by Abby Knox
Samuel whispered, “I thought your reading would have explained that extremely ugly blotch on our history. We cannot taste or smell blood without triggering dark…urges. We’ve evolved from that.”
Ada felt a shiver roll across her neck. What did that mean? Were they vampires?
“Eat something,” Samuel said, putting a plate of cheese and bread under her nose. She was starving and dove in. She could have inhaled it, but she went slow because she needed to talk.
What could she say? Many orgasms and 16-hour sleeps made her chatty.
“But wait. You sucked venom out of me, surely you tasted blood and you didn’t…do anything untoward.”
“The urge was uncontrollable, almost.”
“But you resisted. You fought against it. Why do you think that is?”
Urek, always ready to calm whatever was stirring in the waters, lifted his glass of wine. “A toast! To Shemyaza!”
The brothers all raised their glasses in response and shouted, “To Shemyaza!”
Ada’s mind scrambled around for the words she had read in the scrolls, working hard to use her feeble grasp of old languages.
She kept her questions to herself and joined in the toast. As she drank down the wine and proceeded to stuff her face with food, putting all questions aside, she felt happy.
She ate everything she wanted and didn’t feel overly full. She tried fruits and roasted vegetables, and enjoyed cheese and wine and bread that made her mouth water just looking at them. She wanted to try everything, and she did. The uncomfortable fullness never came. It was fantastic. Soon, everyone was happily drunk on food and wine. Everyone relaxed. The Nephilim began to tell stories about each other as children. For the first time, it seemed that Zave was not angry. Atlas was jovial and not haughty. Samuel was smiling and laughing along with everyone and for the first time, he acted genuinely at ease around his brothers.
Energized that everything was out in the open, Ada gave herself over to the wine. The blood-red pinot noir was ridiculously perfect and gave her a warm, happy feeling without any of the sloppy, emotional side effects. Of course, it did. Nothing in the outside world would ever live up to this half-angel/half-human world. How could she not experience Stockholm syndrome? Just look at him. And look at the way he’s looking at you.
She finally understood why these immortals had to use mind control and memory resets on most humans. The wine was the best, the food was the best, the bed was the most comfortable she’d ever slept in. The conversation was the most stimulating of her life, and her puny, mortal what’s-the-meaning-of-life questions felt irrelevant here. And the dicking. Oh, good gravy, the dicking. No human could be expected to function in their regular lives again after getting fucked by a literal giant dick.
She was about to let Samuel feed her an apple crumble that looked like the most delicious fruit crumble ever baked when she felt the interruption. At first, a small vibration turned into a tremor beneath her feet. And then there was no mistaking it, the floor was moving. Trembling. Quaking. Except not the same as an earthquake.
Ada was ready to jump out of her skin, but she felt the stony hand of Samuel on her knee. Instantly, her heart rate slowed. Her fight-or-flight mode dissipated. She felt warm and if not exactly calm, at least assured that nothing terrible was about to happen. The feeling was not the same as when Samuel was pressing thoughts into her mind. It wasn’t his pheromones intruding her mind. It was the powerful, human, skin-to-skin contact.
She barely had time to marvel at how she missed simple human communication.
The sound came from behind and soon crescendoed with the shattering of glass.
A terrifying presence exploded into the banquet hall, and Ada thought for a moment it truly might be the end of the world. If the brotherhood of Giants were an average of ten feet tall, the creature shaking the rafters had to be fifteen feet tall and was made of blinding white light. Its source was a flame at its center, and it flew past her, doing some kind of ninja flip in midair over their heads, and headed straight toward her. It was a vaguely humanoid shape of light, and it had entered by shattering the wide stained-glass window, so the prismatic effect of the window was gone and replaced by golden sunlight.
The riotous noise that followed promised a fight to the death, but none of the Nephilim drew their weapons.
Wait. Why aren’t they drawing their weapons?
The most astonishing thing about the intruder was the wings. Bigger than the Nephilim wings, and bright gold. More pure and gleaming than the highest quality precious metal, they looked as if they had been polished to a high shine ahead of making such a grand entrance. The flame-licked body and the surroundings were reflected in the glittering gold wings. They had to be too large and heavy for flight, or Ada’s scientific mind would have judged them so if it were not for his easy, albeit destructive, descent.
Ada had the feeling the creature could have killed them all on the spot with his mind.
And then his feet landed on the stone floor of the banquet hall with a crash that broke another window. Immediately upon landing, the intruder began to speak in a language she did not recognize but was spoken in a tone of accusation mixed with a specific type of rage. Ada was all too familiar with the tone; she didn’t need words. It was a fit of paternal anger.
Samuel’s fingers gripped her knee tighter as the presence spoke.
She listened, frightened but stilled, as the intruder continued to thunder on with whatever it was he was blustering about. She caught a few of the Nephilim casting sidelong glances toward her and Samuel, and then she knew what the visit was about.
Her agitation became clear and she felt Samuel’s hand trying to keep her in her seat.
Samuel hissed, “No, Ada. You don’t speak to him. I don’t even speak to him.”
Ada would not be deterred. She wrenched Samuel’s hand from her knee. In fairness, he could have been more forceful but he wasn’t going to win a battle of wills with her.
