by August Arrea
“Seriously? This is what we’ve been training to fight? They’re a bunch of kids,” Creed remarked with a sneering chuckle which instantly garnered a silencing glare from Anahel.
“I seem to recall a similar dismissive snicker when you thought the quest for the Illume involved nothing more than simple task of bagging a bird. Now, here you stand looking somewhat like a serving of baked Alaska,” scolded Anahel before widening his gaze to the other boys. “You’d each be foolish to misjudge the severity of the bite your enemy packs in its fangs no matter the repugnant choice of guises in which it has chosen to dress itself on its latest outing. They are but emissaries of the horror to come—the seeds from which a field of unspeakable wickedness has been sown. A caliphate of evil.”
The image on the floor morphed again revealing the impressive stone ruins of an ancient Semitic city whose history had touched the pages of the annals of the Assyrian kings. There the boys Anahel had deemed the messengers of horror were seen being led inside the ruins of a once-great amphitheater by their menacing handlers to stand behind a row of men positioned on their knees with their hands tied behind their back. Watching from the audience, more bearded men in fatigues sat as if upon springs, looking like hungry lions awaiting their feeding; and in their midst were several Infectors, lording over the ruins like the unmistakably menacing specters they were. Surprisingly, not a flicker of fear was betrayed by any of the boys while in the presence of the forbidding hovering shapes, including one of the boys who was suddenly ushered forward to stand behind one of the Christian prisoners. The boy, who appeared to be not a day beyond ten years of age, looked straight ahead with a chilling dead-eyed stare as an overly large hunting knife with a blade of serrated teeth was placed in his hand. The black headdress he wore framed a face that was at once as innocent as a lamb’s. The eyes, however, told a completely different story, reflecting an icy—lifeless, even—vacancy. They appeared to register nothing, not the threatening Infectors, or even the presence of the man kneeling before him who was forced down onto his stomach at the child’s feet. In a frightening instant, one of the Infectors was behind the boy and fed his ear a hissing of whispers which carried an unholy directive.
The Hall of Light became silent as a tomb as the boy removed the headdress from his head before he took hold of the prisoner by the hair and pulled back his head. The Nephilim then watched in growing horror as the boy’s head slowly rotated a full one hundred and eighty degrees upon his neck. Far more unsettling than the unnatural twisting of the neck, however, was the unexpected sight of a second face when the back of the boy’s head was suddenly and impossibly facing forward; and a nightmarish vision of a face it was. Two orbs of white absent pupils serving as eyes peered balefully from behind a visage that appeared to have been sculpted from black cinders. The ears were shaped like horns, and the grayish gums lined with a threatening grill of sickly teeth, twisted and overgrown, protruded from the confines of a frighteningly grotesque mouth.
Jacob instantly felt Max’s whole body tense up standing beside him.
“It’s one of them!” he heard Max mutter under his breath in a tone he rarely witnessed come from his friend: fear.
“One of whom?” asked Jacob.
“A Fury,” Max replied with a reluctant gasp.
Now it was Jacob who felt the uncomfortable chill move through his body as he finally was given a glimpse of the terrifying terror that until then had only existed in his imaginings of the evil beings he had heard so much about. Even the darkest corner of his mind, however, could not have conjured up the reality he was witnessing unveiled at his feet, and he watched in stunned stillness as the monstrous boy who had revealed his other half to be an even far more unspeakable monster brandished the knife still clutched in his hand which he immediately put to use on the man at his feet without pause or flinch.
The barrage of unsettling images suddenly went dark and vanished from sight, much to thanks of most, if not all of the unnerved Fledglings who had been quietly watching.
“The world has seen evil rise up and take countless shapes, but nothing in its history will have offered preparation for what’s to come,” came Anahel’s voice once more. “Like a worm gnawing its way through an apple, the Darkness won’t stop until the spoils of the fruit have been consumed. A great war awaits you, the drumbeat of which has already sounded. It’s wrath will bring with it death and misery of a great magnitude never before witnessed. For the multitudes, what remaining threads of hope still clothing mankind will unravel, the last breath of light from the candle of faith will dim, and darkness will fall upon the face of the earth in a way it has never before unfolded itself.”
