***
Sophie was staring at the moon. It was beautiful, she thought, round and perfect, glowing bright against a dark gray sky. She remembered the first time she saw it, really saw it, and how it was more brilliant than she ever thought it could be.
“Awake, my dear?”
The voice jolted her out of the memory, and she sat straight up. Someone stood before her, cloaked and dark. No, not a person, she told herself. The shadow of a person. A ghost.
“Where am I?” she pulled her knees up to her chest and peered around the space. She was elevated on some cold platform just slightly wider than herself. Moonlight poured down on her, darkening the rest of the room. She could feel the chilled dampness of the place, smell the dirt. It was Earth, but where? Last she could remember was on the river. “Where’s Troi?”
The shadow moved slightly, “Always thinking of them.” He let out a long sigh, “Tell me, Apollyon, is she intact?”
There was movement to her side, and she saw two figures there. One came forward, and she recognized him, if only slightly. She let out a small sigh of relief as she eyed the long-haired man. He had been the one waiting on the river bank for her and Troian. A friend.
Then the other figure stepped into view. Naomi gave her a little smile. Sophie’s eyes went wide and her heartbeat sped as she gripped the edge of the dais she sat on. “You!” she pointed at the woman, “Stay away!”
“Touchy,” the man reported, stepping up to her and grabbing her outstretched arm, “but well.”
Sophie tried to pull away from him, but he was strong and held her still. His misty green eyes bore into her, searching her face as he held her there. She scowled back at him until he released her.
“The transformation is, however, not complete.”
“It will have to do.” The shadow’s voice was discordant and throaty. He came very near the place where Sophie sat and she inched backward until her hand slid off the edge of the platform. She caught herself, knowing there was nowhere to go. “Do you know who I am, Sophie?” he asked familiarly as he reached up and placed a withered hand on either side of his hood then pulled it back.
His face was ancient, shriveled and cracked. Gray skin was pulled taut over where his nose had been, now a slight, snake-like protrusion, then gathering in folds along his neck. His eyes were milky and pale and tufts of dry whiskers poked out of a pointed chin.
“Agrippa.”
“Ah,” he clasped his hands before him, “Even after all this time it seems you remember. Surely we will become fast friends.”
“What do you want with me?” she spat out, “You’ve got your book, and you’re clearly alive. You don’t need me.”
“Alive?” he almost laughed, “You flatter me, child. This,” he gestured to himself, “is not living. I am a shade, a phantom, and I’ve nearly exhausted this spirit of mine.”
“Then die,” she found herself saying before she could stop.
He grunted out a little laugh from the back of his throat, “As if it is that easy.” Agrippa extended a hand and Naomi hurried over and furnished him with a thick, leather-bound book. “I could not die if I wanted to, dear girl. Not that I intend to. No, what I need from you is a spell.” He presented her with the book.
Sophie did not move to take it, “A spell? From me?”
“Yes. The book is full of them, all mine, of course, save for one. You put in your own that day so long ago, and I need you to counter it.”
Sophie reached out carefully and accepted the book from him. It was heavy and fell into her lap when she took it. She lifted its cover hesitantly. The thing was so old she thought it would crumble from even the slightest touch, but it seemed to revive in her hands, the leather somehow a warmer shade of brown, the paper less brittle. She turned the first page. Blank. She peered up at Agrippa, but he only stared at the tome in her hands. She continued only to find unmarked parchment after unmarked parchment. Just as she was about to thrust it back at him, she came to a page filled with symbols. They were in some other language, small pictures and lines, and though she didn’t know exactly what it said, she felt as though she were looking at a memory. She touched the page, and an angry scene flashed in her mind, fire, blood, screams, and she pulled her hand away and slammed the book shut. She grit her teeth and glared at him, “No.”
Agrippa sighed, “I was a bit concerned you would not oblige me, but it will make your life much more pleasant if you learn to.”
“You’ll just have to kill me,” Sophie challenged.
“Kill you?” the man laughed, “Now why would I want to kill my mate? You see, you are mine, Sophie. I claimed you as my own when you were inside your mother, and now we can never be parted.”
