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Questions
There he stood again in the dark tomb. He had been collected from his hotel, blindfolded and chauffeured to this place. During the car ride he had tried to listen the sounds of the surrounding scenery like it would've helped him in knowing where he was being taken. This time they had been more gentle in their efforts to bring him to the tomb and no visit to the oblivion was needed. He didn't have any idea how much time had passed during him being blindfolded but to him it had seemed like a small eternity.
The woman sat on a table and looked at him with sad eyes knowing what was going to happen, knowing that she had been waiting for this for years. Finally her task was complete. She had been ordered to be the beacon in the dark to the chosen one, to show a faint glow of hope when it seemed not to exist anymore. She had been ordered to show him there were shades of gray. Her eyes lingered for a moment capturing his features like she wanted to take a mental picture of him to where he couldn't follow her before they moved to look at the hilt the man in front of her held in his hand. She swallowed. Now that it was the time she was no longer certain if she really wanted it but she knew it needed to be done.
Kurtis fingered the hilt of the katana nervously. He wasn't going to slay her, not yet for he had some questions he desperately needed an answer to and on the other hand he didn't really wait for getting to kill. He didn't really want to.
She stood up not facing him anymore for she found it too hard to look into his eyes afraid what she would see in them. She wasn't afraid of seeing hatred or anger, she knew she wouldn't see them. She didn't want to see sadness caused by the ending of her existence in his eyes. There was nothing to grieve over in her.
He watched her moving closer her eyes fixated to the floor like there was something interesting going on. He knew the real reason. She had a date with death she had arranged herself and knowing the exact time of her departure wouldn't make it easier. Kurtis had never thought one day he'd meet a nephilim who offered to be the scabbard of a sword willingly. He had always imagined them as vile beasts, freaks of nature, that should've never been created and now he was looking at one who gave up here life by her own choice. His fingers' hold on the katana hilt tightened.
"What are you waiting for" she asked in a voice almost as silent as a whisper still not looking at him.
"I figured you could have it as a reward". It was hard for him to understand why saying those few words was so difficult. They made him sound like a heartless monster much like he had thought the nephilim to be. Perhaps something monstrous inherited from one of his parents remained in him only to rise its ugly head on occasions like this one. He squeezed his eyes shut wanting to flee from the tomb and the task in front of him.
"Reward for what?"
"You could answer a few questions"
She nodded and this time raised her eyes to meet his. "I'll do it if you do me one last favor"
"And that is...?"
"I'll tell you when it's the time"
Kurtis nodded not knowing what he was agreeing to. It was like granting the condemned the last wish. It was a humane act and the least he could do. She smiled a bit but on her white face it seemed as a forced smile. All the feelings that usually caused a person to smile were missing from that particular expression on her face. It was a sad smile, a smile of someone who was giving up and while it lingered on her face it made Kurtis hate himself. The spark existed in her but she wanted to smother it before it could fully blossom. Kurtis waited for a moment as if he wanted to make sure she was pleased with their agreement. When she said or did nothing he began by digging the two photos from his wallet and handing them to her. He could hear her sharp intake of breath and see her touching something in one of the photographs.
She couldn't control her want to touch her daughter's face in the black and white picture she held in her hand. In the picture she appeared just as the pale woman remembered her. Beside her daughter stood her son-in-law. The nephilim woman smiled seeing him the first time. She had heard of him from his helpers but had told them not to take pictures not wanting to get his attention. There was so much same in him and Kurtis and it seemed the only thing Kurtis had inherited from his mother was his eyes. In them she could still see her daughter and the same warmth that had once inhabited her own eyes. She looked up from the pictures a strange expression on her face.
"I know who they are...", the American man started. "Someone tried to contact me through them a few days ago..."
She glanced at her daughter's features once more. "And you want to know who"
She received a nod.
"I can only tell you that the person must've crossed the line to the other side, to the world of shadows..."
"You mean something like heaven?"
"Limbo..."
Kurtis stared at her not wanting to believe her words "H-how?" he managed to stutter out.