~~~
“I tell you this now, not to strike fear or despair into you,” continued Anahel, “but to impress upon you the importance of this moment. For this night, you are being asked to reconfirm your baptism, not as young mortal men, but as Nephilim. Whether you choose to recite this oath within the four walls of this Hall of Light is solely upon you; not myself, nor your fathers from whom you came to be. You must decide whether to accept fully the place held for you on the front lines of this battle which draws itself ever nearer. But search deep within yourselves in determining your answer, and know that those among you who have been met with a change of heart, you are free to return without shame or judgment to the life you lived before coming here to Eden.”
The boys stood expressionless under the weight of silence looming heavy over them following Anahel’s words. If the grim reminder of the Darkness and the declaration of war promised by it was meant to cause sway in any of them, they didn’t show it. Despite the day filled with good-natured competition and play, each of them knew the true mark of Illumination would unfold itself in the days and months to come. Their training was just the beginning, and even in the levity that came from the newness of their Graces and wings and unusual feats of strengths, the young teenagers never lost focus of why they had been brought to Eden, nor the duty or service expected from each of them. A great army was being formed of which they were each soldiers, and proud to be so.
“For those who have chosen to wade forth into the Illumination awaiting you, I ask you now to come forth so that you may pledge your oath of loyalty and service to the Light,” instructed Anahel.
While it did not surprise Anahel to see every last Nephilim in the Hall step forward, it nonetheless filled him with an immeasurable warmth of pride.
“And to my brothers, I ask that you find your rightful spot behind your sons.”
For a large portion of the day, Jacob had managed to put out of his mind the uncomfortable insecurities he wrestled with being surrounded by fathers and their sons. Now, suddenly, he found himself facing them once again. To his left, he spied almost timidly out of the corner of his eye Max beaming proudly as Gradiel came up from behind and gave a warm embrace to his son’s shoulder with his right hand. So, too, did Creed’s father, only it wasn’t pride with which Creed beamed but a content-filled mocking sneer which he directed fully toward Jacob. It was then Jacob felt an overwhelming sense of aloneness, and whatever surge of self-worth and inclusion he had managed to feel in the brief moment his wrist was marked by the Illume’s feather instantly vanished and was replaced by the more familiar feelings of being inadequate and out of place—enough so that his feet were ready to carry him out of the Hall. Then, suddenly, he felt a hand on his right shoulder. It had in its grip a knowing firmness, as if whoever was attached to it sensed rightly the discomfort that was about to make him bolt. Jacob looked over his shoulder and not surprisingly—or perhaps so—he found Gotham staring down at him with a soothing smile fixed upon his face. Only then did Jacob feel a comfort which had long eluded him settle within himself.
They turned forward and with Anahel leading the cue, the Hall of Light was soon filled with the echoing chorus of the Nephilim as they recited their oath, pledging loudly and wholly their everlasting loyalty and service to the Light. It was an unexpectedly moving experience;
far different from saying the Pledge of Allegiance in class or reciting the Boy Scout oath, both of which flashed in Jacob’s mind as he enunciated carefully each word as if they were, and would ever be, the most important ever to leave his tongue.
When they had finished, Jacob glanced at his wrist and was struck when he saw there was no sign of the glyph Anahel had branded onto his skin. Frantically, Jacob examined his arm, but it had, inexplicably, vanished without so much as a trace of a scar. Or so he thought until Gotham took hold of his arm and without explanation raised it with the inside of his wrist turned outward so that it came in contact with the moonlight shining down into the Hall. Only then did the sigil magically reappear, illuminated much like the Illume’s luminous plumes.
