Nephilim Rising: The Complete Series, page 4
part #0 of Nephilim Rising Series
Josh frowned, looking like he was almost afraid to hear what came next. "Yeah?"
"It’s something the demon said to me before I, you know…he said I didn’t know what I was."
His frown deepened as he stared at me. "What does that mean?"
"I don’t know," I said. "But I want to know. Don’t you?"
"I don’t know. Maybe." He shook his head. "This whole thing is crazy."
"Which is why I’m thinking that if we looked for answers, things might become less crazy."
Josh snorted and shook his head. "I doubt that, Leia. I just know the further down this rabbit hole we go, the more fucked up and crazy it’s going to become. You telling me you don’t feel that, like you’re standing on the edge of an abyss?"
"Pretty dark imagery, but yeah, I do feel it. But I also know that we don’t have a choice, Josh. Whatever is happening to us, it’s making us a target for those demons running around out there. They know who we are now, and there’s no going back. The more we can learn about these powers or whatever it is we have, the better we can defend ourselves if need be. "
"I can defend myself just fine," he said.
"Really? Against one of those demons?"
"You put one of them down, didn’t you?"
"Yeah, but—"
"Look, Leia," he said, cutting me off. "I have no interest in becoming someone else, or going any further into this fucked up reality we’ve suddenly found ourselves in. I just want a normal life. So should you. Christ, you were supposed to go to college and you fucked that up for this shit."
"It’s not like I had a fucking choice, Josh, is it?" I said raising my voice in anger. "Same as I don’t have a choice now. This is happening, whether we like or not. I’d just like to get ahead of things before some demon fucking kills me, or takes me to fucking Hell the way Mom—"
"Don’t!" he said, holding out a hand to cut me off again. "Don’t go there, Leia. Don't make this about what happened eleven years ago. Regardless of what this is, and how you want to meet it, it doesn't mean you have to keep holding onto that fucked up shit. Don't you get it? It'll kill you just as surely as one of these demon things might!"
I stood and shook my head. "Don’t you see, Josh? What happened to Mom and Dad that night has something to do with what’s happening to us now. There’s a connection, and I intend to find out what it is."
"Jesus, Leia, you spent fucking years trying to figure that shit out. It nearly drove you insane, and now you want to go down that road again?"
"Yes, Josh. That is exactly the road I intend to go down again. Things have changed. You might not like it, but they have."
His dark eyes shone with barely concealed rage. "What are you going to do, Leia, huh? Are you going to go dig up our father’s bones, see if you can find any clues…teeth and claw marks perhaps? Conduct another seance to try to contact Mom, even though she’s as fucking dead as Dad?"
I turned away for a second as I struggled to contain my emotions.
He’s just worried and afraid, that’s all.
"Look," I said, keeping my voice level. "I’m doing this, whether you want me to or not, starting with going back to the house in Woodville."
Josh couldn’t hide his horror as he stared at me. "Why would you go back there? What could you possibly hope to find?"
"I don’t know, answers maybe. I have to start somewhere. I’d also like it if you could come with me."
Josh stared at me a moment longer, then he lay back down on the bed, picked up the controller and resumed playing his game. "I’m sorry, Leia," he said quietly. "You’re on your own."
How did we end up so different, I wondered sadly, when we used to be on the same wavelength? My bottom lip quivered, and I bit it to stop the tears that wanted to stream from my eyes. Knowing there was nothing more to say, I walked out of the room, closing the door behind me. Out on the landing, I stood for a moment as I tried to get a grip on myself.
Looks like I’m doing this alone then.
Or maybe not.
In my bedroom, I found my phone and called Kasey. "Wanna go for a ride?" I asked her.
"A ride in what?" she asked, sounding groggy.
I smiled as I pulled on my boots and found my army coat. "Josh’s baby, of course."
Kasey perked up immediately. "Hell yeah! Come and get me."
Downstairs, I located the keys to Josh’s car, which were in the kitchen as always.
Thanks for being a creature of habit, Josh.
My brother’s pride and joy was his black ’67 Mustang, bought through his ill-gotten gains. He hated me driving it, and always told me so, to which my habitual response has always been that he shouldn’t have taught me to drive in the first place then.
I got inside the car and started the engine, knowing the noise would bring Josh to his bedroom window. Before I took off, I gave him a look that said he deserved this.
4
As I was driving out of the street and about to head toward town, I intentionally looked in the rearview mirror to see if anyone was following me, and sure enough, a black car pulled out at the end of the street and started to cruise slowly in my direction. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have given the car a second thought, but the demons had me paranoid. The car itself also raised my suspicions. Thanks to Josh’s long held obsession with classic American muscle cars, I had become familiar with nearly every make and model, especially ones from the sixties. The car a few lengths behind me was a black ’69 Dodge Charger. Josh considered getting one just like it before he ended up going with the Mustang. The Dodge wasn’t a car you seen very often. I had certainly never seen one around here before, which told me the driver was from elsewhere. Stopping at the junction, I purposely waited on the Dodge to come up behind me so I could see the driver clearly, but instead the car pulled up a side street further back and disappeared from sight.
