The Seventh
The Blessed Warriors Book 1
Ray Chilensky
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
Ephesians 6:12
Swordman’s Prayer by Nathan Vigil
Measure not my courage by the danger before me, not by victory, conflict or defeat.
Though others may falter and shrink from the task I shall lift myself up, and into action.
Let this be the voice of our courage, for though my soul may be frightened, my sword remains undaunted.
I need no paths set clear before me, nor trail blazed wide to lend me ease.
My purpose burns within my mind, and I know my duty well.
If any will walk the way with me, let them know first my determination.
For my sword, by then, will have cut the pathway clear, for them to follow or for another.
Though my sword may lie in silence, amid the dust of shallow graves, I will have served a greater good, and to it given all; in this I find my peace.
Heavy is the quiet of men too timid; its weight is as a millstone.
Noble is the sound that shatters the silence and cries defiant.
For those who cannot stand, I stand, in the name of those now silent, I shout.
Coin and coffer cannot alter the right and wrong of things.
I who stand, do so in faith, one for another.
When you call, I am ready; my sword to your service.
I am your hero, your brave, your strong.
When you call, I will hear you and be it known, I will answer.
Amen.
Nathan Vigil
Prologue
Spin Ghar Mountains, Afghanistan April 9, 2010
Bullets churned the dirt at the feet of the fleeing marines and blasted off bits of the canyon walls as they ran. Two members of the reconnaissance team had already been killed. Outnumbered and vulnerable while confined to the narrow footpath that ran up one side of the small canyon, the marines could not even turn to fire their weapons at their pursuers. The narrowness of the path limited them to running in single file while taking fire not only from behind but also from Taliban fighters on the other side of the canyon’s rim. Their only recourse was to run, hoping to reach the canyon floor where they could turn and fight back.
Sergeant Cadell Selkirk stepped on the body of his team leader as he continued his flight. More fragments from the canyon wall bounced off the Kevlar of his helmet as a burst of enemy gunfire missed his head by inches. Still, all that Cadell and his comrades could do was continue their headlong flight. With the team leader dead, Cadell was now in command of the unit but, unable to look behind him, he was unsure how many members of the unit were still alive for him to command. The seventy-or-so meters to the canyon floor seemed to have been extended into miles.
He finally reached the end of the trail and the flat, boulder-strewn floor near the canyon’s mouth. Sheltering behind one of the boulders, he could finally use his rifle. He fired in the general direction of the enemy that had pursued his team down the pathway. This time it was the Taliban that were trapped on the last few yards of the narrow trail and the burst from his rifle killed the first two Taliban fighters in the column. Fire was still pouring from the top of the canyon walls, though, and this forced Cadell to withdraw to a more protected position. As he retreated, he heard the sound of other M-4 rifles firing. His teammates had also begun to return fire. He took a mental accounting of which of those teammates were still alive and with him as he changed his rifle’s magazine.
He rallied the five remaining marines and they began to coordinate their counter-fire. Two of the six surviving marines directed their shots toward the Taliban on the canyon’s rim while the others mowed down the fighters now streaming down the deadly, funneling pathway. Contemptuous of their own deaths, the Taliban fighters charged down the pathway. Just minutes later, Cadell and his squad were dangerously low on ammunition. The Taliban seemed to have an endless supply of men willing to sacrifice themselves.
He looked to Coleman, the team’s communication specialist. “Radio!” he yelled. Coleman tried to crawl to Cadell but was hit in his right knee and rolled onto his back, screaming as he used both of his hands to stem the torrent of blood gushing from the destroyed limb. Corporal Joshua McLaren crawled to Coleman, unstrapped the field radio and managed to throw it nearly halfway to Cadell’s position. Cadell ran toward the radio and was surrounded by a cloud of dust as dozens of automatic rifle shots impacted on the dirt and boulders around him. His teammates expended more of their dwindling ammunition as they tried to protect him. Snatching up the radio, he found relative safety behind another boulder. Keying the microphone, he yelled his team’s call sign into the radio. After a few seconds, he received a response from a nearby marine firebase.
“Fire mission!” he shouted, adding the team’s map coordinates and the location of the enemy troops.
“Fire mission confirmed, White Rook,” a voice on the radio replied. “Cobras are inbound, E.T.A. two minutes.”
“Expedite,” Cadell replied, “We’re in deep shit here!”
“We have Cobras inbound!” He shouted to his squad. “Two minutes out!”
McLaren had managed to crawl to Cadell’s position and was lying prone beside him, firing carefully aimed single shots from his rifle. “Coleman’s dead.” He announced, “I only have ten rounds left. The Cobras may not get here in time,” he said.
The bolt on Cadell’s rifle locked open as he fired the final round in his last magazine. He dropped the rifle and began firing with his 9mm sidearm. “We’ve got to hang on,” he said.
“RPG!” someone shouted. The rocket propelled grenade struck the boulder two of Cadell’s marines had taken cover behind. It shattered and fragments of rock tore the marines apart.
McLaren and Cadell bolted away from the boulder they were behind just as a second RPG smashed into it. A fragment sliced through McLaren’s left thigh, almost forcing him to his knees. The ground was again churned into a cloud of dust as bullets struck about the fleeing marines. The running men heard the tell-tale sound of falling mortar shells. The dust raised by exploding shells made it almost impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction. Cadell led McLaren toward where he thought the mouth of canyon would be.
Then he felt it: a hot tingling behind his forehead. There was magic here and it was old magic, perhaps even ancient. He led McLaren toward it, the tingling becoming more pronounced as he drew closer to the magic’s source. He heard the thumping of rotor blades. The Cobra helicopter gunships he had called for were nearby. But, in the thick, vision-obstructing dust, the pilots might not be able to discern friend from foe. With no other options, he continued to follow the magic, the hot tingle spreading from his head into the rest of his body.
Finally he saw the outline of red and lavender light through the dust, his Truesight allowing him to see the magical illumination when his physical vision could not. In the canyon wall, very near the mouth, was a tunnel entrance hidden from normal vision by magic. Cadell ran toward the opening and all but dragged McLaren with him. Both men felt an itching sensation as they crossed the threshold and immediately found that the air had an almost smothering, musty odor. It seemed so thick, so ancient that they could barely breathe it. Outside they could hear the cannons of the Cobras firing and the continued clatter of the Taliban’s rifles. Four Taliban fighters ran past the tunnel’s entrance. None seemed to be aware of its existence.
“What the hell was that weird circle of light?” McLaren asked, inserting a fresh magazine into his sidearm.
“You saw the lights?” Cadell asked, surprised.
“Yeah. They were weird,” he replied. “They weren’t really bright enough for us to see them through all of that dust, but we did. Why didn’t the Taliban follow us in here?” He added.
“They can’t see the opening,” Cadell said. “They probably wouldn’t be able to get in here if they could see it.”
McLaren lowered himself to the tunnel floor, leaned his back against a wall and began to tend to his wounded leg. “What do you mean?”
