Page 71 of Caelum

TWELVE

REED

Eve looked as though she were on the brink of passing out, and I couldn’t blame her.

This was a lot for anyone to process, but for me, I was just relieved to have answers.

There was plenty of shit in this life that didn’t make sense, and in our world, there was even more because we knew there was more out there and still didn’t have answers.

Where did mates come from? Who even picked them out for us? Why did Caelum have a portal that infused us with a goddamn internal translation system? Why did that portal act as the literal gatekeeper for graduates of the Academy?

Yet, we’d also just received some answers to those unanswered questions.

According to this duo, and if they weren’t telling us a complete and utter furphy, they were our creation story. Our beginning. A story we’d never heard.

There were theories, of course. But this wasn’t a theory. Not according to the professors.

If I was eying them with suspicion, that’s because I was suspicious. This was a level of information that wavered between impossible and bullshit.

Before I was a believer, they’d have to come up with some proof, something that made these claims a lot more solid than the hot air they were currently spouting like kettles that had been on the stove for too long .

But, one thing was really pissing me off, so I told them, “Creatures aren’t religious. Caelum tells us to recant our religions at the door.”

Avalina’s mouth pursed. “That’s because God isn’t religious. Man made religion. God is God. Trust me, we’d know. Sometimes he’s nice; sometimes he’s mean. He’s not Catholic, nor is he Buddhist. He just is. You either have faith or you don’t, but regardless, you came from somewhere, and it started with us.” Apparently done with a conversation I’d only just started, she pushed herself off Bartlett’s lap and walked over to Eve. The second she approached, I tensed, waiting on an attack that didn’t happen—she just held out her hand and said, “May I see your arm?”

Eve, still looking shell-shocked, blinked but did as asked. Soft fingers, which were far too youthful, traced over the leaf on Eve’s hand that curved around her wrist then curled about her forearm. Some were large, some were small, but all were made out of letters.

“Caelum is founded on territory that Nicholas discovered a hundred years or more ago. In his last life, he did well, and God was pleased and gifted him Caelum as a result. The gates act as a barrier. God set his sights too high, didn’t realize the perfidy of the devil. Ghouls were beginning to outnumber creatures a long time ago, and when Nicholas did him a service, his reward was a means of helping others with a place that would become a majnūn’s haven.

“More than that, it was a means of building an army. Something that had the capabilities of tactically undermining the growth in the Ghouls’ population. It came in many ways, but one of the most important was bridging the gap in knowledge. Language is at the heart of all knowledge. When you cross through the portal, you speak the common parlance among majnūn but also, it means you can speak with anyone on this realm and be understood. Something of that nature is beyond the means of any man.” She cast me a withering look then shared it out among my brothers. “You can choose to believe we speak false, or you can recognize the hand of something that is larger than us all.” She traced the leaf on Eve’s hand with her thumb. “Studying and lecturing what we do, we get a lot of kooks coming through our door. But the second we saw this in the pictures you sent? We knew what you were.”

“That language is the first we ever spoke,” Bartlett informed us when Avalina’s words waned. “It is known only to Eve and myself, and our sons.” His lips tightened. “You are not the first, Eve, but you will be the last.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I demanded, my Hell Hound’s temper surging to the fore at the implied threat in his words.

Bartlett grunted. “Calm yourself, Hound,” he drawled. “She is the last for there is little chance we will survive to see another. Jannahs are rare. So rare they are taken on as prophets by religions around the world, but in the past, there was never any means for us to connect with them.”

Frazer blinked. “Wait a second. Jesus?” Bartlett nodded. “You mean to tell me that if Jesus had Google, we wouldn’t be having this problem with the Ghouls?”

My eyes widened at Frazer’s question, and fuck, it was beyond hard not to laugh. Avalina was apparently the queen of withering glances, however, because she snapped, “Have some respect!”

Frazer shrugged. “I have respect, but you’re trying to tell me that the prophets were Jannah , and, what? That my woman is too?”

“That’s exactly what we’re saying,” she bit off. “Or aren’t you listening?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, and I could see he was starting to get pissed—Frazer did not like being questioned by anyone save his Pack. I knew it came from his shitty relationship with his parents, but it always put us at a disadvantage when we were in situations that required diplomacy. And Hell Hounds? They were the antithesis of diplomatic.

Maybe God did exist if he put a Vampire in our Pack… Samuel, being Samuel, threw water onto the flames by murmuring, “We’re listening, ma’am, but you have to understand how difficult this is for us to understand.”

Avalina’s lips tightened, but the politeness, the politesse , in Sam’s voice would have been enough to satisfy the Queen of fucking England. As much as I loved him, the dude could kiss ass like no other.

And he wasn’t even into rimming. I’d know, considering I’d watched him work over more than one girl in our years at Caelum.

