Shadowhunter (Nephilim Quest Book 1) (45 page)

Ambrogio hesitantly held out his hand, and the god took it into his. The god's skin was burning hot and the heat on the blisters on Ambrogio's skin made him almost faint with pain. The world around began to fade, and turned into a grey mist. Only then Ambrogio understood that if he was holding the hand of Hades, the place where he was taking him, had to be the afterlife - the joyless place where souls were doomed to reminisce about their former life in the world of sunshine for all eternity.

So he was dead now. He would never see Selene again except in his memories, not until she died too and they could meet in the afterlife. And he had heard the afterlife was a dreary place, where lovers did not recognize each other anymore, where a mother would not remember her own child.

Mute with despair he hardly looked around him, not even caring about the pain in his hand. The god did not seem to be moving his mighty wings, but there was a feeling of moving forwards nevertheless. They were in thick grey mist. It was very dark at first, but then the mist began to get lighter. A landscape began to form. And it was nothing like Ambrogio had expected the world of the dead to be.

First of all - there was light. It seemed to come from every direction simultaneously, but you did not see the sun anywhere.
 

Secondly - there were buildings. And people, who quickly bowed down when they saw Hades with his wings stretched. And then there were odd shadowy, distorted creatures, which did the same. Ambrogio had never seen the likes of them. They had to be some kind of demons.

"Is this your kingdom, oh mighty Hades?" Ambrogio asked with a shaking voice.

"This is where my servants live and are not touched by time," the god said. "Or the sun, for that matter," he added, after a quick look at Ambrogio's face.

He let go of Ambrogio's hand and strode forward. Ambrogio wondered why he did not use his huge black wings, but maybe they were for the human world. He did keep them open, though, but moved forward with his long legs.

He had to run to keep up with the black-winged god. He could not stop staring at the amazing wings and almost tripped on his own feet because of it. They were nothing like a bird's. They were formed like wings, sort of. But they were transparent, and looked almost... liquid. The golden blood pulsed in the see-through veins, up on the back of the wings, and down at the front. From the wings emanated a clear hum.

Hades entered a big palace-like building and strode up the steps two at a time to enter. Ambrogio trotted after him.

They walked over the stone floor of the entrance hall, and into a smaller room with a few chairs.

"Wait here," Hades said.

Ambrogio bowed deeply, and the god disappeared through a doorway. He did not dare to sit - chairs were for the nobility.

When the god came back, he had hidden his wings and Ambrogio stole a short look at his face.

He was handsome. Very tall, dark-haired, and golden-eyed like the goddess had been.

"This is for you," the god said and gave him a bow and a quiver full of odd-looking arrows.

Ambrogio took the weapons, which surely had to be magical, and waited.

"You are to kill the silver winged ones with these," the god said.

Ambrogio did not understand. Which creature had silver wings?

"Swans, oh Hades?" he hesitantly asked.

"Yes, you can call them that. But I will explain better: they are my kind. Human in form, and they have wings. Silver wings. I do not want to leave even one of them alive in this world."

Ambrogio bowed down, not daring to ask why.

"How do I find them, oh Hades?" he asked.

"With this," the god said and extended his hand.

A silver... something - not like anything Ambrogio had seen before. It was a curving piece of metal, with leather straps attached to its ends.

"You sing with this and they come to you. When they do, you are to kill them with your arrows. One arrow for each silver winged one, so do not miss! Forty five arrows in all, and no more can be made. These arrows kill them, no matter where they hit. And you are to take their blood, and write to me with it that you have killed one of them. You can then write another note to your girl."

"But the sun, oh god..." Ambrogio's voice trailed off.

"You shall move by night. And I shall have you brought back here every sunrise. Before that you shall have to present the body of the silver one to the beautiful goddess you have met."

Ambrogio looked at the bow in his hands, and the metal piece with straps. To kill the likes of Hades, and then give the bodies to the goddess?

