Inception (The Marked Book 1)

by Bianca Scardoni

  It sounded like a dig.

  “The Kingdom, like most regions at that time was under constant attack by the Roman Empire. For a while, they had managed to stave off defeat, but with Dacia’s diminished numbers and dwindling resources, they knew it would only be a matter of time before they would be conquered. Unwilling to surrender, King Decebalus ultimately took matters into his own hands, forever altering the course of humanity.”

  He paused and looked out the window, collecting his bearings. “What do you know of Nephilim?”

  I shrugged. “Never heard of him.”

  “Not him, them,” he corrected. “The Nephilim were said to be the offspring of humans and fallen Angels. Angels who rebelled against God and whose unsanctioned union with humans resulted in the creation of new bloodlines; beings that were neither Angel, nor human, but rather something in the middle.”

  “What do you mean something in the middle? Like a hybrid?”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” he nodded. “Descendants who still carry that Nephilim blood today are known as Anakim—a rare people born with the strength of Angels and the Spirit of man. Earthly beings with otherworldly powers, if you will.”

  “O-kaaay,” I said slowly, not quite sure how this fit in.

  “It was one such bloodline—a faction of Anakim known for their magical delving and sorted affairs with the thralls of power—that were summoned by the King to come to Dacia’s aid using their ethereal magic. The Casters, as they’re better known today, knew full well that Dacia’s greatest challenge was their army’s lack of strength and numbers, and so they set out to create a spell that would essentially wake the dead, bringing them back to life stronger, faster, and more powerful than they ever could have been before, thus eradicating both pivotal problems in one impetuous move.”

  My eyes widened in horror as I knew where this was going.

  “And sadly, it worked. The spell was cast, and the dead rose from the ground in droves. Only they didn’t come back right. The newly reanimated were strong, yes, much stronger than their human counterparts, and they were virtually indestructible, but they had no interest in fighting a war, or heeding instructions, or doing any of the things they were brought back to do.”

  His eyes darkened into an eerie shade of smoke. “The only thing they wanted to do was feed, and the only thing that could satiate their appetites and sustain them, was blood.”

  “Holy crap. It’s actually true.”

  “Language, Jemma.”

  “Sorry,” I apologized, though I hardly thought a little curse word even remotely mattered at the base of what he had just recounted. And, plus, I wasn’t crazy! “So these witch Angels or whatever—” I started clumsily.

  “Casters,” he corrected.

  “Yeah—why didn’t they just reverse the spell after they realized it wasn’t working the way it was supposed to?”

  “They certainly tried. Upon seeing their misstep, they immediately tried to rectify it with another spell that aimed to expel the reanimated ones from our world and send them back into the Hell from which they were believed to have come.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Well, it didn’t work,” he said callously. “Undoing a spell is not a simple deed, Jemma. Once you create something, you have conjured a new reality. You cannot simply tap into a magical undo button. What you have created now exists, therefore you must work with that new reality, and it isn’t always easy to do.”

  “Right. And since vampires are still around today, obviously they weren’t able to do anything about it.”

  “Well, that’s not entirely true. Most of the initial spells went awry in one way or another, though many of them are also responsible for the Revenant as we know them today.”

  “Is that supposed to be a good thing?” I snorted as flashes of my terrifying attack bouncing around in my consciousness.

  “Well, yes. For one, they can be killed now. However difficult it may be, they’re not indestructible the way First Immortals were. For another, they no longer have free reign over this realm as they once did, further hindering their survival.”

  “What does that mean, they don’t have free reign?”

  “Well, quite simply, they have restrictions now. Supernatural barriers that inhibit them. As long as they have these vulnerabilities, they can be exploited.”

  “Exploited how?” I asked and then said the first thing that came to mind. “Like with garlic and holy stuff?”

  “Holy stu—good grief, Jemma.” He did a double take as though I were the village idiot. “Apotropaic symbols can be useful in certain instances, though they should never be depended upon. There are many more layers to their evolution; crucial confines that shaped their very existence.”

  “Their susceptibility to wood, for example,” he said, flicking down a finger, “could disable a Revenant instantly if driven through the heart, and their curse into darkness forced them to hunt only with the moon. They could no longer enter dwellings without a summon, which kept them out of homes and away from families. Even their inability to hold dominion over other supernaturals helped because it prevented them from exploiting powerful beings like the Anakim, and potentially achieving ultimate reign. All of these things were helpful in containing them, even getting an upper hand at times, though it certainly did not resolve the calamity.”

  Of course not. “So what did they do?”

  “Well, they kept at it,” he nodded. “And while they did eventually eradicate most of the Firsts, unfortunately, by that time it was simply too late. The ripple had begun. The reanimated had since infected hundreds of others, and it appeared that those who were infected directly had already become something different—something entirely separate and unaffected by the magic that had created their Makers.”

  He shook his head, ceded, as though he were somehow responsible. “And with that, a new breed was born, one that sat on the very crown of our Chain of Life, and sadly, there was nothing more the Casters or their magic could do. What was done, was done, and the rest is history. The Roman Empire eventually prevailed, and King Decebalus, unable to live with what he had done, killed himself shortly after.”

