Clement shuddered. He knew what daylight meant for vampires. For the Nephilim, it must have been like hell on earth.
“So who did it to you?” he asked the creature.
The creature sighed and said, “My own father. At one time he was a noble being, brother to the other angels who descended from the heavens to walk among men. But he turned his back on his own creator and in doing so discovered a taste for human blood.
“I am the result of his time spent with a woman. That is to say that I was born and not made like the vampires. In me, his power flows nearly undiluted while the blood drinkers are but mere shadows of his puissance.
“But for one.”
The Nephilim sat down upon the edge of tomb and placed his chin upon his fist. For all the world, he looked like a work of Rodin until he opened his mouth to speak again.
“My father’s name is Kabiel and he begat a number of Nephilim to human wives before falling into darkness. Of them, I alone remain, but that is another tale and I would speak of the first blood drinker he created.
“Kabiel passed from one woman to another, gathering them to his bosom like so many flowers and none of them could not resist his advances.
“How could they? He had not yet become what he is today and his mien was of a terrible beauty. An angel’s beauty.
“Only there is always an exception and for that reason, she became all the more precious in his cruel eyes. There was a woman of a noble family, rich beyond measure, who possessed many estates and hundreds of slaves.
“Kabiel had seen her, but instead of succumbing to his unearthly charms, she only laughed at him and returned to her home where any number of comely young men waited, hand chosen among her slaves to be her paramours of obligation, male concubines, if you will.
“My father persisted, doing his best to woo her, and in the end she allowed him into her bed. He was wrong, though, to think that she had fallen for him utterly like all the other women he had known and the following day, she ordered him away from her, demanding that he never return.
“I do not know if it was out of cruelty equal to his or, perhaps, fear of him, but his charms did nothing to dissuade her.
“Kabiel had never had anyone refuse him before. To say that this angered him is not saying enough.
“The noblewoman became his obsession and he followed her incessantly, using his power to mask his presence from her, and during this time he learned the least detail of her life.
“Among the things he learned, he came to believe he had found the reason that she had spurned him. And that reason was she had a lover and, worse still, she was quite obviously passionately in love with that man.
“He was one of her indentured servants.
“His name was Caim and he was an extraordinarily handsome young man.
“Kabiel learned to hate that young man as much as he had come to hate the woman until, one day, he devised an evil plan to deal with both of them.
“In the darkness of night, he stole into her estate and into the stable of slaves. There, he plucked Caim up and with evil casting its shadow fully over him, Kabiel bent to the young man’s throat and drew out his life’s blood while filling him with his own hatred and anger.
“The young man appeared to die. Then, the angel’s strength lifted him up in the same moment that darkness fell over Kabiel for all time.
“Sharp fangs grew out among the young man’s teeth and he was filled with a hunger that goes beyond anything a human being can possibly know. In his folly, Kabiel spirited the monster he had come to create back to the noblewoman’s bedside and without hesitation, Caim knelt to his lover and drank his fill.
“There were no more Nephilim born to Kabiel after that. Evil had taken him and he had become, truly, a fallen angel with darkness ever surrounding him.
“And that vampire, the one named Caim, created in hatred and jealousy, remains one of the most virulent and poisonous creatures this world has ever had the sorrow to know.
“My own life was elsewhere and what I did during the long ages is not always something I can pride myself upon.
“However, I came at last to understand that such creations of evil intentions have no place in this world. They can only bring ruin and must be eradicated.
“I waged war time and again against my own brothers and sisters. Eventually, I learned to reason with them. And, once most of them had passed beyond this world, there but remained the creatures my father has made...the vampires.
“Among them is the one of which I speak. Of him, I have made my enemy when he dared to visit a terrible malediction upon a young woman who taught me about myself when I thought there was nothing more for me to learn. She truly was remarkable and what Caim did to her was a crime that had to be punished.
“I pursued him without relenting and when, at last, I was able to pit myself against him one more time, I was merciless.
“I broke every bone in his worthless body. I pounded his skull flat with jagged rocks and then I cast him down in a quarry pit and half buried him under blocks of granite. I worked tirelessly to pin him into place and I did so with terrible precision.
“At the bottom of that pit, the sun would pass, ever so briefly, each day in an exact location. That window of light would come to scourge him with its fire and for him there would be no escape.
“As a vampire, he would burn. As the first created by Kabiel, he would not die outright as the sun passed over him too briefly. But it would scar him and the pain would visit upon him the punishment he was due.
“I left him there, but not before I kicked gravel over his face. What the sun did to him in the ensuing months was grotesque beyond words. The very stones sunk into his flesh each day, and each night he would heal as much as his famished body would allow. And I would come in witness and speak to him of his crime.
“At last, Kabiel took notice of his absence and, knowing our endless quarreling, he sought me out demanding answers.
“While my strength is formidable, I am still no match for the fallen angel and he eventually forced the answer out of me.
