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  ELOHIM

  The Seventh Day Series Book Three

  By Leslie Swartz

  Copyright 2020, Leslie Swartz

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020903740

  ISBN: 9798623120090

  The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and the other begins?

  Edgar Allen Poe

  Prologue

  Six-year-old Gabriel slid a piece of paper to her father. He sat next to her at the long table in the conference room, the sleazy smile of a used car salesman plastered on his face. The two men on the other side were visibly uncomfortable, squirming in the leather seats and fiddling with papers and pens as they nervously awaited Mr. Murphy’s offer. They knew him by reputation, the stories of his shrewd genius having made their way around town for years. Every CEO in Manhattan dreaded the day they had to come to Murphy Equity Group. James Murphy’s style was well known. He’d exchange pleasantries, sit quietly for a few moments, then make his offer: the lowest possible amount the seller was willing to take. He somehow always knew and his chipper demeanor made his low-balling all the more insulting.

  Mr. Murphy glanced at the note, folded it and slipped it into his jacket pocket. “Well, Gentlemen, I won’t waste your time. My team has crunched the numbers and the best I can do is seven million. I’m sure it’s lower than you were hoping, so if you can’t accept, no hard feelings.” He stood, pulling his daughter’s chair out and helping her down. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get this one to school. I’ll give you until the end of the day to think it over.”

  “Wait,” one of the men sighed. He stopped, a knowing grin creeping across his face.

  “Go wait for me with Mrs. Lee,” James whispered to Gabriel, who nodded and left the room. “Yes?”

  “We’ll take it,” the other man said, disappointment and defeat clear in his tone.

  “Excellent!” James said, shaking the man’s hand. “Let’s get those papers signed, shall we?”

  In the lobby, Gabriel hovered near the secretary’s desk. Mrs. Lee chewed on the end of a pen, the waiting driving her crazy. The doctor should have called by now. What was taking so long?

  “Don’t worry,” Gabriel assured her. “He’s fine.”

  “What?” Mrs. Lee said, just noticing the girl. “Oh, hi, Taran. How are you today?”

  “A little sleepy. Daddy got me up early again for his meeting.”

  “Well, that’s no fun. Would you like a pen and some paper to draw with while you wait?”

  “No, thanks. I’m not particularly artistic. But he is,” she said, pointing to the woman’s stomach.

  “Who is, sweetie?”

  “Daniel. That’s what you’ll name him, after your husband’s dad. He’s gonna be a famous painter when he grows up.”

  The secretary’s mouth hung open as she ignored the phone ringing next to her. “How…what?”

  “Let’s go, Taran,” James said, exiting the board room, carrying the signed sales agreement. He placed the papers on the desk and took Gabriel’s hand. “Time for school. Kim, take care of these while I’m gone, would you?” The secretary nodded, dazed by the girl’s words. Gabriel waved as father and daughter stepped into the elevator, Mrs. Lee slowly raising her hand to wave back. As the elevator doors closed, the phone rang again.

  “Murphy Equity Group, how can I direct your call?”

  “Is this Mrs. Lee?” the woman on the other end asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Lee, and congratulations! Your suspicions were correct. You’re pregnant! We’ll need to set up an appointment to determine how far along you are.”

  She almost dropped the phone. How could the child have known? She hadn’t told anyone she thought she might be expecting, not even her husband. And how did she know her father-in-law’s name?

  “Mrs. Lee?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m here.” How did she know?

  “How does it feel, being a teenager now?” Gabriel’s mother asked, lighting the thirteen candles on the cake that sat in front of her, cloying pink icing spelling out her human name in awkward cursive.

  “The same,” Gabriel responded, blowing out the candles before her mother was finished.

  “You didn’t make a wish,” Cam said. He was her only friend and the solitary party guest.

  “You know there’s no point.”

  “Taran, dear,” her mother condescended, her words slurred and her breath reeking of gin. “Don’t be so dramatic. A wish is a dream your heart makes. Or is it the other way around?”

  “Mother, you’re wasted and you’re embarrassing me. Can you leave us alone? Please?”

  “How dare you speak to me that way?!” Esther shouted. She raised her hand and slapped her daughter hard, causing her mouth to bleed ever so slightly. Cam jumped up from his seat, grasping the cake cutter. Gabriel covered his hand with hers and shook her head. He sat back down. “When your father gets home and he finds out what you said to me--”

  “You mean when he gets back from Amber’s?” Gabriel shot back. “Oh, I know all about Dad’s girlfriend. Well, the chick he pays to bang on weekends. I would have said something, but you already knew. Just didn’t want to admit it to yourself. You should tell him what I said. You should also tell him it’s real shitty to miss his only kid’s birthday for a cheap fuck.”

  Esther slapped her again, wishing in that moment that the fall she’d purposefully taken down the stairs when she found out she was pregnant with her had done its job. Gabriel’s skin burned hot and her cheeks turned red as she rose from her seat. Without thinking, she used her telekinesis to lift the cake from the table and throw it across the room, sending it smashing into the wall behind her drunk mother. Esther backed away, horror and confusion covering her overly painted face. “What are you?” she all but whispered as she hurried from the room.

