The Nephelium Read online

  Leah sighed. She really didn’t know. If she was right, then they must move now; however, if all of this fizzled out, then she would cause a ripple that was unnecessary for the moment. If and when the real time came, it may not be taken seriously.

  “Ki, why don’t you both do this? Contact Trinita for me. She owes me a favor from the time I saved her butt from the Assassin. Have her come over and just watch the area for any Fallen activity. We have to be careful not to rush into anything, but at the same time, if something is going to take place, I want to know about it before Arioch can send the clans into a power frenzy. Tinita is a good enough Guardian to tell when she needs to send the alert out to the Alliance and up to the Arch Council.”

  “You’re the boss, Leah. I know where she is. I am sure she can be in place by tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine. Let her know I will be at the Sanctum, and that she can contact any of the Alliance there if anything does come of all of this. It could just be a hiccup, but we all know that the truth can’t be hidden forever and that time will play out its course. It isn’t a matter of if, but when.”

  The messengers both nodded; and then, turning, they both vanished a few steps away from where they had been standing as if they had walked into nothingness.

  Leah chose a more conventional route: the elevator.

  Chapter Five

  As the door of the apartment building elevator closed, leaving the hallway free of all intruders, a musty, acidic smell began to permeate the air; and a dark figure formed and took shape. He stood for a brief moment, ensuring the area was clear, and then slipped into the apartment. He walked up behind the young lady. An evil twinkle danced within his eyes. He loved the rogue game. True, he was an Outcast, but it had its benefits. There was no one to whom he really had to answer, and so many with whom to fight.

  “So what is going on here? Could it be that I have stumbled onto something tonight? Who are you, Eve?” he whispered to himself as he sniffed her hair. “Why did I sense something in you tonight? Could my informant be telling the truth?”

  *****

  “So what is a blind man doing sitting in a church at midnight? It isn’t like you’ve seen anything from which you need to escape.”

  A big smile broke across Troy’s dark face, and he raised a finger to his right temple and tapped his shaved head.

  “Ah, but what one can see may not be what they really need to see, and what can’t be seen may be what truly is important.”

  “Then why do we have such elaborate cathedrals with stained glass and marble statues, if that is true?” countered Troy’s friend.

  “Could it be that physical blindness does not outweigh the danger of spiritual blindness?”

  “You got me there, Brother.”

  Troy felt a strong hand upon his shoulder as he turned his head in the direction of the voice of his friend. Isaiah, dressed in simplistic black trousers and shirt with a small square of white revealed at the neck, pushed past his friend, sat down beside him on the antique bench, and looked up at the stone pillars and into the rafters.

  “Can I ask?”

  “You always do . . . there are seven tonight,” Troy responded.

  “Seven, the number of completeness.”

  “Yes, and the number of deadly sins, also.”

  “Are they Guardians or Warriors?”

  “Guardians. The night is at peace here in the cathedral.”

  “Maybe so, but the Fallen know that this is safe ground, and they have no right here . . . which brings me back to my original question, what brings you here so late?”

  Troy leaned forward placing his forearms on the top of the pew in front of him and lowering his forehead down firmly between them. The small light that emanated from the candles throughout the cathedral created a shine off the dark black, bald head. Scars danced an eerie pattern around his head and disappeared down somewhere beneath the collar of his shirt.

  “I don’t know, Isaiah. I guess I just need to feel the breath of innocence upon my skin tonight and inhale purity. Sometimes I wonder if ignorance isn’t truly bliss. Before I knew everything I know now, I was content and happy.”

  “True, but we both were slaves. Troy, we were slaves to our misunderstandings and lack of knowledge. To live one’s life by lies, no matter how beautiful those lies may be, is still not truly living.”

  “But, Isaiah, I could sleep at night.”

  “Could you? I mean, could you really? I remember your emails from the war about how even in the military you felt that there was something more to life and that nothing really satisfied.”

