by Nancy Madore
“May I see that formula again?” asked Nadia.
Clive handed it to her. “Knock yourself out, Nancy Drew,” he said.
She examined it. “Some of the symbols in this message look like measurements,” she said. “And a few of these letter groupings could be abbreviations.”
Clive looked at Will. “You still have that abbreviations app on your phone?”
“Okay,” sighed Will. “What have you got?”
“Well…it starts out with a series of numbers, separated by dashes,” said Nadia. “Then, it uses the capital letters, E, I. Could E, I, stand for anything?”
“It could stand for a lot of things,” said Will, examining his phone. “Employment insurance, early intervention, earth institute, extraterrestrial intelligence…”
“It’s followed by the less-than sign,” said Nadia. “It reads like a mathematical equation. Listen; ‘E, I’ is less than seven hundred and ten ‘d’s. What is ‘d’?”
“Degrees?” asked Gordon.
“The use of the small ‘d’ is listed as a possible abbreviation for degree,” confirmed Will. “Along with days, distance, depth, diopter…”
“Great,” Clive groaned. “What else have you got?”
“Continuing across the line,” said Nadia, “it says, ‘T, H’ is less than five hundred and twenty two K, Ms.’”
“K, M could stand for kilometers,” said Will. “Which would suggest a location.”
“It could also mean ‘kick me,’” said Clive.
“Wait a minute,” said Nadia. “Have a look at this part, near the end. Capital ‘K, H’ and small ‘z.’ That can only be one thing.”
“You’re right,” said Will. “It’s the abbreviation for kilohertz.”
“Kilohertz,” Gordon repeated thoughtfully. That intense light was still burning in his eyes as he struggled to concentrate on what they were saying.
Will was looking it up on his phone. “Kilohertz measures frequency.”
“Frequency,” echoed Clive, his eyes narrowing. “As in energy?”
“Possibly,” said Will. “Kilohertz measures frequencies that reach thousands of cycles per second. Such as radio waves. And radiation.”
“Why would someone from a top secret military base send Asmodeous an encrypted message with a formula for measuring frequency?” wondered Clive.
No one had an answer for this.
“You know what,” announced Will. “Just to be on the safe side, let me put a priority on those inquiries on ‘E’ Blevins and T.D.M.R. See what we get.” He looked at Nadia. “But you have to understand that, with Asmodeous out of the picture, even if we do stumble upon something important, we probably won’t be the ones to investigate it.”
“But Lilith is still out there!” Nadia reminded him, noticing that he and Clive exchanged looks when she said this. Were they keeping something from her?
“I’ll go make that call,” said Will, leaving the room. Nadia looked at Clive, who averted his eyes.
Gordon was peculiarly quiet. He just sat there, absently tapping his fingers on her father’s desk. Clive watched Gordon’s fingers with interest, as if they were tapping out a message in Morse code.
“What’s going on?” Clive finally asked him. “You’re like Paris Hilton with a shiny new bracelet today.”
Gordon’s fingers stopped. He turned to look at Clive and then resumed his tapping.
“What the hell is going on, Gordon?” demanded Clive.
Gordon just kept tapping his fingers on the desk. Several times he seemed about to speak before he finally did manage to get a few words out. “I think…I might have…fucked up,” he said, stumbling over the obscenity. Nadia and Clive exchanged glances.
“What do you mean by ‘fucked up?’” asked Clive, narrowing his eyes.
“Done something really stupid,” replied Gordon miserably. His face was pallid. He looked much like he did the day he stormed into Edward’s house to pull Nadia’s lifeless body out of the circle.
“That’s the definition of fucked up alright,” agreed Clive. “But what did you do, Gordon?”
Gordon winced. “I felt like I had to do something,” he said defensively. He looked at Nadia and this seemed to give him strength. “I had to at least try!”
Clive’s eyes narrowed even more, until they were little more than slits. “Go on,” he said encouragingly.
