I pressed my lips together in hard line, taking her warning very seriously. Before I could make a decision, Jared spoke.
“I'm only going to ask you one more time, Cynthia. What do you know about Jack's reasons for taking the book?”
Cynthia chuckled. “Empty threats rarely compel me to comply.”
Jared leaned against the door. “I have all night, Cynthia. How important is this fundraiser to you?”
“Very well, then,” Cynthia said. She shifted her weight, clearly irritated. “Your father never wanted children. I wasn’t exactly…maternal…so I never questioned him. But when you came along, Nina, it changed him. He seemed to watch you as if he were waiting for something. I asked him, once, why he stared at you that way. His expression was both disgust and shame, but he didn't answer. He simply walked away.”
Her words cut so deeply that I felt physical pain in my chest, as if a thousand needles were boring their way to the center.
Jared took my hand. “Jack adored Nina. He died trying to save her life.”
Cynthia laughed without humor. “You misunderstand. The first time Jack held Nina in his arms, nothing else mattered. There was nothing more precious in his eyes,” she paused. “But he was afraid.”
I struggled to swallow the lump that had developed in my throat. “Of what?”
“You, I suppose,” Cynthia shrugged. Her eyes switched to Jared, then, resentful and accusing. “When your father recognized that you were in love with Nina, he shared a story with Jack. It was a story within the last passages of the book you're so desperate to acquire. About a human woman giving birth to a son of God, and that child would disturb The Balance.”
My face twisted. “You mean the story of the virgin Mary and Jesus? What could that possibly have to do with me and Jared?”
Cynthia sighed. “No, Dear. Sons of God are angels. Hell believes a human woman will give birth to an angel; a powerful angel that will threaten their power here.”
Jared frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why Nina, then? Human women have been giving birth to Half-breeds for centuries. And even if Nina and I had a child, the baby would have just a quarter of divine blood in its veins. Nothing for Hell to be concerned about.”
“A human woman gave birth to Jesus Christ, Jared,” Cynthia retorted.
“He was human,” I said.
Cynthia raised an eyebrow. “A mortal man who performs miracles and rises from the dead? That’s some human…now if you'll excuse me….”
Jared didn't budge, still unsatisfied. “Gabe and Jack believed Nina to be the woman in the prophecy, and they stole the book to try to figure out a way to stop it?”
“They stole it twice,” Cynthia corrected. “First, from a family…the Pollocks. They had spent lifetimes protecting it. Shax and his men alerted the Pollocks somehow, and your fathers were detected. While they and the Pollock men were distracted with one another, Shax absconded with his book. It was several months before Gabe located the book again and was able to successfully retrieve it. That’s when it all began.”
“Mother,” I said, impatient. “When what began?”
Her eyes widened a bit, and she raised her hands, her fingers flared. “This, Nina! This! When protecting you and your father became difficult for the Ryel’s, when dark things began surrounding our home on a daily basis…his death. Honestly, Nina! What else could I mean?” she said, exasperated.
“Okay. Okay, I'm sorry,” I said to calm her.
She relaxed, and then smoothed her expression. “Now, if you don’t mind, I really must be going,” she said, brushing past Jared.
Jared’s features tightened, instantly metamorphosing to anger. “I’m trying to save Nina’s life, and you’re worried about being on time for a party?”
Cynthia looked back at me with a sad expression. “It’s a mother’s duty to protect her child. But sometimes, we must let them save themselves.”
Her words stung me. Our relationship was never what one may call close, but when the occasion called for it, she extended some emotion. She had never been cruel or unkind, but at that moment, I felt like an orphan.
My mother walked to the waiting car quickly, disappearing when Robert closed the door behind her.
Jared pulled me into his arms, and I let my cheek burn against his chest.
“I can’t imagine how you must feel right now,” Jared whispered against the top of my hair. “But I want you to remember two things: Cynthia feels helpless, and that’s not a feeling she deals well with, and I want to remind you that I love you, and that love is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. If she makes you feel unworthy or unwanted in any way…know that every breath you take is precious to me.”
I nodded, unable to thank him for the words I didn’t even know myself that I needed to hear.
We walked to the large staircase, and I slumped to the first step. “I don’t want to…I can’t think about her anymore.”
Jared nodded once. “So let’s think about what she said.”
A small laugh escaped my throat. “That I’m the woman in Hell’s prophecy? I’ve been told several things in the last twenty-four hours that are, quite frankly, ridiculous, and Cynthia’s story gets the prize.”
Jared didn’t smile. “What if it’s true? It’s not like Cynthia is the most creative person on the planet. Why would she lie?”
I craned my neck, looking at him in disbelief. “Jared? I can’t believe you’re falling for her nonsense! My father never wanted children? That’s absurd! Jack was the best father anyone could ever hope for. You’ve said it yourself…he worshiped me.”
“Cynthia didn’t say he didn’t like children. I took it as he hoped to prevent something. We need to do a little digging in your ancestry.”
I rolled my eyes. “Wild goose chase. You’re wasting time even discussing this.”
“What do you know about your family?” he asked.
“What do you know about your family?” I retorted.
