Rebirth of the Nephilim

“I’m not here to talk with you,” Jadis said, her mind still reeling from the sudden turn of events.

“But I’m here to talk with you,” Samleos said before taking another long drag on his cigarette.

Everything about the situation Jadis was in felt wrong. She was in D’s realm, to speak with him. She was supposed to be, anyway. In fact, she had to be, since right out the window behind her she could see the platonic perfect version of a suburban neighborhood that Destarious seemed to favor whenever she visited him. Prince Hraustrekr and Prince Kestil had just entered the house that Jadis knew D was inside of. And yet, here she was, alone with Samleos, without D or Lyssandria or any other god to stand between her and the God of Death.

Alone in a room that was her room.

Her bed was made. She never made her bed. But her mother always did, and she could tell that was the case since the little stuffed otter she had had since she was six years old was sitting between the pillows. Her mother always put Henry there when she made Jadis’ bed.

Her bookshelf, with dozens of novels that her father had gifted her whenever he found something interesting at the local used bookstore, looked exactly like how she remembered it, down to the little figurine of a magical anime girl she had bought at a comic book store on a whim a few years ago. Her dresser, her closet, her pictures on the walls… everything was exactly as she remembered when she had last been home from college to visit her family.

Everything except her computer desk. While the desk itself was the same, as was her PC and the new screen Aslan had bought her when he accidentally broke the old one when he was helping her move her bed, the picture frame next to her computer shouldn’t have been there. It was a photo from a few years ago, from the time she and her mother, father, and brother reached the peak of a mountain that they had climbed together at a national park a few hours from home. It was a photo she treasured, and she had kept it with her ever since she had entered university.

Which was why the photo should have been on top of her desk in her dorm. Not here, in her room.

A snapping of fingers caused Jadis to blink, and she shook her head, refocusing her attention on the God who stood smoking in her doorway.

“Pay attention,” Samleos said, the tone of his voice weary and impatient. “Or am I not interesting enough for you in this form? Should I change?”

“I—”

Jadis almost asked a question but stopped herself. She didn’t know what this was about, but she presumed the rules would be the same. She only had one question to ask of D, and if she asked the question while in his realm, during the ritual, she could be booted out once it was answered. Maybe that was the reason Samleos was showing up in front of her in such a confusing way? Just to fuck with her chance to get answers?

“I don’t care what you look like,” Jadis stated as she recentered herself. “Pretending to look like an old guy won’t change who you really are. I know what you are, Sam.”

“Do you now,” Samleos said calmly before putting out his cigarette between his fingers and pocketing the butt. “Then you won’t mind if I go au naturel.”

The dark, endless void of nothingness consumed Jadis. The inky blackness of infinity stretched out around her, pulling her in all directions at once, forcing her to see and feel and be one with the cosmic emptiness of—

“I thought not,” Samleos said as he lit another cigarette. “How about this?”

As Jadis stumbled back, leaning heavily against her stupid green curtains, Samleos changed. Where before he was an old man with graying hair and a five o’clock shadow, he was suddenly an older woman. A beautiful woman, though the bags under her eyes and lines at the edges of her lips, as well as the gray in her dark hair, showed that she was certainly in her forties, at the least. The fact that Samleos’ black business suit had not changed at all only enhanced the new busty form, with buttons straining to keep an impressive bust contained.

“This is more your taste, isn’t it?” Samleos said in a voice that was no less tired sounding than before, though higher in pitch. “Are you going to focus on me now?”

“If you didn’t want me to be distracted,” Jadis growled, “you shouldn’t have put me in my room.”

“No, I know how short a human’s memory is,” Samleos sighed. “You needed to see this. The reminder.”

Again, Jadis almost asked a question. A reminder of what? What did Samleos want from her? Why the fuck was the evil god even doing here? There were a lot of questions Jadis wanted to ask at that moment, but she didn’t want to risk losing her chance to ask D about Alex’s class.

Except, maybe if she asked her question now, while she was with Sam, she might get an answer from him and D. Her patron was the one who was supposed to give an answer, wasn’t he? The ritual wouldn’t be complete until he did. If Samleos gave an answer as well, that wasn’t breaking any rules so far as Jadis knew. Not that she was going to trust anything the monster had to say. He was her enemy, through and through. Maybe he wanted to talk, but she didn’t for a moment think it was because he wanted to have an honest conversation with her. But an answer, even from an untrustworthy source, could still be useful.

“Stop,” Samleos held up a hand just as Jadis opened her mouth. “Don’t ask your question just yet. You’ve already given two away to those pissants. This last one matters. Don’t waste it.”

“I’m here to find out what to do about the class that you obviously forced upon Alex,” Jadis said after a moment. “That’s all that matters to me right now.”

“Because you don’t have all the facts. You think that’s the most important thing, but you’re working blind.”

“Even if I am, I don’t trust you to enlighten me.”

Jadis watched as the older woman put out the last of her second cigarette and dropped the butt into her coat pocket. Taking a couple of steps into the room, she approached Jadis’ bookshelf. Running her gaze down the spines of a dozen fantasy novels, she stopped when she came to the little anime figurine. Picking it up, Samleos twirled it around for a moment before setting it back down, carefully adjusting its position so that it was facing the same direction as it had been before.

“I can understand that,” Samleos finally said as she sat down on the corner of Jadis’ bed and pulled another cigarette from her silver case. “I’m your enemy. We hate each other. That’s how it is, and I won’t lie to convince you differently.”

Releasing another cloud of smoke into the air, Samleos turned to look Jadis squarely in the face, the endless void of her eyes piercing to the center of her soul.