So much for being followed, I thought, before shaking my head and continuing into town. Throughout the twenty minute journey, I kept a close eye on the rearview mirror, but I never caught sight of the Dodge again.
When I got to the Maze, Kasey was waiting for me on the steps leading up to the building where she lived. She all but sprang to her feet with a shit-eating grin on her face when I pulled up. "Well, holy shit," she said as she got into the front passenger seat. "I never thought I’d see the fucking day when Josh loaned you his car."
A wicked smile crossed my face as I pulled back out into traffic. "He didn’t."
Kasey drew back in an exaggerated fashion, her dark eyes wide. "You mean you stole Josh’s car?"
"Borrowed more like."
"Wouldn’t want to be you when you get home, but I’d like to be a fly on the wall." She leaned forward and opened the glove box to look for CDs, in the process finding a sizable bag of weed. "Well, what do we have here?" She held the bag up and shook it like she’d hit the jackpot.
"Take that at your own risk," I warned her. "I won’t be able to stop my brother from kicking your ass."
Kasey shook her head dismissively. "He hates me anyway, what’s the difference?"
"Josh doesn’t hate you, Kase."
"Oh really? Last time he saw me, he called me a skanky fucking cunt, then he told me to crawl back to the rats nest I came from. What would you call that? A bit of good natured banter?"
I couldn’t help but laugh. "He may have a slight superiority complex."
"He fucking hates me. Let’s just leave it at that." Kasey opened the bag of weed and took out a few of the buds, dropping them into the pocket of her tatty leather jacket. "I don’t care if he hates me because he always has great weed. That makes up for a lot."
Shaking my head, I said, "It’s your funeral."
"Not sure about his taste in music, though," she said, rummaging through the CDs in the glove box. "Fucking TuPac? Snoop Dog? Ice-fucking-T? I swear, your brother thinks he’s a total gangster. Does he know the nineties are over?"
"It’s all a front."
She waved one of the CDs at me. "You think?"
"Just put the damn radio on," I said good-naturedly as I stopped at the lights.
"Yes, let’s find some proper music to listen to, not that rap shit." She tuned the radio to one of the metal stations, and then smiled at me as she frantically bobbed her head, bouncing her jagged fringe off her face. "Yeah! Now that’s music!"
I laughed and shook my head at her, but my laughter was cut short when I saw a woman crossing the road whose face was flickering constantly as I stared at her, like the area around her face was pixelating as might shitty digital streaming do, revealing the hideous reptilian-like horror that was her true face, one clearly not of this realm.
There’s the first one of the day…
Everywhere I went, I had these same encounters. Ordinary looking people who would suddenly transform into demons before my eyes. Or at least, their faces would. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was some sort of glamour that allowed the demons to hide in plain sight, and if it was this growing power in me that allowed me to see them when others couldn’t. If that was the case, then lucky me, eh?
A horn sounding behind me forced me to break my gaze from the demon, who had by now crossed the road and was heading down the street.
"Earth to Leia!" Kasey said. "You gonna drive, Princess?"
"Yeah," I said, taking off again. "I was in a world of my own then. Sorry."
Kasey turned the music down a little, then sat back in her seat, remaining quiet for a minute or so. Her silence was killing me. Kasey only went silent when she was about to hit you with a big question. Given her jokey demeanor, you’d be forgiven for thinking Kasey didn’t take much in, but that would be your mistake, for she took everything in. She hadn’t survived so long on her own without becoming keenly observant of her surroundings and of other people, including me. "So," she said eventually. "Now that we’re both all comfy in Josh’s car and shit, maybe you could tell me what your deal has been for months now?"
"My deal?" I shook my head, playing dumb. "I don’t know what you mean."
"Yes you do." She had folded her arms and turned in her seat to stare at me now. "Every time I ask you about it, you do this. You act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, or that I’m not thinking straight or something. We’re sisters, Leia. You shouldn’t be keeping shit from me."
Inwardly, I sighed. She was right, of course, but I was trying not to drag Kasey into my screwed up reality, even though she was probably already half way there. She had already been attacked by a demon, despite not knowing it, and now here I was dragging her along to the house where I grew up, to where my whole demon problem seemed to have started.
Maybe I should tell her everything.
Or maybe I shouldn’t, for her own sake.
I wanted to tell Kasey everything, but something was stopping me, and I wasn’t sure what. It just didn’t seem like I should be telling anyone, if only for their own protection.
"It’s nothing, Kase, honestly," I said. "I’ve just been thinking about my parents a lot lately, and about how they died."
Kasey nodded. "You said it was gruesome."
"It was." I checked the rearview mirror for the umpteenth time. No Dodge.
"So, you’re saying…what?"
"I’m saying I want to find out more about my parents, and about how they died." It wasn’t far from the truth.
"You said they were murdered by an intruder, right?"
I nodded. It was simpler to have her believe that both my parents were murdered, rather than to have to try and explain what happened to my mother. "Yeah, but no one was ever caught."
"So now you want to crack the case, is that it?"
"Why are you smiling?"
"Nothing, I just think it’s pretty cool that you’re doing this. Hell, if I knew who my parents were, maybe I’d do the same." She looked away for a second to stare out the window.
