by Vicki Keire
He ignored me. “Of course she spoke English,” he muttered, as if to himself. “She spoke six languages. She just didn’t want to speak to them.”
“Asheroth?” I nudged him gently. Much harder and I would have a bruised hip. “I asked about the book. Remember?”
“Please let me tell this in my own way. It’s hard enough as it is.” He began to pace. “We crossed at Ellis Island, like so many immigrants in those days. She was indistinguishable from the rank masses. I hated it for her, but I also knew it was the only way. Her family hunted for her. They would never have looked for her among the immigrants, sixteen and pregnant and alone. They never understood her incredible strength. But I did. I had been with her since she was quite small.”
“What happened to the baby’s father?” I stumbled over the words. “Was he…?”
His head snapped too quickly in my direction, interrupting his pacing. I decided to try to avoid that in the future. “Was he your ancestor, as well? Yes.” He spat the affirmation. “What happened to him? I broke his neck with my bare hands.”
He said it much too calmly for my comfort. I found myself backing away from him without having decided consciously to do so. “I need to sit, I think,” I said quietly. He ignored me. I stood.
“She was in the deepest kind of shock. Not because of what I did to her husband.” No, of course not, I thought to myself. “Because of what happened before that. What he did, what had happened to her family. And all because of her gift.”
That got my attention. My great-great grandmother fled her homeland and family, pregnant at sixteen, because of her gift? What was it? What new monstrosity lay dormant in my blood? I debated the merits of interrupting him, but he didn’t give me the chance.
“When they asked her name at Ellis Island, she just pointed to a spot on the map.” His face contorted into something between grief and pride. “She indicated her family’s summer home, but the immigration officers just read off the nearest large landmark. The Caspian Sea. One of them, the fat one, decided Caspian wasn’t a girl’s name. So he dropped the last letter. He tacked on the last name of a family who’d taken a liking to her on the ship.”
“That’s so sad.” I don’t know what I expected, but certainly not something so tragic. “To lose not just her family, but her home and her whole identity. And that means my name is based on a lie.” All my life I’d been told parts of her story, but to find out it was such a tragic fraud left me feeling hollow.
“No!” Asheroth lifted my chin with a single stone finger. “Don’t you see how brave she was? How much courage it took, to do what she did?” He stepped away from me and began pacing again. “Of course she doesn’t. She must be made to see.” He turned his back to me and began muttering again.
“Well, you aren’t doing the best job explaining yourself,” I said, in what I hoped was a mild tone. “You just told me all the stories I grew up on were lies, so forgive me if…”
My body reacted before I saw the flash of silver, although I knew that was impossible. Something inside me knew to center my weight in my hips and thighs and let it pull me down. This left my upper body light enough to follow my shoulders as they rolled right and the silver streaked by. My brain still hadn’t caught up to my body, though, because when Asheroth tossed another spinning silver object at me and told me to catch it, I actually obeyed. I would have to have a stern chat with my brain later about how to behave around Asheroth and sharp objects, I thought as I stood holding a silver dagger in between my cupped palms. I stared at it, business end first, my mind wiped totally blank.
Then I felt the anger stir.
“You just threw a dagger at me,” I said, incredulous. Asheroth looked smug. I decided I might want to test it out. He didn’t look so smug anymore. I held it low, like a long lost key, and advanced on him. “Two daggers. Is that right? What the hell were you thinking?” I noticed how pretty the design on the hilt was, and that made me even madder because I couldn’t stop being an artist even when my life was in danger. “You could have killed me.”
Asheroth actually looked frightened. It was a first for him, or I might have realized something significant was happening. But I didn’t. I kept advancing. “But I didn’t kill you,” he reminded me. He stood perfectly still, eyes on the dagger.
“No thanks to you,” I hissed.
“Those were Katerina’s,” he said. He began talking very fast. “Those daggers were hers. They were the reason she ran, the reason her family was killed, and the reason I hid her here. They’re deadly.”
