Listen, my little one, because I'm going to tell you a story.

At the beginning of time, the gods descended to Earth and joined the daughters of mortals. From their union were born the first Nephili, the High Breed, to which you belong. For centuries they walked on the Earth, expelled from Paradise due to their illegitimate birth, and lived among mortals, passing onto them their wisdom. But mortals were capricious and fickle, so, tired of them, the Blessed founded a city in the land of Cappadocia to live, a city which they called Eden.

They struggled to survive for centuries, as the mortals considered them as deadly demons, and although their power was immense, they were finally defeated by an infamous mortal Order called the Lux Veritatis. Those damned chased them relentlessly until almost eliminating them. The last Nephilim, whose mortal name was Joachim Karel, was perhaps the most illustrious of them all. He was your father, my child. With his prolific seed I fecundated my uterus so that a successor would avenge him and continue his great work. For he, who was immortal, was brutally murdered by the last of the Lux Veritatis, a cruel and disgusting man who treacherously killed him using the only weapon that could hurt him: the Periapt Shard. That man was named Kurtis Trent.

Kurtis Trent. You must remember that name. I've spent sleepless nights repeating his name silently to torment me and wishing with all my forces that the fates kept him alive. Praying that he lived to see him again... and kill him. Kill him by giving him the slowest and most excruciating death you can imagine, because he took away my only purpose in life, the reason for my existence, the only being who I truly loved in this world. But in the end it won't be me who will execute him. It will be you, angelic creature, Daughter of Heaven.

It will be you, my child, to make that bastard fall on his knees, to crush and humiliate him, to make him pay with his blood the bloodshed of the Blessed One. And I'll behold from afar my revenge. And then no one will be stronger than us, and nobody will ever crush us.

May Kurtis Trent have one hundred and a thousand of deaths in a row, one after another.

May I be present in every one of them.

And only then my anger will be quenched, and justice will be served.

But Joachim, my beloved Joachim ... nobody will ever bring him back to me.

Prologue

"You're the cutest among creatures." Giselle Boaz whispered in her daughter's ear while gently combing her hair.

The girl looked in the mirror and saw the reflection of her mother's face, full of pride and excitement, then looked at herself and saw nothing but a white, small face, with green intense eyes, and dark hair framing her oval face, falling in locks on her tiny shoulders.

She looked like a seven-year-old girl, but she'd been born just two months ago. If she'd have been allowed to meet other children, she'd already have realized how unnatural and impossible her brutal and precipitous growth was. But her mother kept her hidden from the world as one hides a treasure, and in her short time of life she hadn't met anyone else but her, Giselle, the angel-faced one.

Her mental growth was even faster than the physical one, and although she sensed that there was more world than that lonely farm in the countryside of Argentina and her diaphanous mother, she also had renounced to ask questions, as they were rarely answered.

"Mother, why are we always alone?"

"We're one for each other. We don't need anyone else."

"But what about Father?"

"You have no mortal father. You're pure as an angel and I conceived you without sin."

The girl barely understood what that meant. She pretended to be satisfied with the answers she gave to her, but that wasn't enough.

"You're so beautiful, my child." Giselle repeated, while stroking her hair. In her green eyes - green as her daughter's, green as her deceased sister's, there was a flash of indulgence. She turned to look herself in the mirror, but she saw nothing special in her tiny face.

Three days after, people arrived at the farm. She was so excited - she was finally going to meet someone!

Unfortunately, everything she felt was disappointment when finding a trio of dark characters. One was a tall and stern man, with a square jaw and thick moustache. The other man was short and bald, and the third was a toothless and horrible old lady, who covered her grey hair with a dark veil, as black as her dress.

"Who are they?" the girl stammered.

Giselle ignored her and said: "Be welcome. This is my daughter."

The newcomers looked with admiration at the tiny little person, and she realized that since they had entered they hadn't given a single look at Giselle.

"For all that is holy, Boaz." The bald man whispered. "This time you've outdone yourself."

"She resembles your sister." Croaked the horrible old lady. "Although she's much more beautiful. Really perfect. How did you get it?"

"Shut up, Gertrude!" The stern man snapped, and turning to Giselle, he said, "you're crazy. It was a too risky experiment. Why on earth did you use yourself for...?"

"What did you expected me to do, Schäffer? You fled from Moscow at full speed, you bunch of cowards. I was left alone and if I'd stayed in Europe they would've found me."

What were they talking about? The little girl looked at them in astonishment. Catching her glance, the old lady called Gertrude cut the discussion and said: "Enough. We've come to fulfil the ritual. The blade is sharp and the altar ready."

The girl didn't enjoyed those words at all.

What she never would've expected was that her mother could take part in that.

Giselle suddenly seemed tense, but allowed the man called Schäffer to grab her daughter and take her to a bedroom where Gertrude was preparing an altar covered with red velvet. The girl wondered from where they had taken that.

She got carried to the altar. The burly man stood up and sat her on it - then forced her to lie down. She was too stunned to resist.

"Mother!" She screamed, scared, turning to Giselle, but she didn't move, pale and weak, her arm held by the bald man.

Gertrude began to chant a litany in a strange language which the girl didn't understand, but sounded inexplicably familiar to her. Touching her clothing, the old woman opened the fabric and drew a long, sharp blade with a golden handle. The girl noticed her own terrified face reflected in the blade.

Finally she found the strength to rebel. With a cry of horror she struggled, but Schäffer held her tightly. "Mother! Don't let them kill me! They'll kill me!"

Gertrude bent over her body while her chant became louder and louder, and despite the child's pangs, the sentence ended as she plunged the blade into her chest with an almost imperceptible movement.

A scream tore the air, but it hadn't been the little child who had shouted, but Giselle. Everything was on hold. Schäffer and Gertrude moved away from the altar in silence.

The girl had barely felt a brief flash of pain. She sat up on the altar, and tore the blade from her chest, throwing it to the ground. In doing so, a jet of white liquid flowed from the wound, but gradually reduced itself and before the others' enraptured gaze, the wound closed and remained intact.

Giselle had regained her color in the meantine. Everyone looked amazed, but the little one just wanted to scream, to tell them they were evil and reproach her mother for doing nothing to defend her - which she couldn't, because all them, falling on their knees at once, excited, muttered: "It's true! You're so! We revere you, Lady."

"What am I?" The girl said, and threw a furious look at Giselle, who wept with emotion. "Mother! I hate these people! Tell them to go!"

But Giselle crawled on her knees to where she was, took her hands and kissed them with devotion, murmuring: "My child! You're immortal! Do you hear me? Immortal!"