by D B Nielsen
“Last night I dreamed again, my friend.
The heavens moaned and the earth replied;
I stood alone before an awful being;
His face was sombre like the black bird of the storm.
He fell upon me and held me fast,
Pinioned with his claw, till I smothered;
Then he transformed me so that my arms became wings covered with feathers.
He turned his stare towards me,
And he led me away to the palace of Irkalla, the Queen of Darkness,
To the house from which none who enters ever returns,
Down the road from which there is no coming back.”
I jerked awake; the grittiness of sand stung my eyes and my mouth felt dry and parched as if I’d been crying for help in the wilderness. But disturbingly, above the plush headrests facing me, I thought I saw a statuesque figure standing at the far end of the carriage and suffered the scrutiny of his enigmatic lapis lazuli gaze until, blinking, disoriented, I realised I was staring at nothing.
I sat up erect, unfolding my slim frame from its slumped position and looked around, adjusting my vision to the harsh electric lights in the carriage.
Nothing had changed. The familiar, almost empty interior of the train carriage with its streamlined business seats and coordinating fabrics mocked my senses. Blinking again, hoping that he would appear somehow in front of my eyes, I searched the carriage for Finn. But to no avail. I might under normal circumstances have convinced myself that I had been imagining things, but I was so certain that he had been present that I felt a shiver run through me at his uncanny ability to appear and disappear as if by magic.
And it just wasn’t natural to be so aware of a guy, no matter how attractive or buff he might be. It just wasn’t like me, especially as I’d only known him so short a time. But against all reason I felt his presence and could even distinguish his voice from all others – and it was his voice that I’d just heard in my head. Melodious, lyrical. Heartbreakingly, hauntingly beautiful. Why it should affect me so, I didn’t know – but it seemed that Finn was sending me some sort of message. I only wished I understood what he meant by it.
Surprisingly, I had lost all track of time and it was only when the other passengers began to collect their belongings together that I became aware of just how long I’d been drifting in and out of semi-consciousness, dazed and disoriented. We were now fast approaching Paris Gare du Nord and I had no moment to spare to reflect upon what had just occurred. Instead, I tried to recollect the instructions my father had given me on the journey to Ebbsfleet – yet failed to recall whether a driver would be sent to collect me from the station to transport me to St. John’s apartment.
Alighting from the train, overnight bag in hand, I joined the flow of travellers on the platform, following the path of least resistance to the terminal as I searched for the right exit to take. A sea of faces greeted me but none that I recognised and, in my befuddled state, I wondered if anyone remembered that I was arriving in Paris that afternoon.
‘SAFFRON!’
I heard my name called in clear, accented, bell-like tones above the static of the announcements from the PA system – all of which were in French – and, wheeling round towards the opposite exit, saw a figure towering above the crowd of mere mortals, one hand casually waving to gain my attention as he weaved gracefully in between the tide of bodies moving like electrons bouncing off each other in random directions.
‘Gabriel!’ I called out in turn and, holding tightly onto my luggage, headed in his direction.
As I slid past the exit, I was immediately engulfed in a fast embrace with numerous kisses in true Parisian fashion planted on my cheeks. Bemusedly, I stared up at this pale god and sighed in relief, noting the warm amusement in his hypnotic silver-grey eyes that directly held mine. Straight wheat coloured hair, cut in a fashionable style, framed a face that was too pretty to be called handsome yet in no way could it be considered effeminate, lent a dramatic effect by his tailored, superfine wool and silk blend, charcoal coloured suit which I suspected was given distinction by sporting some Italian designer’s label.
‘Bienvenue à Paris, Mademoiselle Woods!’ Gabriel said mockingly, looping my wrist around his arm as he relieved me of my overnight bag and steered me in the direction of the street.
I was still too distracted to concentrate on where we were headed until we moved from under cover of the station into the distilled sunlight. Gauzy clouds drifted above as I took in my first sight of Paris since my family had lived here when I was little older than Alex was now. The sidewalks were teeming with fashionably-garbed Parisians sipping espresso from delicate, fine porcelain demitasse and gesticulating wildly in their characteristically spirited manner as they discussed the latest on dit, while backpackers and tourists mulled around snapping happy shots.
