Phoenix: The Rising (17 page)

The nightmares were different now. Instead of focusing on the blasphemous union between her human mother and the winged creature that fathered her, the nightmares morphed into visions concentrating on finding the Fire-Child, incapacitating it and claiming her birthright.

Lucy sat curled into a ball on a chair in the corner of Dan Penemue’s bedroom, staring at his sleeping form and wondering if he had the same prophetic visions. Considering that he hadn’t moved since his head hit the pillow, she assumed not. Either that, or he was completely unfazed by the fact that there would only be one Nephilim left standing at the end of this. Claiming the birthright involved so much more than just keeping the Fire-Child from its rebirth. It meant death. Death of the other Nephilim. There could be only one victor in this, and Lucy was going to make damned sure it was her.

But for now, they needed each other to expose the identity of the Fire-Child. According to Dan, his family was the only known remnant of the Nephilim bloodline in the area. Normally only one child, a male, was born into that bloodline, and then passed it on to his son. Dan’s father, however, had a twin, so the bloodline branched. And then branched again. They would be getting some help. Killing more than one wasn’t going to be easy, especially since they had already practiced their killing skills on two other humans. She was new at this game. But maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t have to be the one to do all the killing. If she played her cards right, they would end up taking each other out.

Lucy still couldn’t figure out why had she been brought into this mess in the first place, or how Dan knew that she would be traveling on that deserted road in the middle of
Death Valley
at that particular moment. Dan, however, had a vague answer for the second part of the mystery. He simply had a vision. Lucy had a feeling that the answer to the first question would be revealed to her, and only her, in time. She had an idea that it had something to do with the fact that the traits they inherited had weakened through the generations. Sure, they were big, with slightly super-human strength, but Dan also didn’t appear to be the brightest bulb in the box. She couldn’t imagine someone of his intelligence living forever. Immortality wasted on a dolt? It couldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it.

Dan stretched, then let loose a long, rolling fart. Lucy could have hurled right there on his bedroom floor. How on Earth could he be of the same heritage as her?

“Take me to Bishop.” Lucy stood by his bed and tapped his arm with her bag. She wanted to belt the side of his big head with it, but fought the urge. He swatted it away, rolled over, and looked at his alarm clock.

“Shit. I’m late.” Throwing his covers back, Dan hopped out of bed and pulled on a pair of shorts and a football jersey.

“Late for what?” Lucy sat back down.

“School.” Dan produced a backpack from beside his dresser, and flung it over his shoulder.

“School? As in high school?” Lucy couldn’t believe it. He looked so much older than a high school student.

“Yeah. My second year as a senior. Guess they couldn’t stand to part with their star football player.”

Lucy stood. “So how in the hell am I supposed to get to Bishop? You promised you’d take me there.”

Dan grabbed the keys to his pick-up. “You’re not going anywhere until Wednesday morning. It could take that long...”

Lucy squeezed her eyes shut. She had tried not to think about the broken body of the redhead stuffed into the woodshed on the abandoned farm down the road. Dan had checked on it exactly twenty-fours hours after he broke the girl’s neck. She hadn’t moved a muscle. But, according to Dan, if it was the Fire-Child, it could take a full three days to rise.

“Why in the hell do I need to stay? If it is the Fire-Child, it could get up and walk away at any moment, and then you’d know.”

“But if it isn’t, then I may need some help dumping it out where it can be found.”

Lucy shook her head. “Why do you do that, anyways? What difference does it make to you if the body’s found or not?”

Dan stopped and stared at her. “I’m not a monster, Lucy. If she’s not the Fire-Child, then she’s somebody’s daughter. What type of a person would I be if I just kept her body hidden forever? Her parents would always wonder what happened to her.”

Dan’s reasoning was so warped. So ... human. “What type of a person would you be?” Lucy had to keep herself from screaming it. “You—
we
—are the offspring of fallen angels. Fallen. Not the chosen ones. Not Michael. Or Gabriel. We’re murderers, Dan. We want only one thing. Our birthright. And we’ll kill anything,
anyone
, in order to get it.” Lucy’s breath had become ragged with rage. She had changed so much in the last forty-eight hours, transforming from a normal, carefree, sixteen year old girl to a cold-blooded, seventeen year old killer. A Nephilim. It was like a switch had been flipped.

Dan cocked his head slightly, narrowing his eyes as he stared at her in silence. Had she said too much? She had a feeling that he wasn’t quite comprehending that by
anyone
, she meant
each other
. But, if he didn’t understand that, she certainly wasn’t going to offer him the explanation. It was best to just cover her tracks.

“Look what you made me do to that other girl. She was an innocent.”
Anyone
now became the blonde she had so easily killed. Dan rolled his eyes. Her diversion worked!

“She was a loose end, Lucy. A witness. You know it had to be done.” He grabbed the remote and pointed it at the TV. “Speaking of our little expendable, has it been on the news yet? Have they found her body?”

Lucy shook her head. “I had the TV on last night. No one’s reported a thing.”

“Shit. Well, I’m set to clean that pool today after school. Renatta, I mean the ‘lady of the house’, always drags me to the pool house when I’m there. Can’t keep her hands off me. There’s no way she’ll miss it. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Then you can take me there. To Bishop, I mean. After school.” Dan couldn’t refuse her a ride to Bishop when he was already heading there himself.

Dan growled. “I guess that would be okay. But you have to promise to help me dump the body if it comes to that.” Lucy nodded in feigned acquiescence. “Be ready to go at three.” The lock clicked behind him.

