We head back down to the car in a somber funeral procession through the netherworld, Mel and me carrying Reb’s body and Drake leading the way from the other side. A heavy police presence has accumulated around the city, squad cars posted at street corners and officers responding to reports of an active shooter at various locations in the vicinity of Milburn Tower. It strikes me that the conflicting reports could be Jan’s doing, a concerted effort by her minions to keep the police chasing wild geese around and away from Milburn Tower. Then again, it could just be the fact that Milburn stands several stories taller than the next building, so no one could isolate the exact location of the gunshots. Drake, dressed in his Port Ellis Police Department uniform, blends in with the other officers and moves through the streets unnoticed as we follow through the haze of the spirit realm.
The next hour is a nightmarish blur of grief and hopelessness. Trapped in the silent car, there’s no song on the radio, no chitchat, nothing but grating road noise that only serves to highlight the millstone of despair grinding our spirits to fine powder. From the passenger seat, I periodically break my thousand-yard stare out the window to check on Drake, who is alert at the wheel but clearly fighting to preserve his steeled countenance. Mel, on the other hand, repeatedly breaks out in quiet sobs that are painful to listen to, but a welcome break from the grinding millstone. At least one of us is releasing the heartache. Then again, she’s sitting in the back seat with Reb’s head on her lap, with every downward glance bombarded by the stark reality of his passing. With the failing of his bodily functions, Reb’s swelling has subsided and he’s once again recognizable, at least in a vulgar sense, like a macabre caricature.
We arrive at a warehouse in an old industrial complex, headlights sweeping across its rusted and peeling walls. What used to be white has yellowed with age, and the black letters painted across the building’s side look more like an abstract checkerboard. Enough fragments remain to make out its history as a Yuzumi Iron Works factory, meaning it will have a furnace hot enough to cremate a body, which I’m guessing is the reason we’re here. At a stop along the way, Drake sent a text message to Vic from a burner phone, so if the alliance survivors aren’t already here, they will be shortly. We park and exit the retired squad car, heading straight back to help Mel as the warehouse door grinds open with an offensive screech.
Out steps Vic and all of the surviving families from Carver. Instead of helping us, Drake peels off straight to Vic with a crazed look in his eyes. He starts shoving Vic and shouting, “How could you leave him!” The children cling to their parents, seeking shelter from the unexpected angry outburst. Then, grabbing Vic’s shirt, he pulls him toward the car and points to us as we unload Reb’s body. “Look what you did! Look!”
Stunned and defensive, Vic shouts, “Reb told me to go! He said he’d received a message, a warning from his angel friend that the Nephilim monster was headed to the cabin! He ordered me to warn the others and to lead them here instead.”
“But why did you leave him!” Drake questions.
“I didn’t want to leave him! I tried talking him into coming with me, but he said it was the only way to save those two,” Vic says, gesturing to Mel and me as we ease Reb’s body from the back seat. “He said if the monster got to Milburn Tower with no one that they were willing to trade for Jan, he’d have to kill them before they’d hand her over.”
Yanking Vic around by his shirt collar, Drake snaps back, “Then you should’ve stayed at the cabin and sent Reb here!”
“Guys…” I say, trying to intervene, but it’s no use as Vic explodes.
“You know he wouldn’t have let that happen! But, if he had, then we’d all be dead! Children included!” shouts Vic, swinging his arm in the direction of the little ones who recoil in fear. “He knew he was the only one besides these kids that Mel would give up Jan in order to save. What about you, Drake? How did you escape death back at the gym? Did you make a deal with the devil, or did you just shoot Pam in the leg and make a run for it?”
“THAT’S ENOUGH!” barks Mel, sending a shockwave through the small crowd. She props Reb’s shoulders on her thighs as she repositions her grip under his armpits. “Reb was wiser than all of us, wiser than anyone I ever met! He did what he did because he knew it was the only way to be certain that we would all live to fight another day. He would be heartbroken to see you acting this way, and you both know that’s true.
