Nephilim, Part Seven

5 august 1979

Elizabeth believed Henry when he said he was going camping, and there was even a certain degree to which he was telling the truth. He did sleep in a tent most nights, but he was not spending time in campgrounds. This summer, he was hunting.

He hadn’t been sure exactly what he was looking for at first, until this past spring when he came upon a tracking spell in one of his books. It was imperfect; he would have to be a mage to use it accurately, and he would need something of the target’s to narrow the focus. His aim was to find Jeremiah, and the only things he had with any remaining connection to Jeremiah were the books, the necklace, and himself. He tried the books first, but they were apparently much more connected to him than to his father. The necklace just took him to a quiet spot on the Ohio River, and he didn’t really know why. When he tried to use himself as the focus, however, he learned that there was something still binding them together. He wasn’t sure if it was just blood relation or if there was more to it, but he didn’t much care. At that point, the only objective was to prepare for a fight and follow the trail.

Since he was not, in fact, a mage, and was using a decidedly inferior connection to his target, the best he could do was a general area. So now he was in Connecticut, driving into Hartford each day and looking for information that might help him narrow his search. At first, it was mostly about newspapers, but he quickly realized that he would need to find something strange to know for sure that it was Jeremiah, and the only people who are willing to own up to the really strange details are people comfortable with being taken as strange themselves.

That’s when he fell in with a group of homeless people. For the most part, he had found, homelessness was just a sign of economic difficulties that may or may not get sorted out, and the majority of that population was not going to help him in any way he needed. But once he found a smaller section of the homeless population, the ones just unbalanced enough to carry the weight of the crazed hobo stereotype, he latched on and listened intently. For their part, they were mostly happy someone was listening, and the lunch he brought each day helped as well.

Through their stories, he learned that the mob had taken to working with some mysterious stranger, but the relationship had turned south, and now they were being targeted. Most of the deaths were pretty mundane, knives mostly, and that much was being covered in the news. But there were a few that didn’t line up with the prevailing theory of a rival gang. An enforcer reduced to a dessicated husk when he had only just stepped away to use the restroom. A gangster’s wife, drowned in her perfectly dry bed. Her husband found a week later with his spine ripped out. Someone, some thing, was angry, and powerful, and vindictive. It was over a week of the stories and rumors and ravings before he was able to piece together enough to verify that it sounded like Jeremiah’s work and who he might strike next. Of course, tailing a member of the mafia was not going to be safe, either, especially if that guy was presently terrified of someone tracking him down, but Henry was young enough to believe it would be fine.

He was only partly wrong. The mark did catch on that he was being tailed, almost immediately. And he did catch Henry, and he was fully prepared to kill Henry on the assumption that the boy was spying for whoever had killed his associates. The mystic books he was carrying did not help his case. And he certainly would have died that night, if it hadn’t been the exact night Jeremiah arrived to strike his next target.

Henry wasn’t able to get loose from the rope in time to save the mobster, and in moments when he was honest with himself he would admit that he might have been if he’d been a bit more concerned about actually saving him. One of his eyes was already practically closed from the swelling, the places left by two newly missing teeth stung like hell, and the blood running down his arms was somewhat distracting, but Henry managed to get to his books and his captor’s knives before Jeremiah turned on him. But the boy wasn’t trained for this, and the man he faced off against had been killing people and fighting with spirits for decades. It wasn’t long until Jeremiah got his first hit in, a swipe of the knife that Henry barely dodged enough to ensure it wouldn’t be fatal. To everyone’s surprise, however, when the knife sliced across Henry’s face, a matching wound suddenly appeared on Jeremiah’s. The man stumbled back, grabbing at his face and staring angrily at Henry.

“What did you do?” he hissed, his grip on the knife tightening. Henry was breathing hard, and holding his own knife all wrong. And as the years of rage and pain flashed across Henry’s eyes, Jeremiah finally recognized his son. It hadn’t been that long, of course; but children grow fast, and Jeremiah had made it a point not to think about the life he’d left behind. “Henry?” Henry lunged forward and swung at Jeremiah again, the surprise of the moment giving him just enough of an opening to connect and draw blood from Jeremiah’s stomach. The older man growled and grabbed Henry’s hand, snapping two fingers before recoiling at the sensation of his own breaking as well. That was when Jeremiah understood, when he remembered. He shoved Henry backward and stepped to add more distance between them.

“I’m going to stop you. I know what you are, and I am going to make you pay.” Henry spat the words out, along with some blood. Jeremiah grabbed the place where his gut was bleeding and smiled.

“If so, child, you better be more prepared next time.” Henry went to reply, but before he could, Jeremiah stepped sideways out of reality and was gone. Henry stayed on guard for a few more minutes, but there was no sign of his father returning. And then he realized he was bleeding, holding a knife, and standing in a room with a man recently stabbed to death. He stole the knife, grabbed his books, and ran.

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