“So naturally you threw them at the one person you keep swearing you’re here to protect,” I hissed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so angry. I slashed out at his red leather jacket, knowing the blade would break or slide harmlessly off.
It cut through to his stone skin and kept going.
I dropped it in horror. The noise it made as it clattered to the floor was drowned out by his howl of pain. We stared at each other, silver and diamond eyes locked on each other. “An assassin,” he said through clenched teeth. He held his arm out for my inspection. The alabaster beneath the red leather bore a slash about four inches long an inch deep. There was no bleeding. “Katerina was an assassin. She had your gifts, Caspia. And an instinct for these.” He retrieved the dagger and fingered the hilt. “Just as you do, although you may not know it yet. Like you, she was hunted. I have kept these for her.” He slid the lone dagger into a sheath I suddenly found at my belt. It fit perfectly into one of the loops I’d noticed earlier. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Cassandra did have a bit of the Sight, after all. From across the room, Asheroth held up the other dagger. “Your great-great grandmother belonged to a bloodline called the Azalenes, Caspia.”
“Not you too,” I said softly. Jack was right. I badly wanted to sit down.
“For all I know, you are the only one left. When that bloodline dies, so does the secret of these blades, the only ones that can cut Nephilim skin.” Another fitted sheath at my waist and Asheroth was within touching distance again.
“Promise me something,” I said, taking his cut arm in mine.
“Anything.”
“Don’t ever throw daggers at me again.” I collapsed onto the room’s tiny sofa without letting go of his arm. “And swear that this will heal.”
He grimaced. “It will. Eventually.”
“What does that mean? Eventually?” I slapped my palm over his mouth to stop his answer. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to know. Every time I think I want to know something, you tell me something else that makes me sad or angry or radically changes my worldview. I’m just going to sit here and let my brain implode.”
“Caspia?”
“I said shut up.” I pulled a dagger out and admired the etched design on the hilt. A raven, I think. “Please,” I added, to be polite.
“You like them.” He sounded smug, like a child who got his macaroni art put on the refrigerator.
“Yes, Asheroth. I like them.” I traced the etching with my thumb. I more than liked them. He had given me a way to kill angels. That meant I could kill demons by default. “I more than like them,” I whispered.
I couldn’t wait to tell Jack. I was already planning ways to sneak them into the Dark Realms to assassinate Belial when Ethan found us. He didn’t look happy.
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Break My Bones
“What are you doing here?” Ethan asked. I saw him sweep the room with his eyes. He tensed as he recognized it. “This is the room where he took you,” he said, addressing me and ignoring Asheroth.
I took a deep breath, and nodded. He was upset, but I didn’t entirely understand the edge to his voice. “We were talking about my great-great grandmother,” I tried to clarify. “What are you doing up? Cassandra said the tea would make you sleep for much longer than a couple of hours.”
The look he gave me was full of hurt and accusation. I began to get a cold feeling between my shoulder blades, not unlike
the one I used to get around Dr. Christian. Except this was Ethan. “I had some pretty interesting dreams,” he said at last.
Oh no. His blue green eyes bored into mine. Had Jack come to him? Had he told on me? Surely not. But I couldn’t think of another reasonable explanation for the rage on Ethan’s face. “What about?” Ethan wasn’t the type to keep secrets. If Jack had Walked, surely Ethan would tell me.
“I was telling Caspia about her history,” Asheroth added. “About her bloodline.”
Ethan went stark white. “You did what?” he repeated incredulously. He noticed the dagger in my hands. The effect was electric. He actually sagged against the doorframe. “What are you doing with that?”
“Oh, just a little fun with knives,” I tried to joke. “You know how it is. Chatting about old murders, discovering deadly new gifts, dodging sharp objects. You didn’t miss much.” I fumbled with my belt, trying to put the dagger away.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Ethan demanded, marching over to Asheroth. “You have to know what she’ll do with this knowledge. It wasn’t your decision to make.”
