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download other formats Chapter 22 A half-mile up the curving incline of the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, Mercy asks me to change lanes. Sure. But I thought you might enjoy the view from up here. The concrete guardrails are low-less than three feet high--but so is the Mustang, and she won t be able to see the downtown skyline or all the sailboats in the water below if another vehicle pulls abreast of us on the passenger side. Thanks, but I m a little scared of heights. Traffic s light so I sneak a peek over at her: one hand gripping the shoulder restraint, the other white-knuckling the side of her seat, eyes riveted to the center divider-shallow breaths; no color in her face. More than a little scared.Restore Text As a therapist, she must know the best way to get over a phobia is through repeated exposure to that which you fear (easy for me to say; in 9,000-plus years, the odds are you ll confront a bunch of frightening situations more than once). But I m not the kind of asshole who gets a kick out of scaring people, and I need her to trust me. I cruise into the passing lane. Is that better? Much. Thank-you. She doesn t say anything the rest of the way across, and I pass the time counting the number of suicide-hotline signs mounted to light posts every couple hundred yards or so. Thirty-six of them on this side unless I missed one. At its highest point, an empty aircraft carrier can pass through underneath, between two of the thirty mission-style concrete arches reaching some two-hundred feet up to the road bed. It s not a straight-shot to get across the bridge. It arcs ninety-degrees to the North as we head to the namesake island it connects with the rest of the city. In fact, as we make our way off the bridge on Southbound Highway 75, we re actually traveling due North for a time, before taking a left onto Orange Avenue which leads west into the exclusive shops and eateries of downtown Coronado. So where are we headed? she asks. I need to take care of some business at the Hotel Del. I love the Del. It s beautiful. I go there for the Sunday brunch buffet in the Crown room whenever I have friends visiting. It s really something. I m surprised you re willing to suffer the bridge so frequently. I don t. I take highway-75 up from Imperial Beach through the Strand. It s a little out of the way, but it s still a pretty drive. And I don t have to worry about having a panic attack. I nod. Yeah, that s probably for the best. I don t suppose you re going to tell me what sort of business you have at the hotel? Nope. But it s related to Cindy s kidnapping, right? Yes. So why can t you tell me? Like I said, it s classified. This time it s even harder not to laugh. Well then how am I supposed to help you if you keep me in the dark about what s going on? By staying in the car with the engine running. I might need to leave in a hurry, so valet parking isn t going to cut it. I ll need you to circle, preferably with the top down. Look, I don t want to be involved with anything illegal. Really? So what would you call the lie you told to police about Cindy s age? Law abiding? I can t do that one-eyebrow-up thing she does, but my sideways smile is pretty good at amplifying the sarcasm. OK. Guess you have a point. But if I m in so much danger I had to ride with you over here, then isn t it too dangerous to weev-da-widdle-woman-alone-awe-by-hur-self? She did the eyebrow thing and a perfect impression of my naughty boy grin-with simultaneous air quotes around danger, followed by that sick baby-voice beat down. Behold: the new smartass champion, ending my centuries-long reign. It s liable to be much more dangerous in the hotel. Please, can you just trust me on this? Sure, she says. I ll trust you. Wow. That was- But before I can think easy, she whistles a few bars of Tammy Wynette s Stand By Your Man. Mercy! Please! I will give you no Mercy! For I am invincible! The deflator of men! Despite the circumstances, it s hard not to laugh. Guess I m a sucker for a girl with a good sense of humor. I just hope she can keep smiling if people start shooting at us. With a mile or so to go before we get to the Del, I pull the Mustang into a bank parking lot so she can take over behind the wheel. When we get there, drive right up to the main entrance and drop me off. Then pull a U-ey and hang a right out of the driveway. Your first chance to turn around will be at the second light down, across from a condominium complex. Just keep turning around there and circling back in front of the hotel. If anyone hassles you, give them the finger and say something to let them know you re a spoiled, entitled trophy wife waiting on her wealthy, powerful husband to emerge from the inside the bar. If they keep hassling you, lay on the horn two long blasts. I ll hear it, and I ll try to wrap up my business as quickly as possible and come back to the car. If I m not back here in fifteen minutes you can stop circling, at which point your next stop should be the airport, followed by a medium-sized city in the Midwest you ve never visited, that no one but the ticket agent knows you re going to-though I know full well you d stay here to look for Cindy. At least you ve been warned. So, any questions? Only about a thousand I know you re not going to answer. Thanks for trusting me. Do I have a choice? For the time being. But not if I want to see Cindy alive? You d be betting the long shot. And my odds if I keep betting on you? Higher. How much higher? Well I don t want to frighten you, you re scared of heights. That good? Everything s relative. Not everything, she said. As two of the hotels distinctive red-shingled turrets come into view I m content to let her have the last word as I start scanning the grounds for SOJ lookouts. No easy task. Completed in 1888, the Hotel Del Coronado is a massive white-painted all-wood beach resort-one of the few remaining-and it still stands as the largest beach hotel on the North American Pacific Coast. Of the six-hundred-plus rooms, a hundred or more have windows facing our approach. Too many to peer into in search of binoculars as we cruise past. Nor is the Del s size my only obstacle. Its sprawling asymmetrical architecture offers endless opportunities for surveillance on the sly: Dormers circumnavigating cupolas, pediment protected porticos...archways, bay windows, balconies...architecture buffs call the style Queen Anne Victorian. I call it ornate chaos. New beachfront construction adds to the sensory overload. As do the sidewalks brimming with sightseers and fat-cat hotel guests waddling back from the shops and restaurants we passed on our way in. Any of one of them could be an undercover sentry scouting for a thirsty Naphil. My only consolation is that we stopped for disguises before we left PB and our appearance is so different now, that if there are lookouts, they probably won t recognize us. For Mercy, a platinum blonde wig, hot-pink lipstick, and wraparound sunglasses did the trick-and hell--she looks like she could turn one (but in a good way); likewise, a dozen rolled-up beach towels, three rolls of athletic tape to hold them in place, and a triple-XL nylon track suit combine to turn me into a lard ass. Add to that a curly black wig, fake mustache and goatee, mirrored lens aviators, and a fake gold chain, and bada-bing, bada-boom: fat guido and his gold digging goomah. We turn into the driveway and join the line of vehicles slowly idling their way to the ill-designed port-cochere. For all the Del s elegance and style, this car-clogged threshold disappoints, running contrary to the air of leisure one would expect from a four-star resort. Another casualty of paved roads and the automobile.# Mercy wishes me luck and I get out, waving off the valet and the bellhops before they can add to the congestion. As she pulls away I stride into the narrow vestibule which leads inside to the lobby, dodging piles of luggage as if this were an airport instead of a historic landmark. A cautious approach isn t an option. If I stop, so does everyone behind me. Once inside the lobby, however, the foot-traffic situation improves. As does the vibe. The torchiere sconce and chandelier-lit space is all that and a cup of Earl Grey tea. Framed by hand-carved railings of a second floor mezzanine, and paneled in rich, dark mahogany (not unlike the library of a Basque castle I once owned), it instills a craving for single-malt scotch and pipes filled with the finest Stoved Virginia tobacco. I ll miss it. The draw of establishing a safe house in a world renown property like the Del, the Algonquin, or the George V in Paris, owes as much to common sense and convenience as it does to our centuries-refined good taste: We seduce those from whom we feed. Ecstasy in exchange for life everlasting. Although the proportion of O-neg visitors to the hotel is no greater than the general population s immune base, the relative number of delicious young women in search of no-strings romance is much higher than you d find at, say, a Holiday Inn Express. And since we integrated our donor databases with the computerized hotel registration systems, it freed us from wasting so much time merely identifying the O-neg guests. Not that licking sweat from nubile flesh, and tasting for A or B antigens isn t appealing-it is-but with Veingel quotas to adhere to, entertaining so many pretty young things before finding a