****

Dan’s mother had left just after sunrise for her job as a maid at a local motel, and Lucy didn’t have to worry about disturbing his father. According to Dan, both his father and his father’s twin died just over a year ago, ironically only about two weeks apart, and both from enlarged hearts. This type of malady took out most of the descendants of the first Nephilim. Their hearts just couldn’t support the strain put on them by their massive bodies. A few were taken out in a more malicious way: by drowning. With heavier than normal bone mass, swimming was not possible among those of her kind. That explained why her mother yanked her out of swim lessons after her own near-drowning experience as a child. She hadn’t been near a swimming pool since.

There was a lot that Lucy didn’t know about her heritage, and she wasn’t about to go into this relying solely on Dan Penemue’s meager explanation. If the Bible could get some things right, then maybe other scholars had stumbled across some truths. Lucy sat at the small wooden desk set up in Dan’s room and fired up the Mac, hoping that a good search would give her some answers.

Four hours later, she knew more than she ever wanted, and prayed that some of the stories were simply myths, but her gut told her that most of it was true, just as her gut had told her to go to Bishop. Absorbing most of these newfound facts was sort of like reading an instruction manual, or a cookbook. But, there was one overriding theme throughout everything that she had read, and the message was plain and simple. She was born of evil, as were all Nephilim.

According to several sources, the original Fallen Ones were bound in Hell for their atrocities. Not only did they come to Earth and mate with human women, but they also turned their backs on God, and for that, they had to pay. One of them, however, escaped eternal damnation and was doled out a different punishment.

Phoenix
, swept up in the frenzy of the angelic revolt, fled to Earth with his siblings, intent on wreaking havoc with the humans, but when he saw the mayhem, he had a change of heart and repented before releasing his lust on a human woman. Instead of being bound in Hell with his brothers, he was sentenced to live his life out on Earth as a creature in human form that
had to give up all memory of its past life every three hundred years. That life would be extinguished in flames, but he would be given a chance to live another. Only in the last moments of his Earthly life would he experience the full glory of his heavenly inheritance, taking on the form of an angelic being, but prior to those last few moments, it would become weakened. Seemingly near death. And it would be during that weakened state when Lucy would make her move and claim her birthright.

But, what about her father? Had he escaped his chains in Hell, only to hunt down Adrienne Temeluch and impregnate her? Were there others like her? Her gut told her there were only a few Nephilim in the vicinity, but they were of the old bloodline. Hers was new and strong, and she felt no presence of other new first-born. Yet.

“What are you doing?”

Lucy hit the exit button and spun around to see Dan leaning in the doorway, his keys twirling on his index finger.

“Just surfing the net. Not much to do in this one-horse town.”

Dan picked up her bag and threw it at her. “It’s three o’clock. Time to go, unless you want to spend another night with me.”

Lucy snatched her bag and stood. “No thanks. One night was enough. I’ll take my chances in Bishop. I might run into someone I know.” She also knew that she might accidentally kill him if he tried to touch her again. She smiled at the thought.

“I’m looking for relatives. My mother went to high school here.” The woman behind the counter at the Bishop Reservation headquarters munched a bag of cheese balls and stared at Lucy through thick, black, plastic-rimmed glasses, her double braids reinforcing the stoic Paiute heritage evident on each face she encountered since walking through the doors. She sucked the greasy, orange crumbs off her fingers, then wiped the spit-glistened remnants away with a used tissue.

“I’ll have to see an I.D.”

Lucy dug in her front pocket and produced her driver’s license. The woman grunted as she hefted her weight out of the chair then snagged the license from Lucy’s shaking hand. It was obvious that Lucy was causing a major inconvenience to the woman. She glanced at Lucy, then at the license, and back once again at Lucy.

“Temeluch? You’re not Adrienne’s daughter, are you?” The woman slid her glasses down the bridge of her nose and blatantly gave Lucy the once over.

Lucy snatched the license back. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. Now can you tell me if I have any relatives here?”

The woman leaned forward, her eyes wide. Lucy’s presence was obviously fodder for a new juicy round of gossip. “My God, I haven’t seen Adrienne since she ran off right after graduation back in ’78. How is she doing?”

Lucy swallowed. “She’s dead. Not that it’s any business of yours.” Lucy wanted to slam the woman’s head on the counter. Instead, she tapped her license on it. “Relatives?”

The woman took off her glasses. “Your mom didn’t tell you?”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “For shit’s sake. I wouldn’t be asking if she had. I just found out about this place a week ago.”

The woman patted Lucy’s hand consolingly. “Oh, you poor dear! Your mom was adopted and raised by her spinster aunt, and she died just a few years after Adrienne took off. She was the last of the Temeluchs on the reservation.” Lucy couldn’t help but notice a smile sneaking through every now and then as the woman revealed the truth about her mother’s upbringing. She was getting some sadistic delight in sharing this information. Lucy fought the desire to jump over the counter and strangle her. Instead, she drew her hand away from the woman and took a deep breath, preparing herself for the answer she knew was coming in regards to her next question.

“So, I have no relatives left here?”

The woman turned her back and pulled open a drawer packed with cards. She withdrew one and turned to face Lucy. “You didn’t up until about a month ago. Then they came back.”

Lucy couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t alone. “Who? Who came back?”

The woman approached the counter and placed the card directly in front of Lucy. “Your grandparents. Adrienne’s mother and father.”

Lucy stared at the card in front of her, not daring to touch it. Instead, she memorized the name and address, then turned and left without saying another word.

****

Lucy stared at her feet as she walked. She had no idea where she was going in this town, but her feet seemed to know the way. It was like they were on autopilot. They had the
urge
... the urge to find her mother’s family. But this urge, just like her urge to come to this place, was something she had no control over. For some reason, all of this—the nightmares, the visions, her mother’s death, her newfound identity as a Nephilim—all of this would be interwoven into something that would play itself out very soon, every piece of it playing an integral part in one thing. Her destiny.