  “Yes, but take all the horrors I saw in war . . . none of it can match to what I see now! How I wish my blindness reached into the soul and cut out everything. I am sickened by the pollution that is in my own backyard and by the darkness of humanity behind the lights of expensive advertisements and the façades of the American dream! There are times I wish I had died that night . . . yes, given the choice, been able to pass away. How can what I am forced to live with everyday now be truly a blessing?”

  Isaiah stretched back, placing his feet straight out in front of him beneath the pew that Troy was leaning forward on and, with his fingers interlaced, he placed his hands behind his head. He had known Troy for almost 15 years. They both had been nothing more than street punks when they first met and here, years later, had become so different. Yet, so much remained the same. Troy had escaped the neighborhood with a “free ticket to college,” thanks to promises from Uncle Sam and the U.S. Army, and Isaiah had heard the voice of a higher calling and had given his rebellious ways over for a life in the ministry, trying to change his neighborhood one life at a time.

  Isaiah had lost his wife and daughter to the streets. He heard the shots that night right outside the church doors and every night since in his dreams. It left him with memories that time still had not erased, memories of his daughter looking up into his eyes as life seemed to silently melt away from her, all the while telling him that the angels where standing behind him, that they were taking her to see her Mommy, and that he was not to worry. She slipped away so peacefully, an angel passing in the stomach of darkness and poverty.

  The investigation would reveal later that they had been killed by crossfire by two gang members, and Leah informed him that the two gang members were Familiars trying to earn the “respect” of their masters. Hell was real, and that night it had touched his family.

  He had nothing left in him to fight, to stand up against the Fallen and their continual growth on his turf. That night he had walked into the cathedral and with all his strength had thrown his Bible toward the large cross that hung down from the ceiling above the platform. His words of anger and confusion echoed throughout the stone structure, “I gave you everything, God! Everything! I gave up my chances to leave this neighborhood and live somewhere safe! I gave up my life, my dreams, even my safety when I joined the Alliance . . . for WHAT? Take me now! If you’re so bad, just take me now!”

  “You challenge the very One who has given you all?” Leah’s voice had came out of the invisible nothingness as she manifested herself to the right of him that night and walked over and picked up his Bible.

  Isaiah had had no idea she was there.

  “You say you gave Him everything,” Leah continued, “but yet you get angry over His taking what you say you gave to Him?”

  Those words hit home as she handed him the open Bible and walked away without another word. He had watched her leave that night, his anger still smoldering inside, and as he looked down at where she had opened the Bible, he read the words that seemed to jump from the pages at him: “Then God said, ‘Have you considered my servant Job?’” Job, a man who had lost everything because of the torment from the Morning Star, but out of his faithfulness to Jah had received it back and even more.

  Yes, to question Jah was human, but it was beyond mortal strength to keep faith when His will was beyond human comprehension. Yes, so much he had gone through had broug
ht him to the person he was today, and since then he had gained a renewed passion for his work with the Alliance and taking down the Fallen.

  “Troy, take what you feel and place it within you. Don’t allow it to turn into an anger that the Fallen can use to draw you away and into the clan, but instead use it to remind you each day that if it wasn’t for the work of Jah, you would be trapped in that depravity.”

  “Isaiah, the day I stepped on that explosive device there in Baghdad, I don’t know why an angel came to me, and I don’t know why Jah gave me another chance, but what I do know is that I don’t want to waste it.” Troy responded. “I don’t want to waste the gift of spiritual sight that I was given. I know there is a reason, but it still can’t heal the pain inside. Do you know what it is like to not be able to see the physical, but everywhere I look, I can see the supernatural? I hear the beautiful voice of a lady that some describe to me as being an angel, yet through my spiritual sight I can see the Possessor that is inside of her. Where others see an angel, I see a demon.”

  “I am sorry, Brother, but, as you stated there is a reason. We may not be able to fully understand the bigger picture, but each choice we make is a brushstroke upon the masterpiece of our life as a whole.”

