessed my body, but the experience is different. Where Nephil exuded anger and control, this is more peace and freedom, with a hint of suggestion.
The feeling subsides.
The voice fades.
But I experience a strange kind of, “eureka!” moment where I suddenly know what to do. There is a weapon with greater range and power than even this fiery sword, and it’s within reach, not of my hands, but of my will.
While my body weakens, my invigorated mind reaches out for the alcove. I can’t feel the horn in a traditional sense, but I can sense the tug of something resisting the breeze. I wrap my thoughts around it, lift it and pull the weapon free of its hiding place for the first time in thousands of years. Best of all, this happens behind me, out of sight.
Nephil closes in slowly, reaching for me now. “Come, Solomon. It is time to end this fight and take your place as—”
The monster’s voice catches in his throat as the shofar suddenly appears in my hands and I open my eyes. The curled ram’s horn is large, perhaps two and a half feet long, and it ends with an opening the size of a teacup’s saucer. The brown and blood red flecked exterior of the horn is scored with lines that might be natural or perhaps carved by the original owner—some ancient priest stalking around the walls of a long gone Nephilim stronghold. Despite its size, color and threatening shape, it looks wholly inadequate for defeating an enemy, human or otherwise, but I have little choice left, and that quiet whisper inside me persists.
“With the last of my breath, I will undo you.” I place the ancient weapon to my lips and blow.
Nothing happens.
I understand the workings of a shofar. It’s a horned instrument, but unlike the trumpet or tuba, it has no reed. So the user must vibrate the lips while blowing to produce a sound. And I’m doing that. Vibration isn’t the problem. It’s my lungs. I can’t push enough air with my one remaining lung to generate any kind of sound.
I watch as Nephil’s look of shock and fright morphs into elation. “Pitiful. Even with the shofar in hand, you are incapable of harnessing its power. When our bloods merge, that wound sapping your strength will be a welcome delight. Give yourself to me, Solomon, and eternity will be yours.”
“No,” I say. It’s a feeble whisper, but carries my determination just the same. “I’m not done yet.”
The horn weighs little, and I have no problem lifting it over my head.
The beast squints at me.
“Can’t you feel it?” I ask him. “The air. All around you. Shifting. Pulsing.” I take a breath, filling my single functioning lung. As the air seeps down my throat, the wind picks up, blowing toward my body, whipping Ninnis’s hair. “This whole cavern is my lung. The air is mine to command. And right now, I command it—”
Nephil’s eyes burst open with realization.
“—to blow.”
He charges.
A tiny whirlwind of quickly vibrating air flows through the shofar. The sound it produces rips through the cavern. The noise diffuses over the distance, but Nephil is caught in the direct path of whatever kind of supernatural sound waves are shooting out from the horn. To me it’s just a high-pitched grating noise, but Nephil reacts like he’s just been set on fire.
The black limbs flail madly, shooting in and out of Ninnis’s body, which is arched back in a contorted spasm. His scream almost drowns out the sound of the shofar, but it peters out to nothing as the black limbs retreat inside Ninnis, silencing the beast’s voice.
>
With the black tendrils gone, Ninnis begins to fall. I reach out with the wind and catch him. Despite functioning with just one lung, it takes no effort to control the winds around me. I use this control of the elements to keep a steady flow of air flowing into my ruined lung. The slurp of blood and air escaping my chest grows louder, but at least the organ is temporally inflated.
As the full amount of oxygen returns to my brain, my vision settles and thoughts clear. I am far from not dying, but I’ve delayed the effect of being stabbed in the chest for a little while—long enough for me to deliver the shofar to Em, Kainda and Kat, and leave before defiling Eden.
“Solomon?”
The voice startles me to the point where I nearly drop Ninnis. When I redouble my effort to hold Ninnis up, I notice that his eyes are open.
And they’re Ninnis’s eyes. Not Nephil’s. All trace of the monster has been erased.
“Ninnis,” I say. It’s as non-threatening a greeting as I can come up with.
“Belgrave,” he says.
“What?”
“My name is Belgrave. Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis. Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and husband to Caroline Rose Ninnis.”
To say I’m stunned is an understatement. Hunters don’t remember their pasts. Every memory, every happy moment, every loved one, is erased by the breaking process. Hunters are molded from clean slates, honed into killers without conscience because there is no memory of right and wrong. “You remember?”
“I remember...everything.” The wounded tone of his voice makes my eyes water. The flicker of a smile forming on his lips forces the wetness out over my cheeks. He reaches a hand toward me; it’s extended like he wants to shake. “Thankyoeeeeaaaarrrgghh!”
The voice of Nephil returns like a crashing wave. The tendrils shoot out, clinging to the ceiling. And the eyes of Belgrave Ninnis disappear. The effect of the horn is temporary on Nephilim, apparently very temporary on one as strong as Nephil. But even though the beast has regained control over his host body, he is still reeling from the attack.
He hisses at me, contorting his face into a thousand different expressions, and then flees like a spider across the ceiling. He won’t come back. Not by himself. Not now that I have the shofar and know how to use it. Granted, I’m still not sure how I’m going to stop an army with it, but whatever the horn did to him, he didn’t like it.
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