She slid down off the stone throne, a preposterous move because it made her even punier in the presence of the enormous being. Nonetheless, she was on her feet.
“First of all, I hope you’re planning on fixing those windows,” Ada said. She kept her eyes trained on the visitor, but in her peripheral vision Yael bowing his head, rubbing his eyes in mortification. Good. Let him be embarrassed. He should be embarrassed for allowing this person to disrupt the Feast.
The presence turned and that’s when she saw its eyes were made of glowing topaz and fierce, fiercer even than those belonging to Samuel or even any of the more frightening members of the brotherhood. Upon noticing her, the figure acted upon some kind of instinct to make itself more human. The flames shrank but did not extinguish completely. The massive golden wings remained. The body made of white fire transformed into white robes and the face turned more human. The visitor looking back at her bore the visage of the most terrifyingly beautiful warrior ever imagined.
He was not another angel like Malek. He was no Seraphim or one of the other soldiers. He was a general, she could sense it. He was what she had overheard them talking about.
It was an archangel.
Ada swallowed hard and waited for him to strike, not certain if she would be protected.
The fiery presence finally addressed her. “Your time on this earth is short, you’d better choose your words more carefully. You don’t want your last words to be ones that anger The Authorities. It’s not good for the soul.”
“You’re early, Michael.” Zave had to be holding back the fear, but his annoyance was on full display. He glanced at Ada with a warning in his eyes that she should not dare to speak up again to the archangel. Zave was the one who spoke when the archangels showed up.
“I was eager to see the human who had caused all the disturbances,” Michael said. The archangel turned to look at Ada once more, his eyes traveling from her painted toes up to the braids in her hair. “This little female is hardly worth all the uproar. What do you have to s
ay for yourself?”
Ada lifted her chin and met the archangel’s gaze.
“Answer me, child. First, you address me unbidden, and now you dare to be tongue-tied. You know how easily humans can be dispensed with, do you not?”
Ada opened her mouth to speak but Samuel, drawing near to her side, wrenched her body tight to him and squeezed.
She took a gamble. “I thought angels were supposed to protect humans, not…dispense of them,” she rasped, her throat bone dry with terror.
Samuel leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Stay behind me.”
Michael showed no emotion on his glowing face. “Little girl, I have no feelings one way or another about whether humans cease to exist. I am only tasked to carry out orders for The Authorities. I fix problems. Protect their assets.”
“How about you wait until the end of the Bacchanal to turn her into a vegetable?” Zave said. “That was the deal with Malek.”
The archangel turned to the largest Nephilim who had risen from his throne to stand next to Samuel.
Michael replied, “Oh, we’re way past that. Whether or not we wipe her memory is irrelevant now. The first seal has already been broken.”
Murmurs echoed around the room. Nobody was expecting that.
“What are you talking about?” seethed Atlas, who looked like he was ready to rumble.
“What I’m talking about is the first seal is broken, and it’s here, in this valley, which you all were supposed to be watching, protecting. Not partying with your little trollops.”
“That’s not possible,” Zave said. “While the others were all out scouting, I went down to the river to check on it and it was undisturbed.”
Michael scoffed. “Oh, you mean the same way you checked on it the last time—what was it, about a hundred years ago—and all those people tossed themselves into the river and got sucked into hell? That was a public relations nightmare for The Authorities and the angels, as you recall.”
Zave spoke through gritted teeth. “We closed it back up. It was an anomaly. Humans experimenting with sorcery…”
Michael’s flaming sword crashed to the ground of the courtyard and split the earth, forming a gash in the soil that split the circle of thrones down the middle. The ground trembled beneath Ada’s feet.
“Sorcery that you freaks taught them!” Michael boomed.
Zave shook his head. “We told you, we only teach magic to be used for good. Your bosses gave humans free will. If they use it for evil or if they fuck things up, that’s on your side. And that has passed. You cannot blame her for breaking the seal. She was taken captive and brought here; this was not about a human mistake this time.”
The archangel took a step toward the giants who were crowding themselves around Ada to block her.
“Funny you should mention taking sides. This time, the seal is open in earnest. Last time, the humans threw themselves at it. This time, the apocalypse is coming to us. We need to know where your loyalties lie, Zave. And the same goes for all of you.”
“Why? What does it matter which side we’re on? It’s pretty clear we’re on the side of humans.”
Michael was growing impatient…even more impatient than seconds ago. “Because it’s time to form the army. You can’t live your happy little half-life anymore. You have to choose. The demons are coming. Although it is foretold that they will lose in the end, they will take as many humans down with them as they can. If you stand and fight with us, we will all be stronger for it. We can hold them back, prevent the End of Days for another hundred, two hundred years. It’s nothing to us immortals but it’s many generations to the humans. And by that time, they may find a way to right themselves before the next flood.”
Something about his words pinged a childhood memory inside of Ada and she spoke before thinking. “The next flood? But that can’t be right.”
Zave turned a furious eye toward Ada, willing her to shut the hell up. Samuel squeezed her shoulder and said nothing.
