“Have you ever come across any mention of the prophesy?” I asked Charissa.
The mention of it snuffed the joy in her eyes out as quickly as a gentle breeze would a lit match. “No, I have not. And believe me, I’ve looked far and wide and paid a pretty penny to get my hands on any manuscripts that I might have thought would mention it. But there is one lead I just found out about on Thursday and planned to drive down to Savannah to check out today. Bennett’s emergency meeting canceled the trip. I have a contact at a convent down there that houses a religious texts library. The librarian, Sister Helena, keeps an eye out for any interesting new scrolls or manuscripts that they receive. She called and said that she’d gotten something in that I might be interested in taking a look at.”
“When are you planning on going?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. Bennett told me most of what will be talked about at the meeting and it sounds like things are about to get pretty crazy around here. I want to go look at it, but there’s a good chance it is just another dead end and I can’t justify leaving the people I am supposed to help Bennett lead right now, even if it is only for a day. A lot can pop off in one day.”
“Alex and I can go,” Chase said. “It might be another dead end but it also might provide us with some answers that I have a feeling we are going to need sooner rather than later. We can leave tonight after the meeting.”
Charissa hopped to her feet. “I think that is a good idea. I’ll let Bennett know so he can schedule someone to cover your patrols for tonight and tomorrow in case you don’t make it back in time. I’ll also call Sister Helena and let her know that you two will be coming in my place.” Her phone beeped and she looked down at it. “The new weapons have arrived,” she said holding the phone out to us like we could actually see the small text communicating it. “Come on. If you help with unloading I promise to make sure you get first dibs on the good shit.”
The offer was too tempting to pass up, even if it came with manual labor as a price.
Charissa kept to her word. After helping her and Bennett unload two cargo vans full of various types of guns, blades, knives, daggers and bullets we got first dibs at the good shit as promised. I picked out a wicked set of long, slightly curved, serrated blades to add to my personal arsenal. Chase declined taking anything. Insisting he had everything he needed either strapped to him or back at his apartment.
We left to get food before the meeting started and the subject of the shopping bag and what its contents were for came up over our burgers and milkshakes from Smash.
“It’s, um, an outfit for a white party my grandmother has every year. The anniversary of my mother’s death and her birthday fall on the same day. My grandmother insisted the dress attire for her funeral be white because she says it is the true color of grieving. The days around the anniversary of my mother’s death are always a hard time for us. It’s doubly hard for me because it’s also the anniversary of my father’s. A few years ago my grandmother decided to cope with it by doing what she does best. She rented out a yacht up on Lake Lanier and hosted an all white party in memory of my mother and her husband. It seemed to help her deal with the grief so my grandfather and I didn’t put up much of a fuss about it the first time or when she decided to make it an annual occurrence.” I fought back the emotion that threatened to overwhelm me.
Chase reached across the table and took my hands in his, holding them steady. It was only then that I realized they’d been trembling prior to that. “I’m sorry about your parents,” he told me quietly.
I didn’t say it was okay because it wasn’t. It hadn’t been for twelve years and it probably never would be. “Me too,” I said instead.
“So I gather that your grandmother isn’t too keen on Bennett and Charissa?”
I rolled my eyes. “My grandmother isn’t too keen on associating with anybody not of a blue blood background. It’s a marvel she’s made an exception for Whitney. But she especially has something against Bennett and Charissa as she considers them friends of my father and not my mother. She sees them as one more reminder of the reason my mother turned her back on the Sinclair name and her position within the family.”
“Your father.” He nodded in understanding.
“Exactly. My mother was everything my grandmother wanted in a daughter until she left for college. She participated in cotillion and enjoyed playing the role of a societal debutante. She was elegant, poised, beautiful, and accepted her blue blood lineage and being a part of the Sinclair legacy.
She was everything I am not. Then, she met my father when she went to Yale. He was raised in The Society and trained to become an active Nephilim from thirteen up just like we all do. He accepted his duty as a Nephilim but he also wanted something more out of life than the predetermined path that had been laid before him. When I was a little girl he told me it was why he chose to attend Yale on the full scholarship they awarded him. He’d grown up in Atlanta and had never traveled outside of Georgia. He’d wanted to see something other than his home state and do something in addition to what he’d been told from birth he was born to do before he died. He knew his life would eventually be cut short.” My laugh sounded bitter, pathetic, and sad all at the same time. “Mine will be too. With or without some damn prophecy, I am going to die sooner rather than later. We die young and those we love die young. It’s an inescapable fact for Nephilim. If my father and mother didn’t prove that to me,
other
experiences did.”
As he held my hands tight, squeezing them and offering a tender smile at all of the right moments, something inside me thawed a little. I almost elaborated on those
other
experiences, but I knew I couldn’t talk about them at the time. Not when the memory and grief of my parents’ deaths were so close to the surface too. I’d be pulled under and I might not resurface.
