Nephilim Quest Book 1: Shadowhunter

28. Grandma and the Book of Watchers 4/4

I tried to keep up with Grandma's explanations.

"When the Hunter withdraws their consciousness away from a shadow, the solid form they have created simply disintegrates. The shadow just crumbles away. Nothing remains. So when I say we kill the shadows, we disconnect the energy cord that leads back to their Hunter or Immortal."

I must have still looked confused, because Grandma, clearly trying hard to put this into words that I could understand, said: "The closest analogy that I can give you is that of the puppet. It has no life of its own, yet it moves, talks and can create the illusion of existence. A puppet master can even come to believe in the reality of his creation and the creation take on an apparent life of its own."

This was really starting to make me shudder, since who hasn't been frightened by the idea of a demonic doll at some point? It's not just the stuff of nightmares; it's a key component of horror movies.

"Would you like to see a shadow?" Grandma suddenly asked.

"See? Here?" Panic made me almost squeal and Grandma patted my hand.

"No, sweetheart, they cannot rise this high up in the buffer zone. I mean show you in another way. Here, follow me."

She led the way along criss-crossing corridors to a little room squeezed in between the towering book cases. It almost felt like standing in a chimney, looking up. The room was just big enough to house one small television - and a rather old one at that. Attached to it was a VHS player, and the shelves next to it were full old VHS tapes.

Grandma searched for a while, and then found what she was looking for. She put the TV on (it seemed to be attached to some sort of car battery for power) and pressed the buttons of the player.

"This is a very rare glimpse of a shadow that one of our hunters managed to video in the eighties. It only lasts a few seconds, so look carefully to the left of the screen. The shadow follows the man walking there."

The street was badly lit, but I made out a man walking towards whoever had videotaped this. The darkness seemed to intensify behind the walking figure and I bent forward automatically to see better.

A shadowy... something was there, following the silhouette of the walking man. Half human in shape, with odd hands that seemed to float in the air, it tried to grasp its victim. Then it froze, and suddenly disappeared.

I had no words. It had looked very much like the shadow in our garden.

Grandma put the VHS cassette back to the shelf and continued explaining while she led me back along the corridors.

"The most effective way to destroy the shadows is to use the same Keys that we use to create our own gates to this buffer zone. But as there are only three of these Keys in the world, we can't risk losing them, and normally we use more traditional ways of physical force. This isn't very pleasant to look at, as they can plead for life. Now they are mute, but they can still make gestures. If, however, they did have a soul, we would see it leaving the body in the buffer zone. But that never happens. We simply see the cord snap back to the Hunter that was giving energy to the shadow. And the substance of the shadow simply merges back into the pool of energy it came from. So strictly speaking the conscious energy goes back to the one who gave it to the shadow, and the shadow's basic energy remains, only sucked back into the energy mass of the buffer zone. It doesn't cease to exist; it simply melts back into the energy pool from which it was created. So in our view no one is really killing anyone or anything."

I hoped I had brought my notebook with me. I should have written all of this down.

"And this particular shadow in the alley was not pleading for its life. It was cursing me, and spat out something it shouldn't have. It hissed that when the Immortals found the Book of Watchers, I would be very, very sorry for the day I was born. This is when the shadow's Hunter connected to the shadow, probably feeling its anger, and killed the shadow himself, realizing what the shadow was revealing to me. So you cannot really say it was me who killed it. The Immortals killed it themselves. And ever since then, all of the shadows have been created differently so that they are always silent. That's what convinced us this Book of Watchers was worth investigating."

"Ever since then we have been searching for clues about it," Lilith's voice came from behind us. "We have found enough information to be extremely concerned. The dark Nephilim, and the Immortals, are planning something major, and it threatens the whole world."

I turned around.

"Aren't there any higher entities that could stop them? Like those who have died and reached higher levels of existence?"

"Why would they want to come back to these denser energies, when they have reached the higher levels and have a new, more pleasant life there? On this earth we all have free will. We can do what we want to, and there is no one else to blame for the bad things happening here. Wars, murders, cheating... all of these are our own doing.  There's no creator we could put the blame on but ourselves. We made this bed, we must lie in it." Lilith's voice was calm. "So whatever happens here is our own doing. If the Immortals and bad Nephilim try to gain power, it is up to us to stop them."

"Ok, don't know about you, but I am hungry," Diana appeared from behind a shelf – no doubt she had been listening to our discussion. "Is anyone else ready for a bite to eat?"

"Now that you mention it..." Grandma patted her flat stomach, "food sounds like a good idea. Let's go."

xxx

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