“I suppose it was yours, human?” He pronounced the word with even more of a sneer than usual. Asheroth drew himself up to his full height. “I suppose you would rather it just take her by surprise one day, as it did with her unfortunate brother. Forewarned is forearmed. And in case you’d like to know, she did fabulously. She sliced me up quite nicely.” He waved his arm under Ethan’s enraged nose. “That should make you happy.”
“It wasn’t your place,” Ethan challenged.
“Hey now,” I interrupted. “Why shouldn’t I know about my past? I did ask. I appreciate Asheroth’s honesty. I know it was hard.” I gave his red leather arm a gentle squeeze.
This, more than anything else, seemed to enrage Ethan. “Asheroth? Honesty?” He snorted. “Your so-called Guardian is incapable of honesty. If he were to tell you the whole truth about his past, it would crush you.”
“Careful, E’than’i’el-who-used-to-be,” Asheroth hissed softly. “The past is not a nation of one.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, ready to push Asheroth, if necessary.
But Ethan beat me to it. “Tell her about this,” he commanded.
He held up a packet of photocopied sheets of paper. My homework packet from Dr. Christian’s class. Emotions swirled through me so fast I couldn’t have named them if I tried. The images were all so disturbing, especially the one with the woman who had dark hair like mine and Shadows coming from her hands. I would carry the sight of her begging for her life with me to the grave. He held it up between Asheroth and myself.
This time, in the bright light of my forbearer’s shrine, I made the connection I’d been too shocked to see in Dr. Christian’s class.
The picture Ethan held showed a Nephilim walking through a burning village. Bodies lay on the ground, while other figures ran. The Nephilim held a weapon, a blade of some kind. It was dark with blood, a stark contrast to his apparent purity. His wings were a bright, glowing, soaring Light. The artist had painted them nearly right, with light luminous brush strokes instead of the customary feathers. His beautiful pale face was framed by hair so dark it looked black as he went about his mission of destruction.
Asheroth.
Asheroth was the angel in that picture.
As surely as if we shared synapses as well as blood, he dragged his ageless eyes to mine, and I saw one word written there:
Yes.
I felt very faint and very dizzy. A strange rushing sound, like the sea but constant, filled my ears. A heartbeat, mine, drowned everything out as I surged to my feet.
“You killed them,” I heard myself say. I felt very light at the same time that I knew Ethan was bearing almost all my weight. “You were there and you killed them. You were of the Light then, and it didn’t matter.”
Asheroth said nothing. He merely stared at me. He looked at the packet of papers, and back at me. Finally, he nodded. “That was a very long time ago.” It was all the acknowledgement I needed. “I had forgotten.” His voice was soft and wondering, like a child discovering a lost puzzle piece and seeing, at last, the labored whole.
“How. Could. You.” My voice sounded flat, too dead to be angry, even to me.
“I was there,” Asheroth agreed. “And because I was there, because I fought in the Great War against the Nephilim gifted, I know what is to come. I know what to expect. And I know how to protect you.” This last, he said with blazing eyes. Then he closed them, as if wearied beyond belief. “I had almost forgotten,” he said in a whisper. “Almost,” he said again, this time to Ethan. “I thank you for the reminder.”
Ethan didn’t move from my back, but he did answer Asheroth. “Why? Why thank me?”
“For the reminder that not all who serve the Light serve Justice,” he said at last, as I fought to get my breathing under control. I heard the rustling of paper, the snapping of pages. “Just as not all those who are Fallen need surrender to our lowest natures. There are few things I regret doing in the name of the Light, but this was one.” He sounded choked. “Oh yes. This was one.”
Pages of pictures, light as feathers, bridged the space between us. I reached for them with trembling fingers and proceeded to tear them apart. Stone hands I remembered well ran along my cheekbone, angel-quick. But they were cold where Ethan’s had been warm, and I made an inchoate sound of strangled rage while I batted his hand away.