Eve, of Adam and Eve fame, tipped her head at us with all the regalness of Lizzy the Second then murmured, “The Jannah are rare, and their abilities are often exploited if discovered. Most spend their lives in seclusion, hiding from others so their talents can’t be used or manipulated for the gain of strangers. That makes our connecting with them incredibly difficult.”

“I don’t mean to be dumb,” Nestor interjected with a frown, “but why don’t you just wish to connect with them?”

Bartlett shook his head. “I’m no longer Jannah .” He winced. “That’s not right. I’m different. I’m the first. My abilities died when I died that first time, and I was punished further. There is only one Jannah living at any one moment in time, and even then, one doesn’t die and another is born.” He shrugged. “It just doesn’t work like that. There is no way to discern when next a Jannah is born. ”

“Is there a way of creating a pattern with the births? Sensing where the line might lead?” Nestor questioned, his tone eager with interest.

Again, Bartlett shook his head. “There is one link—Avalina and me. Everyone in this room has a direct connection to us, and yet it has been watered down so many times over the millennia that it’s barely there, which is why some families bear a majnūn and others don’t. But ‘barely there’ is still a link. The Jannah fall where they fall, and we cannot anticipate their birth. It is not supposed to be easy. Absolution and forgiveness never come without a cost.”

“A cost to humanity,” Eren argued. “It’s humans who are suffering. The Ghouls’ numbers are growing and they’re killing innocents.”

“And their deaths weigh on our souls,” Avalina whispered. “But we can only do so much, and even then, it can cause issues. Bartlett calling Merinda to help with Eve was a huge misstep. We may still be punished for that. It is a punishment we are willing to handle, but God decides where his wrath may fall.”

An uneasy silence fell among us as we thought about God smiting us. Great. Something I seriously wanted on my bucket list.

Rubbing the back of his neck for the tenth time in less than half an hour, Frazer muttered, “And the ink? Do you understand it? Can read it?”

Avalina nodded. “It’s been a long time since I saw this language. Mostly it was spoken, not written. Early man was not capable of this level of communication.”

“Do you know what it means?” Eren questioned.

She tilted her head from side to side. “For the most part.”

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

I blinked. “Okay. So… are you going to tell us?”

“It depends on what you’re going to do with the information.”

Stefan snorted. “Those tattoos glow like Eve is plugged into the grid. The second we veer off course, she falls asleep.”

Bartlett frowned. “Veer off course?”

“When we intended on hiding her from Caelum because of her abilities, she passed out. She only truly woke up when our plans to understand the ink manifested and we found you.”

Avalina shot Bartlett a look that didn’t take much to translate— concern .

“What is it?” Nestor asked, his fingers fidgeting with his unease.

“That has never happened before. The glowing part.” Bartlett studied my mate. “Is it possible to make them glow now?”

“She doesn’t have an on-off switch,” I argued, but Eve shot me a look that I tossed back her way. “What? You don’t!”

“Calm down,” she ordered, her tone flat. “Or I’ll make you.”

The threat hovered in the air, and I knew I wasn’t the only one stunned.

Or turned on.

Fuck, who knew a mate telling you what to do could be a turn-on?

I seriously wanted to fight her then, to ‘make’ me calm down, but I didn’t. Not in front of Bartlett and Avalina. If they decided to leave the room for some reason, I’d be on her faster than Vegemite oozed into hot toast.

Maybe she saw the effect her words had on me because she blushed, turned back to Avalina, and murmured, “As far as I can tell, there’s no way of controlling the glow. It just comes in fits and starts.”

“That’s a shame. How did the markings come to pass?” Bartlett replied, sitting forward, the scientist in him evidently curious.

“We crossed the portal prior to her graduation,” Dre muttered, speaking out for the first time—dude seemed to have left his voice back on Caelum. Considering he was usually an ass, that wasn’t much of a hardship, though.

Avalina turned her focus to him. “You crossed the portal? All of you?”

“It’s a long story,” I drawled.

“I have all the time in the world. Literally,” Avalina retorted, releasing her hold on Eve’s hand so she could fold her arms across her chest and glower at me.

I cut Frazer a look. He huffed and explained, “About a month ago, we were involved in a mission in Nigeria. The McAllister Nest had set their sights on a small town on the delta. The town had oil reserves and a company was coming to discuss terms with them.”

“That was when the Ghouls decided to take over, hmm?” Bartlett inserted.

“Yeah, seems you’d be the ones to know what they’re like.” Frazer ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “Anyway, we went in, got the job done. Handled the situations, but they were mostly pecus - level Ghouls. Nobody high-ranking, just the sheep.” He tugged at his ear. “McAllister obviously worked with someone at Caelum to get the drop on us. Before we left, we were drugged. The only way was to get to our water or our food, so it had to be someone on the inside.” When the professors sucked in a sharp breath, Frazer quickly stated, “No one was hurt. At least, not that we know of. The drugs didn’t affect Eren as much.” He pointed to Eren. “He managed to save us.”