Cadell took a flashlight from his battle harness and shined it at the floor. It was tiled with alternating red and white squares in a checkerboard pattern, marred by many recently-caused cracks. Interrupting that pattern was a great stone seal with the six-pointed Star of David at its center and a multitude of carefully-carved glyphs and warding sigils surrounding it. Turning his light upward, he saw an identical seal carved into the tunnel’s ceiling. Both seals had cracks running across them. Cadell surmised that they had been caused by the recent shelling of the area. The seals’ magic would have been seriously weakened by those cracks.
“Did we just find some Indiana Jones shit?” McLaren asked, shining his own light at the seal on the ceiling,
“It’s more like Exorcist shit,” Cadell said, extending a hand to McLaren. “Get on your feet. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Why?” McLaren asked. “If the Taliban can’t get in here, then why not wait for the Cobras to finish them off and let the search and rescue boys come get us?”
“There may be worse things in here than the Taliban,” Cadell said. Before McLaren could reply, five dark figures appeared at the fringe of his flashlight beam. They were roughly human in shape and seemed to be composed of solidified darkness. A light that shifted from red to a sickly purple glowed in their eye sockets. Hands with three claw-tipped fingers were attached to ape-like arms. They moved slowly toward the two marines, as if pushing against a wind gale, and seemed not to even notice Cadell and McLaren. One of the creatures knelt and began scratching at the circle that encompassed the seal. As its hand touched the seal, it screamed an agonized wail that seemed to linger in the tunnel even after the echo had faded. It was answered by a roar from deeper in the tunnel. The sound of it seemed to drive a wave of coldness before it. The other creatures joined the first in the destruction of the deeply-etched seal, clearly in pain but forcing themselves to scratch at the seal.
“Fuck Me!” McLaren shouted. Gunfire echoed in the tunnel next. McLaren shot one of the kneeling creatures five times and knocked it away briefly from the seal before continued its work, unconcerned about McLaren or his gun.
“What are those things?” he asked, aiming his pistol but deciding to save the last of his ammunition in case the creatures actually attacked them.
Cadell lifted his field jacket and took a bone-handled knife from a hidden sheath at the small of his back.It was seax fighting knife and appeared to be very old. “Take this. It’ll do you more good against those things than a gun.” The creatures continued to paw at the circle seal.
Holstering the pistol, McLaren accepted the dagger and saw that it had an eight-inch Damascus steel blade etched with hundreds of symbols he could not read. “What’s going on, Selkirk?” he asked, still pondering the symbols on the blade. “Why haven’t seen this pig sticker before?”
“It only becomes visible when it’s out of the sheath. It’s made for fighting demons.”
“Are you telling me those things are demons?” McLaren gestured with the blade toward the creatures.
Cadell nodded. “Demons of the goblin variety, I think,” Cadell said, taking a deliberate step forward into the middle of the seal and moving closer to the demons as they scratched away at the circle. “If they break that circle, they’ll be able to get out of the tunnel, and so will anything else it’s holding back. Use the knife. If anything gets past me, don’t let it out of the tunnel.”
McLaren looked up from his examination of the seax. “Gets past you? A minute ago you were ready to beat feet out of here.”
“That was before I knew they were trying to break the seal.” Cadell passed his right hand in front of his body and as McLaren watched, he was astounded as a sword appeared in Cadell’s hand as though it had been drawn out of the air itself. “Don’t let anything out of here while I’m gone.”
Cadell’s blade moved sharply downward and severed the head of one of the demons as it scratched at the seal. In the next instant, one of the demons finally drove its claws deeply enough into the etched groove to create a gap in the circle. An instant after that, all four of the beasts leapt at Cadell. With his conjured basket-hilted broadsword, he deflected a claw-swipe meant for his throat and spun the blade into the right side of the demon’s head, slicing through the skull and leaving the top of the half of the head to bounce off the tunnel’s floor.
Two more of the monsters came at him at the same time, one diving for his legs as the other reached for his throat with taloned hands. Cadell sidestepped and wheeled to the left. His sword arced in front of his face and cut both arms from the demon reaching for his throat. Cadell spun the sword tightly to the right and its blade bit deeply into another demon’s neck, leaving it to gurgle a last dying gasp. His other assailant stumbled past him as he dodged the beast’s attempt to tackle him. It snarled and rushed at him again, seeming to become a blur of flailing claws. Cadell’s sword flashed as he intercepted the beast’s claws, not flailing but moving in a graceful, precisely-controlled manner. The demon’s left arm was severed just above the elbow as Cadell finally counter-attacked through the ferocious offense. Before the limb had hit the ground, Cadell’s broadsword flashed downward, cleaving through the monster’s collarbone and opening a fissure of a wound down to the center of its chest.
Cadell turned to find McLaren on his back, straddled by the last of the demons. The dagger Cadell had given him was protruding from the creature’s right forearm. The beast had his claws at the marine’s throat but McLaren’s fear-strengthened grip had thus far kept the talons from piercing flesh. Cadell brought his sword down to bisect the demon’s spine and nearly cleaved it in two. It fell atop McLaren, covering him with a blackish-purple gore that had the consistency of hot tar.
Frantically McLaren kicked the slain monster off him and rolled to his feet. “Fuck, fuck fuck...” he repeated. “What the FUCK were those things?”
“Demons,” Cadell said with matter-of-fact disgust.
The answer calmed McLaren somewhat. “Demons,” he repeated. “Demons…they were demons.” Saying the word over and over again helped him to at least partly believe what he had just experienced. “Demons... demons…okay, demons. What the fuck are you?” he asked, gazing at the ornate, finely-crafted sword that was now dripping with the same type of gore that he was covered in. “You pulled that sword right out of the air. Fuck! I saw it! Right out of the fucking air!”
“I’ll explain it all later,” Cadell said. “We still have work to do.”
“What fucking work?” McLaren demanded, unconsciously backing away.
“You heard that roar, right?” Cadell asked.
McLaren took another step backward. “Yeah,” he said.
Cadell gestured at the dead demons with his sword. “There’s something in here a lot worse that these things,” he said. “I have to kill it.”
“Fuck that!” McLaren said. “Search and rescue is probably outside by now. There’s probably a whole platoon out there. They’ll have heavy weapons we can…”
“Even heavy weapons would only slow down what’s in here,” Cadell said. “It would kill the whole platoon.”
“But you’re going to take it on all by yourself?” McLaren asked, even as Cadell began to stalk into the tunnel. “Who the fuck do you think you are, Gandalf?” he added, bringing a hand to his head. “Why does my head hurt so bad?”
“Because you’re psychic,” Cadell shouted, as he was swallowed by the tunnel’s blackness.
“Psychic? That’s bullshi…” he stopped himself from completing his denial.
“Use the knife,” Cadell voice echoed from the darkness. “Nothing gets out of here.”
