Shadowhunter (Nephilim Quest Book 1) (48 page)

"Evelyn... Angel, more likely," I heard Elijah mutter to Daniel.

"But how can it be that you are so well healed, young man?" Mr. Donnelly directed his words at Elijah. "You were severely injured the last time I saw you. I was afraid you would die, the attack on you was so fierce."

He swallowed, still clearly shocked by the fight he had witnessed in the buffer zone.

"We have very good doctors," Lilith hastened to say.

"Yes, maybe the Nephilim heal faster," Mr. Donnelly mused as if he was making a mental note for a research subject. ""I see there are three of you here. All of the unspoiled kind. How happy I am to see you. I thought the dark Nephilim had killed you all. I am aware of their war against you - it has continued since antiquity."

So Mr. Donnelly had immediately marked me out as one of the Nephilim too.

"They do try," Daniel commented dryly, "but no, they have not killed us all."

"Tell us what you know of the Book of Watchers," Lilith interrupted. "Why do they want to find it?"

Mr. Donnelly collected his thoughts for a while.

"They are very interested in their history, the dark Nephilim. There is some ancient truth in that book they need to find, or so they said to me. They did not tell me what it was, but I think I have worked it out on my own."

"Yes?" Lilith was careful not to reveal anything, and managed to sound only mildly curious.

"I may look like a quiet scholar, but I keep my ears and eyes open, and I have the mind of a researcher, even if I do say so myself. I overheard Evelyn and Cain talking to each other once about a Book of Messengers, and how all the copies needed to be destroyed so that no one else would find their way to the Book of Watchers."

Reggie stepped forward, eagerly. Lilith's gesture made him stop. Mr. Donnelly clearly recognised a fellow scholar (they looked quite alike, with the only difference between them being Reggie's bushy hair and eyebrows, and tall frame), and the rest of his words were directed at Reggie.

"I had heard of the Book of Messengers while I was still living in London. And as it happened, while studying angelology, I had come across the very book. It was located in a small nunnery in Kent. They were very proud of their little library, and had this ancient manuscript in their possession. It took me years of correspondence with the good mother superior, but finally, one Christmas, I was invited to see the book."

"Really?" Reggie could no longer stay quiet. "What was it like?"

"Quite small. And I have to say, the oldest, and most magnificent book I have ever seen. The very first book, in book form as we know it, that was ever created! It was beautiful!"

Mr. Donnelly forgot himself in his memories for a while, looking very much like Reggie in the same state of mind, smiling to himself, and sighing.

"And...?" Lilith prompted.

"Oh, yes, quite, begging your pardon... There was an illustration there, of a red-winged angel. He was holding a scroll, and on it was drawn something I could not quite get. The words revealed it though, it said: The scroll of iyrin, the path to their abode."

"Ah! Yes!" Reggie beamed.

"So I came to understand that the Book of Watchers is not a book at all, but a map that leads them to wherever they came from. I never revealed to them that I knew what the book was. I tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible, and not draw any unnecessary attention to myself."

Lilith nodded.

"Indeed. It is a map. But what of the clues to it?"

"Now that's the interesting part. It seems there is a chain of clues; each needed to understand the next one. If you find a clue, but don't have the previous one in your hands, you don't know in which order you should proceed."

"Hands? You mean they are physical things?" Reggie inquired.

"So I gather," Mr. Donnell nodded. He looked slightly embarrassed and it was a few seconds before he continued, "My shadow was very good at stealing books. That may be because our shadows do reflect our personalities, even if they are twisted in their form. I often sent it to the human world to steal books, as I was not given permission to go there myself. I never understood why it could enter the world, but I could not. It was one of the curiosities of my existence there. I never sent the shadow to steal the Book of Messengers, though. It was too fragile, and shadows have no respect for fragile things... If the book had been damaged in the process..."

Reggie was already sitting by Mr. Donnelly on the sofa.

"So what are these clues?"

