by L. A. Banks
“No, I’m sorry,” said Edina. “But don’t worry. There’s only one person who could cast a spell powerful enough to mask his identity for that long.”
“Embeth!” Sarai said.
“Right,” said her mother. “Your father and I will pay her a visit. In the meantime, you need to arm yourself and go to…” She gave Sarai the exact address of the house where Daniel and Maya were being held captive.
Edina had caught Sarai just as she was entering the parking garage where she’d earlier parked her bike. Now, instead of taking the bike, she took Daniel’s late model SUV. Her favorite sword was stowed in the back.
Her first impulse, as she started the ignition, was to call her partner for backup. However, this was Nephilim business and she’d never confided in Jim. She was on her own.
When she arrived on the street where the house sat, she drove around the block and parked on the street behind it. As she approached the house from the back, her acute hearing picked up the sound of a television, and two people talking. She concentrated and was able to block out the sound of the television and leave the two voices in the foreground.
“Gin!” cried a female.
“Aw, damn, what are you, a card shark?” asked a male.
The female laughed delightedly. “Only with you. You’re lousy at cards.”
“I concentrate my energies in other areas,” said the male with a lascivious note to his voice.
“Get real,” said the female. “If I didn’t have the hots for Nighthawk, I wouldn’t even be here. This is stupid. Why’re we keeping them here? We should have killed them days ago. I ain’t going down for kidnapping.”
Outside, Sarai listened long enough to determine that Nighthawk had left only two of his goons to guard Daniel and Maya.
It was broad daylight. The neighborhood was teeming with people. Since it was the day after Thanksgiving, many people were off from work. Children were out of school, and they filled the streets on bikes, skateboards, and nearly thirty of them were playing ball in the vacant lot across the street.
She would have to move quickly and efficiently. She needed to go through the door on the first try. Constant battering of the door would draw attention to this house, and she didn’t need the police to be summoned.
She was wearing her motorcycle boots, a pair of jeans that gave her freedom of movement, a T-shirt and her leather jacket. The key was the boots. They were heavy and well-made. They would protect her feet and ankles.
She got a good running start and threw herself at the door, feet first, putting all of her weight and prodigious strength behind it. The door vertically split in half.
The man and the woman sprang up from the table, picking up guns that had been lying on the tabletop within easy reach. Sarai kept moving.
She leaped onto the man and butted his head with hers. His forehead split and blood spilled into his eyes as her weight propelled both of them to the tile floor.
The back of his head connected with the floor and he ceased moving. Knocked out cold.
Human? Sarai thought. He left humans to guard my husband?
She was outraged. Then she thought how logical it was to have humans guarding humans. If, somehow, they were found out, and the police raided the house, Nighthawk didn’t want any of the Sons of the Morning Star to be interrogated. Smart.
The woman, frightened beyond belief, held the gun on Sarai with shaky hands.
Sarai looked like a wild woman. Her long, black hair was in disarray. She had the man’s blood on her forehead, and her teeth were bared in a fierce snarl. “Do you know who I am?” she asked the woman.
“You’re her,” the woman said nervously. “The wife.”
Sarai nodded, satisfied. “That’s right, I’m the pissed off wife. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll put that gun on the table and get the hell out of here.”
The woman slowly lowered the gun, put it in the middle of the table, and ran through the splintered door. “Nighthawk can kiss my ass. I ain’t dyin’ for him!”
“Wise girl,” Sarai called after her. The modest ranch house was only about 1500 square feet. It didn’t take Sarai long to locate Daniel and Maya in a back bedroom. They were bound to separate twin beds.
They were fully dressed, and their eyes were covered with wide, black blindfolds.
Daniel called out, “Who’s there?” when he heard her enter the room.
Sarai threw the light switch then ran to his side. “It’s me, baby!” She removed the blindfold.
