“Lose something, Venai? A key maybe?” I asked.
The Nephilim jumped and spun about as one, eyes wide. Venai snarled when she saw me and limped away from the crowd in a hurry, drawing a blue symbol in the air. In an instant, she had a portal open and was through it and gone, leaving her buddies behind as it vanished. As I glanced over their pissed off faces, they didn’t seem to mind she’d abandoned them. They were looking for a fight.
So was Scarlett. Without a word, she dove at them. The Nephilim scattered before her. Two brilliant flashes and the closest of the group fell-more like flopped-to the floor looking like a morbid puzzle; the perfect gift for a mortician who’s got everything.
Armed with a variety of weapons, the Nephilim pressed their number advantage. Unlike their pure-bred parents, they’d been amongst humanity long enough to value the effectiveness of a good gun.
Bullets whined past us, their reports thunderous in the confined mausoleum. Michael returned fire, his left hand raised in the air, fingers spread out. He shimmered and became hazy, his image distorting and becoming unclear. Though I knew he hadn’t moved, it looked as though he were in ten places at once. Each reflection was a perfect copy of the first, but each appeared to be doing something different. It was confusing even for me.
Katon, a fan of the up close and personal, waded into the crowd, his blade a silvered blur. Its poison an afterthought, DRAC’s enforcer cleaved his way through the Nephilim, his victims dead before the paralysis could even begin to take effect. After just a couple more, he and Scarlett would meet in the middle, the numbers already even.
Not to be left out of a winning fight, I let my gun loose. One of the stragglers caught a few bullets to the face and dropped without a sound. Unfortunately, because of the Nephilim’s banished status, there wasn’t a soul transfer, their energies not transferring over to me at death.
That sure didn’t stop me from tying to kill them though.
I hit another just as Scarlett reached him, the shots whipping him into her blade. He went down in bloody heap, a patchwork of circles and squares-Live Action Tic-Tac-Toe.
In just seconds, the fight was over. Scarlett stood above the carnage, her face splattered in red, blood dripping from her blade. Katon, the more graceful of the two, looked immaculate. Not a drop of blood stained his leather outfit or ruined the sparkle of his spikes as he surveyed the ruin of the Nephilim. Not a body in the bunch twitched.
Michael came over and let loose a deep sigh. Not used to showing up until after the mess was made, he looked a little pale as he surveyed the scene. “You guys sure know how to handle yourselves.”
“These are the runts of the litter,” I told him as I put my gun away. “They were sent to do the grunt work while the big boys wait by the gate to stake their claim.” My eyes went to the crypt they’d been tearing open, my senses drifting loose. I felt a tenuous tingle as they hit upon a gentle presence. “At least they made the searching part easy.”
The marble face had been torn from the crypt and cast aside. Behind it was a wall of concrete, the tomb filled with it. The Nephilim had just started to chip away at the mass of concrete, jagged hunks broken loose and littering the floor.
I looked around and spied a sledgehammer, sighing as I picked it up. “We should have waited a few minutes longer.”
“I’ll watch the entrance,” Scarlett said as she headed off, no doubt offended by our intended grave robbery.
Katon glanced from Scarlett to the crypt and back again, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. He had it bad.
While I’m the last person who should ever give advice regarding women, I couldn’t help myself. He looked lost, so unlike his normal self. “Go on, Katon, Mike and I have got this.”
He stared at me a moment, then nodded, heading off after her. Once he was out of earshot, I turned to Michael. “She doesn’t even know he’s interested and he’s already whipped.”
To the soundtrack of Michael’s throaty chuckle, I went to work. The hammer slammed into the concrete, shards flying as the sound reverberated through the room. Again and again I struck the concrete, cracks appeared and chunks crumbled away. After a few minutes, the concrete gave way and the hammer punched a hole in it, blackness appearing beyond. I knocked the hole bigger and peered inside.
It took a second for my eyes to adjust, and when they did, my stomach sank. There was nothing inside the tomb but dust. If there’d ever been anything there, it had long ago been looted. No symbols or signs stood out against the gray walls to lead us to the key. Only the wispy tingle of Eve’s presence remained.
“Fuck!” I growled, hammering furiously at the concrete, my one lead turning to shit. Slabs gave way under the onslaught and crashed to the floor. Michael stepped back to avoid the flying debris.
I swung with intent, adrenaline and anger fueling my attack. The hammer plowed through the last few feet of concrete, showering me in dust and gray rock.
“Frank!”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Katon staring at me, his eyes narrow and red. Distracted, my swing went wild and smacked into the marble plate of the crypt above Eve’s. It broke loose of its moors and fell to my feet, shattering with a loud crack.
Katon stormed over. “Can you be any louder?”
“Probably.” I shrugged, motioning to the tomb. “It’s empty.”
He growled and looked past me, shaking his head. Taking the hammer from my hand and tossing it aside, he stepped over the wreckage on the floor and peered into Eve’s tomb. Grunting, he then stretched and leaned into the crypt I’d accidentally opened.
After a moment, he sighed and stepped away, brushing the dust from his jacket. “There’s nothing but a bone in the top one.”
His words stuck in my ears, tickling my brain.
“A bone? Just one?” Michael asked as he came over to us, apparently catching the same vibe as me.
Katon nodded as I stepped past him, peeking into the crypt. My heart fluttered when I saw the ivory white thigh bone that lay inside. Untouched by time, the bone stood out from its gray surroundings, everything else withered away. I snatched it up and felt my senses tingle at the contact. The Nephilim had opened the wrong crypt.
“This is Eve.” I held the bone out for them to see.
Scarlett returned right then and glanced at the bone before averting her eyes, but nothing could hide the smile on her face.
“So, this is the key to Eden?” Michael asked.
I thought about it for a second, then shook my head. “I don’t think it’s all of it.”
Scarlett snapped her head around. “What? We desecrated a grave, Eve’s no less, and you’re telling us this isn’t the key.” Her words were a hurricane, stinging spray and bluster.
“I didn’t say that, and technically, I desecrated a grave, well…two if you want to be picky.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “Asmoday told me Cain chose not to seek the key because he felt the cost was too high for his conscience to bear.”
“As the key is clearly the bone of his mother, I can see why he thought that,” she argued.
“Then why would his family put Lilith and Adam on the monument?”
“Because it’s all three,” Michael answered, catching on to what I was getting at.
I nodded. “That’s the most likely presumption.” Katon said nothing as Scarlett started in again. I waved her quiet. “If it were just one of the three he needed, Cain could have gone after Lilith. Given that he intended to beg for forgiveness for what he’d done, the last thing he’d want to do is murder his parents on the way to God’s house. However, as Lilith was persona non grata in Heaven, mixing it up down under, Cain could have gotten away with killing her, perhaps even been rewarded for it.”
Scarlett grumbled and looked to Katon. He met her gaze and nodded as he followed the line of logic. She stuck her bottom lip out and stayed quiet. She just liked to argue.
“If we’re right, this gives us a big advantage,” I said.
“Because we have Lilith in cold storage back at DRAC,” Michael finished my thought.
“Exactly. Now all we need to do is figure out which bone is the one we need and we’ve got two of the three.”