"One of the books that my shadow stole was in another monastery, in Germany. This book was from the early middle ages and had been brought to the monastery from Italy. It was safely locked inside a wooden box, mind you, so the shadow could not harm it. This was probably because of the beautiful bejeweled bees on its cover... It was written in Latin, and there was a reference there to the Trail of Angels.
 
It sounded like a spiritual path for a believer to follow, to achieve enlightenment, but I found the wording a bit strange."

"What did it say?"

"Well, in modern language - as some of you may not understand Latin - it said that if the reader were to follow the Trail of Angels, they would find their way to the Creators. And that's the odd part. Plural. Not Creator, not God, but Creators."

"I see..." Daniel looked at Elijah, who nodded.

"Yes?" Mr. Donnelly looked at them eagerly.

"It's obvious, of course!" Reggie jumped to his feet and literally took a few excited hops around the room on his long legs. "Of course! This only confirms what we had already concluded."

"Do tell," Mr. Donnelly pressed his round spectacles even more firmly onto his nose.

"The Book of Watchers is a map to the abode of the Watchers. And what you just told us reveals that the Trail of Angels will take one directly to them. They might even be the same thing under a different name. Cain's Nephilim want to find the physical location of the ancient Watchers, the forefathers of the Nephilim! The very same Watchers, who sired the Nephilim in the first place, and according to legend were thrown into eternal damnation as a result."

"The actual Angels?" Grandma asked, "the forefathers of the Nephilim?"

"Yes, or Watchers, as they are called. What they are, we don't know. But they were here to help human kind evolve. They revealed too much information to human kind too soon, and married human women, producing the Nephilim. For this their power was taken from them, and they were imprisoned for all time. Religious literature the world over contains hints about them."

"So what are they?" I finally opened my mouth and it was Elijah who answered.

"Some kind of beings who had possession of a higher intelligence than humankind. Why they were here to observe humans, we don't know. Why it was dangerous to give knowledge to humans, we don't know either.
 
Religious writings may be corrupted efforts to understand what happened. As religious writings often are - they are expressions of man's limited understanding attempting to explain something that is way above their current state of intelligence. Trying to explain the inexplicable."

"Are we some sort of aliens, then?" I asked.

"We don't know what we are. We appeared in human history thousands of years back, and when we go in search of information about our ancestry, all we have to go by are limited sources in old religious documents. People have twisted these writings to their own ends throughout history, taking away some parts and adding others. Mostly, it was done to fit whatever suited those in power. So we do not know the truth," Daniel explained. "What we do know for certain, however, is that we have been here for thousands of years, and as such should have a right to be here. But we cannot reveal ourselves to ordinary people. That would cause havoc. Imagine what would happen to world religions, if we began to walk - or fly - about, showing our wings."

I couldn't imagine, really.

"It would throw the whole world into turmoil. It is best that ordinary people don't see the other reality. Nephilim, vampires, shadows... if their basic beliefs of the structure of reality are shaken too much, it may lead to wars, and destruction. The balance of the world is a delicate thing," Daniel explained. "Fear is the emotion that tips it."

That I could understand. If my Mom were ever to see a shadow, or my angel wings, she would surely lose her mind.

"So... The Trail of Angels is what they are looking for. Do they have any idea where it might begin?" Lilith asked Mr. Donnelly.

He shook his head.

"No, as far as they know it could be anywhere. And the first clue is what they need to follow that trail in the right order."

"So... we would need to figure out what the first clue is..." Reggie rubbed his chin with his fingers, deep in thought.

"Well, not quite. I think I have - ah - figured
 
- it out already," Mr. Donnelly announced.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

62. The Clue

We stared at Mr. Donnelly, surprised.

"You know where the path starts?" Daniel finally put the question into words.

"I cannot say I know where the path starts, but I have found a description about the location of the first clue, which will tell where the Trail of Angels begins. A clue to the clues, if you will."

"Let's hear it, then." Elijah moved towards him.

Mr. Donnelly's hands twitched nervously.