“When next I went to the quarry, Caim had disappeared and in his place stood our father who then exacted the promise from me that I would never affront Caim again.
“It was a bitter thing to swallow, but I had no choice. Only, I know that he will not rest nor be content. Caim’s creation was fraught with so much vile hatred and his birth with the evil murder of the very woman he had so loved, he cannot help but be a monster.
“In what way he might manifest himself, I could not guess until only recently. Yet, I could do nothing.
“Until I found you.”
“So, you’re telling me that this thing...this vampire is what you have me chasing after?” Clement asked.
“No. More precisely, I have discerned that the vampires have begun organizing themselves, moving here and there but their usual random actions were changing.
“The serpent had grown a head to direct the body and that they worked toward some objective became clear to me.
“I had you follow them until I could be sure and allowed you to quaff your thirst for their destruction as the occasions presented themselves.”
Clement shook his head. While the Nephilim told a good story, the answers were still not good enough.
“All right. So here you are, talking all around the subject without getting to the point...as usual.”
The grey eyed man forced his hand away from the easy familiarity of his sword’s pommel, drew a deep breath and tried to calm himself.
“Why does it feel like you have been nudging me into an encounter with my step-brother all along?” he said quietly.
“If I have done so it is because he has done something admirable and unique among the shapes-shifters. He has developed a means of surveilling the vampires. His werewolf spies have infiltrated them thoroughly and it was as I observed his efforts that I first discovered the blood drinkers beginning their own attempts at self organization,” sai
d the Nephilim.
“My enemy must be at the heart of this and I cannot act against him. Not without your aid.”
“Look, I don’t care about whatever personal vendettas you happen to have,” Clement replied, “ What matters right now is that a woman my brother values very highly has been framed for murder and my every instinct tells me that it stinks to high heaven of vampires.”
“What? Do you mean to say that the woman has been taken?” The creature frowned deeply as he considered what he had just heard.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I am saying,” said Clement.
“This is grave news, indeed.
“You must make great haste, human. In my estimation, your sword will be urgently needed, in this very moment even.
“Fly to your sibling’s side because if the vampires have the woman in their power, it is certain that she will be used against him. He will be trapped with no issue in sight should you not arrive in time.”
All trace of a smile had been wiped away from the Nephilim’s visage. There was only a heavy frown in its place as he said, “The game has escalated far more quickly than I had envisaged. I must think on what to do.”
“Ok, good. You do that,” Clement said, his tone grim, “ And while you’re busy thinking, it sounds like I have some vampires to kill.”
He did not wait for the creature to respond. Instead, he stood up and nearly ran across the cemetery grounds, no longer caring if he upset a few gravestones in his passage.
An innocent woman had been caught up in a game between monsters and if he did not hurry, she and his brother both risked their doom.
Daniel, the last child of the Seraphim to walk the earth, watched the grey eyed man rush away and he shook his head.
“I fear, my hard hearted friend, that even you and your skill with the blade shall not suffice,” he murmured before he, too, stood up to leave the calm and peace of the cemetery behind.
As he marched with long strides that became ever longer while his body resumed its natural state, he said, “While I am loathe to do so, perhaps the time has come to appeal to a higher power....”
Except that there was no one to hear his words...unless it was the dead themselves and, for their part, they had nothing to say in kind.
~~~
Whatever was chasing him howled in the distance.
He only grinned, though, and kept running. They had no idea how powerful he had become, how dangerous he was now.
Jackson Woodard ran through the woods and could not help but laugh as he did. He kept thinking that it was just like being a kid all over again.
He dashed right, then left, jumping over logs like a rabbit, then burst into a loping run along a game trail before veering into a thicket of trees once more.
It did not matter that blood trickled from both nostrils in a steady stream, or that one of his ears dripped a clear fluid down one side of his neck.
He felt exhilarated. He knew what was coursing through his veins in that moment.
This is what power feels like. Real, dangerous power.
Jackson had been about to put leather to his lovely Sara. He had hauled up his arm as high as he could manage, and not without some difficulty as weakness continued to steal through him. He had been about to strike with whatever strength was left to him and the sounds of his woman’s screams only confirmed that what he had been about to do was right and just.
But, before he could begin the work of a good husband, what sounded like hundreds of crows surrounding the barn on all sides began squawking, making him hesitate for a split second.
And, in the next instant, he had felt a bony hand upon his shoulder, then heard a voice in his ear say, “Oh my, Jacky. What a bad boy you have been. Turn around and let me get a look at you.”
The voice was terrifying in its coercion and before he could decide what he would do next...and running away had not been entirely out of the question...his feet were moving under him, paired traitors turning him round to face his master.
“Hmmmm....tsk tsk, Jacky. You’re looking more than worse for the wear,” said the thing that towered over him as he fell to his knees before it.
