Seventh

by Ray Chilensky

  Cadell took the lead and the trio began trudging through the snow. “Genesis Chapter 6,” he said: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

  “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

  “And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

  “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.’ “The ‘sons of God” are what we call Grigori: fallen angels. There were two hundred of them that God sent down from Heaven to watch over mankind, but they found human women to be attractive. So they defied God and had children with them, a lot of children. The Grigori also taught man how to forge metal weapons, how to wage war and other knowledge God didn’t want mankind to have. So God punished them by barring them from heaven and destroying most of the children they had sired, whom they apparently loved, by causing the Great Flood.”

  “You mean Noah’s flood?” Evelyn asked, nearly slipping on a patch of sidewalk ice.

  Eve nodded. “Yes. But the Grigori and some of their hybrid children survived. They continued to breed with humanity over the centuries. The hybrids are called Nephilim. Genesis called them giants.”

  “Put that word in your notes,” Cadell suggested as he opened the door to the building.

  “Wait. Are you saying that you fight giants?”

  “What?” Cadell chided, holding the door open for the two women. “Fighting giants is somehow less believable than fighting demons?” he asked.

  Eve chuckled. “Some Nephilim were born misshapen and grew to be huge, while some look like humans. Most of the ancient accounts about them stress the misshapen ones.”

  “They’re all powerful, mean, and fucking deadly, though,” Cadell injected.

  “What about the ring and vessel?” Eve asked. “That will have to wait,” Eve said, approaching the security guard seated behind a small desk. “I’m Doctor Eve Corey,” she said, handing the guard her driver’s license. “This is my niece and her boyfriend. We’re here to see

  Doctor Miranda Carver; I should be on your list.”

  The middle-aged guard smiled and handed her license back. “You’re the only one on it, Doctor. No one wants to be out in this weather.”

  “I’m totally dedicated to my work,” Eve replied, smiling. “Especially when I can make the young folks come with me and do the driving.” She directed a thumb backward toward Evelyn and Cadell.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” the guard asked.

  “Yes. I’ve been here before; just not so late at night.”

  “If you could sign in, please?” the guard asked. “Please make sure you sign out before you leave.” “About that ring?” Evelyn pressed as they moved deeper into the building with Eve in the lead.

  “King Solomon was given a ring by God,” Cadell said, having become visibly ill at ease. “It allowed him to summon and control demons, even greater demons. Legend says that he used it to control many of the Grigori and force them to build his grand temple. When the temple was finished, he used the ring to force them into a brass vessel and sealed them into it. Then he threw it into a lake somewhere in Mesopotamia. The demons who are trapped in that vessel are some of the most powerful on the Earth. If they’re set free and join with the other Grigori and Nephilim, they may be impossible to stop.”

  “One of the Nephilim probably already has the Vessel. We have to make sure they don’t get the ring. If

  Miranda is being stalked by Tainted; they’re after the scroll she was studying for me. If they get it, they’ll be after the scroll that I still have.”

  “Maybe you should destroy both of the scrolls,”

  Evelyn proposed. “It sounds to me like it would be better if that ring stayed lost.”

  “I wish we could just burn the damned things,” Cadell agreed. “But magical artifacts aren’t that easy to destroy. They’re saturated with magic, and they can only be destroyed by magic. If those scrolls were made by Solomon himself, it’s probably impossible to destroy them at all. The ring was a literally a gift from God; no force controlled by man could destroy it.”

  “We have to get both scrolls together, find the ring and keep it safe,” Eve said. “Miranda’s office is three floors up,” she said, pushing the button to summon the elevator.

  “We’ll take the stairs,” Cadell said, pointing to a nearby doorway. “If there are Tainted around, the elevator is a deathtrap.”

  “You do know that I’m an old woman, right?” Eve asked, chuckling.

  “You're not that old. But use elevators on a demon-hunt and you won’t get any older,” Cadell said, stepping into the stairwell and assuring himself it was clear of danger.

