Eutopia stared at Jinn, her empty stomach churning.
‘What do you know of my brother?’ she demanded quietly, her voice wavering with sudden emotion.
‘Probably a lot more than you do.’ Jinn stood up and moved to where the gauzy curtain hung at the window. He twitched the delicate fabric, running his fingers up and down one length with an almost absent mind. ‘Samael.’
‘What?’
‘The name of your brother’s father was Samael.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’ Eutopia asked doubtfully. ‘Our mother never spoke of our father.’ Jinn shook his head, slowly.
‘Whoever your father was, Eutopia, he wasn’t the same as William’s father. Samael seduced your mother before she ever met your father. He killed them both in a fit of jealousy when you were barely able to fend for yourself and had William turn you out onto the street afterwards, knowing full well you would be killed on the spot. That was the night Phoibe found you.’
Eutopia found it hard to breathe all of a sudden, the heavy bookcase and closed-curtained window seemed to rush towards her, blocking her in as she whirled on the spot and found herself on the edge of the bronze-quilted bed with her head in her hands. Her heart ached sharply at the mention of her foster-mother.
‘How do you know this?’
‘I was a Commander then too, it was my business to know everything. Samael was my lieutenant and it was no secret that he preferred the company of human women to our own kind and one of those was your mother. Such unions are strictly forbidden since the resulting outcome is usually Nephilim. Michael came to hear of the unholy union between angel and human, which was enough to condemn Samael to death. But he was held in high regard by Uriel, who had Samael lined up to become his Commander. He admired Samael’s strength, his passion to our cause to rid the world of humans and claim our rightful place as heirs instead of slaves. But it seemed Samael had his own cause.
Your mother was very beautiful. Her eyes were as blue and impenetrable as yours, her dark hair just as wild.’ Jinn gave the wide-eyed girl a slight, appreciative smile. ‘And her spirit was just as unbreakable. Now that I think about it, it’s obvious where you get it from and I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before. So, instead of killing Samael as he should have done, Uriel convinced Michael to cast him out of Heira for all eternity. There was great pomp and ceremony when they cut off his wings and turned him out.’
Eutopia clutched one hand to her stomach and the other trembling palm pressed to her mouth, muffling her words.
‘They cut off his wings?’ she asked, incredulous.
‘Yes,’ Jinn stated, matter-of-factly. ‘That’s the only way to turn an angel human. It very rarely happens, Samael being the most recent in over two thousand years. For some of our kind, it’s a fate worse than death. Most couldn’t imagine becoming one of those we despise, it would be an insult. Death, to them, is preferable.’
‘But some of your kind do…?’
‘Some, very few, choose to connect with humans in the way that Samael lay with your mother.’ Eutopia felt the colour rise up into her cheeks.
‘William, what happened to William?’
‘Samael didn’t take him, but he couldn’t kill him either because William is Nephilim.’
‘What is that?’ Eutopia asked with a frown, her fingers twisting against the silky bronze bedspread.
‘They’re so like human men in their physicality yet so un-human in their emotions... a race of beings created by the union of fallen angels and human women. They look exactly like a human male, even take on certain features of their mothers such as hair colour, eye colour and skin tone. They grow at the usual rate, age like a normal man and have a similar life span but they inherit the darker side of their angelic fathers. The fallen angels are embittered, twisted and utterly selfish because of their fate which is a trait they pass on to their offspring, who grow up with an inherent sense of anger and an ‘I see, I want’ attitude. The Nephilim are predators, they deliberately seek out prey to sate whatever twisted desire they have at that time. Luckily, despite their angelic parentage, they have all the usual weaknesses of a human male. They prey on your kind quite often, but are no match for their ancestors.’
Eutopia shook her head vehemently.
‘My brother isn’t like that,’ she said as she stood up and crossed to where the bookcase was, trailing her fingers lightly over the spines of the books, tomes of forbidden knowledge that she would never be able to understand. She was agitated. ‘He was never angry or selfish.’
‘You knew him for a very short time. You were what, four or five when he left you alone? Nowhere near old enough to fend for yourself, or to think of taking shelter during the night curfew. What loving brother does that?’
‘He was coming back for me; he said he was coming back!’ Eutopia burst out, her lower lip trembling as she whirled in anger, sounding very much like the uncertain child she had been back then. ‘He was looking for food for us.’ Jinn eyed her with curiosity, his lips a thin white line as he drew a breath.
‘He is Nephilim. You can’t change that with your anger.’ His tone was gentle. Almost.
‘I’m not angry!’ Eutopia growled, tendrils of her unruly hair tumbling around her flushed face as she stamped her foot.
