by D B Nielsen
I was fearful of this man with his watchful, unmoving face as he instructed me to tell my story. Starting slowly, I felt the memory – the niggling details – like a mosquito bite, sharp on my skin, raised like an inflammation which I worried to an open wound. I chose my words with care, with deliberation, ordering the fragmented recollection of those torturous moments into a patchy timeline. But when I reached the point in my narrative where I was taken by knifepoint into the centre of the ring of museum visitors, I floundered. Under the dispassionate gaze of New Scotland Yard’s man, my throat constricted and my voice began to buckle.
‘And then what happened, Miss Woods? What did these men want? Did they explicitly state their intent?’ Ominously, Sir William did not vary his tone.
I swallowed hard. The muscles in my throat tensed and knotted. I could just imagine their response if I confessed the truth – my story would sound to these men of letters and reason as fanciful. Fallen angels. The Grigori. Nephilim. The Seed. A war between immortal foes. Who would believe me? If I could have told them the truth, I would have. If I could have told them a lie, I would have. But I could do neither.
Knowing I was incapable of lying convincingly, especially to those in authority, I stammered, ‘The leader ... h–he–he spoke with an accent ... I think it may have been Italian ... or it could have been Spanish. I’m not sure.’
Renauld pounced on my words; his nostrils flaring wide, strengthening the impression of his untamed animality. ‘How can you be certain that it was not Russian or Eastern European? Or, perhaps, Arabic?’
‘Don’t be bloody silly,’ St. John rejoined shortly, ‘you’re fishing for connections with Russian mobsters or Sunni insurgents? You obviously don’t know Ellen Jacobi if you can accuse her of being involved with such extremists. She’s a well-respected Project Curator with a First from Cambridge.’
Swallowing hard, I wondered what her involvement with the leader of the Grigori could be considered, but I knew St. John was doing his best to deflect attention away from the Seed, the Nephilim, and me.
‘You mean, she was.’ Renauld corrected with a small smile. ‘Or, perhaps, that is what she wanted you to believe. You are not a field operator or a detective, Dr Rivers, nor you, Professor Woods. That is clear.’
‘Thank God for that. And it’s a damn good thing we’re no longer engaged in a Cold War, otherwise you might suspect Dr Jacobi of Communist sympathies,’ my father retorted, and lapsed back into silence.
A note of irritation entered the Assistant Commissioner’s voice. ‘Please, gentlemen, let’s all calm down. Sir William. Perhaps we can continue?’
‘Quite right. This is no time for schoolyard brawling. Gentlemen, we stand for the same thing,’ the older man said.
‘And what would that be?’ said St. John in his quiet voice. ‘That seeking truth and justice is a battle, fought for people’s rights and liberties? That the weight of history falls upon us, and we must not falter?’
‘Isn’t that too romantic?’ Sir William gave a rare smile. ‘But, yes, I suppose you are right. And in order to achieve this, we must apply the fundamental principles of law.’
The Assistant Commissioner nodded in approval. But I wondered if they believed that the law – and the precious possibility of innocence – applied equally to Ellen Jacobi. I doubted I would be given an answer, even if I had asked.
‘Now, Miss Woods. Please continue. Did you understand the leader’s demands? What did these men want?’ he persisted.
My fingers felt numb from gripping them too tightly, but I was afraid they would shake badly if I released them, so I didn’t. ‘The leader demanded the return of an artefact. But I ... I couldn’t tell him what he wanted to know. I kept saying that I didn’t know. Then he said a lot of things I didn’t understand ... some of it had to do with religion ... it was quite cryptic. He believed that the artefact belonged to them and they wanted it back.’
There was a very long silence marked by the pounding of my heart.
My father gave a long, drawn-out sigh and finally said, fury and frustration colouring his voice, ‘Christ! It’s the Elgin Marbles all over again.’
The Assistant Commissioner’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘There is a great deal of controversy surrounding the demands for the return of certain artefacts, most prominently the Elgin Marbles, to their country of origin. We could debate the moral, social and practical reasons and implications for decades,’ my father continued, wearily removing his glasses to smooth the furrow between his brows, ‘but, as you can see, there are those groups who are not content to debate. They believe in forceful repatriation of antiquities.’