"Patience, Elijah." Lilith raised her hand as if to push Elijah back. "Remember that our guest does not have good experiences of the Nephilim."

Elijah muttered apologies and stepped back.

"It was the oddest thing, the way I found this clue... It was a shadow that told me about it not many days ago."

"A shadow?" Grandma's voice revealed she could not believe her ears.

"Yes, a shadow. But not like the shadows of the city of Immortals. This one was more like a... ghost. Someone who had really died."

"A ghost?"

"Yes, the ghost of a young woman," Mr. Donnelly nodded, "I was sitting in my study, doing some... translation work... when she materialized in my room. I have to say that in my old life I would have been scared out of my wits, but after a while one gets used to all sorts of creatures in the city of the Immortals. I knew she was not an ordinary shadow. She was beautiful, not at all like the twisted shadows on the City."

He searched for words and drew something into the air with his hands.

"She was visible only from waist up, and tried to speak, but I could not hear her voice. I do not know who she was, maybe someone who had died in the city, and was now bound to it forever..."

Lilith wondered about this.

"You know, no one is bound forever anywhere after their death, and can move on. If they are stuck, they can be advised further. But not all want to move forward."

"Quite. The murderers, criminals and such," Mr. Donnelly nodded, "I have seen them.
 
I went to the lowest level under the Council hall... and I have seen some in the City as well. They cling to their old environments, and try to get the attention of anyone or anything nearby, so that they will pay attention to them and so feed them energy. That makes them more solid."

"So people die in the City as well?" Grandma asked, "but not likely of old age?"

"They do die, as people live there in their physical bodies. Physical bodies can be killed," Mr. Donnelly replied and shivered. Obviously he had some unpleasant memories of the subject.

"But this young lady did not have the feeling of desperation about her, as had the other ghosts I had seen. She was quite pleasant to look at. So I looked at her, to give her more substance with my attention, but it did not work. That is when I understood she must come from the upper levels of existence and my lower energies were not needed for her to materialize."

"You mean her energies were higher?"

"Yes, higher than mine, which is why my energies did not have an effect on her - do you understand? The ones who die in the City share the energy of the ones still living there. They are of the same level, if you will. A bit hard to explain, but it's similar to creating things from the material of the City with your thoughts."

"Yes, I think we understand," Grandma assured him. "It seems you had a visitor from the higher levels then. What did she do? Why did she come?"

"She understood I did not hear what she said, so she beckoned me to follow. She led me out of my study, and into the library. She took me to a part of the library I had not visited much, which was the Coptic section."

"You had ancient Coptic manuscripts?" Reggie got excited. "How old?"

"Very old. She took me to a shelf and pointed at an old script. I took it with me. Then she took me to a more modern part of the library, and pointed at one of the most recent acquisitions. I took that too.

"The Coptic manuscript was a fragment only, but it talked of one of their churches in a most peculiar way. A Christian hermit had written it, and it was found in the deserts of Egypt, being preserved by the dry climate. It said that in the city of the Sun a church was built, inside a heathen tomb. An Angel appeared and told him that the key to a path to the Creators was hidden in the church - notice the plural form - and then disappeared. The angel had three pairs of wings. The portrait of the Angel was painted there in the church as a reminder for the congregation of the heavenly visit."

Reggie and I spoke at the same time.

"Panhesy!"

"Pan... what?" Grandma looked like we were talking utter nonsense.

"Panhesy! It is the tomb of Panhesy!" Reggie shouted.
 

"The chief servitor of the Aten in the city of Akhetaten!" I continued, "In Christian times the Copts built a shrine in his tomb."

"And there, at the semi-dome of the apse, are the remains of a painting. What kind of creature, we do not know, as the central part of the painting has been destroyed. But the wings are still there!" Reggie's hands were flying through the air when he first drew the apse into the air, and then used his hands as wings, and stuck them first high up in the air, then a bit lower, and finally at his sides, in depiction of three pairs of wings. "Anyone have a computer with them?"