Seed- Part Two

by D B Nielsen

  I waited patiently for the rest of his tale knowing there was more to come.

  ‘I gave him something he couldn’t resist,’ he continued, ‘I told him the true story of the Fall of the Rebel Angels and also about the Grigori. Then I showed him what an angry Nephilim really looks like.’

  My eyes widened. ‘And then what happened?’

  St. John looked at me for the first time since entering the room, a ghost of a smile playing round his lips. ‘What do you think happened? It scared the hell out of him. After that he began painting in a simpler style, specialising in landscapes populated by peasants.’

  I began to laugh, shaking my head in awe, and St. John joined in – his laugh’s musical tone like the chiming of bells.

  ‘Come on, we’d better hotfoot it to the table,’ he said, guiding me out of the study, ‘Gabriel’s been waiting for you. You’ll have him in tears in a moment if you don’t sample his culinary skills before the dish goes cold.’

  I smiled then and followed him from the room. But just before we stepped into the hallway, I paused. Turning to St. John, I said in a teasing tone, ‘You’d better change your attitude to having your photo taken. You know that Fi is being given a digital camera for Christmas and she’ll expect to take your photo too. You’re part of the Woods family now. And, besides, I think it might be nice if our children get to see photos of us taken while I still look younger than you.’

  The look that washed over St. John’s face as I pronounced the last statement was one of pure incredulity. But not giving him a chance to reply, I ducked out from under his arm and around him, quickly moving to the dining room where Gabriel was waiting impatiently for us, before St. John recovered his scattered wits.

  Dinner was an informal affair though, as ever in Paris, still akin to a religious ritual. A light entrée of crab ravioli on asparagus was followed by Gabriel’s beef bourguignon which was so tender it melted in my mouth and was accompanied by a full-bodied vintage burgundy. Gabriel’s conversation was light-hearted and amusing, deliberately avoiding the events of the last forty-eight hours to put me at ease. Yet it was difficult to feel completely at ease as, throughout the meal, St. John’s jade green eyes stayed upon my face; the most bemused and distracted I had ever seen him.

  My time in Paris was coming to an end and I hadn’t done half the things I’d planned on doing while I was here; though, surprisingly, not one moment of my time had been without incident. It was an extraordinary thought that I would be returning to my seemingly normal life in Kent within the next twenty-four hours. Yet nothing would be the same again for me – this trip to Paris and to Rome with St. John had opened my once-ignorant eyes.

  We stayed up till the early hours of morning, Gabriel regaling me with amusing stories and St. John adding witty comments and flourishes to the tales told about their past until I could barely keep my eyes open from fatigue. Finally, I excused myself from the dining table, leaving Gabriel and St. John to linger over their wine glasses while I went off to pack my suitcase ready to return home the next day. St. John had informed me earlier that Gabriel would escort me home because his presence as the Keeper of the Seed was required by the brotherhood of Nephilim who needed to be apprised of the situation we now faced. Gabriel, then, was the logical choice of escort and, as he’d so graciously offered his time, I felt it was churlish to refuse, especially as he presented me with the autographed football jersey for Alex before I left the room to pack.

  In the bedroom, after folding the last piece of clothing into my open suitcase and removing any traces of my temporary sojourn in Paris leaving St. John’s room exactly as I’d found it that first night, I lingered over his possessions, feeling the gaping emptiness in my chest of missing him already. I was so new to this emotion – this vulnerability and neediness and wanting – that being parted from him was almost like mourning. And, like a grieving lover, I tried to imprint every moment spent together, his scent and the feel of him, in my memory.

  In an almost ritualistic fashion, I wandered the bedroom, sniffed the designer bottle of his aftershave lotion on the bathroom vanity and handled each of the books piled on his bedside table. Then I smoothed down the quilt and buried my face in his pillow where traces of his scent still lingered. When I’d finally completed all these actions and there was no more left to do I decided to try to get some rest before the train journey that same day.

