by Gail, Stacy
“So, just to be clear...have you found her or not?”
Seriously, this guy was brick-thick. “I’m narrowing it down. Until I do find her, keep those names confidential. We don’t want another media circus on our hands.”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. da Luca.” Archibald’s scolding tone was enough to sour the coffee in Nate’s gut. “I do know how to do my job. Please continue to do yours, and in future be so kind as to leave your schedule open for continued daily updates. Thank you and good day.”
Nate scowled as he disconnected the call, trying his damnedest to ignore the pent-up tension thrumming through his muscles. What he’d like to do to vent that tension was open up a can of whoop-ass on the pampered priss Archibald and his client, Richard Rainier. Every last one of the Rainiers was jacked up in ways that only old money, power and privilege could do, with each successive generation proving itself to be more twisted than the last. But as much as he yearned to tell Archibald to shove this case where the sun didn’t shine, there was no way he was going to do that. For one thing, it wouldn’t stop them from hounding Gabriella Littlefield to the ends of the earth. For another, the fee they were paying him to fulfill the last wishes of an old woman would pay the bills for the next couple of years, and then some.
Besides, his cause was just. Before accepting this case, he’d investigated the motivation behind it from top to bottom. Though part of him still felt vaguely scummy intruding on the new life Gabriella Littlefield had built, there was no doubt that what he was bringing to her would make her road a smoother one. If anyone deserved that, she did.
The muted chime on his phone sounded just as he was tucking it into his coat pocket, and this time he brought it back out with more enthusiasm. There were very few internet message boards that grabbed his attention, but he’d stumbled onto this site after researching the loss of his own powers. One link had led to another, and after answering a complex questionnaire, he’d landed in carefully guarded territory—a web site created for the descendants of an ancient race of angelic-human hybrids known as the Nephilim.
In short, people who were just like him.
With a click, he opened the link to NeoPhilim’s RSS feed.
Attention Neo-Phytes!
Heads-up, y’all! We had a demonic event take place out west, though as this happened some time ago, it’s up to you to figure out if it’s important or not, okay? Cool.
ShadowmanZeke hit me with a story about a demon that had dropped in on an outdoor concert in San Francisco. Apparently this demon wasn’t much of a music lover, but he WAS loving the chaos he created by taking on the persona of a dead man and tormenting this deceased guy’s son into a knife-flailing frenzy. Luckily no one died, mainly because Zeke was Johnny-on-the-spot and tackled this hell spawn before it did any real damage. Not so luckily, the demon got away before Zeke could properly dispatch it.
For the record, Zeke said he has no clue if that incident had anything to do with what our fearless leader had to wrassle with here in Dallas this past summer (for those of you who don’t know the story, here’s the link to the blog we’re keeping), but since I asked for anything related to red eyes, Zeke thought he might as well pass this incident along.
And that leads me to my next PSA. Not to be a nag, but I need everyone out there who has a story relating to the demonic to give it up. Don’t be shy, boys and girls—SHARE WITH THE REST OF THE CLASS. Thanks to all the info that’s appeared on these boards so far, we now know that red glowing eyes means a demon; red-veiled eyes in a human means they’re possessed, and a faint flash of red means a human has become demonically corrupted by selling their soul.
Don’t forget why the people here at LSI started this web site. It exists for the sole purpose of giving the descendants of the Nephilim as much of a warning as possible. There’s no getting around the fact that some form of earthbound demon has targeted your kind for reasons unknown. Long story short—you’re on the endangered species list. So keep those lines of communication open and your senses sharp, okay? Not to be a drama llama, but your lives depend on it.
Type atcha later! Macbeth
Nate tapped on the Comment box and let his thumbs do the talking. “Nothing to report here in Chicago, Drama Llama...except that my ass is freezing off.”
The snark-prone keyboard-jockey Nate had come to know as Macbeth responded immediately. “Don’t care about your red ass, dude. Just red eyes. LOL.”
Another member of NeoPhilim, KyleTheFlash chimed in. “What’s a delicate Georgia peach like you doing up in the fucking North Pole?”
