Edyn (The Essence Project Book 1) Read online

  As she was pulling my pants back up, I asked her. "Who do they plan on using as the father?"

  She stifled a laugh, and apologized with her eyes. "Who do you think?"

  I didn’t have to ask. Of course it would be Jophiel. I shivered. He was going to create children that were half mine and half his. My stomach turned, and I felt like throwing up.

  Just then, Jophiel came back in the room, flanked by Dirk who was wearing a smug grin. "See, that wasn’t so bad," Jophiel said.

  "How soon…?" I asked.

  He picked up a syringe from the table to his right and stuck it in my arm. "Fortunately for us, modern medicine has come a very long way. You’ll receive a hormone injection twice a day for a week, then we should be able to go in laparoscopically and harvest several eggs from you. Through ICSI, sorry, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, we hope to create multiple embryos. Those that work will be implanted into the waiting surrogates next week. Bloodwork has come back and you have a high egg count number so fertility shouldn’t be an issue with you. With any luck we may be able to get six this cycle."

  Six babies.

  I might have six babies with this monster.

  Surely he was no angel. If they actually existed, they would be nothing like him. Angels were supposed to be good, and he was anything but.

  "I’m hoping if we get six that we’ll be able to implant all of them, and then on your next cycle we will freeze all of those for future use."

  "I have to do this more than once?"

  Jophiel laughed. "Oh yes. Just because we are able to get a certain number of embryos, it doesn’t mean they’ll all successfully implant or survive to term. We need plenty to make sure we have an adequate number survive."

  I couldn’t look at him as he picked up the portable radiograph machine.

  "Let’s take another look at that leg, shall we?" He clicked several images and then handed the card to Kate who retreated to the other room. Dirk brought up the program on the screen and passed the tablet off to Jophiel. A moment later, new images popped up and he compared them with last night’s.

  "Incredible," he whispered. "Absolutely incredible."

  All the bone fragments in my thigh had drawn back together. My femur still looked like the surface of a crackled glass vase surrounding the lodged bullet, but at least the pieces were back in place.

  "This will be back to normal in a matter of days. Let’s check your arms as well."

  Kate brought back the card, and they took more pictures of my arms. When those images came on to the screen, Jophiel laughed.

  "Amazing."

  The bones in both arms had completely healed. There were no signs of fractures whatsoever.

  "You are one very intriguing specimen," he said, a look of wonder on his face. "I’m very eager to see if our progeny will have the same abilities."

  It was the first time he had said it. I know that Kate had already told me as much, but I was filled with such complete disgust when I heard it coming from him.

  God, please. Don’t let this work.

  I had to find a way out of here. I couldn’t let him do this, I wouldn’t.

  "That will be all for today. Dirk, would you please escort Miss Walter back to her room?" Jophiel asked without looking up. He was typing rapidly on the tablet again.

  "Sure thing, boss." Dirk removed the restraints and helped me back into the wheel chair.

  He pushed me back to my room and left without a word.

  I fell to my knees from the wheelchair, crying out as sharp waves radiated up my right thigh, but I tried to ignore them.

  "God, if You can hear me, please. Don’t let them do this. Let this fail. Get me out of here. I know I haven’t ever really talked to You, but I’m learning. Ryker is teaching me even now. I promise I will surrender my life to You if You’ll just get me out of here. Please."

  I prayed for what seemed like hours, when an idea started forming in my head. Grabbing my pillow, I shook it out of its case. I hobbled with my wheelchair over to the corner where the security camera was. Setting the locks on the wheels, I hoisted myself up and put the pillow case over the lens. It wouldn’t take long for them to come running if they couldn’t see me through the camera or the two way mirror. Hopping off the chair and landing on my good leg, I scurried over to the wall and pressed my back flat against it next to the mirror, just where they couldn’t see me.