"How one ends up in limbo? I have heard there might be four reasons. The soul is too hard to judge because it's good and evil deeds weight as much in the scales. Not many end up in limbo because of this. Good and evil rarely negate each other leaving nothing to judge behind them and some acts are too cruel to forgive even if the person has dedicated his or her whole life before or after the act to goodness. A soul can also be banished to the limbo which is done usually by strong black magic. This has been used as a punishment among some tribes. Often it is just meant to scare the tribe members and the spells have really no effect. The limbo can be a prison of the mind as well when the other ways of punishing seem too mild. The fourth one is the saddest case. In it the soul can not be judged because there's a link between it and the world of living. Usually their bodies are still alive not holding their spiritual essence anymore." She held a little pause. "Many have often thought where do the souls of brain dead people travel when their bodies can not hold them anymore. No one can say for sure but as long as their bodies remain the souls are not judged. There are items in existence that can send a soul to the limbo"
After she said this she looked at the hilt of the Shadow Katana. Kurtis didn't need to think twice to get the message. He wielded one of those items. He had pulled it of the heart of the woman in the crypt under St.Anne's church thus letting her soul be judged.
"The shrine. How did I get in? There must've been thousands who have touched the stone embedded to it"
"The thousands weren't you. Through the veins of the ones who build the shrine flowed the blood of the Nephilim race. Only in our touch lies the force to open the stony gate" Once again she eyed the hilt of the Shadow Katana "To wield the katana is needed a nephilim spirit that has never harmed other life forms in the way the original Nephilim."
"Near Anne's crypt there was this pool filled with black water..." he never got to finish his question.
"And shadows in human forms?" When she got a nod from him she continued looking away as she was ashamed.. "You saw a limbo of a sort. Banished from heaven and not wanted in hell the angels and their offspring needed a place to spend the eternity after their deaths. A katana was forged and it's blade carried the same shadowy material than their...our spiritual forms. The soul of the first of us was trapped in the blade for eternity to come."
"Us?"
"Dissident nephilim. The legend tells that he grew bored of seeing the destruction and agony caused by his kind and found a way to contact Hephaestus, the smith of the gods in the Greek mythology. He asked the smith to forge a sword powerful enough to send the nephilim to a place of eternal suffering and for this deed he'd give the god his soul. The god needed not such a worthless thing but forged the soul in to a katana that held the power to destroy the ones who couldn't be killed as the nephilim's punishment. The katana is a key to a door that can not be opened from the inside. It imprisons the souls fed to it in to the pond making it their last resting place"
"But...they grabbed me by my foot!"
"For a moment you stepped to their territory, to a realm not from this world. The souls don't hold enough power to flee their punishment but for a moment they can gather enough strength to collect any unfortunate spirit that makes the mistake to venture into their midst. It only lasts for an infinitesimal moment so anyone who believes they're not drowning that day will survive"
Kurtis stayed quiet for a small moment thinking of what she had just told him. He fingered the hilt of the Shadow Katana nervously pondering what he would ask next. Suddenly he remembered the woman in Prague.
"I saw Anne in Prague and yet she laid in the crypt with this in her heart...how is it possible if they're supposed to be in limbo?"
"For that I have no answer. Perhaps there was something in Anne that wasn't supposed to be there, something so unlike nephilim that she couldn't be judged as one. Maybe there was something in her spirit that the katana couldn't grasp."
Kurtis sighed. He had loads of questions he wanted an answer for but somehow he knew there wasn't time for each of them.
"Who is Karel?"
He could see something fearful in her eyes, something that he hadn't seen before but it existed only for a second or two. "I suppose you know as much of him as I do"
"I only know his name and that he is a nephilim"
"I have never met him myself and for that I've always been grateful. The stories that have reached my ears describe him as a heartless monster, much like your father thought every nephilim would be. Stories are all that I have heard of him but they're enough to make me wish he wouldn't exist"
"And the Halls of Doom?"
"The Halls of Doom?" she sounded shocked. "Oh no. You must stop him from entering them for only a few knows what lies in their depths and that something should never have been created. If he can retrieve the scales the world will no longer know the concept of free will"
"Knowing where they're located would of course help"
"Do not worry for I have taken the freedom to book you a plane ticket there. You do not need my help in finding the Halls. Look into your heart for the same blood flows through it as the one's who hid the scales"
Kurtis nodded slowly. "Who are you?"
She swallowed hard before answering. "Your grandmother...from your mother's side"
"No! She was killed in an accident!"
"No she wasn't. She lived on underground patiently waiting for someone who could fight her battle for she was too weak for it."
Kurtis didn't look at her anymore. "One last question. If you are who you claim to be...what was she like?"