  “Yes.”

  The men sat inside the cathedral, both seeing different pictures of their surroundings: Isaiah seeing the physical beauty of the stone, candles, and stained glass; Troy seeing the seven Guardians that stood as noble, invisible protectors of the building and those who found solace within.

  *****

  The last wisps of smoke had sputtered out of the smoke machines so hidden as to not take away from the effects of the club’s décor. The floors had been mopped and cleaned. The Vortex was almost ready for another night of devilish frolicking when they would reopen the following night. The money had been counted and sealed for deposit, and all the barmaids and dancers had been tipped and sent out into the night.

  Arioch leaned against the dark metal banister that overlooked the club from his balcony. His jacket was off and his shirt half unbuttoned. He was sipping on a glass of water now as he picked at his teeth, pulling out a dark hair from Sedit’s demise and hardly giving it a second thought.

  “Drake, Drake, Drake. When we found you pimping young runaways, we knew that you were an entrepreneur, and we could see that you could rise to be part of something bigger one day. We have promised you power beyond your imagination, a chance to be a witness to the real world that lies beyond what most small, miserable humans know to exist.”

  Drake sat, still shaking from all the happenings of the night, but holding a large ice pack to the wound on his head from where he had fallen onto the table. He silently was cursing the day he had scoffed at the Sunday school teacher who tried to get him to come to her church.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Arioch. I still appreciate what you and the clan have done for me, and I know there are still a lot of things I need to learn. I really look forward to the day that I can gain the immortality that you talk about.”

  Arioch’s back was turned to Drake, but he could still sense the fear. He could smell it. He hated the stench of human fear. What is there to fear if you truly side yourself with the powerful? What was Jah thinking when he created such weak creatures that would shake at the smallest speck of power?

  “He should have stopped with us angels,” he thought to himself. “At least we can make things interesting.”

  Arioch turned and leaned his back against the railing, and crossing his legs at the ankles and placing his elbows upon the banister, he looked around his office. Oh, of all the places he had had over the centuries, this was really one of the smaller “throne rooms.” He knew that Adremalech was testing him for a few of his mistakes, but he knew that he would rise back to the top of the clan in power. If not, well he still had a few ideas up his sleeve.

  Chapter Six

  “Tonight you have seen more than you probably can handle, but there is one more thing that I would like to show you, if you are up to it,” Arioch offered.

  “Sure, Mr. Arioch.”

  “Well, then follow me,” he stated as he placed down his glass of water and headed out of the office. “Drake, there is so much more than what you mortals can understand. Humanity comes to us seeking power and control, and yet you do not even fully understand what all you are looking for.”

  Drake followed like a helpless puppy upon a limp leash, whipped into submission, terrified to go and terrified to stay.

  “What are you?” he tremulously asked.

  “What am I? I thought you already knew that. I thought the reason you started down this path of being a Familiar is because you sought after that which you thought was only found in cheap fantasy novels.”

  Drake didn’t know what to say or even think. He knew Arioch was right, but what he didn’t know was if he really had thought this all through: was all this promised power for real, or was he just now discovering it all to be a façade of great proportion that was being played out for fun and intimidation?

  Arioch opened a large, carved, wooden door at the end of a carpeted hall. The door had a strange symbol carved upon it. It was that of a snake uncoiling, ready to strike at an ancient sun. There seemed to be a primeval feeling about it, the kind of feeling that emerges when someone comes close to something in a museum that they realize demands respect due to the antiquity of its life and the stories that it could tell.

  “The Clan Adremalech,” Arioch stated as he nodded at the heavy wooden door. “That is our clan crest and is one that you will embrace if you wish to continue as a Familiar,” he continued with a voice that seemed respectful, prideful, and yet with a hint of sarcasm.

