Conspiracy of Angels (16 page)

“Stuff it,” I growled. “So far, he’s the only person who’s gone out of his way to help me.”

“Don’t mistake enlightened self-interest for charity,” she responded, planting her feet and making a grab for the keys. “Let me list the reasons this is a bad idea.” She held up her hand and started counting off fingers. “Remy is Saliriel’s bitch. There is no point at which Saliriel can be trusted. Your message connects the Nephilim to Lailah’s disappearance. Remy and Saliriel are both what? Nephilim,” she answered before I could speak. “And if that little cipher of yours is accurate, your tribes are at war. Again. Now I’m out of fingers. Got it?” She looked at me as if I were an idiot.

“Look, Lil,” I said, dodging as she tried again for the keys, “I’m filthy. I’m tired, and I hurt all over. All I want is a shower, a nap, and a little privacy. There must be somewhere you need to be for the next couple of hours—one that doesn’t involve hovering over me.”

Giving up on the keys, Lil switched to blocking my path. It was kind of comical, really, considering she was almost a full foot shorter than me. She fixed me with a withering glare, but by this point, I’d endured so many of those from her, I’d become immune, and was consumed with a single-minded purpose—to find a shower.

“Get out of my way.”

“You look like hell, Zachary,” she said flatly.

“Thanks for noticing,” I replied.

“You’re tired and worn-out, and that’s precisely why you need me. If you won’t listen to reason and go to a hotel, then I’m coming in with you. After that stint in the Shadowside, if you don’t recharge your batteries soon, you’ll be no good to anyone,” she said, “but you need someone watching your back,
especially
in a house owned by one of the Nephilim.”

“I’m not so sure that someone should be you,” I responded. Wearily, I hefted my backpack and tried to push past her, but she pressed herself very close to the front of my body and did that shoulder maneuver that practically spilled her cleavage out of her top. She cranked up the charm, till she smelled like sex on a stick. That’s how I knew I was really exhausted. I got a noseful of her spice and vanilla musk—and I simply didn’t care. Her sex appeal only irritated me more.

“Seriously,” I said. “Get out of my way.
Now
.”

I said it with a little more force than I’d intended, but maybe that was a good thing. She tried staring me down for a few moments longer, then relented.

“You get your ass killed, and I’m hunting you down through your next six incarnations, just to kill you again,” she warned. I was too tired even to ask. “I’ll go chase down a few leads I may have, then I’ll be back here by seven. Make sure you’re ready.”

Half a dozen responses leapt to my lips, none of them kind. And as much as I wanted that shower, I waited till she was at least halfway to the car before I put the key in the lock. Once I was through the door, I threw the deadbolt behind me

The interior of the house was all dark woods and deep colors. Heavy curtains cloaked all the windows—though that didn’t come as a surprise, really. Between the décor and the antiques, I felt as if I had stepped onto a movie set for
The Great Gatsby
.

Then the security system started chirping.

Just my luck.

I turned around, expecting to see a little keypad mounted by the door. There was nothing of the sort—even though that’s where the sound was coming from. It might have been my shredded nerves, but it seemed as if the beeps were getting louder with each passing moment. As the sound escalated, my eyes finally locked onto a decorative wooden box mounted at about shoulder height to the left of the door. The spectral glow of LEDs was just barely visible through the spaces of its ornate filigree.

I flipped the thing open, revealing a very modern-looking keypad with a message in scrolling green digital letters that prompted, “Alarm… code?” over and over again.

The LED screen continued to prompt me to enter the code while the chirping sounds grew louder and more insistent. I had a sinking feeling that once the chirps reached a certain pitch, the system would send signals along to the police or some private company.

Wracking my sluggish brain, I tried to recall whether Remy had mentioned anything about a code, back in the stairwell. No, despite the cloak-and-dagger feel of that entire conversation, nothing about alarms or codes had come up.

Dammit.

I fisted my hand around the house keys till they dug painfully into my palm. Maybe if I booked out the front door, I could catch Lillee and we could drive away before the police came. I hated the idea, though—I’d never hear the end of her gloating. There had to be another way.