Sighing in pleasure, I allowed Gabriel to manoeuvre me towards a bank of parked hired and chauffeur-driven cars. The incessant blare of car horns became louder as we dodged traffic banking up along the street behind a selfishly double-parked sleek, black Mercedes sedan. The driver seemed unperturbed by both the noise emanating from the honking cars and the obscenities shouted by passing motorists as he waited for his passengers.
‘Look at that,’ I said, waving my free hand in the direction of the traffic jam and its cause, ‘Sage wouldn’t be very impressed – she’s a stickler for rules, you know?’
‘C’est vrai? And you – you are also unimpressed?’ Gabriel murmured, his lips twitching in response to my observation.
‘Me?’ I gave a sheepish smile, shrugging my shoulders. ‘Meh, I can’t really criticise. According to my sister, I have a tendency to drive like I’m competing in Le Mans and, as I’m sure you’ve heard as Sage would no doubt have complained to St. John already, I tend to park wherever and however I please. But I can assure you that I’m a really good driver – I had to re-sit my licence in England because they don’t just transfer licences, and I passed first go. My sister is just way too cautious. Which reminds me ... Sage mentioned you own a Ferrari...’
I let my statement hang in the air as I shot him a winsome look that earned me a mellifluous laugh and a shake of his perfectly coiffed head.
‘Bah, Saffron,’ he murmured, ‘Tu es mignonne.’
My schoolgirl’s French – a vague recollection of a few choice phrases and serviceable sentences – was nowhere near as good as my sister’s, as Sage was fluent in quite a few modern languages and could even decipher a couple of dead ones. I tilted my head to look up at the Nephilim beside me, finding myself craning my neck at his impressive height. Gabriel must have caught my quizzical look as he clarified in English that he thought I was “cute”.
Cute is good, I thought. Cute is better than an outright “no”. I could work with cute.
I don’t know at what point it actually registered in my mind that Gabriel was steering me towards the Mercedes that was double-parked there idling, its exhaust fumes steaming in the chill winter air, but it wasn’t quite until he tossed my overnight bag at his chauffeur who had come to assist us in opening the rear door and, with Gabriel’s hand at my elbow, guiding me into the car’s elegant interior to be seated that I realised Gabriel was as different from St. John in character as I was from Sage. Looking over at him as he slid into the passenger seat beside me, folding his large frame with as much agility and poise as a dancer, Gabriel gave a devilish wink which suggested somehow that I was now a fellow conspirator. What I was entering into exactly, I had no idea – but I decided that it was all a part of my grand adventure and so I took it in my stride.
Leaping back into the Mercedes, the driver revved the engine and we were off – headed towards the most exclusive real estate in town which occupied Paris’s Golden Triangle. St. John’s apartment was on the top floor of a prestigious Haussman style building on the Avenue Montaigne. I’d heard from Sage’s account that the master bedroom faced the Avenue des Champs-Élysées with its sidewalks dressed in fairy
lights dripping from its straight rank and file of trees. With its curtains drawn back, the heart of Paris stretched forth, its fashionable boutiques and honey coloured buildings sparkling like the setting of a fairy tale.
Out of sheer curiosity, I couldn’t wait to see where St. John lived – and perhaps, more importantly, where Sage would live with him sometime in the future.
As I reclined comfortably into the soft leather, Gabriel nonchalantly dropped a cream coloured manila folder into my lap. Startled, I automatically opened its cover to find that someone – probably a member of the Nephilim brotherhood – had compiled a detailed dossier on Jacques Renauld.
Silver-grey eyes met mine.
‘Je sais ce qu’il vaut. It is good when going into battle to know the enemy, n’est-ce pas?’
My eyes widened in awe.