  Turning back to the women, Cadell reached into his coat and withdrew a knife that only became visible as he pulled it from its sheath. It had a seven-and-half inch steel-gray blade, a wooden handle with carved finger grooves and an oval brass handguard. Both blade and hilt were carved with intricate silver-inlaid symbols. He had handed the knife to Evelyn. “Take this in case things turn shitty,” he said. “Use it if you have to, but if we get into a fight, the two of you take off.”

  “Is this a trueblade?” Evelyn asked as she accepted it.

  “No, it’s a regular Randall model 14 fighting knife, one of the best fighting blades ever made. The runes on it were carved by my mother. With the runes, it’ll kill the physical body of a Tainted and drive out the demon inhabiting it.”

  “Won’t the demon just go into me?” Evelyn asked, testing the weight of the knife.

  “Blessed are immune to all forms of possession, dear, even when they haven’t even come into their power yet.” Eve replied, reaching into a hidden sheath in her own coat and drawing a double-edged dagger with a gun-metal blue blade and a four-inch rune-engraved blade.

  Cadell took the lead and began moving cautiously up the stairs. “Besides, the runes disrupt the demon’s ethereal form so they can’t do much of anything for a few days.”

  “What happened to your Seax?” Eve asked.

  “I gave it to Josh when we got out the corps and he joined the Hidden,” Cadell replied.

  “Didn’t the Seax belong to your father?” Eve asked. Cadell smiled. “Josh is that good a friend,” answered.

  A minute later they stood at door to Carver’s office. The door had been forced open and the doorjamb splintered. “Stay here,” Cadell said, carefully stepping into the office. “Watch each other’s backs.”

  After a few moments, he called the women into the room. “Your friend is dead. May an angel lead her to the Lord’s peace,” Cadell said, softly and with reverence.

  Eve knelt beside the body where it lay heaped behind the large metal desk. “They tortured her,” she declared, in a grief-tightened voice. “All of her fingers are broken.”

  Cadell looked down at small safe in one corner of the room. Its door was open and it was empty. “Did she keep the scroll in the safe?” he asked, pointing to it.

  Eve stood. Her face was ashen. “Yes, but it was in a heavily-warded iron-bound box. It will take a while for anyone to get it open, even one of the Nephilim.” Evelyn put a comforting arm around her aunt’s shoulders.

  “Fuck,” Cadell said. “The wards may slow them down, but they’ll get that box open eventually. Where’s the scroll you have?”

  Eve didn’t answer, “I have to call Randal,” she said.

  “He has it?” Cadell asked.

  “No, but he knows where it’s hidden,” Eve replied. “If the demons know about Miranda, they may know about me and Randal too.”

  “Let’s go,” Cadell said, already crossing the office’s threshold.

  He led the women along the hallways at a jog; t
he need for haste outweighed the need for caution. “I’ll call home when we get to the car,’ he said. “We’ll get some of my brothers to help Randal, but we need to get out of here. I can’t believe that the Tainted that killed Carver just left when they were done.”

  He stopped as they approached a corner and peeked quickly around it. His fears were confirmed. At the far end the corridor, a dozen Tainteds were moving down the hallway. Behind them, four more Tainted blocked access to both the stairway and elevator. They were dressed like pop culture ‘men in black,’ in immaculate black business suits with black ties. Every one of them had dark, side-parted hair. Each one also held black steel swords, similar to a Roman gladius. The blades glittered like raven’s wings in sunlight.

  Cadell backed the women away from the corner.

  “There are sixteen Tainteds cutting us off from the stairs,” he whispered, summoning his trueblade. “I’ll kill the ones near the stairway door first and make you a hole. Go through it and get out of here. There may be more Tainteds coming.”

  “Even you can’t win against that many Tainteds by yourself,” Eve protested.

  He handed her his cell-phone. “Call my brothers. Home is number ‘1’ on my speed dial. Tell them that if they haul ass, I might still be alive when they get here.” He charged around the before either woman could say another word.