“Julius, you tried to get to the tower in time and you didn’t, but this is not your fault. I know you’re in pain and you don’t know how to handle it, but even though anger is easier, it only masks the pain. Allow yourself to grieve. Vic, you followed your leader’s orders and he died, but this is not your fault. You need to absolve yourself and grieve.” She looks past them to address the group. “We all need to grieve. We need to celebrate what Reb meant to all of us, to commemorate what a great leader he was, and we need to let the pain flow from our tear ducts and seep through our pores. And then we need to move on. Now, please, clear a path. He’s not getting any lighter and we need to get him to the furnace.”
The group disperses randomly to either side, leaving a clear channel through the factory doors as we carry Reb inside. In our wake, and face by face, a wave of despair moves through the onlookers. Despite hearing Mel say that their beloved leader is dead, they aren’t met with its reality until they see his battered corpse for themselves. Sniffles like the distant rumbles of an approaching storm serenade our otherwise silent march toward Reb’s final resting place.
When Zia, a four-year-old Nephilim girl, asks, “Momma, is Papa Reb gonna be okay?” the storm lets loose. Tears cascade down the cheeks and drip from the chins of nearly everyone in the room, making tiny mud craters on the dusty factory floor and wetting the weeds that have inexplicably forced their way through the concrete foundation. Through the cacophony of sobs, mine included, I can barely make out her mother’s answer.
“No, darling, Papa Reb is gone. He died to keep us safe.”
“Like a hero?” asks Zia.
“Yes, just like that,” her mom says with a forced smile that momentarily settles her quivering lips.
We load Reb onto a large concrete slab, empty his pockets, and remove all the metal from his body as Vic works on starting the large industrial furnace. He flips several switches and turns a dial until an LCD screen displays sixteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit. A large door lifts at the near end of the moving hood furnace. The dirty, rolling monstrosity glides down a track toward the concrete pad where Reb’s body lies. It stops short, primed and ready to cremate the father of our nonnuclear family after we finish offering our goodbyes and performing the customary Nephilim death ritual.
Surprised by the functioning furnace in this decrepit building, I ask Vic, “How is this still working with the building abandoned?”
“I’ve got a friend at the utility company,” he replies. “She makes sure that the gas and electricity stay on for this very reason. Although this is the first time we’ve had to use it in a really long time.”
“And with luck it’ll be the last for a long time,” I offer, knowing full well that without a lot of luck things are likely to get far worse.
Mel reaches into her pocket and produces a vial of blood that flows from one end to the other with the movement of her hand. She looks down into her palm at the thin glass tube and its sacred contents, splashed in the dull light of a single fixture that hangs high above the factory floor. A rustling arises as the group rakes through their own pockets for the vials of scintilla-infused blood that we Nephilim are still known to carry. One at a time, hands jut up from the small group, proudly wielding the tubes with their hallowed contents, the tiny organism that fuels our purpose and gives us power. Like opposable thumbs or binocular vision, it’s the part of our anatomy that separates us from the rest of creation, that thing that makes us more than natural.
Surprisingly, my vial remains intact and buried deep within my pocket. I lift it high and close my eyes, re
flecting on the impact of my brief relationship with Reb and imagining how devastated the others must feel. And it’s not just about Reb. In the immediate wake of his death, it’s easy to think first and foremost of him, but we lost Pam and Doc today too. On what is the bloodiest day in the memory of the local alliance, we are united in our despair. It’s a much-needed catharsis that may not have happened without Mel’s transparent leadership. One at a time we say a word or share a story about Reb, then approach his body and pour out our vials in three parts. The first is poured onto Reb’s chest and the other two onto the bare concrete to each side of him—one for Pam and one for Doc.
