The Nephelium Page 13

  Chapter Eighteen

  The rest of the group who had met in the café with Eve filed in, Alfonso being the last. He walked up to Eve and held up his arms.

  “I am sorry,” he simply offered.

  She wasn’t sure for what all he was saying he was sorry, but she sure needed those loving arms to hold her and protect her once again. She sank into them and allowed the old man to just hold her for a moment.

  “Unless everyone just wants to sit around and play a game of Monopoly, we need to get things laid out on the table.” Leah was serious when she stated she wasn’t playing games. “I ask that all of you let me talk. Once I am done, you all can add what you need to.”

  They all nodded.

  “Eve, I am just going to put it straightforwardly. Your parents . . . they were what we believe to be the last of the Jerusalem Breed. They knew that they had been exposed once their Watcher was killed. They didn’t know who was coming for them, or when, and their biggest concern was your safety. They left you at St. Solange Children’s Home, hoping to come back and get you once they discovered how to keep you safe. At that time, they were not connected to the Alliance. They, to anyone without knowledge, were just a great couple who had just had a baby.

  “Unfortunately, your parents were never able to return. Two nights later, members of the Adremalech Clan caught up with them. Members of the Host had been dispatched by the Arch Council once it had been discovered that a Watcher had been killed. They were sent to see if he had been assigned to any Jerusalem Breed.

  “From what I am able to discern from research and from what some of my network has told me, and I hope to get more information from the Arch Council when I go before them, they were too late. They discovered no information about you. It was considered a total loss, and at that point we thought the Jerusalem Breed had been successfully exterminated--and so did the Adremalech Clan. Word spread throughout the underground that the Jerusalem Breed were all gone and that it was a loss for the Eternals and the Alliance--another notch in the belt of the Fallen. You were lost through the cracks. Not even the Arch Council knew you existed; and, as far as we knew, it was all over.”

  Alfonso couldn’t help but interrupt. “That was until during my studies in religious mysteries and artifacts that I was approached by a man who wanted to recruit me to do something that would take me beyond the ministry to which I thought I had been called to.”

  Alfonso spoke with a voice that seemed to catch fire with passion as he remembered the day when he was chosen to become a Watcher. “I was introduced to the Watchers and was then given an extremely secret mission: you.”

  Eve just shook her head as if she was in a fog.

  “Wow! Some of this makes sense, but it is so hard to chew,” she thought to herself. “If no one knew I existed, then how was it that the Watchers found me? Why me? What am I to do with all of this? What does it have to do with all of you? How do you deal with believing you know at least some things about yourself and then discovering you are nothing but a freak?”

  Alfonso continued, “It was generally known by the Watchers that there was a child. Even though your parents were not connected into the Alliance and did not even really wish to have a Watcher, they were assigned one. Their Watcher was very faithful with his records, but it took awhile after the death of your parents and their Watcher to find any records that he had kept. Once they were discovered and reviewed, Watchers were sent out to see what had become of the child.”

  *****

  Shadows danced across the crowded room of dark-hooded figures, and the poignant, distinct smell of sweet incense flooded the air, mixed with the campfire smell of burning torches that hung upon the stone wall. Muffled chanting came from within the darkness of the hoods that covered each head, and it created a hypnotic rhythm that would rise and fall in volume. The words, which were foreign to any who were unaware of ancient languages such as the Babylonian tongue, came alive in the belly of this artifact-covered lair.

  Megan’s heroin-induced state of mind was slowly fading, and she was gradually coming out of the fog. She was slipping in and out of reality, but she wasn’t sure what was real. She could not move her extremities. It was as if they were dead weights hanging from her body.

  Where was she? She could tell that she was lying on a floor, and the hooded figures around moved back and forth with the chanting. She could feel anxiety start to creep up within her. There was a knot, it seemed, constricting her throat. Was this all part of her stupor?

  “Megan! Come on, Girl! Shake it off. Wake up!” she chided herself within.

  She was trying really hard to come out of this stupor and was waiting for the scene in front of her to fade away into the metal walls of the bathroom stall. She felt a weird and bizarre sensation begin in the middle of her body. Her muscles started to spasm! Her body contracted and relaxed in convulsions. She could feel every bit of it. Once she was able to turn her head, she realized that her arms were tied down, and she could see her legs were tied down, also, to anchors in the floor. She was terrified now!

  “What is going on? Let me go! Please let me go!” she yelled out.

  She began to thrash around, trying to escape her bonds. Her mind was clearing quickly now, and she was regaining feeling in her arms and legs. She was tied down in a cross style pattern, but with her legs spread. No one answered her. Instead, the chanting became louder, and the figures began to hold out their hands to the sky. She looked about, feeling her heart racing within her chest; and her head was pounding!

  “Please let me go!” She was screaming now!

  Her wrists were hurting, as well as her ankles, as she scraped her bare skin against her restraints, trying to pull out of them. She could feel her skin giving way and the blood starting to lubricate her bonds, but nothing could free her. No one moved forward to help her; they stayed where they were. However, she noticed that the harder she struggled, the more they chanted; and as her blood began to come through her broken skin, it seemed to start a frenzy.

