Shadowhunter (Nephilim Quest Book 1) (53 page)

"I am sure you did not come to socialize," I said, surprised at how calm I sounded.

"One has to have manners." Angel smiled sweetly. "It's only polite to say hello to a relative. I am your aunt, after all."

She looked at me with eyes narrowed against the sun. She was standing in very relaxed position, hips forward, hands in her jeans pockets as if she was posing for a photo shoot. I remembered how fast she had moved last time to attack me, and was prepared for anything. I felt the electricity increase in my spine, but willed my wings to stay hidden. I hoped the presence of ordinary people would make her behave.

Angel sensed something, though, and looked at me with her head tilted to the side, speculatively.

"My my... it looks like you have grown..."

She stood very still for a few moments.

"Surely you haven't grown your wings yet, dear? It's way too soon. "

I did not reply, but willed the rising power in my spine back down. She saw that her words did not surprise me, so she obviously knew that I was now aware of what I was.

"How did you know where to find us?" I asked.

"That wasn't hard," Angel said lightly, "after all you did call your parents some time ago, with the nice story of being accepted as a scholarship student to a university even before you'd even passed your exams. And that you would go to Egypt with your study group. After that we simply placed one of ours in the vicinity of the most famous tourist sites, to keep an eye out for a group like yours appearing. You'd need to convince your parents you really were in Egypt, and so there was a pretty good chance you would appear here by the pyramids. Every layman knows where these pyramids are. Of course, we have some more people in other nice locations. Karnak, Luxor, Kom Ombo, Abu Simbel. Quite the little tourist itinerary. When you all suddenly appeared here, it only took one phone call. I was in the vicinity, and thought I'd come in person to talk with my niece."

"And what do you want?" I asked.

"Oh, I want plenty of things. But mostly I wanted to check, if I had managed to turn you into one of us. I see I have failed in that. Your reflexes were surprisingly fast, considering how scared you were, and not yet Nephilim. Maybe I should try again?"

She smiled, a breathtakingly beautiful smile that also managed to be pure evil.

"That might not be wise." Elijah appeared out of thin air right behind Angel, hugging her closely as if she were his adored girlfriend and he was giving her a loving surprise.
 

Angel's body remained upright, but I saw how the muscles on her back and hands tightened, as she tested his strength. He laughed and held her easily.

"Now now, Angel, surely you won't make a spectacle out of this?" Elijah murmured into her ear, "not with all those tourists filming you, wondering which movie star you are. I am sure Cain would not appreciate such antics, not with all the care he's taken about keeping the Nephilim hidden in the midst of people for thousands of years."

Angel smiled sweetly and looked over her shoulder as a girlfriend in love would.

"Elijah," she cooed, "how lovely to see you. I have been waiting to hear news about you."

"Yes, I think you might have heard rumors of some sort about me getting ill. Well, rest assured, I am well recovered."

Angel turned her head even more, so that her neck was at an almost impossible angle, and looked up into Elijah's eyes. Elijah let her stare, because the angle was impossible for Angel if she was planning on spitting in his face. She stared at Elijah's blue eyes, unbelieving. Elijah stared back and wiggled his eyebrows in an amused way.

"This cannot be," she said, and for the first time her voice revealed emotion. She sounded uncertain.

"What can't?" Elijah smacked a kiss right onto her ear, probably causing it to ring for a long time.

Angel let out a growl that froze my spine.

"You were bitten. You cannot be healed!"

"Yet, here I am, and not the least bit ill. How very frustrating for you, wondering how that happened..." Elijah winked at me over Angel's shoulder when she could not see it.

Oddly, I felt a rush of relief. That little gesture showed Elijah at least connected with me, even if Daniel didn't.
 

I saw Lilith, Grandma, Reggie, Diana and Jason standing near us now, staring at the scene. They had placed themselves between us and the group of tourists who were now shooing the trinket-selling children away. A camel driver approached them, the tassels in the camel's blanket and bridle swinging in rhythm with the animal's steps.

"You're leaving now, Angel." Daniel's voice came from behind me.

