by D B Nielsen
It took but a moment to sort through a cascade of appalling revelations. ‘Semyaza believes he’s being altruistic in starting a rebellion? A war? In genetic experimentation? In building a purist army?’
But Anak answered my questions with several of his own. ‘What is the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist? Why can the exploitation of individuals only be justified by the collective need? Are things always so clearly black and white?’
I did not answer. But on this point, Anak was unequivocally clear. Except to exchange a glance with the eldest amongst the Anakim, St. John remained silent without altering position.
‘Semyaza makes human history’s despots all look like angels,’ Gabriel said with a sarcastic bark of laughter. As if to prove Gabriel’s point, the male prisoner made a hideous grimace then bolted furiously forwards again, leaving the glass covered in more blood, before sinking into a dark oblivion.
I stared, stunned at the image of the Rephaim destroying himself slowly and yet with a vicious intensity.
‘Can’t you help him?’ I asked the Anakim present in the room, seeing their faces mirror each other’s misery and helplessness. I swallowed hard, an intimation of the difficulties of what was ahead for us making my breath catch.
St. John was the first to offer an explanation. ‘He’s beyond helping. And soon our two brothers will be too. If we could help them, we would. All of them. But the only way to help them now is a mercy we cannot provide.’
Fi was shaking her head before he’d even finished. His words were chilling to the bone. Yet it was not the thought of euthanasia that appalled me – it was the inability to deliver these poor souls a merciful end. And it would be far more merciful to kill them than for them to experience this slow degeneration and torment.
A flicker of memory teased my mind, haunting me. Unlocked, I recalled a visit to a London nursing home. I was quite young. And it was a dreadful place. There was a sing-along in progress in the communal living area as we entered. It was being led by a white-haired, bearded man surrounded by about thirty elderly residents – some seated in the rows of plastic seats provided, others in wheelchairs and unable to leave as they were stationed there by the nurses to enjoy the evening’s “entertainment”, some singing off-key and in the breathless and ragged voices of old age. All except for a woman in the corner who was holding an animated conversation with herself.
A tattered, high-pitched chorus of My Favourite Things was maundering towards some kind of conclusion as my mother ushered us along the corridor. The caterwauling followed us up the flight of stairs to my Grandmother’s room on the second floor, along with the smell of bleach and boiled vegetables and something else that lingered no matter how many times the caretakers cleaned the floors and the lavatories and the sheets.
Mum silently led the way, single-file, as if we were a reverent procession in a church. I couldn’t help peeking into the open doorways as we walked by, where the residents were like the dead in their hospital beds or, like the woman in Room 213, sobbing softly to herself.
Room 216, Grandmother’s room, was sparsely furnished in pale pink tones and the faux-marble linoleum floor was still sticky from whatever antibacterial bleach they had used to remove the grime. Mum crossed to the bed to kiss the still figure on the cheek; a dry kiss on papery skin. The figure, lying prone, didn’t respond. It was as if the person who resided in the fragile tissue of flesh had vacated the vessel long ago. But not quite. Her waffle blanket was hospital-tucked so tightly around her that it was almost possible to pretend there were no restraints tying her to the bed. Almost.
Fi waited for her turn, making it as quick as possible – I don’t think her lips even touched the skin – and then I did the same. But my lips left an imprint on skin so delicate it was finer than old linen and as brittle with age.
And then she let out a rattling breath and turned to look at me with pale blue eyes, watery and whitened with cataract. I started. I would have pulled back but was prevented. My hand rested on the quilt and it was just possible for her to reach out and grip it with her own skeletal one.
She spoke only a few words, but they were so wrong – so inappropriate and so absurd – that it made the whole thing more horrifying, especially as spittle flew out her mouth and she still wouldn’t let go of my hand. ‘Poppies. They’ve cut all the pretty poppies. Off with their heads.’
