“She said she was the daughter of Samyaza? He is a Watcher Angel. That she wants you to join them disturbs me very much. It sounds like they’re recruiting. Did she say anything else?”
Noah looked very uncomfortable and shifted in his seat on the sofa near the fireplace. “She called me Son of Gadriel.”
Miles’ eyes widened. “So it is Gadriel who is your father.”
“Is that bad? I mean, I know it’s bad, but is it like bad bad?”
“Gadriel is … when the Grigori came into power—they are the Watchers mentioned in the Book of Enoch, more specifically in the Book of Noah which is also mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls—when they came into power, their leader was Samyaza. After the Watchers began reproducing with human women, they were bound with chains in the deepest valleys of the Earth, and there they awaited Judgment Day. But the world was still riddled with Nephilim as well as the humans who turned to the Dark Side, so God ordered a great flood to wipe them out.”
“Wait, you don’t mean the flood, do you?”
“Indeed. And it worked. But not on the Grigori. Some time ago, Gadriel was able to break out of his restraints and set the others free. He became their new leader. Now they’ve been all over, creating Nephilim to help them take over the Earth.”
“Why do they want to do that? Are they just pissed off at God or something?”
“That’s part of it, yes. But they want this to be their domain. God rules Heaven. Satan rules Hell. The Grigori want to rule Earth.”
“Oh, is that all?”
Miles didn’t seem to notice his sarcasm. “Given the nephil you encountered last night and the others we saw at my house, it seems we’ve a real problem on our hands. And for some reason, they desperately wanted the Book of Avelina. So far as I can tell, it’s of no use to them. Only a paladin descended from Anseis would be able to use it.”
“No offense, Miles, but I don’t care about that book right now. One of them came to my house last night.”
“I understand your concern, but I think the grimoire will give us the answers.”
“I think it’ll just give us trouble. I don’t want those things coming anywhere near my mom.”
“Cee Cee has placed a protection spell around your home.”
“So she’s just supposed to stay there forever? She can’t leave the house? She can’t live like a prisoner!”
Miles sighed. “Of course I don’t mean for her or you to live that way forever or even for an extended time. Just until we can figure out what’s going on.
“How long will that take?”
“Be patient. I’ll speak with Father Ben and Charmagne and see what we can come up with. For now, be with your mother and look out for her.”
***
“Noah! Company!” yelled Selena from downstairs.
He found his mom standing in the living room with Nadia. “Hey,” he said, a little perplexed.
“Nadia, you said?” said Selena.
“Yes,” said Nadia.
“She says she’s a friend of yours.”
“Yeah,” said Noah. “We just met a few days ago.”
Selena grinned, and Noah knew she was doing her “mom” thing, seeing her little boy growing up and possibly finding a girlfriend. He wished she’d stop grinning like that. It was getting awkward.
“Uh, you wanna go hang out in my room?” said Noah.
“Sure” said Nadia.
As they headed upstairs, Selena called out, “Door stays open!”
Noah’s cheeks flushed with warmth, and Nadia giggled. He closed the door to his room anyway.
“I like your house,” said Nadia.
“Thanks. So, what’s up?”
“I needed to get out of there. The convent. It was stifling.”
“Oh. How … how are you? Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I keep trying to block everything. I don’t want to think about it.” She ran her hand along his desk against the window. She picked up a pencil and sat on the carpet with her legs crossed. “To be honest, I don’t have to try too hard to block anything. Everything I touch, I get flooded with that object’s or person’s memory.”
“Like what happened when our hands touched?”
She nodded.
He scrunched his brows. “How can an object have a memory?”
She shrugged. “I think it’s more of an imprint left by the person or people who used it. I’ll pick up a pencil like this, and I’ll just get an image of you writing something down, like homework or something. I can feel the graphite gliding across the paper. I can hear it, smell it. But other things have stronger imprints. Like Sister Adele’s rosary that she wears. When I touched it, I saw how she had it since she was a very young girl and how she clung to it for protection when she was mistreated because she was deaf and mute.”
Nadia looked up at Noah, who stared back at her, not with distrust or caution, but like he believed every word she said. “I shook your mother’s hand when she invited me in the house.”
She waited for him to catch on to what she was saying. When he did, Noah said, “You saw her past?”
She nodded, looking down at the pencil in her fingers. “I’m sorry about what happened to her.”
“So you saw him. My … father.”
Her eyes found his, and she nodded.
He almost didn’t ask the next question. “What did he look like?”
“Like you. Dark hair, eyes the color of steel.” She hesitated and then said, “Beautiful purple wings.”
He sat on his bed and stared down at the floor.
“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”
“It’s not you. They’re coming back.”
She frowned, her eyebrows knotted. “What’s coming back?”
Noah sat next to her on the floor and then took off his shirt. He hesitantly turned around so that she could see what he was talking about. They looked like tiny shards of amethyst struggling to break away from his shoulder blades. She lightly traced a finger over one of them. He bristled.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Feels a little sore.”
They looked so much like gem stones that she was expecting them to feel jagged and rough, but they were soft and yielded to her touch.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” he said sadly, and pulled away from her, putting his shirt back on.