  I woke to see the sky touched with the silvery violet that precedes dawn, conscious of the fact that I was to leave Paris and St. John later that morning and scared that I would not catch him to say a proper goodbye before he left the apartment for his meeting with the brotherhood of Nephilim. It was far too early to be awake but my anxiety rose to new levels when I heard the faintest of sounds like the creaking of a floorboard down the hallway.

  I leapt from the bed in an instant, heedless of the fact that in leaving its warmth I was assailed with the bitter cold of a December morning, my skin prickling into goose bumps as it confronted the change in temperature. Uncaring of anything but the thought of missing St. John, I rushed from the bedroom, my footsteps muted on the thick Persian carpets.

  I paused at the entrance. Nothing stirred.

  Hoping I wasn’t too late, I scouted the dining room and kitchen; my heart sinking further as I found that these too were empty.

  Finally, I decided to try the study.

  The door to St. John’s study was left slightly ajar and I pushed it open, swinging on silent hinges, only to find at a cursory glance that this room was also vacant. I would have sighed in despair if it weren’t for my senses alerting me to the fact that I wasn’t alone. So attuned to St. John was I that my subconscious mind registered a figure standing by the window even before I saw him standing there.

  St. John was standing with his back to me, hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, a silent effigy as if sculpted in stone by the hand of a master. His gaze was fixed in the distance beyond the window panes but unblinking, as if lost in reverie. He remained unaware of my presence. This afforded me time to settle into calm and take my fill of his sublime beauty. Dressed in faded jeans and a grey shirt, barefoot, his freshly-showered hair a halo of damp spun gold, he was a feast for my tired, gritty eyes.

  I padded towards him, barely daring to breathe, as if the entire world was holding its breath in the distilled air of morning. I approached him silently, stopping at a hair’s breadth and reached out a flattened palm, placing it on the small of his back, and murmured his name. Just his name. Just the once. He stiffened then relaxed, but did not turn around to face me. From beneath my chilled palm, the heat of his body emanated.

  I felt that we were the only ones alive in this building. In the pre-dawn muted light of morning. I saw myself reflected in the picture frames hanging on the walls, the same frames I had perused last night, and I almost laughed at the irony. I looked like I had come straight from my lover’s arms; my hair mussed from a fitful sleep.

  Leaning forward, I laid my face against his shirt, in between his shoulder blades where there was a spot made especially for me to rest against. The warmth there touched cheek and eyelid. I nuzzled my face deeper into muscle and spine, inhaling slowly. I put my ear upon the grey silkiness of his shirt, listening to the steady beat of another world, the rumble of his voice as it moved through his body and he whispered my name.

  He turned then and captured me in his arms, lowering his chin to rest on the top of my head.

  ‘You’re chilled to the bone. What are you doing out of bed?’

  I mumbled an explanation into his chest, my voice muffled.

  He laughed and it sounded like a deep growl thundering beneath my ear. ‘What did you say?’

  I lifted my face to look up at him. ‘I said that I thought I’d missed my opportunity to say goodbye to you properly since I won’t be seeing you again till the end of December.’

  ‘Goose,’ he murmured, shaking his head, ‘As if I’d leave without telling you.’

  ‘You did t
he other day,’ I complained, using logic.

  ‘That’s because I thought I’d be back before you woke up,’ he explained patiently, a slight smile edging his lips. ‘I didn’t expect to find that you’d gone out with Gabriel.’

  ‘And I didn’t expect to find you gone when I woke up,’ I countered.

  Laughing, he scooped me up into his arms as if I weighed next to nothing, and conceded, ‘Mea culpa. But let’s get you back into bed before you freeze to death.’

  In the bedroom, he lowered me onto the sheets and pulled the quilt up around my slim frame like one would treat a young child woken by a nightmare. I was too tired to protest but I didn’t want him to leave me yet.

  ‘Stay,’ I whispered.

  St. John froze, jade green eyes disturbingly cool. ‘I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean it like that. We don’t have to touch. I just want you to stay with me until I fall asleep again.’

  I watched beneath half-closed lids as he made up his mind. Satisfied that he was going to stay with me, I closed my eyes and snuggled deeper under the covers. I felt the mattress give way as he stretched out on top of the quilt beside me, knowing that he was looking down at me, and I hardly dared to breathe.

