*Grigori Blood*
The basement of Holy Redeemer smelled like November—cold stone and old incense and the particular damp that crept in off Lake Michigan, threading through the church's foundation the way it threaded through everything on the South Side, a chill that didn't visit so much as reside. Marcus sat at his father's desk reviewing the Temple of Ascension file for the third time, trying to find the words that would convince a sixteen-year-old girl to risk her life against cosmic forces.
He didn't get the chance to rehearse them.
Lily arrived carrying a leather-bound journal that looked older than both of them combined.
She walked into the basement with its musty scent of forgotten prayers like she owned the place, set the journal on Marcus's desk with careful precision, and said, "We need to talk about my father."
He'd been prepared to explain the Temple of Ascension. Ready to lay out the impossible choice. Steeled to watch her face when she realized he was asking her to risk everything again.
He wasn't prepared for this.
"Your father," he repeated carefully.
"My father. Who you told me died in a car accident when I was three. Who Mom never talked about. Who left no photos, no records, nothing except a hole in my life where a parent should be." She opened the journal. "Except that's not true. He left this. And Mom left me a letter explaining how to find it. Instructions to only open it if—" She swallowed. "If I started manifesting stronger than she did. If the dreams became visions. If I could see deaths before they happened."
"Lily—"
"His name was Samael. Not Sam, not Samuel. Samael. And before you ask, yes, I know what that name means in Judaic tradition. The Angel of Death. The Destroyer. The one who tested Abraham. The serpent in Eden, depending on which texts you read." She pushed the journal toward him. "He was Grigori, Uncle Marcus. One of the Watcher Angels who fell for teaching humanity forbidden knowledge. And he didn't die in a car accident. He was executed by the Sword of St. Michael when I was three because they found out what he was."
Marcus sat down heavily. The chair groaned under him, a familiar complaint from furniture that had endured decades of other men's weight and worry. He opened the journal. The handwriting was elegant, flowing, wrong—too perfect to be human, each letter formed with geometric precision that made his eyes ache if he stared too long. Like looking at something designed by a consciousness that understood calligraphy the way gravity understood falling.
*To my daughter Lily,* the first line read. *If you're reading this, you've manifested the gifts I tried so hard to suppress. I'm sorry.*
He turned the page. The basement's fluorescent tubes buzzed overhead, casting their sick light across the ancient handwriting. The letter spanned three pages in that same impossible script—Samael's confession laid out with the precision of an angel documenting his own fall. He'd been Grigori, one of the two hundred who descended in the days of Jared. Lily's mother had been Nephilim, descended from his brother Azazel through six generations. The combination made Lily something rarer than either bloodline alone.
He'd loved them. Had observed Lily for three years, taught her to walk and speak and laugh. Then the Church found him—gave him a choice between leaving and letting them live, or staying and watching them both eliminated. He'd left. Staged his death. Vanished into the spaces between realities where Grigori hide when the world remembers they exist. Had watched from those spaces as Lily grew, as her mother died, as Marcus struggled to keep her safe while becoming what he'd sworn he'd never be.
The final page described what Lily had inherited. Not just sin-sight like typical Nephilim, but something deeper: *You can see truth. Not just sins, but the threads connecting cause to effect, past to future. When you dream, you're not dreaming. You're perceiving probability matrices, watching potential futures collapse into determined outcomes.*
And at the bottom, in that same geometric script: *Use it well. Use it better than I did. And know that wherever I am, whatever I've become, I loved you enough to leave. Your father, Samael.*
Marcus closed the journal carefully. Outside, a siren wailed somewhere on Vincennes Avenue—distant, routine, the sound of a city that processed its emergencies without pausing for the ones happening in church basements. He studied Lily, who watched him with eyes that glowed faint gold—Grigori gold, not just Nephilim silver. The light pulsed with her heartbeat, faint enough that in a brighter room it would vanish, but down here in the basement's perpetual dusk it turned her irises into something luminous and not quite human.
"When did you find this?" he asked.
"Three months ago. After the fifteenth time you relocated a Nephilim community and came back smelling like bourbon and guilt. After I started dreaming specific murders with enough detail that I could have prevented them if I'd known they were real." She pulled out a sketchpad, flipped it open. "I've been documenting. Every vision, every dream, every glimpse of future probability."
The sketches were detailed, precise, disturbing. Danny Nguyen bleeding out in a containment circle—dated four days before he died. Victoria Cross singing while figures in surgical masks approached with IV equipment—dated for tonight. A massive gathering of people glowing gold, burning from the inside, their mouths open in silent agony—dated for Sunday, 2 PM, location marked as the Temple.
"You've seen all of this?"