She leaned back against the wall, bringing her knees up into her chest and resting her arms across them. She watched as he nervously paced the room, and then she smiled softly. “I think it’s beautiful.”
“Nadia, nothing about being like them is beautiful.”
“Don’t you want to keep them this time?”
“No.”
“Well, don’t do anything foolish like you did the last time.”
“How am I supposed to get rid of them?”
“Keep them for a while. Maybe you’ll need them.”
He looked at her and knew she was referring to the Nephilim who invaded Miles’ house. “They’ll be back, you know. Miles says they’re recruiting. One of them found me last night.”
Nadia looked alarmed. “And you’re alive?”
“She didn’t want to hurt me. She wanted me to join them. Apparently my dad is in town.” He sat on his bed. “And if I find him anywhere near my mom, I’m going to kill him.”
***
Nadia stayed for dinner that evening. Noah had pulled his mother aside to tell her not to ask about Nadia’s family and then he told her what happened to them. Selena made light dinner conversation, but her heart was broken for the girl. After they ate, Noah offered to drive Nadia back to the convent.
“Feel like taking a little detour?” said Noah. The convent was across from City Park. He was driving on Claiborne Avenue, about to get on Highway 90 to switch to I-10. The Superdome was in view.
“Where to?” said Nadia.
“The Quarter.”
10
Family Reunion
Cee Cee opened the door and gree
ted him warmly. “Oh, come in my baby! I wasn’t expecting you. How you been? Any pain left over from … well, you know.” She whispered that last part.
“No, ma’am. I’m sorry that we just showed up. If it’s a bad time—”
“Not at all! I love comp’ny. And you must be Nadia.” She took Nadia’s hands in hers. “Miles told me about you. I’m so sorry about your parents, my baby.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, I love that accent! It’s just darlin’! Y’all come right in and have a seat.” As she headed for the kitchen she called over her shoulder, “Would you care for some cake? It’s a rum cake! I made it myself this mornin’.”
“Oh, no thanks,” said Noah, following her.
“No, thank you,” said Nadia.
She opened the fridge and pulled out half a rum cake and plopped it down on the table. “Sit, sit,” she said.
Noah and Nadia sat as Cee Cee pulled some forks and dishes out and put them on the table near the cake. She cut three pieces and put them in front of Noah and Nadia with forks in the plates, ready to go. She started digging into her piece.
“The reason I came here, ma’am, is—” started Noah.
“’Ma’am!’ I love it! You so polite! I know your mama raised you good,” she said with a mouthful of cake.
“Uh, thanks. I know you do, um, Voodoo stuff.”
Cee Cee laughed. “Lil’ boy, I am a Voodoo priestess. I practice Voodoo.”
“Sorry. Miles said that you’re a paladin?”
She licked her fork and nodded solemnly. “Indeed I am.”
“Well, I was wondering if you had a spell or something that could … that could keep my, um, wings from growing back?”
Her eyes widened. “They growing back?”
He nodded.
“Well, my baby, maybe you shouldn’t mess with ‘em.”
“I really don’t want them. I don’t want anything to do with those things, those angels.”
Cee Cee patted his hand sympathetically. “I understand, my love. I think I can help you. You sure you don’t want some cake, though?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Nadia?”
She politely shook her head.
“All right then. Just go sit over there at that table in the living room.” She quickly finished her piece, put the rest of the cake back in the fridge, and placed her dishes in the sink. She sat in the chair next to his, at her altar, and said, “Now turn around and take off your shirt.”
He did as instructed. “This isn’t going to hurt, is it?”
“No, angel.”
He glared at her over his shoulder.
She quickly added, “The good angel, that is. Not the … well, the bad … just turn back around, you.”
Nadia stifled a giggle.
Cee Cee silently marveled at the wing bones raised under his skin and the little purple feathers beginning to emerge. She lit a black candle and placed it before a picture of the Virgin Mary that she kept in the center of the altar and then made a paste out of crushed bay leaves, sandalwood dust and holy water. Rubbing the paste on his shoulder blades, she prayed the Apostle’s Creed seven times in a gentle and soothing voice, and then called on the Archangel Michael.
“Saint Michael, guard this young man, Noah, all of his days until the hour of his death. Protect him from all evil. Remove these wings from his body, for they are his father’s wings, and his father has made his decision to turn his back on the Heavenly Father.”
Noah’s eyes found Nadia’s as Cee Cee took a spool of black lace and wrapped it around his chest, covering the paste and his wings seven times, and fastened it in place with a safety pin and a Sator Square for protection against evil and its influences.
“Sator, arepo, tenet, opera, rotas … rotas, opera, tenet, arepo, sator,” she whispered, and then patted him on the back. “All done, my baby.”
He put his shirt back on and turned to her. “That’s it?”
She nodded. “Sleep with that on you tonight. Tomorrow they should be gone.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” he said, smiling.
She didn’t return the smile, instead looking at him with weary sympathy. “Now, I have to tell you somethin’. One day, your wings just might grow back.”
“Why?”
She patted his knee. “They’re coming back now because you need them to help you protect someone. When you feel someone you love is being threatened, your body will respond to your heart’s desire to save them in any way you can.”