  “So that’s it?” I snapped in disbelief. “Everyone just moved on, did nothing? Let the vampires continue multiplying freely?” I was unable to quell my anger. This was personal in so many ways.

  “Certainly not,” he said, looking outside the window as we made our way through the gates of the Blackburn Estate. “All things have their counterpart, Jemma, and evil is no exception. What nature cannot provide for, we create.”

  “Okay, good, so...what does that mean?” I asked as I picked up my schoolbag from the floor bed and waited for him to elaborate on his cryptic response.

  “What it means, my dear, is that the rebellious Angels were not the only ones who fell.”

  10. the sacrifice

  I flopped down onto the leather chair in front of my uncle’s desk as he returned the book to its rightful place and circled back around with another one in his hands, peeling back each page with the greatest of care. The book looked similar to the one I had borrowed earlier with the same gilded lettering and leather bound encasing, and was undoubtedly from the same collection.

  “What is that?” I asked him, detonating the silence just as another crash of thunder rang out its reverberation around us.

  The room was dim, cold, locked in the dreary atmosphere of the untold secrets it housed. It made me feel uneasy, like no matter how much I saw or heard here, I might still never find myself on the right side of the looking glass.

  “The Powers,” he started, taking a seat on the edge of the desk, “were Warrior Angels from the Second Sphere who controlled the borders between Heaven and Hell. Unlike lower ranking Angels who weaved in and out of our daily lives, Warrior Angels were of a higher ethereal caste, charged with governing the earth as a whole and protecting it against supernatural evil.”

  I nodded, craning my neck to get a look at the
book title. The gold reflected oddly, obscuring the title and rendering it impossible for me to make out the letters.

  “It’s widely believed that no Warrior Angel has ever fallen from grace,” he explained with detectable pride. “And by most accounts, that is as close to the truth as they will get. We, however, know different. We know that it was precisely their unwavering loyalty and sworn oath to protect this world that forced them to do what they did. In order to right the wrongs of the Casters and to stop the killings perpetrated by the Revenants, the Warrior Angels made the ultimate sacrifice.”

  He raised his eyebrow to me, prompting me to fill in the blank as though I should know this.

  I didn’t.

  “They...killed themselves?” I asked, dragging out the words. Wait, that doesn’t even make sense. How would that help anything?

  “No, Jemma, they Fell,” he said, nodding into the word. “They sacrificed their place in Paradise, and fell to Earth in order to create a new bloodline of Warrior Descendants who would be powerful enough to rival the Revenants, strong enough to slay them, and loyal enough to dedicate their lives to this mission,” he explained, his dark eyes sharp and judicious. “It was from this blessed union of fallen Warrior Angel and spirited human, that the very first Slayer on Earth was born, giving rise to a legacy unlike any other. A legacy that has been protected throughout the ages by a secret order of Anakim.”

  He closed the book and placed it on the desk beside him. “That order is known as The Order of the Rose, and through its toil, Slayers continue to be born all over the world, some from bloodlines that go back thousands of years—sacred Warrior bloodlines that are carefully guarded and propagated to ensure the continuance of this lineage. So that the fight against evil can go on,” he said with a rolling hand gesture. “So that Slayers can continue to be born and fulfill their destiny.”

  He narrowed his gaze to me and softened his voice. “You, my dear Jemma, are of this legacy.”

  My bottom lip dropped abruptly, engaging in a series of rises and falls as I tried to find some words—any words at all.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  He reached forward and placed a steadying hand on my shoulder. “You are a Slayer, Jemma, a Warrior Descendant, and this is your birthright.”

  “What are you talking about?” I snapped, jumping up from the chair, causing it to sail backwards and screech across the hardwood floor. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “Of course not, I—”

  “You’re lying!” I snapped, cutting him off. “You’re making this up! I don’t know where you’re getting this from, but you’re mistaken. Or nuts. Or both.” I couldn’t keep a straight thought in my head. My eyes were wild with panic.

  “I know this is a lot to take in, but I assure you, there is no mistake of your lineage. This is who you are.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “It’s not possible. If this were true, my father would have told me so. He wouldn’t have lied to me. Not about something like this.” My hands were trembling now.

  “Thomas’s omissions were meant to protect you. He wanted a different life for you, and for Tessa. A better life than the one your mother had.”

  My mother? I shook my head, unable to process any of this.

  “He left Hollow Hills the week after Jacqueline left us,” he said, his voice cracking on my mother’s name. “He swore to keep all of this from you and Tessa, to protect you from the truth. You were only a child then, not even three. I thought it was his anguish speaking.” He shook his head, visibly affected. “I thought he would come to his senses once he had time to mourn his loss. But he never came back. Not until Tessa.”

  “When she moved here,” I remembered aloud.

  The move happened right after Tessa’s school placed her on academic probation. My father had been worried sick about her. About her future and the road she was headed down. In the end, they decided it was best if she went to live with my uncle. New town, new school, new rules. It was what she needed, he’d said.

  Dammit, was any of that true?