  Just as I thought, footsteps came charging down the hall just a moment later. One soldier burst through the door with his gun drawn. He wasn’t expecting me to be so close to the door, so I caught him off guard when I reached out and pushed the gun away. He swung at me, and I ducked, ramming the butt of the rifle up into his face. When he hit the floor, I grabbed his ID card and dashed past him slamming the door shut behind me to trap him inside. My leg was screaming, but I tried to ignore it as I limped as quickly as I could down the hallway, gun still in hand. I was hoping there would be a stairwell near the elevators that would give me a chance at making it out of the building.

  As I made it nearer to my goal, I heard numerous footsteps up ahead. Silently I cursed and tried a door to my left. Locked and no ID scanner. I hurried to the next door, and found that it had a scanner. I swiped the stolen card and prayed it would work. It beeped and clicked, and I swung the door open. Just as I was closing it behind me, I heard the soldiers turning the corner into the hallway and passing by. I exhaled a sigh of relief as their footsteps retreated. Turning, I saw that I was in a room similar to Jophiel’s office. Everything was made out of rich mahogany. It looked as if a door to the right might actually lead into his office. I was certainly in the right part of the building. This room had a large marble conference table in the middle.

  I could hear shouts and footsteps coming back down the hallway, so I threw myself under the table, just in case. The door that was leading to what I suspected was Jophiel’s office, opened and Jophiel walked in with a radio in one hand, and a crisp button down shirt in the other.

  "I don’t care, just find her!" he screamed into it.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt and his hair was tousled. Exhaustion ringed his eyes, and it looked like he’d been woken by my escape. Tossing the radio on the table above me, I watched silently as he slid first one arm into a sleeve, and then another. He paused at a noise that only he heard, and turned his back to me. Just as Kate had said, there were two large grotesque scars right at his shoulder blades. Above and below the scars were dark symbols that looked like some unrecognizable language. He shrugged the shirt on and quickly buttoned it.

  My good leg was cramping underneath me so I shifted my weight without thinking. Pain shot through my thigh, and I sucked in a breath. Jophiel froze, and then a grin spread across his face. He placed both hands under the edge of the table top and in one smooth motion, flipped it over. The conference table had to be over a thousand pounds of marble, and he moved it as if it was a folding card table.

  I scrambled backwards away from him, as he covered the ground between us. Just before he was on me, I remembered the gun. I stretched it out in front of me, and he didn’t even blink. As he came down to grab me, I fired. The round knocked him back just a step, but his expression didn’t change.

  "Ouch," he said sarcastically before hauling me to my feet like nothing had happened.

  My voice shook. "What are you?" I was afraid of the answer I might get.

  He pinned me to the wall and put his face inches from mine, wrenching the gun from my hands. "I am sick of your little stunts. What is it going to take to break you?" He was growling.

  I swallowed and repeated myself, "What are you?"

  He backed up a few steps and spread his arms. "It makes no difference to you."

  "Tell me! You’re not human!" I yelled.

  Laughing, he said, "You’re right about that. I suppose it doesn’t matter if you know. Who would believe you if you said anything anyway?" He was toying with me. "When the Rapture happened decades ago, God sent one hundred of His hosts to he
lp gather the faithful, or so He told us. Some of us I suppose did help, but there were those of us He prevented from returning home. He slammed the door on us and left us on earth to rot."

  "You… you…"

  Jophiel smiled. "Yes. I’m an angel. A fallen one, I guess you could say, since I was abandoned here."

  I narrowed my eyes. "That’s what you meant when you said you only wanted to get your kind home. You’re trying to find a way back into Heaven. You don’t care about helping Insentients at all."

  He shook his head and put his hands in his pockets. "That’s not entirely true. A part of me cares, just a little. I’m bitter of course that it’s humanity’s fault that I’m stuck here, but I’m not heartless."

  I snorted. "Right, not heartless at all." There was blood spreading across his shirt, just above his hip. "I shot you," I said.