  That night, James came home to find his wife distraught and more inebriated than usual. She looked terrified and what she’d told him didn’t make any sense. He chalked it up to the booze but went up to Taran’s room to get her side of the story, anyway. He let himself in, angered at the sight of her smoking a joint, the music from her stereo blaring so loud, he couldn’t hear himself yelling at her to turn it down.

  “What do you think you’re doing?!” he shouted, taking the joint and putting it out with his fingers.

  “I’m just trying to calm down,” she told him. “Mom was, well, Mom, and I--”

  “You told her about Amber? How did you know about that?”

  “How do I know anything? How do I know everything? Don’t act surprised. You’ve been using me for my ‘insights’ since I was four.”

  “Taran Ann, there is a difference between work and family. You do not invade people’s minds for personal reasons. It’s an intrusion.”

  “It’s involuntary.”

  “Young lady, you will not--”

  “Can you go? I need to be alone.”

  “Taran Ann Murphy,”

  “Dude, all I can see in my head is a naked blonde from behind and, thanks to you, I know what she feels like on the inside. Please, get out.” She opened the door behind him without ever leaving her seat on the bed on the other side of the room. James felt his heart jump in his chest. He left the room, his hands trembling, sweat beading on his brow. For the first time, he was afraid of his own daughter.

  Fifteen-year-old Gabriel kissed her girlfriend goodnight before falling asleep next to her. Ada’s parents had no idea what went on at their sleepovers and Gabriel wasn’t sure how long they’d remain oblivious, so she enjoyed it while it lasted, knowing that the strict Catholics would put an end to the relationship if they ever put two and two together. As the girls slept, a man crept into the room. He covered
Gabriel’s nose and mouth with a rag doused in chloroform, ensuring she’d remain unconscious as he took her from the bed and carried her out of the house.

  She woke with a start just as one of her father’s security guards was loading her into the back of a town car. She looked behind her, groggy, her head pounding like a drum. Her vision was blurry, but it wasn’t hard to make out the house, fully engulfed in flames. “Ada!” she screamed. “ADA!”

  A few days later, Gabriel snuck into the city, her best friend by her side, to attend the party of a girl she’d never met, but was said to have the best drugs in Manhattan. While Cam headed to the bathroom to do a bump, Gabriel floated on a heroin cloud, blissful nothing replacing the constant barrage of other people’s thoughts in her mind. She fell back into the couch, allowing the fog to carry her away. It was the closest thing to Heaven she’d felt since before she was born.

  As she lay there, she suddenly felt something familiar; a knowing. A longing. A pull in a particular direction. It was one of them. She glanced around, her eyes eventually falling to a boy about her age, beer in one hand, a girl’s waist in the other. He was tall with dark hair and a no-fucks-given attitude. She recognized him immediately. “Barachiel,” she whispered. She giggled, unable to muster the energy or gumption to get up and speak to him. He walked off, taking his girlfriend into a bedroom and closing the door.

  “Heroin, really?” Cam lectured. “You know how addictive that shit is?”

  “It makes the voices disappear,” Gabriel explained. “Shh.”

  “I know you’re messed up about Ada, but this is too much.”

  “I said, ‘shh’.”

  “You can’t ignore what happened forever. You’re gonna have to deal with it, preferably before you OD.”

  “It just hurts too much right now. I’ll talk about it when I can go five sober minutes without hysterically sobbing.”

  “All right, let’s get you home before someone calls the cops on this party.” He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, carrying her from the apartment and to the elevator.

  “My pal, Cam. Always taking care of me.”

  “Somebody’s got to.”

  The two arrived back at Gabriel’s house just after three in the morning, the drive from Manhattan to Fairfield taking about an hour and a half. They were greeted by a gun in their faces, James thinking he’d heard an intruder.

  “Taran, what were you doing out so late?” he barked, putting the gun down.

  “Since when do you have a gun of your own?” Gabriel wondered. “Where are your security bros?”

  “They’re off for the night. Where were you?”

  “Probably fornicating with that boy,” her mother slurred from the top of the stairs.

  Gabriel laughed. “Dude, gross,” she snickered as Cam helped her up the steps.

  “That’s not something you have to worry about, ma’am,” Cam assured Esther, taking note of the gin and tonic in her hand.

  “You keep acting this way, you’ll end up pregnant,” Esther warned.

  “Guess again,” Gabriel chuckled.

  “Why not? Because you’re an abomination?”

  “What?”

  “We know about that girl,” Esther spat.

  “Esther!” James cautioned from the foyer.

  “Oh, I already know,” Gabriel told them. “I know you killed her, and her parents, and her fucking dog, you pieces of shit. Dad had his goons burn her fucking house down and made it look like an electrical fire because you couldn’t stand the thought of your country club buddies finding out you had a gay daughter. How embarrassing that would have been for you. Did you honestly think I didn’t know? Why do you think I’ve been stoned out of my gourd all week? Or were you too busy banging hookers and hiding in a bottle to notice?”

  Esther dropped her glass and threw her hands into her daughter’s chest, sending her flailing backward and down the marble staircase, her anger getting the better of her.