“What I don’t understand is why you trust him.”

Jadis watched silently as Samleos continued to smoke her cigarette, draining it to the dregs while gazing up at her.

“He’s the God of Chaos. The God of Madness. The God of Mischief, Secrets, and Lies. What about his titles could possibly lead you to believe you can trust anything he has ever had to say to you?”

“I know he messes with me—”

“Messes with you,” Samleos interrupted her. “Such an innocent term. As though there is no harm done. You don’t know anything about him or what he’s done. You know nothing of his plans, his intentions, his end game. You don’t even know why you’re here.”

“I’m here because he was bored of the bullshit you’re putting Oros through,” Jadis snapped. “It was just my luck that I happened to be the soul he snagged out of the wind to do the job.”

“Luck,” the God let out a bark of laughter. “Do you truly believe anything a God does is dependent upon chance and fortune?”

Standing up, Samleos approached her, somehow meeting her gaze head-on, making Jadis feel like she was being looked down upon despite the God’s smaller stature. Releasing a puff of smoke into Jadis’ face, Samleos gave her a smile that was almost… pitying.

“Do you never wonder how exactly it is that you died?”

As the silence stretched on, the God of Death put out the remains of her cigarette and pulled out another, setting it between her lips without lighting it. Holding the silver lighter in her hand, she flicked the cap open and then closed again, open and closed, open and then closed. The fourth time she opened the lighter, she spoke in a conspiratorial tone.

“Let me tell you a few things for free. I didn’t write the Covenant. I haven’t cheated it, either. I made my Children exactly as powerful as they were meant to be, with exactly the weaknesses they were meant to have. I’m not the one who’s broken the spirit of the rules by enabling the possibility of a second Demon Lord when there is only supposed to be one. I stay true to my promises, even when I don’t have to.

“Alex has been offered exactly the class that she has to be offered, because of you. She may qualify for others, but I’m not going to let you or her walk away from the bed you made because of a technicality. If she doesn’t want to be a Demon Lord, she can forget about having a tertiary class. I’ll tell you now, her old options are invalid because of what she has become. So, she can embrace the path you put her on, or she can run away and never think of it again.”

With a flash of black light, Samleos lit her cigarette and took a deep breath.

“Or she can take the third option and make a bargain with me. I’m sure we can come to an arrangement. My price will be reasonable. I can be reasonable, Jadis. More so than him. If you ask, I’ll tell you exactly what you need to do to get your lover a class that will suit her, that she will adore. Don’t you want to do right by Alex? Don’t you want to do what’s best for her and all the rest of your lovers? Don’t you want Hope to grow up with a mother, instead of a memory of one?

“Tell me, Jadis. What do you think?”

As Samleos took another drag from her cigarette, Jadis calmly raised her right hand and plucked the offensive little cylinder from the God’s lips and crushed it in her fist.

“I think you shouldn’t be smoking in my room, you fucking asshole.”

Samleos stared at her, the lightless voids of her eyes unreadable. When she spoke again, it was with a cloud of smoke that blurred her form, hiding the God’s transformation back into an older businessman.

“Think my offer over. Don’t be hasty. You don’t have to be my enemy. Even D said as much, and he wasn’t lying. Not about that.”

Stepping away from her, Samleos calmly strode over to the door, pausing just outside in the hallway. Looking over his shoulder, the God put another cigarette to his lips while giving Jadis a knowing smirk. Tapping one finger against the doorframe three times, he said one last thing before disappearing out of sight.

“In the meantime, you have a bigger asshole than me knocking on your door.”

Jadis jumped as the sound of a distant knock on her front door carried up to her room. When she tried to take a step forward, she found that she was shaking so badly that her knees almost gave out. Pausing for a moment, she took a few seconds to just breathe with her eyes closed, letting the tumultuous thoughts swirling inside her mind settle. With a hard swallow, Jadis shook her head and took a step, careful not to knock into any of the things from her old life that looked so small, yet so familiar, around her.

Hurrying through the hallway, bent over because her height made it impossible to walk normally in a house with standard-height ceilings, she hurried down the stairs taking four steps at a time as another knock echoed from the front door. Ignoring the sights of her childhood home around her and the ache in her heart that came with them, Jadis reached the door and pulled it firmly open.

“Finally,” D drawled, his incorporeal visage showing the perfect ideal of a bored expression. “I’m done with these two sad sacks and I’d be thrilled to have you ask your question so these losers can get out of my hair.”

 Beyond the featureless deity standing on her doorstep, Jadis could see Hraustrekr and Kestil loitering on the sidewalk, neither of whom looked particularly happy. In fact, the first prince looked like he had just eaten a whole lemon, rind and all, while his younger brother had the sort of frown that showed he was either deep in thought, or deep in denial.

“What were you doing in here this whole time, anyway?” D asked drolly while leaning one shoulder against the door frame. “Visiting old memories?”

“As though you don’t know what goes on in your own domain,” Jadis replied as cooly as she could manage.

“Right…” the God said, his non-existent expression turning wicked. “Why wouldn’t I know what goes on in my own domain? But that’s not the question you want to ask me right now, is it?”

There were a million questions Jadis wanted to ask. So many that her heart felt like it was going to burst her chest open. She wanted to know. She had to know. But what she had said to Samleos before was the truth, and it was still the truth, even in the face of the uncertainty that the God of Death had laid at her feet. Alex still mattered more. There was only one question Jadis could ask.

“What… is the best advice you can give me regarding Alex’s tertiary class options?”

D’s grin only grew as he leaned in close, whispering his answer.

“Go ask Sholto for a new pair of underwear.”