by T. Frohock
He’s trying to bait me into an argument. Rafael held his tongue.
Indifferent to Rafael’s silence, Jordi went on. “What you must understand, my little historian, is the past foretells the future. Miquel will love your father unless Diago betrays Los Nefilim. If he does, then Miquel will turn his back on Diago again.”
“No,” Rafael whispered. Yet the word sounded weak as it slipped through his lips. Although his fathers never hid the story of their beginning, they rarely spoke of the past.
On the nights they did, Papá often withdrew quietly to one side, lost in memories he never shared. Only Doña Juanita seemed to notice the reflective quiet emanating from his corner of the room. On those nights, she watched Papá with a calculating gaze that gave Rafael chills.
Jordi folded his arms across his chest. “What are you thinking?”
“They don’t ignore the past. They remember it so they can learn from one another. As they passed into new incarnations, they tried to become better people.”
“You’re a dense boy.”
Rafael flinched from the contempt in the older nefil’s voice.
Jordi’s words were tight and landed like blows. “Let me spell it out for you. Your father cannot change the course of his destiny. None of us can. Our firstborn lives dictate our alliances, the very nature of our existence. We are locked into our roles by the decisions we make. That we made.”
Rage flashed through Rafael’s chest, momentarily obliterating his fear. He met Jordi’s glare with one of his own. “Have you ever again died clinging to an altar and begging for your life?”
The air around Jordi’s body crackled with energy. Red-gold sparks snapped between them and sent goose pimples over Rafael’s skin.
Jordi lunged. His hand encircled Rafael’s throat and he jerked him forward, half lifting him from his chair. “I have died honorably in every subsequent incarnation.”
Hoarse with his own terror, Rafael still managed to gasp, “Then you changed your destiny. Señor General.”
Jordi’s eyes narrowed. His gaze grew sly. Once more Rafael detected that strange mix of surprise and admiration Jordi exhibited when Rafael refused to give Samyaza his ring.
Without a word, he shoved Rafael back into the chair, which rocked beneath his weight.
Rafael slammed his foot to the floor and barely prevented the chair from overturning. I’ve shocked him twice now.
“You’ve got your father’s wily tongue.” Jordi’s voice dropped an octave. “Have a care I don’t slice it out of your head.”
Chilled, Rafael made no reply.
The door slammed open. Samyaza entered the room, his milky eyes leering at them over the mask’s painted mouth. “Operation Red Soldier is a success.” He pointed to smoking wounds on his brow and shoulder. “Two strikes while on extreme dosages of Pervitin. We need to use older nefilim and give them more of the drug.” He jerked Rafael out of the chair. “How is our baby nefil?”
Rafael twisted his face away from the Grigori’s hate.
Samyaza didn’t wait for an answer. He stretched his arm, and Rafael found himself airborne. His back struck the wall, driving the air from his lungs.
Awakened by the sudden movement, the glass cuffs gnawed at his wrists. Rafael slid to the floor, tears of pain blurring the room. He forced himself to be still. The sigils slowed and then ceased to bite into him. With a ragged gasp, his body remembered how to breathe.
Jordi faced the angel. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Making room for our esteemed guest.” He gestured to the door, where Cabello and the other guard, a nefil named Losa, dragged a bound man between them. They dropped him into the chair, buckling a thick lash across his chest.
Rafael stared at his father in disbelief. “Miquel?” What have they done to him? He’s too thin, too frail.
The sleeves of his shirt were ripped. Lacerations covered his forearms. A jagged gash that mirrored Rafael’s ran down the side of Miquel’s bruised face. He lifted his head. His eyes were unfocused. A string of bloody drool escaped the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t let his appearance fool you,” Samyaza murmured as he slithered close to Miquel. “He was magnificent. The control . . .” The Grigori growled low in the back of his throat. “Once provoked into the fight, he became a true berserker.” He lifted his hand to touch Miquel’s brow.
“Don’t touch him!” Rafael struggled to his knees, the vicious cuffs gobbling his flesh as he did. Oh fuck. The ultimate blink. But he couldn’t stop. All his rage poured through his lips. “You get your goddamn hands off him.”
