The Nephilim Page 2

  “But not my mother?” Her voice was absolutely dripping with sarcasm as she said it, something that he thought was strange considering how she'd been brought here. Clearly she wasn't having a bar of it. Still, she should at least hear the facts before she dismissed them.

  “Probably not. That doesn't happen a lot as far as I know. Angel women are more … discerning. And in any case if it ever did happen the offspring would be nephilim like us I assume, but we wouldn't see them. I can't imagine that the mothers would ever abandon their kids to live here with the rest of us.”

  He didn't know that of course. He hadn't asked. And maybe angel mothers were just as useless as the fathers. But he'd never seen the offspring of such a union.

  “So they get to live in heaven?”

  “Don't know.” Garrick shrugged helplessly. He had no idea where angels lived, or if they called that place heaven. The Choir didn't tell them a whole lot about those sorts of things. They didn't tell them much at all, just to do as they were told. And then they wondered why they encountered resistance from their bastard children? But the kid would figure that out for herself in due course. He hurried on before she could ask any more unanswerable and annoying questions.

  “What I do know is that male angels are for the most part dead beat dads. The last word in them actually. As they grow up angels get to spend a little time on Earth. They play around for a little bit. It's sort of a rite of passage before they take their vows or whatever. And after that they're gone. They come, some of them have their way with a few local women, knock some of them up, and then they leave. For the pregnant woman left behind there's absolutely no support provided, no visits to the child, and the kid doesn't even get a surname out of it. We have no fathers. It's just the nature of the beast. The mothers and their kids get left behind to struggle.”

  “And I do mean struggle. It's not easy for the women. Actually it's harder for them than for most others in their shoes. Often the women are psychologically damaged from the encounter. Apparently the encounters are intense although “emotionally traumatic” is the term the therapists use. Most can't handle it well. Some really can't handle it and end up in institutions. To make matters worse, the women are all virgins. Don't ask me why, I don’t know. But they don't have a lot of life experience to help them deal with things.”

  “The doctors call it post traumatic shock, and the effects can be devastating.”

  Of course he was glossing over things there. In time, when she accepted the truth of what he was telling her, she would understand that. She would have the memories of her own mother's suffering to tell her the truth. And then she would have to deal with the anger as she realised that her mother's condition wasn't natural. That it had been caused by another. By an angel. From that would follow the frustration as she realised there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. That was the thing that angered him the most.

  In his case his mother was better now than she had been. Years of intense therapy and time had helped paper over the worst of the cracks. But he still remembered seeing her pain when he'd been younger, and how frightened it had left him. It was the sort of thing that stayed with a man. He hadn't known what was wrong with her then. He hadn't understood her mood swings and panic attacks. He'd had no idea what obsessive compulsive behaviours and depression were. But he'd known something was wrong, and when she'd been the only person in his entire world that had been a difficult thing to deal with. It was still a difficult thing to bear.

  “And then after it's over the women usually can't move on.”

  Some claimed it was simply because they could not find a man to compare, but in Garrick's view it was more fundamental than that. The experience was so traumatic that they never wanted to be with another man again. In his own mother's case he was sure that had been the truth of the matter. She'd never spoken about it – not to him. And for the most part he suspected that the only way she held herself together was by not even thinking about it. But the way she looked at men told the sad story. Her only lover had ruined her life and that angered him. Even more than the fact that he had abandoned them, the understanding that his mother had been damaged by him set his blood boiling every time he thought about it.

  But of course there was no possible come back. He had no idea who his father was. His mother had never uttered his name and he suspected that she didn't even know it. Nor were any of the Choir likely to tell him. But even if he had known, what could he do to an angel? Nephilim might be bad boy warrior angels in the bible, but the reality was that they were simply people with a few minor gifts. They weren't warriors. Contrast that with the power of the Choir which was immense. They were powerless against them. Life had taught him a few hard lessons, but none harder than that. Still, he had learned it well. Life was a bitch and all you could do was deal with it. His house guest would have to learn that lesson too.

  “So the mothers not only don't have fathers to help them raise the child, they also don't have boyfriends either or the prospect of a happy marriage ahead. Being a single mother is not an easy thing in this world. When you're dealing with post traumatic stress or whatever it's harder. And when the child is gifted as we are, it becomes damned near impossible.”

  Garrick figured she understood some of that. She might not understand a lot else – yet – but she understood that she was different. That she could do things other people couldn't. And that it had caused problems. It probably had something to do with why she had been living rough.

  Still he realised that they were getting off track. That he was telling her things she probably didn't need to know yet. It was time to return to the stuff she did need to know. The practical stuff and what lay ahead for her.