"I've seen hundreds of timelines. Most of them end badly. Danny Nguyen dies in almost every scenario I've observed. Victoria Cross barely survives in a third of them. And Sunday—" She flipped to a page covered in predictive equations that resembled advanced mathematics more than artistic sketching. The numbers cascaded across the paper in her tight, precise hand, each figure cross-referenced with branching conditional outcomes. "Sunday kills at least seven thousand people in the best-case scenario. Worst case is complete dimensional collapse and everyone dies."
The number settled into Marcus's chest like a swallowed stone. Seven thousand. He thought of the 1,047 names he hadn't yet learned, the ones waiting somewhere in a future Lily could already see. The fluorescent lights hummed their tuneless drone, and the basement walls pressed closer.
"Five thousand simultaneous manifestations within a ritual framework—that's the real convergence threshold," Lily continued, tapping the equations. "The Church was off by three orders of magnitude. They calculated based on fear, not physics—wanted justification for genocide, not accurate measurement. Sunday's ritual hits the actual number. Ten thousand people manifesting simultaneously through interconnected Temple facilities, all channeling through a shared framework. That's not propaganda about Nephilim being dangerous. That's real cosmic physics. Michael's operation genuinely risks tearing reality if it proceeds unchecked."
Michael. The name hung in the air between them. Marcus's half-brother, the man building a temple of transcendence in Naperville—Jonathan Kane's other child, the son from a marriage Marcus had never known existed until Chen's biometrics pulled the connection from DEA files that morning. His stomach turned—a slow, sour clench below his ribs that wouldn't settle. Family. The word tasted different when it applied to someone planning to sacrifice ten thousand people.
"But there are scenarios where we win," Marcus said.
"Three point seven percent of timelines result in successful intervention with casualties under a hundred. But Uncle Marcus, those timelines all have the same requirement." She met his eyes. "I have to be there. At the Temple. During the ritual. Using my Grigori perception to identify the convergence nexus and disrupt it before dimensional barriers fail."
"Lily, you're sixteen—"
"I'm the daughter of a Watcher Angel and a six-generation Nephilim. I've been able to see probability matrices since I was twelve. I predicted Mom's death three days before it happened and couldn't stop it because I didn't understand what I was seeing yet." Her voice cracked—a hairline fracture in the composure she'd been building since she walked in. Just for a moment, the precognitive Grigori disappeared and a sixteen-year-old girl stood in her place, carrying grief that still hadn't finished settling. Then the composure returned, brick by brick. "I've spent four years learning to read these visions, understanding the patterns, working the probabilities. I'm not a child anymore, Uncle Marcus. I'm a precognitive with angelic perception, and I've learned to trust what I see."
"That still means you're wrong three-point-seven percent of the time."
"Which is better odds than you've had on any case you've worked since St. Bernardine's." She wasn't wrong. "So stop trying to protect me from myself and tell me what you came here to ask. Because I already know. You were going to request my help infiltrating the Temple, using my visions to navigate the situation, risking my life to prevent apocalypse. You were going to feel guilty about it while doing it anyway because that's what you do—make terrible choices and drink about them afterward."
His mouth opened to argue, to tell her she was wrong, he wasn't that predictable, he had other options.
But she'd just proven she could see probability timelines. She already knew what he was planning before he said it.
"The DEA wants to use you as an asset," Marcus said. The words came out flat, stripped of the diplomatic padding he'd rehearsed on the drive over. "They've identified Sunday's healing service as a mass convergence ritual. Ten thousand people taking Divinity simultaneously, forcing dimensional barriers open. You're the only person with enough Grigori perception to find the ritual's nexus and disrupt it."
"And you're conflicted because using me means accepting I'm a weapon instead of your niece. Means acknowledging that I inherited enough celestial heritage to be deployed against cosmic threats. Means becoming exactly what you swore you'd never be—someone who sacrifices children to prevent larger disasters."
The accuracy of it stung worse than the rosary burning his palm. She'd mapped his guilt with the same precision she mapped probability timelines—coldly, completely, without the mercy of leaving anything unnamed.
"When did you get so good at reading me?"
"I'm precognitive, Uncle Marcus. I don't read you—I see all possible versions of you and calculate which one is most probable based on context clues." She softened slightly, the gold dimming in her eyes to something almost warm. "Also, you're really transparent when you feel guilty. Which is always."
Despite everything, something close to a laugh pressed against the inside of his ribs. "So what do you want to do?"
"I want to help. Not because you're asking, not because the cosmic order demands it, but because I've seen what happens if I don't." She pulled out another sketch. Chicago burning, dimensional barriers shredded like wet paper, things that weren't human pouring through tears in reality—the image rendered with the clinical precision of someone documenting a future she'd already watched unfold. "This is the seven-thousand-casualty timeline. The one where I stay home and let adults handle it. Want to see the dimensional-collapse timeline? It's worse."
"I believe you."