  Dark, shadowy, winged creatures flew out of the darkness from the vaulted ceilings and began to fly at her, soaring away at the last minute. Each time, they came closer. As they came into view of the flickering torch light, she screamed! They were dark, winged creatures with the features of human and bat. If there was no belief before in vampires, that was changing quickly; but the horror for her had just begun.

  Her body arched in fear and spiritual dread as the beings began to come in packs at her. Screams exploded out from her lungs into the terrifying darkness filled with beings that were faceless and that provided no hope. She could feel her body breaking down, and she was going into shock. She was cold, so cold. Her body was shivering now without any chance of controlling it.

  “Oh, God, if you are real, please . . .”

  “There is nothing left, Megan. Nothing.” A voice spoke as one of the figures stepped forward. “Why is it that in the utter darkness of the soul, when strength fails them, there is still enough to call out to a being for whom they have never had time or even in whom they have never believed? Why not call out for anything, but Him? I have never understood you mortals. You mock Him, deny Him, and even blaspheme Him; but let the cold dampness of the utter bottom lay against your raw flesh, and you call out to Him. There is only one who can help you right now, and that is yourself.”

  The voice was masculine and smooth, but the face was still shadowed.

  Megan realized the chanting from around her had become a hushed murmur, and it seemed the lights from the torches had started being covered by an ever-growing shadow that was spreading throughout the room. The figure bent down and whispered into her ear.

  “Join us, and you will see strength and power beyond your imagination. You will never have to cry out in hopelessness again; but, instead, you will be a part of something that people fear. You will never have to cower again as a young girl beaten by her mother.”

  Megan’s eyes closed as her mind kicked hard into a flashback
of a roach-infested apartment with mold- and dirt-covered floorboards. Her nostrils burned with the smell of cigarette smoke and whiskey. She was eight years old once again; and she was curled up on the floor, trying to fend off her mother’s drunken kicks to her abdomen. Pain spread through her small body; and tears flowed from her eyes as she pleaded for a mother’s love, cries that fell upon non-caring ears.

  “No one was there for you,” the voice continued, “but now you can have a network of family that can offer you strength and no more fear.”

  Her body was limp now. There was no more struggling. She had no more strength. She turned her head to face this figure. Her hair was matted against her face from the tears and sweat. Her wrist and ankles were numb, and the skin was ripped and bleeding.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  “I am god!” the voice rang out with a rush of authority as it filled the cavern.

  His hood fell back onto his shoulders, and his face became visible. Megan gasped as her eyes closed with a vision of Arioch standing above her, arms stretched out, head back, and fangs bared.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The sun was peaking over the urban mountaintops as Jackie fumbled with the keys to The Broken Tear. She was tired and really needed an energy drink. She didn’t have any appointments until late in the afternoon, and that one was going to be something very simple. She had all morning to check the deposit from the day before, order some supplies, and make sure the place was sterilized properly.

  She dropped her keys onto the glass countertop and reached for the remote to turn on the radio. “Music, the gateway to sanity,” she mused. She began turning on all the equipment and retrieved the deposit from the safe so that she could complete the paperwork from the night before. She hadn’t heard from Eve once she left the night before, which was unusual. Normally, when Eve left before closing, she would call to see how the evening went, but not last night.

  As Jackie verified the deposit, signed the deposit slip, and sealed the money in the bag, she happened to glance down at the newspaper she had picked up from the newsstand on the corner. She never read it, but she and Eve had decided to take out an ad for a month, and she wanted to see how it looked. She picked up the paper and started skimming through some of the local news, trying to locate the design she had put together. Her eyes stopped on a small, one-column article attached to a black and white photo of a car buried into the front of a small café.

  Jackie had only been there a couple of times, but everyone knew Alfonso’s Café. Jackie also knew that almost every night Eve could be found there. She immediately felt weak. She reached for the phone that was on the counter and punched in a number. She put it up to her ear, praying that it wouldn’t ring more than a couple of times before it was picked up.

  “Come on. Pick up, pick up!”

  Ring . . . ring . . .

  “Come on, Eve! Pick up!”

  “Hey, Jackie.”

  Eve’s voice shot the needed strength of assurance to her heart. She was relieved, but, at the same time, almost angry.

  “What in the world happened at the café last night?” Jackie demanded.

  “Nothing too big, at least compared to some other things that are happening.”

  “Nothing big? Nothing big? Eve, the whole front of the café looks like it was bombed, and I can read the license plate better in the photo than I can the menu.”

  “Everyone is fine--a few cuts and scrapes, but no serious injuries. I need you to listen to me for a second. There are a few things I need to take care of today and maybe tomorrow. Can you take care of my appointments?”

  Jackie shook her head as if she couldn’t believe this, but had a smirk on her face. Eve was a trip. She was acting as if a car going through a café front was normal and that there were more important things than that; but, then again, Eve was never the normal type. She pulled out the appointment log, scanned it, and didn’t see anything conflicting.