Glancing down at the fob of the keys I white-knuckled, I saw it—a six-digit number written neatly on the last line of the little insert. Hoping beyond hope, I punched it into the keypad. My hand trembled, and I tried vainly to swallow the panic I felt welling up from my chest. Each key I punched merely added to the incessant beeps. Then I hit the final number in the code.

Silence. Blessed silence.

A moment later, the LEDs prompted me to arm the system. Alongside the number pad on the security interface were three big buttons. A green one stamped
YES
, a yellow one stamped NO, and a bright red one stamped with
EMRGY
. I pressed the green button and armed the system.

Then I turned and really took in the luxury of Remy’s impeccably decorated home. With all the dark wood paneling and heavy antique furniture, there was a kind of unassailable weight to the space around me. Instinctively, I knew the security system wasn’t the only protection on the place. Cacodaimons and anything else from the Shadowside would have a hard time violating this sanctum.

Feeling truly safe for the first time since dragging myself out of Erie, I headed off to find the shower, moving with the single-minded purpose of Ponce de Leon seeking the Fountain of Youth.

A
fter the shower, I found a massive four-poster bed and climbed in, wearing only my jeans. Unfortunately, I did not find sleep. I almost did—and then my brain did that thing that brains often do when they’re far too stressed. It fixed on something important that had otherwise slipped my mind.

The white envelope.

Nerves jangling, I jerked awake. I tried lying back down, tried rolling over, but my mind raced mercilessly. Projected on the insides of my eyelids, I watched a tedious replay of the envelope tumbling from behind the page from the
Celestial Hierarchy
. It repeated again and again. The image came complete with a full-body memory of the guilt and anxiety I’d experienced as I pocketed the item while Lil wasn’t looking. My stomach went sour and my head began to throb.

“Fuck it,” I grumbled irritably. Apparently I didn’t need Lillee around to argue. I even argued with myself.

Swinging my legs out of the bed, I felt around for the rest of my clothes. My jacket, boots, socks, and shirt were piled in a messy heap beside the bed. I grabbed the jacket and started digging through the pockets, but I couldn’t find the little envelope. With a mounting sense of anxiety, I renewed my search, pulling out the wadded-up socks and tossing them onto the floor.

Still nothing.

That wasn’t right. There were two deep interior pockets in the biker jacket. I’d slipped the envelope into the left one. I was sure of it. With the way the jacket zipped tight against my chest, it couldn’t have fallen out.

Could it?

Working my long fingers down to the very bottom of the interior pocket, I felt along the seam—and discovered a hole. Forcing my fingers through the tear in the seam, I ripped it further, then for several anxious heartbeats dug around in the lining of the jacket. There was something hard and thin at the very bottom—a pen or pencil, half-buried against a seam. I jammed my finger against the pointy end, recoiling a bit at how sharp it was.

Finally my fingertips brushed an edge of paper. I couldn’t get my thumb around it, so I tried trapping it between my first and second fingers. It took a little finagling, but I finally pulled the damned thing free.

Hastily, I tore it open. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but the Holy Grail didn’t tumble into my lap. Actually, for a moment, I was afraid the envelope was empty and that I had worked myself up over nothing. Then I shook out a little rectangle of paper. It bore two rows of neat print. The first line was a URL for something called “Crash Protect.” It was long and contained a lot of digits. The second line looked like it might be a user ID.

Silent_War.

Well, that’s ominous.

There was no way I was going to sleep now, so I got up and padded across the plush carpet in search of Remy’s office. The door was slightly ajar and I could just see the gloss of the darkened computer screen through the opening. The little work space was starkly modern in contrast with the retro-politan feel of the rest of the house. I slipped inside, dropping the leather jacket beside the computer chair. Then I hesitated.

Using a strange computer to access a site I wanted to keep secret carried some hefty risks. Privacy mode was never as private as anyone thought, and even if I purged the browser history, there were temp files and audit logs with which to contend. I still didn’t know how far I could trust Remy. Then curiosity overruled my sense of caution, and I turned the thing on anyway.