"Good." She closed the sketchpad. "But I have conditions. First, you stop treating me like I'm fragile. I'm Grigori. I'm stronger than you, smarter than you, and can see outcomes you can't imagine. Respect that. Second, you tell me everything. No more protective lies, no more filtering information. I need complete data to make accurate predictions. Third—" She paused. The gold in her eyes steadied, became something hard and luminous and older than her years. "Third, you promise that if I die doing this, you won't spend the rest of your life drinking yourself to death over it. You'll keep fighting. Keep protecting Nephilim. Finish what Grandpa Jonathan started."
"Lily—"
"Promise, Uncle Marcus. Because in the timelines where I die and you give up, everyone loses. The work stops. The Network falls apart. Nephilim go back to being hunted. Everything we've built collapses. But in timelines where I die and you keep going, there's hope. Small, but present. So promise me you'll choose hope."
Marcus studied this sixteen-year-old girl who'd just asked him to promise he wouldn't destroy himself if she died. Who was calmly discussing her own death as a probability to be managed, the way an actuary discusses risk tables—except the numbers were her numbers, and the variable being calculated was her own extinction. She'd inherited her father's ability to see truth and was using it to save strangers. His sister's daughter. His responsibility. His weapon.
The rosary in his pocket burned against his thigh through the fabric.
"I promise," he said. "If you die, I'll keep fighting. Even if it kills me. Even if it takes decades. I'll finish the work."
"Good." She stood. "Now show me the case files. I need complete information to map intervention points for Victoria Cross's rescue tonight and Sunday's convergence disruption. Also, I'll need access to the Temple's architectural plans and any intelligence DEA has on Pastor Throne's security."
"You're really okay with this? With being used as an asset?"
"I'm not being used. I'm choosing to deploy my abilities to prevent mass casualties. There's a difference." She picked up her journal. "And Uncle Marcus? Stop feeling guilty about asking me to help. You didn't make me Grigori. You didn't give me these abilities. You're just finally acknowledging what I am and letting me use it productively. If anything, you should feel guilty about waiting three months to ask."
"When did you get so practical about cosmic horror?"
"I'm the daughter of a Watcher Angel who taught humanity forbidden knowledge and a Nephilim who could see sins. Practical about cosmic horror is basically my genetic default." She headed for the stairs, paused. "Oh, and Uncle Marcus? In most of the timelines I've seen, you start drinking before noon today. Try to be one of the exceptions. We're going to need you sharp tonight."
She left. Her footsteps faded up the stairs, and the basement door clicked shut with a sound like a verdict delivered to an empty courtroom.
Marcus sat at his desk, staring at Samael's journal. The leather cover was cracked with age, warm under his fingers in a way that had nothing to do with ambient temperature—something in the material itself radiated a faint heat, residual angelic energy leaking through the binding like light through old curtains.
Lily's father was Grigori. One of the original Watchers who'd fallen for teaching humanity secrets. That made Lily not just Nephilim but something rarer—a direct descendant of the angels who'd started this whole mess back in Genesis.
And she'd inherited her father's gift for seeing truth. For understanding the underlying patterns of reality. For threading outcome paths with the cold precision of something that existed outside of time.
His niece was a precognitive with angelic perception.
And he'd been treating her like a child who needed protection instead of an asset who could save lives.
His phone buzzed on the desk. Text from Chen.
*Sketch artist got a composite of the woman from Elysium. Matches known photos of Dr. Elizabeth Lux. Also, DEA just sent files on Pastor Throne. You should see them. They're... complicated.*
Marcus opened the attachments. Pastor Michael Throne's official biography painted him as a former megachurch associate pastor who'd started Temple of Ascension five years ago with the mission of "bringing humanity closer to divine experience."
But DEA's intelligence told a different story.
Michael Throne was born Michael Kane. Changed his name legally fifteen years ago. And before that, he'd been Jonathan Kane's son from a different marriage.
Marcus's half-brother.
The man running a megachurch that distributed Divinity was family.
The person planning to sacrifice ten thousand people was blood.
And Marcus was going to have to stop him. Maybe kill him.
Fratricide as cosmic intervention.
The Kane family tradition continued.
He pulled out the bourbon bottle from the bottom desk drawer, looked at it. The amber liquid caught the fluorescent light—warm as false promises, familiar as self-destruction. Lily's voice echoed through his skull: *most timelines.* The slim margin where he stayed sober felt like a doorway barely wide enough to squeeze through.
He put the bottle back. Pulled out his father's journal instead—one of the leather-bound volumes Jonathan had labeled his Covenant Files, the accumulated record of every pact, treaty, and agreement he'd brokered between supernatural factions and human institutions over four decades. The Bridge's institutional memory, filed in his father's cramped handwriting alongside margin notes that read like confessions. This volume held his research on Grigori bloodlines. Marcus flipped to the section on Samael.