Michael laughed. “I don’t have time for this human and her questions.” He lifted his sword high over her head, and she flinched but did not run, nor did she squeak or yelp in fear. She would never complain, even if he meant to kill her.
“If I kill her now—for we know she is the reason behind the seal being broken—the sacrifice might be enough to slow them down.”
Zave shouted, “Since when do the angels make sacrifices to the dark side! Look at what you have become, Michael! This was not what you were in the beginning!”
The archangel swung his mighty sword at Zave and missed. The giant unfurled his wings at once and flew overhead, dodging the flames and drawing his own lesser sword.
In the next moment, all seven brothers had unfurled their wings and had swords drawn in the air. The six companions all huddled together around Ada to watch the combat about to take place above their heads.
“Let me tell you the beginning!” shouted Michael, unconcerned that he was surrounded by seven flaming swords. None of them made a move, and it was an awesome sight to behold. Michael was at the center with his sword of white light pointed at Zave, next to him was Samuel with a sword of flaming violet, then Dev, whose flames were indigo. It formed a sort of ferocious rainbow effect. If only the scene didn’t promise to end in violence, it could make the most beautiful mural, or fresco, the world has ever seen.
“Lucifer and his grasping gang of miscreants, and then the Grigori, followed by many others,” Michael continued. “All of them chose to fall from grace. As soon as any creature, mortal or immortal, is given a choice, they always choose wrong! Lucifer chose power, the Grigori chose unlimited free will. I only carry out orders that correct everyone’s colossally bad choices! But please tell me how to do my job! And how the demons will walk the earth unabated. We’re not talking about a random fallen angel here, a rogue demon there for you to eradicate like a minor pest problem. I’m talking about mayhem and destruction like you’ve never seen. It’s coming, and we can only slow it down from spreading out to find the other six seals.”
At that, Dev laughed and was the first of the Nephilim aside from Zave to dare speak directly to Michael. “Blah, blah, blah. I’ve been training to kick demon ass my whole gods damn life.”
Now, Samuel spoke up. “And I’ll be right beside you, brother. So will all of us.”
At the sound of Samuel’s voice, something inside Ada jumped. Something inside her could not stay quiet any longer. She could not let Samuel die today by Michael’s sword, nor could she let him risk his life fighting demons with his brothers. The idea was madness.
“I have something to say!” she said, pushing through the companions crowded around her to get closer to Michael.
“Stay back!” ordered Samuel.
“No,” Michael interrupted. “Let her pass. She should be allowed her famous last words. For posterity. Your precious scrolls will have some pretty words next to her name as the entire world burns.”
She caught Samuel’s eye, who looked down at her when she looked up. She saw only the eyes of love. The thing that passed between them gave her all the courage she needed; she knew they were going to make it.
She turned to the archangel. “If you kill me, you might slow down the apocalypse. But let me ask you this. Do you think I went on a camping trip up in the mountains with a bunch of strangers without telling anyone? If I’m declared dead, it will be under suspicious circumstances. The paranormal investigating community likes to talk to each other. A lot. They will find my phone. They’ll see every last thing that I documented about this place, including the history and how The Authorities created the entire false narrative about the Nephilim, their mothers, and how the Grigori were murdered. Nobody will be on the side of the angels if they find all this out.”
In her peripheral vision, she saw Samuel bristle when she mentioned her phone. She hadn’t told him that when she had run away from him in the woods after their trip to the waterfall, she had intentionally dropped her phone along the side of t
he hiking trail. She only hoped that the waterproof phone plus the extra layer of the water-resistant case would be effective in case of rain.
“More importantly,” she said, placing her hand to her stomach, “you will have killed an innocent life.”
The courtyard was so silent, a feather could have landed with a thud.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Samuel
“This enormous flaming turd isn’t going to lay a hand on anybody. Period. So why are you all looking at me like that?” Samuel asked the room, feeling genuinely confused.
“Oh, honey,” Dev’s companion spoke up at Samuel, with her hand on Ada’s shoulder. “Think about it.”
Samuel looked from Dev’s companion to Ada, to each of his brothers, whose mouths were all hanging open, their eyes wide. He looked down at Ada, who held her hand over her tummy and gazed up at him with shining eyes.
Samuel swooped down beside her. “Are you? No.” He placed his hand over her hand that rested on her midsection.
She nodded and a tear fell. “This is crazy, but I can feel it.”
Samuel sheathed his sword and scooped Ada up in his arms. “That can’t be. It’s not possible.” His words sounded strangled as his throat began to feel thick.
She smiled at him and circled her arms around his neck. “It’s not possible to know I’m pregnant a day or two after the main event, let alone feel a baby kick, but here we are.”
She took his hand and placed it directly on her abdomen. Although she wasn’t showing at all, he felt movement. He closed his eyes and listened. The soul of the tiny bean was in her. And he recognized the chords. He hadn’t doubted the child was half his, but now he could feel it. The child was going to be another giant, like him.
Happiness, then awe, then sadness, then horror cycled through Samuel. What did it mean? How did such a miracle happen? And what would the baby do to Ada’s body as it grew inside her?
Samuel and Ada embraced each other in elation and fear at the same time, while Michael raged from above.