I’d suppressed the memory and only now rediscovered it. Yet, perhaps, it had always stayed with me – through my English studies of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Sebold’s The Almost Moon. And now as I looked upon these tormented beings. Was it better for them to live like this? Die like this? Looking like angels? Falling angels. Burning feverishly, burning brightly – like starlight or moonlight, silver and gold.
The seraph blade was uppermost in my mind.
‘So what are we going to do now?’ I voiced more forcefully than I intended.
Gabriel gave a small smile, his response mock-serious, ‘Rescue the girl. Kill the bad guy. Save the world.’
THE THORN IN THE ROSE
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘I don’t know where to begin,’ St. John ground out.
We were comfortably seated in his chauffeured Bentley – or as comfortable as a person could be when they were awaiting the guillotine as I was – and already St. John’s driver had put some distance between us and the secret location of the Anakim meetinghouse ensconced within West Norwood Cemetery Catacombs. My daring adventure to gate crash conclave – if I could even call it that – had ended in misery. Anak had attempted to bring some order to the group as they debated the risk and necessity of making a rescue attempt, but St. John refused to join in. As soon as he had the opportunity, he took hold of my hand in a firm grip and set off at a rapid pace – almost too fast for me to keep up with his effortless stride, though I was grateful for the pair of sensible ballet flats I was wearing as I scurried along in his wake – steering me out of the old tunnels and past the catafalque and up the stairs, leaving my sister to the attention of Gabriel and the others.
As we emerged into the bright sunlight after being underground for what seemed like hours, I did my best to protest.
‘St. John! Stop! Where are we going? What about Fi? We can’t just leave her behind!’ I objected, tugging at his hand.
He did not release me. If anything, his hand remained clamped around my wrist as he pulled me along, unheedful of my discomfort and frequent tripping on the uneven bitumen surface. He was in an icy temper – and I had never before seen him so angry, not even when Gabriel had taken me shopping and unwittingly placed me in danger without St. John’s express permission or knowledge.
‘Let be, Sage. You tread upon my patience,’ he said as he fixed me with a quelling look, enough to subdue, as he forcefully dragged me to the car.
He was fuming under the collar. So mad that he was quoting Shakespeare without even realising he was doing so – but I was not so foolish as to point that out to him.
‘We are leaving. Get in the car, Sage. You are going home. Directly home to the Manor House,’ he said through clenched teeth. I knew he was getting a bit of his own back with the threat to drive me straight home after Fi and I had bungled our way into conclave – into a situation where we could not possibly offer any service – and I had to take this with good grace. If I was brutally honest with myself, I probably deserved far worse.
I sighed, shamefaced, continuing to stumble along behind him until we reached the sleek silver Bentley parked on the other side of the road, about a dozen cars away from the Prius. I never even noticed it – and even if I had, it was not St. John’s usual mode of transport. He’d left his black Audi behind and was being chauffeured around town by his driver whom I recognised from our time in Paris.
St. John rapped sharply on the tinted glass window and, immediately, his driver was standing at the ready, opening the rear passenger door for us with a slight, deferential bow as if we were back in the Victorian era. ‘Dr Rivers
. Miss Woods.’
St. John did not release his hand from where it encircled my wrist, refusing to turn me loose just yet. ‘Austin, my residence, if you please.’
‘But ... but you just said that I was going ho–’ I began, looking up at St. John in surprise as I gave another tug of my hand, but was sharply cut off.
‘What I have to say to you is best conducted in private.’ St. John overruled my protest. He stared at me in frank astonishment as if he couldn’t quite believe that I had the temerity – or a death wish – to challenge him right now. ‘You think we need an audience for this?’
To his credit, St. John’s driver, Austin, did not so much as blink as St. John virtually hauled me into the car, softly closing the door behind us and leaving me to my punishment or even worse fate.
