by Susan Illene
The three of them sat at a table near the window and dug into their meals. The food was as good as promised, to Bartol’s relief. All around him, he overheard nerou speaking in several languages. The primary dialects he heard were Russian and Chinese Mandarin, but there were others as well. In addition to that, they all knew English, but since they would have to serve in various areas throughout Russia and Asia, they needed to learn the language for where they’d be living and working. Bartol was impressed with how quickly they had already adapted their lingual skills since they couldn’t have started studying any earlier than February. It must have been a special quality of their kind, considering he’d found Tormod to be a fast learner as well.
He glanced over at the demon hybrid, noting he was deep in conversation with a nerou sitting next to him. Of course, he would know most people here after living with them in Purgatory his whole life. There were only about two hundred of their kind in existence, give or take a few.
“How’s the training here, Zane?” Tormod asked.
The blond male shrugged. “They’re tough on us, and we don’t get much free time, but it’s not too bad. Better than mining in tunnels all day long or listening to angels preach about piousness and purity so we wouldn’t do anything forbidden.”
“Do you have a place to watch movies and hang out?”
“Movies?” Zane frowned. “We’ve watched a few in classes to help us on our language skills, but that’s it.”
Tormod looked at him in shock. “Seriously? How are you supposed to learn about the world if you aren’t exposed to it?”
“We’ve started going in small groups for field trips—just to Kirov so far.”
Bartol pushed his tray away, having finished everything on his plate, and leaned toward the two males. “How do you feel about Zoe as an instructor?”
Zane stared at the burn scars on his face for a moment, swallowed hard, and eventually met his gaze. “She’s got her favorites. I’m not one of them, so I don’t see her that much.”
“What do the other instructors think of her?” Bartol asked.
He chose to ignore the way the nerou looked at him, finding it easier than he’d expected. It bothered him, of course, but he had more important matters to worry about. He supposed it did say something that just a few months ago he wouldn’t have handled the situation nearly as well. Cori had been steadily changing him, even when she wasn’t around. He might have his doubts about her on some things, but he felt certain his appearance didn’t bother her in the least. Her complete acceptance of his burns had been the first step in his realizing they didn’t matter as much as he’d once believed. Perhaps one day, he’d stop caring at all what others thought of his now melted and mottled skin.
“They think she’s lazy,” Zane replied, now staring at the good side of Bartol’s face. “She does just enough to keep the archangel off her back, but that’s it.”
This didn’t surprise him in the least. “Do you consider her cruel or unfair in any way?”
Bartol wanted to find out all he could about Zoe and what the people here thought of her. It was always good to have as much information as possible before dealing with a cunning opponent. After the things she’d done, and what she’d revealed to her daughter the day before, he didn’t trust her motivations at all.
“She’s not mean, but most of us here don’t like her,” Zane replied.
“Why not?”
“She looks at us like we’re less than her.”
Zoe looked at almost everyone that way. “Does she ever leave the facility alone?”
“Sometimes.” The blond male guzzled down some of his apple juice. “But she always comes back with deserts for us, so no one complains.”
“How often?”
He set the glass down. “Usually just on her days off—about once a week.”
Bartol hated to grill the kid, but time was running out before their meeting with Zoe. “What do the other nephilim think of her?”
“She’s sleeping with the lead instructor.” Zane snorted. “The others can’t stand her.”
“Have you ever heard of them speculating about her and things she does?”
The nerou knitted his brows. “What do you mean?”
Bartol amended his question. “Have you heard about any demonic activity?”
“Oh.” Zane’s blue eyes lit up. “Everyone knows about that. A couple of us picked up on it when it started a few months ago, but no one listened to us at first.”
Caius leaned close, joining the conversation. “Tell us everything you know.”
***
They only had ten minutes to talk before Tormod warned them Zoe was coming close to the dining facility. His senses were apparently a little broader than the other male nerou’s because it took a few moments longer for Zane to pick her up. By the time she and Rebecca entered, their group had already put away their trays and stood waiting near the door for the women.
“Where did you two go for breakfast?” Tormod asked, arms crossed as he looked at them.
Zoe scowled. “None of your business, little abomination.”
“Mother!” Rebecca gave her an outraged look, then turned apologetically to Tormod. “We went to Kirov. They have a nice café there that makes the best pastries.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t suppose you brought any back for us?”
“Of course, I did. I heard how terrible the food is here.” She lifted a paper bag Bartol hadn’t noticed in her right hand. Now that he was paying attention, he could smell the freshly baked goods inside. It had been a long time since he’d eaten Russian pastries.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have time for it now and would have to see about acquiring his own some other time.
“Perhaps you could share your food with Tormod while the rest of us go talk,” he suggested
“Oh, sure.” She glanced at her mom. “We’ll be in my room when you’re done.”
Rebecca’s expression was lighter than last night, less tense and defensive. Bartol could only guess that things had gone reasonably well with her mother since he last saw her, especially if she appeared to look forward to seeing Zoe again.
