“Back up. Who are the fall en angels?” A gang? That’s what it sounded like. I was increasingly doubtful. Hank Mill ar was the last person in Coldwater who’d lower himself to associate with gangs.
“And what do you mean ‘possesses’?”
Scott’s mouth twitched with a disparaging smile, but to his credit, he answered with patience.
“Definition of a fall en angel: heaven’s rejects and a Nephil’s worst nightmare. They force us to swear fealty, and then possess our bodies during Cheshvan. They’re parasites. They can’t feel anything in their own bodies, so they invade ours. Yeah, Grey,” he said at the look of abhorrence I was sure was frozen on my face. “I mean they literally come inside us and use our bodies like their own. A Nephil is mentally there while they do it, but doesn’t have any control.” I tried to swallow Scott’s explanation. More than once, I imagined the theme song of The Twilight Zone playing in the background, but the truth of the matter was, I knew he wasn’t lying. It was all coming back. The memories were splintered and damaged, but they were there. I’d learned this all before. When or how, I didn’t know. But I knew this—all of it. I said, “The other night I saw three guys beating up a Nephil. That’s what they were doing? Trying to force him to give up his body for two weeks? That’s inhumane. It’s—repulsive!”
Scott had dropped his eyes, stirring the fire with a stick. My mistake hit me too late. Shame swept through me and I whispered, “Oh, Scott. I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry you have to go through that. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to give up your body.”
“I haven’t sworn fealty. And I’m not going to.” He tossed the stick on the fire, and gold sparks showered into the dark, smoky air of the cave. “If nothing else, that’s what the Black Hand taught me.
Fall en angels can try any mind-trick on me they want. They can chop my head off, cut out my tongue, and burn me to ash. But I’ll never swear that oath. I can handle pain. But I can’t handle the consequences of that oath.”
“Mind-trick?” The skin at the back of my neck tingled, and my thoughts turned once more to Gabe.
“A perk of being a fall en angel,” he said bitterly. “You get to mess with people’s minds. Make them see things that aren’t real. Nephilim inherited the trick from fall en angels.” It seemed I’d been right about Gabe after all. But he hadn’t used a magician’s sleight of hand to create the illusion of turning himself into a bear, as Jev had let me believe. He’d used a Nephilim weapon—mind control.
“Show me how it’s done. I want to know exactly how it works.”
“I’m out of practice,” was all he said, rocking back on his stump and lacing his hands behind his head.
“Can’t you at least try?” I said with a playful shot to his knee, hoping to lighten the mood. “Show me what we’re up against. Come on. Surprise me. Make me see something I’m not expecting. Then teach me how it’s done.”
When Scott continued to stare at the fire, the light ill uminating the hard edges of his features, the smile slipped from my face. This was anything but a joke to him.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “Those powers are addictive. When you get a taste of them, it’s hard to stop. When I ran away three months ago and realized what I was capable of, I used my powers every chance I got. If I was hungry, I’d walk into a store, throw what I wanted into a cart, and mind-trick the clerk into bagging my stuff and letting me walk out without paying. It was easy. It made me feel superior. It wasn’t until I was spying on the Black Hand one night, and saw him do the same thing, that I quit cold turkey. I’m not going to live the rest of my life like that. I’m not going to be like him.” He pulled a ring out of his pocket, holding it up in the light. It appeared to be made of iron, and the crown of the ring was stamped with a clenched fist. For one fleeting moment, a strange blue halo of light seemed to radiate from the metal. But it immediately vanished, and I wrote it off as a trick of the light.
“All Nephilim have heightened strength, making us physically more powerful than humans, but when I wear this ring, it takes that strength to a whole different level,” Scott said solemnly. “The Black Hand gave me the ring after he tried to recruit me to his army. I don’t know what kind of curse or enchantment is on the ring, or if it’s even one of those. But there’s something. Anyone with one of these rings is almost physically unstoppable. Before you disappeared in June, you stole the ring from me. The pull to get it back was so intense I didn’t sleep, eat, or rest until I found it. I was like a junkie searching for the one thing that could give me my next high. I broke into your house one night after you were kidnapped. I found it in your bedroom in your violin case.”
“Cell o,” came my murmured correction. Faint recol ection stirred inside me, a sensation of having seen the ring before.
“I’m not the smartest guy, but I know this ring isn’t harmless. The Black Hand did something to it.
He wanted a way to give every member of his army an advantage. Even when I’m not wearing the ring, and just relying on my natural strength and powers, the pull for more of both is strong. The only way to beat it is to lay off using my powers and abilities as much as I can.” I tried to sympathize with Scott, but I was a little disappointed. I needed to gain a better understanding of how Gabe had tricked me in case I found myself face-to-face with him again. And if Hank really was the Black Hand, the leader of an underground and nonhuman militia, I had to wonder if he was in my life for reasons darker than met the eye. After all, if he was so busy battling fall en angels, how did he have time to run his dealership, be a father, and date my mom? Maybe I was suspicious, but given everything Scott had just told me, I was pretty sure it was warranted.