“Good news!” came Will’s voice from across the room. “They’re giving us another twenty-four hours to collect data in this case. We’ll set up our base here; either in the house,” he turned to Nadia before continuing—“or in a nearby hotel, if staying here is going to be a problem for you.” His expression, which was triumphant upon first returning to the room, slowly sobered as he noticed the expressions on all of their faces. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Gordon was just about to tell us something,” said Clive. “Isn’t that right, Gordon?”
They all looked at Gordon, who seemed to be turning green. Only a tiny spark of defiance remained in his eyes. “I just feel like the key to everything is…Asmodeous,” he said.
Will stared at Gordon. His expression was now one big question mark.
Clive looked from one to the other. “You stole him, didn’t you!” he exclaimed. “That’s why you stayed the extra day. And why you’re acting like you just robbed a bank!”
Nadia’s lungs seemed to stop working as she turned to Gordon to see if this was true. But he said nothing.
Clive turned to Will and threw up his hands. “We’re dead,” he said, as if he was stating a known fact. He looked at Gordon. “Dead,” he repeated. “For sure this time.”
“Gordon,” said Will in a surprisingly calm voice. “Please tell me you didn’t steal the ring of Asmodeous.”
“I didn’t steal the ring of Asmodeous,” said Gordon, to which both Will and Clive expelled long breaths of relief before he could finish—“But I got the next best thing.”
This brought another moment of stunned silence.
“I think I know where this is going,” remarked Clive at last.
Gordon looked at Nadia and somehow managed a small, stiff smile. “I’ve got the ring of Ornias,” he said.
Chapter 6
“He’s got Ornias!” cried Clive, pacing back and forth across the floor.
“Who’s Ornias?” asked Nadia.
“You don’t want to know who Ornias is,” Clive told her. “You don’t even want to know who we are right now.” He stopped pacing and looked at Nadia. “Do you see us? Do we seem okay to you?” He made a little circle between him, Gordon and Will with his finger. “Dead. You’re looking at three dead men.”
Will just stared at Gordon as if he couldn’t believe what he just heard.
“No one needs to find out,” said Gordon.
“Oh!” exclaimed Clive, turning to Will and Nadia. “Did you guys hear that? ‘No one needs to find out!’ Well thank goodness for that!” Clive stopped pacing and faced Gordon. “What do you think, Gordon? You think you’re running your own little top secret organization now?” He looked at Will. “No one needs to find out!”
But Will didn’t appear to hear Clive. His eyes hadn’t moved from Gordon’s face. He didn’t even blink.
Gordon was clearly ruffled, but surprisingly, he had the presence of mind to answer Nadia’s question. “Ornias is a djinn,” he told her. “We have reason to believe that he knew Asmodeous. Legend has it that they both helped Solomon build the temple. I think Ornias can shed some light on how Asmodeous beat the ring.” A thrill shot through Nadia at Gordon’s words.
“Did you…?” Clive turned to Will in mock surprise. “Did you hear that, Will?” he asked. Getting no response, he turned back to Gordon. “Why didn’t you say so earlier, Gordon? That’s brilliant! And to think, nobody thought of it before. Nobody turned it down either. A whole roomful of nobodies certainly didn’t sit around a table and specifically rule against bringing Ornias back because the risks were too high!�
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“But there’s a good chance that Asmodeous might have done this before!” insisted Gordon.
“I give up!” declared Clive, and then, despite his words—“Did they, or did they not, rule against this hair-brained idea at the base?”
“That’s just because they’re pissed at me,” said Gordon.
“You’re lucky they didn’t fucking fire you!” yelled Clive.
“All right, that’s enough!” Everyone turned in surprise to the source of this authoritative command, and even Nadia was a little stunned by her audacity. She’d been waiting for Will to take charge of the situation, until she realized that he was much too conflicted to act. She could see him struggling with his anger, but she couldn’t identify the other emotions simmering alongside of it. She knew him well enough by now to appreciate how much Gordon’s actions went against Will’s ‘by the book’ mentality. Was he worried about Gordon? Or was he considering what action to take against him?