~~~
The remainder of the night was spent in cheerful celebration. A rich buffet of food and drink filled the tables which the Fledglings unabashedly ate from with gusto to quiet their grumbling, hard-earned appetites. Even the angels, who only nibbled on occasion for the simple enjoyment and pleasure tasteful fare brought rather than necessity, partook in the feast. Music—a sea of strings—came from some unseen source, and its soothing melody moved about the Hall in the same sweeping fashion of a graceful couple waltzing across the floor.
However, the only thing anyone seemed interested in hearing was how Jacob and Max managed to successfully snare the Illume. The other Nephilim crowded themselves around the two boys and they listened intently as Jacob and Max took turns recounting the hunt. It was only when they described how the Illume morphed itself into a monstrous, fire-breathing beast did eyes begin to stray one by one; but then, only to glance across the room with cautious disbelief to where the bird continued to rest on its perch looking beautiful and delicate and graceful, and nothing like the nightmarish creature now being described to them.
One gaze, however, did not stray—from Jacob, anyhow. It belonged to Sandel. He stood by himself in a nearby corner of the room staring ahead at the boy with an intense coldness. Whatever he was thinking, or considering, was interrupted when Anahel came up quietly behind him.
“If I didn’t know any better, Sandel, I’d mistake you for someone attending a wake rather than a celebration,” said Anahel, to which came no response. Even without looking into the archangel’s face, Anahel could see clearly where Sandel’s attention was fixed. “I understand from Damiel you are considerably displeased with the boy’s presence here in Eden.”
“Does it matter either way my feelings?” asked Sandel coolly.
“In regards to me changing my stance on the matter, no, it does not,” answered Anahel.
“Then we have nothing further to discuss Anahel, do we?”
“Do not ask me why or how, Sandel, but if this day offers any hints it is that this Fledgling will prove himself to be most remarkable. At least, that is what my instincts tell me. I can’t explain it, but already I have found myself to be quite fond and protective of him even as I see his father in his eyes,” said Anahel. “Just because something is seeded in darkness does not mean it won’t thrive in the light. As the question was once posed to me, so do I now ask you: Don’t we at the very least owe him the chance?”
Sandel was quiet for a moment, as though maybe he was considering having a change of heart on the matter. Or so Anahel hoped.
“Well then, Anahel, I leave it to you to see where the boy ends up thriving; in the Light, or the Darkness,” said Sandel. “Let us just hope, for all our sakes, that your instincts have sharpened themselves from the last time you flipped such a coin.”
As Sandel quickly stormed off, Anahel caught sight of Gotham watching the exchange from across the room.
“What’s happened?” Gotham’s voice sounded within Anahel’s thoughts. Anahel gave a dismissive shake his head in reply. “Just Sandel being Sandel, that’s all.”
At the same time, Jacob was quietly watching Gotham from his own corner of the Hall. Exhilarated as he was, he couldn’t keep his thoughts from wandering back to that moment in the Forest when Creed unleashed his bombshell concerning who, or rather what, his father was. And even though he had managed to shrug it all off with Max’s help as a hornet’s nest of lies unworthy of even Creed Maggert’s caliber of nastiness, Jacob couldn’t help but replay the unsettling moment over and over again in his head.
“Congratulations, Weed!”
It was Creed’s voice suddenly transposed in his thoughts drawing Jacob’s gaze to where he spotted his rival leering at him from nearby, his mouth poised in an unsavory grin. Jacob glanced away quickly and caught sight of Gotham huddled on the other side of the Hall with Damiel. Could it be true? Jacob found himself wondering. Why else would Creed be taunting him so blatantly?
“You’re not actually still thinking about what that gator turd spewed to you earlier, are you?” came a voice suddenly. It was Max, suddenly at his ear.
“Of course not,” Jacob lied.
“Cuz if you are, you can just walk yourself over there and ask Gotham point blank and put this whole thing to rest.”
