Shadowhunter (Nephilim Quest Book 1) (61 page)

"True, she isn't."

"So, when you are here in the dreamscape, all you need to do is to think about the person whose dreams you want to ... hey, wait!"

I was suddenly zooming off with increasing speed in some direction. Dream bubbles flashed by, and then suddenly stopped. After a while Lilith appeared next to me.

"You sure are fast!" She shook her head in disbelief. "I'd better keep hold of you next time."

"Sorry."

"No need to be sorry for being faster than an old lady..." she smiled.

"You're not that old!"

"I should say I am... I was born at the end of the 18
th
Century. Spend most of my time in the buffer zone, which explains the way I look."

"Oh, I see...No one seems to be their right age around here."

"You can say that again... But now, here is Diana..."

I could see that. I saw Diana swirling in an Egyptian dress, dancing. Around her a landscape was forming that was clearly ancient Egypt. I could see how her mind was working on today's lesson, which was wine making, because suddenly she was stomping grapes in a huge vat, holding onto a horizontal beam above her head, so as not to slip. She was singing. The sound came out oddly, like a radio channel that faded on occasions, only to return clearly again.

"This harvest will make an excellent vintage ... here in Kemet ... ...where we are going to find..."

Lilith froze. Then she pointed at something behind Diana's dream.

A shadowy figure was crouched on the far side of Diana's dream bubble. It stretched out its arms into her dream and seemed to be weaving too - shadowy tentacles were swimming in the air around her, trying to grab her.

"...When we go...we are going..."

Lilith jumped right through Diana's dream, causing her to disappear. The shadow did not have time to do anything, before Lilith had severed the lifeline at the back of its neck. It fell down and vanished, sinking down into the mist while it disintegrated.

"I should have thought of this!" She turned to me shaking her hand as if it was hurting. "Of course Cain wants to know where we are going. He cannot come to the Centre, but he can send his spies to see our dreams! Come on, we have to get to Diana to find out if she's revealed anything about our destination in her dream."

Lilith grabbed my arm hastily.

"Think of the Centre."

I did, and the thought formed strings out of my fingers and began to reel us back in to the Centre with ever increasing speed.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

77. Kidnapped

"So we can't even sleep in peace anymore?" Diana rolled her eyes. "They are spying on us even in our dreams?"

"They are. And this means you need to leave as soon as possible, before any one of us falls asleep again." Lilith looked around at us - we had woken up everyone quickly after our return.

"But we haven't learned everything we need to know yet!" Reggie looked desperate.

"There is no more time. They are out there, lurking in our dreams, fishing out information. They must know already that we are leaving for Egypt." Lilith lifted her hand as if to bang her fist on the desk, but did not. "I only hope no one has dreamed specifically of Amarna... Does anyone remember doing so?"

Everyone shook their heads.
 

"Do the shadows even know who the members of this team are?" Elijah asked.

"I hope not," Lilith sighed.

"Why pick out Diana, then?"

"Of course they would seek out Diana..." Daniel said, "she was standing right next to Dana, who was protecting her from Angel at the pyramids. That's why. She was a good guess on their part. If we had looked around us at the pyramids, we'd probably have spotted a Hunter of theirs with a shadow. Maybe amongst the tourists. We just weren't paying enough attention to anyone else but Angel. One sniff of Diana's scent and the shadow could easily navigate to her dreams in the buffer zone, if they knew her approximate physical location. They probably guessed it easily enough, after the shadows found the Centre by following Layla and Dana. They wouldn't approach Dana, as she might be heavily guarded now, so Diana was probably a safer bet."

"So they probably know about the other members of the team as well... maybe now the shadows know everything. How could we have been so stupid, not taking the dreams into account!" Grandma pressed her forehead with her fingers as if she had a headache.

"We need to leave as soon as possible. We can still get away in safety, though; we just have to mislead them. We'll leave in pairs," Daniel said. "I'll work with Weavers to take the members of our team to different locations, very quickly, and return immediately. And I'll then come and pick everyone up from their chosen location. We need to temporarily scatter all over the world."