"Of all of us she reminded the ones we had developed from the most. She had no interest to carry on our case and more than anything she wanted to live a human life." She chuckled a bit before continuing. "They say that there's someone for everyone. Isn't it ironical that it took almost two thousand years for her to find that person and she knew she couldn't keep him forever?" She looked at Kurtis to see him frowning. "She stayed with him for ten years knowing the whole time that the day she'd have to leave him would come."
Suddenly it dawned to Kurtis. "She couldn't grow old..."
"Yes. I could tell you how she was my angel but almost all mothers love their children even if they'd be monsters but I know that isn't what you want to hear. I can't explain her motives of leaving you too but my guess is that she wanted to leave something of her to him"
Kurtis was in deep thought. If his mother couldn't grow old could he or would he be forced to walk on this earth for an eternity to come? If he was supposed to destroy Karel would he be the last of the Nephilim or was there more of them? Did the souls of all the others reside in that dark-watered pool? Would he be given the same retribution or was his soul to rest in peace after his death? Her voice brought him back from his thoughts.
"One day, almost 26 years ago she stepped into a taxi and was never seen again. She disappeared with no trace like her whole existence had been a dream and the only places she still lived were your father's mind and mine."
"You wanted a favor...?" He was almost afraid to ask this not sure what she had chosen to ask of him.
"I would like to hold my grandson even if it was for only one time"
In this Kurtis saw nothing wrong and stood sill waiting her to wrap her arms around him. He could feel the warmth emanating from her body through their clothes.
At that moment she wished more than ever that she'd been a human being. She had always been envious of their race. Not because of their inventions or their development but because of their feelings. She wished that she could shed tears but her eyes knew nothing about that. She let him go slowly and looked straight at him.
"Aim to the heart for in it the goodness lies" she spread her hands waiting him to strike.
He tightened his grip on the hilt and in his mind he begged for forgiveness for what he was about to do. With one fluent movement he struck only to notice it required no strength. The blade was eager to be fed with yet another soul of the race that should never have been. It slid through her body with ease like there was no flesh to pierce. Kurtis only heard a small sigh as the blade made a connection with her heart and her body went limp. As he pulled out the sword a bright light filled the tomb.
Thanks very much for reviewing this story and I hope you'll still like it. Feedback is always appreciated.
Questions
There he stood again in the dark tomb. He had been collected from his hotel, blindfolded and chauffeured to this place. During the car ride he had tried to listen the sounds of the surrounding scenery like it would've helped him in knowing where he was being taken. This time they had been more gentle in their efforts to bring him to the tomb and no visit to the oblivion was needed. He didn't have any idea how much time had passed during him being blindfolded but to him it had seemed like a small eternity.
The woman sat on a table and looked at him with sad eyes knowing what was going to happen, knowing that she had been waiting for this for years. Finally her task was complete. She had been ordered to be the beacon in the dark to the chosen one, to show a faint glow of hope when it seemed not to exist anymore. She had been ordered to show him there were shades of gray. Her eyes lingered for a moment capturing his features like she wanted to take a mental picture of him to where he couldn't follow her before they moved to look at the hilt the man in front of her held in his hand. She swallowed. Now that it was the time she was no longer certain if she really wanted it but she knew it needed to be done.
Kurtis fingered the hilt of the katana nervously. He wasn't going to slay her, not yet for he had some questions he desperately needed an answer to and on the other hand he didn't really wait for getting to kill. He didn't really want to.
She stood up not facing him anymore for she found it too hard to look into his eyes afraid what she would see in them. She wasn't afraid of seeing hatred or anger, she knew she wouldn't see them. She didn't want to see sadness caused by the ending of her existence in his eyes. There was nothing to grieve over in her.
He watched her moving closer her eyes fixated to the floor like there was something interesting going on. He knew the real reason. She had a date with death she had arranged herself and knowing the exact time of her departure wouldn't make it easier. Kurtis had never thought one day he'd meet a nephilim who offered to be the scabbard of a sword willingly. He had always imagined them as vile beasts, freaks of nature, that should've never been created and now he was looking at one who gave up here life by her own choice. His fingers' hold on the katana hilt tightened.
"What are you waiting for" she asked in a voice almost as silent as a whisper still not looking at him.
"I figured you could have it as a reward". It was hard for him to understand why saying those few words was so difficult. They made him sound like a heartless monster much like he had thought the nephilim to be. Perhaps something monstrous inherited from one of his parents remained in him only to rise its ugly head on occasions like this one. He squeezed his eyes shut wanting to flee from the tomb and the task in front of him.