Daniel squinted in the bright light of the fixture overhead. Sarai threw her arms around him and kissed his face repeatedly.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” he said, his eyes moist with relief. Then, his expression changed to horror. “Sarai, check on Maya. I haven’t heard her say anything for a couple of hours!”
Sarai quickly ripped apart the twine they’d used to tie Daniel’s wrists to the headboard, and freed him. Then she hurried over to Maya who was lying perfectly still. She hadn’t said a word since Sarai had shown up.
Sarai felt for a pulse. It was faint, but it was there.
She removed Maya’s blindfold and peeled an eyelid back to look at her eye. It was dilated. Her skin felt cold and clammy. “She’s passed out,” she told Daniel.
“Oh, my God, she has a heart condition,” Daniel said. He was busy removing the twine from around his ankles.
Sarai cradled Maya in her arms. “Can you walk?” she asked Daniel.
He stood on weak legs. “Yeah, they let us go to the bathroom a couple times a day. My legs are okay, just a little rubbery.”
“Good, then you can walk to the car. I’ve got to get you two to a hospital.”
Daniel slowly followed her through the house. When they got to the guy’s prostrate body in the kitchen, he joked, “Was it something he said?”
“No,” Sarai told him. “He just didn’t get out of my way fast enough. I’ll come back and take care of him after I know you’re safe.”
“We’d better get our stories straight before we get to the hospital,” Daniel said. “I’m guessing telling them we were kidnapped by Nephilim won’t go over well.”
“You were kidnapped, but you didn’t see their faces. I backtracked from the moment you and Maya got off the plane and found you at an abandoned house in Englewood.
“You suspect it was political. Maybe they were going to photograph you and Maya in a compromising position. Anything to ruin you politically.”
“I’m sure they’ll believe that,” Daniel said. “Everybody wants to believe the worst about politicians.”
Sarai gently placed Maya on the backseat, then she removed the strap from across her chest, unclasping the sword in its sheath that had been strapped to her back the whole time, and stowed it on the floor in the back. She hadn’t known whether she was walking into a nest of Nephilim or not. When her mother had told her to arm herself, she’d made sure she had her automatic and her sword.
At the hospital, Maya was placed in the capable hands of a heart specialist while Daniel was examined and told he was sound. Although he had some contusions on his head and face, they were healing and he didn’t have a concussion.
He and Sarai were then left alone in the examination room. They held each other.
On the way to the hospital Sarai had phoned her parents, then she’d told Daniel that Nighthawk was behind his kidnapping. But she didn’t know why he’d done it.
She had not mentioned the worst part, she hadn’t told him the fact that she had been so deceived by him that she’d slept with him. It was ironic, really. Serena had nearly accused Daniel of cheating on her, when she had been the one cheating on Daniel. There was nothing left to do but to confess her sins to Daniel.
He was sitting on the examination table, and she was standing between his legs. He held her securely in his strong arms. Looking deeply into his eyes, she said, “I know I could claim to have been under a powerful spell, and that’s the reason I did what I did
when you were gone. But I’ve never been one to run from responsibility. I slept with him, Daniel.”
Tears appeared in Daniel’s eyes. In all the years they’d been together, she had never seen him cry. Of course, she had never hurt him as badly as her confession must have done before, either. Her eyes welled up in response to his pain.
“I’m sorry, Daniel.”
He held her tighter. “He violated you!” he said against her neck. “You don’t need to apologize for anything. You’re only guilty of loving me.”
He raised her chin with a finger and peered into her eyes. “I love you. I wish I could kill him for what he did, but a human is no match for a Nephilim.”
“I love you,” Sarai told him passionately. “I’d planned a special dinner for us the night you were supposed to return. I had something important to tell you. I never did find the right moment to say it while you were gone. Now, I know why. But here goes—we’re going to have a baby.”
Fresh tears came to Daniel’s eyes as he rained kisses on her face and throat. They didn’t have time for further celebration because the doctor whom they’d left Maya with came into the room at that moment. He was smiling. “Mr. and Mrs. Wingate, Miss Stephenson came to a few minutes ago. She’s going to be fine.”