“We shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours,” the female nephilim replied, then looked down her nose at Tormod. “Don’t try anything with my daughter. She is far too good for the likes of you.”
“You know I’m in love with Derrick,” Rebecca said, rolling her eyes, then took the male nerou’s arm and stormed off.
Bartol shook his head at Zoe. “You are your own worst enemy.”
“Says the man who has spent more time in Purgatory than any other nephilim in history.”
He refused to respond to that comment or show that it bothered him.
“Why don’t you lead us to your office?” Caius suggested.
“Of course.”
They followed Zoe toward the only well-built structure in the compound, directly in the middle of the grounds. It was large with dozens of windows and constructed of smooth, peach stone, standing two stories tall. Though it must have been new, it appeared somewhat aged in appearance and fit well with other Russian architecture Bartol had seen from previous visits to the country.
They entered the building and followed a brightly lit corridor toward the stairs. Zoe’s office was the first one to the right after they reached the second floor. It was professional yet feminine with pastel colors for the walls and furniture, other than her desk, which had a white marble top. No doubt she’d spent her own money furnishing this room.
“Please, have a seat.” She gestured at the wooden chairs across from her desk while taking a seat in the larger and more comfortable one behind it. “I hope you both rested well last night.”
Now she wanted to play hostess?
“The guest quarters here leave a little to be desired,” Bartol said.
“Not all of us have archangels bowing at our feet.”
He gave her a flat look. “What are you implying?”
She gave a delicate shrug. “I heard how remorseful they feel about punishing you too heavily. Now they will even let you make your mate immortal. Even that sensor, Melena, and Lucas had to pay a high price for the same privilege.”
“I would gladly have paid their price rather than a century in Purgatory with Kerbasi.”
Zoe glanced at the scarred side of his face and shuddered. “I suppose you have a point, but I’m still surprised they actually pretend to care.”
“How do you know any of this?” he asked. She hadn’t been in Alaska when Remiel admitted the mistake he and his brethren had made with Bartol, and the only minion of hers that was present already lay in ashes before the archangel arrived.
“It isn’t a spy, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said, studying her nails.
“And I’m supposed to believe that?”
She gave him a cryptic smile. “You should be friendlier with the nerou. It is amazing what abilities some of them have.”
Bartol dug his fingers into the arms of his chair. If she knew about events from that one day, what else had she discovered? There could be a whole host of things she might have learned on a personal or even intimate level. And who knew how the nerou was getting his or her information. Maybe they could project visions of things happening in real time or the past. As he’d discovered with the few nerou he’d met, there seemed to be no limit to the abilities the hybrids might have.
“Why don’t we discuss the demon problem?” Caius asked, changing the subject.
Zoe turned her gaze toward him. “Where would you like me to start?”
“Why don’t you tell us exactly how you discovered the demon and the Gregorian stones?” Caius suggested. “You wouldn’t give me a full answer before.”
“Several months ago, one of the nerou told me of a terrible dream he had.” She turned her gaze to stare out the window. Sheer curtains covered it, but with the bright sunlight it wasn’t too difficult to see out—all the way to the Kama River. “His dreams tend to be real events taking place near the same time, never off by more than a day or two, so I took it seriously.”
Bartol pushed aside his annoyance with the woman. They were finally getting somewhere with the demon, and he wouldn’t miss the opportunity to find out as much as he could. “What was the dream?”
“It was about a strange man in the Ural Mountains east of here. The nerou said he had a stooped back and used a cane to get around. He didn’t appear to be much of a threat at first, but there was a terrible sense of doom about him, and once his face became visible, he revealed evil red eyes. Then the nerou watched as the man dug up a crop of unusual stones. When he described them to me, I had a strong suspicion I knew what they were, but I couldn’t be certain.”
“So you went to see for yourself,” Bartol surmised.
“It wasn’t quite that easy.” Zoe turned her golden gaze toward him. “My source couldn’t give me the exact location, and if not for a training exercise we did out there not long before that, he might not have gotten me close at all. I had to spend quite a lot of my free time over the next month or so going out searching. All I had were a few landmarks to rely upon.”
Caius rubbed his chin. “But you found the spot eventually.”
She nodded. “Yes, and with a little digging I was able to find a few stones the man missed.”
“Other than the red eyes, which we all know could have been a distortion from the vision, how did you know you were dealing with a demon?” Bartol asked. He still found it odd that she was the only one to pick up on the signs and act on them that quickly. It just seemed too convenient.
She gave a careless shrug. “At first, I couldn’t confirm it, but I knew what those stones had to be from old stories I’d heard. And who else would have known where they were hidden thousands of years later except a demon?”
Bartol supposed he could see the logic in that, and a calculating mind like Zoe’s would have put the pieces of the puzzle together quickly. “But how did you know what kind of threat the demon posed? That it was powerful enough that you had to drag us out here to hunt it down?”