Sophie felt her stomach twist, but she peered back at him defiantly, “You can’t just claim someone.”
“Can’t I? Not even by embedding a piece of my soul within you?”
She slapped a hand against her chest; there was a piece of him inside her? She shook her head, nausea taking her. She wanting to rip whatever it was out.
“You are special, Sophie,” he told her in a low, raspy tone, “You are nephilim, and I am the sire of the strigori. Together we will create the most powerful race of beings to ever exist.” He leaned over the dais, gripping its edges with whitened knuckles, his eyes narrowing to milky slits, and just a flicker of anger overcoming his face, “You will either accept this fate happily, or it will be accepted for you.”
Chapter 17
Footsteps sounded from the back of the chamber. Sophie squinted into the darkness and four shadows ambled into the room. Sophie’s heart caught in her throat. Was it really? Though they all looked worse for wear, they were there nonetheless. Her friends.
“Ah, my boy,” Agrippa flourished a hand at them, and Troian immediately snapped to attention. He had been supporting Verrine and she fell to the ground, just catching herself on hands and knees. Troian’s eyes, glassy and lost, looked right through Sophie as he stepped up behind Agrippa.
As Mona and Adam both moved to go to Verrine, two shapes appeared behind them, and in a single, swift movement, blood erupted into the air. Laughter, high-pitched and maddening, filled the chamber, and Apollyon and Naomi rushed them.
Sophie followed the sound of laughter and saw Danielle land in one of the room’s corners. Verrine was slumped at the strigori’s feet, her head raised and supported only by her white hair wrapped around Danielle’s hand. Sophie jumped to her knees to go to her, but was stopped when Agrippa held out his hand and gestured to the rest of the room. Naomi held Mona against the wall, her arm pressed against the girl’s neck. Sophie had never seen Mona appear so petrified. Troian stood behind Agrippa, his body unmoving and face unresponsive.
Agrippa laced his fingers together, “As you can see, it is in your best interest to help me now.”
“Sophie, don’t!” Adam’s voice rang out from behind her, and she turned to see the dark-haired man holding him at bay as he tried to struggle away.
“Calm down, idiot,” the man hissed in Adam’s ear, “Do you want to die faster?”
“Apollyon,” Adam took in a staggered breath, recognizing the man, “Why?”
“Let them go!” Sophie demanded.
“Oh, sure,” Danielle laughed, dropping Verrine, and the demon collapsed on the ground. She could barely support herself.
Sophie took in a deep breath, casting a long glance over her friends. This is how they would die, she told herself, if she didn’t do what he wanted. “What do I do?”
“That’s my girl,” Agrippa offered her a tight smile, “I split my soul, Sophie, and you and your brothers each received a piece of it. It resided inside each of you, silently waiting for me to return and claim. That is, until you, silly thing, cast them out. I know, you thought you were protecting your family, making yourselves untraceable, but you couldn’t make those pieces simply stop existing. And now they are out there, the little bits of my soul, entangled with little bits of your own. Well, not
all of them,” he pulled aside his cloak and Sophie saw a red stone embedded in his chest, “My children did, however minutely, succeed in that regard and collected this. Now I need you to call the others back.”
Hesitantly, Sophie lifted the book into her lap again and placed her palm against its only marked page. Her mind screamed with the memory of flames, and she felt as though her body was tearing apart. She pulled her hand away: she had no idea what to do, and looked again to Agrippa desperately, “I don’t know how.”
“Well, then who shall it be first?” he raised his arms above his head, and his voice echoed off the walls, “Your sweet little lady in waiting, our own traitor, or your beloved mockery of an angel?”
Sophie’s heartbeat quickened. She wanted to do something, anything, but it seemed impossible. Even if she could call the stones back, then what? Agrippa would be whole, and her friends would still be in danger. She glanced from the red stone to Troian. He had not mentioned killing her brother, and no one guarded him.
Agrippa’s body flickered, and he stumbled forward a single step. Gripping the end of the altar, he composed himself, then looked back up to her. He was weak. “I assure you,” he rasped, “one of them will die before I do.”