  “Yeah, I should be able to cover for you.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Hey, Jackie, I have a lot of crazy things that have come up. I found out some information about my parents, and I need to take some time to follow up on it.”

  “What? You found out about your parents?”

  “Yeah--sorta. I can’t really say anything else about it right now.”

  There was something in Eve’s voice that Jackie had never really heard from her before: fear.

  “Eve, are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I am fine. I have to go.”

  “Ok, just keep me posted.”

  “Not a problem. Hey, also, have you heard from Megan? I can’t get a hold of her, and I really need to talk to her.”

  “No, she hasn’t called,” Jackie stated, checking to see if there was a voice message symbol on the phone.

  Eve paused for a moment, and then spoke up again. “If you hear from her for any reason, tell her to call me, ok?”

  “Will do.”

  Jackie hung up the phone and placed it back down on the counter. She turned around and yelped as she jumped back. She had not heard a single sound while on the phone, but there stood a man just on the other side of the counter against which just a moment before she had had her back.

  “I am so sorry, Ma’am!” he stated, truly sounding sincere. “I did not mean to scare you. You were on the phone, and I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

  Jackie waved off his apology.

  “It’s all right. I just didn’t hear you at all, and normally I hear the bell over the door.”

  She looked past him to where the small bell normally hung. Puzzled, she noticed it wasn’t there.

  “You mean this bell?” he placed it on the countertop. “It was lying on the ground when I came in. It probably fell, and you just didn’t notice it.”

  “Probably,” she responded, sounding a little nervous. “So what can I do for you this morning?”

  He smiled an enticing smile. He was a strong-looking guy with great skin tone and very striking features. He held out his hand for her to shake.

  “My name is, Kadar.”

  “Well, Kadar, I am Jackie.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jackie. Actually, I was wondering if the other girl--Eve, I believe-- was here?”

  “No, I am sorry. She isn’t here; but if you want, I can help you.”

  Jackie had already forgotten her first feelings of uneasiness as she felt herself being drawn into his smile. He was cute.

  “That’s all right, but I really needed to see her. If you could please give her this for me . . .” He handed her a sealed envelope. “It is important that she gets this as soon as you can get it to her, ok?”

  “Not a problem. She may not be in today, but as soon as I can get it to her, I will; and if she calls, I will let her know you stopped by. Does she know you?”

  “Not really. We have met, but she may not remember. I do want to talk to her about something that is really important.”

  “Ok. As I said, I will make sure she gets this.” Jackie waved the envelope at Kadar as she spoke.

  Kadar held his hand out again toward her.

  “Thank you, Jackie, and if I do get the urge to get a tattoo, I will make sure I come to you.”

  She smiled. Somehow she felt he had no sincerity in that statement at all; but, oh well, she could always hope.

  Jackie looked down at the envelope in her hand as he walked out. As the door closed behind him, there was a small ringing of a bell that hung from above the door. She stopped and didn’t move. Her eyes moved to where he had laid the bell just moments before, and there was nothing there. She slowly lifted her head, and her gazed moved to directly above the door where the small bell now hung, almost laughing at her.

  “What in the blazes?”

  *****

  Drake walked through the forest of club tables where the legs of chairs rose toward the ceiling like black, metallic branches as a result of the chairs being placed upside down on the tables so the floors could b
e cleaned easily. He was so glad that the club had no windows. He had only stepped out for a brief second a few moments ago into the brilliant sunlight of this new day, and it had caused him to squint. The night before had been too long to have the sun blazing down upon him now. It didn’t help that, since his turning, he had noticed he had an ever-increasing desire to seek out the shadows and to embrace the darkness. It was like a surging cloak of strength. It called out to him, and he would answer its call.

  A smell of sandalwood and crimson ecstasy, an aphrodisiac flower from Tibet, grabbed a hold of his nostrils like a bull being led by a nose ring. He looked across the dance floor to the stage in the center and spotted Denora. She had headphones on, and he could tell she was working on some music for the evening set. He hated her. Ironically, hate had started forming a binding force of darkness; and the entity within him that tied him to the clan loved hate.

  “Seems like an oxymoron,” he chuckled.

  Denora was one attractive entity, and yet she despised Familiars, the Nephelium half breeds, and even those who had become part of the Family through possession, the Halflings. She despised mortals. She felt that mortals were Jah’s sorry excuse for weakness. She believed that if they could be exploited, that it would be the true doorway into finally defeating Jah and even the Host. Then she felt that the clans would be able to obtain the power they rightfully deserved.

  Drake walked toward her. Denora spotted him and pulled the headphones from her ear. “What do you want, Drake?”

  “How is she doing?”

  “She? You mean the junkie from last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do I know? Nor do I care. Who am I to question why Arioch keeps choosing to taint the clan with your kind?”

  “What is it that you have against us? I would think you would be happy that we are seeing the bigger picture.”

  “The bigger picture?” She laughed at this one. “Bigger picture, huh? And what would that bigger picture, as you say, be?”