I’d thought that I was prepared for what lay ahead but flicking through the dossier made me realise exactly how much I’d erred tactically. I now looked at Gabriel in a new light. This Nephilim was a seriously formidable opponent – if I imagined I was capable of being devious, he was a master of deception. And quite Machiavellian. This was made more than apparent to me as he began my education on what to expect in my interview with Jacques Renauld.
From Gabriel I learned that Renauld was a silent, withdrawn man. A predator. It would have been easy to see him as some sort of comic-book villain but the comparison would have been inaccurate. Renauld was far too subtle and complicated for that. He lived alone, though it was rumoured he was divorced with one child, a son, and that there was no love lost between him and his ex-wife and that he rarely saw the child except on the boy’s birthday. His apartment and his office were impersonal – there were no photographs of family or friends or colleagues, no mementoes, no artworks on the wall, and few books apart from legal texts. The only concession to anything seemingly personal was an old fishing almanac which was gathering dust on the top shelf of his bookcase – but some colleagues claimed to remember that it had been left behind by the room’s former occupant and did not belong to Renauld at all. Not one of his colleagues seemed to understand him, although he’d been working at Interpol for the past sixteen years. The most they could say about him was that he was often taciturn, occasionally sarcastic, always ruthless, but never impatient. And he certainly got results. The passport-sized photo clipped to the inner jacket of the file revealed a dark-haired, bearded man in his fifties, eyes hooded but wary, his muscular build tense under well-cut tweed. There was a harnessed power that came through the grainy image of the photo – like he was channelling his energy in readiness for action like the predator he was.
‘Renauld isn’t either a Rephaim or one of the Grigori, is he?’ I asked with more than a touch of anxiety in my voice, fearing the answer.
But Gabriel merely shook his head, stating, ‘Renauld is simply a man ... but that does not make him any less an adversary, tu vois?’
I did indeed understand.
Gabriel gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Interpol are not running a competition for their favourite art thief or suspect of the year. I confess that I am curious about their strategy and technique, especially enlisting the help of Louis Gravois.’
‘But that was the British Museum, wasn’t it?’ I protested sharply, my eyebrows knotting in confusion. ‘Louis was brought in specifically on the request of Dr Porterhouse and assigned as an independent investigator because of his experience in artefacts from ancient Mesopotamia to liaise with the authorities – are you telling me that there’s more to it than that?’
Gabriel appeared to give the question serious thought.
‘Oui, oui, oui. Bien sûr.’ He replied gravely, ‘I would think that investigation at this level is chiefly desk-work. Why bring in Louis Gravois? Why involve Interpol? Even with major art theft, provenance is often hard to prove ... and once a piece crosses borders...’ Gabriel let the statement hang in the air.
‘You think it a bit odd?’
‘Mais si. I think it a bit odd. Je sens qu’il va y avoir du grabuge.’ He continued his train of thought. ‘They target the daughter of a respected archaeologist and historian – pourquoi? They are trying to catch you out with cunning traps; expecting you to detail every moment since you became aware of the existence of the Seed.’
I kept my voice carefully casual, reining in my fears. ‘I won’t be saying more than is needed to Jacques Renauld. I won’t be volunteering any information, if that’s what you’re asking. After all, there’s no point in confusing their investigation with past history that isn’t their concern, is there?’
Gabriel shared a smile of amusement with me, indicating his contempt for authority figures. ‘Oui, oui, oui. Mais certainement! I agree that there is no point in confusing them with past history, remote things and battles long ago.’
I tried to imitate his careless shrug, ever so French, but didn’t quite manage to pull it off with the same panache, instead stating, ‘I doubt very much if they’d believe me anyway!’
‘Tiens! Otez cela de vos papiers! Do not underestimate what people will believe!’ he cautioned. ‘And never underestimate a desperate man!’
I nodded in agreement.
Making a slight moue of distaste with his lips, Gabriel murmured, ‘Bah! It is a pity one cannot simply challenge a man to a duel as in the past. So much simpler and much more civilised. I believe the English have an expression ... the good old days, n’est-ce pas?’