Her eyes fell back on the red embedded in his chest. If the stones were somehow connected to them, to her and her brother, perhaps the one Agrippa held, the one he used now to live, was controlling Troian. There was only one way to know.
Sophie shot herself forward, her arm outstretched, the book tumbling from her lap. She collided with Agrippa and wrapped her fingers around the stone. It made a terrible sound as she tore it from his skin, the flesh ripping away and spattering her with blood. As it came free, Agrippa fell back, clutching at the hole it left. Sophie fell forward off the altar, crashing to the ground, her fist tight around the stone.
There was fervent movement throughout the chamber, a trading of blows and cries, and when she lifted her head she saw Naomi bent over Agrippa. The woman snapped back to Sophie, her eyes flashing bright yellow, “How dare you!”
“A sacrifice must be made!” Apollyon announced, still holding back a grappling Adam.
Sophie pushed herself up on shaking arms and scanned the room. Mona and Troian were both at Verrine’s side and Danielle and Rose had vanished. Naomi got to her feet and towered over Sophie, loathing etched on every sharp corner of her face. She raised her claws and sneered down at her, then froze.
Her face changed, her eyes lost their glow, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth. She dropped her arm and glanced down at herself where a red stain was growing on her chest. Her body jerked, and with a watery cry she fell forward, slamming into the altar.
The dagger slipped from Rose's grasp and danced across the stone floor as she gawked at her own bloodied hands. Sophie’s mouth fell open, and she found herself staring up at Rose who looked almost as bewildered. Then a smile, slow and deliberate, spread over the strigori’s face. Laughter rumbled from her throat, building and filling the room.
There was a massive crack, and the altar split. Sophie clamored to her feet, still unsteady from the fall, but with a tight grip on the stone. She jumped away from the dais and the bodies of Naomi, Agrippa, and a cackling Rose. Light filled the chamber, breaking up through the cracks in the altar, and the shell that was Agrippa’s body disappeared. The floor began to shake, and Sophie struggled to stay on her feet.
Apollyon still held Adam’s arms behind his back, looming over him with his great strength, but Adam didn’t seem to be struggling any longer. His head was cocked, his ruddy hair tangled in Apollyon’s fingers, and the dark-haired man examined a burn mark on his neck. Adam’s gaze, from under heavy eyelids, locked on Sophie, and she started toward him.
“No!”
She stopped abruptly at his exclamation, afraid to move.
Adam slurred his words, his head drooping when Apollyon released it, “You have to go. Now.”
A stone fell from the tomb’s ceiling, crashing down between them, and Sophie screamed. Earth began to fall inward, filling the room with a smoky haze, and another section of the ceiling collapsed.
“If you want him,” Apollyon’s voice sounded over the falling rubble, “you’ll have to come and get him.”
A hand grabbed Sophie and she turned. Mona stared up at her, her dark eyes wide, face spattered with dried blood, “Come on.”
“No,” Sophie looked back to Adam, but his figure was obscured by falling rubble and dust, “I can’t leave him.”
“We have to.” Mona pulled at her, and Sophie tried to rip her arm back, tears filling her eyes, but Mona overpowered her, wrenching her from the room’s center just as the ceiling gave way.
***
They spoke in hushed tones, quietly nursing wounds in the throne room. Pru sat on the steps with Verrine’s head in her lap and Troian paced below. Thanatos skittered about between everyone, fetching what they requested, but always came back to where Sophie had sat herself on the floor. “She’s okay for now,” Mona would tell him each time and wave him away. She wanted to tell him herself, but when she tried the words were overcome by a twinge in the back of her throat and a burning behind her eyes.
Verrine sat up quickly, her gray eyes wild, and Troian fell at her side. She threw herself at him, and he nuzzled his head into her shoulder. A warm smile crept over Pru’s face and she smoothed Verrine’s hair before going to tend to the others.
Sophie watched as Verrine scanned the room, recognition of where they were settling on her like a warm blanket. She smiled drowsily at her and Sophie tried to return the look. Verrine then narrowed her eyes, giving the room another inspection, finally looking back to Troian, “Where’s Adam?”
