by Jenn Stark
“She’s so much more than my niece.” Lester’s face grew fierce. “She is destined to lead her people against our enemies. To fight the ultimate battle. And we, in turn, must protect those warriors,” he said, waving to the screens which were skimming metropolitan centers. “We are their guardians who never sleep—their guides who are constantly seeking more of their brethren.” At these words, his tone dipped into outrage. “The human populace is growing, but the numbers of these special souls are ever decreasing,” he said. “It has grown more difficult to find them, not less so, with the passage of time.”
Finn nodded, at last realizing what it was that he had come here for. What it was that the rogue Fallen wanted. What Michael the Archangel wanted as well. A list, yes. But a list of people. People who weren’t Connected, apparently, but who were—better, somehow. Stronger, faster, able to heal more quickly, able to lead.
But so what? There were plenty of Connecteds roaming the earth already, and many of them had impressive skills all their own. What made this list so important?
He nudged Lester along. “So you’ve gathered their names for me, for—”
“For you and for God,” Lester said. “Your children will be ready.”
Finn stopped, glanced back at him. Children? “Ah…they will?”
“Oh yes. The children of the first angels of the Lord to walk the earth, the lost that we have found,” he said, totally missing how Finn’s eyes popped wide.
“Children,” he managed to respond, barely able to keep his voice steady as agony streaked through his skull, hammering at his brain. There was something here, something important, but he could barely draw breath to speak. “Of…angels.”
Lester nodded, clearly relishing his role as teacher. He leaned toward the console, completely missing how Finn gripped the handles of his chair, struggling not to pass out from the pain that assaulted him from every side. “From the very beginning, thousands of years ago, there were some of your progeny who were more…special. More blessed than their peers. Though all the offspring of the Nephilim were strong, in each generation, there were one or two children blessed more fully with the gifts of his or her angelic forebears. They were stronger, taller, more sensitive, more discerning. Properly cared for, they became the geniuses or great athletes or fearsome warriors of their time. We—the Society of Orion—always knew your children walked among us. But humanity lost its way.” Lester reached out to pull a gold-leafed book toward him. It wasn’t a Bible after all, but an illuminated history text. “They were so special, you see. And in the darkest age of our world, special was not to be borne. But there were those of us who believed, who helped when no one else would help, even when our beliefs should have destroyed us. See?”
He opened up the history text to a violently illuminated scene. The Sack of Rome, where the brightly clad Swiss Guard were overwhelmed by mercenaries. In the background, clearly distinguishable, was a man surrounded by a soft golden light, helping a veiled woman and a flock of children escape into a dark passage. Finn’s throat closed at the engraved image, but before he could focus, Lester was shifting pages, thumbing backward in time through scores of illuminated panels. He pointed next to a picture of Joan of Arc, painted again with the mysterious glow that separated her from all who surrounded her. And then a picture of King Arthur’s court, where some of the assembly were surrounded with gold halos, while others were not. The king himself was notably absent from the painting, but Lester didn’t rest upon that scene. He quickly fanned through page after page of illuminated history.
“What is this book?” Finn asked, his mind frozen on the page representing the 1527 massacre at the Holy See. The shock of what he was seeing finally pierced his own thundering pain. There’d been so much death that day in Rome. So much desecration.
And Bartholomew had seen it. Bartholomew, who was now hunting for Lester and his list.
“Our history,” Lester said. “When the Society of Orion was founded in 1223, we commissioned painters and historians immediately. There was already so much we had lost,” Lester’s fingers moved reverently along the heavy page, tracing the outside edge of its picture. “But we vowed to create a visual library to showcase the best that humanity had to offer.”
He offered Finn a weary smile. “Orion was founded so that God might see our service to the children of his angels and forgive us when the final judgment came. Or, should he not be stirred from his wrath, that we might have our own protectors for the end times. Leader to leader, man to man, we have kept our pledge to protect the most sacred information of all.” He reached under his collar and brought out a key on a long, well-worn chain. The artifact that had been protecting Lester from having his thoughts read, Finn realized in a flash.
“I was tapped to lead Orion at age thirty-five.” He chuckled softly, gazing at the key. “The youngest leader ever, even since its founding at the dawn of the Inquisition. Before Orion came into being, the list had been kept by a small network of individuals unconnected but for their common knowledge of the children, unknown to their enemies.”
He shook his head, then tucked the key away once more. “We have watched and we have prepared, and we have guarded the list, the location of each of these special souls in each new generation carefully preserved so that the Dawn Children could protect us from God’s wrath. For what father would destroy the children of his own angels? And here you have come,” he said, gazing again at Finn. “And we will give this list to you, in time, with all their identities, all their locations. So that together, we might save the world.”
Finn shut his eyes against another flare of pain at the phrase “Dawn Children.” But he couldn’t focus on his own reactions anymore. He didn’t know why Michael wanted this list, exactly, but he had a good idea of why Bartholomew did. Dana had stood firm against her demon and Possessed attackers, not only with Finn, but when she was protecting Lester. She’d taken down those demons too. Something no human should be able to do. Dana—and those like her—apparently could fight in a war against the demon horde. And if Bartholomew was intending to lead that horde into battle, the descendants of the Fallen were the only humans who could stop him. For all that they had no idea what they were.