donor got to be work. Now (before we got hacked, that is) we simply check in to the perpetually reserved (and purportedly haunted) room 3327, and read over the special addendum to the room service menu--replete with age, height, and headshots--updated daily by a Veingel cleaning lady. Nice while is lasted, but I don t have time to keep indulging my nostalgia. I let the eager beavers behind me peel off for the front desk or the courtyard beyond. Pretend to admire the flower arrangement establishing the geometric center of the room as I scan for SOJ operatives posing as hotel employees or guests. No one looks suspicious. I m burning up underneath all this physique-blurring bulk. I wipe away the sweat from my brow before it beads up and drips into my eyes. The fact my people can no longer savor the pleasures of this place infuriates me. The fact I look like a Thanksgiving turkey dressed in a parachute infuriates me. And the fact I can t even take a deep breath with this tape cinched so tight around my waist also infuriates me. My pulse pounds a cannibal s drumbeat. I m here to warn my people and their Veingels and all I can think about suddenly is killing--killing every oblivious smiling face in the building just to make sure at least one among the dead is SOJ. A fire would do it: Disable the retrofit sprinkler system. Barricade the doors...all this wood? Oh how it would burn. Like my waiting hell. But that s just the vengeance talking and I am not my vengeance. Not yet. Killing innocents isn t an option I m willing to consider outside of a dark fantasy. The usual procedure would be to request an extra key for room 3327 from the front desk, but that s out because I haven t checked the bulletin boards for the name the reservation is under this week. Wouldn t matter if I had, since the SOJ probably has control of the hotel computers, same as they do our databases. Still, there are other protocols I can rely on. I make my way up the stairs leading from the lobby, ignoring a sign that announces only hotel guests are allowed beyond this point. I meet no one in the halls. I see no cameras. Undetected and un-harassed, I arrive in front of 3327, the infamous room where Kate Morgan spent her final night among the living, and where, according to superstition, her spirit still haunts. It s no accident this is the room we selected to keep reserved for our exclusive use. The legend of Kate s haunting provides a convenient explanation for why the room is booked years in advance: Why, we re ghost hunters, or, we re mediums trying to make contact with Kate, is what we say if anyone asks. The shit people believe. As for the strange noises which hundreds of guests have reported emanating from the room? Well, the giddy women responsible might not classify their sighs and moans as natural, but they aren t super -natural, either. Strange. The door handle is bare. The door is locked. No self-respecting Naphil would occupy a safe house room without hanging the Do Not Disturb placard on the outside door handle as a courtesy to other Nephilim and Veingels who might be visiting the hotel. Whether or not the SOJ operatives know of this custom I have no idea, but my guess is they don t. Our databases are just that: places to store data. Essential, useful data. They re not an encyclopedia of Nephilim etiquette and culture-most of which, thank our fathers in darkness, is still an oral tradition. So the room is either empty, or occupied by SOJ assassins. I flatten myself against the wall adjacent to the door just in case someone inside heard footsteps and gets curious. The hallway s clear, but I could still be spotted through the peephole. I ease in to the edge of the door jamb where the hinges and the door butt up against the frame. Inhale deep and slow and quiet, sampling the air for traces of human scent seeping out through the joints. A lot of good a heightened sense of smell does me when a dirty room service tray sitting in front of the adjacent room overpowers any telltale whiffs of cologne, or halitosis, or hard-to-hide foot odor. Likewise on the sound front, as their blaring TV masks the meat-moist thud of a hidden heartbeat, or an eye-blink s precious percussion. Decision time. I usually gage intervals of time by my pulse. A second per. But now it feels like I m counting down instead of keeping track. The longer I stand here thinking about it, the longer nothing useful gets done. This isn t like me. It s a simple choice: bust in like a badass, break in like a burglar, or walk the fuck away. And yet here I stand, sweating it out like a prize fighter worried about making weight. What is wrong with you, Jequon? Have you forgotten your father? The pep talk s not working. Any second now, hotel staff could appear in the hallway and demand to see a key. Any second now SOJ hit men could appear in the hallway and shoot me. One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three heartbeats. I m still glued to the wall. I wipe the sweat from my forehead a second time. I can feel the towels taped around my upper arms begin to sag as they grow heavy with wicked-up perspiration. Fifteen heartbeats. Damn t Jequon. Kick it, pick it, or the hell with it. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. I wasn t even nervous on the way over here. All I could think about was saving someone--anyone. Like a hitter trying to end a slump, I just wanted to make contact with the ball...I didn t need a homerun...prevent just one Naphil from walking into an ambush, have him start warning the others while I stay on the attack. I felt like I knew the next pitch, like I could sit on it, assured of a base hit. It s not ambush if you know it s coming, I told myself. And I knew I d blend in with this disguise; knew they d have to do any killing in private to avoid a media frenzy and homicide investigation, which meant quick-and-dirty in one of the rooms, and plenty of time to clean up. Otherwise why go through the trouble of clearing Whitmore and discrediting Mercy? Best case: the SOJ didn t have the necessary manpower to setup at all our safe houses, and the Del wasn t yet a deathtrap; even if no Naphil happened to be feeding, I could leave a note in the room service menu and alert them of the danger when they did arrive. Worst case: I ambush the ambush. Vent a little. Yeah, I had it all figured out Except I didn t. Still don t. Because if I get all Dark Ages on an (un)welcoming party stationed in the room, I give up the only true advantage I have: my location (and easily inferred from that) and my presumed ignorance of their translator s identity. They ll know I m on to Whitmore. Just as bad, they d know I m in San Diego, and since I m the only Naphil alive even aware of their new threat, the SOJ would be able to concentrate their forces here to hunt me down. Hell, I already identified these risks before boarding the plane in St. Louis on the way here. It s not Alzheimer s, so I must be suffering from selective memory loss. It s like my brain and my gut are doing battle. Instincts vs. intellect. Reason vs. rage. One of them has to win out or I m not going anywhere. And if I go? It s not that I m afraid of dying-I m afraid of all of us dying. I m afraid of a world free from reminders that God s not perfect after all. We were His first mistake. I don t want us to be his last. So that s what has me immobile. The enormity of what s at stake here. The question is, am I going to choke now that the pressure s on? What if? my way out of an opportunity for retribution? A chance to save someone? All these centuries I ignored the Council and killed the enemy whenever they killed one of us, Codes be damned. What? now that they re all dead I m suddenly going to abide by their don t-make-waves approach? No way. If I was right then, then I m right now, and right now is always the most important time in life. I need to work with that. Stop thinking, start doing. I retrieve a fork from the discarded room service tray. I break of three of the four curved tines, and bend the remaining tine until it s no longer curved, straight with respect to the handle like a dagger or prison yard shank. Using my molars as a vice, I bite down near the tip of the pointy end and bend only the last sixteenth of an inch to form a right angle. Now I have a crude torque wrench, one-half the toolset needed to pick a lock. The narrow, flexible wire-frame of my aviators completes the package. I break off the left earpiece at the hinge and remove the plastic cover from the curved end. A couple adjustments and I m good to go. This isn t a completely silent operation like in the movies, but it beats knocking. I ll just have to go slow and hope no one has their ear up to the door. For most locks, the tumblers are on top of the barrel, and raking the up out of the way into their chambers isn t much different than gesturing come-hither on a lover s G-spot. By dexterity, or experience, I can t say, but the process goes more quickly that I expected. I slowly rotate all the slack out of the knob. The moment of truth. I throw the door wide open and dive into the room headfirst, tucking and rolling into a somersault so the door clears my legs as it slams shut behind me on the rebound, finish in a low crouch. Ready to spring, to strike, to slide under the bed. Nobody s in here. I check the closet. Clear. The bathroom. Clear. Balcony? Empty. All the things we worry about that never happen The emptiness gnawing at my stomach