Sarai burst into tears of relief.
Maya, as far as she was concerned, had nearly died because of her. She was such a sweet kid, only twenty-six, and so damned optimistic about life.
They thanked the doctor, after which he quietly left the room.
Daniel shook Sarai, trying to break her crying jag. “Listen to me, you can’t afford to fall apart now. You’ve got a child to protect. What do you think Nighthawk is going to do when he finds out his plans have been foiled and instead of getting you pregnant, as was undoubtedly his goal, you’re pregnant with my child?”
Daniel was back, Daniel with a steel trap of a mind. While she had been wracking her brain trying to figure out why Nighthawk would go to such lengths to pretend to be Daniel, Daniel had come to the logical conclusion.
“He wanted a child with me?” she asked incredulously, sniffling still.
She couldn’t imagine why.
Several miles away, her parents were getting the whole story from the sorceress who had dreamed up the spell that had made Nighthawk’s scheme possible.
Edina and Andrew had arrived at Embeth’s crypt thinking that they were going to have to break in.
However, Embeth cordially greeted them at the door and asked them inside. She was not cloaking her true appearance. “What are a few wrinkles between old friends?” she joked as she led them down the stone steps to the main room of the large underground crypt.
In the center of the candlelit room sat a huge guillotine. She stood next to the monstrosity, her demeanor friendly if a little cocky. “I see you got my message,” she said, looking at Edina.
“You mean you sent the vision?”
Embeth smiled slyly. “Of course I sent it. How else was I going to get you here? I told Nighthawk that with Sarai he would have a powerful Son of the Morning Star. To achieve this goal, he had to bed her. In order to bed her, I had to put a holding spell on him. Nephilim can shape-shift but not for more than a few hours at a time. I also had to make sure he smelled like Daniel. If he could get her pregnant he was certain she’d leave Daniel for him since you Grigori insist on birth parents raising their offspring.”
“The Sons of the Morning Star obviously don’t share that belief,” Edina boldly said.
Embeth laughed. “You know, then?”
“That Nighthawk is your son?” Edina said. “Yes. I’ve known for years now. I found out when he and Sarai had a thing for each other, and his father insisted he stop seeing her.”
“Lucifer is a jealous god. He couldn’t bear the thought that he might one day have a grandson who was half-Grigori. It’s not as if he doesn’t have offspring that are half jackal or any number of other mutations. But, half-Grigori was not to be tolerated!”
Edina wisely knew that intellectual sparring with Embeth was a losing proposition.
The sorceress had her by at least two hundred years. “What do you want from us?”
“In order to break the spell, I have to die,” Embeth stated.
“Isn’t the spell already broken?” Andrew asked. “Sarai told us only minutes ago that she knows it was Nighthawk who was posing as Daniel.”
“You don’t understand,” Embeth said. “When Nighthawk finds out she is with child, he will kill her and the child. If he can’t have her, no one shall. That’s another thing he got from his father. The need to completely possess another being. They will fight, and unless the spell is broken, it will seem to Sarai that she is fighting her beloved, Daniel.
“That puts her at a distinct psychological disadvantage, don’t you think?” Her confident smile told them that she knew she’d made her point.
“Kill her, Andrew,” Edina said with resignation.
“I didn’t bring my sword,” Andrew said. “Did you?”
“I didn’t think I’d need it,” Edina replied.
Embeth shook her head in disgust. “You young ones never learn.” She walked over and calmly positioned her tiny body in the embrace of the guillotine. She had even placed a basket in the proper spot to insure herself some dignity in death.
“If one of you would be so kind?” she said. “I bought the damned thing but could never figure out a way to release the blade without someone’s assistance.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Edina said, and stepped forward and released the blade.