  Cam watched in horror as Gabriel’s neck snapped, her limp body hitting the floor, blood gushing from her head at her father’s feet.

  “Oh, my God!” James gasped.

  Cam’s rage overtook him, the world around him going black. He grabbed Esther by the hair and slammed her head into the banister, over and over, until there was nothing left but a mangled lump of unrecognizable flesh where her face used to be. James shot up at the boy, but he barreled down the steps, unfazed, the bullets hitting his chest seeming to have no effect. When he reached the last step, Gabriel stood, rubbing her neck as it put itself back in proper alignment.

  “That was rude,” she muttered.

  James clutched his chest. “What the hell are you?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  “You’re possessed!” he blurted. “You’re a demon!”

  “Wow.”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense. You’re a monster!”

  “I’m not a monster,” she snapped.

  “Demon!” he shouted, shooting Gabriel in the heart. She fell, dying at the hands of her parents for a second time. Cam’s eyes became slits and his blood pressure rose. He punched James, breaking his nose before gripping the sides of his head and spinning it around, snapping his neck. As the man’s body fell, Cam’s mind cleared. He got his breathing under control and wiped the blood from his hands onto his jeans.

  “Gabriel,” he said, trying to gently shake her awake. “Gabriel, you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she grunted, getting to her feet. “It’ll take a lot more than a couple of fucked up parents to kill this bitch.”

  “I’m sorry. I lost it,” he admitted as she looked over her dead parents’ bodies.

  “Yeah, you did. It’ll be fine. I’ll clean up, change clothes, tell them I was asleep and heard gunshots, woke up and found this. You have to go, though.”

  “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  “I’m all right, I swear.”

  “But, your parents--”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “G, are you sure?”

  “You’d be a suspect.”

  “But--”

  “Camael, please. Go home.”

  “All right,” he said, giving her a quick hug before opening the door to leave. “Love you, sis.”

  “Love you, too.” She closed the door behind him and leaned against it, looking down at her shirt and around the room. “What a mess.”

  Chapter 1

  Wyatt stood over his son’s fresh grave, his face sullen and his body numb. He hadn’t eaten or slept in the last two days, the pain in his gut replacing all other sensations. He felt no fatigue or hunger. He was oblivious to all manner of discomfort, including the heat of the summer sun beating down on him as he stood, alone, tears blurring the words on the headstones. His wife and his son, buried not far from his parents, all dead because of him, in one way or another. Guilt, grief, and rage mingled in his chest as he tried to maintain an upright position, a feat that proved more difficult by the second.

  “You should go over there,” Valerie told Gabriel as the two watched their brother from behind a tree a few yards away.

  “He doesn’t want to see me,” Gabriel said. “The whole ‘sending-Michelle-to-spy’ thing. I’m gonna give him some space. You should talk to him, though. Keep an eye. He shouldn’t be alone.”

  “He’s gotta be devastated.”

  “He is.” She wiped away a tear as she observed him, his misery overwhelming, even at a distance, and her own feelings of loss proving difficult to manage.

  “Girl, are you crying?” Valerie asked.

  “I’m not made of stone.”

  “All right, but this is the second time I’ve ever seen you cry in my life.”

  “Just because he was fucked up, doesn’t mean I didn’t care about him. He was our nephew. I loved that kid.”

  “Well, damn, if you’re over here shedding tears, Wyatt’s gotta be--”

  “Broken,” Gabriel said, her v
oice shaky. “He’s completely destroyed. I have a plane to catch, but you should talk to him.”

  “You have a what? Now?”

  “Girl, I’ve got so many balls in the air, I could join the circus. Don’t leave him alone.” Gabriel walked back to her car, texting Allydia once she was inside. As soon as the sun goes down, you get your fangy ass to Wyatt’s dad’s place. Do not let him be alone. Not for a second.

  “How are you holding up?” Valerie asked, rubbing Wyatt’s arm as she stood next to him.

  “Not well,” he grumbled.

  “I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

  “Unlikely.”

  “You know I’m here if you feel like talking.”

  “I know.” He looked up from the headstone. “Gabriel didn’t show?”

  “She was here. Said you didn’t want to see her.”

  “She’s not wrong.”

  “Hey, you wanna come over for dinner tonight? Malik can make anything you want.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Maybe I’ll just bring you something, then.”

  “Don’t,” he ordered. “I want to be alone.”

  “I feel like that’s a bad idea. Gabriel said--”

  “I couldn’t care less what Gabriel said. She’s not here. She’s probably with Lucifer at her place, celebrating.”

  “Man, that girl was crying. Her. Crying. She might not have many emotions, but she loved Will, too. Maybe don’t be so hard on her.”

  Wyatt sighed. “Fine. Where is she? Home?”

  “No, she said she had a plane to catch. You should call her, though. No sense pushing her away when you need your family most.”

  “A plane?” he asked. “To where?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Huh.” His expression turned from that of despair to angry determination. “Interesting.”

  “Boy, what are you thinking?”

  He glared down at her, the look on his face making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “Don’t get in my way.”