***
Cadell moved into the tunnel with as much haste as possible while still maintaining a prudent level of caution. Racing headlong into a demon-infested tunnel was foolishness of the type that had gotten many warriors killed. Whatever demonic monstrosity had been responsible for the roar that Cadell and McLaren had heard was ancient and powerful. The five lesser demons he’d already slain might not be the only ones in the tunnel. If there were more, then they could spring from the shadows at any second. The source of that demonic roar could also come charging out of the black. Cadell forced himself to move slowly. If he were to be killed because of his own impatience, whatever had been imprisoned by the now-broken seal would be released upon the world. If it was as old and powerful as Cadell suspected it was, innocent lives could be lost by the thousands.
The seal at the tunnel mouth had been weakened by the Taliban’s shelling, and when the demons that Cadell had just killed had finally managed to claw a break in the circle that completed the seal, it had been fully opened. Cadell knew that he was the only thing standing between the outside world and a likely hungry and enraged greater demon. McLaren would try to stop anything from leaving the tunnel, but he would likely die in the attempt. The rune-engraved knife Cadell had given him would give him a chance against a single lesser demon but not against a higher demon like a Nephilim or a Grigori.
The magic-saturated air seemed to grow even thicker as Cadell moved farther into the darkness and a musty, cave-like odor mingled with the smells of sulfur and rotting meat. A guttural murmuring became audible. Cadell recognized the low, droning murmur as a spell being cast in a dialect that was ancient when Neanderthals still walked the Earth. The raspy, grating voice could make even the most elegant, flowing verse seem vulgar. The diabolical chanting oozed down the tunnel, seeming to solidify as it went and make the air heavy and viscous. Words, when spoken with disciplined, supremely-focused intention, became a physical force. The words being chanted as part of the spell could be felt as a surrounding heaviness that made the skin tingle and crawl. The force of the chanter’s will was being channeled and made manifest in the spoken word. God spoke the universe into existence, Cadell thought.
After walking for five minutes, he came to the end of the tunnel. It terminated in an archway that seemed to lead into a chamber. Firelight came from the vaulted archway and silhouetted two of the same type of creatures as Cadell had killed at the tunnel entrance. Wary, Cadell peered into the shadows on either side of the archway. His Truesight saw through the veil that obstructed the physical senses and into the hidden world of mind and spirit. It allowed him to see two concealed figures outlined by the purplish color of their auras. The droning chant continued and Cadell could feel each syllable gain in power. The spell, whatever it was intended to do, was nearly complete. Cadell charged at the archway.
From the right, one of the demons burst from the shadows, thinking it had the advantage of surprise. Cadell’s sword slashed it from groin to shoulder without slowing his charge. From the shadows on the left, another of the demons tried to leap upon his back, only to be impaled through the throat on Cadell’s broadsword as he thrust backward over his shoulder. The blade flashed in the firelight from the archway and sliced through another demon’s right arm as it tried to protect its neck from Cadell’s cut. Barely slowed by the flesh and bone of the monster’s arm, the sword cut both sword and head from its body. Cadell intercepted a strike meant for the side of his neck with his left hand, then used that hand to drive a punch into the demon’s pointed chin, forcing it several steps backward. When it surged forward to attack again, Cadell batted the blow away, dropped into a low crouch and thrust his sword’s point forward, allowing the demon to impale itself with the force of its own momentum. The blade slipped neatly between the ribs and into the heart.
Now dripping with demon gore, he passed through the archway the demons had been guarding. He estimated the chamber to be about forty feet by forty feet in size with a ceiling about twenty feet high. The same checkerboard motif used for the tunnel floor was repeated in the chamber. Lit torches were arranged in sconces every ten feet along the walls. At the center of the room was a marble pillar that reached the ceiling and was inscribed in an ancient Aramaic script. Cadell was able to read the script but took no time to do so. The demonic chanting was still going on, and the words of the chant were gaining even more of the intangible but still almost physical substance. It was the sound of the chanting that led Cadell’s eyes to a spot of unnatural darkness in a corner of the chamber. Although the corner should have been illuminated by the torches, it wasn’t. About twelve feet high and ten feet wide, the darkness in that corner seemed to swallow the light.
Cadell concentrated his Truesight on the darkness, focusing his will and intention on piercing the demonic glamour and seeing what was within that darkened corner. After some time, the outline of a great beast, eight feet in height at least, became outlined in a blood-red and purple aura. The figure was hunched over another, much smaller figure, outlined in a bright but flickering aura of blue and green that was holding something disk-shaped in front of itself as a shield, keeping the demon at bay. The demon seemed to be aware that Cadell could now see through the cocoon of blackness, and it turned toward him with a growl Cadell felt vibrate through his body.
The blackness dissipated and the beast became fully visible. Scale-covered and bulging with muscle, it had insect-like eyes that glowed faintly red. Piranha-like teeth dominated an elongated snout of a mouth. Six-fingered hands ended in claws that dripped a green oily liquid. It turned its attention on Cadell and away from the somewhat elderly woman cringing in the corner. Its gaze swept up and down Cadell’s form, then focused on the blood-covered broadsword. “Another lackey of the archangels,” it hissed with a mouth that should not have been able to form sounds intelligible as any human language.
“Leave the elder be,” Cadell pointing at her with the tip if his sword. “Come to me, monster,” he added. “My blade thirsts.”
“First you,” the Demon said, stepping toward Cadell. “Then I feast on her.”
“You’ll have to earn that meal,” Cadell replied as a bright, blue-white light begin to shine from behind his eyes.
The demon stopped moving forward. “So an angel truly touches you,” it growled. “Your flesh will indeed be nourishing.”
“Come to me,” Cadell repeated, flourishing his blade a bit.
The demon lunged, trying to wrap its clawed fingers around his throat. Cadell sidestepped, twisted his body away from the demon’s grasp and drew his sword across its belly, but the cut barely penetrated the demon’s scaly hide. It swung one of its clawed hands and caught Cadell with a backhanded blow to the forehead, knocking him to the ground. Cadell rode the momentum of the blow into a backward roll that ended with him crouched on one knee. He ducked beneath another swipe of the demon’s claws and stabbed his sword’s point deeply into the flesh under the demon’s right arm. It screamed in pain even as it landed a cloven-hoofed kick to Cadell’s stomach, driving him several steps backward.
Cadell’s blade intercepted a claw that would have eviscerated him; the edge cut through the thinner scales there and sank into the demon’s forearm until it bit into bone. Cadell spun the sword upward and to the left, cutting the demon across the center of its face, then drove the point into its throat. At that same instant, the demon’s uninjured hand seized Cadell’s left shoulder. Its claws sank inches into the flesh there. Cadell and his enemy were locked together, their faces inches apart. Cadell twisted his blade and it settled more deeply into the demon’s throat. It still maintained its grip on Cadell’s shoulder. Finally, Cadell pulled his shoulder back and twisted it out of the demon’s grip. His left hand now free, he placed it under his sword’s pommel and shoved upward with both hands. There was disgusting squishing sound followed by a sickening crunch as the tip of the sword pierced the top the demon’s skull. Using both hands, Cadell withdrew his sword from the dead demon’s head.
