"Many years ago," he began, his voice deep and his accent more pronounced, "I uncovered an artifact, a device of great power. I suspect that is the reason I was kept alive, the real reason, and not to make more Nephilim, though undoubtedly some might have wanted me for that, too. They must have been looking for some way to extract the information from me."
"What was the artifact?" I asked, when he didn't continue on his own.
"It was one of the seven seals, designed to bring mankind to its knees."
"The seven seals are real? Not just myth and folklore?"
"They are real. Very real," he said gravely.
"Where are they?"
"I will not speak of that, for they must never be found again."
Did my grandfather know about this? Did he deliberately lie to me about Zorin and my parents? Did my parents know? Every answer seemed to bring about a dozen new questions. "So, is that why the Angel was after you? For the seal?"
"I believe so," he said. "Angels once ruled this earth, many ages ago, and with the seals they could do so again. The Nephilim fought them during the Angel War, but with the Nephilim gone… all might be lost. For both of our kind."
I wondered who my kind was now. Was I still human? Or was I entirely Nephilim? In a war between the two, where would I land?
Zorin's face hardened as he stared into the darkness. "I must find out what happened. The Twilight Queen could not have been easily overthrown." He faced me, shifting on the boulder to touch my hand. "Come with me to Italy so we might uncover these truths together. You are Nephilim now, Scarlett. For better or worse, we are all we have left."
I felt the pull again. To leave with him. To leave behind the bodies and the pain and the lies and secrets and fly—fly!—to Italy to uncover the truth. But… "I can't. I must stay. I have to train to become a Knight Templar so I can destroy the Angel who killed my family. I must avenge them."
I pleaded with my eyes for him to understand.
Revenge. A universal motive amongst any race. Surely he would understand.
"Have you fed yet?" he asked.
I thought back to Ragathon, to the bliss of his blood flowing into me. I nodded.
"That is good. Do not allow yourself to grow week from lack of blood. Have you flown yet?"
My heart hammered in my chest. "No, I haven't."
"You should come with me," he insisted again. "And learn the ways of Nephilim. Help me bring peace between humans and our kind. It's what your parents would have wanted."
I straightened at that, all fantasies of flying fleeing my mind. "How would you know what they would have wanted?"
"I knew them well. You are so like your mother in many ways, but I see your father in your eyes. Not the color, but the intensity."
He knew them? This… didn't make sense. "How? How did you know each other?"
"They helped me discover the seal."
"But… why would my parents work with a Nephilim?"
He reached for my hand. "Let me show you. Close your eyes."
I did as he asked, placing my hand into his, my breath hitching in my throat as the air around us changed, pulsing with a new kind of energy. It was electric, visceral, and when he told me to look, I was scared.
But I opened my eyes.
And saw my parents.
They were flickering lights, like the girl he'd conjured earlier, but they were in color, three dimensional, almost real. I reached out with my free hand to touch them but it passed through air.
"You can't feel them. They are but memories conjured. You can only see and hear."
And so I listened as my heart broke and healed and broke again and I couldn't decide if this glimpse into the past would destroy me or be something precious I carried with me always, like a lock of hair from a loved one or a fading photograph of one departed.
They were in a study, a solid dark room with too much wood paneling and old books lining every available wall. They weren't alone. They stood next to each other and argued with five others… the Council of Orders.
"They are real," my mother said, her eyes alight with the fire of her convictions. "The seals aren't just myths. We believe we've found one. And if we're correct, then it's in a vault created by the Angels."
"This is folly," Ragathon said with that same dreadful scorn. "We cannot support this useless quest."
"You don't get to decide that on your own," my father said. I wanted to cheer him for standing up to that jerk.
"No, he doesn't," my grandfather said, already the Chancellor. "But the Council agrees, though for its own reasons. This is too dangerous and uncertain to risk our best Templars."
The scene changed to one of darkness. They were in an underground warehouse with Zorin. They found him there. "We believe you know where it is," my mother said. "Please help us find it."
Zorin, who looked the same then as he does now, shook his head. "I have seen it, yes. In an ancient city beneath the waves, but I do not wish to return."
My dad, a much younger version of him, grasped Zorin's shoulder in camaraderie. "The vault is full of knowledge, treasures, the truth of whatever came before mankind… before Nephilim. Perhaps what we find there could unite our two races. It could end the strife that exists between us, the tension leading to war. This could save us all, Zorin, but we can't do it without you."