Nephilim
Page 1
NEPHILIM
John & Carole E. Barrowman
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About this Book
About the Author
Table of Contents
www.headofzeus.com
About Nephilim
Seventeen-year-old Rémy is a Conjuror – someone who can alter reality with his music. But such a talent comes with a price. He and his superpowered friends, Matt and Em Calder, are engaged in a dangerous battle to save humanity as we know it.
If they are to succeed, they must first decide who to trust. An amoral seventeenth-century artist? A heavily tattooed Chicago gangster? Or a nephilim, half angel and half human, with silver-flecked wings?
But time is running out. The friends must take action soon. For when fallen angels rule, chaos will reign.
To our mum and dad, Marion and John,
and to bags, shoes, fine wine and
the pool at Palm Springs
‘A true compendium of conjurations, invocations,
curses and the mystical instruments that…
…Behold the Watchers, God’s angels who fell
from chaos. One day their kingdom will rule
the earth … only a Conjuror shall cull them…
And Behold the Conjuror shall be exalted
For he shall play the sacred chord…
and with the divine instrument of the Lord
the dead will…’
Book of Songs
‘Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n.’
—JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Contents
Welcome Page
About Nephilim
Dedication
Epigraph
First Movement
1. Forbidden Fruit
2. Fire and Brimstone
3. A Taste of Evil
4. Fates Be Damned
5. False Crusaders
6. Apologies, My Friend
7. A Lingering Seduction
8. A Celestial Singularity
9. Hooligans and Hippies
10. Don’t Blame Me
11. Take That, Mozart
12. Silence of the Lambs
13. A Children’s Parade
14. Onwards to the Castle
15. Shelf Life
16. Nothing But Net
17. Neither Here Nor There
18. This Place is Lit
19. The Circus Came to Town
20. All the Happy Zombies
21. Persecuted and Banished
22. Impossible to Resist
23. Among the Dead
24. Give Them a Whurl
25. Must Be a Rule
26. The Martyrs’ Monument
27. The Great White Duke
28. Sound and Vision
29. Armed and Ready
30. Drop Some Knowledge
31. Mushy Peas
32. The Triumph of Death
Second Movement
33. Dangerous Crossing
34. Rise Up!
35. Calculus Not the Worst
36. Rewind
37. Trains, Planes and Paintings
38. A Small Price to Pay
Third Movement
39. In the Jungle
40. My Kind of Town
41. Home Sweet Home
42. Over Easy
43. Who You Gonna Call?
44. On the Same Page
45. In the Closet
46. No Smoking
47. Not Gonna Lie
48. The Man in the Camel Coat
49. In Her Wake
50. First Aid
51. Time Transfixed
52. Snakes on the Brain
Fourth Movement
53. Through the Looking Glass
54. A Disturbing Darkness
55. Too Far Out
56. Not on an Empty Stomach
57. Night Swimming
58. Darkness Visible
59. The Agony…
60. …And The Ecstasy
61. Stuck Between a Satyr and a Hard Place
62. Who’s Buried in Hadrian’s Tomb?
63. Be Chill
64. The Castle of the Holy Angel
65. Mussolini’s Safe Room
66. Going Up
67. Go Low
68. Walk to the Light
69. Battle Royale
70. Why Are We Here?
71. Crossing the Tiber
72. The Gods are Crazy
73. Fire in the Hole
74. Paint It Black
Fifth Movement
75. Doubt and Pain
76. Behold the One
77. Not the One
78. Sounds Like Teen Spirit
Acknowledgements
About John & Carole E. Barrowman
About the Orion Chronicles
About the Hollow Earth Trilogy
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
FIRST MOVEMENT
‘[The Watchers] … rejected the Lord of light,
and after them are those who are held in
great darkness on the second heaven…’
The Book of Enoch
1.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
ITALY, 1610
Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio knew he was dying. The stab wound had seen to that. But, in the height of his fever, all he could think about was peaches.
‘Never eaten a peach,’ he gasped as the carriage bumped and swayed along the rutted track. ‘A dying shame. A peach like a fine arse that I could sink my teeth into. Never … never tasted a peach…’
‘And I’ve never tasted the Queen of France,’ snorted a fellow traveller, a sour cobbler from Florence reeking of tannin and shit, who sucked in his pockmarked cheeks and let the air whistle out through missing teeth. ‘Don’t see that happening any time soon either.’ He laughed, the cackle dislodging something rotten, which he hocked out through the open window.
A handsome young Highlander with striking blue eyes and skin as pale as a maiden’s veil leaned forward in his seat. ‘Sir,’ he said in sketchy Italian. ‘Have some respect for Queen Catherine.’
‘Listen, scutese,’ sneered the cobbler, spitting into his hand and wiping the phlegm on the Highlander’s muscular kilted thigh. ‘I’ve respect for two things in this world: Florentine leather, and death. And since one’s having its way with your friend, you’d best get out of my business and look to his.’
The Highlander rested his hand casually on the cobbler’s knee. The cobbler slumped over on the straw-stuffed seat, farted and began snoring noisily.
‘Save your magic, scutese,’ said Caravaggio, smiling through his pain.
