As always lately when thinking of Belial’s trinkets, or whenever in fact his mind drifted at all, Nahum thought of Olivia and their child. Their daughter. Having that news delivered by Amato infuriated him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to know, but he did not wish to be told by him. Information Amato could only know through Belial. He had taken pleasure in revealing something Nahum should have learned with Olivia. He had phoned her as soon as he could with the news. It seemed only fair. Of course, he had checked with her before revealing the fact, but she had wanted to know, and could barely contain her joy. A daughter. Nahum closed his eyes, imagining Olivia’s expression. The curve of her smile, the tease in her eyes, her smooth skin.

He had kept his distance at New Years. It was one night of passion. That was all. With lasting consequences that were unexpectedly good. But once their daughter was born, what was he to do? Unable to deal with that right now, he returned to his team and their conversation.

“Of course,” Ash mused in a low voice, “if Amato had accomplices at that church, they may already know where to look for him.”

Shadow nodded. “True, but would they want to make it obvious that they knew exactly where to look? I wouldn’t. Someone will stumble on him in a few days, I’m sure. We should keep our eye on the news reports to see if anyone in particular found him. It might be another clue.”

“Or, of course, no one will report the death at all,” Nahum suggested. “His body did fall into a big hole. Or maybe they’ll make sure it seemed to have occurred well away from the church.”

“There’s that they again,” Gabe complained.

Ash laughed at Gabe’s grimace. “He did say there were more of them. We can’t ignore that. That shrine was significant. It could involve the entire church. There were a lot of angel motifs as decoration.”

However, even as he was saying it, it didn’t ring true to Nahum. They were all sure that Amato had worked alone there.

Niel, ever impatient, stripped his shirt off and extended his wings. “We should take a quick look around while we’re here. If the place is empty, then we don’t need to return later. If he has a housekeeper or someone else lives there, lights will be on now.”

“That’s logical,” Nahum agreed.

Gabe considered the suggestion and then nodded. “Okay, if it looks deserted, come back and we’ll join you. Be careful!”

“I’ll come, too,” Nahum said, stripping and extending his own wings, anxious to dispel his circling thoughts of Olivia.

“I’ll move the car under that stand of trees,” Gabe said, gesturing down the road. The forested slopes pressed closely along the lane, and the wind in the trees sounded like whispers.

“We won’t be long,” Nahum promised, and in seconds he followed Niel’s lead and flew over Amato’s grounds.

Amato’s country house was a stocky building with a square tower and was actually much smaller than Nahum had anticipated. The grounds were heavily wooded, with the trees ending in a circle around the property. It would be menacing here even in midsummer, the air close and thick. And it was dark. No lights glowed in the windows, and there were no cars on the drive. They landed on the flat roof of the tower, and up close it was obvious why the house was deserted.

“This place is a wreck,” Nahum said, noting the cracked masonry and general air of dilapidation. “I don’t think anyone has lived here for years.”

Niel peered over the parapet onto the roof of the main house. “I agree. Everything needs to be repaired. There are holes in the roof, and cracked windows. But why? What happened here?”

“Maybe nothing. Amato could have preferred living in Florence.”

Niel scanned the woods, and then finally looked at Nahum. “There are secrets here. Or were once, at least. It feels ominous.”

“I don’t like it at all. I sense evil.”

“We might as well investigate it now, then.”

Nahum nodded, distracted. What was it about this place that was so unsettling? “Fine. You get the others. I’ll wait by the main entrance.”

He flew over the woods again in the time he had spare. There wasn’t a break in the trees, or any sign of a building under the canopy. The grounds were obviously as neglected as the house. When he finally set down before the double wooden entrance doors, one was already ajar, the frame warped by the weather. He shivered, unable to shake the feeling of unease, and waited for his brothers to join him.

It was then that he spotted Belial’s seal over the door, and felt a prickle between his shoulder blades. He spun around, sword raised. The dark woods presented an impenetrable wall behind him, but was something in there, watching him?

He turned his back, convinced that whatever had once been here was long gone, but Belial left dark shadows, and he did not relish stepping into them.

Lucien spread the manifesto out on the study table, the half a dozen pages lined up next to each other, and weighted their curling edges down with the objects closest to hand. A few peculiar glass paperweights, a brass hand, and a bronze egg in a stand. Objects he had become very familiar with once he had settled in at Chadwick House.

His attention, however, was on the manifesto, as was Estelle’s, Barak’s and Jackson’s.

“It’s handwritten,” Jackson observed. “I didn’t expect that. Old, too.”

Lucien nodded. “An old-fashioned ink pen wrote this. It looks to be centuries old. I’ve seen similar papers that are stored in Chadwick’s collection. Personal histories, some of them. Diaries of occultists. Not manifestos,” he added hurriedly, in case anyone got the wrong idea.