Despite the threat, my mind was buzzing with curiosity. I had never before been to St. John’s property in St. John’s Wood. He’d never invited me and, as much as I had always wanted to see it, I had also cherished a slightly silly virginal dream of being carried over the threshold of my new home – though a long engagement hadn’t figured in those frivolous dreams until recently. Besides, I knew that the property was being renovated with an army of carpenters, plumbers, electricians and interior designers swarming over the place, offering very little in the way of privacy and probably more of the usual noise, dust, crumbling plaster, and paint fumes that accompanied the restoration of a Grade II listed house. My mother had even offered St. John advice, giving him the numbers of our Polish carpenters and painters who were responsible for the transformation of the Manor House before we moved in. From their frequent conversations, I knew that work was due to be finished in May, around the same time as my eighteenth birthday and I kind of hoped that St. John would invite me over then.
But even as I felt the first stirrings of a dangerous thrill at the thought of finally being alone with St. John in his home, he put a damper on it all. After the silence that had reigned in the car for the past twenty minutes whilst I daydreamed as we sped through the London streets, St. John finally chose to speak – which had me wishing that he might have, for the sake of harmony in our relationship, held his tongue.
‘I don’t know where to begin,’ St. John ground out as if he couldn’t hold back his cold fury any longer; his words unlikely to incite passion – which obviously wasn’t his intention and not the foremost thought in his mind at that moment.
‘St. John,’ I began, my tone soft and deliberately placating, trying to smooth ruffled feathers. ‘St. John, please.’
I reached out to touch him but he shied from me like a skittish horse. It was the merest trace, my fingertips grazing his exposed forearm, but he reacted as if I had burnt him. Unintentionally, his rejection hurt me more than if he had given me a blistering set down.
‘Do. Not. Try. My. Patience. Do not try to soothe me with some charming words and sweet smiles and acting all innocent. I have never raised my voice to you in anger, Sage. But you must know what it is costing me not to do something I know I’ll regret.’
I saw the icy rage, barely restrained within him, his eyes the colour of winter fields after a blizzard. Some inkling of elf-preservation kicked in and I remained silent.
‘Is it too much to ask you to trust me? I have been as gentle with you as a person can be, Sage. I have given you the freedom to live your life the way you insist upon – that any other Nephilistic Keeper and bodyguard would have had you chained up for – and I have allowed you to take chances with your life – you, the Wise One, my fiancée – that might well have got you killed – and still you must continue to push me. Well, you push me too far, Sage.’
He bowed his head as he leant forward, bracing his hands against the partition that separated us from the driver; his fingers and knuckles so white, I was afraid the glass would crack under the pressure he exerted. His temper was cold; his rage measured. But it burnt white hot under his skin. He held it in check with a ruthless control but it was costing him dearly, I could tell.
‘Don’t. Don’t say that,’ I choked out. ‘It’s not entirely my fault.’
He flicked me another quelling green glance.
‘How can you even begin to understand what I have tried to protect you from? You want the truth, Sage? You want to know so badly what it is that I keep secret – then let me tell you!’ he said in a voice that was all the more terrible because it was so quiet. ‘Those human women who are breeders are nothing to the Grigori. Their offspring are torn from their wombs and the women are left to die in agonising pain. They are alive when this happens, Sage. Alive when they are mutilated and left to die. Alive and awake and aware. Bodies have been piling up, Sage, while you’ve been living your normal life. Because that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? A normal life. And so the rest of us have kept you from this awful, brutal, terrible reality. Do you even know what I have done to allow you to have your normal teenage life? You’ve been my only care and concern since I’ve met you. I’ve endured more than you can imagine – loss and suffering and pain beyond your ability to comprehend in your short mortal years – all so that you can be free of the burden of knowing. Do you think a normal life comes cheaply when you are the Wise One?’
There was a dreadful silence.
‘No. More. Do. Not. Try. Me,’ he managed to spit out through gritted teeth.