‘Ach, I’ve enough for us both.’ The Highlander regarded Caravaggio soberly, peeling an orange from his bag. ‘Michele, you should have relayed your message to us sooner, and come to Era Mina and safety. Before the Camarilla discovered you.’
‘Mio amico,’ Caravaggio gasped. ‘Had I known such a place existed, I would have been there years ago, bedding your wife.’
‘And if I had a wife, you’d be in my stockades by now. But at least you’d be safe.’
A coughing fit wrenched at Caravaggio’s fever-wracked body, and he spat blood on to the layer of straw on the carriage’s plank floor, the stony ground visible through the gashes in the rotting wood. Lifting a pouch from beneath his wide tartan sash, the Highlander passed his wine across. The artist had no energy to reach for it. He was barely able to sit upright. Quickly, the Highlander kneeled in front of him, holding the pouch to his lips.
‘Drink, man,’ he instructed. ‘We’ve a long journey ahead.’
Caravaggio gulped the wine, dribbling most of it down his chin as the Highlander gently dabbed his lips with
the sleeve of his tunic. ‘Are they close behind us, do you think?’ he croaked.
‘The smoke we saw as we left the tavern was theirs. But if we’re lucky, we’ll make it to Manciano before they catch us.’
‘And what … what if I’m wrong?’ Caravaggio fretfully moved the leather folios packed with his canvases into a more secure position beneath his feet. ‘What if I am mad?’
In the fading darkness of his mind, he heard again the murmurings from his models in Naples. How no one wanted to stay in the Cardinal’s palace after dark. How no one wanted to walk through the galleries alone. And then those hellish abominations struggling out from a vast canvas while the Cardinal and his household rocked on their knees in prayer before them.
The Highlander snorted. ‘Don’t be daft, man. You’re not mad, you’re an Animare.’
Caravaggio closed his eyes. ‘Animare,’ he whispered to himself, as spasms of pain ripped him from side to side. ‘Yes. My brush can truly bring things to life… Peaches…’
‘What you witnessed proves what the Council of Guardians have long suspected,’ said the Highlander. ‘That the Camarilla have reached the highest levels of the state and the church. If we are to stop them, we must risk exposing ourselves to achieve it.’ The cobbler’s head flopped on to the Highlander’s shoulder. He flicked him away. ‘And if we are to gather our forces to fight against their rise, we must get you and the canvas to safety first.’
Caravaggio nodded through a haze of pain. His fingers started sketching, almost of their own accord, steadying the piece of charcoal in his fingers against his raised knee and the rocking of the carriage, his hands shaking from even such modest exertion.
‘Save your strength, man.’ The Highlander stretched his long legs across the space between them, folding the heavy pleats of his great kilt between his knees. ‘My magic can only take us so far. Ah’m going tae need your help to get us to the north.’
In a starry burst of light, a peach fell out of the air. Caravaggio caught it in his trembling hands and bit down. He gagged when a writhing mass of maggots gushed from the ripe fruit.
2.
FIRE AND BRIMSTONE
The freshly painted pink village sat on the lip of a Tuscan hillside. Every cottage, outhouse and barn had been washed in pink to celebrate the coming midsummer solstice. The landscape resembled a fairy- tale wedding cake baked into the clay.
Blue flames licked the walls of the tavern in the heart of the village, lapped across the thatched roof and snaked inside. Men shouted, women screamed and children wailed. In seconds, the air was choked with the stench of sulphur and seared flesh. It smelled like evil.
Luca Ferrante, the Imperial Commander of the Camarilla, tugged on the reins of his terrified horse until its mouth bled, observing the chaos from afar. Even from this distance, the stench was overpowering. He licked his full, rose-red lips and played with the curls falling loosely over his shoulders, listening to the faint trill of flute music die out until only the cry of a hawk and the bark of a wild dog rose above the hissing and spitting of the smouldering ruins. The rising sun slowly bathed the Tuscan hillside in swathes of burned orange and cherry red. Luca cupped his eyes with his black-gloved hand, enjoying the irony that in its darkest moment, the village was bathed in light.
The enjoyment was short-lived. For all the glory of destruction, he still did not have what he wanted. He had been riding for two days, only stopping once to feed and water his horse, in the firm belief that he would catch this prey during the first daylight of the hunt. Instead his stomach growled, his head ached, his buttocks were bruised, and his temper was simmering. All his sacrifices were beginning to feel like empty gestures. The painting of the Cardinal was safe en route to the New World, but now the artist had escaped with the sacred chord. Without that, the rise of the Watchers would be forever impossible.
Would he ever see his glory attained?
Luca had already experienced chaos, rebellion, anarchy and betrayal in his long existence. But the Second Kingdom would remain a prophecy if he did not retrieve what the artist had stolen. Luca was a soldier. He must not fail. He stifled his doubts and swallowed his anger. Both were emotions too human to let surface.
A movement caught his eye at the convent of the Hermits of St Augustine on the peak above the village. A young nun, barefoot, pressing the hem of her black shift to her face, was sprinting across the convent’s cobbled courtyard as the stench and the smoke wound greasily over the convent walls. The courtyard was cracked and jagged, and if Luca held his head at a slight angle, he could catch the smell of blood from the pads of her feet.
