by Greg Curtis
“He probably still has enough money left in his secret hidey holes that if he wanted to he could change names once more, grow a beard and live out his days as Joe Nobody in suburbia anywhere in the world. But he doesn't want that. He wants the lifestyle, the mansions, the girls, the casinos, the billionaire life in the sun. So he keeps having to steal more.”
“And unfortunately for him, the world has become a more secure place. It's harder these days to make counterfeit money that looks the part or passes the detectors. Harder to pull off a robbery. Harder to maintain an alias. Harder to stash lots of money in overseas bank accounts.”
“So for a while he’s been looking for an edge. And then one day along comes Katarinka Nelos.”
“How he found her I don't know. But he does know about your people – just as he knows about mine. Our guess is that he keeps an ear to the ground, listening for rumours of another nephilim appearing with skills he can use. The how though doesn't matter. What does matter is that he did. The girl is a godsend as far as he's concerned. He wants her back at all costs. And he doesn't want anyone to know about her or what she can do. Not when he's probably got big plans for her. She's his ticket back to the life of the super rich.”
“That's where you came in. You knew about her. You're an FBI agent with an expertise in tracking down fugitives. He knows she might have let slip something about his plans for her. And you took her from him – he's got to be pissed about that. Whether he realises you're a nephilim or not I don't know. But he knows you're a danger to his plans. So you had to be dealt to.
Likewise the Treasury agents. They knew about the girl's connection to him, therefore they also had to go. So he put together a clever little plan to get rid of you all. Playing you all like puppets, pulling at the strings and getting you to do what he wanted. As a result he now has three Treasury agents hanging in the wind, no longer any threat to him, their department tied up in knots, while you're wounded and also out of the picture even if you weren't killed as he'd no doubt hoped. Meanwhile, he's still somewhere behind the scenes, working on his next plan. Getting the girl back I expect. It seems at this point like it’s all going very well for him.”
She painted an interesting picture he thought, and it all made sense in a twisted sort of way. It explained so much that hadn't made sense before. But the woman hadn't given him a single piece of evidence for what she was saying, and he hated not having some facts to hang a story on. Especially when what she was telling him sounded like a fairy tale.
On the other hand she did seem truthful, both as a person and in what she was saying. He was usually good at spotting that. Of course he did have the ability to compel her to tell the truth. But using it came with a cost. It would reveal what he was, or at least confirm it to her. Plus she would resent him for it. It was better to simply ask the questions in the usual way and then ask in his own unique way later if he needed to.
“And how would one ageing thief do that?”
“He's not just one ageing thief. He's an organisation. Benedict has moles and stooges throughout any number of agencies. He probably has some even in your own bureau. Remember, he's a former spook whose been doing this for decades. He will have paid informants, people he can blackmail, corrupt agents and a few politicians in his pocket as well. He will have forged himself whatever credentials he needs to give himself access to every database he needs. Why do you think he never gets caught?”
“The fact is that he knows every move the FBI and Justice make against him even before they do. The chances are that he even directs them one way or another. Laying false trails specifically for them to follow. Helping them find the clues he wants them to find and making certain they're blind to the rest.”
“Those three agents are being completely honest when they say they thought they were working on official Treasury business. Even now we know Treasury is desperately trying to paint a picture of them as bungling incompetents because they need to hide how badly they were compromised. But the reality is that even within their own buildings, over their own phones and using their own systems and resources a completely fake task force was created using their own agents. Budgets were arranged, resources assigned and papers were issued. The agents were even issued with hand cannon and trained in urban tactical assaults all through their department's offices.”
“And those agents were also taught to fear you. Make no mistake, when they came to arrest you, they really did think their lives were in jeopardy. They'd been living in terror of you for weeks by then.”
Terrified of him? That made no sense, even given what she'd said, and yet he believed her. It also fitted well with what Cassie had said – even though she'd mentioned nothing of the rest. Suddenly another thought occurred to him.
“All right Agent Dylan, let's pretend that everything you've just said is true -.”
“- Ooh I love it when we pretend that!” She did everything except bat her eyelids at him.
Garrick ignored the sarcasm as he struggled on. “There's still one thing you haven't explained. I know why Benedict is my problem and Katarinka's problem. But why is he yours?”
“Because of our mandate.” She sighed a little as she said it, and then made herself a little more comfortable on the seat, as she put her thoughts in order.
“You guys have two rules, given to you by the Choir. You can't use your abilities to cause harm and you can't tell anyone about yourselves. Funnily enough we have the same two rules – from the other side of course. We can't let you use your abilities to cause harm and we make sure no one knows about you.”
“And funnily enough we were also given those same two rules by the Choir.”
“By the Choir?”