Some of the lesser denizens of Hell chose to live on Earth quietly enough no one noticed them. It was rare they could stay more than a few months before someone sent them back—usually a sensor—but it happened enough that they occasionally even left half-breed offspring behind. Most of the supernatural world ignored demons as long as they didn’t cause trouble.
“During that same period,” Zoe began, giving him an annoyed look because he’d dared to question her reasoning. “My source had more dreams and then not long after I found the stones, another of my students came forward who is able to sense when massive deaths will happen in the near future. He has abilities somewhat like a banshee.”
Banshees died off centuries ago, but it was interesting that this was another talent emerging with the nerou. Bartol began to wonder what other things he hadn’t heard about because he’d been too wrapped up in his own shell to care. Lucas and Tormod had both tried discussing the subject with him, but he’d rarely listened. To him, nothing had mattered except wanting to be left alone. He’d just been getting by one day at a time, uncaring of the rest of the world.
Bartol cocked his head. “How do you know this nerou’s talents are accurate?”
“Since his arrival, he has predicted deaths in plane crashes, storms, and terrorist events. Once we showed the students how to use the internet, he began tracking his prophecies to prove they were real. Of course, he doesn’t always recognize what he’s seeing since many modern inventions are still foreign to him, so we don’t always figure out the cause until too late—if at all.”
“How far in advance does he see deaths?” Caius asked.
“Anywhere from a few days to a couple of months, depending on the scale. The worse it is and the more deaths that are involved, the greater the notice we get. What concerned him this time was the demon brought about a flu outbreak in a small town in Eastern Europe. A dozen people died.”
Bartol frowned. “Why would he do that?”
She gave Bartol a condescending look. “You don’t have much experience with demons, do you?”
He exchanged a look with Caius. There were things in his past—dark things—that few knew about aside from the male nephilim next to him. If Zoe hadn’t discovered the other side of Bartol through her spying, he wouldn’t tell her. His experience with demons was simply different than hers. Killing something was one thing; knowing what made it tick was another.
“I’m not ignorant of them,” he said carefully, “but I’ve never studied them that closely.”
She sighed. “Whoever this is, it is a very old demon. Some foolish human must have given him entrance to their body, but it takes time to build strength. He’s vulnerable in the early weeks and months, but with each kill he makes he will grow stronger. The only thing slowing him down is the types of sacrificial murders he uses to build magic. It draws attention to his activities, and there is a period where he is drained of power before he resurfaces even stronger. He has to space them out since he is at his most vulnerable directly afterward.”
Bartol mulled it over for a moment, pulling the pieces together. “The Gregorian stones are his security against being stopped.”
“Yes.”
“But what is his ultimate goal?”
She let out a delicate snort. “My guess? Chaos and a chance to take over Earth.”
“But that can’t be possible,” Caius said, leaning forward in his seat. “The angels would never allow it, and he has to know that.”
“With the stones, anything is possible,” Zoe argued. “And if he is as old and established within the demon hierarchy as I suspect, there is no limit to the amount of power he could generate. But even if he’s stopped, he must think the trouble is worth it for a chance to create havoc on Earth, and it’s not as if he’ll die. He’s probably too strong, so the angels will just send him back as they did with Stolas.”
&nb
sp; Bartol ground his teeth at her mention of the demon she’d had her minions summon a few years ago. He was surprised she cared at all what this one did, even if she did have her reasons for the last one. “How many more kills has this demon made?”
“There is no way to be certain, though we suspect he murdered a few on his way out of Russia and into neighboring countries. They just weren’t enough deaths to draw any clear visions from my nerou sources. We have confirmed the last sighting was a couple of weeks ago in Bucharest. It was a slaughter where the demon convinced a group of thirty humans to kill themselves.” She shuddered. “They did not die swiftly.”
“Because you were there and saw it.”
Zoe stiffened. “How do you know that?”
She’d thought she had the nerou in this compound under her control, but not all of them. “We have our sources as well.”
“I don’t know how…” she stuttered. For once, he’d caught her off guard.
“Why didn’t you try to stop the demon?” Bartol pressed.
She jerked her chin up. “I went there to observe, but I couldn’t have done anything even if I wanted to since he had the stones. For nearly an hour, I was unable to move and had to watch as the humans killed each other. The demon knew I was there, but he thought it was amusing to make me observe his handiwork. Only after he left was I able to flash away.”
Zoe was probably a favorite in Hell, considering all the terror she’d caused.
“And yet you asked for my help, knowing I’ll be up against the same difficulty,” Bartol said with a growl.
It was enough to make him want to run a sword through her chest. Luckily for Zoe, he’d worked hard over the centuries to master his temper and keep it under control. He slipped a little sometimes, but never in a way that could truly hurt anyone. It was one of the main reasons he hadn’t gone after Kerbasi since returning to Earth, aside from the fact he’d never give the guardian the satisfaction. One punch was all he’d allowed himself.