‘Come downstairs when you’re ready and I will find you something to eat.’
Eutopia resolutely turned her back on him and stared out of the window at the dying light. She didn’t see the little grin on Jinn’s lips as he left the room.
Mike searched the bright, white dining hall for the thin frame of his mother. The plate of rich, thick stew heavy with chunks of meat lay untouched before him on the scrubbed table that he shared with five other men. The women’s tables were arranged in clear, neat rows, as were the men’s, on the opposite side of the room. The white plates had already been laid on each table, six a piece with a small spoon, as the two lines of silent people had been led in by their angel guardians. The stew had been served up from two big urns that were wheeled amongst the rows once everyone had sat down.
The only sound that could be heard now was the soft swallowing’s of many hungry people enjoying their meal; the muffled crash of the waves from outside had long been lost. Mike wondered how deep they had been led into the Sharding.
‘I’m only doing this for the food,’ came the whisper from beside him.
Mike blinked, uncomprehending as he turned to stare at the slight man beside him, who’s hair was as red as blood and stuck up in all kinds of crazy directions.
‘What?’ he asked, just as softly. The red-haired man grinned and Mike noticed how pale he was.
‘Three times a day they feed us like this, providing we don’t make a fuss, like. I’ve never eaten so well in all my life. Seems legit.’ The man shrugged a little and shovelled another heaped spoon into his mouth. ‘They don’t give us long to finish, we have to get back to the harvesting room. You won’t get anything after this til the next recovery, make the most of it.’
Mike’s grey eyes turned back to his own plate as he lifted his spoon and then put it down again. He’d been unable to spot Theresa across the expanse of the white room, light, dark and grey heads were all bent as men and women alike ate almost as one in a strict and regimented movement. Spoon up, spoon down, spoon up, spoon down. He frowned as he tried to make sense of what the man had just said to him.
The harvesting room?
‘Obviously you’re new,’ the red-haired man said almost in a whisper as his spoon dipped back down to scoop up the last of his meal. ‘You have that fresh outdoor glow, still. You’ll soon lose that. I was as healthy looking as you once, but I guess that’s what harvesting does to you.’ He licked his lips and then raised his empty plate to his mouth to clean up every last drop of the gravy he had been unable to get with his spoon. Placing his plate down with a gentle ‘chink’ he thrust his white hand next to Mike’s ruddy looking arm before his empty looking eyes fell upon the other man’s untouched food. He sucked at his hollow cheeks almost longingly.
Mike saw the hunger in the other’s eyes and nudged his plate across. The red-haired man needed no further encouragement and began to devour Mike’s share.
‘How long have you been here?’ Mike asked through dry lips. The other man shrugged his pointed shoulders and Mike noticed how long and curved his nose was as his already lowered head dipped down further to slurp at his spoon.
‘The snow had barely begun to melt. My brother volunteered for the Cause at the start of the Winter and my mother felt it would bring the family under suspicion if I didn’t join him. I haven’t seen Jack since the day he left. I thought I’d run into him here at least, but I’m wondering if there’s another unit.’ He looked up at Mike with thoughtful eyes that were such a light shade of umber they were almost red.
‘Stand,’ came a bell-like voice of a dark haired angel who was stood with her hands clasped behind her back at the other end of the room. Though she hadn’t spoken any louder than she would have if she’d been stood directly in front of the two men and the others at their table, her tone carried easily in the cavernous room. As one the long benches at each table were scraped back soundlessly and everyone stood. Mike noticed that there were a few plates on the tables that were still full and untouched. Six men, dressed in plan black tunics over crisp white pants stood to the left of the angel who had spoken, each pushing a large empty trolley, presumably to collect the plates. They were much smaller in stature than the beautiful angel who stared out with seemingly sightless eyes at the room, and so Mike assumed they were the same as him and the man sat beside him.
‘Exit,’ came the next command as six bulky angels turned at the front of each row of evenly spaced tables, leading out the hushed humans in orderly columns starting with the women on the far side of the room.
‘I’m Luke,’ said the red-haired man under his breath as they stood waiting to file out behind the others. Mike nodded in answer.
‘Where are we going now?’ he asked, wonderingly with a voice that barely rose above Luke’s.
‘Back to the harvest room. We’ll be hooked up now until night,’
‘Night?’ Mike retorted, glancing up at the glaring white light that seemed to diffuse rather than emanate from any particular point above them. ‘How can you tell what time of day it is?’