  “So, it is real?” It came almost as a whisper, but yet as a statement of awareness. “All the myths, legends, and stories to scare children--they are all true?”

  “To which ones are you referring?” Arioch had a cunning smile upon his face as his fingers traced the carving in the door.

  “You are a vampire.” Drake half asked and half stated the words.

  Arioch never could stop himself from snickering at this statement whenever a mortal would allow such words to tumble from their mouth.

  “An immortal of power, darkness, and strength? Yes. A vampire? Not quite--or at least not the way you are thinking right now.”

  Arioch opened the door and passed through. Drake followed. They entered a staircase that wound downward several stairs. It smelled of incense and melting wax, and the walls were covered in crushed red velvet drapes.

  “Then who are you?” Drake was so confused and still felt trapped. “If you are not a vampire, then what do you mean when you talk about a clan, and who is Adremalech? What does that crest symbolize?”

  “Now you seem to find your courage to ask a lot of questions, but that is fine because that is why I am bringing you down here. Drake, what do you know about what you call the myths and legends of vampires?”

  “Well, I mean, I know about Dracula and how vampires can’t take the light and how they suck the blood from people.”

  “So, in other words, you know the normal rhetoric of what everyone and their brother knows?”

  “Yes, I guess you could say that.”

  “What if I told you that all of that is true, but not true--that everything you believed you knew about myths has a factual basis to it and that you have now become a part of all of it?”

  “Well, sir, after tonight I would have to say I believe, but I guess I still don’t understand,” Drake answered.

  By this time they had gone down several flights of stairs, and Drake could only conclude that they were now underneath the club and maybe underneath some other city buildings. The stairs ended in a large cavern of a room that could have been anything from a cave, a castle throne room, or a catacomb. Arioch walked toward the center of the candle-lit chamber and, in a grandeur of conquest, threw his head back, stretched his arms out in a wide arc, and laughed loudly as he slowly circled around.
r />   “Drake, welcome to the soon-to-be throne room of a new Babylon! Welcome to the nest!”

  As the words rang out with authority in his voice, leathery wings unfurled from his back in an inky black rush, and he rose up into the air in mockery of a crucifix. “What you thought you knew is not what you need to know, and what you need to know will be power for you beyond anything you can comprehend!”

  Drake could say nothing.

  Drake knew that there was no turning back or returning to a former knowledge (or lack thereof). It was kind of like opening a Christmas present before Christmas and realizing that it wasn’t going to be a surprise anymore, or as if someone revealed the end of a movie that another hadn’t seen yet . . . it couldn’t be changed back to before the revelation; a person couldn’t go back in time to change his choice.

  At the rise of Arioch’s body and voice, the chamber had ignited in a rush of light. Torches all around and upon the walls lit with flames, revealing even more of the ancient-style catacomb, or throne room, as Arioch referred to it. It reminded Drake of something one would see if they went to a museum display of ancient Egypt. Symbols like that on the door seemed to give an ancient pictorial of dark figures in bloody battles and conquest.

  “What is this, Arioch?” Strangely enough, Drake was gaining an unusual flow of strength of confidence from the fear that clung at his throat. “You show me pyrotechnics and what could be a movie set . . . the only thing that sets it apart is your appearance.”

  Arioch descended, and as his feet touched the floor once again, his leathery wings seemed to grow invisible, although an evil cloud of darkness seemed to hover around him. He was basking in his moment.

  “You are standing in what will be the birthplace of a new supernatural force, a race that will rise and claim authority over mankind and, ultimately, the universe. I am one of the Forsaken, a Fallen, or what some of the religious persuasion may call a demon, and yet many would relate to me more as a mythological vampire. I have shown this to you tonight because I need you to help me and this clan. You are only one of many Familiars that we have chosen, but each of you will play vital roles, and, in return, . . . why, we will offer you power, strength, and authority. Over your small lifetime, you have been laughed at, scoffed at, put out, and put down. Am I correct?”