"Reward for what?"
"You could answer a few questions"
She nodded and this time raised her eyes to meet his. "I'll do it if you do me one last favor"
"And that is...?"
"I'll tell you when it's the time"
Kurtis nodded not knowing what he was agreeing to. It was like granting the condemned the last wish. It was a humane act and the least he could do. She smiled a bit but on her white face it seemed as a forced smile. All the feelings that usually caused a person to smile were missing from that particular expression on her face. It was a sad smile, a smile of someone who was giving up and while it lingered on her face it made Kurtis hate himself. The spark existed in her but she wanted to smother it before it could fully blossom. Kurtis waited for a moment as if he wanted to make sure she was pleased with their agreement. When she said or did nothing he began by digging the two photos from his wallet and handing them to her. He could hear her sharp intake of breath and see her touching something in one of the photographs.
She couldn't control her want to touch her daughter's face in the black and white picture she held in her hand. In the picture she appeared just as the pale woman remembered her. Beside her daughter stood her son-in-law. The nephilim woman smiled seeing him the first time. She had heard of him from his helpers but had told them not to take pictures not wanting to get his attention. There was so much same in him and Kurtis and it seemed the only thing Kurtis had inherited from his mother was his eyes. In them she could still see her daughter and the same warmth that had once inhabited her own eyes. She looked up from the pictures a strange expression on her face.
"I know who they are...", the American man started. "Someone tried to contact me through them a few days ago..."
She glanced at her daughter's features once more. "And you want to know who"
She received a nod.
"I can only tell you that the person must've crossed the line to the other side, to the world of shadows..."
"You mean something like heaven?"
"Limbo..."
Kurtis stared at her not wanting to believe her words "H-how?" he managed to stutter out.
"How one ends up in limbo? I have heard there might be four reasons. The soul is too hard to judge because it's good and evil deeds weight as much in the scales. Not many end up in limbo because of this. Good and evil rarely negate each other leaving nothing to judge behind them and some acts are too cruel to forgive even if the person has dedicated his or her whole life before or after the act to goodness. A soul can also be banished to the limbo which is done usually by strong black magic. This has been used as a punishment among some tribes. Often it is just meant to scare the tribe members and the spells have really no effect. The limbo can be a prison of the mind as well when the other ways of punishing seem too mild. The fourth one is the saddest case. In it the soul can not be judged because there's a link between it and the world of living. Usually their bodies are still alive not holding their spiritual essence anymore." She held a little pause. "Many have often thought where do the souls of brain dead people travel when their bodies can not hold them anymore. No one can say for sure but as long as their bodies remain the souls are not judged. There are items in existence that can send a soul to the limbo"
After she said this she looked at the hilt of the Shadow Katana. Kurtis didn't need to think twice to get the message. He wielded one of those items. He had pulled it of the heart of the woman in the crypt under St.Anne's church thus letting her soul be judged.
"The shrine. How did I get in? There must've been thousands who have touched the stone embedded to it"
"The thousands weren't you. Through the veins of the ones who build the shrine flowed the blood of the Nephilim race. Only in our touch lies the force to open the stony gate" Once again she eyed the hilt of the Shadow Katana "To wield the katana is needed a nephilim spirit that has never harmed other life forms in the way the original Nephilim."
"Near Anne's crypt there was this pool filled with black water..." he never got to finish his question.
"And shadows in human forms?" When she got a nod from him she continued looking away as she was ashamed.. "You saw a limbo of a sort. Banished from heaven and not wanted in hell the angels and their offspring needed a place to spend the eternity after their deaths. A katana was forged and it's blade carried the same shadowy material than their...our spiritual forms. The soul of the first of us was trapped in the blade for eternity to come."
"Us?"
"Dissident nephilim. The legend tells that he grew bored of seeing the destruction and agony caused by his kind and found a way to contact Hephaestus, the smith of the gods in the Greek mythology. He asked the smith to forge a sword powerful enough to send the nephilim to a place of eternal suffering and for this deed he'd give the god his soul. The god needed not such a worthless thing but forged the soul in to a katana that held the power to destroy the ones who couldn't be killed as the nephilim's punishment. The katana is a key to a door that can not be opened from the inside. It imprisons the souls fed to it in to the pond making it their last resting place"
"But...they grabbed me by my foot!"