‘We always have stew before the last session of the day,’ Luke whispered as they watched the black-clad humans sweep steadily from the far end of the room clearing up the dishes as they went. Their line began to move and Mike fell in behind Luke, who in turn followed silently now behind the men in front.
Mike didn’t have to ask what the harvesting room was. The permeating metallic scent of blood clung to the walls as the column of men approached the double doors, making Mike feel sick to his stomach.
Inch by inch the queue in front of Mike shuffled forward and was dispersed and it wasn’t until he was finally at the front, his view unobstructed by Luke’s bright hair, did he allow himself to look up from the shiny marble floor.
‘6-0-7-7-8, new quarters,’ said the female angel cloaked in sapphire green. Her eyes were as white as the wall behind her as she looked right through Mike, speaking to the huge angel with black satin skin that stood broodingly beside her.
‘This way,’ said the male angel, jerking his close-cropped head. Mike moved forward without thinking, unable to look away from the sight above him as he followed wordlessly down the length of the narrow room.
A few summers before, Eutopia had managed to convince Phoibe that bee-keeping was the way forward, promising the sweet honey to be worth the hassle of capturing and breeding the wild bees to create their own hives, rather than foraging around in the woodland. The venture, like many of Eutopia’s often scatter-brained ideas, had been abandoned at some point for a reason Mike struggled to recall now. But the little coves that each man he walked beneath had been stashed into reminded him of the individual cells on a honeycomb. Though the men hung about six feet above his head as Mike passed by, their bare, bound feet almost near enough to brush his hair as he walked; none of their eyes followed his movement.
‘Keep your arms by your sides as you go up,’ warned the angel as he gestured Mike to step onto a little metal platform that was wide enough for one person only to stand on. As soon as his feet made contact with the base, Mike felt the metal plate judder beneath his weight and the whole thing rose up into the air in a slow, fluid movement that made it easy for him to keep his balance. He watched the rows of figures scroll past him on the opposite wall, men and women alike were pinned into their little cubbyholes by their arms and legs from what Mike could make out. He counted, one, two, three, four rows up from the floor that stretched off to his left further than he could see. He hadn’t seen an empty space until he turned around as the movement slowed and he came face to face with another green-cloaked angel. This one was female; her long blonde hair swept up away from what Mike had once taken to be breathtakingly beautiful but was now seeing as blank and generic. As with all the other angels he had seen so far over the past few days, her features were perfectly lovely but as cold as the stone they could easily have been carved from. Her milk-white eyes seemed to glow.
‘6-0-7-7-8,’ she repeated softly. ‘This one is yours. Mind where you put your feet, step up here and turn to face me.’
Mike did as instructed and climbed up into the little cell.
‘Spread your arms out,’ the angel said, raising her own to model the action as Mike copied. Her white gloved hands caressed the air, stroking from the left and the right and then clenched into fists as they met in the middle. A gently whirring noise echoed in Mike’s ears and he turned his head to look at his left hand that was now entirely encased by a steely metal cuff. He felt the pressure mirrored on the other arm as the cuff clinched tight around his wrist as another rose from his feet to encircle his ankles, pressing them tightly.
The angel’s white eyes seemed to glitter as she extended one finger and drew it down slowly to bring it down from level with her nose to her chest. Two long thin arcs of metal followed the action, sliding smoothly from somewhere above Mike’s head.
He gasped at the sudden stinging, an unexpected feeling, whipping his head around to watch as a long thin needle was inserted into his left forearm that was left exposed by its restrained position. A cool flooding sensation in his veins made him shiver, the needle being attached to some kind of fluid that dripped steadily into a clear, thin tube.
‘The fluid will sustain you while we harvest what we need to,’ the female angel explained, drawing another line in the silent air that brought another two metal arms from outside of Mike’s view. Another sharp stab and he looked down to see a larger, longer needle inserted into his right forearm that was held out motionless and steady. His dark red blood began to flow immediately, sickeningly painlessly, into a long tube that ran into the side of his little cell and out of view.
When Mike finally managed to draw his eyes from the theft of his blood it was to find he was staring directly into his mother’s blank, expressionless eyes across the narrow hallway; her tiny, birdlike frame a mirror image of his own, encased in metal cuffs tucked into her own little alcove in what was clearly the Harvesting Room.
~*~*~*~Authors Note~*~*~*~
I've just been re-reading the last chapter of Eutopia - First version, and fallen in love with Jinn all over again!
What do you think about the way the relationship is developing in this version? Is Jinn too stand-offish? Would you think it odd if he declared his love for Eutopia, or do you think their relationship needs expanding more first?
I'm starting the next chapter, so any comments would be great!
Much love xxx