It’s the traditional Nephilim sendoff that dates back centuries to the story of twin brothers. Engaged in a harrowing battle, one of the brothers was stabbed through the abdomen and faded slowly, painfully. When his brother noticed he had fallen, he raced to his side and tried desperately to treat the wound, but he was beyond recovery. In the moments before he passed, the brother withdrew the small goatskin in which he kept his blood—the vial of their day. He poured it out onto his brother’s chest and said, “My blood will vouch for you, brother. They will know that you stayed true and fought bravely, and I will see you again in paradise.” The practice grew throughout their ranks and was passed down through the generations.
Like humanity, none of us Nephilim are privy to the divine secrets of the afterlife, one possible exception being Verdonos. Obviously we know that the supernatural exists, or at least that there is more to the natural world than humans are able to perceive, but we don’t vacation on the soft clouds of heaven or talk to our deceased loved ones about what to expect after death. In death, we’re cut off from the living, and so we contemplate their fate and our future. We struggle with the same heavy, existential questions that have always burdened all of creation, perhaps us even more so than humanity. Our angelic nature teases us with a glimpse behind the curtain, but our human nature still denies us any definitive answers. We long for the reassurance that our existence transcends the grave to a peaceful, utopian eternity. For that reason, the power of this ritual is not in the scintilla, it’s in the symbolism, the stamp of approval of a life well lived and our sacrifice of something precious to mark the seal. Every Nephilim knows of the ritual and many, albeit far less than I once believed, are motivated to live rightly in the hope of receiving such validation upon their passing.
With the eulogies complete and the blood poured out, Mel signals Vic, who pushes and holds a button on a wired remote. The hood furnace hums with electric current, creeping slowly along its track until it envelops Reb and the blood-soaked concrete pad. It jitters to a clamorous stop, jarring the room with a terrible rattle. Vic looks up with an apology in his eyes, then back to the remote where he switches buttons to lower the furnace door. A loud pneumatic whine cuts through the hollow room, causing the children to plug their ears and the adults to cringe. When the door finishes its descent, Vic looks up at Mel, awaiting her approval to fire it up.
A mutual nod, a loud click, a hiss, and the angry roar of an infernal blast mark the erasure of Reb’s physical existence from the planet. We watch for several minutes before Mel turns and ushers us outside, noting the hour or two it will take for the cremation to finish. The first spears of morning light pass between gentle, scattered clouds as some feathered early risers twitter away on the factory roof. In an untidy cluster, we stand around eyeing Mel and waiting for her to give an address, but she just stands with eyes fixed on me.
“What did you want to say, Mel?” I ask to get the ball rolling.
She takes a deep breath and says, “I know it’s too soon and we all need rest and more time to mourn, but we can’t stay here all day and we can’t move until we know where we’re going.” After scanning the crowd she settles back on me. “To know where we’re going, we need to designate a new leader.”
Another pause passes with little feedback from the group, who just stand and watch her intently.
Mel gestures in my direction and says, “I nominate Ted. His powers are beyond compare, he is smart and wise, he fights with heart, and, most importantly, he’s never wavered in his commitment to truth and to our cause. He’s the best man for the job, and I would be honored to follow him.”
A slight murmur works through the crowd, during which Mel never breaks her lock on me. I return her intense gaze at first, but then look away at the diverse and perplexed faces of our little band of warriors, present and future.
“I’m flattered, Mel, truly, but you’re wrong about something. The most important quality in our future leader is not that they’ve never wavered. Me being a lifelong, dedicated, pious ass hasn’t qualified me to lead any more than your failures have disqualified you from leading. I’m not saying this because you need my approval or blessing. I’m just trying to open your eyes to the reality of the matter. The true wellspring of a leader’s value and authority is found in the depth of relationships they have with their people. Look around, Mel; these Nephilim already have a leader.” For effect, I survey the group again who, despite the fact that I’m talking, are still turned to face her. “You. They’re all looking to you, Mel, and so am I.”
Their heads bounce in agreement and Vic shouts, “You the one, Mel!”
Her cheeks flash with color during a proud smile that’s as short-lived as it is beautiful, and I can’t help but hope to see it again soon.
I continue, “So, leader of the alliance, what’s the plan?”
