At that I thought I saw one of Alecto's ears twitch, and a slight smile form in the corner of her mouth. "And your life, Sarah? How's it been, little princess?"
The smile on Alecto’s face disappeared into a slight scowl, it was his affectionate nickname, but I was so bored, and so cross with the entire situation that I ignored it. With a sigh I admitted to my former husband, "Not the best, you could say. Even with the money from two divorces, life hasn't been easy for me. Not with the curse your wife put on me. Something about bearing no human children for a century. I didn't know enough about the Supernatural world when she cursed me to realize I should have written it down while it was fresh in my mind." I could feel myself slouching further, the slight aura of my despair seeping out into the room around me.
I glanced up and saw Dan actually glaring at his wife. Then he looked back at me. "So, what has it actually meant to you in the end? How many children have you had, and what exactly are they?"
I drew in a deep breath and recounted my children, and what type of supernatural they were to him. I broke down when I reached Evan, my youngest, the one I'd had to give up to fosterage because I just couldn't deal with him. The tears streaming down my face, and I heard Alicia speak soothingly in my ear, then her arms went around me and her kisses started from my ear to my neck. The clash of desire and misery cancelled each other out, and when I looked up again it was to see Dan passing me a tissue.
Once I'd taken it and had started cleaning my face from the tears, he whirled and turned on Alecto. There was actual rage in his voice. If there was one thing I remembered about Dan it was that he never got angry. He could dress people down, but never actually seemed to be angry. Not until he found out I'd been cheating on him.
That seemed to be a far better reason to be angry. But his rage at his new wife, who was a Fury after all, for having cursed his ex-wife, was greater than I could have imagined. It was volcanic.
Maybe it was nature of the curse that made him so angry, rather than the fact she’d cursed me. He’d gone to her to get me cursed in the first place, after all. I really had no idea as I'd only seen him near this state once before. It just didn't make sense to me. After all, he'd gone to a lot of trouble to find her so he could curse me. Him being angry at me for being cursed was just somehow off.
It also seemed to take Alecto aback. She was suddenly silent, and actually took a half step back from where she’d been standing in her conversation with Anslem.
"Dammit Alecto, what did you do? I asked you to curse her with something she'd remember me by, not something that would totally destroy her life!" Alecto started to answer him in a language I didn't understand, didn't recognize at all. Dan raised his hand and interrupted her. "In English, dammit. She has as much right to know as I do. She is, after all, the victim of a curse I never intended to be laid on her!"
Alecto drew in a deep breath, and I saw something I thought was impossible: tears welling in her eyes. A shudder ran through her as she admitted something it was clear she'd never intended to tell them. "I had to. Remember before we got married, when I sent that Mage to check your health? They found that your heart was dying. Irreparable. And I loved you. You are so different from me, you are the first person who’d searched me out who wasn't completely consumed with anger or rage. You wanted a petty vengeance, you weren’t hell bent on absolute vengeance. You wanted something milder, something to make sure the person you had loved never forgot that you'd been in their life. But not something lethal or damaging. So I switched out the marriage contract."
"WHAT!?!" Dan erupted. "We were supposed to marry on human terms, I never wanted to be a Fury!" he yelled as he stormed up into her face.
She nodded sadly, a small smile on her face. "I know. And I was willing to give up part of my nature to be with you. But that meant I had to stretch the curse you requested that allowed me to marry you at all. I needed to be able to share who and what I am with you on a deeper level than the marriage you wanted would have achieved. I love you enough that I was worried about what I would become when I lost you. I would have been worse than I was before. Being with you made me see how unjust some of my curses were." Dan went to open his mouth in retort but she raised her hand gently, stopping him.
Continuing, she said in an even softer voice, "None of the curses I've done since I married you were anywhere near as harsh as those I did before I married you. It's reached the point where, after more than a decade and a half, even from the distance they are from me, my sisters have started to notice. Have started to question if I'm the right person to be in the Three. That's why I had to find something I knew you'd find justified to do an extreme curse on." All the emotions were obviously getting to her and she staggered into a chair behind the counter.
More sadness filled her face. "And if you break that contract for her, it won't help anyway. The curse has embedded itself in her. Entwined itself around the Supernatural nature she had intrinsic to her that I was unable to detect when I cursed all those years ago. She is now what she is. She's not really human anymore." Grudgingly, she admitted, "I'm not really sure what she is. But if she is what I think she is, then trouble is on the horizon. At least half the factions will want her dead, and some of the other factions will want her in hopes that they can ‘convince’ her to join them and use her against their enemies."
Dan glared at his current wife, and took up the bone he'd been picking at again. "I read that marriage contract before I signed, dammit! At least a critical section, the one I want to ensure. You're not supposed to be able to place a curse to put someone's life at risk."
Alecto gave him a thin smile. "The actual wording was life at direct risk. But despite that, I never intended for this curse to go as far as it has. I researched her family back for five generations. There was no indication of any kind of Supernatural in her heritage. I was careful. Even Anslem has grudgingly agreed I didn't intentionally break any treaty. Besides, we really shouldn't be airing dirty laundry in semi-public like this." There was a combination of apprehension and resignation on her face. Clearly she had known that he would eventually find out.