Bartholomew wasn’t looking for the list to exalt these children. He was looking for a murder map. And Dana was at its center.
“Those men you set upon me,” Finn said stonily. “Not all of them were…”
“Dawn Children? No.” Lester’s face flushed. “Only Timothy Rourke. You remember him, I think.”
Finn nodded. “The boy with the bright aura.”
“One of our greatest achievements, besides Dana. A Dawn Child nurtured since birth to excel in the trade of warfare, trained on every type of urban assault weapon we could procure. Timothy is part of my private security detail, the most aggressive use of a Dawn Child the council had ever sanctioned after I’d positioned Dana to serve as my official security advisor. But with the boy…we could go further. Do more.”
Finn didn’t love the sound of that, but he kept his expression steady. “More how?”
“He learned so fast! Followed complex orders, thought strategically, and he always wanted to push the envelope. To attack, to drive, to kill, if I asked it of him.” He swung his gaze to Finn. “Your army will be well trained. You’ll see. God will see.”
Finn could read the rest in the man’s eyes. At the bidding of their keepers, the Dawn Children would be tasked with making Holy War. And Lester would be their leader.
“And how did you track down these, um, children, exactly?”
Lester leaned forward eagerly. “Bloodlines.” He pulled another book forward, this one equally old, and covered in a rich, dark leather that had aged to the sheen of fine wine. Opening it, he pushed it toward Finn, watching him eagerly as Finn scanned the lists of names, lines of genealogy arcing out, page after page. Some stopped, abruptly, others continued, and others were annotated as false starts. The names spanned countri
es, continents. Centuries. “We knew they existed, of course. They were gods and goddesses to the ancients. And we’ve never stopped searching for them.” He paused, watching Finn closely as he quoted from Genesis. “‘The Nephilim walked the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the champions of old, men of renown,’” he said, then offered a quiet smile. “All we had to do was look for the heroes.”
“And you found them.”
Lester nodded. “There was so much death, at the beginning in particular. I shudder to think how many Dawn Children were killed before anyone even began keeping a census, and we will never know the full scope of our loss.” His eyes drifted up toward Finn’s, unable to hide his own censure. “They had so little chance of survival, despite their gifts,” he whispered. “You had to be aware that humans were woefully unprepared for the grace of heaven’s touch.”
Finn grimaced. There was no way he could respond to that. “Yet you protected them—and the list.”
“We have kept it safe for centuries. First on scrolls, then parchment, then paper.” He gestured at the room surrounding them, bristling with machinery. “Now we have even better means of preserving it.” He paused. “Even as it grows shorter, despite our best efforts to preserve the lines.”
“How many are left?”
“Fifteen hundred,” Lester said. “Fifteen hundred Children to save the world.”
“You’re in touch with all these families?”
Lester waved a weary hand. “It was never as easy as that, I’m afraid. We live in an enlightened age, where beliefs in the supernatural, of man’s connection with the Spirit, are better accepted. But over the millennia, the knowledge that you—and your child—and your mother or father, or, when we are blessed, both—were descended from actual angels was not always an easy passage. We tracked the Children without their knowledge. For many years, that was enough. We helped to arrange marriages, matching them to other Children to ensure the purity of the line. Those whose lines were the most direct were taken without their knowledge from their own parents and fostered with members of our organization to ensure they grew up under the careful watch of Orion. They were kept healthy, directed, and ready to serve.”
“You kidnapped them,” Finn said as Lester cued the screens again.
“The end times are drawing near,” the old man said firmly, and the screens filled again with images of the population centers of the world, followed by vast vistas of oceans, prairies, deserts. Then again, the stone monoliths of Stonehenge, the pyramid of Giza, the Mayan ball courts. “There have been many false hopes, but they are coming all the same.”
Explosions filled the screens, illustrations of Armageddon, shattering stars, meteor showers, the great rivers and oceans of the world overflowing their banks as the world heated up. Maps were redrawn as cities submerged and ice caps melted. In different parts of the world, other landmasses formed, new territories for humans to conquer. Finn stared, transfixed.
Lester practically quivered with excitement. “These images represent the sum total of every Armageddon myth or speculation known to man. And visions beyond extraordinary, culled from the greatest minds on the planet.” He chuckled. “Unsurprisingly, many of those visionaries are Dawn Children themselves, and they are completely unaware of it. It is incredible what we can see, what we can predict, what we know—or suspect.” Lester shook his head. “‘You do not know the date nor the hour,’ it was claimed, and yet, we know both, somehow. Or, I should say, we know many, many possibilities. Some grim, some glorious. But as I said, all of them are coming.”
“Yes,” Finn said, his tone low, serious.
Lester turned quickly, beaming at him. “How long I have waited for those words, that confirmation,” he said. “And the timing—well, there are many possibilities there as well. When the long-burning fuse of humanity finally reaches its end, our fifteen hundred Children stand to defend us from God’s wrath. They are His own, after all. Protected, preserved, and made ready again for His love. And if He is unmoved, then they will be humanity’s greatest warriors in the battles to come.”