  “So kid, I don't know what's happened in your life. But I assume it's been tough. And I can't tell you that it gets that much easier. The only thing I can tell you is that you aren't alone. No matter how tough you think you've had it, you aren't alone. There are tens of thousands more of us, many of us dealing with exactly the same problems you are. Broken families, mothers with emotional problems, no fathers to speak of. The place I'm taking you you'll be able to share your pain with them. It helps.”

  Mostly though it just helped to put things in perspective, or at least it had in his experience. His mother was still in and out of various institutions, even now that she'd retired to Florida. He still had to live with that. And with the anger he continued to feel for his father – whoever he was.

  “That's -.” She tried to argue, no doubt to tell him he was talking crap, but she stopped when he held up his hand.

  “ – Messed up, but there's more I'm afraid. Because as if all that isn't rough enough, there are also some rules that we have to follow.”

  “Rules?” That she heard, and she might even have believed him, if only because Cassie had mentioned them.

  “Oh yeah, rules. There are always rules.” If he sounded a little bitter it was only because he was. He had every reason to be.

  “The angels may be a bunch of dead beat dads who simply like to spread their seed about and don't give a toss about their victims or their children, but they still set us rules which we all have to follow. Nephilim that is, not the rest. We're just lucky that way.” The bitterness in his words was well earned.

  “Why?”

  “Because we can do things. Because we know things. And because we have their blood in our veins. They expect better of us.”

  It was the last he thought that was the nub of it. While the angels spoke about free will and faith being the right of those who didn't know and weren't of their blood, in the end they simply couldn't understand how their own kin could not be like them. How they could fail to live up to their standards. As if blood was enough to determine how they should live and act.

  “At least there are only two rules. Not a lot to remember. Number one, we can't use our gifts to harm others in any way. And remember that the angels watch us just in case we do. That's why you're here by the way. Cassie was watch
ing you and you did something to break that rule.”

  He knew it wasn't going to be the other rule that she'd broken. Almost no one ever did. Not because they knew it was a rule, but because they could guess what the consequences would be.

  “And the second?”

  “That the normals never find out about us. About what we can do.”

  The reason for that was slightly different. While he and the other nephilim didn't want the normals to know about them because they feared the consequences, the Choir didn't care about that. They were opposed because they believed that the knowledge of the nephilim and the Choir would deny the normals the chance to choose their path in life freely. If the evidence of God's works was standing in front of then there would no longer be a need for faith. After all, the argument went, faith was based on believing in something without there being enough evidence to prove or disprove it.

  Garrick got no response to his words as the girl instead stared blankly back at him. Maybe she was considering what he'd said. Quite probably she was just wondering if he was mad. Garrick didn't know which, and quite frankly he didn't care. Her arrival had made his coming day complicated. And he'd had a busy day planned. Still, it couldn't be helped.

  “Still don't want to tell me your name,” he asked and got only an angry stare in return. He guessed that was a no.

  “Okay then kid with no name – ” Garrick stepped back a little to let her in and indicated the hallway with a wave of his arm. “ – it seems you're staying for the night. In the morning I'll drive you to Olmstead and the Westlord Academy where you can be with others of our people. For tonight, well, the bathroom’s down the hall. I suggest you use it. Pull out whatever you've got that's clean and put the rest in the washer. Laundry's next to the bathroom. And while you're doing that I'll put some dinner on.”

  Garrick stepped back a little to let her in and indicated the hallway with a wave of his arm. Before he thought of the blindingly obvious.

  “Oh, and if you want to run, run. I'm not going to stop you. I'm not your warder. As far as I'm concerned you can walk away now. The front door isn't locked. But it'll be a mistake. Olmstead is a good place for you. And if you do try to run remember that you'll be hunted. And it'll be Cassie that'll hunt you, not me. You're on her radar now that you've messed up. She'll catch you in minutes at most and probably bring you back here. And there will be consequences.”

  “Consequences?” The girl stared worriedly at him.

  “Of course. There will be consequences. You should know that while a lot of angels may seem to be a bunch of dead beat dads, the ones they send to boss us around don't seem to wander around playing harps and praying a lot. They're much more hands on than that. And they're somewhat on the rigid disciplinarian side. Don't expect a lot of sympathy and understanding – they don't have it. Don't ask for leniency – it won't be given. They are the perfect example of followers of the phrase spare the rod and spoil the child. Expect the strict enforcement of the rules and a rigid morality code. And don't imagine that you'll be able to fool them or lie your way out of trouble either. Their knowledge and power is immense.”

  “Also, remember that whatever particular skills and gifts you've been given won't come anywhere close to what an angel can do. What we can do is nothing compared to them. We have at best one or two of their gifts, and they're weak. What the Choir have is everything, and it's immense.”