  I felt the moment the tension left his body and when he began to relax. And, in turn, I felt myself relax and I could breathe again.

  ‘Sage?’ he murmured, reaching out to brush strands of hair from my face, lightly, just the barest touch of fingertips against my now flushed skin.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Were you serious about having children?’ St. John’s tone was soft.

  My chest tightened. ‘You mean with you?’

  ‘Yes, I mean with me,’ he returned with a touch of asperity.

  I had to suppress my smile on hearing the tone of his voice. Cracking open an eyelid, I said, ‘Well, yes, but not right now. As you so often have pointed out to me, I am still young. But maybe in a few years or so would be nice.’

  He caught his breath, a slow smile warming his flawless features before he seemed to think better of it and frowned, once again sombre. ‘Are you sure about this? Even after what I’ve told you about the birth of Nephilim infants being difficult for the mother? Have you even thought that it might be fatal?’

  I opened my eyes fully then to look deeply into his own of the clearest jade green, the golden flecks rimming his irises extremely pronounced with the intensity of his emotions. He was watching me intently and, in that moment, every feeling I had ever nurtured for him welled up within me.

  ‘I figure that there must be at least one of your brothers who might have some knowledge of medicine. Maybe there’s even an obstetrician in your Nephilim brotherhood?’ I reasoned, blushing hotly, and quickly looked away from his piercing green gaze. ‘Anyway, modern technology is a wonderful thing – I’m sure, if there are complications or the baby’s too big, I can always have a planned caesarean.’

  To my astonishment, St. John threw back his head and laughed – a glorious sound like the tolling of crystal bells.

  ‘If you tell me that I’m “refreshing” again, I won’t be responsible for my actions,’ I told him angrily, making him laugh all the harder.

  I raised myself on an elbow and pressed a kiss to his cheek. I meant for it to be merely a peck, a trifle, a little thing to tease him with.

  I ought to have known better.

  He had warned me that joining me in bed – even though he was actually lying above the covers while I was beneath them – was a dangerous thing. And one cannot taunt a winged lion, a guardian and protector, and walk away unscathed.

  In the space of a heartbeat, an erratic flutter of my pulse, his arms were locked around me and I forgot to be angry with him for laughing at me, forgot that I was to leave for Kent later that day and we would be parted. I forgot every little thing.

  The only thing that mattered was this current flowing between us, this electric vibe that bound us together, sparking and igniting a reaction. My breath hitched as our lips met. He smelled earthy, of sandalwood and spice and citrus. He groaned my name and I put my lips to his throat as he buried his hands in my hair.

  It might have been merely minutes or thousands of years that we were locked together. But, as always in these situations, St. John exerted incredible self-control and, taking me by the shoulders, moved me away.

  St. John was breathing heavily, his broad chest rising and falling like a man who had just run a marathon, and I could see the steady throbbing of his pulse at the base of his throat as he leapt off the bed, putting distance between us. He was as badly shaken as I by our interlude; the way we went up in flames in each other’s embrace.

  ‘I think that if we’re to avoid certain consequences, it might be best if I leave you now. I’ll be gone when Gabriel comes to collect you,’ he warned me.

  I nodded, breathing unsteadily.

  My heart was hammering wildly and there was a rushing sound in my ears like beating wings, but I still managed to say, ‘I feel sorry for you, though.’

  His nostrils flared slightly with impatience. ‘Sorry for me?’

  I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, a hint of a smile playing around my lips. ‘Yes, sorry for you. It may not yet have occurred to you but a history of twins runs in my family. Identical twins.’

  Beneath his golden skin, he blanched.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured him, my smile breaking through in full now, ‘we still have a while to go before we cross that bridge.’

  His answering smile was rueful as he said, as if in earnest prayer, before closing the bedroom door and leaving me to my solitude, ‘God help me.’

  Hours later, Gabriel came to collect me and I took one last cursory glance around the room before I closed the door. Even though I had felt completely at home in the apartment, without St. John there it already felt empty and deserted and I didn’t feel the same desire to linger as I had the previous night.