“How?” Bartlett questioned, his brow furrowed.

“The seven of us wished for the same thing at the same time. ”

Avalina and Bartlett froze then shot each other a look. But it was the wife who spoke, “What did you wish?”

“For Caelum to be safe.”

“That was a very clever wish,” Bartlett replied, his tone rough as he sank back into his chair like he’d run a marathon in five minutes. “That’s the thing with wishes: they’re temperamental. They’re not supposed to be depended upon, and that’s in their nature. That means you have to word them carefully, be specific and yet broad.” He shook his head. “Under that level of pressure, with the odds against you, you picked a very good wish.”

Eren didn’t preen as many in his situation might. The guy was a hero, after all. Instead, he mumbled, “It wasn’t like I could sit around and twiddle my thumbs. We had a nest of Ghouls approaching us in helicopters. We had to act.”

Dre cleared his throat. “When the wish worked, and the threat was nullified, we hauled Eve out of the Academy. The gates were wide open. Might as well have hung up a ‘welcome’ sign for the McAllister bastards. We crossed it because it’s easier, and when we did, I was carrying Eve, and it was like she was given an electric shock.”

I wasn’t the only one who noticed Eve cut Dre a quick look, one that was loaded with sadness. In contrast to his carrying her out of the Academy, Dre now seemed to be doing his level best to avoid Eve, and though I didn’t understand his reasoning, we all did what we thought was best.

Even if it was fucking stupid sometimes.

“That was how she got the markings. They appeared a little while later when we were safe.” He shuddered, and I empathized. Seeing the markings grow, literally spread over Eve’s form, had been one of the most terrifying moments of my life. Bar none.

“The branches and leaves began to furl around her arm,” Stefan continued. “Then, it seemed to center in her chest. It formed a tree that glowed then sank into her skin.”

Avalina gasped. “??? ???????? ???? ?????.”

We blinked at her, understanding the Hebrew even if we didn’t understand why she’d switched languages.

As he’d been raised Jewish, it probably figured that Samuel was the one to blurt out, “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? How is that…” He shook his head. “That can’t be possible. Eve is a person, not a tree!”

What the hell was going on with my life when something like that had to be clarified?

I mean, seriously. Could no one cut us some slack?

Running a hand through my hair, I muttered, “Is this getting weird for anyone else?”

When Dre shot me a glance that was sympathetic, I knew shit really had started to derail. Dre? Sympathetic? Not bloody likely.

“You can’t hypothesize, Avalina,” Bartlett chided, his focus on his wife as he ignored the rest of us.

“I’m not. It’s on her arms, Bartlett. I just didn’t recognize it. There’s knowledge here. Of good and evil. Forged from the intent of good and evil.” She shook her head and took a step back from Eve. She was shaky, her body quivering as she plunked herself down on the armrest of the sofa I was sitting on. I quickly moved my arm so she didn’t sit on me, but I had a feeling she wouldn’t have noticed.

This was starting to look less and less like bullshit, and that had an uneasy feeling stirring inside me.

Eren murmured, “Is it a coincidence I was raised Muslim, Samuel Jewish, and Nestor a Catholic?”

The three main religions in the world?

Hell, how had we only just figured that out?

But Avalina was tugging at her bottom lip. “Unlikely. Remember, God isn’t religious. But it’s probably useful for your knowledge of the past.”

I snorted. “Eve’s more likely to be useful on that score. None of us know our religions from our asses, but Eve? She can recite the Bible back to front.” I wasn’t sure why that came out sounding proud, but fuck, I was proud. Eve was beyond intelligent.

Bartlett tilted his head to the side. “Were you raised to be religious?”

If a cult could be considered that, sure, I thought drily, then immediately felt like a shit when Eve squirmed and mumbled, “I was raised in a cult.”

Bartlett frowned. “I suppose that makes sense. I always wondered why you were on protected land that way. You weren’t even supposed to be camping out there at night, but I sensed you for a full day and night while I was there and assumed you were breaking the restrictions.”

She shrugged. “I have no idea about the rules. Just knew we lived there.”

“Did you never hear boats? Or have people come close to hike?”

“Maybe the men did, but women were kept close at hand. Only at night did we retreat to the cabins.”

Christ, and most of the kids at Caelum thought they’d had a shit life.

Deciding that we needed to get things back on track here because I recognized the looks on Avalina and Bartlett’s faces from Samuel’s hard-on expression when he was studying the stock market, I blurted out, “Can you help us with the markings or not?”

Avalina tensed then nodded. “Yes. But you might not like what they mean.”

I snorted. “Lady, that just fits the current MO of my life.”

And wasn’t that the truth?