“That angel, Apollyon, had him,” Troian told her in a quiet voice, his eyes cautiously flicking over Sophie and back, “and I may have nicked him with a haykal.”
“You what?” Verrine gaped at him.
“He didn’t know what he was doing,” Sophie spoke up, somehow finding her voice.
Verrine went and knelt before her, her eyes wide and sad.
Sophie opened her hand, showing her the red stone, “Agrippa was using this to control him. He said it’s a piece of his soul entwined with a piece of Troi’s.”
“Is this why you left?” Verrine turned over her shoulder at him.
He cautiously came up to them, “The only thing I remember is Raziel coming to me, here, and convincing me that Sophie was alive in the Material World. Of course, I realize now that wasn’t an archangel at all, it was just Agrippa. After leaving, everything is a blur, like a bad dream, until I woke up in the tomb.”
“That’s so scary,” Verrine reached up and took his hand, “Can it happen again?”
“There are others out there,” Mona shook her head, “Strigori were always being sent on missions to locate and recover things.”
“Others?” Sophie narrowed her eyes on the stone, “Agrippa did say something strange to me. ‘You and your brothers’ he said. More than one. But Troian and I are twins, and we’ve got no other siblings, right? How can there be more than one more out there?”
“As far as I know we’re it,” Troian spoke up, shrugging.
“Well, no matter how many there are, Agrippa will be after them,” Mona spoke with certainty.
Sophie sighed, “You think he’s still alive? After the cave in?”
“I know he’s still alive,” Mona sniffed, “Rose saw to that with that sacrificial dagger when she stabbed Naomi. They sometimes spoke of a sacrifice, but it always seemed like a last resort.”
“It looked like it was,” Sophie remembered the irate look on Naomi’s face when she knelt at Agrippa’s side. The woman had thought him dead and so had Sophie. She cleared her throat and cast her eyes on the floor, afraid to ask, but the need overrode her fear, “So if Agrippa survived, then do you think, maybe, Adam survived too?”
“Definitely,” Mona answered quickly and Sophie’s heart fluttered. She lifted her
head and stared at Mona to be sure she told the truth. “Apollyon could have easily sacrificed him, but chose to keep him instead. He’s worth too much to them,” Mona hesitated, “I think they’ll try to use him somehow.”
Sophie swallowed hard. She wanted to be glad he was alive, but in their hands would death have been better? She remembered his story of being imprisoned in Heaven and shuddered.
Verrine reached out and grabbed Sophie’s arm, “We’ll get him back.”
“Thank you,” Sophie muttered in a tiny voice. She took a deep, ragged breath, but pushed the tears away, “You came for me, all of you. You could have died. Thank you.” She stood, “I just need a few minutes. I’ll be back.”
She walked to the back of the throne room, offering small smiles to Carabia and Buer who were exchanging harrowing stories, and to Ose and Aeshma, wrapping their own wounds. Reym stood at the archway, pulling himself to attention when she approached. “You’ve done more than I could have ever asked already,” she put her hand out and bade him stop.
He blinked deep green eyes at her, nodding, “You could never ask too much.”
She passed through the arch and into the hall, but a voice called to her, stopping her, “Sophie.”
She turned and Troian stood there. He fidgeted, unable to look her in the eye. Instead of waiting for him, she went to him and pressed the stone into his hand, closing his fingers over it. “This is yours. I don’t want you to lose yourself again.”
“I don’t want it. It’s part of him.”
She could feel his fingers trying to release it, “And part of you. We’ll find a way to destroy it, if we can, but it has to be safe. For now just hold on, okay?”
He nodded, “I just, um, wanted to say I’m so—”
“Please,” Sophie smiled at him, “you don’t have to say anything.”
“But I want to.”
As she looked at her brother, she realized it was the first time they had been together that he was completely himself. His amber eyes were sad and, though she hated to see it, she was glad to see them full of life. He let out a worn breath, “I’m sorry, Sophie.”
The Nephilim: Book One Page 18
