‘I had to melt them,’ he informed, ‘as nothing happened when I attempted to return them to their point of origin.’
‘That’s unfortunate,’ I conceded, deciding to go and check on his handiwork. ‘Let me know what you learn from the prisoners.’
‘Right you are,’ Sariel confirmed, getting them moving once more.
‘Did anyone remain aboard Leviathan?’ I called after them.
‘Penemue,’ Sariel paused to answer. ‘He took being left in charge very seriously.’
Sammael looked annoyed, even only hearing half of the conversation, he figured out my intention. ‘Seriously? You’re double checking my work?’ He shook his head, perturbed by my lack of faith.
‘I am checking on our ship,’ I advised via Sariel.
‘Why? We’re not taking it anywhere.’ Sammael questioned the logic.
‘Well, that will very much depend on what you find out,’ I proffered.
When Sammael was told my thinking, it appeared that he did not entirely believe me, but I was not going to waste time arguing the issue — I had a bad feeling about those seals.
I joined Penemue in the commander’s office of the Leviathan and found him seated forward in the hot seat, staring hard at the soft-light screen in front of him.
‘Who are you, then?’ he muttered to himself.
I moved around behind him, to observe the dark-clad figure moving through the cryogenic chamber. ‘Ereshkigal.’ I recognised the attire. ‘Better get down there,’ I suggested, and although Penemue couldn’t hear me, he was of the same mind, and teleported himself down to cryogenics — as did I.
When Penemue first materialised, he ducked out of sight to observe what the visitor was up to. I was fortunate to have the advantage of being in spirit form, but acutely aware that this Nefilim female possessed etheric sight, I floated high above her, to see what she was up to.
She was observing the inside of one of the cryogenic modules, which had contained a seal belonging to one of the fallen — now melted flat to the point that its embossing had vanished. It was golden in colour, which meant it belonged to one of the highest ranking among the Fallen, perhaps Samyaza himself.
That thought was dismissed when I observed the dark-clad female kneel before the open module. She pulled a pouch from the belt beneath her veil and sprinkled the sparkling contents over the melted seal.
‘Denizens of fragmented crystal,
to your mistress now be faithful.
Take this item, by time torn,
restore it to its prior form.’
She recited this prose three times, waving her hand over the melted gold.
As the crystal shards twirled counterclockwise, suspended between the item and her hand, to my great horror, the seal reformed.
Ereshkigal removed her veil. Her huge, almond-shaped eyes, gray-green in colour, opened wide in wonder, as she read the letters printed evenly around the rim of the seal. ‘B … A … E … L.’
I was shocked that she could even read our dialect, but if our genetics and technology were similar, it stood to reason that the written word was also.
She took the seal in hand and raised it to view the insignia more closely.
‘Hey, don’t mess with that!’ Penemue revealed himself to warn her.
Like all of her kind, Ereshkigal had barely any nose at all, and a tiny little mouth with large black-painted lips. Her near-black hair was short and spiked, but still she was a beautiful creature to behold. She rose and turned to observe Penemue, who was quite captivated by her gaze.
‘Those seals are very dangerous,’ he added more civilly when she made no comment. ‘That is why we destroyed them.’ He made a move to approach her and retrieve the item.
Ereshkigal held up a hand, palm exposed in a halting gesture, and Penemue adhered to her wish.
Then a tightening in her cheekbones caused a grin to form on her lips. ‘I am also very dangerous,’ she advised, sweetly.
A dart shot forth from beneath the loose-fitting cuff of her long sleeve, and Penemue dropped like a stone to the ground. She turned and continued on to the next module that contained a melted seal.
I was enraged by the affront to my brother, and moved to use his form to counter the attack. Being a medium, I had the ability to beat Ereshkigal at her own game. I laid my spirit down in alignment with Penemue’s form and raising him to his feet once more I went after her.
‘Shall we try that again?’ I confronted her at close quarters and the Nefilim female was clearly amazed.