“Or what?” Samyaza tilted his head and fixed his milky gaze on Jordi. “It still nips and yaps. Haven’t you brought it to heel?”
“Leave him alone,” Jordi murmured. “He’s mine.”
Ignoring the exchange, Rafael rolled to his feet. Cabello touched the grip of his pistol. Rafael froze.
Jordi examined Miquel, lightly slapping his cheeks to bring him around. “Wake up, Miquel. You have a visitor. Someone you’ll want to see.” He gestured for Cabello to bring Rafael. “Bring him.”
That was all the permission Rafael needed. Without waiting for Cabello, he approached Miquel. Cabello trailed on his heels like a sinister shadow.
“Miquel,” Rafael whispered, reaching for his father.
Jordi grabbed his arm. “Not too close. He’s out of it. He might not recognize you,” he whispered in Rafael’s ear before he turned to the angel. “Give him a pill. See if that brings him around.”
Samyaza withdrew a vial from his pocket and tapped two white tablets into his palm. Using his claw, he pushed the pills between Miquel’s lips.
Moments passed and Miquel’s eyes finally focused. “Rafael?” He grimaced and twisted in the chair. The strap creaked but didn’t budge.
Now Rafael understood his dream. Miquel wasn’t holding his hands behind his back. Metal cuffs restrained him. He wanted to address his father with authority. Instead, he sounded like the child he was. “I’m here.”
Blinking at Rafael, Miquel winced and then shook his head. “No . . . you can’t be . . . I’m hallucinating again . . .”
Jordi’s grip relaxed. Rafael twisted free. He dropped to his knees in front of Miquel. “This isn’t a dream. It is me.”
“Oh no.” Miquel bent forward until his forehead touched Rafael’s brow. “No, my little bear, please don’t be here.”
Never in his life had Rafael heard Miquel sound so broken. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But he couldn’t say that, not with Jordi and Samyaza hanging on to their every word.
Then speak in Caló.
Of course. All three of them used the language of the Iberian Romani when they wanted no one else to understand them. Papá had learned from Miquel and Rafael from his fathers.
Using their secret language, Rafael murmured, “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Tell me how to fight them.”
Jordi rammed a sharp finger between Rafael’s shoulders. “Speak Castilian or this little family reunion is over.”
Miquel answered in Castilian. “Leave them to me. You can’t fight and win. Trust me. Will you trust me and do as I say?”
Rafael met his father’s gaze and nodded, following Miquel’s lead. “I trust you forever.”
Miquel kissed Rafael’s hair. “Everything will be okay.”
Will it? Rafael made no effort to rise.
Jordi folded his arms across his chest. “Well, this is touching, but I’m short of time, Miquel. It’s been brought to my attention that you refused to decipher the notebook Feran brought to us.”
Miquel turned his head and spat a wad of bloodied phlegm at the floor. Then he met Jordi’s gaze evenly. “Let your own people break Carme’s glyphs. It’ll be educational for them.”
A surge of pride filled Rafael’s chest. He’s not scared. He’s not scared of anything.
“I see you need convincing . . .” Jordi pushed away from the desk. “Gentlemen, let’s take a little walk, shall we?�
�
Rafael knew what that phrase meant. In Barcelona, he’d listened by the door while Miquel talked to recent escapees from a Nationalist jail. They spoke of a priest, Father de Fustiñana, who walked the streets in shoes caked with Republican blood. They said when that bird of ill omen invited a prisoner for a walk, the stroll always culminated in death. Any hope he had that they might survive died with Jordi’s simple utterance.
It wasn’t fair. He needed time to tell Ysa he loved her. And Papá . . . what would happen to Papá without them? He said his love for them held back the darkness in his life. What would happen if they died? Or, worse, what if Papá never knew what became of them? How would he find them in their next incarnation?
I’m so sorry, Papá. He swallowed his tears and forced himself to stand.
Miquel’s expression didn’t change. “You watch for my soul. I’ll lead you into your next incarnation.”