could be the sushi I resisted in PB, or it could be the paradoxical regret I sometimes feel when impending violence calls in sick. I made good use of the room last time I visited San Diego. Since then the interior s been upgraded. The bedspread used to be a practical red. Now it s an aqua-hued floral pattern. But other than the decorative touches, the room s how I remember it. A king bed. An easy chair. A media center hiding a TV made to look like a wardrobe. A writing desk I suppose I should make use of before Mercy gets impatient. Realistically though, it could be weeks before a Naphil or Veingel checks into the Del. We have almost a thousand safe houses around the world. Nor is there any law in the Codes which requires we feed at one of them. They are (were) merely a convenience. The only way a written warning will do any good is if the SOJ don t set up shop in the hotel before the next Naphil checks in And now it hits me, like a crate of Elvis records: The SOJ kill squad doesn t need to be waiting in the room before one of us arrives. With our database telling them where to look, they can simply monitor the individual reservation systems for each safe house remotely, wait til a reservation goes through for one of our special rooms, and then, at their leisure, send a team to take us out when we re suitably distracted and at our most vulnerable. Bottom line, they don t need to be everywhere all at once as I previously imagined. With a limited number of known (and unsuspecting) targets, anywhere on short notice is good enough. They could cover the globe with as few as three or four, four-to-five-man units standing ready near major international airports. Bottom line, I m an idiot. The only shot I had at warning anyone here is if they happened to have checked in already-and if they had, then the SOJ would have most likely beaten me to the punch. At least I don t need to keep looking like an idiot. No sentries, so no need to keep wearing this disguise. The wig is my first casualty. I throw it and everything else except the track suit into a plastic laundry bag I find in the closet. Tie it off and set it against the door so I don t forget it on my way out. I suppose leaving a note-just in case-is better than doing nothing. But dammit I wish there was something else I could do. The enemy perpetrates genocide against us, and so far my response is to write a letter. Fucking pen to a gunfight It s the memories that keep me from going pyro on this wooden wedding cake of a building, not the architecture. The good times. And for the record, yeah, I m the one who shot Kate Morgan. My Veingel, my responsibility. I don t care how depressed you are, or how good looking, poaching sailors when you ve already reached your quota, then killing them-but only halfway, so the bodies don t pile up and give you away--fuhgidabowdit. Took me three weeks to finish off all the vampires she created. As for the legend of her haunting this room after she died? It was a good cover story to explain why it s always reserved. Speaking of cover stories, Mercy s probably getting anxious for her secret agent to wrap this up. If turning on my cell phone was at all prudent, I d call hers and tell her to park. I haven t slept much save for the tranquilizer induced coma on Air France and this mattress is first-rate. Maybe she d like to cuddle. Am I still a dirty old man if I don t look a day over thirty? I take a seat at the desk and use the complimentary pen and hotel stationary to write the letter. Very similar to the warning that got intercepted in New York, a little less wordy. I stash it in front of the room service wine list. As I m browsing the Del s selection of Napa Valley cabs, I hear footsteps out in the hallway. Big, heavy steps. Confident, sober strides. Either a sumo wrestler, or three men walking in lockstep. Getting closer. I get up and shuffle over to the door leading to the balcony, never taking my eyes off the front door. Reach behind my back and undo the deadbolt in case I have to leave in a hurry. The footsteps in the hallway are very close now. They stop. Knock-knock-knockety-knock-knock. Add: never underestimate the enemy to the list of sound advice I ve ignored lately. Room service. As in service revolver barrel-to-glass on the peephole. Still facing the front door, I slowly turn the knob on the door behind me. Pull it towards me, slowly, carefully, aiming for total silence. But the hinges could use some oil and they screech exactly like door hinges inevitably do when a little stealth might save your ass or your marriage. Real subtle. About as subtle as the explosion of wood splinters ushering in the red polyester clad bellhops packing suppressed pistols. Thanks, Dad, for my blinding speed, and I m hurdling the balcony rail. The guy on point must ve tripped over my guido-bag just as he was squeezing the trigger; his first three shots miss. I land hard on the red shingled roof, so steep it makes all comparisons to vertical academic. My feet shoot out from underneath me as two more bullets pfft past overhead. I start sliding toward the gutters, fast enough to melt a hole in the nylon of my ADIDAS pants. Yes All Day, I Dream About--surviving three-story falls--and just before I run out of roof (which my sandpapered ass definitely thinks is on fire) I pull my knees into my chest for leverage and spring into the air superman style toward a palm tree, avoiding three more slugs which tap dance harmlessly in my wake. I slam into the trunk with all the grace of a one-eyed flying squirrel with no depth perception. Maneuver to the opposite side to put wood between me and the shooters; eventually these assholes might get lucky. Note to self: where a cup next time you decide to shimmy down a Royal Palm. Half way down now. A bullet grazes my forearm. Too close. Fuck it. Sliding down poles is for strippers. I back-flip away from the tree. Bust a half-twist midflight because I m cool like that and hit the ground running. Mercy is just pulling into the driveway for another pass as I round the corner and streak past the recently completed day spa. She waves and I signal for her to pull a U-ey. I remind myself no one runs this fast and deliberately slow down to a jog the rest of the way to the Mustang. Hopefully the inhuman blur of pumping arms and piston-like strides didn t just blow my cover. Go! Go! Go! U-turn it! What s going on? Later. Just drive. 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download other formats CHAPTER 20 The jungle mazes of the world famous zoo streak past below the right wingtip; the postmodern skyline of downtown at eyelevel on the left, like some future Atlantis, standing sentry over an ocean biding its time. San Diego s beauty makes me feel even more alone. Incongruous. A yellow bow of sandy coastal splendor dressing up my gift-wrapped misery. I will spill blood in America s Finest City and the sunshine will bleach out the stains. Inside the terminal I find a TV in a little bar just past the arrival and departure monitors. You have got to be fuckin kidding me. Cindy--the Penelope Cruz look-alike-plans to marry that possum-eyed lecher? And the therapist who reported her missing was supposedly stalking the couple? I don t know which is more ridiculous: that the press bought such an obvious fabrication engineered to take the heat off Whitmore, or the bleating murmurs of bitch and cunt I m hearing from the sheep around me. The only crime Mercy Anne s guilty of is trusting her gut. I like her already. Well, since the love-birds are honeymooning at an undisclosed location, she just became my new best lead. At a minimum, she knows Whitmore. Maybe where he lives-or even known associates of the religious zealot variety. I need to get in touch with her ASAP, before she s had enough of the negative press and leaves town. But I m torn. The Hotel Del across the bay in Coronado is-was-the largest safe house on the West Coast. Now it s a trap just like every other feeding destination in our hacked and deciphered database. I want to go there and warn others of the danger. Problem is, I d be walking into the same trap, and sacrificing the biggest advantage I have right now: They don t know where I m at. If the SOJ found out I m onto Whitmore, they might relocate him, and they d definitely concentrate their search for me here in the city in an effort to eliminate the only Naphil who s even aware of their renewed threat. Shit, for all I know, there might not be any Nephilim in San Diego still alive to warn. I never read the fifty-three names sent to my cell phone before the connecting flight in St. Louis. Didn t risk checking for more murders in the four hours since. Can t risk a peek now, either. The only thing I m dead certain of, is that there are more enemy left to kill. Which means staying on task and finding Whitmore to lead me to them. Which means finding Mercy Anne to lead me to Whitmore. So, first track down Mercy, then see if it still makes sense to go to Coronado. It s a cold mental calculus I ve been forced into: keeping myself in the dark about the possible futility of my actions, so I can stay alive long enough to carry them out. I rent a black Ford Mustang GT from Hertz under the name Patrick Daly and drive until I see a payphone with an attached yellow pages. Mercy Anne s office number is listed and I dial it. She doesn t pick up, but the greeting gives me her cell number to call if this is an urgent, but non-life-threatening