  The first two Tainteds were dead before they could raise their swords. Cadell ran between them without slowing and cut the first Tainted diagonally across the face, slicing cleanly through the skull and leaving half of the head to fall to the floor. The second had its spine severed as Cadell reversed the direction of his first cut. Another demon-inhabited enemy managed a clumsy defense, raising its blade only to have its hand cut from the wrist before Cadell’s trueblade flashed across its stomach, opening a wound that was inches wide and deep. Cadell parried a fourth Tainted’s thrust, used his left hand to grab his foe’s sword-arm at the elbow and drove his sword’s point into the Tainted’s throat. The remaining Tainted circled him. Their confidence in their superior numbers was dampened somewhat by how swiftly Cadell had dispatched the four Tainteds that lay at his feet.

  Seizing the initiative, Cadell made a lunging charge to his right, toward the stairway. Feigning a cut toward a Tainted’s head, he redirected his cut to the demon’s armpit. Blood sprayed for feet from the severed axillary artery. Cadell’s next cut took the Tainted’s right foot off at the midpoint of the shin. Spinning beneath the next Tainted’s blade, Cadell smashed his left fist into his opponent’s groin, brought a knee into the doubled-over creature’s nose, hit the creature again with the basket hilt of his sword and spun the sword’s edge into a cut that opened the carotid artery on the right side of his neck. The demon dropped to his knees, a fountain of blood spraying from his wound. Cadell batted aside a thrust from another Tainted that was meant for his own throat, destroyed that Tainted’s knee with a stomping kick, then slashed his crippled enemy from hip to shoulder, his trueblade cutting through the ribcage and into the vital organs beneath.

  Evelyn saw her opening. Guiding Eve over and around the demons Cadell had killed, she threw open the stairway door and all but dragged the older woman with her. They had descended one flight of steps and were on the landing of a third when they encountered two more Tainted on the stairs below them, rushing upward to aid their companions in the battle with Cadell. Evelyn did not hesitate. She attacked.

  She caught the first Tainted with a booted foot under its chin and sent it rolling back down the steps. Back-stepping to avoid a sword-cut meant for her legs, she used the knife Cadell had given her to slash at the second Tainted’s face. It dodged backward and avoided the cut, struggling not to fall onto backward down the stairs. In that instant of vulnerability Evelyn stabbed it through the left eye, the blade burying itself almost to the hilt. In a blindingly fast motion, she withdrew the blade and cut the creature’s throat. She launched herself off the landing to confront the second of her enemies as it tried to rise after its fall down the steps.

  The Tainted had risen to its knees and tried to cut Evelyn across her thighs. She jumped backward, avoiding the attack, then stepped forward rapidly before her opponent could change the direction of his swing. Grabbing him about the neck with her left hand, she drove her left knee repeatedly into its nose and then slashed the Randall across the Tainted’s sword arm. The Tainted’s sword fell to the floor and she drove a left hook into her foe’s jaw and smashed her knife’s pommel into the Tainted’s already ruined nose. It fell hard onto its back. Allowing herself to fall along with it, Evelyn used her body weight to bury the knife blade into its heart.

  She looked to Eve, who was already moving down the steps. “It should be clear now. Call his brothers. I’m going to help Cadell!” Eve would have protested if Evelyn had not already ascended one flight of stairs.

  Cadell felt the sword strike across his shoulder blades as he somersaulted forwards and regained his footing. The glancing blow had been absorbed by the thick fabric of his coat. He thrust his sword backward, under his left arm, and impaled his assailant through the abdomen. Two more Tainted charged him simultaneously. He darted to the left, maneuvering so that one Tainted blocked the other from attacking him. He deflected a Tainted’s blade upward and caught the demon’s weapon-arm at the wrist, forcing it backward, and punched it in the face with the basket hilt of his sword. The Tainted sprawled onto its back, its legs flailing upward as it fell. Cadell severed both legs at the knee. He spun away from a Tainted’s sword aimed at his midsection, parrying it with a tight arcing motion and striking the forearm of the demon’s sword-arm with his left hand, which ejected the weapon from its grasp.

  Cadell struck the Tainted’s head from its body.

