“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?”
Barak looked uneasily at Estelle. “There is a passing reference to the House of Belial, and the assistance they offered in distributing the jewels. Couched in flowery language, of course, but the meaning is clear.”
“Are you saying that there are other Nephilim walking the Earth right now?” Jackson asked, face draining of colour.
“Not exactly! It suggests that there were at one time. That could have been hundreds of years ago. We are long lived, not immortal.”
“But it’s possible?” Lucien asked, shocked.
“Well, we’re here, and the world is a big place,” Barak conceded. He took a seat at the table as if all his energy had left him. “I’ve been mulling on it all day, trying not to see something where there is nothing, but it’s in the manifesto. I don’t think we can ignore it. It mentions certain jewels by name, too, and names his sword. They were names known only to his House.”
“Why?” Jackson asked.
“Names confer power and knowledge. I mean, obviously I don’t know if that was his sword’s name. Someone could be making it up, but it sounds plausible. Especially because it’s written in angelic script. It means Justice Bearer.”
“Have you told your brothers?” Jackson asked.
“No. I didn’t want to unduly worry them until I was sure. I also wanted Ash’s opinion. He’s good at this kind of thing.”
Jackson looked astonished. “I can’t believe you haven’t warned them after what happened last night.”