message. If my message is life-threatening in nature, the recording informs me, I should hang up and dial 911 immediately. I ignore the advice and dial her mobile anyway. Get her voicemail. She s screening her calls. No surprise there. After the most recent news report aired, she s probably been getting harassed. I leave the one message I know she ll respond to: Hi. I m not a cop, and I m not a reporter. I m the one guy who can help you find Cindy. You were right about Whitmore. Your friend s in danger. Meet me at Cafe 976 in PB as soon as you get this. # The mustang doesn t stand out in the least in Pacific Beach. And the excess horsepower is nice should I need it. With the far more affluent community of La Jolla peering down from Mount Soledad to the north, even a Lamborghini wouldn t draw too much attention. I don t stand out either. Unlike my conspicuousness in Sarajevo, here in PB I m just another buff surfer or muscle-head on my way to the gym. Blending in is a good thing when you ve become a walking bulls-eye, and that s one of the reasons I m having Mercy meet me in this touristy, Gen-Y dominated beach community. Another reason is, I know the area. It s just a few minutes up the I-5 from downtown and I vacationed in one of the cottages on Crystal Pier a few years back. Two weeks of drunken debauchery I ll never forget, and a welcome changeup to the upscale resorts I usually favor for R should also engender in her a sense of calm and trust. Coffee shops are safe and cozy places; public without being so crowded you can t monitor everyone who comes and goes. I park in a residential area off the main drag, get out and start walking the four blocks still to go before the caf . My stomach gurgles with bile and butterflies. I haven t eaten all day. The sushi and fish tacos here are phenomenal, but I ll have to wait in spite of the tempting wasabi and soy. Mercy should be on her way, and I want to scope out the approach to 976 before she arrives. She s not a threat, but the SOJ might have someone following her. Come to think of it, they could have her cell phone bugged. The one I just left a message on. Damn. Another slip. As paranoid as I ve been forced to become lately, it s still not paranoid enough. Cafe 976 resides in an updated craftsmen on the corner of Feldspar and Cass, a block north of Garnet where most of the liquor licenses and nightlife resides. It sports an indoor / outdoor feel, with a covered wood porch on two sides, and additional open-air seating in the surrounding garden. Sparrows scavenge for bagel crumbs beneath the tables. Smokers foul the taste of their blood and sip French roast in between puffs, a fortunately rare opportunity in health conscious California. Too on edge for coffee, I go inside and order a berry tea instead. Take a bench seat in the back corner of the dining area facing the door, and catalog the other customers: Several college kids highlighting text books; two tech-startup types with laptops sharing an electrical outlet; a pair of nip-and-tucked trophy wives sitting on the porch just outside the rear entrance debating who has the hottest pool guy--no one that doesn t look like they belong. I close my eyes, pretend to yawn, and take a deep, slow breath, sampling the air for the aroma of dangers unseen. But it s just grilled Panini bread and disappointingly low-grade coffee beans from the kitchen. A hint of rotting kelp when the breeze snakes through the window screens. Remnants of a cucumber facial and acetone evaporating from the cuticles of the manicured trophy wives. As innocuous as the soCal soundtrack: The hardened resin clack of the cue ball against a solid or a stripe on the pool table in the bar next door; the frothy locomotive wheeze of the espresso machine; detuned rumbles from passing choppers out in the street. The epitome of normalcy. Until Mercy Anne walks in. Nothing normal about her kind of beauty. Other Formats: download .mp3 audio version right click link & choose 'save as' download Palm & Mobipocket version right click link & choose 'save as' download Adobe PDF version right click link & choose 'save as'

download other formats Chapter 18 We land in St. Louis, Missouri the best possible way: uneventfully. The connecting flight to San Diego boards in less than an hour so I start the trek to the departure gate. My cell phone, of course, is burning a hole in my pocket. Beyond the atrocity of losing so many family members in such as short span of time, a disturbing pattern has emerged among the SOJ s latest victims: After Lucian, they re all 1st Gen. Statistically, that doesn t make sense. Combined, there are twice as many 2nd Gen and 3rd Gen Nephilim as there are 1st, and many thousands of Veingels as well. Plus, on a merely practical level, 1st Gens like myself are exponentially more elusive and dangerous targets than our offspring with their diluted DNA. Generations two and three are only one-fourth and one-quarter angel, respectively. In mathematical terms that makes a 2nd Gen s prowess equivalent to: human 1.25 , and likewise, a 3rd Gen s is human 1.125 . Now, at first glance, my 1st Gen, 1.5-exponent-advantage over the Garden of Eden variety human might not seem significantly greater than the 2nd or 3rd Gen s...until you crunch the numbers For example, a 2nd Gen--even if they never drank blood to maintain their youth--could live a maximum of 120 1.25 years, or 397 trips around the sun, give or take. For a 3rd Gen, it s 120 1.125 (218 years). But the same math applied to a 1st Gen Naphil yields a natural age limit of 1,314 years (the age, in years, of the oldest living human, raised to the one-point-two-five power). And these Power Law-governed-advantages apply for most human traits. Take running speed: A human can manage 15-miles-per-hour on average; a 3rd Gen Naphil is good for 21-mph; a 2nd Gen, 30-mph; and a 1st Gen 58-mph. Or vertical jump: A rather freakish leap of 3.5-feet for a human is easily bested by a 3rd Gen s 7-foot capability; a 2nd Gen s 11-foot vertical; or the dunk-from-the-three-point-line, 27-foot high vertical a 1 st Gen can muster. Sensory perception as well: What a human can make out at twenty-feet, a 3rd Gen sees at twenty-nine, a 2nd Gen at forty-two, and a 1st Gen at almost ninety-feet. Ditto for auditory, olfactory, kinesthetic, and gustatory acuity So for the SOJ to kill five 1st Gens in the course of a few hours No. Small. Feat. Even knowing that they ve deciphered our language and hacked our databases, it s hard to get my head around the fact that they ve killed twenty-six 1st Gens in a single day, when in the 3,000-plus years previous, they ve only managed twenty kills. I step onto one of those conveyor belts so I can keep moving toward the departure gate while I satisfy my curiosity. I put the battery back in the phone, turn it on, and launch the inbox. It occurs to me, too late, that I should have waited the forty-five minutes longer it would take to be safely onboard my next flight, secure behind a locked cabin door, ready to taxi down the runway. If an SOJ geek were to connect-the-dots from LaGuardia to Lambert they ll have a slick little vector pointing West. They might assume I m onto their translator and put Whitmore into hiding. But after seeing the five pics in LaGuardia, I can t help myself. It s like a waitress warning you that your plate is hot: you feel compelled to touch it anyway. So I read the text on the LCD screen: inbox (56) messages (56) photos (56) I don t even know how to respond to that. I m an endangered species. Screwed 1.5 . Other Formats: download .mp3 audio version right click link & choose 'save as' download Palm & Mobipocket version right click link & choose 'save as' download Adobe PDF version right click link & choose 'save as'

download other formats Chapter 3 Artemis. First Generation. Always wanted my job. Which is reason enough not to like him. But standing there dressed in all black motorcycle leathers, the ridiculous epitome of a B-movie vampire costume that s enough to piss me off especially when he shows up unannounced. I ve called him on his outfit before, and he always reverts to his I collect Ducatis excuse. Whatever. In medieval Ireland, pimped out in armor polished to a mirror-like finish, his line was: I m a knight. The poser. Why are you here? I ask in English, playing stupid, buying time. I deny him the courtesy of responding in the Angelic Tongue of our fathers, the Watchers. The question is, Jequon, why weren t you here earlier? That throws me. What the hell is he talking about? I locate Uri in my periphery, keeping my eyes on Artemis the whole time. The Russian hasn t moved. Don t worry about Uri. He doesn t even realize I ve been in the room with him for the better part of the day. I had his errand bitch from downstairs bring up a special order. Snuck in and rolled underneath the bed after I heard him snoring What? you think a Russian gets that soused from vodka alone? Uri pipes in from the hall, It s true comrade, it has been my water ever since Chernobyl. I have never seen this man before. He drugged me. I Shut-up Uri. Artemis removes a brass and red plastic shotgun shell from his pocket and wiggles it in Ur s direction; then he moves toward me a step. So what s your excuse this time Jequon? You re The Protector, remember? Who exactly are you protecting? Clearly not Lucian. You keep telling the Council you ve got it under control, and meanwhile, our people are getting slaughtered