He approached the woman the demon had been menacing. She was still in the corner, leaning against the chamber’s wall. She looked up as he came near. Her face was ashen, but while she was obviously hurt and exhausted, she seemed remarkably unafraid, considering what she had just experienced. Cadell knelt beside her, let his sword fade back into himself, and touched her cheek. “It’s alright, ma’am,” he said. “I’m a United States Marine and I’ll get you out of here.”
Her fingers whipped the purplish goo from the nametag on Cadell’s uniform. “Selkirk,” she said. “Cadell Selkirk?” she asked. Her manner suggested that she already knew the answer. She lifted her right hand so that Cadell could see the palm. His Truesight let him see the sigil of the house of Corey, one of the seven blessed bloodlines, glowing with magical light. Cadell removed his glove and showed her his own right palm, knowing that she would be able to see the sigil on his palm.
“I’m Eve Corey,” she said. “I knew your father.”
Cadell lifted her into his arms, wincing at the pain in his wounded shoulder. “He talked about you. What were you doing here, Elder?” Cadell asked.
“Getting this,” she said, pulling a gold-bound wooden scroll case from the folds of the dust-covered, beige jacket she wore. “God be praised that you came and kept the Grigori from getting it.”
Cadell nodded. “The Lord sees to his own.”
Eve looked at the scroll tube. “I suspect that he sent you to save this, not me.” Cadell looked more closely at the tube. Its cap was etched with a symbol that Cadell had been taught to recognize from childhood: the Seal of Solomon.
Chapter One
Boston, Massachusetts: Present Day
Winter was when the city felt most like home to Cadell. Stepping into a warm house after trudging through foot-deep snow and bone-chilling cold was one of his favorite sensations. He remembered sledding with his brothers when they were children until their father feared for their health and herded back into them the house. The house would be warm and filled with the aroma of hot, cinnamon-laced apple cider. Home was a warm, welcoming refuge from a world that was cold and dark. Cadell chuckled as memories of what came after the sledding and cider. After the admittedly clichéd’ scene of New Englander life, his father would take Cadell and his brothers for the evening’s two-hour lessons on swordsmanship and other fighting arts. He laughed to himself. His life was a mix of the paintings of Norman Rockwell and fantasy artist Frank Frazetta: one almost painfully idyllic, the other brutally surreal. In some respects the Selkirks were the all-American family, but they had the blood of the Blessed in their veins and their lives were anything but idyllic.
Snow had begun to recover the recently-shoveled cobblestone walkway leading up to the small inn. The old colonial-era building was maintained as closely as possible to its original appearance. Painted white with red trim, the soft glow of candles in the windows invited passers-by to come in and warm themselves. There were no flashing neon signs advertising a particular kind of beer and no scrolling electronic banners announcing the day’s specials. A simple wooden sign with the words Homeward Inn burned into it hung over the door.
In the summer, especially around Independence Day, the rooms would all be occupied by tourists eager to experience the commercialized, distorted version of American history provided by a multitude of tour guides and souvenir vendors. In the winter, however, most of the Inn’s ten guestrooms were empty and the business was kept going by a base of regular customers who were loyal to the family that owned the Homeward. The Morgan family had owned the inn for more than one hundred years and many of its regular customers had been introduced to the Homeward by their grandparents. Fishermen and sailors had found comfort and fellowship at the Homeward since the great whaling fleets had had homes in Boston harbor.
Cadell stepped in the door and took the woolen watch cap from his head as the bell hanging from the door announced his arrival. Several familiar smiling faces greeted him as he undid his peacoat. He knew better than to remove the coat, though. Sally Morgan went to great lengths to preserve the rustic, colonial atmosphere of the Homeward, and the main barroom was heated only by the fire in a huge brick hearth on the room’s far wall and lit only by candlelight. Modern gas heating was used only in the very coldest of weather, meaning that the barroom was usually a bit chilly. The guestrooms and kitchen were heated by gas and lit electrically, but when at the bar, Sally wanted her customers to be able to maintain the illusion that they drinking in an eighteenth-century pub. To that end, there were no national brand beers or spirits served at the Homeward. If you drank at the Homeward, you drank something that was brewed or distilled locally in relatively small batches.
“If it isn’t the youngest Selkirk,” Sally Morgan said as she came around the bar with a tray laden with four huge mugs of the house brew. Her dark, gray-streaked hair was tied underneath a bandana and she wore a white blouse covered by a cloth apron. Her shoulders were broad and she was a bit plump, but her face beamed with good will almost all of the time. It was nearly impossible for a sane person not to like Sally Morgan. “Where has the Selkirk clan been?” she asked, delivering the beers to some already slightly-inebriated patrons.
“We’ve been around,” Cadell said. “It’s just that…”
“I know, son,” Sally said, with a sympathetic smile. “It’s probably hard for you all to be in here since your dad’s wake.”
Cadell smiled back. “I’ll bring my brothers in soon, I promise. Has anyone been in here asking for me?” Cadell asked.
“Upstairs,” Sally answered, “Room eight. There’s a woman registered as Eve Corey. She says she knows you. She has with her a girl about your age and a man in his sixties or seventies. The man looked pissed.”
“Thanks, Sally,” Cadell said, smiling. “Let us know if anyone comes in looking for us,” he added as he started up the stairs. He knocked on the door to room eight, more than little curious about the other two people Sally had mentioned. Eve had asked him to meet her at the Homeward but had not mentioned that she was bringing anyone else.
“Come in,” Eve’s voice said. Stepping into the small but comfortably furnished room, Cadell accepted and returned a hug from Eve. Since their meeting in Afghanistan, they had become close; Cadell had served as her protector on several of her expeditions in search of esoteric knowledge and artifacts. “You’re looking well,” she said. “The beard and hair suit you,” she added, touching his whisker-covered cheek. “I thought you’d never give up the ‘Marine look.’”
“The haircut was functional but ugly, and the beard would have looked silly with a high-and-tight,” Cadell replied with a smile.
Eve reached behind his head and gently tugged on his brown, ponytail-bound hair. “But you went all the way, letting the hair grow down to your shoulders.”
“I decided that it was time I looked like a Blessed Warrior again,” Cadell said.
Eve stepped away from him, and Cadell’s eyes fell upon the young woman Sally had mentioned. She was about five-foot five and had straight dark-brown hair that fell to the middle of her back. Her face was oval with fine, almost delicate features. Her eyes were hazel-brown, bright and attentive. A royal blue turtleneck sweater and well-fitted jeans showed her slim but nicely curved figure. What Cadell noticed most about her, though, had nothing to do with how she looked. She was very attractive, and although his Truesight detected an aura of magic and psychic energy about her, there was something that went beyond even what his Truesight could detect. Something in about her produced an instinctive feeling of sameness in him. He could not articulate the feeling logically, but he knew that the he and the young woman were alike in some profound, unique way.