We made our spur of the moment plans. Grandma and Reggie would go to Toronto, Mr Donnelly and Jason would be sent to Edinburgh and Diana and Aemilius to Rome, Elijah and I were going to Paris. Specific hotels in these locations would be used.

"Why these particular hotels?" I asked.

"Because we have our own people working there. We only need to appear, and they will give us a room without entering our real names on their database. Also they will not ask for our documentation."

We began to pack our things immediately. Everyone fetched their clothes. All modern jewelry and watches were left behind. We would have to leave our regular clothing as well, but at our rendez-vouz-point, which was for Daniel to decide. He did not tell anyone about the location of this point, other than Elijah, in case we fell asleep and were spied on. Elijah was not likely to fall asleep - I knew from experience now that the Nephilim did not need much sleep.

If we got out of the Centre without anyone noticing, we would be safe from dream-spies. They would need to know our physical proximity to find our dreams, the "dream bubbles" were only visible near the physical location of the dreamer.

Our major problem was taking our big coffers with us. Daniel and Elijah would first carry them through the buffer zone and to our secret rendezvous point. When they had moved everything, they would return so we could start our travels.

"Nervous?" Diana asked me after we had nothing else to do but wait in our room.

"Yes... to actually go to ancient times... What if we get lost? What if something happens to us there? We can die in another time, can't we?"

"Yes, we can. We have the same physical form there as we have here, so we can get sick, and die, and be harmed. But we have you with us, so what's to worry about? Besides, we've been vaccinated against cholera, plague, smallpox and what have you..." Diana cringed at the memory. She wasn't exactly fond of needles.

"Has anyone ever gone that far into the past?" I asked.

"Well... No. I think Aemilius and Rome is the furthest back we have ever gone... and the destruction of the Alexandria library... The farther back we go, the more... vague the paths become. Especially if we are talking about a time that is not well researched."

"Why is that?"

"It's quite simply those laws of energy once again... what you concentrate on, gets stronger. I am not sure we could even find our way to any "lost civilization" if there was no historical record about it, and we were only going by legend or rumors. Like the myth of Atlantis, for instance. But if we think about Amarna, so much has been written about it, and so many objects found, that its energies should be strong enough for us to find it easily."

"No one has told us in exactly which year we're aiming to arrive..." I observed.

"True... Maybe we should go and ask Lilith about that..." Diana rose from her bed.

"Yes, let's." I just couldn't stand the small room any longer. "If anyone wants us we'll be in the Center, if we chance to be away from our room."

It was a relief to walk down the corridor, and towards Lilith's office. We knocked on the door, but she was not there. Reggie, on the other hand was, with his nose buried in a big book about Amarna. Mr. Donnelly was feverishly writing something in his notebook beside him, with his index finger pointing to the page of a book to his left.

"Ah, young ladies! What can we do for you?" Reggie smiled.

He had red dots burning on his cheeks, and you could tell he was happily anticipating our time travel. Mr. Donnelly looked just as pleased.

"We were wondering... do you know to which time we're planning to go, exactly? In Amarna I mean. Any specific year?" Diana asked.

"Well... I'm not sure we should really be telling you..." Reggie scratched his ear.

"Oh come on – we're going in a few hours, and we promise we won't take a nap before that!" Diana insisted.

"Well, that is true..." Reggie considered for a while. "OK, we have chosen Akhenaten's year 12. That is when he arranged a great show in Aketaten, and royalty all over the ancient world traveled to attend it. He wanted to show off his newly built city, and display his riches and power. The city will be full of strangers then, so a few more won't draw too much attention to themselves."

"Great!" Diana clapped her hands "We shall see a real spectacle then!"

"Yes, indeed. But there is one unpleasant thing about it..." Mr. Donnelly raised his head, looking very much like a nutty professor.

"Yes? What is it?"

"The guests brought an epidemic with them, which caused havoc in the city. Many of the royal family also died of it. Some of Akhenaten's daughters, maybe Nefertiti as well. And the king's mother, Tiye. Probably Akhenaten's favorite second wife, Kiya as well. It may have been cholera, or plague. So we need to be careful out there..."