“I don’t need to fly to be able to save anyone.”
“You don’t know that,” said Nadia.
Noah rolled his eyes at her.
Cee Cee tilted her head. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m gonna trust you know what you doin’.”
The phone rang then. Cee Cee picked it up. “Hello? … They did?! I’ll ask Miles to … I think he can help, Clo … All right. We meetin’ at Clovis’ house? … I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She hung up and turned to Noah and Nadia. “I gotta go, my babies.”
Cee Cee grabbed her rhinestone-studded Elvis purse and ushered them out the door. When she opened it, a tall and pretty girl about Noah’s age with dark skin and dark blue eyes was coming up the stairwell. Her lashes were wet, and the whites of her eyes were red. She was bundled in a black trench coat with a sleek red dress peeking out and holding her black heels in one hand and a little black purse hanging from one shoulder. She stopped and looked up at Cee Cee.
“Oh, you’re leaving?”
“I gotta go. What you need?” said Cee Cee.
“Grave moss.”
“I ran out the other day. Haven’t had a chance to get more. It’ll have to wait, my baby. Come back day after tomorrow. Oh, Noah and Nadia, this my niece Ruby.”
“Hi,” said Noah.
“Hello,” said Nadia.
Ruby gave them an uninterested nod of her head and then said to Cee Cee, “Can you at least give me a ride home?”
“How’d you get here if you didn’t drive?” Then she noticed her appearance. “Oh!” She crossed her arms. “When you gonna leave that fool alone?”
Ruby rolled her eyes and headed back down the stairwell. Cee Cee and Noah and Nadia followed. When they got to street level, Ruby said, “I didn’t come here for a lecture. I just needed a ride.”
“Baby, I can’t right now. You can stay here if you want.”
“I have school tomorrow.”
Cee Cee seemed flustered, but then it looked like a light bulb went off in her head. “Noah! Can you give Ruby a ride home?”
“What?” said Ruby. “Naw, that’s okay.”
Noah shrugged. “I guess. Where do you live?”
“She lives in Algiers, about a mile after you get off the bridge.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” said Noah.
“Wonderful! Problem solved! Now if y’all will excuse me, I gotta go!” She hopped into her Lincoln Town Car and drove off.
“All right. Let’s go, then,” said Ruby, looking utterly humiliated.
Noah looked at Nadia and raised his shoulders as if to say what could I do? She smiled at him, and the three of them climbed into the Charger and headed for Algiers. The whole trip across the river was made in painful silence. Before they were off the bridge, Nadia turned on the radio just to have some background noise.
As they exited the bridge, Ruby said, “Turn right up here.”
“I thought she said you live a mile further down,” said Noah.
Ruby huffed. “I do, but I’d be ever so grateful if you’d turn right up here.”
Noah turned.
“Now just loop back around toward the bridge, but stay on this road.”
Noah did as he was told, and then she directed him further until he found himself parked next to a cemetery.
“I’ll be right back,” said Ruby. She left her shoes in the car and stepped onto the sidewalk and walked up to the wrought iron fence. Without thinking twice, she hitched up her dress
and coat, steadied herself on a fence pole and climbed over, careful to avoid the spikes at the top.
Noah and Nadia shared an incredulous look. “Stay here,” said Noah, getting out of the car.
Nadia got out, too. “You’re not leaving me here by myself.”
“All right. Um …” Noah squatted on the sidewalk near the fence and laced his fingers together, his palms upward. “Hop up,” he told her.
Nadia arched an eyebrow.
“Come on,” he said.
Nadia put one foot on his hands and pivoted with the other as Noah tossed her onto the other side. She had a shaky land, slipping a little on the slick dew that was icing over, but was able to stay on her feet. Noah backed up into the street, looked over his shoulders to see if anyone was coming, got a running start, and easily leaped over the fence, landing perfectly. He smirked at Nadia.
She looked unimpressed. “It would have been easier to fly.”
His smirk disappeared, replaced with an aggravated sideways glance. “Let’s go find her,” he said.
They scanned the rows of above-ground tombs and crypts with thin layers of frost, making their way toward the older section of the cemetery where the granite and stone crumbled and cracked. There were no flowers or wreaths on these graves, which had been there for generations. Moss grew freely on some, and it was here that they found her, kneeling beside the tomb of some poor soul named Theodosia Clementine Honeywell who died in 1901. Ruby was scraping dead moss off the corner slab with her polished fingernails and putting it in her purse.
“You really had to do that tonight?” said Noah.
“Most definitely,” she said, not looking away from her task. “My boyfriend—or I should say my ex—is going to be very sorry.”
“Is this for some kind of spell?” said Nadia.
“Yes, Frenchie. It’s for some kind of spell.” She stood and turned to them. “All done,” she said with a fake smile. And for the first time, she really looked at Noah and said, “What about you? You taken?” She passed a glance at Nadia, sizing her up.
“Um …,” said Noah, rubbing the back of his neck. “I really need to go, so can we bring you back home now?”
Ruby smirked. “Let’s go.”
Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 03 - Dark Legacy Page 6