“Crash Protect” turned out to be an online service that offered secure storage and redundancy for important files. The multi-digit extension of the URL took me directly to a log-in screen for what I assumed was “my” account. I entered the Silent_War ID and then stared blankly at the password entry field. I glanced back to the little slip of paper. No password. Not even the hint of one.

Well, that figures.
Why should my luck change now?

I frowned at the screen, wracking my brain before daring to try anything. It was hard to come up with passwords when I barely remembered my life. There didn’t seem to be any character limit, and a little notice under the entry field reminded me that all passwords were case sensitive.

Just to make things easy.

Given where I’d stashed the envelope, I considered
CelestialHierarchy
. After a moment’s hesitation I tried it, only to be routed back to the log-in screen, now with an error message.
Great.
Trying to think like the person my apartment suggested I must be, I ventured the Latin version of the title—
DeCoelestiHierarchia
. That seemed clever enough.

The screen went blank for a second, getting my hopes up. Then it reloaded onto the log-in screen again.

No dice.

Remembering both the action figure and the bumper sticker on my wayward vehicle, I attempted several variations of Starbuck and
Battlestar Galactica
. All this netted me was a message in bold red letters on the top of the log-in screen, warning me that the security protocol was in place, and lock-out would occur after three more failed attempts.

Crap.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, I shifted in the desk chair and thought hard. The envelope was stored with the
Celestial Hierarchy
page. They had to be related in some way. Mentally, I went back over the names hidden in the alphanumeric code on the antique illustration. Feeling like I was onto something, I tried one of them. The page reloaded, only now it warned me that lock-out would occur after
two
more tries.

I fought not to smash anything.

Taking a moment to shake the tension out of my hands, I let my fingers move on instinct. Then I typed in my name. Not Zachary, but
Zaquiel
.

Denied.

I shouted a barely coherent string of curses at the screen and it flickered as if in response to my tirade. I had one more try.

My mind racing, I did a quick number-letter substitution in my head using the same system as the cipher. Then, with my final attempt, I typed in the resulting number string, followed by the name in English. As an after-thought, I added a tilda at the end.

The page reloaded. I stared at a blank white screen for what seemed like a small eternity. As the page resolved itself, I half-expected to be greeted with flashing red letters announcing full security lock-down.

But it worked.

A new screen appeared. There were three folder icons, each with a little green bar next to it indicating the percentage of storage space taken up by the files inside. The folders were labeled “History,” “Anakim,” and “Nephilim.”

This was it.

Considering how little I remembered, I opted to open “History” first. Inside was a large PDF file. Still jittery from the down-to-the-wire quest for the password, I double-clicked and waited impatiently for the file to load.

It was an eBook, sort of. Cobbled together by me. The title page read “The History of the Watchers.” Below this was my legal name, and further down was a range of dates, which appeared to show how long I’d been working on the project. The start date was nearly fifteen years ago. The end date was only last year. Long-term research, then—or maybe just a personal obsession.

Personal obsession
, I decided after skimming a few pages.

The sprawling document read like some gene-splicing experiment between the Bible and the Brothers Grimm. Earth-bound angels, warring tribes, and ancient icons buried away for humanity’s own good. One page discussing the “Five Accursed Nations” linked Anakim to anarchists. The Nephilim were called “Voluptuous Ones.” Gibburim and Rephaim were names supplied for other tribes. Conflicting terms were given for a fifth.

Such conflicts and outright contradictions peppered the document. There was scan after scan of material, some texts in English, some in Latin, others in languages more exotic still. I could read all of it—even when I had no clue what letters glimmered on the screen.

That’s a useful super-power
, I mused.

Judging from the typeset of the reproductions, most of the scanned works were very old. It looked like I’d made copies of the pages, then scribbled all over the margins, finally scanning them into this massive PDF. It was too much to digest in one sitting, and the contradictory claims offered little but frustration. Even my notes in the margins argued with themselves.