  He looked down as if noticing for the first time. "Oh, right." Then he reached for the discarded radio on the floor. "I have the subject in the conference room. I need an escort for her and a medic." Then he turned to me. "I’m hoping once I’m finished with you I won’t need a medic for anything anymore. If I could harness your abilities…" he trailed off.

  A moment later, the door clicked and flew open. Dirk and a team of others rushed in followed by two medics.

  "Take her back to the lab. Change of plans for today. I’ll be along shortly once I get this taken care of."

  18

  I t took about twenty minutes or so before Jophiel made his way down to the lab. He was sporting a clean shirt, and had a hitch in his walk that was barely noticeable.

  "Out," he barked at the soldiers that were in the room.

  Kate was standing by uneasily, not sure if he meant her too. One look from him though sent her running.

  "I have something for you," he said. "I hadn’t planned on this unless necessary, but you’ve left me with little choice. We don’t have to have your cooperation, but it would make things easier for all of us. Make no mistake, we will procure the embryos we seek, but putting yourself under undue stress will reduce our chances of success the first time, so I would like to limit that as much as possible." He was leaning against the wall closest to me, arms crossed over his chest.

  "I don’t know what you think will change my mind. I told you, you’ve already taken everything from me that matters."

  He smiled. "Oh I’m not so sure about that. Dirk will be back in a few minutes, and we’ll see."

  I really didn’t even care what he was talking about. My head was still reeling, trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I was sitting here talking to a freaking angel.

  "If you’re an angel," I started. "Does that mean that demons are the good guys?" I was half joking, and he clearly knew it, but decided to humor me.

  "No, they’re not. They were like us once, so at one point they were good, but not anymore. Not since they fell."

  "What do you mean ‘fell'?" I asked. I wondered if it was how we’d always been taught in Sunday school that Lucifer had rebelled, and he and his followers had been punished by being booted out of Heaven.

  He sighed. "With Lucifer. It’s just as the literature says. Lucifer wanted power, God said no, and He cast him and his followers out. Over the past few centuries the random angel has fallen here and there, but there hasn’t been a large scale Fall since the beginning."

  Puzzled, I asked him, "But I thought you said you were a fallen angel?"

  He ran a hand through his hair. "Well, not exactly. I haven’t fallen in the sense that they had. I wasn’t cast out and damned. Those of us who were left behind after the Rapture just sort of consider ourselves fallen since we couldn’t get back to Heaven." Quickly, he added, "We’re not the same as demons though."

  I snorted. "Could’ve fooled me."

  He rolled his eyes. "Demons aren’t like you think. They’re not these little monsters running around possessing people or wreaking havoc on the innocent. Not exactly anyway. While they can do all that, most demons are just memories of their former selves, turned bitter from their fall. They don’t look like beasts or anything. They’re just shadows that thrive off of the emotions of humans. Whenever you get that feeling of overwhelming dread or fear or sadness that seems to come out of nowhere, that’s a demon sucking off your Essence. For Insentients they live solely off their emotions, but when they latch onto Quintessents, they target their souls. It’s much more satisfying for them."

  It was such a foreign concept. "You said they can possess people though?"

  He nodded. "Yes they can. There are different levels of possession as well. Keeping you trapped in a negative emotional state is the most basic form. They live for tragedies. When someone is facing one, they’ll use that against them and keep them trapped in anger, depression, heartache, etc. Only fallen archangels can fully possess a person though. You know, get inside them, control their bodies and whatnot. There are a fair few of those, but not as many as people seem to think. Then of course there are demons that aren't from the Fall, but are descended from the fallen. They’re more human-like, especially since human blood was mixed in over time. You could meet one on the street and never know it."

  I gave a halfhearted laugh. "This is all just so unbelievable."

  He smiled at me again. "Why do you think it’s not common knowledge? Most humans can’t handle the truth of it all."

  I stared at him for a moment, the wheels in my head turning. "So what happened to you?"

  Startled, he returned my gaze. "What do you mean what happened to me?"

  Shrugging, I said, "Well you’re evil. But you’re an angel. I can’t reconcile those two things in my head."