‘What? But I just —’ She spotted my spirit inside Penemue’s body. ‘Ah … It’s you, the disembodied one.’
‘You have something that belongs to us, and I would like it back.’ I held out a hand to receive the item she was holding.
‘Yet it is written in our ancient tongue,’ she challenged.
‘Your father would not approve of you possessing this item, I can assure you,’ I insisted.
‘I have a picture-perfect memory …’ She handed the seal over. ‘So it makes no difference to me.’
‘Then wipe the impression from your mind, lest it curse you for life and beyond,’ I advised.
‘The dark unknowable forces of this universe are just patterns unseen, begging to be understood.’ She stepped away from me. ‘Our secret desires are signposts to our destiny, and one should never be put off from a defining experience by the prospect of a little suffering or sacrifice. All great knowledge and achievement comes at a cost.’
A shadow erupted around her that loosely took the form of a large winged creature, which enclosed Ereshkigal in its wingspan and vanished with her.
I was left completely baffled, and casting the seal into a module, I melted it once more before casing the chamber and counting off all seventy-four seals to ensure Ereshkigal had not absconded with any others prior to being discovered.
I laid my brother’s form down on a lounge in the command quarters, where he might wake from his enforced coma in comfort. My spirit was due back in Ninharsag’s lab, but I resolved to consult Anu about a secure hiding place for these dangerous relics as soon as my subtle and physical form were reunited.
Inside the laboratory I found Ninharsag still in her bio-protective suit. She was busy in the chamber in which she’d performed the extraction. My body was no longer therein, but had been moved elsewhere to recover. It was the module containing the mind-eater virus that held the scientist’s interest at present; she was viewing readouts and observing movement within the incubator as she bombarded it with different light frequencies. If there was movement, then that meant that the virus was no longer frozen.
‘Nin, what are you doing?’ I was naturally alarmed.
‘I am finding out what I can about your virus,’ she replied calmly. ‘And this is a virus like none ever seen. At a constant room temperature it absorbs all light and radiation that it encounters, without reflecting nor transmitting any! It is what is theoretically termed a black-body, although I have never observed one as true to form as this. Even a black hole in space has an event horizon that will reflect radiation with a wavelength equal to or larger than the radius of the hole, but that is not true of the particles that compose this virus. This is the perfect absorber, there is no spectral radiance whatsoever.’
‘It literally eats all light,’ I concluded.
‘You called this a mind-eater?’
I nodded. ‘Because a victim appears to lose his wits once taken over by the virus’s programming.’
‘Light-eater or soul-eater would have been more appropriate. It is a very good thing that your spirit was not trapped in that body with this entity,’ she advised. ‘There would be nothing of you left. It requires light and radiation for fuel, and once it consumes everything it can from one victim, I imagine it just moves onto the next. As long as this thing is at a non-zero temperature it has an infinite potential to keep absorbing victims and survive. If it were to be exposed to thermal heat, chances are it would emit radiation wit
h infinite power.’
‘So heat is not the way to destroy this thing,’ I deduced.
‘Not unless you wish to take out a sizable part of the galaxy along with it,’ she said, ‘but it does explain why it doesn’t like the cold.’
‘The cold doesn’t destroy it, though,’ I assumed. ‘It only puts it into hibernation.’
‘Correct.’
‘But from what you have said, about its need for fuel, we can starve it.’
‘In theory, yes,’ she granted.
‘But?’
‘How long that might take, is difficult to predict. The virus would have to be kept at a near sub-zero temperature to keep it weak, which would also extend its lifespan.’ This was clearly a concern to her. ‘A creature so perfect as this is bound to have defence mechanisms that we cannot imagine.’ She held a hand over the plate that controlled her laboratory’s systems and switched off the infrared light she had been viewing the virus with, dialling down the temperature in the incubator at the same time. ‘But I expect you would like your body back, Commander?’