‘Even going so far as to hold a young girl hostage and kill a man?’ Sir William asked sharply and for a moment, just for a moment, the veneer of academic detachment had been penetrated.
‘I believe Commissioner Renauld has already made the point that history and violence go hand-in-hand,’ St. John remarked. ‘There are those – you might call them fundamentalists or zealots – who value their cultural or religious artefacts so greatly that they willingly disregard the value of human life.’
‘Time does not excuse conscience,’ murmured Renauld.
And, for the first time, I saw that this meant more to him than a standard investigation. I saw that, like the Nephilim who had attacked me, he was full of passionate intensity and conviction. His sickness meant that he had nothing to lose in pursuing this investigation to its bitter end. It was personal.
A tremendous void opened up in front of me. These fallen angels and hollow men couldn’t be bargained with. And they couldn’t be reasoned with. They did not feel – as others felt – pity, or empathy, or remorse, or fear.
And they would never stop, never give up, until they had finished what they had begun.
EVASION
CHAPTER FOUR
Almost two weeks later, the attack on the British Museum was old news. The media had moved on to other, more exciting stories – a leaked celebrity sex tape, a lorry oil spill blocking traffic on the M25 into London, a politician’s misuse of parliamentary travel allowances, amongst other scandals and sensational reports – and my ordeal was all but forgotten. Or, at least, forgotten by the general public and the media.
But I was not so lucky with the authorities. The Met police – after hours of repetitive testimony – warned me that I may yet be needed to answer further questions to assist them in their on-going investigation whilst, increasing the nightmare, my parents and St. John were more overprotective than ever, which hinted at the extent of their concern and alarm.
I had thought the situation had been bad before Christmas with my accident at the museum, but I hadn’t realised how much worse it could get. A frenzy of activity – police, paramedics, concerned friends and colleagues and neighbours, television cameras and reporters – all of it a mad blur. St. John and my father had become my protectors; my salvation and strength in those first few days after the attack. For a week, our neighbourhood in Kent was hectic with people, vehicles, faces I did not recognise. Everyone stared at me as if I was a rare specimen yet to be classified, so I was kept behind closed doors and shutters and out of the public eye as much as possible.
Now, supported by St. John, my parents’ repeated cautioning and advice and talking at me rather than to me was starting to grate on my nerves. Even more frustrating was when they treated me like a child no older than my sister, Jasmine; arguing over my head as if I wasn’t even present, with never a thought for what I wanted, and ignoring my opinions as if I didn’t have any say in my own life.
I knew that they were acting out of fear for me but after years of being “the responsible one” and exercising an independence paralleling that of my favourite fictional heroines, I chafed at the restrictions they wanted to place upon me now because they felt that they alone knew “what was best” for my safety and wellbeing – especially since their anxiety was entangled with guilt as they believed that they had som
ehow failed in their duty to keep me safe from the big, bad wolves.
As soon as I returned home, my family, St. John and Gabriel too, rallied around me. My father decreed that there would be no media interviews despite the incessant phone calls and battering questions called out over the Manor House gates by the reporters clustered on the opposite side of our street. The old news of Fi’s near-fatal fall down the sinkhole in the forest was resurrected. And for one week, our lives – my life – had been turned upside down.
But I didn’t believe anyone could be protected from either the curiosity of strangers or danger by wrapping them in cotton wool. I felt a little like Rapunzel and, because of me, my family were also virtual prisoners inside the Manor House. It made me so desperate, I’d taken to escaping to my twin’s bedroom in order to save my sanity as Fi was the only person who didn’t look upon me with either pity or apprehension or as if I was a circus freak.
In fact, it was a very different emotion which seemed to drive Fi – the desire for revenge. She’d compiled some sort of “hit list” where the Grigori, Louis Gravois and Jacques Renauld featured prominently. I wasn’t sure where Finn or, indeed, St. John and Gabriel came on that list, but I knew that she was still smarting from their betrayal. So, for now, Fi and I were committed to this strange but necessary pilgrimage to return the Seed to its origin and to our own deliverance.