“My mother told me it was love at first sight between them,” I said hurrying pass the other experiences I’d mentioned hoping he wouldn’t probe for more details on them. “My father used to tell me the same thing. They met on campus in the book stacks freshman year during fall semester finals. The only open seat at the study tables was the one beside him. He asked her if she wanted to get coffee to recharge at one a.m then go back to studying. She said yes and that was that. My grandmother flipped when she realized their relationship had grown serious. She blew a gasket when my father proposed to my mother at their graduation. She told my mother in front of him that he wasn’t good enough even if he was studying to be a doctor and a Sinclair would not marry someone like him. She threatened to disown my mother if she accepted the proposal. My mother kissed my father, let him slip the ring on her finger then told my grandparents they could leave and take their money and family name with them. It surprises me that my grandfather didn’t intervene like he does whenever she tries to go too far with me. But maybe that is why he’s so adamant about doing it now. Because he should have done it then. My father went to medical school at Emory in Atlanta then accepted a residency with them when he graduated. Even though we lived less than thirty miles away from my grandparents, they rarely interacted with each other except to exchange me the one or so weekends a month that my grandparents requested to spend time with me. My mother and father weren’t so petty as to keep their child from knowing her only set of living grandparents and vice versa. When my parents died my grandparents took me in and raised me. Bennett and Charissa would have pushed for me to come live with them but my father made the decision to leave The Society and not raise me within it. He thought that if I had nothing to do with fighting Daemons and fulfilling the duty set forth for the Nephilim then I’d be kept safe from the prophecy being fulfilled. Bennett and Charissa honored his wishes. I’m only an active member now because at thirteen I pestered both Bennett and Charissa until they finally caved and let me join the new training class of that year. To make a really long story I just told short, there is no love lost between my grandmother and Bennett and Charissa. They resent her for sneering down her nose at my father and she dislikes them simply because of their link to him. So I understand why they never come. Still it would be nice to have them there.”
To have someone who truly understands the burdens that I carry and why
is what I didn’t add. Whitney knew of them, she even sympathized with them, but she couldn’t possibly empathize.
“I’m free Saturday.”
The offer surprised me. It made me want to smile goofily even as it scared the shit out of me. What did his offer to fill Bennett and Charissa’s place and be there for me Saturday night say about our relationship and what might be developing between us?
He must have read the alarm in my eyes because he let go of my hands and grabbed my face. He leaned across the table and kissed me. It was so much less and so much more than all of our other kisses combined. It wasn’t earth shattering or impassioned or riddled with lust. It didn’t make me automatically shake with need or ignite a fire within me. But it was all-consuming and unforgettable nevertheless. He kissed me tenderly and supportively and thoroughly. It warmed me from the outside in.
His eyes bore into mine when he pulled away.
“To say that I like you is an understatement. Whatever this thing is that has started between us, it feels nice. Nice enough that I want to give it a name. I feel like I’m thirteen years old again with what I’m about to say and I should probably follow it up with a circle yes or no at the end but what the hell— will you let me be your boyfriend?”
I blinked. Not once, not twice, but three times because I swore my eyes were deceiving me. His forever perfectly tanned skin contained a trace of pink around the dimples that made an appearance as he spoke. I opened my mouth to make an excuse. To give him and myself a reason not to follow what my erratically beating heart was telling me to do. Like I’d said, Nephilim died young and the people we loved did too. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d only be added to the personal experiences that made me believe that wholeheartedly. I opened my mouth to refuse him, possibly even push him away. Nip whatever this was between us in the bud before it could take root and bloom any further. But instead a choked out, “yes,” is what came out.
He grinned at me triumphantly then kissed me again. “Since I’m your boyfriend now it’d be remiss for you not to invite me as your plus one on Saturday. Isn’t that what girls in new relationships do? Parade their hot new boyfriends around for the world to see?” His teasing lightened the mood.
“I suppose,” I drawled. “If you were hot.”
He kissed me a third time and this one made my toes curl.
“Oh I’m hot
with
killer biceps.” He grinned at me wolfishly throwing the first words I’d ever said to him back at me.
“Did you just flex as you said that?” I asked incredulously.
His grin turned unapologetic. “A little.”
I stifled a laugh so as not to further encourage him but even the giggle that escaped felt good. “Fine. I suppose you can be my plus one.”
He mockingly placed his hand over his heart. “You suppose. I’m wounded.”
“Good,” I chuckled. “Your ego could deal with being deflated a notch or two right about now.”
“Really? What makes you say that?” The contraction of his muscles was much less subtle this time. He raised his arms and flexed his biceps in a full fledged body builder pose.
I doubled over with laughter. It felt good. Really good.
“Bennett delivering the news about the Brethren went over better than I expected.”
We were an hour into the drive to Savannah and it was the first time Chase had spoken to me since we pulled out of his apartment’s underground parking garage in his Camaro. We’d both been content to drive in companionable silence after agreeing on an oldies but goodies radio station.
I looked up from the book I’d been reading on my phone. I had a paperback copy of it in my book bag but the sun had nearly set and it would be impossible to see the words on the pages without an overhead light. “It went better than I expected too. I assumed there would be more…”
“Naysayers,” Chase supplied the word for me.
“Yeah.”
As a whole the Atlanta sect took Bennett’s news that there were actual Brethren walking the streets of Atlanta that might start targeting Nephilim and wreaking havoc on the human population of the city better than expected. The meeting room at headquarters had erupted in a combination of righteous outrage, anxious chatter, and grim determination to fulfill the duty given to The Society of Nephilim by our archangelic founders.
Most readily took him for his word about the threat. There were only a few that wanted to bury their heads in the sand.
I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s not like we didn’t know they existed. We just thought they’d all returned to hell. Shit happens. People make mistakes or overlook things or shit slips through the crack.”
“Or Archangels are lying, scheming, douche bags that couldn’t give you all the details if their superior asses depended on it.”
“Do you have a thing against all archangels or just the one in particular?”
He snorted. “I’ve only ever met the one, but he’s enough of a prick to prejudice me against the lot of them.”
“ Obviously there’s a story and a bad history there. Care to share? We’ve got nothing but time and a couple hundred miles to kill.”
His eyes were still on the road but I saw their normally lit up hue darken briefly. “No,” he said flatly. Then he added more softly, “Maybe later. Another time when my surroundings aren’t devoid of something to kill. In fact, let’s save it for the next time we find ourselves in a club full of Brethren. I can pretend like their wings are white instead of black when I’m driving a silver dagger through their hearts.”