“Cadell,” Eve said. “This is my niece, Evelyn.”
It took a moment for her words to penetrate Cadell’s fixation on Evelyn. “Nice to meet you,” he said, finally extending his hand.
Evelyn seemed to emerge from a fixation similar to his as she shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, too,” she repeated. Cadell noticed her hands were somewhat rough for a woman’s.
“Hello, Cadell.” A man said as he rose from a chair in a corner of the room. Randal Corey was in his late sixties but moved with the grace and ease of a much younger man. His hair was gray but still thick on his head.
“Hello, Mister Corey,” Cadell replied, stepping toward Randal and offering a hand.
“I trust that you and your family are well,” Randal answered, his tone and facial expression betraying the fact that, at that particular moment, he cared not at all about how the Selkirks fared. His carefully-modulated tone and rigid posture told Cadell that the inquiries about his family were perfunctory, meant only to satisfy the minimum requirements of politeness. Cadell sensed a seething, barely-controlled anger under a cloak of enforced civility. The anger was not directed at Cadell, though. It was directed at Eve.
Cadell looked Randal squarely in the eye. “We’re all good, sir.”
“Aunt Eve,” Evelyn said. “Why are we all here? Why are you so mad, Uncle Randal?”
“Those are good questions, Eve ,” Cadell said, stepping away from Randal but not taking his eyes off the man. Randal was radiating a rage that bore watching.
“Why don’t you ask the question that you want to ask, Cadell?” Eve said. “That would be a good way to get this started.”
“Okay,” Cadell said, positioning himself so he could see Eve and still keep a wary eye on Randal. “I know, of course, that the Corey family is one of the Blessed bloodlines. I also know that the branch of the Corey clan that Mister Randal here is in charge of has all but completely stopped participating in the Calling. The only member of his immediate family that’s still really active was you, Eve. That’s why you always came to me to protect you when you played ‘Lara Croft.’ Every one of the Blessed knows that Caleb Corey, his wife and his six daughters were massacred twenty-six years ago; demons got through the wards around the family’s house somehow.” Cadell glanced over at Randal. His eyes were fixed on Eve. Evelyn seemed too confused to speak.
“That’s all true,” Eve said. “My brother Caleb, his wife and their six daughters were killed by demons twenty-six years ago.”
The emphasis Eve had placed on the word ‘six’ made Cadell hesitate momentarily before speaking. After that, comprehension caused him to pause and look at Evelyn in awe and disbelief. “She’s a Seventh?” he asked in a near-whisper.
Eve turned proud but pity-filled eyes on her niece. “Yes,” Eve said, “she is.”
“Why is he looking at me like that?” Evelyn demanded. “What are you talking about? Blessed? Demons? My parents died in a fire!” She was confused and rapidly becoming angry.
Randal sighed and seemed to physically shrink where he stood. “No, Evelyn, your parents were killed.”
Evelyn began to cry angry, bitter tears and she was shaking visibly. “By demons?” she asked in a choked shout. “You’re all crazy!” Randal took a halting step toward her and she pulled away from him.
“Evelyn, please let us explain,” Randal pleaded. He had transformed from a displeased patriarch to a loving uncle who wanted nothing more than to comfort his niece.
“We have to show her what’s behind the veil,” Eve said. “She has to believe if she’s going to understand what she is, what we are.”
“What do you mean ‘understand what I am?’” Evelyn asked, having regained some control over her emotions.
Eve extended her right hand with its palm facing outward. “Randal, Cadell, show her your sigils.”
“No, Eve,” Randal implored her. “We can still stop this…”
Eve’s face softened in sympathy for both Randal and her niece. “It’s too late now, brother. We’ve already said too much.” Eve’s hand glowed with a blue pulsating light that had streaks of gold flashing around it. On the palm was the sigil of the house of Corey, a six-pointed star composed of two interlocking triangles at the center of two concentric circles and a stylized phoenix at the center of the star. Tiny symbols were visible at each point of the star and glowed more brightly than the rest of the sigil. Randal’s palm glowed in a blue and green version of the same mark. Eve shielded her eyes from what was, to her, a painfully bright light.
Cadell stood directly in front of her, only inches away. He held up both of his hands. “Look at me,” he said softly.
“It’s too bright!” Evelyn said, shielding her eyes with both hands.
Cadell took her hands lightly in his and pulled them gently away from her eyes. “Look at me,” he told her again. “It will be alright. I promise,” he assured her.
Evelyn looked up slowly, blinking tear-filled eyes. She found that Cadell was bathed in blue light with golden sparks spiderwebbing through it. Though still bright, the light was no longer painful. Evelyn saw a symbol similar to the symbols that Randal and Eve had shown her, but his was on his left hand. It depicted a sword-wielding angel standing in front of a gate flanked on both sides by trees. On his right hand was another glyph or rune that Evelyn didn’t recognize. Almost without her own volition, Evelyn brought her right palm up and touched it to Cadell’s. Her own aura flared to life.
“It’s the sigil of the Archangel Uriel,” Cadell told her. “Uriel is the patron Angel of my family. Your family’s angel is Camuel.” Evelyn gasped and pulled away as she saw a sigil glowing in the palm of her hand.
Cadell, Randal and Eve allowed their auras and sigils to fade and Cadell helped Evelyn into a nearby chair. Her sigils still glowed on her palms. “The sigils mark you as one of the Blessed.” Evelyn stuffed her hands into her armpits to hide them from view. She began sobbing.
Eve touched Evelyn lightly on her shoulder. “Honey, it’s alright,” she said. “You’re part of long, proud bloodline, a very special part.”
“No!” Evelyn shouted. “It isn’t real! It’s a trick!”
“It’s real, honey,” Eve assured her. “Look at your hands.” Slowly, reluctantly Evelyn took her hands from under her arms. The sigils still were bright on her palms. “You can make them fade,” Eve told her. “They’ll always be there, but you can choose whether or not to make them visible.”
“Being in our presence when we allowed our auras and sigils to be seen caused them to flare. Our spiritual energy flaring made your sigils to flare..” Randal added. “That’s why I kept you away from the other Blessed, so this wouldn’t happen. Now that your aura has been touched by unrestrained auras of other Blessed, your Truesight is activated.”
“It’s a trick!” Evelyn insisted, trying to convince herself more than anyone else.
Eve took Evelyn’s hands in her. “No, honey, it’s not.”
Evelyn stood abruptly, nearly knocking Eve down in the process. “It’s not REAL!” Evelyn backed herself into a corner.
Eve turned to Cadell. “Cadell, show her your trueblade,” she said.
“Eve, no,” Randal objected. “She’s already shaken enough.”
“She needs to get her head around this now,” Eve insisted. “Do it, Cadell.”
Cadell hesitated. He looked at Evelyn, who had stopped crying and stood as though she was about to fight off some kind of assault. He wanted to hold her, to calm and comfort her. She had begun the evening sure of her place in the world and had had that assuredness shattered. The rules that she had relied on all of her life were being torn apart in front of her eyes. Cadell didn’t want to cause her more pain. “I don’t think so, Eve,” he said. “I think she needs a little time to process all of this.”