  We took a taxi to Gare du Nord and waited to board the Eurostar for Kent as the sun reached its apex. Gabriel was to ensure that a member of my family was present at the station, waiting to pick me up before he continued on to London. He was not planning on staying with me in Kent as his girlfriend had a spring showing of Armani’s latest collection in London and he was travelling to join her. It was agreed that he and St. John both would keep tabs on me while I was at home. I had no idea how they intended to do this and decided I didn’t want to know as I still was of the belief that I could lead a normal life despite being the Wise One and I was uncertain as to whether they were also spying upon my family in the mistaken belief that the Woods’ family were not to be trusted.

  I was poor company for Gabriel on the trip home though, as usual, he tried his best to keep me amused and take my mind off my miseries.

  ‘Oh là là, mon petit chou! It is enjoyable, no, travelling first class? For me, it is even better when St. John is footing the bill,’ laughed Gabriel as we returned from the dining car, drawing a small smile from me.

  ‘You’re incorrigible, Gabriel,’ I said, rolling my eyes at him as I found our seats.

  He flashed a winning smile. ‘It is a pity that St. John had to attend a meeting of the fraternity; otherwise he would be joining us.’

  ‘Why aren’t you there with him?’ I asked.

  ‘Currently, I am persona non grata,’ Gabriel answered, solemnly. Then, seeing my startled look, laughingly admitted, ‘No, I am only joking. Unlike the position of the Keeper of the Seed, brotherhood members wait centuries, proving themselves fit for duty, before being elevated to the highest echelon. Although the fraternity is vast, only twenty-five Anakim in total can sit at the Round Table. And so, little Sage, I have been excused from this meeting to wait upon you, a duty normally assigned to the Keeper.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Do you even have a job, Gabriel, to keep you occupied and out of mischief?’

  ‘Oui, oui, oui! But, of course, little Sage,’ he replied, his silve
ry eyes filled with amusement, ‘you are looking at a respectable merchant banker.’

  My eyes widened in disbelief and I began to laugh. ‘You! A merchant banker?’

  Gabriel looked slightly affronted, staring down his nose at me in a very superior French manner and I quickly sobered, realising he was serious.

  ‘I would never have thought you to be a merchant banker,’ I told him, taking the sting out of my words, ‘I had you pegged as a model on the runways of Milan.’

  He flashed me a wide smile that could have been featured on a toothpaste commercial, seeming mollified by my words.

  ‘How long have you been a merchant banker?’ I asked intrigued, settling back into the bucket seat of the train.

  Gabriel gave a deep, dramatic sigh, lamenting, ‘Euf, too long, since I joined the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon in the twelfth century.’

  I blinked, leaning forward in my seat to stare at him. ‘You were a member of the Knights Templar?’

  ‘Oui, oui, oui,’ he agreed, ‘It is how I met St. John.’

  ‘St. John was a Templar?’ I asked, astounded.

  ‘Mais si, we were both too idealistic back then,’ Gabriel said, waving his hands about in a Parisian gesture. ‘St. John believed the Crusades would afford him the opportunity to find the Seed which had been reportedly hidden in the Holy Land. But it was not so easy a task as we thought it would be, what with all the battles and bloodshed. I was happy to assist him as I just wished to escape from centuries of persecution. Ironic, n’est-ce pas?’

  I knew he was referring to the infamous Friday the Thirteenth of October, 1307 – the first Black Friday.

  ‘Were you and St. John there? What happened?’

  Gabriel looked at me pensively as if deciding whether or not to tell me his wretched tale. Then, folding his hands to rest his chin upon, he began to speak.

  ‘Oui, oui, oui, we were there. It was worse than they describe in the history books and nothing like the conspiracy theories in novels such as The da Vinci Code. So much has been condemned to folklore and myth. So much misinformation. The Knights Templar were not part of any Priory of Sion, not sent to retrieve secret documents from beneath the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. They were simply sent to protect the pilgrims and the Holy Land.’