Before I could even form a coherent response, the car came to a halt and I barely had time to register that we had turned into a driveway and were parked before an imposing freestanding terrace as my incensed fiancé thrust the car door open without bothering to wait for the driver and towed me out of the backseat. I could only imagine how many bruises I would be sporting the next day, but was given no time to complain.
He slammed the car door sharply behind me and swept me up into his arms as if I weighed no more than a feather – I was by now too shocked to utter a sound – and sped up the front steps, taking them two at a time.
I was not surprised to find the front door opening before us as another of the hired help spontaneously let us inside. St. John stalked past their bewildered faces into the entrance foyer with its elegant parquetry flooring and sweeping staircase – about all I got to glimpse – as he roughly ordered, ‘Everyone out! Now! Take the rest of the day off!’
Any fiercer and it would have brought down the brickwork.
St. John’s roar brooked no opposition and I doubted that any one of his staff would have disobeyed him in any event. His furious voice carried the length and breadth of the house; its contained violence at odds with his celestial beauty. The heat of his anger fairly radiated from him – enough to blister the fresh paint on the walls. The workmen out back immediately ceased their activities, laying down their tools. And, within moments, less it seemed, the space was as silent as a grave.
Without breaking his stride to wait for their reaction, St. John carried me up the staircase to the first floor principal bedroom suite, which occupied the entirety of the floorplan, where he dropped me unceremoniously onto the master bed. I briefly recognised it from its twin in his Paris apartment – a dominating antique king size Federal Tall Post bed in mahogany, its carved posts elaborately topped with decorative pineapples – as he towered over me, bracing his hands on the bedposts.
Breathing shallowly, he rounded on me, opening his mouth to speak, but just this once I wouldn’t let him.
‘Don’t you dare blame this on me or make this my problem when you’ve been lying to me all this time and I’ve been foolish enough to defend you!’ I flung at him, getting the first word in as soon as I pulled myself up on the bed.
St. John rocked back on his heels, pupils dilating. My words found their mark. ‘What do you mean? When have I ever lied to you?’
‘You promised me that we were past all evasions. You told me that we were partners. You said that you trusted me. But you lied.’ I lowered my voice, trying to sound calm rather than acting like a shrew. Nothing would be gained if we were at each other’s throats.
He said nothing. He simply waited for me to continue. But the tightening of his jaw was all the evidence I needed that he was listening intently and my words had deeply affected him.
‘You’re in the business of keeping secrets. Your whole life has been filled with them. You think you’re protecting me but you aren’t – I sometimes question if I really know you at all.’ At this, he dropped his hands from the bedposts. There was naked anguish in his jade green eyes. ‘When were you going to tell me about the prisoners? When were you going to tell me about Elijah? When were you going to tell me about your birthright? And these breeders? And the bodies?’
St. John looked at me gravely. ‘I’ve just told you that I’ve been trying to protect you so you can have a normal life. It’s what you insisted upon.’
‘Is it? Are you certain that’s all? Or are you lying to yourself too?’ I demanded, forcing him to listen to me. ‘Would there ever have been a good time to tell me? When, St. John? Tomorrow? Next week? When I turn eighteen? In ten years? One hundred? Why are you so afraid that you must keep such knowledge from me?’
‘That isn’t it at all,’ he said, raking his hands through his brass coloured curls, leaving them dishevelled and making him look slightly more human, more approachable, more vulnerable. ‘I cannot prevent things from happening. And I cannot protect you from them.’
I clenched the bedspread in my fists. ‘I’ve told you before that it’s you who needs to trust me. I’m not a child. You don’t need to protect me from everything you think is dark and dangerous. I need you to be more open with me. And if you can’t tell me the truth, at least admit it. Just don’t lie to me. Don’t keep things from me.’
His lips twisted in self-derision. ‘What you’re asking goes against my nature.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ I would not look away from him. It required every bit of courage to state, ‘You’re not alone anymore, St. John. We’re in this thing together. What’s meant to happen, will happen – whether you’re able to protect me or not. And whether I’m able to protect you or not.’