“Show me,” Evelyn said, her voice was still choked from crying but it also held a profound resolve. Her aura and sigils had ceased to flare as she calmed herself. “Whatever’s happening, I need see it all. I have to make it real for myself.”
“No!” Randal said. “We can still stop this…”
“No, Randal, we can’t,” Eve countered. “Whatever bonds Angela placed on Evelyn’s Blessing are gone now that her sigils have been revealed.”
Evelyn wiped a final tear from one eye. “It’s alright, Cadell. Do whatever it is Aunt Eve wants you to do.” She had fought back her shock and fear and was now standing upright, staring Cadell in the eye.
“Alright,” Cadell said.
His brow furrowed slightly and he drew his hand across his body. An arc of shimmering light followed his hand and solidified into a highland broadsword. Its double-edged blade gleamed with a light that seemed to be generated from within the steel itself. A shining silver basket-like handguard protected the entire sword hand. At the front of the handguard there was a gold-inlaid silver sigil identical to the one on Cadell’s right palm.
Evelyn moved toward Cadell. “I can still see the light around your body,” she said. “It goes around the sword, too. The light is the same.”
“The sword is part of me,” Cadell said, holding it slightly higher. “I summon it from within me. It’s made of steel but its strength and power come from my will, from my soul.” Evelyn was close to him now. She was almost mesmerized by the gleaming steel and the way sparks of unnatural light danced across its mirror-like blade.
“May I touch it?” Evelyn asked.
“Be careful,” Cadell said with a nod. “It’s sharp as a scalpel.”
Evelyn touched the flat of the blade with two fingers of her right hand. The sparks that so fascinated her converged on where her fingers were in contact with the steel. “It’s warm,” she said, “like it’s alive.”
“It’s part of me,” Cadell said.
“Why did you call it a trueblade?” Evelyn asked.
“Because it cases true death,” Cadell answered, “If you kill someone with a trueblade, it doesn’t just kill the physical body, it destroys the psyche and the soul too, if there is one.”
“And you kill demons with it?” Evelyn said, asking and answering her own question.
Cadell reabsorbed the sword into himself. “Yes, that’s pretty much what the Blessed are all about.”
Evelyn looked to her uncle. “The Blessed? You all keep using that word. What does it mean?”
Randal took a long, deep breath. It was as though in answering Evelyn’s question, he was admitting some kind of defeat. “The Blessed are seven families, seven bloodlines that have each been blessed by one of the seven archangels,” he said. “The Selkirks were blessed by Uriel; our family was blessed by Camuel. The bloodlines were blessed during the First Crusade to protect mankind from demons and other ungodly creatures.”
Evelyn’s face was hard now as she faced her uncle, her voice coldly calm. “You said that my mom and dad were killed by demons.”
Randal placed gentle hands on her shoulders. “They were attacked in their family home. A Grigori, a very powerful demon, managed to get past the warding spell that protected the house. He had some other lesser demons with him. Your mother was eight months pregnant with you. She was barely alive when we found her. Just before she died, she made me swear to protect you. She wanted me to keep you away from the Blessed. She had just seen six of her children die before her eyes. She wanted you to live.”
“That’s why you sent me away to school.” Evelyn concluded. “To keep me away from the Blessed. So I’d never find out what happened to my family.”
Randal touched her cheek. “I had to make sure the other Blessed families didn’t find out about you. They would have insisted that you answer the Calling. I promised your mother I’d never let that happen.”
“Then why have you told me all off this now?” Evelyn asked, turning to Eve,
“Because you’re needed,” Eve replied. “There is something bad happening, and we need you to help stop it.”
***
Feeling that Evelyn needed time to gather herself, Cadell fetched a tray of drinks from the bar. He, Eve, Randal and Evelyn drank in silence for a few minutes. Cadell and Evelyn sipped the Homeward’s signature micro-brewed lager while Eve and Randal opted for blackberry brandy. The tension level had subsided somewhat, but Randal still radiated discontent. Most of that negativity was still directed at Eve. Evelyn was clearly trying to bring her emotions under control and clear her mind.
Evelyn finished the last quarter of her beer in a single gulp. “Okay,” she said, exhaling a long breath. “I need to hear all of this again in some kind of order that makes sense. Let’s start with the Blessed. What are they?”
“As I said earlier,” Randal went on. “The Blessed are seven families that have each been blessed by one of the seven archangels. That blessing gives the members of those families certain supernatural abilities.”
“Like being able to pull swords out of thin air,” Evelyn said.
“Yes, and the Truesight,” Randal added, “the ability to perceive the spiritual and psychic worlds. That’s what you just experienced.”
“When did it all start?” Evelyn asked. “I mean, how long have the Blessed been around?”
“It started during the First Crusade,” Eve replied. “The founders of the seven Blessed bloodlines were part of an army of crusading knights that participated in the siege and capture of Jerusalem in 1099 A.D. After three years of traveling just to get to Jerusalem and then a seven week siege, the crusaders broke into the city and there was a massive slaughter. Some accounts claimed that blood ran, literally, ankle deep as the crusaders killed everyone in the city that they could find. The slaughter was so horrific that even battle-hardened knights who had been trained for warfare since they were born were sickened.”
Cadell continued the tale. “Seven of those knights, who had been friends since childhood, were so horrified and ashamed of what they had done that they walked away from the crusader army and swore never to take another human life. They felt so guilty that they felt the need to atone. They decided to go into the desert with no supplies and no weapons. They figured that they would either die or have a vision that will tell them what they could do to make up for what they had they had done in Jerusalem.”
“They did have a vision,” Randal went on. “The seven archangels: Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Raguel, Raphael, Camuel, and Jophiel appeared to them. They offered the knights God’s forgiveness and cleansed them of their guilt. The Archangels also explained the true nature of evil. They told them that demons did, indeed, walk the earth and that demons were responsible for much of the misery on the Earth, including the crusades.”
“Those seven knights were the progenitors of the seven Blessed bloodlines,” Eve said. “Because the Lord God could see that the knights had truly repented and wanted to atone, he commanded each of the archangels to confer his blessing on one of the knights, empowering them to fight the demons that walked the world. Over the years, the descendants of those seven crusaders became the Blessed families. Those families have been protecting mankind ever since. Protecting mankind is the Calling.”
“Why did you hide this all from me?” Evelyn asked. She stood and began to pace. “If what you’re saying is true, then being a Blessed is my birthright, my heritage.”
Randal leaned forward in his chair and looked at the floor, his elbows resting on his knees. “It’s what your mother wanted,” Randal said in a quiet voice. “I told you that your parents and your sisters were murdered by demons. And, as I said, she wanted you to have nothing to do with the Blessed or the Calling. The life of a Blessed is more dangerous than you can imagine, and not just to the body but to the soul as well. Ask young Cadell, here. His father and one of his brothers are dead and another of his brothers is crippled for life. Three of his six uncles[r5] uncles are dead as well, not to mention a slew of his cousins. Your mother wanted you, at least, to be safe. I tried to protect you as best I could.”