"Daniel darling!" Angel was all sweetness again. "How wonderful to see you, my love."

Something must have shown in my expression, because Angel's eyes turned to mine in an instant.

"I do hope you are not much smitten, dear niece. You see, Daniel is spoken for. Always has been."

I forced myself to be calm, and looked back into Angel's yellow eyes as coolly as I possibly could. Obviously I was not very successful, because Angel laughed, and this time she sounded almost triumphant.

"He hasn't told you about our engagement? Oh dear... it's a long-standing one, too. We were engaged to be married in... now, when was it, love?" Angel looked at Daniel from under her long lashes adoringly.

"I am not your love, Angel." Daniel's voice was totally calm.

"Oh but you are. We were promised to each other in... when was it again? Oh, now I remember, it was January 24
th
in 1742, the same day Charles VII Albert became the Holy Roman Emperor, if my memory serves me well. And trust me – there is nothing wrong with my memory."

"I never made any promises to you, Angel," Daniel said in a quiet voice, but there was a threat in it now.

"No, but our fathers did. They betrothed us to each other, and to me that is just as binding."

"To me, it isn't," Daniel said. "To make an engagement binding, both Nephilim must be of age, and give their consent, aloud, in front of witnesses. No such ceremony ever took place. We were not present when our fathers discussed our possible future marriage."

"If Cain says I am betrothed to you, then I am. His word is law!" Angel's face began to distort with odd emotions, but she quickly gained control of herself. Still, before she did I had detected anger and... fear?

"Yes, I suppose you must believe that. Or you might face the same fate as your mother," Elijah said coldly.

Angel lost control. She shrieked with anger like a bird of prey and began to fight Elijah's grip. I saw the group of tourists stop and stare at us, trying to see what the voice had been, from behind Lilith, Grandma, Reggie and Jason. With so few tourists in the country we did not blend into the crowd. There was no crowd for starters. And Angel's shriek had not sounded human at all.

"If I let you go, will you go nicely?" Elijah asked, still holding her from behind with amazing strength.

"Oh, I will go. But I will return. Soon you shall all be converted." Angel forced herself to stand still, and directed her words at Daniel and me.

"And you, pitiful humans," she spat towards Diana, who was too far away for any danger, safely behind my back, "you will be our slaves, our cattle!"

"If you won't calm down, we will not let you go," Daniel said with no emotion in his voice, "and we don't have to, you know. We could kill you too. We don't want to, as we are not like you. But should necessity rise, we can."

Daniel's voice was pleasant enough, but Angel understood he meant what he said. I observed her with interest, not feeling threatened any more. She was looking at Daniel now, and I saw a new mixture of emotions in her eyes. Fury, and longing. Suddenly I surprised myself by feeling empathy towards her. In a short time span I had learned to know what it was to be tormented by love. And what was already a painful, demanding emotion was almost unbearably strengthened by the complexities of being Nephilim.
 

Daniel stepped between me and Angel.

"Have you calmed down now?"

Angel did not say anything, but maybe she nodded her consent. I could not tell, Daniel's tall frame blocked my view.

"Elijah will let you go, and you will leave immediately. You will not linger near us in the buffer zone, or I promise I will kill you. I know your scent, so I will know if you are there. This is the only warning I'm going to give you. Do you understand?"

Behind Daniel's back I heard no reply

"Say it aloud."

"Yes." The word clearly came through gritted teeth.

"Let her go." Daniel kept moving so that he stood between Angel and me.

I stepped a little sideways too so I could see what happened. For my own part I also blocked the view of the tourists. Also I wanted to be in front of Diana, in case she needed protection. So there we stood in a line, Daniel, me and Diana.

Angel stood still for a second after Elijah let her go. I could feel Daniel's force field intensify, when she did not vanish immediately. She looked at Daniel and opened her mouth as if to speak. Daniel's energies were positively humming now, and she changed her mind. She began to fade. A few seconds and she was gone.

"We need to leave immediately," Daniel said, not looking at me.

We gathered together and started walking away from the pyramids, and into the eastern necropolis, where Cheops's sons and daughters were buried in their mastaba tombs. There, sheltered by the solid stone structures, Lilith slashed a gateway for us and we stepped into the buffer zone when no one was around.