"For a moment you stepped to their territory, to a realm not from this world. The souls don't hold enough power to flee their punishment but for a moment they can gather enough strength to collect any unfortunate spirit that makes the mistake to venture into their midst. It only lasts for an infinitesimal moment so anyone who believes they're not drowning that day will survive"
Kurtis stayed quiet for a small moment thinking of what she had just told him. He fingered the hilt of the Shadow Katana nervously pondering what he would ask next. Suddenly he remembered the woman in Prague.
"I saw Anne in Prague and yet she laid in the crypt with this in her heart...how is it possible if they're supposed to be in limbo?"
"For that I have no answer. Perhaps there was something in Anne that wasn't supposed to be there, something so unlike nephilim that she couldn't be judged as one. Maybe there was something in her spirit that the katana couldn't grasp."
Kurtis sighed. He had loads of questions he wanted an answer for but somehow he knew there wasn't time for each of them.
"Who is Karel?"
He could see something fearful in her eyes, something that he hadn't seen before but it existed only for a second or two. "I suppose you know as much of him as I do"
"I only know his name and that he is a nephilim"
"I have never met him myself and for that I've always been grateful. The stories that have reached my ears describe him as a heartless monster, much like your father thought every nephilim would be. Stories are all that I have heard of him but they're enough to make me wish he wouldn't exist"
"And the Halls of Doom?"
"The Halls of Doom?" she sounded shocked. "Oh no. You must stop him from entering them for only a few knows what lies in their depths and that something should never have been created. If he can retrieve the scales the world will no longer know the concept of free will"
"Knowing where they're located would of course help"
"Do not worry for I have taken the freedom to book you a plane ticket there. You do not need my help in finding the Halls. Look into your heart for the same blood flows through it as the one's who hid the scales"
Kurtis nodded slowly. "Who are you?"
She swallowed hard before answering. "Your grandmother...from your mother's side"
"No! She was killed in an accident!"
"No she wasn't. She lived on underground patiently waiting for someone who could fight her battle for she was too weak for it."
Kurtis didn't look at her anymore. "One last question. If you are who you claim to be...what was she like?"
"Of all of us she reminded the ones we had developed from the most. She had no interest to carry on our case and more than anything she wanted to live a human life." She chuckled a bit before continuing. "They say that there's someone for everyone. Isn't it ironical that it took almost two thousand years for her to find that person and she knew she couldn't keep him forever?" She looked at Kurtis to see him frowning. "She stayed with him for ten years knowing the whole time that the day she'd have to leave him would come."
Suddenly it dawned to Kurtis. "She couldn't grow old..."
"Yes. I could tell you how she was my angel but almost all mothers love their children even if they'd be monsters but I know that isn't what you want to hear. I can't explain her motives of leaving you too but my guess is that she wanted to leave something of her to him"
Kurtis was in deep thought. If his mother couldn't grow old could he or would he be forced to walk on this earth for an eternity to come? If he was supposed to destroy Karel would he be the last of the Nephilim or was there more of them? Did the souls of all the others reside in that dark-watered pool? Would he be given the same retribution or was his soul to rest in peace after his death? Her voice brought him back from his thoughts.
"One day, almost 26 years ago she stepped into a taxi and was never seen again. She disappeared with no trace like her whole existence had been a dream and the only places she still lived were your father's mind and mine."
"You wanted a favor...?" He was almost afraid to ask this not sure what she had chosen to ask of him.
"I would like to hold my grandson even if it was for only one time"
In this Kurtis saw nothing wrong and stood sill waiting her to wrap her arms around him. He could feel the warmth emanating from her body through their clothes.
At that moment she wished more than ever that she'd been a human being. She had always been envious of their race. Not because of their inventions or their development but because of their feelings. She wished that she could shed tears but her eyes knew nothing about that. She let him go slowly and looked straight at him.
"Aim to the heart for in it the goodness lies" she spread her hands waiting him to strike.
He tightened his grip on the hilt and in his mind he begged for forgiveness for what he was about to do. With one fluent movement he struck only to notice it required no strength. The blade was eager to be fed with yet another soul of the race that should never have been. It slid through her body with ease like there was no flesh to pierce. Kurtis only heard a small sigh as the blade made a connection with her heart and her body went limp. As he pulled out the sword a bright light filled the tomb.