Lucien felt very confident, compared to how he had been a couple of months before. Defeating Black Cronos had reinvigorated him, and he had mastered his shifts to a super-soldier. It also helped that he was now living at Chadwick House, with his own room and agenda, and no one watching his every move anymore. He hadn’t really liked the house to begin with, but he had acclimatised well enough, and it was free to stay there. He had consequently immersed himself in the occult, researching Chadwick’s collections, and familiarising himself with the study and the books it housed. He had grown to like it. The house’s old walls creaked and moaned, but it was also secure and warm, and for the first time in months he relished his privacy. He felt that he had become the house’s custodian. Stupid, really. Mason Jacobs, the Director of The Orphic Guild, was actually in charge, but only in name. He didn’t live and breathe the house like Lucien did. Lucien had begun to think that this place was part of his destiny. He was a member of the paranormal and occult world now. He may as well embrace it.

Estelle agreed with his suggestion. “Yes, Barak and I thought it was old, too. It makes us think that Jacobsen must have been a valuable part of the organisation for him to own what looks like an original manifesto.”

“Unless, of course,” Jackson suggested, “this is an old copy of an even older manifesto. I need to study it properly, but the language is old-fashioned, the phrasing weird.”

“Angels were always deliberately obtuse,” Barak said, grimacing. “The more fanciful they could be, the better. It’s tiresome, but at the time, it was just the way things were.”

“You think Belial wrote this?” Jackson asked, eyebrows shooting up.

Barak shrugged. “Dictated, perhaps? I don’t know. He was always fond of his own voice. I think it’s likely he had a hand in it.”

“Which means he had a strong connection to whoever wrote this.” Jackson straightened up, gazing about the room but not really seeing it. “A mental connection, or was he actually, physically here?”

“I’d have said that was impossible,” Barak said uneasily, “not for millennia, at least, but after what my brothers have seen lately, I’m not so sure.”

Lucien rubbed his tattoos as he studied the manifesto, a habit he’d developed when he was first turned by Black Cronos. Now it just seemed to be something he did without thought. “I thought I’d got used to occult language, but that’s gibberish!” He glanced at Barak, who like all Nephilim could read any language, but it wasn’t the language at issue here; it was its obvious attempt to confuse and obfuscate. “Anything strike you?”

“No, other than the obvious. Ash might make more sense of it. Or JD, perhaps.”

The manifesto started with a declaration, a promise to return the exalted Belial to his true position, after his selfless plunge to Earth as one of the Fallen. It stated that he had fought side by side with Samael, otherwise known as Lucifer, the devil, when he started Heaven’s rebellion and left God’s side. Together they sought to cleanse the Earth of the less than worthy, and reward those who were deserving. Those that followed him.

“That’s bollocks,” Barak said, pointing at the line that Lucien had just read. “He never rewarded anyone. He made them think he was going to, but it was all smoke and mirrors. He was a cruel, thankless master. Not many of the Fallen liked him. Unfortunately, you could never ignore him, either. His own Nephilim of course followed his every word, until they too finally rebelled.”

“So, just to clarify,” Jackson asked, “every Fallen Angel had his own Nephilim?”

“Yes, they all fathered lots of us. Remember, they could take the form of any man, for a while. Some women wouldn’t even have known they weren’t sleeping with their husbands, because the angel inhabited their skin.”

“Which is horrific!” Estelle said, her hands clenching as if trying to contain her magic. “Treating them like a breeding machine!”

“And the men like a dedicated stallion,” Barak pointed out. “Having an angel inhabit your skin was not pleasant, I can assure you. There were no winners in that scenario. We called ourselves Houses. I was from the House of Kathazel. Gabe and Nahum, the House of Remiel. As you know, my father had healing skills. Raphael was the most powerful healer. An Archangel. Kathazel was not as strong.”

It was dizzying to hear ancient names uttered with such familiarity. Dealing with the immortal Comte of Saint-Germain and JD seemed strange, but this… Lucien focussed on the manifesto, and pointed out a few lines that were confusing. “What’s this about angels of the First Sphere and the Second Dominion?”

“They were classes of angels. Belial was of the First Sphere. The most powerful of the angelic hosts.” Barak grinned. “Even Heaven had a class system.”

“The good thing,” Estelle said, taking a seat at the table, “is that the manifesto seems unconcerned in general with any of the other Fallen. It only speaks of continuing Belial’s work in cleansing the Earth by using his own brand of destruction—sowing the seeds of madness and causing destruction from within.”

“A little hands-off for Belial,” Barak stated. “He enjoyed getting his hands dirty, but he would like this, too. The insidiousness of it all.”

“He does have a physical stake in all of this,” Jackson reminded them. “His jewels that contain his power—his essence. How have they survived all this time? Gabe and the team found lots more beneath that church in Florence. That’s what’s troubling me more than anything. The manifesto is nothing without them. Just a bunch of words and promises that have no teeth without them. It’s his trinkets, as you call them, that make the manifesto so threatening. You’ve read it. Does it give us any clues as to how they are here?”