She takes a moment to regain her composure and plan her words before she starts.
“First, I’ll just say that I don’t think I deserve the privilege of leading you all, but I will do everything in my power to live up to who Reb was and to justify your faith in me. As you know, Reb was like a father to many of us, and I’ve always thought of you all as family, but under the circumstances I think it’s time for our family to grow. It’s time for us to stop operating like a family business,” she says, knowing this idea is far more radical than any they’ve considered before. She closely watches their expressions and finds only faithful agreement.
Building momentum, she says, “What happened yesterday at Carver and in Port Ellis were only the first volleys in the war that we’ve prepared for with zealous dedication. These forces of evil have always existed and they’ve always known about our little band of do-gooders, but they’ve left us alone until now, which begs the question: Why now? What’s changed? Why have we suddenly suffered their wrath? The answer is that until now, they didn’t fear us. They thought we were harmless, insignificant, not worthy of their time and energy. Yesterday’s attack was the confirmation that we needed, the validation of our might! It was a message from our enemy in no uncertain terms that we…are…dangerous, and even they can see the threat their foolish pride has created. They ignored us to their detriment, and we became strong.”
At this, the group is fired up, hooting with excitement. It’s a notable distinction to be worthy of attack, to be enough of a threat to evoke fear in one’s enemies, and during the chaos of the day they had not considered this truth. Now, with its realization, the sting of the day’s loss is a little more bearable, the spirit of the group is a little more formidable, and it’s growing more so with her every word.
“Better still, we are not alone. Now is the time to link up with the other alliance camps, to bolster our forces and share our discoveries. Now is the time to take the fight to them before they can figure out what to do about us. They may have hundreds of mangy, devilish baboons, but we are guardians of truth, beings of great renown, and we are legion!”
Like wildfire, an uproarious reaction sweeps across the crowd, drawing applause and victorious howls. The kids play along, jumping and cheering as the adults respond to Mel’s rousing speech. Looking down to the concrete, split by the insidious growth of gnarly weeds, she points at them and continues.
“We will be the weeds that refuse to die, that sprout another stem each time one is plucked up. They can trample us, cut us,
and burn us down, but we will return, a never-ending nuisance, because our roots run deep and we refuse to accept failure, even unto death! We will earn the honor of the scintilla poured out in tribute to our lives and we will pass gloriously into the afterlife.”
Mel finishes her speech to continued clapping and cheering. She moves through the group hugging and encouraging her followers, and I take the opportunity to slip back into the factory without notice.
The dark room still rumbles with the roar of the furnace, drowning out the hubbub outside. Sitting on the dirty floor, I draw my knees to my chest, exhausted and suffering physically and emotionally. I stare thoughtlessly at the steady glow that splashes against the scorched viewing window on the end of the furnace. The whoosh of the flames lulls me into a deep trance, looking without seeing and listening without hearing. My mind empty, my will absent, I sit still and silent in the peaceful dark until the swelling intensity of the furnace’s glow pulls me back into my body. Its brightness lands hotly against the back of my eyes with solar flares that whip like tentacles from its white, glowing center. I snap my eyelids shut for fear of going blind but, as if made of glass, they block nothing. I clasp my hand across my eyes, but again the light shines through as if there’s no hand at all. It’s when I turn my head to the floor and the light follows, centered in my vision, that I realize it’s not a product of my vision at all, but something injected straight into my mind. The celestial orb continues to grow until it washes my world in pure light and renders me blind to my surroundings.
“Theodonis,” calls a voice that resonates in my ears as if coming from my own throat. “Theodonis, do not be afraid.”
But I am afraid. I’m afraid because the last time I heard a voice from an invisible being, it was in the days leading up to a siege against my people. I’m afraid because I’m blind, dumb, and broken, helpless in the presence of some supernatural power that knows who I am. With any luck, this is nothing more than the hallucinations of my wounded body slipping into blood-deprived lunacy.
Verity Rising (Gods of Deceit Book 1) Page 32