Not that Jacob hadn’t been wrestling with such a suggestion, but as he stood staring over at Gotham, the more he became convinced Creed was yanking his chain. Gotham may have been a lot of things, but a liar he wasn’t. Certainly he wouldn’t knowingly deceive the boy over something as monumental as what Creed charged. This, Jacob knew wholeheartedly when Gotham, at that very moment, happened to look over and catch his eye. It was rare to see the angel look so outwardly happy, and more importantly proud. Proud of him.
No way was it true, Jacob thought to himself. No way.
“It’s like you said,” Jacob told Max. “That gator turd was just trying to throw me off my game, not that it did any good.”
“Now that that’s settled, maybe you can rejoin the fun,” said Max, ruffling his friend’s hair playfully. “After all, this is a shared celebration. Show a little happiness, for Pete’s sake!”
And indeed Jacob was happy; happier than he could ever remember being before in his life. With smiles beaming, he and Max proudly held out their arms for the other boys yearning to get a glimpse of the prestigious sigil marking the inside of their wrists beneath the light of the moon hanging big and with magical brightness over Havenhid and the whole of Eden. Jacob knew the start of Illumination had been an important stepping stone, for him especially. He had finally managed to do what he had strived for since coming to the Garden, and that was to prove himself. Prove himself to Anahel. Prove himself to Gotham and the Guides. Prove himself to the other Fledglings. Mostly, though, prove himself to himself. And for the first time in the many months that had passed since he first arrived in Eden, he felt like a true Nephilim. Even despite the fact his back still remained absent a pair of wings. More importantly, he felt as though he belonged—belonged in Eden, and belonged amongst this special and unique group of boys.
And for the rest of the night—and for a good many days that were to follow—everything was exceptionally good.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Impossible Mend
“I
n all my many years of instructing Nephilim, I can honestly say I can’t recall a more skilled bunch than these. I dare say this may be the finest brood we’ve yet to turn out.”
The proclamation was made one afternoon by Damiel to Gotham as any proud teacher would of his students as the two strolled leisurely alongside the River.
“And in all my years knowing you, I can honestly say I can’t begin keeping track of the countless times you’ve made such a boastful declaration,” Gotham responded good-naturedly.
“Ay, but this time I mean it whole-heartedly,” said Damiel “They are without exception, these Fledglings, and of tough stock. The ease with which they have taken to the sword, not to mention mirroring the angels’ way of fighting when a blade is not in hand, is nothing short of impressive. You will see.”
“And Jacob...,” inquired Gotham finally, after a moment of pause, “how is he progressing?”
�
��I was wondering when you were going to get around to asking about him.”
“Can you blame my curiosity?”
“Would it surprise you to learn that of all the Fledglings I’m training, he exceeds them all by leaps and bounds?” asked Damiel. “Rest assure when I tell you he displays a strength and speed of ten Nephilim. Even I’ve found it difficult to fend him off the times we’ve sparred together, hard as it may be for me to admit. That’s why I wanted you to come today to Lions Bite so you can see for yourself.”
“And yet, still no wings,” muttered Gotham.
“He’s not the first to struggle,” Damiel offered in a comforting voice. “There have been plenty of other Nephilim who have been slow to come into their own.”
“Only he’s not like the others, now is he, Damiel?” replied Gotham with a weary sigh. “No...something is amiss, and it’s not just the wings. It’s been many months now and even the Blackstone is still somehow unable to read his Grace. Can you explain it? Because I am at a loss.”
Damiel gave a glance over at Gotham and could see clearly the angel was weighted with worry over the boy. Yet try as he might for a semblance of an easing answer to the question posed to him, Damiel found much to his frustration that all he could offer was a meek, if not defeated, “No, I cannot.”
It was then a pair of white-tailed deer frolicking in the grassy openness stretching out into the distance caught the two angels’ sights, and they watched as the two graceful creatures bounded and scampered about without care beneath the soothing warmth of the sun.
“As I was leaving Eden,” remarked Gotham after a while as they continued on with their stroll, “it was Anahel who, in his pointed way, reminded me of my duty to the boy, whether I chose to recognize it or not, and despite whatever grievances may continue to roil my insides.”