  “The chances are that if Cassie has to bring you back you'll be crippled for a while. And if she catches you using your gifts to cause harm to others you'll wish she’d just crippled you.”

  “Crippled?”

  The word drew a concerned look from his house guest. But not concerned enough in his view. She doubted him, and he supposed he understood that. It was a lot to take in, especially given that she'd never heard any of it before. But she needed to hear it. She needed to know. And she needed to take it seriously.

  In the end the bane of every nephilim's life was the Choir. It began with the one who'd fathered them and then continued with the rest who it seemed worked to stuff up their lives for every day that followed.

  “Usually the punishment is not all that serious. Not the first time at least. They're not sadistic or cruel. They’re more strict like drill sergeants. Very strict. The angels would call it instructive. So the first time you do something wrong you’ll likely suffer a bit of pain. Enough to make you limp for a few days or a week. Long enough to learn that you don't want to do that again. Ever. The second time if you're stupid enough to try running away from them, it'll probably hurt more and last longer. Rudeness, especially excessively bad language used against someone can earn you a frozen tongue. They don't like disrespect of any sort. Drugs and alcohol will earn you some serious time as a teetotaller, And violence … well let's just say that they really don't like that. They will make sure you can't hurt anyone again.”

  “Of course that's just for normal bad behaviour. If you use your gifts to hurt someone it will be worse, much worse. And they can take away your gift in case you were wondering.”

  “As Cassie will no doubt tell you; having a gift is a responsibility.”

  Actually she would more likely lecture than tell her. But the girl could find that out for herself in time. She would find it out because he knew that Cassie would be following up with her for a long while to come. She would consider the girl's straightening out to be her personal duty and she took her duties seriously.

  Each angel had probably a dozen or so nephilim that he or she watched over. And while they weren't around all the time, they were always watching. It was something he himself had never fully comprehended until he'd made his first mistake and Cassie had appeared immediately.

  “This is some sort of joke right?” She desperately wanted it to be.

  “I wish! But angels don't have a sense of humour and they're the ones setting the rules.”

  The warning given, Garrick decided that he wanted to return to his beer. It was getting warm and he was getting cold standing there in his bare feet. The rest of the house was carpeted but not the entrance. It had cold slate tiles he'd laid himself because they looked good. But his house guest wasn't going to let him return to the warmth of the lounge and his beer for a little bit.

  “So if you're a nephilim then you have a gift?”

  She wanted proof. Garrick understood that, and strangely he knew the feeling himself. A long time ago when someone else had given him fairly much the same speech, he'd asked for it as well. It had been disappointing. They weren't superheroes. Their gifts usually weren't flashy things that would get the cameras snapping. They were simple things. Often things that wouldn't even be noticed by others unless they looked. They were like the duds of the superhero world. They had to hide what they could do and yet at the same time what they could do was little.

  “I don't do magic tricks kid. I'm not going to pull a rabbit out of a hat or saw someone in half. I'm a hunter. I can track people across the country by a sort of psychic sense of smell. But you have your own proof – you are your own proof – you don't need me. You have a gift and you've been using it. Using it for the wrong purposes apparently. And whatever you can do, you know it's not normal. That should be all the proof you need.”

  “Uh huh.”

  He gathered she still wasn’t buying it. Or maybe she was just disappointed. After all, who wouldn’t want to see someone fly like a bird or run at supersonic speed? To see something like that though she’d have to talk to the Choir. What they could do was incredible. But of course they would never do it. Not unless it was within their precious rules. And he guessed showing off like a performing seal wasn't. Neither was fun.

  “All right, I've told you what you need to know. Believe it or not. It's not my job to convince you of anything. Go and wash up while I get some dinner on. Or if you want you can try and run away. I won't try and stop you. Again I'm not a prison guard. Just don't make a mess in my home.”

  And that was probably as much as he
could hope for. He suspected his house guest was going to be trouble. But all he had to do was get through the night and then drive her to Olmstead in the morning. After that she would be someone else's problem. Patricia's problem. That woman was good at dealing with problem teenagers. She'd dealt with him after all.

  “Run away? You mean I can leave?”

  She didn't believe him and he guessed he could understand that. But it was the simple truth.

  “Just as I told you. You're not a prisoner. The door’s behind you. Walk away. Run. But remember this; you didn't walk through it when you got here. Cassie just brought you here directly from wherever you were. No doubt she found you in the blink of an eye. She will find you again and bring you back the same way no matter where you go. And you won’t enjoy it when she does, I promise you.”

  If nothing else that should remind her of the fact that the impossible had already happened. However the angels did their little teleportation trick, it was impossible. She'd forgotten that in her fit of outrage. It was important that she remember. That she understand that Cassie could and would do it again and that there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.