That last caught Garrick by surprise. The first part he could almost understand. Governments would have a vested interest in hiding the nephilims' existence from the people. If people knew about them it would cause chaos, and then there would be all the religious uproar to deal with. But that the Choir were involved? That seemed unlikely. But even as he shook his head she nodded.
“The Choir don't really talk to normals,” Garrick began uncomfortably. Of course, it wasn't quite true. They spoke to them all the time. Whispering in their ears about doing the right thing. Arranging little coincidences and events to persuade people that their cause was right. That was how they operated. Doing things subtly. But people were mostly blind to them. And when something funny happened that might hint at the right choice they mostly ignored it or put it down to coincidence.
Mostly, it seemed to him, the Choir's words were wasted. But still, the angels said it was what had to be. People had to have free will. For good or ill, right or wrong, they had to be able to choose. At least on the big things. All the Choir could do was make sure that they had that choice. So they whispered and they hinted. They arranged things so that none could say they hadn't known that what they were doing was wrong or that it would come with a price. His people of course weren't so lucky. They might have free will but they weren't allowed to use it. Not in those matters.
“Who said we were normal?” Suddenly the smile was back as if she knew she knew something that he didn't and she was enjoying the sense of power it gave her.
“Then you're -.”
“No. We're not nephilim. But we’re not quite normal either.”
“You guys are the nephilim. We aren't. We're the descendants of nephilim and other people. The abilities our nephilim forefathers had have been lost over the generations. So we are to all intents normal like everyone else. But with one exception:”
“We can see the Choir.”
“Lucky you!”
If she could be sarcastic he figured, so could he. Plus it didn't seem like an advantage to him. Still, what she said made sense. The genetics worked out.
Among the nephilim there were two groups. There were the firsts like him. Nephilim whose fathers were of the Choir. And then there were the descendants, nephilim whose parents were nephilim. In fact probably eighty
percent of nephilim living in Olmstead were descendants. But because nephilim were people, and people tended to wander off and fall in love with others not of their own group, there were more distant descendants as well. Those whose blood was maybe only a quarter angelic. And generally it seemed that among those who had one nephilim parent and one normal, there was about a fifty fifty chance of them having an ability – the one thing that separated a nephilim from a normal. Of course the odds got worse the more diluted the blood became.
What generally happened in time was that those children – to all intents normals – moved away and made new lives for themselves, while those of their ancestors who were nephilim became distant memories and family tales. Great Aunt Agatha who could call the animals to her or Great Uncle Bertrand who could speak any language. There were many, many families who had stories of distant ancestors with amazing gifts, none of which were ever taken seriously. Green thumbs, healing hands, the all seeing eye – they were nothing more than bedtime stories for the children.
But that these distant relations could see the Choir? That he hadn't realised. If they were normals then he wouldn't have thought they could. And they seemed normal in all other ways. His thoughts though stopped at that point as his visitor started talking again and he knew it was important that he listened for the moment instead of asking foolish questions.
“Maybe we are a little lucky. But you miss the point. Normal people can't see them. Not unless the Choir specifically want to be seen – which almost never happens. So the angels go about their business, whispering secretly into peoples' ears, telling them right from wrong and hoping that a few of them listen. We though, we see them when they do that. And some of us go and talk to them.”
Garrick's immediate impulse was to ask her why, but he contained it. He didn't think she'd take it well. Cassie certainly wouldn't if she found out and he was somehow sure she would be listening. The last thing he needed was to have a frozen tongue because he'd said something unflattering about the Choir. Better he figured to listen for the moment.
“Our founder was the first we know of that did that. Or at least who did it regularly. And that's where his philosophy came from. Not just the pithy saying. He wrote a number of books about it. His philosophy developed from observing angels and how they went about their lives.”
“The Choir got a little bit upset with him about that. Not the philosophy itself – they welcome that being made known though of course they can't make it known themselves. Just the rest of it, the stuff about how and where he'd gained his insights, which couldn't be made known. Knowledge like that overcomes the need for faith and people must have faith. So they made a deal with him.”
Deal? That seemed unlikely to Garrick. The Choir didn't make deals. They simply told you what to do. Or at least they did with the nephilim. There was no negotiation involved. As a nephilim you did as you were told and you obeyed or you were disciplined. As a normal you were never instructed at all, but might receive some whispered guidance and a few hints. There was no dealing anywhere.
“They had to. We're normal for the most part. That means they have to respect our free will. Even though we can see and talk to them, which somewhat robs us of the need for blind faith.”