Nate snorted. “On the job. And did you just call me a peach, you beach bum?”
“I’d have thought you’d object to being called delicate,” Macbeth offered, ever helpful.
MenloNotThePark showed up next. “Don’t suppose you’ve run into any of our kind in the Windy City, have you, Nate?”
Leave it to solemn Menlo to bring a derailing conversation back in line. “Nope, which is a relief. I’m not fond of traveling, thanks to that no-congregating rule we have.”
“Has anyone ever tested that rule?” Kyle asked. “I mean, I know the biblical lore—the ancient Nephilim got wiped out because they hung out together and pretty much lorded it over mankind. But that’s because they were dicks. We’re not dicks, so why shouldn’t we sit down and have a couple cold ones?”
Nate shook his head. “Unless it’s the end of the freaking world, I’m not going to chance it. So not interested in a smite-y smackdown.”
Macbeth was the quickest on the draw, as usual. “Is smite-y a word?”
Nate chuckled out loud and was in the process of defending his wordsmith prowess when Macbe
th’s employer and fellow descendant of the Nephilim, SeraphSara appeared next. “Macbeth, are you playing, or working?”
“Umm...”
Kyle clearly decided a grade-school comment was the only way to go. “Macbeth’s in trouble. Macbeth’s in trouble.”
“Morning, Sara.”
“Morning, Menlo. Keeping Boston peaceful?”
“As peaceful as it ever gets. Macbeth’s been great in pulling us together. Don’t know what I’d do without my daily dose of NeoPhilim.”
Nate had to smile. Menlo. The Bostonian was the calmest of their group, but there was an understated relentlessness that radiated in every word. From the start Nate had gotten a sense that of all the people he’d met on NeoPhilim, Menlo was the one guy he’d hesitate in tangling with, and it wasn’t just because he’d lost his main Nephilim gift. Though he’d always been a dud compared to the rest of his family when it came to power, his speed and brawling abilities were still present, and second to none. But with Menlo, he suspected all that raw strength burgeoning in his muscles wouldn’t mean a damn thing.
Nate sent his thumbs over the screen. “I feel the same way, Menlo. Though I’m not sure I belong on these boards now that my locator mojo blew a fuse.”
“STFU, dude. Once a freak, always a freak.”
He supposed that was Kyle’s way of being reassuring.
“I’ve been looking into your problem, Nate.” Macbeth’s comment was the next to pop up on the live feed. “The ability to psychically locate is rare, but it’s not unique. It shows up time and again throughout human history, from remote-viewing to an ability commonly referred to as dowsing. Have you tried using a physical object to try and jump-start your gift? Dowsing rods or a crystal hanging from a chain?”
Nate made a gagging sound before he could stop it. “You’re kidding, right?”
Kyle seemed to be of the same mind. “Macbeth...WTF.”
“There’s no escaping genetics. Your powers are still there because your DNA is still there, see? Since your gift stopped functioning in one way, I wouldn’t be surprised if it manifested itself in another, totally new way.”
Nate sighed and typed. “Thanks Macbeth, but I can’t see myself stomping around holding Y-shaped sticks. My powers are gone.”
“Not all of them. When you first found NeoPhilim, you said you still had your speed, right?”
Nate shrugged as if Macbeth could see him. “Yeah. What’s your point?”
“My point is that what you’re going through is probably psychological, and you might need a way around whatever mental block you have to get your locating powers to reboot.”
Kyle chimed in. “Leave it to Macbeth to make you sound like your hard drive has a glitch, Nate.”
“I think what Macbeth is saying is that you can’t change who you are, Nate.” Menlo appeared next, before Nate could think of anything to say. “You were born a member of the Nephilim, and that’s who you will always be.”
“That may be, but only minutes after I was born, Mommy dearest hacked my wings off with a meat cleaver. That pretty much crippled any real power I might have had, so it’s not surprising what locating talent I did have faded away entirely. Trust me—you guys are the true Nephilim now, not me.”
