Nephilim Quest Book 1: Shadowhunter

25. The Opening of the Way 2/3

Bookshelves were towering towards the high, high ceiling. Worn sets of stairs led to the upper galleries. Tall ladders were needed to reach the uppermost books on all the galleries whilst the medium height shelves could be reached with the help of the step stools that were scattered all around. And everywhere you looked there were books, thousands of books, sitting in neat rows, stacked up on tables, crammed onto the hundreds and hundreds of shelves. The corridor where we were standing seemed to continue so far into the distance I swear it disappeared into a haze.

 I saw two people nearby, sitting at reading desks, concentrating fully on what they were reading. I recognised one of them, a boy who looked like he might be Indian, as a member of the group who'd been sitting at Daniel's table in the cafeteria. I was sure any researcher would give their right arm for an opportunity to investigate a place where time stood still.

"These," Lilith showed me the strange finger shaped cover that she used to make the opening, "are ancient. We do not know the nature of the material, but it seems to be even harder than diamonds. They tear openings between this physical world and the semi-physical world of the buffer zone. And despite their antiquity and the fact they've been in use for thousands of years, they show no signs of wear."

"Where did they come from, then? Who made them? Aliens?"

Daniel shook his head, amused.

"No. Ever heard of the Nephilim?"

"The... what? No... I don't think so... Who were they? Or what?"

"That depends... " Daniel's expression was unreadable.

"The Nephilim were the offspring of what we are used to calling angels and mortal humans. Their story is referenced in the Bible, for instance, as well as other sources," Lilith said. "The angels - or rather Watchers, which is the original word for them - were male in these stories, and they should not have had relations with human women, but they did so nevertheless. Their offspring were the Nephilim. They were taller, lived longer, and learned a lot of ancient wisdom from their parents because the Watchers taught their human women knowledge that humankind was not ready for yet, or so the story goes."

Lilith sat on a little couch in the library and patted it for me to sit too. I did. It was quite a relief to sit down on something surprisingly solid and real.

"When the two species mixed, human and angel, the results were sometimes unexpected. For example, some of the children craved human blood, and it extended their lives, which were already unnaturally long."

She waited for the information to sink in.

"You mean... They were... vampires?"

"Indeed. That seems to be the word that has come into general use to describe them," Lilith nodded. "There were the Chinese jianshi - they were evil spirits that drained people of their energy. Just like shadows do. The Tibetan Book of the Dead called the blood-drinking spirits "Wrathful Deities". Ancient Greek had its bloodthirsty goddesses...then there are the classic vampire tales of the mysterious mountains of the Carpathians and the Balkan regions. And legends abound in human cultures in which people try to find an explanation for creatures that want to drink human blood."

She patted my hand. I must have looked shocked.

"So the stories of vampires are actually based on truth, even if they have the later decorations of fangs and bat wings and all the rest of it. Of course there are shadows; and people who resemble vampires, once they are infected, and these feed on humans, one way or the other. But the Nephilim who turned dark, and the vampires they created, were the real thing. And I can tell you there is nothing romantic about them, so forget about all those novels describing love affairs between people and vampires. You would not want any kind of relationship with them... If you survived being bitten and infected by a dark Nephilim, or by a vampire of their creation, you would turn into a kind of shadow yourself, craving blood, and infecting others when you took it. That is how the stories of vampires creating their own kind were born."

Lilith paused and Daniel took up the story.

"Not all of the Nephilim were bad, but the ones that were, seemed to be unable to feel any loving emotions. They were almost emotionless, and their only interest was in furthering their own ends - achieving riches and power over weaker humans. This became their only driving passion and for this they were ready to kill, to enslave, and to do any horrible thing. Eventually this led to war, when people could no longer tolerate them. The myths tell us that God threw the angels responsible for fathering the Nephilim into a fiery pit for all eternity. And that at the same time their offspring, the Nephilim, were hunted down and killed."

Lilith nodded.

"Indeed. We do not know what the actual reason was for it. We don't know whether these were real happenings, later written down in religious form, or if there really was a higher power that punished the angels, but the fact is that the Watchers disappeared from human stories. But not all of the Nephilim died. Many went into hiding and once the war was over, they re-emerged and continued their lives, hiding their true nature, apparently forgotten by whatever higher force it was that punished the Watchers. These surviving Nephilim were the ones who had managed to keep the three devices we can use to enter the buffer zone," Lilith showed me her strange cover again. "We call these simply 'Keys'."

Daniel opened the book he had carried with him from Lilith's office and placed it on my lap. It showed stone wall panels of winged Assyrian gods.

"You can see the winged Nephilim in many ancient paintings and reliefs," Daniel pointed at the pictures, "just look in history books, or visit museums. God-like figures with wings. They are there for anyone to see. Throughout history most the remaining Nephilim kept mostly to themselves, in some kind of attempt to keep their blood pure, but others found human wives or husbands. They conceived children. And so now some diluted Nephilim blood can be found in the majority of humans."

I leafed through the pictures in the book. Angel statues, winged gods and goddesses. I noticed Isis there and almost as a reflex my hand rose to touch the pendant hanging under my shirt.

"OK... But what about the gates? Who created those? The Nephilim? And if so, why was there a need for these gates, if they already had the Keys?" I pointed at the rosy colored finger cover Lilith held very carefully on the palm of her hand.