Evelyn leveled a harsh glare at her uncle. “You sent me away, though,” Evelyn said. “Why did you send me away? Couldn’t you have let stay with you and Aunt Phoebe? Couldn’t I have stayed with Aunt Eve? I was all alone at that boarding school. I could never make any real friends. I could never fit in, because I always felt that I was different from everyone else there. Now I know why — because I was different. You could have let me stay with family and not let me be involved with the Blessed. You could have just ordered me to stay out of it. All I wanted, for my whole life, was to be part of the family. I would have done anything to live with you and Aunt Phoebe, even given up my heritage. I would have stayed away from what the Blessed do.”
Eve smiled a wry smile. “Ordering you to stay out of it might have worked when you were little, but you’re too much like your mother for that to have worked once you got older.” Eve said. “By the time that you were eleven or twelve, you would have demanded to join in the Calling. You wouldn’t have stood for being left out.”
“Besides,” Randal admitted, “even if you did obey me about not pursuing the Calling, the other families would have insisted that you be included in it. I had to hide you from them.”
“Why would the other families care if I got into the family business or not?” Evelyn asked, looking to her aunt.
It was Cadell who answered her. “Because you’re special, even by the standards of the Blessed. You’re a Seventh, like me.”
Evelyn looked at her palms. “That’s why we have two marks on our hands,” she said.
Cadell nodded. “Seven is a sacred number. Seventh children like us have a special connection to our family’s patron archangel. There are a few things we can do that even other Blessed can’t.”
“What can the Blessed do?” Evelyn asked.
“Cadell, why don’t you and Evelyn go downstairs and have another beer,” Eve suggested. “You can answer Evelyn’s questions. You’re the best one to do that anyway. I think that Randal and I need to speak privately.”
“Okay,” Evelyn said. “But don’t fight.”
“We’re not going to fight,” Even said, ushering the two of them the door.
Eve look at her aunt and uncle in turn. “Please, Aunt Eve, Uncle Randal. I hate it when you fight,” she said.
Eve smiled weakly. “We won’t fight,” she said.
The door closed and Cadell and Eve found themselves in the Homeward’s hallway.
“They’re going to fight,” Evelyn said.
Cadell’s mouth formed a lopsided grin. “I know,” he agreed.
***
They sat at a table in a corner of the bar room. Sally brought them two beers without having to be asked. “Okay,” Evelyn said. “Let’s pick up where we left off. You said that being a Seventh child makes us special, even more special than the other Blessed. So, first things first. What can the Blessed do?”
Cadell took a long drink from his beer and met Evelyn’s eyes across the flickering candle at the table’s center. “All of the Blessed have the Truesight, the ability to see the Trueworld. After they embrace the Blessing, all Blessed, no matter what path they take, are about twice as strong as normal person of about the same size. We heal from most wounds a lot faster than normal people and we are all trained to fight.”
“Trueworld?” Evelyn asked, tilting her head.
“A better term might actually be the ‘complete world,’” Cadell replied. “You perceive the psychic and spiritual planes as well as the physical. You saw my aura tonight, so your Truesight is active. You’re blocking it now, instinctively, because it scared the shit out of you. But once you get used to it and get some training, you’ll be able to turn it on and off like a light-switch.” He took a long breath. “The thing is that most Blessed come into their Truesight at the age of seven. I don’t think anyone’s ever been brought to the Truesight or embraced the Blessing this late in life before.”
Evelyn raised a Spock-like eyebrow. “Late in life?” she objected, “I’m twenty-six years old.”
Cadell smiled. “You know what I mean. Like I said, most of the Blessed have their Truesight brought to them when they’re seven and fully embrace the Blessing when they’re fourteen.”
Evelyn tilted her head again and took a long pull from her beer. “What do you mean, ‘fully embrace’ the Blessing?” she asked.
“When a child of one of the seven bloodlines is fourteen, they can choose whether or not to answer the Calling, that is, whether or not to devote their life to their family’s patron archangel in service to God or to live a normal life. If they choose to embrace the Blessing, their angel puts them into one of four castes: warrior, scribe, mage or healer. Their caste determines which abilities are granted by the Blessing.”
Evelyn tilted her beer glass toward Cadell. “You’re a warrior, I’ll bet,” she said.
Cadell nodded. “Yeah. Warriors are about five times stronger than normal people and heal even faster than other Blessed. We also get a lot more combat training, and you’ve seen my trueblade. We do most of the demonic bloodletting.”
“Why do you call it a trueblade, again?” Evelyn asked.
Cadell’s eyes took on a hard appearance. “Because it causes a true death. It doesn’t just kill the physical body, it kills the soul too. After that, there is no chance at forgiveness or redemption. Anyone or anything that’s killed with a trueblade is gone, really gone, forever. Only the warrior caste can use trueblades. ”
Evelyn raised her hand, signaling for more beer. “I’m still listening,” she said.
“Alrighty,” Cadell replied, smiling. “Scribes keep the family records, do research, and gather intel on the demons and their allies. Their Blessing gives them eidetic memory, the ability to speak and read any language and a truly freaky ability to multitask. Your Aunt Eve is a scribe.”
Evelyn’s eyes brightened in the candlelight. “I was an intelligence officer in the Air Force, and I’ve always had a knack for languages. Does that mean that my path would be scribe as well?”
“Air Force?” Cadell said, making a show of recoiling in chair. “Just what we need, a flying bus-driver. And an officer, too, no less.” He put a finger, gun-like, to his head. “Kill me now!” he added, grinning.
Evelyn smiled back at him. “Hey, I’m the one who’s stuck having a drink with a jarhead. I’ll bet you were a knuckle-dragging, ground-pounding grunt of a noncom, too.”
Cadell raised his beer glass. “To the Air Force,” he said.
“To the Corps,” she replied, raising her glass in return. “So. You said warrior, scribe, mage and healer. Tell me about mages.”
Cadell shrugged his shoulders. “The name says it all. Mages use magic. They don’t throw fireballs or hurl lightning from their hands, though. They can control the weather to a degree, communicate with animals, and do a lot of other things. And they can kind of see the future.”
“Kind of?” Evelyn asked.
“It’s not one-hundred percent reliable.” Cadell answered. “They get glimpses of the future that can be hard to interpret. Most of the time there’s no context, no orientation point, so they can’t always tell how far in the future they’re seeing.
“There are mages out there who are not of the Blessed. Some of them are powerful, but for normal people, it takes years of training and most of them don’t get really good at it until they’re in their sixties. Magic comes naturally to the Blessed, though. Even young Blessed Mages can be scary powerful. There are regular human bloodlines that are naturally gifted with magic. Helen, my adopted sister, comes from one of those bloodlines. Her ancestors have been mages since the Bronze Age and her family’s blood is saturated with magic.