She tossed an object to Anslem. It looked to be a gold square with an engraving in it. "Take this to the hostel down the street. They'll put you all up for the night. I need to talk in private with my husband, and you need to explain yourself to your companions, Anslem. They deserve to know now. And they need an explanation for why Gargoyles that were keyed to only attack Devils and Angels decided to attack you."
Anslem winced as she just openly aired that bit. She couldn’t resist doing something that might bring him discomfort. It was her nature, I guess.
Anslem nodded, indicated with his head we should follow him out the door and headed towards it. Alicia and I followed him, what else could we do? I knew the son-of-a-bitch had been keeping something from me. I was trapped between anger, a sense of betrayal, and an intense burst of curiosity.
My only choice was to follow and find out what the hell was going on.
Chapter 9
If I was angry, then Alicia was furious. The vicious glares she kept throwing Anslem was directional proof enough of that. He assured us he wasn't Angel or Demon—that was true enough from what Alecto had said. But it wasn't the whole truth. There was more to it, and we deserved to know what that something more was before we started travelling with him.
Neither of us wanted to get messed up and involved with the fucking Christians. I'm sure enough of them were nice people. But that was mostly on the normal side. Once I found out about the Supernaturals, many Christians, Islamics, even some Jews in the know, had shown themselves to be downright vicious. Jains, well they were Jains. They tried to avoid hurting anyone or anything for the most part. Pagans, Hindus and Buddhists, and most of the other religions all felt that this existence of Supes validated their belief structure.
Christians seemed to feel that it violated their belief structure.
I shook myself, and saw Alicia grabbed the keys off Anslem a
s he got them out to unlock the car. Firmly pointing at the back door, she headed with the keys to the front, to drive. I raised an eyebrow at him, and Anslem merely shrugged. Obviously he was accepting of Alicia's current hostility. I could understand that. After all, he had to understand that there'd be some fallout from his partial deception. In silence, he squeezed his larger frame into the more cramped quarters along the bench seats. I know they were made for soldiers, but Anslem was significantly larger than the average soldier would be. It was a tight fit for him.
Alicia drove fast to the front of the shop, turned left down the street Alecto had named, and drove the car safely behind the hostel that we were to stay at.
There was a concerned expression on the desk clerk's face as we walked into the building. Anslem still had splatters of the silvery blood on his armor, and I still had the axe at my waist. Although Alicia wasn’t obviously armed, I knew for a fact she always kept a pair of knives on her person at all times.
His expression changed significantly when Anslem handed the token over to him. "Sir, ladies, if you please follow me I'll show you to the rooms reserved for guests of Alecto.” We went to pick up our luggage but it was already floating off the ground and following along gently behind us at his hand signal. Obviously he was some sort of major Wizard. It made sense that one of them would choose to live with Furies, as long as he was very sure he wasn't going to cross them. He let us to the back of the building, to two rather large rooms.
"My name is Frederick, and the night manager is Ray. If you need anything, anything at all, do not hesitate to ring the front desk. We will be more than happy to help the personal guests of Alecto."
He stood there, as if waiting for something. Finally, Anslem waved him off so we could have some privacy. He bowed to us as he left, walking out backwards for some reason. It was as if he didn't want to turn his back to us.
Anslem sighed in relief until, as he was sitting down on one of the beds, he noticed that Alicia had drawn one of her knives. "Put that away," he said in tones of disgust. "You won't need it. I didn't lie or deceive you. Alecto fucked up. She assumed something that wasn't true. Not my fault that my father and those of his vintage from his race have hidden themselves from everyone. It's the fault of the Angels and Demons. My distant cousins, I guess you could say, although the reason they are my distant cousins is because of what they became."
Alicia simply gave him a vicious sneer, and started cleaning under her nails with the tip of the knife. She was obviously not going to put it away.
"I will never understand why some people can't figure out that sometimes others hide things from them for their own safety. Yes, technically I'm a Nephilim. A true one. Not like the children of Angels and Demons the people these days call Nephilim. Forget the early Apocrypha and the earliest books of the Bible. They’re a cover story. To hide the truth of what happened back then. Angels and Demons, they were all originally from my father's race. According to my father, the gods were good at manipulating existing races into what they desired, but useless at creating new.
“That had been the domain of the Dragons. They were the creators. They could create truly new beings. But Jehovah—or Yahweh, however you wish to pronounce it—was jealous and wanted to be credited for the creation of the planet, and of the people. He needed a large faction of Supernaturals to do it.
“He promised to create my father's brother, who was the next in line to rule our people, a perfect wife if he'd kill his father and bow to his wishes. Adam did. Many of our people found out, but Cain was the impulsive one. Adam managed to transfer the blame for their Father’s death to Cain in many of the people’s eyes. Adam tried to align the entire race with Jehovah, some to the frighten Jehovah's followers, some to reward.