  “Tessa was changing,” explained my uncle. “She was having the dreams, the visions, sensing the Revenants. It was much too dangerous to keep her in the dark. He had no choice but to send her back here where we could protect her—train her. And that is what we did. However, he refused to give you up, too. He said he still had a chance to save you, as he put it.” He shook his head, clearly upset with his brother’s decision. “It was then that he sought out the help of a Caster.”

  The conversation I overhead heard that morning came back to me. “To put a spell on me?” I asked, my throat burning from lack of moisture, my head spinning from lack of blood flow.

  He nodded. “A Cloaking spell that would suppress your powers, keep them locked away. He’d hoped it would protect you.”

  I could certainly believe that part about my father. If any of this was true, I knew my father would do everything in his power to protect us, to give us the best life he could. And up until his death, he had done just that.

  Which begged the question: “Why are you trying to break the spell if it’s protecting me?”

  “It’s much too dangerous,” he said as he motioned for me to sit down again.

  I didn’t hesitate as I was growing increasingly unsteady.

  “Now that you’ve reached the age of maturity, I’m not sure the spell is strong enough anymore or the safe choice for you,” he said, removing his glasses. “By suppressing your true nature, you’re also suppressing your abilities...abilities that could mean the difference between life and death for you.”

  “What abilities?” I asked, my voice rasping.

  He hesitated to answer the question. “Well, such as being able to sense a Revenant,” he offered finally. “You must know that once a Revenant marks you, as a mere human, there’s little you can do to deviate the attack. They are predators in every sense of the word. They will hunt you, drain you, and leave you for dead with no recollection of what transpired. There is no mercy there. No humanity whatsoever.”

  My mind flashed back to the attack eight months ago—the terrifying, relentless attack that still haunted my dreams at night—and I believed him.

  “As a Slayer,” he went on, “you have certain advantages over them, such as your ability to sense them. This allows you to track them and vanquish them before they even have a chance to mark you, virtually turning the hunters into the hunted.”

  Sense them? Track them? Vanquish them?

  This man was off his freaking rocker. I had absolutely no desire to do any of that—none. There wasn’t a single part of my being that was even remotely interested in getting involved in what he was going on about.

  “No. That’s not happening.” I shook my head fully decided. “I don’t want to sense them, or see them, or kill them, or know anything about them. I just want to make it through high school, graduate, maybe go on a road trip somewhere nice, and just—”

  “Jemma,” he interceded. “This is what you were born to do. This is your Calling.”

  “My Calling?” I repeated incredulously. “The hell it is.”

  A calling implies I have a choice, doesn’t it? That I could answer the call, or not. That I have a choice in whether or not I accept this as my destiny? Well, I don’t. I don’t want anything to do with it. And I don’t accept the call. Matter of fact, this line is no longer in service.

  11. THINGS THAT GO BUMP

  I called Tessa sixteen times that night, my hands trembling as I held the receiver and listened to it go to straight to voice mail each and every time. I needed her to be here, to be my family, to be the one to tell me everything was going to be okay. But like usual, she wasn’t here.

  Nobody was.

  I sat by myself on the floor, curled up in the cold shadowy corner of my lavish bedroom, when it finally occurred to me that nobody was coming for me. Nobody was going to make this go away. There would be no soft words of comfort from my mother, no protection from my father,
no guidance from my sister.

  It was just me, and me wasn’t nearly enough right now.

  A hot tear ran down my cheek as I gave up and left her a message. “You lied to me, Tess. You all lied to me.”

  I spent the next couple of days fully immersed in all things normal. I sat attentively in class (taking actual notes), going the extra mile at work, and even really listening when Taylor went on about the latest Weston Scandals—something I usually couldn’t be bothered to care about. This week, I was all about it—all about everything—so long as it had nothing to do with Angels and Demons, or the like. Denial was funny that way.

  For months, I wanted nothing more than for someone to believe me; to accept that I had been attacked by something that wasn’t human—to tell me I wasn’t crazy. I longed for the validation, for the answers. Well, I got my answers and I got my validation and they only made me long for the days when I was blissfully unaware of it all, proving the age-old adage that ignorance really was bliss. By the time Wednesday rolled around, I was praying for full-blown amnesia to strike.

  First period History turned out to be a free-for-all the minute word came in that Mr. Bradley was out sick and that a substitute was on the way. It took Taylor all of thirty seconds to ditch her usual seat next to Nikki and grab an empty desk in front of me on the opposite side of the room.

  Naturally, Ben pushed his desk in closer to us. It was like Taylor had some sort of gravitational pull on him.

  “So Carly’s having a house party next Saturday and everyone’s going to be there,” she said, her blue-gray eyes sparkling at the possibilities. “It’s kind of a big deal.”

  “Tis the season,” said Ben as he crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair.

  “And what season would that be?” I asked, curious, but mostly just grateful for the much needed distraction.

  “Spring Fling. It’s like a month long event around here,” sang Taylor. “There’s house parties, carnivals, and of course, Spring Formal!” Her eyes nearly doubled in size. “You’re going to love it. Make sure you can get Saturday off,” she ordered.