“Do we know who the Black Hand is?” I asked, suddenly hungry to get my hands on any information Scott might have. What else was I missing? How many more of my beliefs could he send spinning on their heads? And highest priority: Could he help mend my memory?
“Last we spoke, we both wanted to know. I spent the summer following leads, which wasn’t easy, given that I’m living on the run, clean out of cash, working solo, and the Black Hand isn’t what you’d call careless. But I’ve narrowed it down to one man.” His eyes swept to mine. “You ready for this? The Black Hand is Hank Millar.”
“Hank is what?”
We were sitting on two tree stumps in a cave, about a quarter mile up the coast, tucked around a jutting cliff, and far out of view of the road. The cave was semi-dark with a low ceiling, but it offered protection from the wind and, as Scott had insisted, concealed us from any potential spies of the Black Hand. He’d refused to say another word until he was certain we were alone.
Scott struck a match on the bottom of his shoe and lit a fire in a pit of rocks. Light glinted off the jagged walls, and I got my first good look around. There was a backpack and a sleeping bag against the back wall. A cracked mirror was propped against a rock that jutted out like a shelf, along with a razor, a can of shaving cream, and a stick of deodorant. Closer to the mouth of the cave was a large toolbox. On it rested a few dishes, silverware, and a frying pan. Beside it lay a fishing pole and an animal trap. The cave both impressed and saddened me. Scott was anything but helpless, clearly able to survive on his own knowledge and fortitude. But what kind of life did he have, hiding and running from one place to the next?
“I’ve been watching Hank for months,” Scott said. “This isn’t a stab in the dark.”
“Are you sure Hank is the Black Hand? No offense, but he doesn’t fit my picture of an underground militarist or—” An immortal man. The thought seemed unreal. No, absurd. “He runs the most successful car dealership in town, he’s a member of the yacht club, and he single-handedly supports the booster club. Why would he care what’s going on in the world of Nephilim? He already has everything he could possibly want.”
“Because he’s Nephilim too,” Scott explained. “And he doesn’t have everything he wants. During the Jewish month of Cheshvan, all Nephilim who’ve sworn an oath of fealty have to give up their body for two weeks. They don’t have a choice. They give it up and someone else possesses it — a fallen angel. Rixon was the fallen angel who used to possess the Black Hand, and that’s how I came to hear he’s burning in hell. The Black Hand might be free, but he hasn’t forgotten and he’s not about to forgive. That’s what the army is for. He’s going to try to overthrow the fallen angels.”
“Back up. Who are the fallen angels?” A gang? That’s what it sounded like. I was increasingly doubtful. Hank Millar was the last person in Coldwater who’d lower himself to associate with gangs. “And what do you mean ‘possesses’?”
Scott’s mouth twitched with a disparaging smile, but to his credit, he answered with patience. “Definition of a fallen angeclass="underline" heaven’s rejects and a Nephil’s worst nightmare. They force us to swear fealty, and then possess our bodies during Cheshvan. They’re parasites. They can’t feel anything in their own bodies, so they invade ours. Yeah, Grey,” he said at the look of abhorrence I was sure was frozen on my face. “I mean they literally come inside us and use our bodies like their own. A Nephil is mentally there while they do it, but doesn’t have any control.”
I tried to swallow Scott’s explanation. More than once, I imagined the theme song of The Twilight Zone playing in the background, but the truth of the matter was, I knew he wasn’t lying. It was all coming back. The memories were splintered and damaged, but they were there. I’d learned this all before. When or how, I didn’t know. But I knew this — all of it. I said, “The other night I saw three guys beating up a Nephil. That’s what they were doing? Trying to force him to give up his body for two weeks? That’s inhumane. It’s — repulsive!”
Scott had dropped his eyes, stirring the fire with a stick. My mistake hit me too late. Shame swept through me and I whispered, “Oh, Scott. I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry you have to go through that. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to give up your body.”
“I haven’t sworn fealty. And I’m not going to.” He tossed the stick on the fire, and gold sparks showered into the dark, smoky air of the cave. “If nothing else, that’s what the Black Hand taught me. Fallen angels can try any mind-trick on me they want. They can chop my head off, cut out my tongue, and burn me to ash. But I’ll never swear that oath. I can handle pain. But I can’t handle the consequences of that oath.”
“Mind-trick?” The skin at the back of my neck tingled, and my thoughts turned once more to Gabe.
“A perk of being a fallen angel,” he said bitterly. “You get to mess with people’s minds. Make them see things that aren’t real. Nephilim inherited the trick from fallen angels.”
It seemed I’d been right about Gabe after all. But he hadn’t used a magician’s sleight of hand to create the illusion of turning himself into a bear, as Jev had let me believe. He’d used a Nephilim weapon — mind control.
“Show me how it’s done. I want to know exactly how it works.”
“I’m out of practice,” was all he said, rocking back on his stump and lacing his hands behind his head.
“Can’t you at least try?” I said with a playful shot to his knee, hoping to lighten the mood. “Show me what we’re up against. Come on. Surprise me. Make me see something I’m not expecting. Then teach me how it’s done.”
When Scott continued to stare at the fire, the light illuminating the hard edges of his features, the smile slipped from my face. This was anything but a joke to him.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “Those powers are addictive. When you get a taste of them, it’s hard to stop. When I ran away three months ago and realized what I was capable of, I used my powers every chance I got. If I was hungry, I’d walk into a store, throw what I wanted into a cart, and mind-trick the clerk into bagging my stuff and letting me walk out without paying. It was easy. It made me feel superior. It wasn’t until I was spying on the Black Hand one night, and saw him do the same thing, that I quit cold turkey. I’m not going to live the rest of my life like that. I’m not going to be like him.” He pulled a ring out of his pocket, holding it up in the light. It appeared to be made of iron, and the crown of the ring was stamped with a clenched fist. For one fleeting moment, a strange blue halo of light seemed to radiate from the metal. But it immediately vanished, and I wrote it off as a trick of the light.
“All Nephilim have heightened strength, making us physically more powerful than humans, but when I wear this ring, it takes that strength to a whole different level,” Scott said solemnly. “The Black Hand gave me the ring after he tried to recruit me to his army. I don’t know what kind of curse or enchantment is on the ring, or if it’s even one of those. But there’s something. Anyone with one of these rings is almost physically unstoppable. Before you disappeared in June, you stole the ring from me. The pull to get it back was so intense I didn’t sleep, eat, or rest until I found it. I was like a junkie searching for the one thing that could give me my next high. I broke into your house one night after you were kidnapped. I found it in your bedroom in your violin case.”
“Cello,” came my murmured correction. Faint recollection stirred inside me, a sensation of having seen the ring before.