Jake

hello, my name is jake. i'm your average 17 year old american kid. 1

except for that one tiny thing:2

i'm half angel.3

some 5000 years ago, my great, great, great, etc. grandmother fell in love with a man. a man who wasn't a man. his name was Gladuriel. he was an angel. specifically, a Seraph, or in english "burning one." their story is a timeless one, filled with passion and love that almost bridged the gap between them. and as a result of that union, here i am. the crossbreed offspring of a beautiful outcast and a fallen angel. i possess powers beyond the imagination, and the accumulated intelect of my entire ancestry. i am Jakob. i am Nephilim.4

interested yet? 5

the story of my lineage is found in genesis. it is told that the sons of God were entranced by the daughters of man. some, including my ancestor, sacrificed even the halls of heaven in order to be with the women they loved. and so they descended from heaven, cast aside their divinity, and joined with the women they loved.6

and as is the way of life, children came. but these were no mere human children. as the offspring grew and matured, it became obvious that they were hardly normal. they had been granted, it seemed, a hint of angelic power. they were unnaturally strong, incredibly fast, and incredibly smart. they were the bane of all who opposed them. and when the earth flooded, and the Ark sailed, God spared their children. He led them to a cave, and sealed it. for forty days and forty nights, the Nephilim were sealed in the darkness of that cave. they neither ate, nor drank. the Lord alone sustained them. 7

and after the flood, they slowly crept free. as civilization once again flourished, they subtly rejoined it. and since that time, they, that is, we, have dwelt side by side with the humans. but the bloodline of an angel carries power. the rule was thus: you marry a non Nephilim. period. always. and to each couple, one child was born. only one child. period. always.8

but the powers, unlike the blood, were not diluted. strength remained. speed remained. intelligence remained. and other powers, the ones that were only rumored to exist, they remained as well.9

but this is not the story of my ancestors. this is not the story of rules, or Biblical events. this is my story. and it starts on a desolate mountaintop in tibet, on my sixteenth birthday:10

i hadn't yet reached the full apex of my strength, but already it was obvious that brute force would never be my specialty. because while all nephilim share some common attributes, all have their strengths and weaknesses. my father, for instance, could bench a full sized pickup. repeatedly. whereas i could, maybe, bench 340, or twice my bodyweight. not weak among humans, but among Neph, i was a shrimp. 11

but when it came to speed, i was in the top percentile of the Neph. i was 6'2", which made 170 seem positively featherlight. and so, having decided to play to my strengths, my parents had sent me to Tibet, where the last true master of the lost art of Wushu was said to dwell.12

and so, with a backpack full of my senior year textbooks, i showed up at the base of an unforgiving and harsh spire of rock. the master, i was told, dwelt at the top.13

breathe in the predictability.14

and so i climbed. for three days, i scaled cliff faces, navigated the narrowest paths, as i ascended. and after those three days, finally i arrived. my hands were bloodied and raw. my clothes were shredded, and most of my textbooks had ridden the wind to an early grave at the base of a particularly trying face. but i made it. and there was not, as i expected, a hut. even a blind man would know that wasn't a hut. it was a full blown palace. a gargantuan lodge atop a mountain. and it was in fact inhabited by only one man.15

i must admit, when they had told me a Wushu master, i had an image of a dimunitive man with a wispy white beard and a knobby cane. what i got was a man who would've had trouble buying beer without ID. i never knew his true age. but i'm told he has dwelt there for at least sixty years, and hasn't aged a day since.16

who am i to argue? my ancestor had wings and walked streets of gold.17

i spent a year there. i'll never forget the first day.18

the master told me to jump on the roof. i managed to get five feet of clearance, because i pulled my legs up as tight as possible. the master smiled, and politely told me to go to hell.19

not exactly the serene monk i had been expecting. but then again, he took two bounding steps,crouched, and blasted himself twenty feet into the air to land on the roof. so i decided that serenity must not be that important. for six hours straight, he had me jump. if my feet were on the ground longer than three seconds, the would drive a hard, remarkably sharp fist into my stomach. 20

and so i jumped. for six hours i maintained a constant state of repeating motion. my head ached, my legs ached worse, and my stomach was covered in a solid bruise from repeated impacts.21

i didn't take the time to eat or bathe. i fell into the pallet prepared for me fully clothed, and slept. for the next two weeks, that was all we did. three hours of calisthenics and flexibility exercises, six hours of jumping, and two hours of chores. two hearty meals a day. and all the rest i spent sleeping. then we moved on to martial theory, striking, and combat, coupled with advanced agility training and balance work. for an entire year, it was my life.22

but the rest of that story is for another time. because the tale i seek to tell here starts the day i returned from tibet. i stepped off of a plane in boston on october 17th, a different person than i had left as. i had taken the iron speed Given me and forged it into a steel ability to move. spiderman had nothing on me. hollywood nijas couldn't touch me. 23

a normal man, through diligent study of wushu, can become an exceptional man. he can learn to jump higher than others. he can learn to generate the striking force of a 300 pound prizefighter in three inches. he can become a superman.24

but when a superman devotes himself, heart, mind, and soul, to its pursuit, he becomes more. and i had truly become more. at least that's what i was thinking, sitting outside of the airport, waiting on my ride. 25

and this is the second beginning of my story. because that was where i first met Kendylee. 26

and the demon that stalked her.27

i was sitting there, a single duffel bag with a few changes of clothes and a gun. 28

see, we Neph aren't old-fashioned. we are as capable with firearms as our forefathers were with blades. wich is why i had the gun that had riddin across the world with me. it was a Customized Ruger Vaquero in .45 long colt. it was my gun. given to me on my fifteenth birthday. it never left my side. i was an expert with it in every way imaginable. i could fire it upside down, sideways, right or left handed, even while airborne, as stupid as that sounded. even while on the mountain,i had made time to train with it. and i'd discovered something: the unique mixture of dexterity and speed that wushu taught was perfectly suited to single-action shooting. the same practice that taught me to snake a blow through enemy defenses, and pinpoint pressure points also allowed me to draw faster, and shoot with a higher level of instinct. i was always a good shot, but by the time i came down off that mountain, i was something else. i could go from standing flat footed to a thirty foot lateral leap, while still being able to place six shots into a 3" group. so that's why i had the gun.29

its' name was Josheb, a man who was my direct ancestor. according to the records, he once killed 800 men in a single battle. seemed fitting.30

and then i saw her...31