Clearly Ninharsag knew what she was doing, far better than I did. Thus I conceded to her implication with a smile. ‘That would be most pleasing.’
Outside the bio-containment, I spied Enki and Armaros, who were here to see me restored to full health as vowed. When Ninharsag approached the second door of bio-containment, she was given the all-clear from contamination by a pleasing tone; the door opened for her and sealed in the wake of her exit.
‘I was just showing your commander to his body,’ she advised, having removed her protective headdress.
‘The commander is here?’ Armaros was excited.
‘Excellent,’ Enki confirmed on his guest’s behalf, ‘we can show them both at once.’
‘Show us what?’ Ninharsag queried her brother, who handed a long green stem to Armaros.
‘Watch this,’ my brother requested, holding up the item he’d been given. ‘This is from the garden,’ he advised. ‘It’s called a flower. This is what it looks like before it blooms.’ Armaros ran his hand up the stem and little pods emerged and then burst apart into colourful segments.
‘Wow.’ I marvelled at the beauty of it.
‘The most amazing thing, Commander, is that process of blooming would normally take many days to happen,’ Enki advised.
‘That is very interesting,’ Ninharsag confirmed, awarding her brother the same strange look that had passed between them several times — the one that made me feel that they knew something that we did not.
‘So, I have discovered a talent I never knew I had,’ Armaros concluded happily.
At that point, the Zeta who were monitoring the data coming from bio-containment, set off the alarm.
‘What is it?’ Ninharsag moved swiftly to observe the monitor herself. And placing her hand over the control plate she was frustrated. ‘The temperature and light frequency in the incubator is rising, and the system is not responding to my override instruction.’
‘Why?’ I sought an explanation.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps this entity is psychokinetic?’
‘I am psychokinetic,’ I confessed, and would have sooner, had I known it might have some bearing on keeping the virus contained.
‘Well, if the virus absorbs everything, why not talent?’ she mused, moving to replace her headgear. ‘You two should leave,’ she advised Enki and Armaros.
‘Is the mind-eater going to escape?’ My brother’s expression reflected the panic I felt.
‘You should leave also, Nin. That suit will not protect you if that thing bursts loose, and you know it.’
The Zeta knew it; they were calmly departing using handheld devices that cast a shield of light about them and they vanished.
‘If there is a danger, I am not leaving without you,’ Enki insisted.
‘The Pantheon will not take kindly to a Grigori virus destroying our breeding program here,’ she pushed her viewpoint and her brother backed down. ‘I have to contain it.’
‘And how do you plan to do that?’ Enki appealed.
‘Do not make me explain myself. Know that I have a plan and go!’
‘But the commander?’ Armaros was concerned about her intent.
‘He will be perfectly fine, trust me.’
Armaros knew better than to stall as the emergency sounds from the lab monitoring system were compelling him to comply, and taking hold of his guide, he vanished along with Enki.
‘What are you going to do, Nin?’ I was concerned for her.
‘I’m going to give it what it wants.’ She grabbed hold of a long metal rod hanging from the ceiling, and dragging it along a runner, she approached the large lizard creature, and aimed the pointy end at it.
She had used this same kind of device to teleport my body from the cryo-module to the incubator earlier, so I had a fair idea of what she had in mind. ‘No, Nin, you cannot.’
‘Would you rather it was you or I?’ she posited, and when I couldn’t answer at once she continued to explain. ‘If that thing heats itself to a thermal equilibrium it will end in an ultraviolet catastrophe. If its body is confined it can be controlled.’ She gave the telepathic command to transfer the creature from its cage into the incubator I had occupied.
‘But its soul will be eaten away.’ I defended the helpless creature.
‘These creatures belong to a soul-group,’ she fobbed off my concern. ‘It won’t be missed and I can spawn another to replace it.’
‘But stop and consider what releasing this creature into such a collective might do?’ I appealed, as it was strapped down by metal restraints inside the incubator.