Jared’s brows moved in. “I have an uncle in South Dakota. My grandparents are gone, you know that.”
“So are mine. My parents were only children, Jared. I have no family to speak of.”
“So we start with the grandparents on Jack’s side,” he said, standing. “Where does Cynthia keep stuff like that?”
“Stuff like what?”
“Family albums, newspaper cut outs…a family tree?”
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” I shrugged.
Jared sighed. “Jack has a coat of arms in his office. You can’t tell me family wasn’t important to him.”
I cupped my chin in my hand and thought for a moment. Cynthia’s words replayed in my head. Kim’s story and Cynthia’s were now meshed together— intertwined because of the prophecy, and the book it came from. Somehow life was even less normal than when a demon stood in my apartment. I felt like a freak.
“My father’s office…” I trailed off.
“You thought of something?” Jared said, pulling me to my feet.
My eyes widened. “Last year, when I was in Jack’s office for the Port of Providence file, one of his cabinets were locked. I never found the keys to it. When I found the file I was looking for, I sort of forgot about it.”
Jared pulled me to my feet, quickly climbing the stairs. I tugged on the drawers of the row of file cabinets until I found one that wouldn’t budge. “That’s it,” I said. “The keys in the desk don’t work. I’ve tried them.”
Jared looked around the room, and then casually yanked the drawer. It made a loud popping noise, but it opened easily enough — for Jared.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” I grinned.
Jared fingered through each of the papers. “You start with the bottom drawer. We’ll meet in the middle.”
I sat on my knees, pulling open my designated drawer. Old pictures, bank accounts overseas, but nothing about family. The familiar frustration from the last time I had spent rummaging through his office for clues cloud
ed my brain.
Jared powered through three drawers before I finished one, but when he reached the fourth, he stopped. He held a paper in front of his face, and then looked beyond it to the adjacent wall.
“What is it?” I asked. Before he could answer, I noted that it was drawing of a coat of arms, similar to the one hanging from the wall.
“Does the Franks mean anything to you, Nina?” he asked.
I shook my head, pushing myself to my feet. “No. Should it?”
“You’re Irish, aren’t you?”
“Yeah? So?” Some days I had patience for his step-by-step approach of getting to the truth. This was not one of those days.
“It’s a common misconception. Surely Jack wouldn’t display something that didn’t specifically belong to him.”
“You lost me,” I said, hoping he would get to the point.
“Coats Of Arms were designed to designate a knight whose face would’ve been covered during battle. They are inherited from father to son, so it wouldn’t make sense to have a ‘Grey’ coat of arms for an entire family or last name. Jack wasn’t the type to buy into that nonsense, so this must be the original, passed down.”
“Okay.”
Jared scanned the drawing. “This is similar, but it’s not the same. And it’s unlike any crest or coat of arms I’ve ever seen.”
Jared handed the paper to me, and I recoiled at the misshapen beast. It had the body of a large cat, perhaps a panther or leopard, and large paws, I guessed to be the paws of a bear. Seven heads ascended from its body, with horns, and crowns sitting atop those horns. It was grotesque.
“This is our family’s coat of arms? Sick,” I said, handing the drawing back to Jared. “No wonder Jack changed it. He couldn’t hang something that monstrous on the wall.”
“This is very similar to the creature in Revelations,” Jared said, staring at the twisted black lines on the paper. The heads, the horns, the crowns….”
“What creature?” I said, wary.
Jared made a face, and then pored over the other files in the drawer. He stopped for a moment, and then leaned in closer to the document he had paused on. His shoulders slumped. “Agh…no,” he whispered, his head falling forward.
“What is it?” I said, afraid of what he might say.
He nervously rubbed the back of his neck, pulling the paper from the drawer. He looked once more, and then shut his eyes tight.
I fidgeted. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
His eyes slowly opened, and the twin storms of his irises sent panic throughout my body. He glanced at the coat of arms on the wall. “I promise you, Nina. You don’t want to know.”
“I think I have to know at this point,” I said, pulling the paper from his hand.
Jared shook his head. “I can still figure out how to save you without you knowing everything. We’ve talked about that before. Trust me when I say that you don’t want to know this.”
I lowered my eyes to the paper. It was a list of names, similar to a family tree, but it only followed one line. My name was at the bottom. Higher on the list, names like Dagobert the third, and Clovis the first. The name at the top, Merovius, had two fathers: King Clodian; the other name caused my legs to disappear, and I dropped the paper to the floor.
Jared supported my weight. “Sweetheart?” he said, pulling my chin up so that he could see into my eyes. He lifted me into his arms and carried me to Jack’s desk chair, kneeling before me.
“What…what does that mean? What the hell is a Beast of the Sea?” I wailed.
Jared shook his head. “It’s just a story, Nina, nothing more.”
“Tell me,” I whispered.
Jared’s jaws fluttered. “I don’t want to.”
“What am I?”
A small smile touched Jared’s mouth. “You’re human. You just have some pretty potent blood running through your veins.”
“I need to know,” I said, touching his cheek with my fingertips.