The first few days at home, I was numb inside. Nothing impinged upon me. Even my thought processes were scattered to the four winds. My parents thought I needed rest. My mother insisted upon it. Everyone thought I was stricken with the events of my ordeal – stunned and shocked at being held hostage and injured.
But it was the security guard I couldn’t forget. And I didn’t want to be on my own. Alone. Because then I would begin to think of the horror of it all.
And whilst, almost two weeks later, the intense interest had died down, I was still having waking nightmares. But by then, Fi had knocked some sense into me. She had seen the knowledge in my eyes. Wounded. Ashamed. Guilt-stricken. Together, we were trying to sort through what was true from what was false, but it wasn’t proving easy.
Truth wasn’t like a mathematical proof; there were no absolutes or certainties. It sifted like dust particles and broke like the ocean waves on the beach. My former physics teacher had taught us that when a wave broke, the swell travelled a great distance because of the wind, but only the energy moved. Waves weren’t moving water; waves were moving energy. And so when the waves reached the shore, they expended their energy by breaking and moving sand and shaping the beach. Truth, I felt, was like a wave breaking – what we believed and what was real were two different things – but it could reshape a person.
It was the one salient point my sister and I disagreed upon – my feelings of guilt and responsibility for the death of the security guard and her equal but conflicting belief that I was not to blame. I still shuddered at the memory of his death and my own powerlessness to prevent it. It was different from being attacked by Louis Gravois in the woods and the car chase on the M40 – even though we were shot at and rammed by the pursuing Range Rovers – as I’d trusted St. John to get us through it. Though, as it turned out, ironically it was Fi who had saved us with her quick thinking. But this event somehow marked the point at which the world – my world – had become less solid, less stable, and infinitely less safe. I felt adrift. Uprooted from all I had once known. My whole conception of the difference between the real and imagined, the possible and impossible was well and truly demolished. Death was the one thing I knew I could not change. And I had to accept my losses and defeats.
The only conviction that remained was the grim thought to which I now clung – somewhere out there were the Nephilim who had murdered the security guard in cold blood. I knew that we would meet again. I was counting on it. If Fi was driven to exact revenge, I supposed I was too. My feelings were entirely personal and I did not want St. John involved in my search for a faceless enemy, which was the other reason why I was avoiding him, as it was extremely difficult for me to keep things from him. Right now, the only person Fi trusted was me. And, in turn, she was the only one who knew all of my secrets.
‘Honestly, Sage, you can’t stay in here forever. What the hell am I supposed to tell your fiancé when he asks where you’ve been hiding? And, believe me, he will ask. No – my bad – more like demand.’ Fi’s voice was filled with exasperation as she looked up from where she sat, cross-legged on the floor. She regarded me with baleful hazel eyes before turning her attention back to the Scroll spread out in front of her, which she had been intensely scrutinising for the last ninety minutes, trying to decode its secrets. Not with much luck, it seemed.
‘Tell him ...’ I paused, trying to think of a reasonable excuse, ‘... tell him I’ve been out walking the dog.’
This earned me another menacing glare. ‘For three days? I don’t think so! Even with your hopeless navigational skills, three days seems a bit much!’ She waited for me to respond but when I had nothing to say for myself, and seeing my sheepish expression, she sighed in despair. ‘Hell, girl! What planet have you been on lately? Have you even failed to notice that Indy hangs around St. John more than either of us? Wherever St. John goes, he follows. He’s no longer man’s best friend, he’s Nephilim’s best friend. Besides, that’s the lamest excuse you could have come up with considering Jasmine almost always takes him for his walks. And Alex would rat you out to his hero in a heartbeat.’
I had to concede that this was true.
‘And let’s be honest here. I know I’m not always the biggest fan of your fiancé but he’s been amazingly patient. Since the paparazzi left three days ago and you’re no longer under constant surveillance by the media or police, I thought he’d try to get you to somewhere safe away from here, somewhere with supernatural protection.’ She glared at me but I didn’t answer. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could say. ‘But, instead, he’s been adhering to your crazy condition of a “normal” life, even though treats you like you’re as fragile as crystal. Waterford. Like that ugly royal wedding commemorative piece that sits on Dad’s desk.’
