Tremors rattled her body as she continued. “Uriel feared Gabriel might use the Earth-side gate to assault us from the rear, so he ordered it sealed. He sent me out to seek help just before Eden was locked down.”

“That’s where your groupies come in?” I gestured to the street.

She nodded. “A number of the Nephilim were camped out on the Earth-side of Eden. They attacked me as I came through. Wounded as I was by Gabriel’s onslaught, I barely made it past them.” Her voice cracked on the last, as if unable to believe she’d nearly been killed.

I shuddered, thinking about all the possible reasons for them being there. The Nephilim were the bastard sons and daughters of angels and humans; the mutts of the supernatural world. Kind of like me, only a little further down in the pecking order, if you can believe that.

Barred entrance to Heaven due to their impure bloodlines and dubious conceptions, they were often spiteful. They sided with demons to cause trouble for the Angelic Choir whenever they had the chance. If you saw one, you could be assured havoc would follow.

They trended toward the lower ranges of power, inheriting only a miniscule portion of their angelic parents’ magical abilities. They were far tougher than humans, though much less so than most angels and demons. What they lacked in brute power, they made up for in numbers. There had to be tens of thousands of them roaming the planet, perhaps even more now that God wasn’t around to curb their reproduction.

“How many were there?”

“I didn’t have time to count, but I’d guess a hundred or so, maybe more.”