At the heavy oak door set into the high convent wall, the young nun urged the last cluster of straggling villagers inside, then leaned against the door until it closed with a thunderclap that echoed down the valley.
Luca smiled sourly at the girl’s spirit as he rode down the hill and into the village. Such a shame it wouldn’t last. Her world would crumble soon.
3.
A TASTE OF EVIL
The fire had not spread beyond the tavern. The other dwellings in the village were shuttered and silent. A tribe of goats grazed on the sparse scrub, oblivious to the smoke teasing its way towards them, but the fire remained contained. Luca made sure of that. He loved the Tuscan countryside too much to lay it to waste.
A wild dog snarled from the cover of a vegetable cart as Luca’s horse trotted along the dusty road, adding to the cacophony of screams and howls from the tavern. Luca caught the dog’s eye and growled softly. The dog yelped and shot away. Luca tugged at his agitated stallion’s reins as steam snorted from its flared nostrils. It, too, tasted the evil.
Soon the ticking of flames and the snapping of wood from the intense heat were the only sounds remaining. Ash was falling from the summer sky in big grey flakes. Luca took off his glove and held out his hand, letting the dust fill his palm. He rubbed it between his fingers and inhaled its scent like an exotic spice.
‘Where are you, my rakish Animare?’ he murmured. ‘My handsome thief?’
He slipped his glove back on, his anger rising again. He looked back at the scrub and the goats. A rider dressed in silver chainmail similar to Luca’s own galloped across the field and leaped over the startled goats, kicking up sod as his horse took the hedges in one athletic leap. Corso Donati pulled up next to Luca, the golden lyre of the Camarilla billowing on his purple cloak in the smoky air.
‘I freed the village horses, sir,’ Corso informed his master, stroking his horse’s neck and soothing its nerves as it paced a safe distance from the Imperial Commander.
Luca nodded. It would be a shame to see such noble beasts suffer more than necessary. He turned his attention back to the tavern at the end of the road. ‘And the artist? Tell me, Corso, that you have the artist.’
Corso’s hand trembled on his restive horse’s mane. ‘It appears he has escaped. Again.’
‘His wounds were fatal,’ said Luca. ‘How has he survived this far? His injuries alone should have killed him, never mind the ride from Rome.’
‘He must be a more powerful Animare than we believed. Or he has help.’
Luca’s cold blue eyes were slits. He nursed the vision of Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio crying out in passion under his hand. He should have known that the artist’s flesh was weak and his motives not to be trusted. ‘Corpse or not, he’ll be mine soon enough.’
They trotted closer to the tavern’s smoke-filled yard and smouldering hitching posts. Most of the four walls remained standing, but the second floor and its bunks of straw had collapsed into the interior of the structure. The smell of burned flesh tickled Luca’s nostrils.
‘The innkeeper told me the artist fled before sunrise,’ Corso informed his master.
‘Has he told you anything more?’
‘No. He is … uncooperative.’
Luca tightened his grip on his horse’s reins. ‘The chord?’
‘Still in the artist’s possession.’
�
�The Animare must not get away,’ hissed Luca. ‘We must find him. I tire of this filthy world. I am weary of its undisciplined magic. I need rest.’
Animare were a necessary evil. They allowed the Camarilla to build wealth beyond what any man, monarch, nation, state or pope would ever realize. Luca understood that better than anyone. But although Animare and their talents afforded him a way to move in and out of the world, he distrusted their motives. Even those who were loyal raised his ire. Too many of them worshipped their art above all else. And they placed far too much faith in humanity. That would, in the end, prove to be their downfall. Of that he had no doubt.
‘You’re sure of the route the artist has taken?’ he asked, climbing from his horse and handing the reins to his squire.
‘The carriage is travelling to Manciano, sir. The duke promised the artist sanctuary with an order of Jesuit brothers less than a day’s ride from here. We’ll have him and the chord before sundown.’ Corso turned his horse and trotted towards the outskirts of the village.
Luca strode closer to the dying flames, shielding his face from the heat. He quietened his thoughts. Let his focus return.
He cast the net with his mind.
Where are you?
A whisper returned on the breeze.
I am here.
A spectacular flash of blue and yellow flames forked across the tavern like sheet lightning. For a second Luca saw his true self in the flames: a beautiful beast with full black wings stippled with silver, rippling with energy and power.
A woman in a scarlet gown cinched at the waist glided out of the charred carcass of the building. Her bronze skin shone. Ash streaked her jet-black hair. She held a sword in her right hand, and in her left the dripping, severed head of the innkeeper. Luca’s heart filled with love: the kind about which humans write poetry, the kind that scorches a soul. The kind he had hungered for his whole life.
The woman raised the innkeeper’s head and opened her mouth to drink his fire-warm blood. Flames shot up her back, snapping at her hair. Stirred from his lustful thoughts, Luca threw himself on her, knocking her to the ground. They rolled across the yard in a frenzied embrace until the flames sputtered out.