“Cain was furious. He and many of the others his age knew that was not what their father would have wanted. He, Lilith, Samaiel, and a handful of others gathered their followers and stripped Adam down to a normal human, which, because of the link between Adam and Eve, stripped Eve to human as well. But those who had chosen to serve Jehovah wouldn't give up that service. He’d managed to addict them to it somehow. Father never told me how, so the remaining untainted of the race were forced to flee or they'd have been slaughtered. They were outnumbered more than five to one.
“In a way, the Bible is right. From a certain point of view. By stripping Adam to a bare human in nature, Cain made Adam mortal. Part of mortality is death.
"Full-bloods of my father's people don't die of old age. Currently, the leading cause of death amongst his people is suicide. From frustration at having to hide all the time. From frustration that nothing is changing. From frustration that the various followers of Yahweh who are using their belief in him to justify murdering each other, and anyone who doesn't share their precise concept of belief in him."
“But the reality and the fact of what happened have been twisted to suit the needs of those who wanted the Abrahamic religions to prosper. Hell, two of those religions appeared after the gods had all stopped contacting this plane. It couldn’t be any other way.”
He scratched his chin in thought, then continued, “That about all I really know, apart from knowing it isn’t the full story. The Dragons were involved in it somehow. Father never talked much about them, only sadly told me they were no more, and to avoid the various lesser kin of the True Dragons. Apparently they are still bitter his faction didn’t do more to prevent whatever happened to make the Dragons…move on. Or whatever actually happened.”
"Huh," I said, thinking on. "You know that makes a weird kind of sense. After all, so many of the other mythologies have bits that are accurate and bits that are broken. It makes sense that the Bible would be as flawed."
Alicia looked at me incredulously. "You believe that?"
I rolled my eyes at her. "Alicia, honey, think about it. According to most of the mythologies I've read, a Were-creature can't even touch silver. I know you don't have a problem with that. It's more that it does more damage to you than it would to a human, which inhibits the ability of your body to regenerate. It's not like it's a kiss of death."
Alicia scowled at my logic but she couldn't think of anything to refute it. So I continued, "Myth also says that damage to the tree damages the Dryad. That's not true either, otherwise Hertha would be covered in scars. Oh, it hurts them, but it doesn't physically damage them, not unless the tree is killed. It's more of a psychic pain, for lack of a better term."
Alicia's expression slowly shifted into a thoughtful one. She started staring at him, then put the knife away and nodded to him. Then she spoke up in an angry tone, "No more secrets. It will get you or one of us killed if you keep hiding things from us."
"Not getting you killed was precisely why I didn't explain it to you." Anslem retorted. "Angels and Demons hunt down all Nephilim. Not just ones like me. They hunt them down to bind them to one side of the conflict or another. I only escaped it because my nature isn't obvious, unlike that of many half-Angels and half-Demons, and because I had been serving the church for a long time. Note that I only served the church as a means to an end. I was trying to figure out a way to release all Nephilim from their bondage."
There was a grim expression on his face. There was more to that cause than he was saying, but pressing him didn’t feel right. It was as if he was freed from some dreadful responsibility or task which was now impossible to complete.
Curiosity spiked in me. Since saving Hertha from the obscene slavery she'd been in, I'd had a dislike of any form of bondage, at least any form that wasn't entered into willingly. Some people chose to be servants of another for protection, money, status or any of one of a dozen other reasons. I wasn't going to try and upset that applecart. To many weaker Supes, or Supes unsuited to the shock of battle, they needed a patron to protect them. There were many cases where it was almost symbiotic, with the protector needing something the protectee could provide to survive. But the ones that had been forced into the bondage originally, that was a different
matter. That sort of thing just made me angry. Still, I had to ask, "How did that go?"
He scowled, but not at me. "Two centuries of working within the combined church structures, and it all gets blown up by The Mongrel. I was near the end of my term as a tomb guardian, and was due to be transferred to other duties. Then he comes along and nearly kills me. They voided the time served, and when I refused to go back to being a tomb guardian they booted me out as untrustworthy. Arrogant sons of bitches. I do one of the most boring jobs for over a century, nearly die, and still don't gain any trust. I know some of the Nephilim that serve the church do so willingly. I also know some don't." The distress, almost like open pain, showed on his face.
It's disturbing how reflexive mothering can be. Downright habit-forming. When I saw that expression on his face, I automatically went over to him and hugged his shoulders and started saying into his ear, "it's all right, we'll find another way. There has to be another way."
He turned his face into my shoulder and started sobbing into it. I hadn't considered that he was as broken as me in some ways. Just different ways.
I glared at Alicia over his shuddering form. She looked back defiantly at me. "He still hasn’t agreed to no more secrets."
I hissed at her, "Like you've told me everything. Stop pushing so hard, girl." I was truly angry at her. For the first time I’d ever seen, she backed down, a trace of fear in her eyes.
Cursed Mother: A Mongrelverse Book (Mother of Monsters 1) Page 7