by these chumps. Too bad it takes an emergency to get them to listen me. I say, Jequon s lost his edge, they say, impossible. But when they heard you were desperate enough to make half-million-dollar deals with a human a Russian mobster at that well, let s just say the Council has finally taken heed of my warnings. Typical Artemis steam. Are you through admiring the sound of your own voice, I ask. You asked me a question and I d like to answer. Artemis moves closer another step. There will be plenty of time to answer when I escort you before the Council, he says, and tries to disguise this bullshit with one of his trademark smirks a leer so self-righteous even Lucifer couldn t top it. Artemis closes the gap between us by one more careful step. Don t make this difficult, he says. He reaches inside his coat I tense up, ready to spring and he removes a set of Nephilim-grade, solid plate design, titanium handcuffs. Unlike his neck, I can t snap these, even on a good day. Council orders. They thought these might make you a more agreeable travel companion. Sure. I understand, I say. For a Naphil looking to kill one of his own, he d be hard pressed to find a better cover story: Just stage the crime scene to look like a Sons Of Jared killing, and who s the wiser? Me. That s who. Although he gets props for posing as a Council investigator a wholly original embellishment his research into the SOJ s methods came from an unreliable source. Hold out your wrists, Artemis says. I hold them out. Artemis knows, of course, that after the SOJ kill their victim in a formal ceremony, they finish the ritual by branding the word damned onto the forehead. But the real SOJ spell damned in Aramaic. Artemis made the brand on Lucian s forehead using letters from the Angelic alphabet letters no human understands not even the ancient scroll-scribbling SOJ. I leaked this bogus detail to my people centuries ago, anticipating the eventuality of a traitor like Artemis. Holding the cuffs open in his right hand, Artemis reaches across his body and grabs hold of my left wrist. In this textbook position, he has the most leverage to secure the cuffs, and the best chance to defend himself if I were to make any sudden movements. In theory, by holding my wrist with his opposite hand, he will be able to feel any motion in my arm much faster than he could see it, allowing him to sidestep an attack, and (as practiced thousands of times by anyone trained to make arrests) disrupt the balance of his attacker as he pivots behind to subdue him in some other way. In theory. In practice, Artemis bumps one side of the cuff closed on my left wrist and pivots the other side to secure my right which doesn t happen because in the millisecond it takes for the bracelet to travel down its narrow arc, my palm is halfway to his chin. Artemis sidesteps the blow and barely manages to keep the base of his skull attached to his spinal column. With a firm grip still on my wrist he immediately shuffles to one side, countering the momentum of my missed strike as he begins his pivot to get behind me. Textbook execution on his part and he s good. Real good. Even for a fellow 1st Gen. But I m counting on his prowess. I meant to miss with the palm strike. I just wanted to get him moving. Instead of lunging forward off-balance, like he expects me to do after such a ferocious miss, I jerk my left elbow down, freeing my wrist from his grip, sending him stumbling forward as he tries in vain to hang on. Now I plant my left leg and torque my entire upper-body clockwise, leading with my chin, rotating every inch of my two-hundred-and-thirty pounds of pissed-off Protector-grade Nephilim on the ball of my foot. My other leg hangs loose, trailing slightly behind, accelerating, building momentum like the supersonic tip of a bullwhip. As I complete the turn, I can see Artemis with his hands up, expecting a spinning back-fist, the most common strike thrown from my position. What he gets instead, just as he drops his hands, is the outside edge of my boot heel slamming between his eyes like a lead pipe. Even if Artemis had defended for the kick, and left his guard up a split-second longer, it wouldn t have mattered. His face would still be caved in. His eyeballs still hanging loose from their disintegrated sockets. His brain still leaking out of his ear-holes in a bloody soup. Our fathers in darkness, what have I done? This is the first time I ve killed one of my own, and the act runs so contrary to the way I m wired I almost forget where I am. Uri s yelling at me. We still have a deal? Yes? Screaming it over and over. Shut! Up!, I yell over him, we still have a deal. But it s not finished until you answer some questions. Uri gets a hold on his trembling. I tell you anything. We ll get to that, I say. First go get a hammer. Technically, I have twenty-four hours to finish Artemis, but it d be stupid to wait. The last thing Sarajevo s populace needs is a 1st Gen-turned-super-vamp in their midst. He d make their history of ethnic cleansing seem like the good old days. Lucian keeps one in his dresser, Uri says. Just in case Put down the shotgun and the briefcase and go get it, I tell him. How he knows so damn much about what Lucian keeps in his dresser ranks high on the list of questions I want answered. Uri produces a heavy steel mallet. I point to Lucian. Pull one of the stakes loose from his wrist. While he s prying the stake free, I open the window a crack and risk a look out at the street. Nothing suspicious as far as I can tell. I nod toward Artemis. I take it you know what to do. Yes. Our kind give up the ghost the same as any talking monkey: either still the pulse of our blood, or drain it from our body. Just like generating a magnetic field from the flow of electrons in a wire, the flow of DNA in the bloodstream generates a soul. And as much as I hate reinforcing pop culture vampire lore, I have to admit, puncturing the heart can be more practical than draining all the blood from a corpse. Uri sets down his tools beside the body and then roles Artemis over onto his back. Straddling him at waist level, he pulls open Artemis s shirt to expose his chest. He picks up the mallet and the stake. He probes for a gap between the ribs, directly over the heart and then he slams the mallet home with a metallic clang. And again two, three, four more times until the stake pins Artemis to the floor. I flinch with every strike. I knew him since he was a boy. I take it you know how to dispose of a body? A rhetorical question. Uri nods. Good. Now you re going to answer my questions. You can start by explaining why someone shot a hole through my neck at the train station. I know nothing about you getting shot. He s telling the truth. If he was lying, he wouldn t have frowned. His eyes would have darted up and to the side first, and then he would have looked surprised. Humans don t have much control over their facial expressions; I lick my lips of course neither do I when I m this thirsty. Uri s face goes from confused to a portrait of abject fear. Relax, I say, and motion down toward his club. Why don t we get a drink. He has nothing to worry about. I m not about to feed on the second pastiest Russian I ve ever seen. I d rather go gray. Other Formats: download .mp3 audio version right click link & choose 'save as' download Microsoft Reader version right click link & choose 'save as' download Palm & Mobipocket version right click link & choose 'save as' download Adobe PDF version right click link & choose 'save as'

download other formats Chapter 5 Alt Country replaces the keyboard-heavy chanting I heard earlier. Sounds a little like Green Day doing a Hank Jr. cover, with some 1980 s Bengals mashed in. To each their own. Which seems to be the underlying theme of this place. Something for everyone. Three elevated stages centered against adjacent walls, three different types of action: girl-on-girl, girl-on-guy, girl-on-self no penetration, so I guess you could call it dancing. Technically. Enclosed by this panty-triage triangle, a massive dance floor, with its sea of sweaty flesh undulating to the pull of a moon which only orbits the exstacy-soaked consciousness of ravers. Uri escorts us past the past the bar and toward a VIP room on the far side of this hipster / swinger / stripper hybrid. I m hoping it doesn t double as the lap-dance lounge. I don t want a lap-dance. I want a drink. First one: chilled, next one body-temp. Vodka? he mouths back to me. I nod. He holds up two fingers to the bartender and then points to the back. He leads the way. I m surprised these kids don t part like the Red Sea before him. Guess he s not that kind of gangsta. There are many Veingels in the crowd. Their heads, eyes meeting mine in almost perfect unison. I acknowledge their presence with a nod. Like attracts like in the harmonics of the spiritual. Their bond with Lucian would have been even stronger. We get to the door labeled Keep The Fuck Out in English and Uri knocks twice. One of his heavies escorts us inside and then leaves us. We sit down at a poker table that s seen better days and Uri slides the five-hundred G s less-change under it. How long was Lucian up there before you went to check? Forty-eight hours, almost to the minute, Uri says. How long did you wait to call me? If Uri s not what he appears to be, I want to catch him in a lie as soon as possible. The Veingel presence pretty much rules out SOJ involvement, as does Artemis