“Let’s all calm down,” she continued, praying it wasn’t the latter. “What’s done is done. In any disaster, those of us in first relief know that you have to accept the situation if you’re going to move forward.” Their expressions were almost comical. Clive’s eyebrows almost touched his hairline in his incredulity, while Gordon’s large, dark eyes were filled with gratitude. Will’s face was the hardest to read, but she was pretty sure she saw curiosity mingling with his surprise. At least she had gotten their attention. “Okay, so Gordon broke the rules by taking Ornias. He’s tied to a ring, I presume?” She glanced nervously at Gordon, who nodded. She turned to Will. “I guess the question is; are you going to turn Gordon in, or are you going to help him?”
“Leave it to a woman to get right to the heart of the matter,” said Clive. He looked at Nadia for several long minutes before snapping irritably—“Course we’re not gonna turn him in!” He huffed a little bit more before adding—“Doesn’t mean we don’t get to be pissed!” Nadia let out a huge sigh of relief. “It’s our asses too, you know,” Clive went on, but he was quickly losing steam.
“Well, assuming you’re going to help him,” Nadia continued, glancing nervously at Will—“then I guess the next question that comes to mind is—should we take the ring back right away, or…?” she left the question dangling in midair.
There was a long silence. A muscle in Will’s jaw was twitching—the only evidence that he even heard what was happening around him.
“If anything goes wrong…” began Gordon—“…anything at all…it’s on me. I’ll swear I acted alone. That’s why I stayed the extra day, to make sure you guys would be out of it.”
“It’s not just the trouble we could get into, Gordon,” said Will at last. His voice was calm enough, but Nadia could tell that he was very angry. “There really are risks. Years of research have gone into establishing the protocol for handling these djinn.” He glanced at Nadia, an angry blush rising up his neck. “I know you all think I’m too rigid at times but I take my job—and public safety—seriously!”
“I’m sorry, Will,” said Gordon. “I guess this…need I have to know everything about the djinn is my Achilles’ heel.”
“Our job isn’t to get to know them, Gordon,” said Will.
“I know,” Gordon agreed. “You’re right.”
“You’re too involved with them,” continued Will, as if Gordon had argued the point. “All we need to know about them is how to stop them.”
Gordon’s eyes met Nadia’s, and she realized in that moment that he had done this for her as much as for himself. He knew that she would never truly be able to walk away from this until she found out the truth about her father.
“On the other hand,” interjected Clive in a sudden shift that surprised them all—“Since the ring is here and all.” He smiled sheepishly at Will and shrugged. “Might as well see what the little freak has to say.”
Gordon was quick to chime in—“It’s our only hope of finding out how Asmo—”
“Don’t you think Ornias would have done it himself if he knew how Asmodeous escaped the power of the ring?” demanded Will, cutting Gordon off.
“Maybe he hasn’t figured it out yet,” replied Gordon.
“So we should help him?” said Will.
“Look, man,” said Clive. “If there is some secret out there for escaping the power of the ring, you and I both know that it’s only a matter of time before other djinn figure it out.”
Apparently this struck a chord with Will because he seemed to lighten up the littlest bit. And yet, Nadia could tell that he was still dead set against it. He had that determined gleam in his eyes that she had found so frustrating when she was his captive, that unbending conviction that nothing could break through. Without thinking, she went to him and took both of his hands in hers. She stood facing him, trembling with emotion, on the one hand desperate to make him see reason and on the other hand terrified that she was jeopardizing something that had become very important to her.
Will just stared at her in surprise. She beseeched him with her eyes, suddenly hesitant to put her feelings into words. “Please,” seemed the most she could manage, and it felt like she had handed him her heart with that one little word. She saw that he felt it too. And she saw how hard it hit him. Shock and anger flashed in his eyes, mingling with his previous resolve. But there was something else there too. It was something Nadia couldn’t define, except that she knew it represented his feelings for her. All of this she could clearly see as she watched his inward struggle.