“Don’t touch her,” Ethan warned. I heard flesh strike stone and knew it must have hurt him. It always hurt a human to strike a Nephilim, even accidentally, and I knew Ethan hadn’t done it accidentally. Yet he hadn’t, wouldn’t, cry out. Asheroth said nothing.
Instead, he prowled around, slowly, until he stood facing me, waiting for me to turn my attention solely to him. Asheroth liked that, being the center of attention. My attention. How did I know the shape of his movements? Because we shared blood, however faint, and Ethan and I no longer did? With Ethan’s soothing hand on my neck, I remembered the last time the mad Dark Nephilim and I had met in this place. I shuddered.
“No.” The word echoed, loud and sure. “Madness I can deal with. Murder? Not so much.” I swept up a handful of my shredded homework assignment and threw it straight into Asheroth’s face. “Come on, Ethan.” I turned to go. “I don’t care how safe it is here. We’ll find somewhere else.”
We were almost away when his aristocratic drawl snared me again.
“Shadow stealers. That’s what they called your kind during the first war against heaven.”
“Really.” I spoke through clenched teeth. My voice came out flat and cold.
“Mmm. Because you could steal the Shadows, you see.”
“No kidding.” Mad Dark Nephilim either didn’t get sarcasm, or didn’t care. Asheroth droned on.
“Some few of you could do it with Light. A very few, with both. That’s why you were dangerous.” He almost sang this last word, emphasizing each separate syllable while he appeared suddenly right in front of my face. I stumbled backwards. “We Nephilim only use the Realms for travel. We cannot bend the Realms that shelter us into weapons. So when some few of our human descendants could, at first we thought it a mere curiosity. Since they had only a part of our blood, perhaps this enabled them to touch, to use, the Realms in pieces. There was talk, there was conjecture. And while we talked, while we thought, some very ambitious ones, some Rebellious ones, realized these descendents could do things we could not. They could use the Realms against us. And so the first army of Shadow stealers was formed.”
“Until you had them all killed,” I hissed before I could stop myself.
“No,” he said at last, his diamond eyes gone very distant and cold. He stepped back, almost all the way back, into the dark. “That came later, much later. After all the damage was done.”
“What damage?” I asked, although I didn’t want to.
“It was terrible,” he said quietly. The room seemed to hold its b
reath. “Many of the Nephilim descendants didn’t want to fight. They were forced to, either by direct threats, or because Rebel angels held loved ones hostage. And we,” he dropped his head. “Many of us had to fight our own descendants. In between, the destruction was terrible. In the end, it took the Flood.”
I was silent, digesting this. Ethan’s strong arm warded off the sudden chill in the air. “How am I here, then? How can I do what I do?”
He stared at me, and he looked like nothing so much as he did a fiercely rabid creature. “Why don’t you ask your Ethan? E’than’i’el was one of the worst of us all.”
***
Asheroth’s words deepened and slowed until he sounded as if he spoke through a long, dark tunnel. It was so strange. He stood only a few feet away, but he seemed to be receding, every part of him, until my world narrowed to a tunnel of nonsense sounds and mixed-up colors. I felt as if the entire world had morphed into a wheel of funhouse mirrors. The only thing anchoring this insane world together was one sentence, repeated again and again:
“E’than’i’el was the worst of us all.”
I wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it.
Because if I did, part of me would die.
It was dark all around me. When had it gotten dark? And then I realized it was just that my world had turned into a horrible lightless place. I backed away from Asheroth, one foot behind the other, towards the enveloping velvet dark. I crept away, dimly aware of my fist in my mouth, jammed there to stifle any screams. I tasted blood.
Ethan. The worst of them all.
The past is not a nation of one.
No. I wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. Those two sentences became my mantra. I would repeat them, over and over, until Asheroth’s terrible lie was erased from my mind.