She was right he realised. The angels' game was all about respecting free will. But only because they wanted people to freely choose faith and to make the right choices by themselves. But what could they do when people had knowledge that overcame the need for faith? That told them instantly what the right thing to do was? Knowledge that was inherent in them and unable to be denied? That was the very thing they were trying to prevent from happening. In the case of the nephilim the answer was obvious. They gave them rules and expected absolute obedience. In her case he guessed that wouldn't hold. But he wasn't sure what did.
“Our patron's writings were supposedly lost, hundreds of works destroyed as far as the world knew. They had to be because they revealed the existence of the Choir. But in reality we still have them. We would never lose his writings, or those of so many others who've gained wisdom from speaking with the Choir. He was a clever man by the way – I can get you a copy if you like. Because you're nephilim you're allowed to read them. And because we also know we can read them. But no one else can. Diogenes could never tell anyone else how he'd learned what he'd learned. He was allowed to pass on only a little of what he had been told. But he wasn't denied the knowledge. In fact he was allowed to keep learning and pass a little of what he learned on to others. The Choir liked that arrangement.”
“And that arrangement has continued for thousands of years. Those of us who follow Diogenes’ example still speak with the Choir. We learn a few things from them. We reveal some of what we can without revealing how we know it. We save the rest in our hidden libraries and repositories in the hope that one day it will be able to be revealed. And we help keep the secret.”
“Now Benedict knows about us. Not everything but enough. Too much. He's been spying on us for years. And unfortunately he's been surprisingly successful. He's intercepted emails, stolen documents, broken into files and little by little started finding his way into our business. Somehow he's got around our security. He cracks passwords with shocking ease. He seems to be able to bug our meeting places even before we've decided where to meet. He has broken into some of our most secure facilities and stolen a lot of stuff. And we have no idea how he does half the stuff he does.”
“He knows about your people as well, through what he's stolen from us. And for a few years now he's been trying to get us to contact a few nephilim and let him use their gifts for his own ends. He’s even threatened to expose us if we don't. We've refused of course, and from time to time ended up fighting ongoing skirmishes with him.”
“Mostly he releases little bits of information, enough to embarrass us and make life difficult for a few of our people. But no more than that because he knows we are the only ones who have the information he needs. Likewise we've been making life difficult for him. We may seem like a bunch of museum curators to you but we still have some resources as well that we can use against him. After all, we spend a lot of time and effort covering up the mistakes some of your people make. You can't do that without gaining some skills. And Benedict doesn't want a war. If he tells all, he gets nothing. Nothing except a major headache.”
“Until recently that's been the extent of it. He'd done little except spy on us and try to hunt you down through our channels. We've been hiding the information from him, though apparently not that successfully. Unfortunately he's been getting good at cracking our databases.”
“As time has passed though he's become more desperate. Taking on more and riskier capers to make the millions he needs to live on and feed his ego. Often in countries he wouldn't feel safe in. He's getting older and his enemies are growing in both numbers and strength. His bank accounts keep getting hit. So he needs gold and a refuge. An enormous amount of gold and a refuge that he can buy so well it could never give him up. He's been searching for a key to help him get that for a long time. So when he found Katarinka he must have thought he was in heaven. When she was taken away from him it must have been like being thrown into the pit of hell. He was very angry and he was only too willing to show it.”
“He blamed us of course and acted accordingly. He released a few carefully selected pieces of information. As a result three of our offices had to be shut down and fifteen agents moved and given new names. And of course he took out some of his anger on you. The only reason he stopped was because he learnt that it was the Choir who took Katarinka from him and not us. Even he's not willing to cross them. Not directly anyway. For the same reason he won't reveal whatever he knows of the various libraries and repositories either. Not yet.”
“Now he knows that he doesn't have to fear the Choir's reaction if he did reveal the information he has since they would never operate out of vengeance or cause him harm. But he does fear your people's reaction. If he did reveal it the nephilim would be ca
ught up in this entire mess. What’s more, your people do have powers and there are tens of thousands of you. He's not going to risk crossing the nephilim until he's absolutely certain he's safe from your retaliation.”
“Except that we can't retaliate. The Choir would never allow it,” Garrick responded.
“He doesn't believe that. He's neither nephilim nor Diogenes, and the thought of being prevented from retaliating is beyond him. Especially against whatever he has planned. Besides, if you know anything from the Old Testament it's that the nephilim were considered very bad news. Warriors, giants and generally dangerous people. The entire world had to be destroyed in a flood to remove them from the lands. He does not want to tackle that.”
Maybe she was right. Until he'd been instructed by Cassie as a child he would never have believed it either. That he and those like him had gifts and they could never use them against others. Not even when lives were on the line. The rules were simply too strictly enforced. And as for the Old Testament stuff, he could never understand it. The nephilim weren't monsters, and their gifts were very limited. The truth was simply so different. But still.