"These silver ones are a threat to us, they can destroy us. They are our enemies, willing to destroy the balance of the gods, and of the human world as a result," Hades said to Ambrogio. "This is not work that I would give to anyone lightly. But you told me you can sing, and this instrument will draw them near. And these 'swans' are a gift to the goddess you have already met. She has something that belongs to me."

The silver... something she had been holding came to Ambrogio's mind.

"Her silver weapon," Hades confirmed. "She has stolen it from me, and I want it back. Your mission is to win her trust with the bodies of the silver ones she too hates, and when you get the chance, you will steal her weapon and bring it here. When you do, you and Selene can come here and live under my protection. No other god will dare to hurt you here, in my domain."

Ambrogio bowed, wordless again.

"Here..." Hades had parchment and a quill in his hands; "You will
 
write your messages with these, using the blood of the "swans". You will discover that you cannot fool me with any other kind of blood. And if you fail..."

His voice was suddenly hard and menacing, when he towered over the much shorter Ambrogio.

"If you fail in this, I shall make sure your Selene suffers. I shall give her to Apollo myself. He is not known for being gentle with the girls he fancies."

Ambrogio could only stand with a bowed head, too scared to say anything.
 

"And if you plan to escape, know that I can follow your scent easily, and find you no matter where you go. If, however, you succeed, you shall be my loyal servant and well rewarded for it. You shall have this palace, or any other you'd like to live in."

Ambrogio swallowed. Something moved past him. He turned and saw one of the demons looking at him. It looked like half man, half... predator of some kind. Its eyes were dull, lifeless, its movements dreamlike, slow. He could see through it.

"Look into its eyes," Hades commanded.

Ambrogio obeyed, still holding the bow and arrow tightly.

Something strange happened. The more he looked into the creature's eyes, the more alive it seemed to become. And soon it was as if something opened in his mind and part of him could... see through its eyes. Not as a clear visual experience, but like a picture that appeared in his thoughts. He stepped back and felt a tug in his chest.

"This is your shadow now. He will help you to hunt, and you can see through his eyes and hear through his ears. If you try to escape, he is to come to me and tell me where you are. Because he can also see through your eyes and hear through your ears," Hades said.

Ambrogio's limbs began to shake.

"Oh come now," Hades laughed, "once you get used to your shadow, you will see it is a great help to you in hunting. It moves much more quietly than you ever do, because it is not quite solid. If you wish to make him more solid, concentrate and give him more of your own power. If you wish to make him more transparent, draw your power back. You'll learn it soon enough."

Ambrogio took a step backwards, and the shadow followed him like a dog, mimicking slightly his movements. If he lifted his hand, the hand of the shadow twitched. If he took a step, the shadow did so too. Still, it moved on its own as well, and Ambrogio felt a slight tug at his chest when it did so.

"And now it is time. It is midnight in the human world, and you need to hunt one of the silver ones for me before the night is over. Come, I shall take you there."

Hades extended his hand and Ambrogio had no other option but to take it. The afterworld began to darken around them, first into dull grey mist, and then it was pitch black, and they stepped out into the starry night of the human world.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

59. Shadows at the Gate

The faint light of the night sky was visible through the window. Diana slept on her back, snoring lightly, her long curly hair spread across the pillow, but I could not sleep.

I stood by the window, staring at the eternal stars of the north, the Ikhemu-sek – the stars around the North Star, which was the star Thuban in the constellation of Draco in ancient times. The Egyptians used to call them the undying stars, because they never set during the night. Before their worship turned from stars to the sun, they believed the souls of their pharaohs travelled to the northern stars after death. That was probably why the pyramids had these tiny tunnels, stellar shafts, towards the north sky, reaching upwards from the burial chamber. The soul of the pharaoh could use the tunnels to travel to the night sky.

I never understood why I was so interested in ancient Egypt. But ever since I was a small child I had dreamed about the place and I wrote the dreams down. Much to my surprise many of the names and places in the dreams turned out to have actually existed. I never told my mother this, knowing how she would react, but I did begin to wonder at an early age whether there was truth in reincarnation stories.