Jared seemed just as horrified as I was. In the beginning, he had tortured himself over bringing me into his world, stealing away my mundane life forever. Now it was I that regretted involving him in my life — we were both spiraling into a nightmare that didn't seem to end.
Jared sighed. “Merovingians. You’re a Merovingian, Nina. A very long time ago, your family ruled with divine power, under the belief that they are direct descendants of Jesus Christ.”
“Jesus didn’t have children,” I scoffed.
“They myth is that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, and their children are the ancestors of the Merovingian blood line. It’s known in less human circles that the story was perpetuated to keep the Merovingians in power. There are people even today that believe it.”
“So you’re saying it’s not true? That's a relief. I'm at least somewhat less of a freak.”
Jared looked away, cautiously choosing his next words. “Have you heard of the Nephilim, Nina?”
I shook my head, dreading where his story would go.
“Okay,” he said, “Have you heard of the story of David and Goliath?”
“Yeah,” I sniffed, “The skinny kid that threw a rock at a giant’s head and killed him.”
“Goliath was not one of a kind. He had family, people…Antediluvian Giants. Some called them Anakim, other refer to them as Nephilim. They had many tribes, and their remains have been found, measuring anywhere from nine and a half feet to fourteen feet. Some have two full rows of teeth. They were different; not completely human. The Holy Bible acknowledges their origin in Genesis: ‘That the sons of God saw the daughters of men were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also after, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children unto them.’”
“Sons of God? Like the ones Cynthia was talking about?” I asked.
“Yes. Angels.”
“Do you know the whole Bible by heart?” I asked, attempting to detour the frightening thought swirling in my mind.
“Most of it,” he said, a corner of his mouth slightly turning up. It vanished as quickly as it appeared. “God wiped out the Nephilim with the great flood because their blood was contaminated. He needed a direct line from Adam to Abraham, because that is the blood line that was prophesied to bring the Messiah. Noah was his way to decontaminate the blood line, and assure the prophecy would come about.”
“My brain hurts,” I complained, rubbing my head.
Jared kissed my hair, wrapping his arms around me. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?” he whispered softly. “Jack didn’t want children because he knew he carried Nephilim blood, and the Merovingians are part of the prophecy in the Naissance de Demoniac. He knew when I fell in love with you, that you and I would meet all of the requirements.”
“What requirements?” My voice was muffled from pushing my face into his chest.
“A prophecy requires certain elements to come together in order to come to fruition, Nina. A descendant of the Nephilim procreating with a Hybrid…it’s the perfect storm. Remember when Eli told us that only seven other human/hybrid cases had happened since the dawn of time? How many of those humans do you think were Merovingian? Jack knew you were the woman in the book because he knew what he was…and what I was. Once he knew I was in love with you, he made the decision to steal Shax’s book to try to find a way to protect you.”
“From what?” I cringed. I kept asking questions I didn’t want the answers to.
He lifted my chin to face him. “That’s why we need the book. I need to find out what interest they might have in a child we might have. I don’t know if they want it to happen, or they will fight to prevent it. It depends on what that scenario means for Hell.”
“Wait…,” I said, my mind finally focusing enough to form coherent thoughts, “you said the Nephilim were wiped out in the big flood. So how can I be related to them?”
Jared raised his eyebrows once, sighing. “That was a tactic
used to keep Jesus’ blood line pure. That doesn’t mean fallen angels taking human women didn’t happen after that.”
“Oh,” I said, deflated. “I’m five-feet-four, Jared. How is it even possible I could have even an ounce of giant blood in me?”
Jared chuckled. “You’re Irish, too. Makes me wonder how you’re Merovingian. They were leaders of the Franks…early German and French.”
“Well, now I know Jack was wrong. I couldn’t be French. The language is lost on me.”
Jared’s face turned grave. “We should take this seriously, Nina. We’re in the middle of a war. If I could leave you, that would be one thing, but I can’t.”
My mouth flew open. “Why would you even say that?”
“Because it's the right thing to do…disappear from your life to keep you safe. As long as we're together, you're in danger.”
“I won't let you,” I said, grabbing his shirt, The thought of being without him terrified me. “If I can't be with you, I don't care what happens to me.”
Jared grabbed my hands. “I know. That's why I won't leave you. And now that we know what you are, we need to find out who it’s a threat to. And as frightening as it is…threatening Hell is the better option.”
Chapter Eight
Valediction
An unexpected knock on the door revealed Bex standing on the landing, holding a half-eaten apple. A backpack hung from his shoulder, signaling that he would be staying the night.
“You called him, didn’t you?” I accused Jared, crossing my arms.
Jared slipped on his jacket, preparing to leave. “You’ve had a long forty-eight hours. You need sleep.” He hugged me then, squeezing a bit too tight.
Bex shifted his weight nervously, holding the door open with one hand, holding his apple with the other.
“C’mon, Nina. You’re going to give me a complex,” Bex said. “I brought doves to put in the oven.” A sweet, hopeful smile lit his face, and I relaxed.
“Okay,” I said with a half-grin.
Jared patted Bex's arm as he passed, but just as he stepped out onto the landing, I grabbed his jacket. “Wait. What if it’s different? What if he needs to tell me something?”
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