Unable to help himself, Jackson began to kiss its knees and through the threadbare pinstriped pants, he could feel how horribly misshapen the bones were that held the thing upright.
“I’m afraid you’ve gone a little too far to being a creation in my own image,” it said, half whispering to itself.
“And that won’t do. Not at all. I have work for you, dear boy, and time is pressing. So, how about a nice pick-me-up before you get put down?”
A long fingered hand had hooked itself under his chin and tilted his face up, and while Jackson would have done anything to avoid looking at it, he was helpless to do otherwise. It was with great relief that he saw his master wore a burlap sack with a single eyehole torn through the filthy cloth.
It brought its other hand into view and Jackson watched, horrified, as it drew a long and ragged thumbnail across its opposite wrist. Blood welled, but it lacked a bright and healthy red color.
No, what welled up was as black and dead as coal tar, and before he could stop himself, Jackson’s mouth was at that wrist and sucking the foul substance down like a man dying of thirst in the desert.
Nothing could have prepared him for what happened next.
His heart lurched in his chest. It did it again and fear shivered through him while he could not stop drinking at the fount his master offered, suddenly convinced he would simply drop dead, his heart stopped cold.
Instead, the foul liquid began to pound inside his chest like a hammer, then it roared with the avalanche of his own blood rushing through him like fire.
It felt as though he was expanding, becoming a giant capable of tearing down entire cities, of swallowing men and women whole.
His master’s power blazed in his own veins and he knew that if he wanted, he could move worlds.
“There, there, Jacky. That’ll do quite nicely, I think,” his master had said while it forced his blood streaked face back.
Jackson had leaped to his feet, all weakness gone, all doubt with it. He felt as though he could run for a thousand miles without taking a breath and did not realize that he was bouncing crazily in place from one foot to the other.
“Now listen carefully, Jack. There are some nasty dogs coming our way. The sort of hounds who are too stupid to know they’ve already been beaten.
“It’s your job to give them...how does one say it...the run around. Yes, that’s it. Jacky, you get on out there and head them off at the pass, m’boy, then keep them chasing after you just as long as you can.”
The burlap sack leaned close and, despite the sense of extraordinary possibilities roaring through his soul, all Jackson wanted to do was to step back away from it.
“Can you do that for me, Jacky? Can you keep those hound dogs at bay for me?”
Jackson felt his mouth drop open and words began tumbling from his lips.
“I can do it, I can do it...can do it, can do it...can, can, k’can can....”
The burlap covered head nodded and said, “Thatta boy, Jacky. Now have at them.”
He had done an about face that any drill sergeant would have been proud to see and then Jackson beat feet out of the barn and into the woods without a second look back.
And, as he ran through the forest with the howling of hunting animals not far behind him, Jackson tried not to think too much about what had come to his ears just as he was leaving.
He had heard the somehow nasty sound of quiet laughter in the evening air and then a muffled voice had said, “Now, Sara, I think it’s high time for us to have a little chat....”
Jackson did not want to think about that anymore and he ran down into a hollow. It was as if a god had passed by there in the days of antiquity and had taken a giant spoonful of the landscape for its breakfast one bright morning.
The ground sloped down into a deep bowl and at its bottom the surface was sof
t and springy. He supposed that last autumn’s leaves had gathered there with the winds of the forest and he could not help himself from capering about, jumping up and down to see how far his feet would sink into the soft earth.
Another howl sounded from the direction he had come. Only it was closer...much closer.
Jackson took hold of himself, ready to burst back up the far side of the hollow when a second howl came to his ears.
This one came from off to the side and not from directly behind him as he had just heard.
Before he could move, a third howl answered the two others, and that one was opposite of the last.
Three hunters, then, chasing after poor Jackson through the forest.
Three dumb dogs is what they are, he thought. They had no idea how dangerous he was.
He gathered himself and charged up the far side of the hollow, ready to streak like lightning through the trees and leave the beasts far behind when something made him come to a skidding halt.
There was a shadow within a shadow. Blacker than anything else in the forest despite the fall of night.
From the little that Jackson could make out, it was, in fact, a very large man leaning against a tree. He seemed as nonchalant as could be even if they were in the middle of a deep wood.
Jackson heard leaves crunching behind him from three directions at once. He chanced a glance back over his shoulder, but instead of three hounds, he saw three people among the twilit trees. A young man and two very voluptuous women who looked for all the world as though it had been them hunting him only moments before.
He brought his gaze back to the shadow in front of him. It was there, he knew, where the real danger lay.
A voice spoke calmly out of the darkness.
“Do you have his back trail?”
“Sure ‘nuff, chief,” said a woman’s voice behind him.
“Easy peasy,” said another.
“Good...run it back, but do not approach too closely. If there is some chance of surprising anyone who might have helped this fool, I would prefer that we not waste the opportunity.”
Her Billionaire, Her Wolf--The Novel (A Paranormal Alpha Werewolf Romance) Page 18