But after Nate signed off and headed for his car, the thought of trying something different lingered. Thanks to his crazy-ass mother—who had repeatedly cut off her own spontaneously re-emerging wings during her manic phases—he knew squat about his bloodline’s gift. Or curse, as she’d called it. She’d point-blank refused to say anything good about the family’s supernatural legacy—how it worked, how many facets of it had been displayed throughout history, or what could be done with it. He probably wouldn’t have known anything at all, had it not been for her compulsive need to take the bows for his lack of discernible power compared to the rest of their supposedly accursed lineage.
That was another area where his mother had never held back—the misery running rampant in their family tree. Every horrific detail of what it was to be part of the “abominations” known as the Nephilim was indelibly branded into his brain. Most kids got bedtime stories. He got to hear how she’d found her father with his brains blown out and a note proclaiming he could no longer stand the hidden things crying out for his attention.
With a rough sigh Nate stretched his neck before the tension there could bloom into a killer headache. Some instinct had told him that his mother would either wind up the same way as her old man, or perhaps even kill him, her own son, to “save” him from the family’s curse if it had ever manifested itself in any noticeable way. But come to find out, there had been no need to worry; her butchery on him had been complete. From the beginning of life she’d dealt him a wound from which he could never heal, while her own powers flailed out of her, uncontrolled.
Time and again the apportation of things his mother was looking for would occur—car keys, her wedding ring, and that one memorable time, the family cat that had managed to get out of the house. Every time the physical apportation of objects happened, a black depression settled over her to the point where she’d stay in bed for weeks—not sleeping, not talking. Barely existing.
Back then he’d called those The Scary Times. Even now, years later, they still were.
He’d only been three when his father took off and was never heard from again. For years he’d half hoped, half dreaded his mother deliberately using her gift of apportation to make him come back. It never happened, and by the time Nate entered his teens he’d been taking care of himself and his mother for years, secretly determined not to view the family legacy as a burden, but as a gift. The irony of that decision didn’t escape him. As the only one in generations who’d appreciated the gift for what it was, he was the one who’d lost it.
Though, considering the death toll his gift had racked up, that loss was no less than he deserved.
* * *
“...and after walking the second batter in a row and loading the bases, the manager called down to the bullpen to get their relief pitcher up on the mound. It proved to be a fatal decision. The first pitch resulted in a grand slam homerun.”
Phoebe regarded Ella with hooded eyes. “Who was the relief pitcher?”
Frantically Ella racked her brain. “Hernandez.”
“Are you guessing?”
“No.” Well, maybe a little.
Her boss sat unmoving behind the rece
ption desk, as inscrutable as Buddha, before nodding her blue head. “Well done. And better still, it seemed like you actually understood everything you just said this time around.”
“I learn from my mistakes.” And the last thing she wanted was to get another hour-long lecture on how it was necessary to change lifelong habits by embracing new concepts such as the infield fly rule. “Besides, baseball isn’t rocket science. There are some aspects to it that remind me of chess.”
“Which you don’t play. Right?”
“Right.” Ella’s sigh was interrupted by the cell phone buzzing away in her pocket. Holding up a hand to Phoebe, she fished it out and after a brief glance at the screen—Out Of Area—she hit the right button. “This is Ella.” At first she wasn’t sure she heard anything, before she caught the faint tinkling of elevator music. “Hello?”
“If it’s a heavy-breather, hang up,” Phoebe said, loud enough to be heard through the entire front room. A click in Ella’s ear made her glance at the screen once more and found she’d lost the signal.
“I’ve got to get a new phone,” she muttered, pocketing the device. “I suppose I can pick one up on my half-day off.”
“That’s right, we made a deal.” Phoebe plucked up a pair of zebra-framed half-glasses from the desk and turned to the computer. “You’ve just earned yourself a half-day off, young lady.”
“Yippee, except for one thing. It’ll have to wait.”
“Why?”
“Look at my afternoon schedule—I’m packed. I’m training the new intern on how to conduct a start-to-finish course during my self-defense class in about fifteen minutes, and then I’m locked away in Jacob’s Doom Room with kickboxing. How about tomorrow?”