“Yeah, but you laughed, didn’t you?”
I was glad to see Frank and Soheila kidding around. I left them studying Duncan’s academic degrees and addressed myself to the filing cabinet where I had seen him put the foreign package. It was warded, as well, but far less elaborately than the door. I easily maneuvered an opening spell around the wards and opened the second drawer from the top. The package was stuck between two folders labeled in Greek letters.
“What’s with all the Greek?” I asked as I pulled out the package.
“It’s the preferred language of the nephilim,” Soheila replied, turning away from the framed diplomas to look at the documents I’d removed from the package. I’d studied Greek in college but never taken to it as well as to Latin. My Greek teacher was a crazy man with a pointy beard, who used to slam the Liddell and Scott lexicon on his desk if we mistranslated a passage of Homer. I passed the documents on to Soheila. “It’s rumored that one of Alexander the Great’s generals was a nephilim and that he used Alexander’s conquests to spread the rule of the nephilim.”
“We think they then held key positions in the Roman Empire,” Frank added, joining us at the desk. “And in the Roman Catholic Church after that. I think I may have had a few as priests when I was in Catholic school.”
“But I thought the nephilim were descended from elves, not angels.”
“They were,” Soheila replied, “but the nephilim weren’t happy with that origin story, so they created the story that they were descended from angels. They believed that when their fathers mated with human women, they created monsters, which the fathers then turned their backs on—the way God turns his back on the fallen angels. They say that when the last elf died, he shed a tear for his children and the tear turned into a stone.”
“The angel stone,” Frank said. “I thought that was just a story.”
Soheila laughed, a melodious sound that rustled the papers spread out on the desk. “What else do we have but stories? The angel stone is the one token that has power over the nephilim. I’ve heard that the witch hunts were finally stopped by using the angel stone.”
“It’s true that the witch hunts were the last we’d heard of the nephilim,” Frank said. “We thought they’d died out.”
“But clearly they simply went into hiding,” Soheila said. She held up a handful of papers from the desk. “There are reports here from heads of government and financial institutions. They’re everywhere. These are letters congratulating Duncan Laird on his takeover of Fairwick. They were planning this for years.”
“But why Fairwick?” I asked. “Why would a little Northeast liberal arts college be so important to them?”
“Because we had the last door,” Soheila answered. “The nephilim knew that the fey would stop them from taking their next step.”
“Their next step?” I asked. But Frank and Soheila were too engaged in reading the papers to answer right away. If only my Greek were better, I thought, picking up one of the indecipherable pages. But then I recalled one of Wheelock’s translation spells.
“Convertere,” I said. Instantly, the words on the page resolved into English. The letter was from the president of a Swiss bank, assuring Duncan Laird that he had full support for Project NextGen.
“What’s this Project NextGen?” I asked.
Soheila looked up from the page she was reading. All the color had drained out of her face. Her amber-brown eyes had turned a sickly yellow. “I believe they are planning to use Fairwick students for breeding.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“That’s … that’s …” I stuttered, unable to come up with the words to describe my disgust. Frank had no such trouble.
“Loathsome, despicable, and subhuman.”
“Savages!” Soheila hissed, her breath singeing the corners of the papers. I’d felt her breath warm the air, but I’d never before seen it burn. “We must alert the witch communities and remaining fey about what the nephilim are planning.”
“But who can we trust?” Frank asked, scowling. “The nephilim are using their Aelvesgold to bribe fey and witch alike. It’s not just the trows. The fenoderee and the pixies have signed oaths of allegiance to the nephilim.” Frank held up two documents with heavy wax seals affixed to them.
“We must do something,” Soheila insisted. “We can’t stand by and let these evil bastards prey on innocent young women.”
“As long as the nephilim have the only source of Aelvesgold, we won’t be able to trust anyone who depends on the stuff—” A look from Soheila cut him off. “I don’t mean you, of course.”
“How do you know, Frank? How do you know I won’t turn you both in to Duncan Laird for a bit of Aelvesgold?” Soheila asked bitterly. “I need it as much as any creature of the otherworld.”
“I trust you because I know you,” Frank said, looking into her eyes. His hand moved toward hers but she snatched it away, sparks flying from her fingertips. Soheila’s eyes glittered like gold coins, and Frank looked away, embarrassed. “And McFay’s too young to have developed a dependency, right, McFay?”
“Oh, yeah, right,” I said, guiltily recalling my brief flirtation with Aelvesgold two months ago, especially a brief interlude in Faerie when Liam had used the elixir to enhance our lovemaking. I had other, less pleasant memories of the substance. Although it increased magical power and sexual prowess, it also brought nightmares and strange delusions. I’d almost drowned in my bathtub once after using the stuff. I hadn’t touched it since, but I’d caught myself thinking about it once or twice. Now, though, at the thought of the nephilim preying on my students, my blood was racing and my skin prickling without any need for Aelvesgold.
“But many witches have grown dependent on it,” Soheila said. “We’ve lost two of the circle in Fairwick.”
“Two?” I asked. I knew about Ann Chase, a longtime member of the Fairwick witches’ circle and respected member of the community. She had been bribed by Duncan Laird to vouch for him as my tutor. She claimed that she’d thought he was my incubus, but we learned later that she’d known all along that he was a nephilim. Ann had a daughter with Down syndrome, whose all-too-short life span had been prolonged with Aelvesgold. The nephilim had promised to give her enough Aelvesgold to live forever. “Who else has defected?”
“Lester Hanks,” Soheila replied. “I saw him performing at Fair Grounds last night. He had enough Aelvesgold in him to light up a city, and he sang and played like Kenny Rogers. The Aelvesgold is giving him a chance to realize his wildest dreams. How long before everyone in the circle defects?”
“We should call a circle to discuss Aelvesgold use,” I said. “If everyone understood the side effects—”
“Yeah, that worked so well keeping kids off drugs,” Frank cut me off. “What we need is to find the other door, the one Bill told you about in his note. It’s not in any one place. Bill told me something that morning …” He paused at a warning glance from Soheila. “He told me that there’s a door to Faerie that you, and only you, could open anywhere—but also that opening it would put you in great danger. See …” He turned back to Soheila. “That’s what I meant about him being a good guy. Even if he was an incubus, he was capable of selfless love.”
I swallowed the sob I felt rising in my throat. “Did he say anything else about this door?”
“Only what it was called,” Frank said. “He said it was known as the hallow door.”
“That’s a myth,” Soheila said.
I stifled a laugh. “You’re a myth, Soheila. Everything I’ve encountered since I came to Fairwick is a myth or fairy tale. I’ve heard something about a hallow door”—I didn’t want to say that I’d heard about it in a dream, because then I’d have to admit I’d started having dreams about my demon lover again—“um … in an old Scottish ballad.” That was half true. The dream figure who’d told me about it had come out of a Scottish ballad.