being behind Lucian s murder but what can I say? the two snipers outside the train station leave me suspicious. Jequon, you I call immediately. I consider this: forty-eight hours, plus another twenty-four for me to arrive meshes with the condition of the body, anyway. Lucian, he was supposed to do a job for me north in Tuzla, but I hear he never make the trip. Not like him. Lucian doing a job for Uri? What the fuck? Back up. You said you sent Lucian on a job Maybe you d better fill me in on how a Naphil finds himself under the employ of a human? Lucian, he started coming to the club a year ago. Quickly he becomes friendly with the ladies. Paying customers, they like him, and my dancers, they like him too. Before long, the club, it s earning triple all girls, until the guys, they figure out where they went, and then they come also. Lucian, he is good for business. I see this. I ask him, what can I do to make your time here more enjoyable? He ask for nothing. Still, his money was no good to me from then on, and I make sure the girls, they keep him happy. But I start to get jealous of him. I nod and take a sip from my drink. You are an ugly motherfucker, I say. The girls who work for me, I get what I want. But knowing I repulse them it s not the same. Uri digs in his pocket and comes out with a pack of clove cigarettes. Do you mind? Yes, I say, Put them away. He doesn t argue. But Lucian, he is still just a man I think this at the time so something else must be behind his effect on the girls. Something I can learn from him. I ask Lucian, he will tell me his secret, yes? I empty the vodka and crush an ice cube between my teeth. As written in the Codes, the penalty for revealing our true nature to a non-Veingel human is severe. Not even donors realize what we are, as the feedings are disguised as part of the sex act. Anesthetic enzymes present in our saliva render the bite painless, often pleasurable. Nor does the wound need to be so deep as to scar, since our saliva also thins the blood as it mixes below the skin. And so he just came clean and explained to you he was a Naphil. Just like that? I ask. What did you offer him? Uri points at our empty glasses and holds up two fingers to the closed-circuit security camera mounted to the ceiling in the corner. The damn things are everywhere. Like cell phones. At first, Lucian, he plays dumb. Says he doesn t have any idea what I m asking him about. I tell him it s nothing, and change the subject. But later I ask him why I find a dancer crying in the dressing room. This girl, she d been with me one week before and now Lucian, he does not talk to this girl, even though he spent much time with her in the past. It was an awkward conversation. Lucian, he was eager to change the subject. So I ask him again, what can I do for him to improve his experience here anything at all, I tell him and I say it so he knows I would be offended if this time he turn down my offer. And? I ask. This time he mentions a few things. He asks me if I could provide him a supply of absinthe, which has been outlawed for some time in this country. I say yes. What else? I say. Lucian, he wants girls from Novaya Kutaya a Russian town so small you d have to be a comrade to know of it. And these girls, they must undergo a blood test he says. Not for STDs which I check for anyway but for blood type. Lucian, he says to me, bring only girls with type O-negative blood. And these girls, he makes clear, are off-limits to anyone but him. I can see where this is headed. Lucian wanted a private stash of O-negs. Immune girls from a farming community so backwater they wouldn t appear in any of our donor databases. Uri looks expectantly into the security camera and taps at his wristwatch. Oh, I almost forget: he also want the apartment upstairs. The rent is no more than an hour s worth of his admirer s bar tabs, so I give it to him. Did he tell you what he needed these girls for? No. Lucian was loyal to your people. He didn t tell me what he was until much later. And by then, I guessed something that. Unfortunately, The Green Fairy, she demands her own loyalty. The absinthe. This is starting to make sense. With a private supply of O-negs Lucian could keep word of his indiscretions from spreading to other Nephilim in Sarajevo, and make it less likely that word of his crimes would reach someone like me or an overeager asshole like Artemis, as it turned out. So let me guess: Lucian starts getting all Van Gogh from the wormwood, and at some point, he fucks up. Did he feed too long on one of your girls? something like that? Uri shook his head. No. But every dancer in the club, he s already bitten before he requests the type-O girls from Russia. These Veingels, they know nothing of your donor database. He tells them nothing of the ways of your people until after it s too late. There weren t enough of the Russian girls to go around at first. I m sure you can do the math. Shit. Math indeed. Math is why we have the Codes. Why we need donors. If Veingels were to feed indiscriminately on non-donors, in defiance of the strict quotas dictated by the Council each year, then the entire 6.5 billion human inhabitants of Earth would become Veingel in just ninety-seven days. The immune O-negs, outnumbered fifteen-to-one, would be sucked dry even sooner, as their newly infected neighbors overwhelmed them a quart at a time. Since we re having this conversation, you must ve found a solution, I say. Yes. But not before things got hectic. Define hectic. Uri points to the camera. I see you ve noticed our security measures. I nod. We used to offer lap dances in this room. Naturally the girls safety is a concern, but who wants a bouncer around when you re busy dry humping? Turns out though, the patrons, they needed the protection. Because The dancers were hungry, I finish for him. So you put two-and-two-together: the O-neg request, the dancer s new iron-rich diet, and their infatuation with Lucian how long before you confronted him? A couple days. Of course, I assumed he was vampire I only had the usual Hollywood bullshit to go off of. Let me tell you, I was scared shitless. But I was even more scared of my captains. I cannot say to them, my production is down because of blood suckers. So, I figure, fuck it, this has to stop. Lucian, I go to him, I figure, vampire or not, he seems like a reasonable guy. And he was. Lucian, he hears me out said I was right for coming to him. He sets me straight about your people, about Veingels and vampires the Sons of Jared, the donor databases, how blood works all of it. Lucian, he know he fucked up. He needed to get it off his chest. So we clean up the mess. I make infected patrons bouncers and bar tenders. I bring in enough O-negative girls for everyone and we set up a strict rotation for feeding. In return for my understanding in this matter and my continued support of his vices Lucian, he places himself at my disposal. He also let you live, even knowing what you know, I say. Yes, that too. Maybe that was a mistake, I say. May-fuckin -be, Uri says. The first sign of disrespect from the Russian. His last utterance. Kind of hard to talk with a vodka glass lodged into your neck where your voice-box used to be. And that s the first thing the SOJ hit men see when they kick in the door. Where is he? He was sitting right across from him! Spewing confusion down the barrels of their assault rifles; tracing the room with the red dots from their laser scopes. They go from about 6 2 to 5 11 and dead as I heel-stomp the top of their heads. I drop from the metal truss I m hanging from and hit the ground rolling in case there s more behind them. You would think there d be a back exit, but there s not. I ll have to go out the way I came in. Through the crowd, and who knows how many of Uri s heavies. I grab the AR15 from No Neck on the left and the AK47 from Accordion Head on the right and head for the front door. That gets people s attention. The club becomes as silent as the last snowflake of winter. The Veingels, an immoral majority of the patrons it turns out, are grinning like a bunch of Keebler s elves sprinkling crack on crackers. At least I know who my friends are. # Out in the night once more, I disappear into the same alley I used to survey my final approach to Uri s club and ditch the firearms. Though my work requires an intimate familiarity with their design, maintenance, and use, their bulk is a nuisance to me right now. Now that Uri s out of commission, I regret having him pin Artemis to the floor with the wood stake. Even when he s dead he refuses to blend in. Oh well. Can t do anything about it now. I don t retrace my steps, that would be foolish, but I do make my way in the direction of the young woman who saved my life. It s a cool night and I want to check on her. If she s not already searching to replace the blood she so graciously offered to my lips, I d like to warn her to steer clear of Uri s club, since the former safe haven is now under the watchful eye of the SOJ. The short walk allows me time to make sense of things. I still don t think Uri had anything to do with the snipers at the train station. Nor do I believe he s in league with the two dead SOJ. I just wanted to kill him. To punish him for the role, however small, he played in Lucian s death. Fact is, I wish he d been solely responsible. I wish he was the reason the SOJ came so close to bagging number one on their most-wanted list. Instead, I m left with two