I looked at Gabriel dubiously, wondering how hacking a man to bits with a blade could possibly be considered more civilised, and murmured, ‘I think I prefer archery.’
‘Oui, oui, oui. A crossbow, non? It is a good idea, Saffron. Similar to a modern sniper.’
Horrified and in disbelief, I faced Gabriel, shaking my head rapidly. ‘That was not what I meant at all! You’re not seriously planning on taking Jacques Renauld out, are you?’
He was about to shrug carelessly again but then caught sight of my expression and instead changed the gesture into what was meant to be a reassuring but patronising pat on my knee. ‘T’inquiète. I have no reason yet to challenge Monsieur Renauld.’
‘You misunderstand me, Gabriel!’ I protested indignantly, brushing aside his hand, ‘I merely was stating that I prefer archery to sword fighting. Like Legolas in The Lord of the Rings.’
It was Gabriel’s turn now to look horrified and disbelieving.
‘Pff, a fairy?’ The way he drew out the words in his accented English made his distaste plain.
‘No! Not a fairy! An elf!’
His upper lip curled contemptuously. ‘An elf with a longbow! Tu me fais rire! If you wish to be impressed you should see my long sword!’
I refrained from snorting but couldn’t help muttering low under my breath, ‘I think too many women have already seen your long sword!’
But I’d forgotten the incredible hearing of the Nephilim and it was only when I felt Gabriel shaking with silent laughter beside me that I realised in future I’d have to be very careful what I said around him.
Luckily, at that moment, the driver pulled up in front of St. John’s apartment building and I was spared having to continue the conversation. As we entered St. John’s apartment on the top floor, I could see that Sage’s fiancé enjoyed his creature comforts, having mastered the Parisian art of refined living. His apartment was spacious, light and airy.
But it wasn’t quite to my taste.
The first thing I noticed was that the shelves which lined his walls were filled with antiquities, giving the place the look of a museum or, perhaps, an old-fashioned library with his vast collection of rare books and ancient manuscripts. This impression was reinforced upon looking further into the apartment with its hardwood floors and high ceilings, its dado wall panels and brass and etched glass ceiling lights. I loved the proportions, but its muted colour scheme with the apartment walls painted in heritage red, Brunswick green and French grey and the abundance of period style furniture – so understated, heavy and solid – whil
e in keeping with the history of the building, seemed so ... dull.
If it were my apartment, I would have chosen a more dramatic colour scheme and bold prints and fabrics to complement this. Made it more industrial chic. Modern. I would have harnessed the rooms’ vast airiness and light with large mirrors and numerous black and white landscape and architectural photographs. I could already picture it in my mind.
Placing my overnight bag on the floor of the entranceway, Gabriel murmured, ‘A little austere, non?’
I was astounded at his perceptiveness which mirrored my thoughts exactly.
I wandered down the hallway into St. John’s study as Gabriel mentioned something about looking at what St. John had stocked in his kitchen for dinner. Barely aware of Gabriel leaving me, my eyes drifted across the framed artworks and photographs hanging on the walls. This room was much more to my liking.
Watercolours and oil paintings, sepia-toned and black and white photographs, landscapes and portraits in a mix of periods and styles cluttered the room – yet all original pieces. I was finally in my element. My eyes scanned the room noting a Firth hanging side-by-side a Manet, a rare Dali painting of Christ’s crucifixion, and a self-portrait by some as yet unknown artist, finally coming to rest on a recent photograph of an archaeological site, presumably in Iraq, where St. John stood next to my father pointing something out in the distance beyond the photo’s frame.
Captivated, wondering who had taken the photograph, I examined the image in microscopic detail; noting beyond the foregrounded figures the presence of British military troops patrolling the area.
But I froze abruptly in a mixture of surprise and horror as I could just make out above St. John’s right shoulder what initially seemed like a small dark smudge on the matte paper but was, instead, the circling flight of a large bird of prey ... and even further in the distance, the tiny figure of a man silhouetted against the harsh desert sun, his arm outstretched in a propriety gesture to the Peregrine falcon soaring above.