Finn glanced back to see Lester’s eyes shining with conviction. “So how is it you came here?”
“To this workaday Midwestern city, far away from everything?” Lester asked with a grin. He leaned forward conspiratorially. “For the exact reason you ask. No one would look for the saviors of the world in Cleveland, Ohio. We have learned well the lessons of our forerunners. We are not proud. We draw no attention to ourselves. We hide, we wait, and we prepare.” He exhaled with genuine pleasure. “And at last, you are here. I will share that information with my fellow society leaders and, with their blessing, give you your list.”
Finn scowled. “I need the list now, Lester.”
“And you shall get it,” Lester assured him. “But we must be careful, always vigilant. We must protect the Children. First, there will be a short list I can provide you, then the full list before the clock strikes midnight. I know! I know the importance of the day. But the day is come, and you are here. We are ready at last. Everything is perfect.”
“Yes, perfect,” Finn said grimly, then he drew in a long breath. “In the meantime, tell me—show me everything.”
Chapter Thirteen
Exeter Global Services
Cleveland, Ohio
9:15 a.m., Dec. 24
Dana’s mouth felt like she’d eaten her own gym clothes and chased them down with a stiff shot of last season’s running shoes. Her head throbbed, her body was stiff and unnaturally cool, and she could tell her heart rate was a few beats shy of full working order. Still, she was extraordinarily happy to be alive.
Much easier to kill her uncle that way.
She lay there a moment more without opening her eyes, in case Lester’s cameras were trained on her. She was almost certain she was still in the Exeter gallery. It smelled the same, anyway, and the couch she was lying on was covered in identical soft, buttery upholstery. The room was dead silent, however—not the kind of silence that hinted at people watching you, waiting for you to twitch…but the silence of being ignored. Abandoned. Like you weren’t worth watching in the first place.
Screw. That.
Slowly, carefully, Dana slitted open one eye. A quick sweep of the room indicated that Finn and Lester were no longer in it, but she didn’t know where they’d gone or how long ago they’d left. The gallery’s state-of-the-art directional lamps were blazing, but the light streaming through the tall windows indicated that it was well past sunrise. She flicked a glance to her watch. Almost 9:30 a.m. Aces. She’d been out for over four hours.
She tested her muscles, stretching out her body bit by bit. Everything seemed intact, and she felt remarkably good. Completely refreshed, actually. So, fine. She’d needed the rest.
Lester still had no right to drug her.
A sound from the middle of the room riveted her attention on the large painting of the Madonna, two baby boys, and a gentle-looking angel, seated in an idyllic rock-strewn setting. She scanned the picture for a moment, then her eyes shifted to the blinking keypad next to it. That particular security panel was keyed to a room-specific system and had been installed by Lester’s private team after he’d brought more of his treasures together for safekeeping. Long used to her uncle’s predilections for layers upon layers of security, Dana had never given the panel a second thought after Lester had explained its presence. But as she stared at it now, it shifted from red to green, and the painting swung open, clearly some sort of door.
Dana clamped her eyes shut right after Lester’s polished ox-blood cordovans stepped into the room. She could convince her uncle that she was asleep, no question. But if Finn remained with him, she probably was in trouble. The man seemed to know every time her blood pressure changed.
“She’ll be waking soon,” Finn said, and Dana felt the telltale kick to her pulse. He knew she was awake, and
he was letting her know he knew it. Dammit. She wanted them to keep talking. “How much of this information does she know?” he went on, and her heart did a slow flip. Finn was continuing the conversation for her benefit, and she had no idea why. Maybe he didn’t appreciate Lester drugging her either.
“She knows nothing,” Lester replied, his words low and dismissive. “And it’ll stay that way. She tends to take threats to me very…personally.” His tone softened at the end, and Dana could almost picture him smiling, that kind, gentle expression that had drawn so much business his way throughout the world. Bastard. “She can’t interfere with my work at this point.”
Breathing was such a strange thing, Dana thought, her mind racing to understand Lester’s words. You paid no attention to it at all ninety-nine percent of the time. But the one time you needed to disappear into your own breath, it seemed to ring in your ears, scrape in your lungs, announce with a loud and rolling exhale that you were there.
“You must know that you have enemies, Mr. Morrow,” Finn said. “What if they reach her after I leave?”
Enemies? Breathe in, breathe out. Finn had told her that Lester would be safe. What other enemies could her uncle have? Besides her, anyway?
Max’s text messages came back to Dana in a rush. The security breach, Max’s suspicions that someone at Exeter had been moving files. Lester’s comments about his work and concerns over interference. Silently, Dana tried to redraw a picture of her uncle to fit with this new information, but her mind summarily rejected the effort. Something here was very, very wrong.
“Dana proved her skills to me eight weeks ago,” Lester continued, pride surfacing in his voice. “She can take care of herself should the need become great. She is one of the purest Children.”
Thanks, pal, Dana thought, schooling her features into placid slumber. But Lester was speaking again.