I could feel a flush stain my cheeks. ‘I think it’s quite beautiful.’
Fi lifted her eyebrows. ‘Whatever.’
‘But that’s the problem, Fi. He treats me like I’m fragile. Like I need protecting,’ I returned emphatically.
‘And you hiding away in my room proves what?’ The sarcastic tone I so disliked was very evident in her voice.
Clearly, I had not been thinking straight – which wasn’t surprising really as I’d been getting very little sleep. In fact, I’d been avoiding sleep probably as much as I’d been avoiding my fiancé. For the past ten nights I had lain wide awake in bed prolonging closing my eyes until, unintentionally, it would happen out of sheer exhaustion. But, inevitably, I’d jerk violently awake with a sick, heavy feeling – my tongue dry as if caked with mud, hair plastered to my forehead, damp with perspiration which I feared was blood, and sheets like cling film – struggling to breathe.
Shadows hung over me in my dreams. Faceless men standing shoulder to shoulder, eyes blazing like lit embers and coal-black to their hearts, circling around me. Behind them, time flowed like blood, cascading curtains of blood, ruby rivers of blood, lava pools of blood, lakes of blood. And that burning gaze. Eyes blazing. Eyes that never closed. Watching. Always watching with cold animosity. Whispers in the night like wind whistling through the scree of ruined, towering mountains. Yet the Watchers did not speak. I would wake as their faces came closer, became clearer. Haunted by the feeling that the darkness tasted of salt and blood.
Blood suffused my dreams.
‘Bloody hell!’ Fi’s violent outburst had me jumping out of my skin, recalled to the present moment as she leapt up to close the bedroom door with a loud BANG. ‘If I hear that song one more time, I’m gonna kill someone! I swear Disney has a lot to answer for! I’m sick to death of hearing that song wherever I go! Why couldn’t Mu
m have taken the brats to the zoo instead? At least then I’d only have to listen to animal noises – which is nothing new with those two!’
Even with the door closed I could hear Jasmine and Alex singing at the top of their lungs along to the soundtrack of their favourite, blockbuster Disney film. This was their daily pattern before school, after school and on the weekends – made worse by the claustrophobia of the house which they hadn’t been able to escape for almost two weeks. It was tempting to join in and hum a few bars as the songs were really quite catchy but I knew if I did that, Fi would have tossed me out of her room in a millisecond. Besides, I knew her aggravation stemmed more from the fact that she was unable to decipher the Scroll than from our admittedly annoying younger siblings.
It was not a situation that I liked, but I understood it. Fi’s real issue was that our usual approach to solving mysteries by harmonising our unique skillsets was, in this circumstance, dead useless. We had always before fallen into a pattern, and that pattern had remained unbroken, until now. But, this time, each of us was on her own.
Fifteen minutes later and still no luck, Fi sighed and pushed the Scroll away in defeat.
‘Maybe we can swap?’ she suggested hopefully, reaching round to pull the elastic from her hair, releasing her ponytail along with some of her pent-up frustration and stress. ‘I mean, I don’t get it. You’re the one who’s good with dead languages. The deader the better. Look at your Latin grades, for heaven’s sake! Who else but a nerd would want to speak Latin anyway?’
‘You don’t speak Latin, Fi,’ I automatically contradicted. ‘You read and study Latin. Written Latin is different from the vernacular.’
‘B-o-r-i-n-g!’ She began to mock-snore, her head lolling to the side for added emphasis.
Tossing a pillow at her, which she easily fielded, I said, ‘There’s a popular rhyme well known to students who’ve suffered through Latin classes: “Latin is a language, dead as it can be, it killed the ancient Romans and now it’s killing me.” But to be perfectly accurate, Fi, Latin’s not exactly dead. In a way, we’re speaking it right now, or at least a form of it in the Romance languages.’