*Samael - The Destroyer. One of the two hundred Grigori who descended in the days of Jared. Taught humanity the art of war and the inevitability of death. His bloodline manifests as precognition and truth-seeing. Descendants can perceive probability matrices and model outcome trees with near-perfect accuracy.*
*Status: Missing, presumed eliminated 2009* *Descendants: One confirmed - Lily Kane (granddaughter, through six-generation Nephilim mother)* *Threat Assessment: CRITICAL - if Lily manifests full Grigori abilities, she becomes a walking precognitive engine. Could see outcomes of cosmic interventions, navigate timelines, potentially alter destiny itself* *Protection Priority: MAXIMUM*
Jonathan had known. Had documented Lily's heritage, assessed her potential, marked her as critical priority. Had probably worked with Samael to hide him, stage his death, protect his daughter from the Church.
And had died before telling Marcus any of it.
Just another Kane family secret. Just another piece of information withheld to "protect" him. The pattern was so familiar his chest didn't even tighten anymore—no heat behind his eyes, no surge of bile. Just a flatness where the anger used to live.
Except now that protection was gone. Now Lily knew what she was. Now she'd read probability matrices and determined that helping was better than hiding.
Now Marcus had to use his precognitive niece to stop his half-brother from triggering apocalypse using a drug made from harvested Nephilim blood.
The cosmic order kept getting more complicated.
And he kept getting more compromised.
His phone buzzed again. Agent Reeves.
*Meeting at DEA office, 2 PM. Bringing all intelligence on Temple of Ascension. Also, your niece just called me. Offered to provide probability analysis for tonight's Victoria Cross extraction and Sunday's intervention. Should I accept?*
Marcus texted back: *Yes. But treat her as consultant, not asset. She's sixteen and brilliant and will know you're an idiot if you condescend to her.*
*Noted. See you at 2.*
He closed his father's journal. The leather cover held a ghost of warmth from his hands, and he pressed it flat on the desk beside Samael's journal—two documents from two dead men, their secrets finally bleeding together in the fluorescent half-light of a church basement that smelled like incense and regret.
His father had chosen. Had picked a side—Nephilim over Church, protection over obedience—and it had destroyed him. Forty years of fighting, and he'd walked into St. Bernardine's knowing he wouldn't walk out. His choosing had killed him. Had left Marcus alone in this basement with his journals and his weapons and his network of people who needed saving.
Marcus had sworn he wouldn't repeat that mistake.
The Bridge didn't choose sides. That was the whole point. Jonathan had picked the Nephilim and burned for it. The Church had picked cosmic order and became monsters enforcing it. Everyone who chose became the weapon of their own conviction, losing everything that wasn't the fight.
So Marcus had built something different. A position between all factions. A mediator who served everyone and belonged to no one. The Bridge didn't fight—it connected. Didn't judge—it facilitated. Didn't sacrifice—it negotiated.
And if that meant watching Danny Nguyen die while Marcus brokered arrangements with three different factions about who had jurisdiction over his corpse—well. That was the cost of neutrality. That was the price of keeping the system intact.
Better than choosing and burning.
Better than his father's way.
He told himself that while staring at the bourbon he hadn't drunk. Told himself that mediating between Heaven and Hell and everything between was wisdom, not cowardice. That maintaining the Bridge was more valuable than picking up a weapon and fighting for one side.
That's what he'd been telling himself for six months. Through every relocation, every compromise, every negotiated surrender that saved some Nephilim by sacrificing others. Through every late-night bourbon session where he tallied the human cost of his neutrality and decided it was acceptable because the alternative—choosing—was worse.
Lily had just looked at him with gold-glowing eyes and called him predictable.
She wasn't wrong about that either.
Marcus grabbed his coat and weapons—the battered leather jacket that had carried the weight of cosmic authority in its pockets for six months now, the sanctified kukri strapped to his ribs, the rosary wound tight around his left fist where its heat pulsed against his knuckles like a second heartbeat. He headed for the stairs.
To meet the DEA.
To plan an extraction.
To prevent a massacre.
To stop his half-brother from restarting the War in Heaven.
Just another Thursday in the life of the Bridge.
Except now he had a precognitive Grigori on his team. That improved their odds from impossible to merely improbable.
And somewhere beneath the tactical planning and the probability models, a question he didn't want to examine pressed against the inside of his skull like a migraine building behind his eyes: what happened when mediation stopped working? When the Bridge couldn't connect factions that wanted each other dead? When the only options left were choosing or watching people die?
The stairs creaked under his weight, and sunlight hit his face at the landing, and the question dissolved into the brightness without resolving—just another thing he carried out of the basement alongside the weapons and the journals and the rosary burning against his knuckles.
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