“Healers are just that. They can heal people with a touch. In a pinch, they can heal from a distance, but that’s really hard on them. They’re also empathic and telepathic.” Cadell concluded.
Evelyn’s Spock eyebrow returned. “They can read minds?”
Cadell nodded. “Yes. Healers are responsible for keeping the Blessed healthy in body, mind, and spirit.”
“But the two of us are seventh children, so we have even more superpowers, right?” Evelyn was grinning now, a spark appearing in her deep-brown eyes.
Cadell chuckled, “I’ve never called them superpowers, but yes, Sevenths come with a few added extras.”
Evelyn leaned closer “Like what?”
Cadell smiled at her enthusiasm. “We have the abilities of all four Blessed castes. We still have a single caste that we belong to, and that caste’s abilities are stronger in us than the abilities of the other castes, but we can do almost everything the other castes can, just not quite as well.”
Evelyn leaned even closer, her elbows on the table. “So you can read minds?” she asked.
“Well, yeah[T6] ,” Cadell said, “but I only do it in the line of duty. I’ve never really bothered to learn to use any abilities from any caste other than the warrior caste, anyway. I haven’t read you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Evelyn leaned back in her chair. “I suppose I was wondering about that,” she admitted with a shrug.
“It’s okay," Cadell assured her. “It’s a natural question. But reading you for no good reason would be abusing the Blessing, and the Lord and his angels are hard on members of the Blessed who do that.”
“Has that ever happened?” Evelyn asked.
Cadell nodded slowly. “A few times,” he said. “The most recent one was a great-uncle of mine. It happened before I was born, but he was a healer and used his telepathy to seduce women. I was told that he spent seven months in agony inflicted by Uriel himself. After that, his father was commanded by Uriel to kill him with a trueblade.”
“Shit,” Evelyn said.
Cadell’s expression became hard and intense. His eyes bore, laser-like, into hers. “That’s something that you need to understand about being one of the Blessed. All of the powers and privileges come with a price. The life of the Blessed is about sacrifice and service. It takes a level of self-discipline that most people can’t even imagine. We are the Blessed of the Lord, and his angels are always watching us. Because we are the Blessed, we’re held to higher standards than the rest of humanity.”
Evelyn was silent for a moment. “I get it,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. “Is there anything else I should know?” she asked.
“There is one other thing about being a Seventh,” Cadell replied. “We can channel part of our patron angel’s power. When we do, it makes us even stronger than other Blessed Warriors and all the other Blessed Gifts get stronger, too. Our auras burn with angelic fire that really irritates all demons; lesser demons can’t even come near us. It takes a lot out of you, though, so it’s like a nuclear option: it’s only used when there is absolutely no other choice.”
“In case of demon apocalypse, press the red button,” Evelyn said.
“Right,” Cadell confirmed. “I’ve only done it three times, and I’ve never been able to keep it up for more than five minutes. It took me three days to recover from that.”
“So what’s next?” Evelyn asked. “For me, I mean.”
Cadell tilted his head. “That’s up to you,” he told her. “You have to decide if you’re going to embrace your Blessing or not. If you decide to embrace it, then your family will help you do that. After that, you’ll have to play one serious game of catch-up.”
Evelyn raised her eyebrow again. “What do you mean?”
Cadell looked down briefly, then his eyes found Evelyn’s again. “Like I told you, most Blessed embrace their blessing when they’re fourteen. I went on my first demon hunt when I was fifteen and that was after being trained from the time I could walk. You haven’t been trained at all. Besides that, I don’t think anyone has ever embraced their Blessing after they were fourteen. I’m not sure of what might happen to you if you do decide to embrace your Blessing. It might hurt you.”
“But I’d be able to do a lot of good, right?” Evelyn asked. “Protect people.”
Cadell nodded. “Yeah, you can protect people. But your also be asking to bring a lot of pain into your life.”
Evelyn sat up straighter. “I’m not afraid of danger.”
“You don’t know the kind of danger we’re talking about,” Cadell said, his voice growing low and harsh. “You’re a Seventh, and that’s really rare. A couple from a Blessed family haven seven kids doesn’t make a true Seventh. True Sevenths are either the seventh son or the seventh daughter. Have seven kids that are mix of boys and girls won’t do it. When you figure in the fact that most Blessed die fairly young, a lot of them before the have kids and it means that you might get one Seventh in a generation. Having two Sevenths born in one generation just fucking epic.
If you embrace your Blessing, it’s going to send a shockwave through the Trueworld. Every psychic and magical practitioner alive will feel you come into your power, not to mention the alarm bells that will go off in the demonic world. It will be like when Vader blew up Alderaan: ‘A great disturbance in the Force.’ When it gets out that another Seventh has been born into this generation, and that that a Seventh is untrained and unprepared, there’ll be demons coming after you by the dozens.”
Evelyn cast Cadell a sideways look. “So you think I shouldn’t do it, then?”
“That’s up to you,” Cadell replied. “I simply want you to have some idea of what you’re getting into. Don’t just jump into the pool head first. Find out how deep the water is before you leap.”
Evelyn nodded and downed the last of her beer. “Right. I’ll have to think about it. One more thing before we go back upstairs and see if my aunt and uncle have killed each other.”
Cadell smiled. “What?”
Evelyn clasped her hands together in front of her. “I believe everything you’ve told me about the Blessed, I really do. I just want one more bit of proof. Just to help me wrap what’s left of my mind around it all.”
Cadell’s expression hardened again. “Alright,” Cadell agreed. He put his right hand in the flame of the table’s candle. He stared at Evelyn over the back of the burning hand. Paralyzed by astonishment, she could do nothing but gasp and stare. Cadell eyes glared into hers. His face was passive, almost peaceful. In seconds the odor of burning skin became evident.
The smell shook Evelyn out of her paralysis. She moved the candle to the side and took Cadell’s burned hand into hers, expecting to find the flesh on the palm thoroughly seared. She found that it was blackened, but it was healing before her eyes. As the last of the injury faded, the sigil on the hand glowed briefly.
Evelyn reached over, took Cadell’s beer and gulped the last of it. “Son of a bitch!" she hissed. “Couldn’t you have proved it all some other way? Like read my mind or something? Shit, Cadell, that had to hurt!”
“It hurt like hell,” Cadell confirmed. “But I wanted to show you what life is like as a Blessed. It means a life of being in one kind of pain or another all the time. It means being able to endure that pain.”
’d expect him to be calmer here. He’s in command; it’s his duty to keep his head and not get excited.
keep forgetting that exclamation marks don’t indicate someone is shouting.
Eve? Or Evelyn?
Eve, since she’s who invited Cadell to the Homeward.
I remembered that Cadell was supposed to be a seventh son of a seventh son.
Seems more appropriate to the tone of the conversation. He’d probably be a bit shy about revealing it to a woman he’s interested in, even if she is another Seventh.