I don’t want either of us to die. Rafael watched numbly as Cabello loosened the strap that held Miquel to the chair.
Miquel let them pull him to his feet, and then he kicked the chair away from his legs. He paled, momentarily favoring his left side before forcing his torso straight.
He’s hurt but he doesn’t want them to know.
Looking down at Rafael, Miquel muttered so softly in Caló that neither Jordi nor Samyaza seemed to hear. “Don’t blink.”
Don’t blink. If Miquel can hide his pain, so can I. Drawing a small measure of courage from his father’s presence, Rafael allowed Jordi to lead him into the hallway. He could be brave, but that was just on the outside. Inside, he was still in turmoil.
Because, like the arrival to the interrogation room, everything was happening too fast.
14
Rafael glared at Samyaza’s back. Instead of going to the exit that led to the surface, the angel went in the opposite direction, toward the mysterious door at the end of the hall. As the Grigori sauntered down the corridor, he snapped his fingers and hummed “A Gypsy Told Me.”
He’s mocking us. Rafael opened his mouth to retort. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed Miquel, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Shutting his mouth, Rafael squelched his retort. Without any idea of what Jordi had up his sleeve, he decided to follow his father’s lead. It could be that Miquel had a plan.
Samyaza turned the latch and opened the door. A breaker box spewed electrical cords down one side of a spiraling staircase.
From somewhere below, nefilim sang a haunting song, their voices rising and falling in unison. The chant began as a requiem in G, the ponderous tempo carried by the bass singers. A long chord follows a short chord, then the major lifts.
Caught up in the song, Rafael slipped on the first step. Jordi gripped his arm and held him steady.
Why is he keeping me safe if they’re just going to shoot us? He glanced at the tall nefil. The lines around Jordi’s mouth softened. He appeared almost sorry for what was about to happen. But is he really?
A terrible stench rose from the darkness.
Rafael gagged and then swallowed his bile. He recognized the odor from his days of hiding in the metro as the Nationalists bombed Barcelona. The stink of terror and moldering flesh had filled the tunnels.
This is where they dump their dead. Rafael’s throat constricted at the thought. A quick glance over his shoulder assured him that Miquel’s demeanor hadn’t changed. His father fixed his gaze on Rafael and gave him a stern nod.
Don’t blink. Right. The icy floor sent chills up through Rafael’s soles and into his body. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering and concentrated on the nefilim’s song, which grew in volume, raising the hair on his arms. His throat ached listening to them.
Jordi’s palm slid down over Rafael’s forearm, tracing the line of his muscle. The touch felt more like a caress.
Unnerved by the sensation, Rafael pretended not to notice. It’s just another way to rattle me. Maybe he’s hoping I’ll beg him for our lives.
At the foot of the stairs, Samyaza went through a doorway carved in stone. Rafael’s mouth went dry as he followed.
The domed chamber yawned open like a mouth, the roof extending high overhead, where the natural stone was pocked, like a sinus cavity. The walls carried the nefilim’s vocalizations up high and into the mountain, channeling the song through the tighter passages.
On the floor, portable electric lights were arranged to illuminate an immense pit filled with sepia-colored boulders, some that must have weighed well over a ton. Two guards occupied a camp table to one side. They rose so quickly, their flimsy chairs upended and clattered to the floor. They saluted Jordi.
He acknowledged them and then said, “At ease.”
Neither of them returned to their seats.
Rafael hardly noted them, though. Instead, he focused on the prisoners in the pit. Clothed in rags, the nefilim were barely more than walking skeletons. Ashen skin stretched taut across their skulls, making their heads seem birdlike in the gloom. Their vacant eyes stared straight ahead, their thoughts obviously no longer their own. They surrounded a large boulder.
The Grigori’s manacles of black, like the ones encircling Rafael’s wrists, bound their arms to onyx rods that disappeared beneath the stones. In unison, the group traced a sigil with their broken, bloodied hands. As Rafael watched, he realized the nefilim weren’t moving of their own free will. Something beneath the rocks used the rods to manipulate their hands while forcing them to sing.