"Oh..." Diana became serious, "but thankfully, we have Dana with us, in case the vaccines don't work!"

"I think you trust my abilities a bit too much..." I said. "I don't know exactly how to heal..."

"Nonsense. You're our medicine on wings, dear! You don't need to know. It seems your Nephilim side is on automatic mode on this matter," Diana smiled. "OK. Let's get back to our room and wait..."

That we did. To spend the time we played cards.
 

While Diana was picking up her hand of cards, I felt something. A slight electric current shot through my spine. I had learned that the feeling meant a Nephilim of our kind was near. It was like a vibrational hello.

"Time to stop playing! I think they are coming." I took the pack of cards from the bed and replaced my card hand on top of it. "I sense a Nephilim presence."

"Great!" Diana jumped to her feet. "All ready to go!"

She turned to grab the sack which held her clothes. It was carefully made to look genuine in ancient Egypt. I turned to get my belongings, still holding the playing cards in my hands.

The Nephilim who suddenly appeared in our room holding one others' hands were neither Daniel nor Elijah. There were three of them. One immediately grabbed Diana's neck, and she slumped onto her bed.

"Don't worry, she will be unharmed."
 
The Nephilim responsible for making Diana unconscious turned to me.
 

I could see they were my kind. Bright blue eyes. I didn't understand.

"What is this? Who are you? And - why did you do that to Diana?"

"No time to talk," a tall red-headed woman answered bluntly. "You're coming with us - now."

"I'm not going anywhere without..."

"Oh but you are. If you don't, your friend here will die.
 
No one wants to see that happen, but we are ready to kill her if we must," another Nephilim woman with an olive colored skin said. "I'll stay behind to make sure you leave nice and quietly."

The other two grabbed my arms and tugged me into the buffer zone in an instant. They did not seem to do any weaving, but simply opened their wings – ochre and grey in color - and rose out of the misty zone into a level that looked like a desert. I remembered what Lilith had told me - that Nephilim touching each other physically amplified each other's power, which is how they could enter the buffer zone if they were not able to do so alone.

I held on to my sack all the time, and noticed I still had the pack of playing cards in my hands. The moment we arrived at the level of the desert, I carefully moved my fingers so that one of the cards fell down. The Nephilim did not notice - they were looking straight ahead. I could only hope that Daniel would follow us to the right level and would be able to hunt me down with the help of my scent on the cards. I knew first hand what an amazing sense of smell the Nephilim had. I could not bear to be near people who used perfume anymore. Any man-made scent was almost painful. Only natural floral scents smelled good.

We flew for a long time, and I dropped the cards, one by one, every once in a while. My escorts were in such a hurry they never looked back to see the cards flying in the air. After I had dropped the last one we flew for such a considerable distance I began to fear my little leads would be left too far behind, and I would never be found.
 

And then, finally, we began to descend, and entered the misty zone. From there we emerged a totally featureless room. There was one door, heavy, made of metal. No furniture, no window, no nothing. Only a surveillance camera attached to the ceiling, and loudspeakers in the corners.

They yanked my sack from my hands and rummaged through it. The only contents were plain linen clothing, a toothbrush and a hairbrush - and nothing of value.

"You can keep it." The man dropped the sack on the floor.

They left the room, the man and the red-haired woman. Immediately after this the loudspeakers began to play a sound that I remembered and hated - that of the brass bowls.

Elijah had been right – the sound shot right through my very core, in a quite different way from when I was still a "normal" person. It did not cause actual pain, even though it was definitely unpleasant. But when I tried to use my wings, they were paralyzed.

I fought panic. I stood up and breathed deeply a few times. When I finally managed to find my anger, it became easier. I walked to the corner of the room, under the old fashioned surveillance camera, so they could not see me, and leaned against the wall.
 
I carefully built up my rage so that I would not be paralyzed by fear as well. They would tell me soon enough what they were after. And at least they were my own kind, so I probably was not in danger of being infected. If I even could be infected with my silver wings...