‘This is no time for a philosophical argument,’ she insisted, releasing the virus onto the lizardman, who began to squirm and shriek as the virus took hold and was then snap-frozen along with it. ‘There, contained,’ she concluded. ‘I respect you, Commander, but I cannot risk a soul so prized as yours for the sake of a worthless reptilian.’
‘And why should my soul, or yours, be prized over any other being?’
‘You are right,’ she reasoned. ‘It really depends which side of creation you are supporting, whether it be the side of construct or deconstruct. You and I are basically constructive beings, but the reptilians are not. Did I mention that they feed on humans? Well just about anything that bleeds really, but humans are their preferred menu item. Or so we discovered when we attempted to have them work side by side.’
I fell silent. What she said made logical sense, if these lizard beings were the natural enemy of the beings that I had been delivered from the darkness to protect; yet, still it did not sit right with me, and I could not explain why. I could not judge her harsh view, for I was nothing short of a killing machine myself. But something within me had changed when I had seen the paragon, and I was still no closer to finding that being. It was that vision that had ignited this fire in my chest to stop killing for revenge and to find a more constructive way to exist — surely this was not it?
‘What happens when the virus eats through that body?’
‘As long as we keep it frozen, it cannot.’ Ninharsag assured. ‘And theoretically, even if it did, it would be passed on through the soul-group, until every last one of them was spent.’
‘How many of them are there?’ I wondered.
‘It’s difficult to estimate,’ she replied, ‘but there are certainly many more of them than there are Nefilim, and this infection is just the kind of threat we’ve needed to keep them subordinate. How fortunate to have turned a near disaster into a blessing.’
Suddenly I had to wonder if this accident was really an accident at all. Perhaps the Nefilim were not as benevolent as they purported to be?
‘So then, Commander,’ she changed the subject. ‘You must be eager to rejoin your own form?’ She led the way to another part of the laboratory and I trailed behind, wondering why these emotionless, elitist beings were so well disposed towards helping we Grigori. Was it just that Anu had dec
reed it, or was there some other reason?
9
THE DREAM OF TIAMAT
My return to physical form differed greatly from the few other times I had been required to do this, for consciousness did not immediately follow; instead, I took an unexpected detour.
I was moving through a dark space, with only one pinprick of light on the horizon. I feared I had been returned to the dark universe, and the tiny speck of light was the Eternity Gate, belying my escape. But as my consciousness sped towards the illumination, it became apparent that the light was pouring from a cosmic opening and not a barrier.
In the light I plunged through a layer of liquid and surfacing on the other side I was confronted by a palace, above which an ocean spread like an expansive sky of luminous purple hue. Akin to the chamber of the Watchers, this structure was too surreal to be of the physical world. Yet, unlike the Watchers’ chamber, which personified a civilised, technological construct of light and air, this place had a more watery, chaotic, earthy aesthetic. I imagined this might be similar to the garden Armaros had spoken of, for there were many stems, of all shapes and sizes, some with coloured blooms and some without.
As I scaled the front steps and entered a long hall, I admired this vegetation, which was on display throughout the palace and grew beyond the open plan dwelling en masse. There were all manner of creatures running amok through the structure and the gardens beyond, some as ferocious and formidable in appearance as the Fallen Elohim in their most fearsome aspect. Other creatures were a wonder of beauty and colour, but all were in harmony, in alignment with the ambience of this magnificent place.
The residents appeared aware of my presence, but did not move to engage me as I proceeded down a long corridor, drawn towards a light phenomenon emanating from the main chamber ahead. My passage was lined either side by high stone archways that supported no roof, for the structure was completely open to the ocean of rippling liquid light above through which other creatures swam towards the same light that was attracting me. It seemed the only purpose of the palace supports was to provide somewhere for the vegetation and creatures to plant, climb and nestle themselves. There was more life and colour here than I had ever experienced in one place before; if the dark universe was a black hole of destruction, then this was a white hole, streaming forth creation.