  Powerful arms grabbed him around the waist and pinned his arms against his body. The eight remaining Tainted rushed to take advantage of his vulnerability. Instinctively, Cadell lowered his body, twisted and drove his left fist hammer like into the groin of the Tainted holding him, then turned sharply and moved the demon he was grappling with into the path of one of his comrades.

  The demon’s grip loosened and Cadell managed to bring his sword’s point up and over his left shoulder, stabbing the demon in its left eye. The Tainted abandoned its grip and used both hands to stem the flow of blood pouring from its ruined eye. Cadell turned away another of the Tainteds’ swords, but one of his enemies’ blades sliced into his left forearm. Ignoring the wound, Cadell began a slashing figure-eight pattern while turning in all directions, driving the demons back and giving him room to fight.

  He moved quickly to his right and slashed the Tainted with the wounded eye as it tried in vain to stop itself from bleeding to death. The seven surviving Tainted came at him all at once. Cadell charged to his left and cleaved the demon closest to him from collarbone to chest. He punched the next Tainted in the face with his swordhilt, then split his head down the middle like a melon with a two-handed downward cut. A Tainted’s sword slashed across his left triceps, leaving the arm to flail uselessly as he continued to fight. Cadell kicked one of his attackers in the stomach, dodged a slash from another, and slipped his sword around the blade of a third and between its ribs.

  A pommel smashed into his nose and Cadell reeled backward and fell. A foot crashed into the ribs on his right side as he tried to rise and he felt some of the ribs break. More kicks came from all directions. More ribs were broken. Losing consciousness, Cadell lashed out with all of his waning strength and slashed one of his assailants across the thighs. Then his sword was kicked from his grasp and he felt a sword slash across his back. His thick coat kept the cut from severing his spine, but it still bit deeply into the right side of his back. Cadell fell onto his face.

  His head was jerked by its hair. Cadell tried to claw at the hands that gripped him. “Take his head. We’ll want proof that we killed a Seventh,” the Tainted holding him said.

  “Get away from him, you bastards!” a woman’s voices screamed. Cadell felt hi
mself dropped abruptly to the floor. Bracing himself against a wall, he struggled to his knees and managed to bring his vision into focus. The Tainted he had cut across the thighs had had its throat cut, apparently by Evelyn. She was now facing the remaining Tainted.

  Cadell watched as she slipped beneath a Tainted’s slash and opened its belly with a skillfully-delivered cut of her own. Then he saw her take a vicious backhanded punch that spun her around and sent her to the floor. Desperately, he took a rune-covered knife from a boot sheath and hurled it at the beast that had stuck Evelyn. The rune-enchanted blade stuck deeply in the Tainted’s back and it reared back with a stricken grunt. In that moment, Evelyn drove her blade upward, under its ribs and into its heart. She rolled beneath an attack from one of the Tainteds and slashed that attacker behind its left knee, making it fall on its side.

  Her roll had brought her to Cadell’s side. He had fallen again and was now supporting himself with his right arm. Evelyn helped him to his feet. Both of their auras flared when they touched and Cadell felt a bit of his strength return. He extended his hand toward his sword where it lay a few feet away. It faded from existence for a moment, then reappeared in his hand. Cadell and Evelyn waited for the Tainted’s final assault, but the demons hesitated.

  “Take a break, little brother,” a deep male voice said from behind them, “it looks like you’ve bagged your limit for tonight.”

  Three of his brothers formed a line in front of Cadell and Evelyn. One seemed to be an older version of Cadell, with the same brown hair, broad shoulders and piercing eyes. He even carried a sword similar to Cadell’s. The second was leaner with sandy-blond hair and hard, almost cruel-looking eyes. He carried an ornate silver- and gold-trimmed saber. The third’s hair was dark and he was shorter than the other Selkirk brothers but more powerfully built than any of them. His weapon was a massive sword with a blade nearly four feet long. The three newly-arrived brothers were all bearded and wore variations of the ensemble Cadell wore: long, dark-colored coats, cargo pants and some kind of hat.