"Take hold of us," Daniel said over his shoulder.

Reggie and Lilith took Elijah's arms, Diana took mine, and Jason and Grandma took Daniel's.

"Open your wings," Elijah said to me, "we'll go to the upper levels to get away from danger. Angel cannot follow us there. Despite her promise we cannot trust she'll keep her word."

We all opened our wings to their full extent, and began rising through the levels of the buffer zone, higher and higher.

"Wow!" Diana almost wrung her neck, looking at my wings, "your wings are still amazing!"

"Erm... thank you. I guess..." I concentrated hard on keeping up with "the boys". I had only just learned how to fly, and still didn't trust my skills. And now I had the responsibility of keeping someone else up in the air as well.

"That Angel character is creepy..." Diana whispered as landscapes formed and vanished around us. Most were of pure nature, but in one I could see a village too. "I almost peed my pants!"

"I know... me too!"

Diana giggled – an odd sound in an almost echoless world.

"Well I couldn't tell. You stood just like Daniel - prepared for anything, with royal posture, and you were humming too!"

So she could hear my wings. No wonder Angel had observed me so intensely.

"You were pretty cool-looking yourself," I said to Diana, then, "I did not want to show her my wings, but I would have, if she had attacked."

"Glad to hear that," Diana said.

"What was that talk about Angel's mother?" I asked, not directing my question at anyone in particular.

It was Elijah who answered, holding Lilith and Reggie securely by the arm:

"Her mother was of the pure Nephilim - all the mothers of Cain's children are. She tried to raise her to be one of us, and hide her from her father, but Cain sought them out, and infected the little girl himself when she was only a child. And then he tore Angel's mother to bits for objecting to his rule."

"Good Lord...!" I felt sick.

I did not understand, why a good Nephilim woman would want to carry Cain's child. Unless, of course, it wasn't voluntary... the thought made me even more nauseous.

I wanted to ask why Daniel's father would have considered marrying his son to the daughter of the leader of the dark Nephilim, but I knew this was neither the time nor place. I would ask him about it later, when the time was right.
 

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

68. Angel Child

"Were you successful?"

Cain stood by the window, observing the horses training on the racetrack that lay beyond his stable yard. He was a skilled horseman, and bred the finest thoroughbreds, as his forefathers had done. Only he had been all of the forefathers, conveniently sending their son away to a relative or school and "dying" before the "son" returned some years later as an adult, looking amazingly like his father.

Angel stood at the center of the room, calm and poised.

"Yes. I threatened them, told them that they would soon all be converted, and insulted the humans by calling them our cattle and slaves."

Cain laughed quietly.

"Well done, that should do it."

Angel nodded, even though her father could not see it.

"I am sure this will speed up their search as a result."

"Very good." Cain was paying attention to one of his new stallions, which was giving a hard time to the lad on its back. He smiled, amused at the animal's power and will to test its rider. He enjoyed strong characters.

After a while Cain noticed Angel was still standing in the room.

"Do you have something else to tell me?"

"Yes, father. Something very strange... Elijah... He was infected by one of our soldiers as you know..."

"Yes, indeed. Has he changed yet?"

"I saw him. He was there with their group."

"How odd – usually they drive away the infected ones, and we wait to offer them a home."

"I looked into his eyes, and they have not changed. They were bright blue. There were some yellow specks, but to me it looks there were even fewer of them than normal."

Cain stared at Angel.

"How can that be? Are you certain Elijah was bitten?"

"Our soldier swore – he managed to get several bites through to Elijah's skin. He is completely trustworthy. And I saw his injuries after the fight. They were so extensive he is still out of duty."

"And Elijah has not changed?"

"No."

"There must be something very strange in the genes of that family, then... We need to find out more. Can he be captured? It might be a mutation that only affects him and not Daniel. We need to make sure it doesn't spread. He must not breed before we catch him. The first child of a Nephilim usually inherits the strongest traits and abilities. We do not want him to create a child who cannot be infected."