I reached over and put a hand on her leg, squeezing gently. "You’ll always have me, you know that, right?"
Kasey placed her hand over mine and smiled. "Thanks, Princess."
I gave a mock sigh. "Jeez, how may times, Kase? Stop calling me that. I’ve never even—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. You’ve never fucking seen Star Wars. Maybe you should fucking see it then, huh? Then maybe you’d get the joke."
"I don’t need to see it. I get the joke already, I just hate it. There, I said it. I hate it when you call me fucking Princess."
Kasey nodded, still smiling. "Cool. All the more reason to keep calling you it then…Princess."
"Fuck you."
Kasey laughed, back to her usual jokey self. "So you still haven’t told me where we’re going."
"Didn’t I? We’re going back to where it all started, where I grew up, to visit my old house."
"So we’re on the job already are we?"
I nodded. "We are, you can consider Josh's buds as payment plenty."
"Awesome. This calls for a joint then."
Greenmount was a fairly modest housing development that was built on the edge of the eastern part of Blackhall. My parents weren’t exactly loaded, so it suited them at the time. I liked the place growing up. It was quiet, with a forest nearby that I enjoyed exploring, sometimes doing rubbings of trees with charcoal or playing hide and seek with some of the other kids form the neighborhood.
Simpler times…
Greenmount didn’t seem to have changed much since I was last here eleven years ago. I had wanted to come back on a few occasions over the years, but I could never bring myself to. It just felt too painful to do so. Now I was here less out of nostalgia, and more out of necessity. My need to find out about myself, about who and what I really am, had now become a quest in my mind. It was all I was beginning to think about, and I was determined not to rest until I found the answers I needed.
If only I knew what questions to ask to get those answers.
I was hoping the past would shed some light on the present. It had to, otherwise I would just be dredging up painful memories for nothing.
The house wasn’t too hard to find once I drove into the estate, although my initial impression of the place remaining unchanged now appeared slightly off. In reality, Greenmount had changed quite a bit. The houses no longer looked as pristine as they once did, which was to be expected after eleven years, I suppose. Although many looked to have fallen into disrepair, as if their owners couldn’t be bothered with upkeep. Obviously a different sort of resident had moved in, I thought, as I drove slowly down a street that contained more derelict houses than occupied ones.
Maybe things went downhill here after the incident…
I had visions of an evil presence seeping into the estate, corrupting it, and spreading decay and degradation.
Let’s not get carried away. The place is just a bit rundown, that’s all.
"What a shithole," Kasey announced after staring out the window. "You grew up here? I feel sorry for you. It’s like a nightmare suburb with no escape."
I shook my head at her. "It wasn’t like this when I lived here, believe me. It was a nice place."
"Not so nice anymore. What the hell happened?"
The more I considered it, the more my idea of evil seeping into the place seemed plausible. My instincts were backing me up on this as well, my newfound power and senses tingling throughout my body as if to alert me to evil nearby. Not that I was about to tell Kasey any of that, so I just said, "Who knows?"
Needless to say, the house in which I grew up was derelict also, which I fully expected. Who would want to live in a house where a man was found brutally murdered, and his wife had disappeared under very mysterious circumstances? No one I knew, that’s for damn sure.
I pulled the Mustang up outside the house, then turned off the ignition and sat staring for a moment, hardly able to believe that I was back in the place where I grew up. The little detached house was at the end of the row, most of the other houses now derelict as well. Even though it was the middle of the day, there didn’t seem to be anyone around, giving the place even more of a ghost town feel. My concern at the lack of people was soon forgotten, right about the time my mind became flooded with memories, as I continued to stare at the house on the corner. Memories of growing up around the house, of playing in the garden with my dad, and chasing around after Josh, usually with something disgusting in my hand, like a worm or a dead mouse that I’d found in the woods. They were happy times; the happiest I’ve ever known.
My mother didn’t seem to feature in any of those memories, though. That’s because she was hardly ever around. She was always working, and often gone for days or even weeks at a time. It was my father who raised Josh and me for the most part, not my mother. I realized this more when I looked back after they had gone. At the time, it didn’t bother me much that she was always away. It seemed normal because we had never known any different.
Even when she was there she wasn’t…
It was a painful thought, and one which made me turn away from the house to stare hard at the steering wheel.
"Are you all right?" Kasey asked quietly. "This is probably a lot for you to handle."
I took a deep breath and straightened up. "I’m fine, that’s why I have my BFF with me" I said, giving her a quick smile. "Let’s do this."
Getting out of the car, we moved toward the house with a heavy sense of foreboding.
Or at least I did.
5
As I walked alongside Kasey up the front drive, I happened to glance over at the house to my left, and I noticed a curtain twitching behind the living room window, as if someone in the house had been watching us. The house didn’t look as shabby as most of the others. At least the windows weren’t boarded up like the house I used to live in.
"How are we getting inside?" Kasey asked as we paused by the boarded up front door, long buried memories and feelings still coming thick and fast, bringing a deep scowl to my face. "Assuming you want to go inside that is."
"That’s why we’re here," I said. "Let’s go around the back."