questions I can t answer. First, if Artemis murdered Lucian, then why were the SOJ waiting for me at the train station, and how were they able to track me to Uri s club? Since they weren t responsible for Lucian s death, they shouldn t have even known about it, or known that I would be coming to investigate. But somehow, they did know about Lucian, and putting aside how they knew for the moment, this prompts my second question: why didn t they dispense with Artemis before their failed attempt on me? He would have made an easy target, too distracted with the details of his deception to be on the defensive for an attack. It s almost as if Artemis was in league with the SOJ. And however unlikely, this is the only scenario I can come up with right now that meshes with Uri s story, Artemis s attempted cover-up, and the SOJ s near-psychic anticipation of my every move since I entered Sarajevo. But why? Murderous, power-hungry asshole that he is, I can t see anything Artemis would gain from teaming up with our sworn enemy. We are a wealthy, vibrant people. We have little interest in the affairs of humans, save for maintaining the delicate ecological balance in our respective numbers crucial to everyone s survival. The only thing the SOJ have to offer us is slaughter. Still, I have to admit, if Artemis was betraying us that deeply, it might explain the enemy s recent efficaciousness. And since their success reflects poorly on my role as Protector a position Artemis so clearly wanted for himself that might explain his motivation. In fact, if Artemis could have convinced the Council to remove me from my post, and to appoint him as my replacement, he might have then used his relationship with the SOJ against them, and been quite effective at culling their numbers. A bold, risky strategy on the part of Artemis. It might have worked. I arrive at the alley where I left her and ease into the moon cast shadows. But she s already gone. Only the overcoat I covered her with remains, still warm with her trapped heat as I slide it back on. Her absence disappoints me. Saddens me. I stare up at the universe of stars knowing that a God who despises my kind must be grinning down at my foolishness. Other Formats: download .mp3 audio version right click link & choose 'save as' download Microsoft Reader version right click link & choose 'save as' download Palm & Mobipocket version right click link & choose 'save as' download Adobe PDF version right click link & choose 'save as'

download other formats Chapter 11 I open my eyes to family, not foes. The Nephilim Council, not the SOJ. They sit in a neat row looking down at me from behind a long, mahogany paneled podium, like what a city council might sit behind--only mahogany. Am I surprised? Very. Hurt? Deeply. The Algonquin, located at 59 West 44th Street in Manhattan, is best known for its Roundtable, a former meeting place of writers, actors, and other wits of note in the 1920s. In 1950, William Faulkner drafted his Nobel Prize acceptance speech here (at the time, I was three doors down the hall from his room, thoroughly enjoying the Algonquin s reputation as the first quality hotel in New York to welcome young ladies traveling alone; establishing a Nephilim safe-house here required little deliberation). Now you can enjoy a ten-thousand-dollar diamond-cooled martinis at the bar, a clever bit of marketing designed to attract the nostalgic and the nouveau rich. They ll pay over two-hundred a night, minimum, hoping to spot Dorothy Parker s ghost, or to take pictures of the famous nameplates indicating where stars have eaten in the dining hall. And they still never get to see the most impressive room at the Algonquin: the oval-domed auditorium I m standing in, shackled hand and foot, three stories below street level. Mount Hermon, we call it, despite its cavernous depth. Down here, the floors are covered with the same marble as the stairs leading up from the hotel lobby. The walls are a rough-cut granite, pierced by archways spaced equidistantly around the chamber. There are six of these subterranean exits, but only one entrance, a narrow shaft cut into the ceiling and leading up to room 314, hidden behind a false wall. The shaft is serviced by a primitive elevator, stationed here in the auditorium during meetings to discourage intruders, however unlikely (since room 314 comes up perpetually occupied on the front desk computer). I m not planning an escape, but that doesn t keep me from considering how I might, should the need arise. Even in these chains, I could climb the elevator cable faster than an acrobat in Cirque du Soleil, but a fellow Naphil, sans shackles, would still catch me. Ditto trying to sprint and lose them in the labyrinth of subterranean tunnels outside the escape exits. Even if I could muster any speed in these shackles, the thirty-foot drop at the end of each tunnel necessitates a well executed tuck and roll to avoid breaking an ankle. Difficult in chains. Tell us, Jequon, how long have you been rogue? Ezeqeel is the first to address me. His father taught man how to predict the weather; he is moody, almost bipolar at times, an exception to our usual cool demeanor. I don t answer. It is custom to give all members of the Council a turn to speak before responding to any one member, unless instructed otherwise with the traditional: Let thy word be known, a phrase with many layers of significance to spiritually sensitive beings. Did you really think that killing Artemis would keep the truth of your failings from us? asks Penemue. As written in the so-called apocryphal Book of Enoch, his father sinned when he taught men to write on parchment. Apparently God--despite the Bible s title as the number-one tree killer among books-intended His Word to remain a purely oral tradition. I m sure the Old Testament kills when performed as spoken word at open mic night. Let thy word be known, Kasdeja says. He is rare in that he has only been elected to the Council one time. I ve been nominated to sit on the Council seventy-six times. Seventy-six times I graciously declined the nomination. A tradition I would steadfastly maintain, were it not for the most recent election, where in all twenty rounds of voting, my name did not appear on a single ballot. Is it possible that after seven-thousand-six-hundred years my peers simply grew tired of me declining their nomination? Maybe. And is it also possible that Lucian s murder, the sniper attack, Artemis s betrayal, and the SOJ s recent success in slaying my people aren t the least bit related? Maybe. And maybe Lucifer likes to bathe in holy water. Obviously, Artemis alibi in Sarajevo wasn t a total fabrication. The Council really did assign him to investigate me, understandably concerned with the recent spike in SOJ killings. But what they don t seem to realize (yet) is that Artemis was the likely cause of the spike, a confusion I intend to clear up post-haste. I have never been a rogue. Nor anything less than a defender of our people; I am and always will be a dagger between the ribs of our enemy; a gun in the turret of every castle wherein Nephilim sleep soundly beneath the shadows of protection. As to my failings, I admit to being human--half--like the rest of you, though as our fathers proved so well: to err is angel, and so I ll proudly claim a dual pedigree for occasional fuck-ups and mistakes. But what I will not claim, is the title of traitor. Treachery is what I killed Artemis for. I have nothing to hide. Why do you think I was on a flight to New York anyway? For the Mets? Perhaps you planned to kill one of us next. Amazarak, sarcastic as always. Let thy word be known. I have no words. But silence is acceptance in our culture, so it s imperative that I speak quickly and convincingly of my innocence. I came here to warn the Council, I say. Artemis was in league with our enemy. He is the reason for the SOJ s unusual string of successes. The calm, almost smug expression chiseled into the Council s faces suggests they re not convinced. Kasdeja says, We sent Artemis to investigate your incompetence, Jequon. How much longer are you going to insult us with these desperate lies? Have you no honor? I am smoldering inside at the question of my honor, but because it s still intact, I hold my tongue until requested to speak. No one on the Council seems in a hurry to grant me a response, however. A purposeful delay if there ever was one, a mini-punishment for what they view as disrespect from me. I strain against the titanium cuffs. Already my wrists are raw, the bones beneath, bruised, evidence I struggled against them even as I slept during my drug-induced transport from the airport. I remember thinking: ...on a good day I couldn t snap them... But this is a bad day. Finally, Samsaveel--who at least used to be a close friend-grants me a response. Let thy word be known. I breathe in slow and deep, wanting to keep my voice steady and calm, as only a lesser man loses control of his emotions under pressure. The air is cool, made cooler with the scent of mint oil and lavender, a traditional cologne of sorts worn by my people. It would be a pleasing aroma, were it not for the sour reek of the pitted hand cuffs, corroded by the testosterone infused sweat of past prisoners; instead, it smells as if a six-shooter fired a round of funeral flowers out the barrel. I take a moment to survey each and every accuser, and look in every eye, from right to left and back again, proclaiming