It was very quiet, even though I knew the Centre was functioning all around me, operating in secret alongside a luxurious spa. It was heavily guarded, and within its safe walls researchers worked, Time Walker groups were trained – and now, prisoners were kept. All because of the war between the good and the bad Nephilim. I felt like a character in a fantasy novel.

I tried to wrap my mind around all the things that had happened to me. A few weeks ago I thought I was a normal sixteen-year-old girl. And now I knew I was Nephilim – I had wings, and I could heal people. I still did not think it was me – the energy seemed to come from an unknown source I could not yet identify with.

I turned my hands in the faint light of the stars. They looked perfectly normal now, and I could not see any special spots from which the odd strings of light and color could come out. There were no tiny holes anywhere, just smooth, soft skin.

Who was I? What was I? Where had the Watchers come from? Was the story true that they took human wives and created my kind? Were they an alien species from space? Was I an alien, then? I sure felt like one...

Standing there, looking into the night, I felt very lonely. I could never again be an ordinary human and the only ones of my kind around were Daniel and Elijah. And there were so many dangerous, dark Nephilim out there in the world. The likes of Angel. Even if I did manage to keep safe, I would lose all my loved ones and live on long after them. Somehow I was not able to feel joy about being given such a long life span. What if I grew tired of living? What if everything began to feel like meaningless, endless repetition?

I lowered my hands and looked at the stars again. Were the dark Nephilim flying there even now? How about the good ones? Where did they live? What was the council of Nephilim I had been told about?

And then there was Daniel.
 

I felt almost physical pain when I thought of him – my soul and my whole body longed for him, and all my defenses were down – I had read about what falling in love felt like, but I had never expected an emotion this strong: as if I had a hole in my chest where my heart used to be and a throbbing, raw, delicious and painful emotion was drawing me in like a moth to a flame. At the heart of that flame was Daniel. And I did not even try to stop myself from burning up in it.
 

After healing Elijah, when I had lost the remembrance of who I was, I had been pure emotion and my love for Daniel had revealed itself in its full force. Maybe I had driven him away from me for good with my behavior? Yet he had answered to my emotions in a way that made my knees buckle when I thought of it. The crushes I had had at school felt like pitiful jokes compared to this.

What was becoming of my life?

The stars did not answer. I leaned my cheek on the window frame. It felt cool against my hot skin. It was strange – I could feel that my body temperature was oddly high, but I did not feel ill. I wondered how high my temperature actually was – it felt somewhat similar to the time I had influenza. It was definitely higher, but obviously not high enough to cause coagulation in my body.

My senses were getting sharper too. Even though the window was closed, I could hear the little sounds the animals outside made. The rustlings of mice, the calls of the night birds – and if I listened closely, it was as though I heard a slight background sound to all of this. It seemed to come from above, as if the stars themselves were singing. And oddly enough this... song for the lack of a better word... seemed to resonate back from Diana. Still, this impression was so slight I probably imagined it.

Also the night did not look dark to me anymore. It was as though I was looking at it through some sort of infrared binoculars. I could see that living things gave off a faint glow – the branches of the trees against the black sky were clearly visible to me. The light of the stars was much stronger than it had been before – and the whole sky had more stars than I had ever seen. The lights of a nearby city formed a strong semi-circle on the horizon to the left.

I put my fingertips on the window glass and traced a distant tree's outline on it. My fingers began to glow faintly, and the silver strings began to form as a mist on the tips of the fingers. Curious, I let them appear, and kept drawing the tree onto the glass.

I began to feel slight vertigo, but did not stop doodling the tree onto the window. Then I felt that I was being sucked into a tunnel again, this time forward and suddenly I was outside. I was not standing safely on the ground – oh no. I was standing on a tree branch, and the Centre was across the field. Quickly I hugged the trunk before falling down.