She glanced around to make sure there were no eavesdroppers, leaned in closer, and intimated I should do the same.
“I have some exciting news.”
I took a deep breath, thankful I’d had Azrael’s premonition to guide me. I gestured for her to continue.
“I’ve located my bloodborn body, and I’m in the process of reclaiming it.”
Our bloodborn tribe had descended from the goddess Medusa, who harbored a thirst for human heme. A few centuries ago, my mother incited a rebellion that was very narrowly quelled. As punishment, the Potestas, under the directives of the Thrones, repossessed her original body and hid it away in a remote corner of the earth, likely in a lesser known Shade Vale. My mother had been using all of her resources and calling upon all of her informants since then to locate it.
“That’s intrepid of you,” I said. Though not bound to the same restrictions as I was, being a full-fledged demon in her own right, there was always the risk of capture and imprisonment.
“There’s more.” She smiled smugly. “I know where they’re keeping your body, and I could have it recovered, for a small favor.”
“No,” I said, without even considering it. “Absolutely not.”
My ears rang from the sudden rush of blood to my head. Azrael had been wise to warn me. There was no greater temptation for her to dangle in front of me, but I couldn’t take any part in her scheming. She scowled. “Just imagine, darling, what we could accomplish if you worked for the Grigori? So many souls in need of reaping. Azrael wouldn’t notice if a few went missing.” She arched one eyebrow, testing the waters.
“Stealing souls? There are rules as to how one goes about acquiring souls and very serious repercussions for breaking them.”
“Rules written by tyrannical gods,” she huffed.
Everything was done by committee these days. Angels feared chaos and disorder and sought at every turn to limit each other’s power. Demons were the exact opposite. They were always climbing over one another for the chance to rule on high.
A couple at the table next to us glanced over. Lena gave them a cold, blank stare until they turned away.
“Tyranny or not, the Thrones are the last word on the human life cycle, and we must respect angelic law.”
“The Thrones are hypocritical, self-serving, high-and-mighty—”
I laid my hand on top of hers, attempting to calm her. Conquest was my mother’s passion. But her language was treason, and it was not in either of our best interests for her to start trouble.
“I’m sorry, darling, but I simply can’t stand what they’ve done to you. You should be living like a king and worshipped as a god. This station is beneath you. Beneath us.”
“Maybe so,” I said. The prideful part of me believed what she was saying. But I was bitter, too. Because I suspected she was partly to blame for my current situation. “Come, let’s talk about happier things. How’s Lucian?”
She then rattled off a list of my brother’s recent accomplishments. He’d financed several tech startup companies that promised to change the way humans acquire goods. “E-commerce,” my mother called it. And he’d used his powers of persuasion to get a little-known U.S. senator elected, one with a “very promising political future.” All this while still being embroiled in some fraudulent financial scandal that Lena was smoothing over on his behalf.
“And he’s taken up the culinary arts,” she said, positively beaming. I had my suspicions as to why. “I’d love to do a thing here in Miami, darling. Lucian misses you so.”
My brother had once been my closest companion, but we’d drifted apart over the ages. I was something of an anomaly among my kind. So many of my Nephilim brethren had pledged their allegiance to the Grigori tribes or been conscripted into Azrael’s Imperium, while I seemed caught in this prolonged state of suspension. I didn’t agree with everything the Order of Angels did, but I was loyal to Azrael, who’d rescued me from an eternity of misery when everyone else, including my mother, had forsaken me.
“We have so many plans,” Lena continued, “for the new millennia. A rule by female energy like we haven’t seen since Babylonia under the goddess Ishtar.”
“That was before my time,” I told her, like a child reminding his mother of his birthday.
Her gaze refocused on me as if just remembering I was there. “Well, let me just tell you, as soon as I reclaim my bloodborn body, I’m going to round up the Grigori elders, and together, we will rise up against the Order of Angels and conquer the human realm once and for all. We will revel with humanity in all of its glory and sin. At long last, we will have our Parousia.”
She said the last word with a deep and abiding reverence. Parousia was the Grigorian prophecy that a bloodborn Nephilim would one day conquer and rule over a vast empire. That our kind would walk as giants among men. Lena had once tried to place that responsibility on my shoulders, but I had failed, spectacularly. As had Lucian. Perhaps the savior would be found in another of the bloodborn lines, one of her twin sister Lilith’s rambunctious brood. Or Parousia would remain a prophecy, unfulfilled.
Nonetheless, her proselytizing struck me with both awe and fear. That influence extended to our waiter who appeared traumatized as he asked us if we’d like anything else to drink.
“Just the check, sweetie,” Lena said in a low voice and arrested him with her hypnotic gaze. Like our matron Medusa, the nature of Lena’s powers was ocular, even in a borrowed vessel, while mine was vocal.
“Yes, m-ma’am,” the waiter stuttered.
“And tell me, what time do you get off today?” she cooed. “I’m only in town for a little while, and I’d love for someone to give me an authentic taste of Miami.”
The waiter supplied that information all too willingly. I could see the bloodlust in Lena’s eyes, and I was envious of her freedom to take what she wanted when she wanted it.