The moment seemed to go on forever, during which time they could’ve heard a pin drop. When at last Will’s expression grew calm again, she knew that he had settled the matter once and for all. She held her breath. He seemed reluctant to speak, simply raising a hand to lightly caress her cheek.
When he finally did speak, his voice was soft and low. “And the risks?” he asked no one in particular. His eyes were still locked with Nadia’s.
“We go by the book, all the way!” Gordon assured him.
“I’m holding him to it,” added Clive. “One more breach of protocol and I’ll call him in myself.”
Will was still looking at Nadia. “You’re just an observer,” he said. His voice was like a caress. “You don’t engage.”
Nadia threw her arms around him. “Thank you!” she whispered, clinging to him. He squeezed her in response. She was reluctant to let him go.
With the crisis past, the air crackled with excitement. Gordon rushed across the room to his bag and returned with four masks.
“We let it do the talking,” said Will. “Only the ring holder asks questions. We do not talk to, or respond to it, in any way.”
“It’ll try to play you,” Clive warned Nadia. “Don’t let it get inside your head.”
With every word they uttered, Nadia was growing more and more excited.
“The longer they’re out, the stronger they become,” said Gordon, handing her a mask. “They’re constantly observing, learning and evolving. Some of them can even read minds.”
“They feed off humans,” said Clive, adding meaningfully—“…especially this one.”
“We let it out two hours, max, per interview,” said Will. “We follow the book to the letter. No exceptions.”
“Why do we have to wear the masks?” asked Nadia.
“Certain metals weaken the djinn,” said Gordon. “This was always true, even when they were Nephilim. But now, especially, without their body to protect them, they’re particularly susceptible. Like us, they’re bound by physical limitations. They were at their strongest as Nephilim. They are less so in human bodies, and they’re at their weakest when they have no body at all.”
“And that’s also when they’re the most desperate,” added Clive. “Their bodies aren’t the only thing that’s stronger than ours. Their souls are too. Given an even playing field, there’s no contest. They’ll win every time. A djinn enters your body—your soul won’t stand a chance.”
Nadia shuddered. “
But I thought you said djinn stay within their sex. Wouldn’t I be safer than you in this situation?”
“We said they seem to prefer to inhabit the same sex,” clarified Will. “We never know what they’re going to do next.”
“But even if a djinn doesn’t actually enter a body, it can still sometimes control a person in other ways,” said Clive.
“That’s right,” said Gordon. “They’re master manipulators and they’re desperate. They want to live, and in order to do that, they need bodies.”
“How does the ring hold them?” Nadia asked.
“We don’t know the mechanics of it,” said Will. “The angels are the ones who set all this in motion. The ring seems to be some kind of binding agent but we have no idea how it works, and the djinn don’t either.”
“The ring is like an extension of the circle somehow,” said Gordon. “The metal shavings in the shape of a circle act as a kind of portal for the djinn to come through. The combination of metals weakens the djinn, while the incantation forces them through the portal and into the ring. The two are connected, which is why they must be cast from the same metal.”
Clive laughed. “That last part’s a doozy!” he agreed, clearly speaking from first-hand experience.
“I take it you tried using different metals?” prompted Nadia.
“You take nothing!” snapped Clive. “Always blame the black guy, is that it?” But Nadia knew him well enough by now to know that he wasn’t really upset. He laughed, in fact, glancing at Will—“Man, I’ll never forget the look on that dude’s face for as long as I live.”
As usual, it fell on Gordon to explain. “He was a new guy,” he told Nadia. “He wanted to see what would happen if we used a ring from a different lot, so he switched rings. Well…this djinn comes out of the portal like a bat out of hell and it just kept circling the room, completely out of control…like it’s preparing to attack. We were all scared out of our wits…” Gordon paused here to laugh.
“The guy shit his pants,” finished Clive. “Which, ironically, turned out to be the right thing to do in that situation, because the djinn wouldn’t go near the damn fool after that!”