I needed someone on my side who could go up against Hank, if it came to that. Right now, the only person I knew of was Scott. I wanted him to keep his integrity, but at the same time, he was the only person I knew of who stood a chance against Hank.
“Maybe you could try using the ring’s powers for good,” I suggested softly after a minute.
Scott scrubbed a hand through his hair, obviously ready to drop the subject. “Too late. I’ve made my decision. I won’t wear the ring. It connects me to him.”
“Don’t you ever worry that if you don’t wear the ring, it will give Hank a dangerous advantage?” His eyes caught mine, but he avoided answering. “You hungry? I can catch us some bass. It tastes decent pan-seared over the fire.” Without waiting for my response, he grabbed the fishing pole and descended the rocks leading down from the cave.
I followed after him, suddenly wishing I could swap my boots for tennis shoes. Scott navigated the rocks in strides and jumps, whereas I was forced to take one cautious step after another.
“Fine, I’ll put all talk of your powers on hold,” I called after him, “but I’m not finished. There are still way too many gaps. Let’s go back to the night I disappeared. Do you have any guesses as to who kidnapped me?”
Scott took a seat on a rock, threading his line with bait. By the time I caught up to him, he was almost finished.
“At first I thought it had to be Rixon,” he said. “That was before I learned he’s in hell. I wanted to come back and look for you, but it wasn’t that simple. The Black Hand has spies everywhere. And given what happened in the fun house, I figured I’d have the cops on my tail too.”
“But?”
“But I didn’t.” He looked sideways at me. “Don’t you find it a little strange? The cops had to have known I was in the fun house that night with you and Rixon. You would have told them. You probably told them I was shot, too. So why didn’t they ever come looking for me? Why’d they let me off the hook? It’s almost like—” He caught himself.
“Like what?”
“Like someone came in after and cleaned up. And I’m not talking about physical evidence. I’m talking about mind-tricks. Erasing memories. Someone powerful enough to make the police look the other way.”
“A Nephil, you mean.”
A shrug. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? Maybe the Black Hand didn’t want the police looking for me.
Maybe he wanted to find me himself and take care of me off the record. If he finds me, trust me, he’s not handing me over to the police for questioning. He’ll lock me in one of his prisons and make me regret the day I ran out on him.”
So we were looking for someone strong enough to tamper with minds, or as Scott put it, erase memories. The correlation to my own lost memory didn’t slip past me. Could a Nephil have done this to me? A knot tightened in my stomach as I pondered the possibility.
“How many Nephilim have that kind of power?” I asked.
“Who knows? Definitely the Black Hand.”
“Have you ever heard of a Nephil named Jev? Or a fall en angel, for that matter?” I added, increasingly aware that Jev was most likely one or the other. Not that the realization made me feel the least bit consoled.
“No. But that’s not saying much. Almost as soon as I found out about Nephilim, I had to go into hiding. Why?”
“The other night I met a guy named Jev. He knew about Nephilim. He stopped the three guys—” I caught myself. No need to be vague, even though it was easier on my state of mind. “He stopped the fall en angels I told you about from forcing a Nephil named B.J. into swearing fealty. This is going to sound crazy, but Jev gave off some kind of energy. I felt it like electricity. It was a lot stronger than anything the others gave off.”
“Probably a good indicator of his power,” Scott said. “Taking on three fall en angels speaks for itself.”
“He’s that powerful, and you’ve never heard of him?”
“Believe it or not, I know about as much as you when it comes to this stuff.” I remembered Jev’s words to me. I tried to kill you. What did that mean? Was he mixed up with my kidnapping after all? And was he strong enough to erase my memory? Based on the intensity of the power radiating from him, he was capable of more than a few simple mind-tricks. A lot more.
“Knowing what I do about the Black Hand, I’m surprised I’m still a free man,” Scott said. “He must hate that I’ve made a fool of him.”
“About that. Why did you desert Hank’s army?”
Scott sighed, dropping his hands heavily on his knees. “This is a conversation I didn’t want to have. There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to put it out there. The night your dad died, I was supposed to keep an eye on him. He was on his way to a dangerous meeting, and the Black Hand wanted to make sure he was safe. The Black Hand said if I succeeded, it proved he could count on me. He wanted me in his army, but it wasn’t what I wanted.” A chil of premonition tingled up my spine. The last thing I’d expected was for Scott to bring my dad into this. “My dad—knew Hank Mill ar?”