Midair over the cavity was a single mirror, which whirled lazily. The colors of the prisoners’ song rose up and disappeared into the glass, only to return as darkness, deeper than any darkness in the mortal realm. Ichor from the mirror dripped over the boulder and sizzled across the nefilim’s upturned faces.
Rafael cringed from the smell of scorched flesh. A low moan burned at the back of his throat as he remembered his nightmare and the spinning mirror over Miquel’s head. No. Not my Miquel.
The sable light from the mirror’s sigil leached into the boulder’s cracks. The quiet roar of a muffled blast sent puffs of dust into the air. The fissures widened. The nefilim’s hands moved, and the process began again.
Samyaza reached behind his head and loosened the strings holding his mask in place. When he turned, Rafael recoiled from the angel’s ruined face.
His wide mouth practically split his misshapen head in half. A thin whipcord tongue snaked between his serrated teeth. The profusion of scars traveling from his chin to the corner of his eyes seamed his face like an old leather sack.
“Isn’t it magnificent?” Samyaza gestured to the pit. “Jordi’s nefilim stumbled on our prison while they were blasting a tunnel through the mountain. He freed me, but our brethren are buried much deeper. We feared using more dynamite would bring the whole cavern down, so we devised a subtler way to break the stones.”
He strolled along the edge of the platform, admiring his handiwork. “We give them manacles, like those we gave our little historian.” He bestowed on Rafael a hideous grin. “And then we bring them here, let them see what awaits them.”
Suddenly Rafael realized this performance wasn’t for his benefit. They want Miquel to see. They want him to lose hope.
Jordi’s voice purred close to Rafael’s ear. “And they talk, Miquel. They spill all your secrets, thinking they’ll escape the pit. That’s how our troops won the battle at the Ebro. We knew you were coming long before Colonel Campos warned us of Republican movements across the river. It’s how I convinced Franco to turn his eyes from Valencia and halt his operations on the Levante front.”
Rafael couldn’t see Jordi’s smile, but he heard it in his voice. “We broke your nefilim and they gave us your codes. Your operation was doomed from the beginning by your own people.”
Miquel gazed into the pit, his lips moving silently. His face was almost as ashen as those of his milicianos in the pit. He swayed on his feet. Rafael realized that he whispered their names.
Reveling in Miqu
el’s horror, the Grigori held out his arms as if to embrace the milicianos. “Once they confess all that they know, we give them a sedative before we drop them into the pit. Unconscious, they can’t resist when our brethren take control of their minds. But our kin are weak from their long internment. They can manipulate the nefilim’s song, but not their bodies. So I designed the sigils on the manacles to lengthen into supple rods that descend into the Grigori’s prison.”
“You turn them into puppets.” Horrified, Rafael looked down at the sigils on his wrists. And now he understood what Jordi meant when he said they owned his song. They’ll force me to sing, and my mother’s tear will augment my magic.
“Miquel . . .” The murmur was the same as a blink. Rafael didn’t care. He couldn’t stop his panic. “Miquel!” He twisted in Jordi’s arms. Save me, make them stop . . . Terror lent him strength, but the older nefil held him tight.
Miquel tore his attention away from the pit, but instead of rising up and breaking his chains, he seemed to grow smaller in the shadows. The realization of what they intended to do drained the color from his face.
Samyaza crooned, “And when they die, their souls are taken into the mirror and channeled to our brethren down below. In the abyss, the Grigori twist the resonances of the nefilim’s auras—what the daimons call the dark sounds—into glyphs that they use to hammer their prison’s walls. By working the stone from above and below, we’ll release them faster.”
Destroyed by the angels, the nefilim condemned to the pit died a second death and never reincarnated. Rafael suddenly craved the quick death a bullet would give him.
Jordi laughed. “Oh, don’t look so shocked, Miquel. We only use the criminals who fought against us.” The generalissimo leaned forward and hissed in Rafael’s ear. “Remember what I told you about the allegiances in your firstborn life, Rafael? Those nefilim”—he gestured at the pit—“have consistently aligned themselves against me. They’re incorrigible. They cannot be redeemed, so their deaths mean nothing to me.”