my innocence with every held gaze. You may have sent Artemis to spy on me, a reality I admit I was unaware of until you brought me here. But under the guise of service, Artemis murdered one of our own: Lucian, a 3rd Gen living in Sarajevo. And deceitful bastard that he was, tried to stage the crime scene to look like an SOJ killing. Enough! Ezeqeel s interruption is loud enough to cause the granite walls to reverberate like the phantom ringing of a thick bell. Artemis was in Constantinople with me when we intercepted digital photos of Lucian s demise. Now cease this charade or I will cut your fucking tongue out myself, he says. Let. Thy. Word. Be. Known. These last four words an almost whispered growl. So Artemis didn t kill Lucian? Damn. Not good. His innocence a sucker-punch epiphany to the solar-plexus. I feel nauseous. Ashamed. Foolish. My muscles knot up like braided Kevlar and tremble like cold gelatin all at once. It s not the guilt that has me so shaken--though I do feel guilty--but rather, the nightmarish implication of his innocence. The dire omen the Council, Artemis, and even I failed to recognize, hidden in plain sight at the scene of the crime. Speak! an enraged Kasdeja says in response to my flabbergasted silence. What can I tell them? Every word I say in my defense, they see as a plea for mercy-so why speak? They believe I m a murderer, even as their conviction blinds them to a far more sinister truth. My mouth is dry and bitter, as if I d fallen asleep chewing on coffee grounds. Then we re through here, Amazarak says. The gray mixed in with his blonde dulls his countenance; deep lines merge at the corners of his eyes like tributaries eroded into the slope of his cheeks by tears. Amazarak had the misfortune of residing in Sicily during the mid-fourteenth century outbreak of the Black Plague. That, along with his stubborn refusal to migrate north to Poland or the Netherlands--not to mention his germaphobia--caused him to miss many feedings that would have preserved his youth. Gadreel stands from his seat, stake and sledgehammer in hand. The back-the-fuck-off techno-beat fades in as if he hit play on my gray-matter head unit. Bring it, I m thinking, but I say, Wait. I wish to speak. So you can delay justice a few more breaths with your lechery? Clearly I must ve unknowingly flirted with one of Kasdeja s Veingels at some point, so eager he is to see me executed. Like his father, killing as a solution to a problem comes easier to him than most Nephilim. Kasdeja the Watcher instructed the women of earth on how to abort pregnancies. A victim of her remarkable beauty, his mother had been raped by a Druid priest before the elder Kasdeja arrived among the indigenous Celts. He wasn t about to let another man s evil spoil their love. Let him say his peace, Samsaveel says. Let thy word be known, Jequon! Kasdeja hisses, but deceive us again and we ll make sure you don t get to die a second time. Gadreel eases back down into his seat, and though he tries to cover it, I can tell by the way he lets out his breath that he d been holding it. How does one foretell the imminent death of a people? Of one s own people? Ezeqeel, I say, will you please display the images of Lucian you spoke of? What I am about to say will be supported by what is shown in the photos. Ezeqeel nods and slides a USB memory stick into a port built into to his spot at the podium. A two-sided flat screen display actuates from a slot in the floor and soon we are viewing a slideshow comprised of different shots of Lucian s wrecked corpse. I instruct Ezeqeel to freeze on a close-up of his face. Notice the brand, I say. To you, dear cousins, nothing seems amiss. You are looking at what you already know the SOJ defile us with at the finish of their ritualistic slaughter But what if I told you, that you don t know the true brand of the SOJ? That the brand we see on Lucian s head is a fake. I pause to let this sink in, but I m also contemplating my escape if I can t convince them to release me. I ve already crossed running for an exit and climbing up the elevator shaft off my list of options. About the only thing left is to stand and fight and hope I get lucky. What s this nonsense about a fake brand? Damned --the same vulgarity the SOJ have been using since they separated from the other Hebrew tribes and began hunting us. And what tongue is Damned spelled in? I ask rhetorically. Our tongue, the sacred tongue of our fathers--unknown to man--a mystery even to our enemy...and yet, they brag of their exploits with a word only our people could know. Doesn t that strike you as odd? No it doesn t, Ezeqeel says, Sarkatheel, the first of our kind to be captured by the SOJ, had clearly been tortured to give up a phrase or two of our language in his last moments of agony. The branding started after him. What would seem odd, is if the SOJ suddenly stopped branding their victims. Sarkatheel, yes-I ll come back to him-but first I want to ask the members of the Council a simple question: How many of you have actually seen, first hand, the SOJ s handiwork on one of our people? not photographs, but the actual bodies? To my knowledge, none of us-save for you, Jequon--have seen the actual bodies after they were murdered. And why would we? You are the Protector. That s right, Shamsiel. Which means none of you have actually seen the brand either--except in photographs--and those, only within the last one-hundred-and-fifty years or so the technology has been available--and yet, you are certain there is nothing wrong with the brand on Lucian s forehead. Why wouldn t we be certain? Kasdeja asks. Was it not you who informed us of the enemy s brand? You who provided the pictures depicting it? I ve warned you, Jequon, if you are leading us astray again... So, Kasdeja, I say, addressing him by name, rather than imply a hostility toward the Council as a whole, my word was honored then, but now, it s no good? The truth is, the word Damned, used by the SOJ in their ritual, has always been spelled out in Aramaic--not in our angelic tongue. That aspect of their brand is something I purposefully distorted, anticipating--erroneously in the case of Artemis--that some day one of us might try to cover up a murder by staging it to look like the SOJ were responsible. The bogus version you see burned into Lucian s flesh, was my way of identifying a murderer among us. Sarkatheel s torture merely provided a convenient explanation for my ruse-one you ll probably remember me promoting on more than one occasion. And as for the photos: doctored--every last one of them. Samsaveel breaks their stunned silence, showing me he can still be counted as a friend. So if what you re saying is true--and I, for one, have never had reason to doubt your word--then Lucian was murdered by one of our own people? I shake my head. It s worse than that, I say. How so? What could be worse? asks Shamsiel. The Sons Of Jared have deciphered our language. Everyone leans forward in their seats. I have their attention. And given the bombshell I just dropped, hopefully their trust. There are a few confused faces among the Council, but I can see many of them are beginning to figure out where I m headed with this. Shamsiel says, Tell us more. But I say nothing. I extend my arms and nod to the handcuffs and leg irons. A tense silence envelops the room. No one moves, especially me. Now Kasdeja motions to Gadreel who stands with a key this time instead of a hammer and stake. Free of my restraints, dignity restored, I continue. It s the only thing that explains the Nephilim version of Damned burned into Lucian s forehead, and the impossible boost in the number of us they ve slain. And it s only going to get worse. Think about it: we ve gone electronic just like the rest of the world: Our donor databases, our safe houses...the Veingel registry, 1st Gen territories, and so on-all of it accessible via the web. Now, we all know that even bank records can get hacked. But we always justified the risk by counting on our language. Combined with encryption, a language the enemy doesn t even understand is pretty much impossible to crack, and even if they did get past the encryption, who cares if a hacker cracks gibberish, right? Problem is, now the SOJ could have an English-to-Angel-dictionary. Let s hope not, Samsaveel says. Hope, I say, like faith, is no refuge for the damned, quoting an aphorism of our people made popular by my father. We need to adjourn ASAP, and reconvene someplace the SOJ would have no way of knowing about, even if they ve already learned the location of our safe houses. The last thing we need is to give them an opportunity to waste twenty-two of us all at once. Where? Ezeqeel asks. I m pleased to see the rest of the Council looking to me for direction, granting me once more, as is my birthright, the role of Protector. We should get a yacht, unplug the radio, the weather satellite, and the GPS uplinks, and cruise off into blue water--somewhere tropical would be my preference. Sarajevo was cold. I start to get more specific, but a faint draft distracts me, so slight it disturbs only the fine blonde hairs on my arms, and I pause to listen. We all hear it. The accelerating clank of metal ricocheting off stone, like a lantern dropped down the gaping maw of a mineshaft Or a suitcase nuke shoved into the no-longer-secret elevator shaft hidden in room 314 of the Algonquin. 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