Embeth didn’t have time to say “thank you” before her head fell into the waiting basket. The mouth was turned up at the corners in a grotesque smile.
The moment Embeth’s head fell into the basket, Nighthawk was sent a grisly mental image of the deed. He knew the woman who had given birth to him was dead.
He’d never loved her, though, so he felt no grief. He might have felt more emotion if his butler had kicked the bucket. Embeth’s passing meant only one thing to him: the spell was broken.
So he wasn’t surprised when Sarai phoned him a few minutes later with, “Millennium Park, at Pritzker Pavilion, 2:00 a.m. Be there!”
That’s all she had to say.
The word spread swiftly among the Nephilim, both Grigori and Sons of the Morning Star. There was going to be a sword-fight to settle a dispute with charges of rape, kidnapping and attempted murder on the table.
The combatants were from opposite camps. The male was the issue of Lucifer and a powerful sorceress. The female was the issue of the greatest swordsman of the Grigori and a talented seer.
The bout would take place at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, a band shell with seating for up to 4000, plus enough room to accommodate 7000 more if they didn’t mind sitting on the lawn. Wings only. No motor vehicles were allowed. Thousands of cars coming down Michigan Avenue, East Randolph Street, Columbus Drive and East Monroe Drive at 2 a.m. might awaken slumbering humans and alert them that something significant was going on, to say nothing of the police!
A sorcerer would provide an invisible shield around the entire assemblage at the stroke of 2 a.m., thereby masking the sounds of swords clashing and voices cheering and jeering. Anyone who arrived late would be prevented from entering by the same force field.
In the spare bedroom of her parents’ apartment, Sarai and Daniel lay on the bed fully dressed, looking into each other’s eyes. It was less than an hour before the duel and Daniel, who had been barred from attending because he was human, didn’t want her to go.
“You all don’t have a Nephilim prison, or something?” he asked against hope. “Yes, he deserves to die for what he did to you, but do you have to be the one to fight him?
“He’s bigger than you and he’s older than you, therefore he’s probably more experienced at this sort of thing. He’s probably pissed somebody off before.”
Sarai smiled at him with her love for him shining in her eyes. “I wi
sh I could tell you, yes, there is another form of justice among Nephilim. But there isn’t. Our form of justice is simple and straightforward. The two who have a gripe against each other do the fighting.”
Daniel still wouldn’t give up. “Then, you can publicly announce that you forgive him for what he did.”
“Forgive Nighthawk? He’d be humiliated. Believe me, if I tried that he’d toss my offer back in my face. He’s too proud for that. He wants to fight. Right now he’s so embarrassed to have been caught in the deception that the only way for him to gain any sense of honor among Nephilim, now, is to kill me in front of them.”
Daniel pulled her into his arms and held her tightly. “I can’t bear the thought of losing you and our child.”
“You’re not going to lose us,” Sarai tried to reassure him. She gently kissed his mouth. Daniel leaned in and the kiss grew in intensity. It was as if both of them felt this might be the last time they got the chance to express their love for each other.
Finally, they drew apart. “Remember not to fight angry,” Daniel said softly. “Don’t let him distract you by trying to get you mad.”
There was a knock on the door and they both sat up.
“Come in!” Sarai called.
Her mother entered. “Sarai, your escorts are here.”
The judging council, who determined whether a grievance was worth fighting over or not, provided each combatant with two escorts who flew with them to the appointed fight venue.
Sarai and Daniel followed Edina down the hall to the living room where two male Nephilim, both the size of Chicago Bears linebackers, stood with Andrew discussing, of all things, football. After a closer look, Sarai realized that they did indeed play for the Bears.
Daniel recognized them too, and admired their prowess on the field, but he had no inclination to go over and play the fan tonight. His wife was getting ready to go into battle. Something he should be doing. He was the man, after all, the protector of his woman. He felt utterly helpless.
Sarai turned to him after the two escorts walked out onto the terrace with her parents in preparation for taking off.