  Anger flashed in his eyes. "I was one of God’s fiercest warriors. I was trained in the highest levels of combat. We’re not all fluttering wings and harps, you know. I was a protector of Heaven. Is it really any wonder that I’ve been turned into this after being abandoned by my Father?" he spat bitterly.

  Thinking it over, part of me couldn’t blame him, but at the same time, I had lost everything and hadn’t been turned into something like him. Maybe that was because of the angel in him. A part of me actually felt sorry for him, but it was quickly squashed by hatred when I remembered Ryker’s body lying on the hard ground covered in blood.

  To the right, the main doors to the lab slid open, and Jophiel moved away from the wall. Dirk and several other soldiers were bringing in another prisoner. Whoever it was, I could tell she was a smaller woman. She had the same black cloth sack over her head that the man at the elevators had been wearing.

  "Perfect," Jophiel said and clasped his hands. His voice was chilling. Turning to me, he said, "I’m sure we can coerce your cooperation after this." He nodded in Dirk’s direction without ever taking his eyes off of me.

  Dirk pulled the hood off of the woman’s head, and my stomach dropped. "Mother."

  Her eyes went wide. "Edyn!" she cried and struggled against the soldiers’ grasp.

  Anger seized me. She had tried to give me to Jophiel. This woman had tried to give me up like I meant nothing to her. I looked at Jophiel and saw a smile on his face. He was planning to use her against me, to make me cooperate. Hurt coursed through my veins as I remembered what she said to me. I was no daughter of hers anymore. I stared him down and shrugged.

  His smile faltered. Turning his head to look at Dirk, he nodded again. Dirk pulled his arm back and buried his fist in her stomach. She cried out as she doubled over.

  Part of me was screaming inside, but another part of me couldn’t help feel some vindication. I could feel Jophiel watching me, looking for me to break. I gave him nothing, and when I glanced at him, he nodded again in Dirk’s direction. This time, Dirk’s fists connected with her jaw several times, all the while she was screaming in pain.

  But I didn’t flinch. This woman wasn’t my mother any more than I was her daughter. She had tried to hand me to the wolves. I would return the favor.

  Jophiel made an impatient noise off to the side. "Do yo
u not even care?" he asked incredulously.

  I glared at my mother, as she stared at me, pleading. "She tried to turn me over to you. She told me I was no longer her daughter. Why would I care? My mother is already dead to me."

  I could see him testing my words, looking for a bluff. Returning his look, I wondered if I was bluffing or not.

  "Please, baby," she pleaded.

  My mother hadn't called me that since before my father died. It struck a nerve after how she'd tried to hand me over to these monsters, and for all the ways she treated me like shit over the years.

  Bitterness was a song in my blood.

  I snapped my head towards her. "Do not speak to me." I wanted her to feel what I had felt when she had turned me away. Not able to look at her, I turned my attention back to Jophiel.

  He was studying me. His mouth was open slightly, trying to figure me out. Without looking at Dirk, he held out a hand towards him. Dirk approached and removed a handgun from his belt, placing it into Jophiel’s outstretched hand.

  Jophiel lifted his arm in my mother’s direction. I didn’t blink, didn’t avert my eyes from his face. He never took his eyes off of me, and fired. She screamed in agony, and without looking at her, I knew the wound wasn’t fatal.

  Bang.

  She screamed again. He kept watching me, searching for a reaction, but I would give him none. A voice inside my head was screaming at me to do something, but I shoved it away.

  Jophiel shook his head at me in disbelief. "Any last words to her?" he asked.

  I kept staring at him for a moment before I turned towards her. "I’m so glad I won’t see you on the other side," I whispered.

  Her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open.

  Bang.

  Her expression didn’t change much as she became a dead weight in the soldier’s grasp. A flower of blood was blooming across her chest. He’d hit her right in the heart. She was dead before she even felt it.

  The voice that had been screaming in my head to do something had finally taken over.