by JK Cooper
Mareus leaned back in the chair and its soft leather sighed under his shifting weight. “You do not understand, I think. The Advent is not about destroying mankind, but elevating mankind.”
Whatever helps you sleep at night, Sadie thought just to herself.
“Eira-mit-Thyra,” Mareus said with a voice that sounded like he had just swallowed sand, “is a means to the destruction of Earth.”
Yeah, Shelby told us about her name from another world. I’ve wanted to check her medicine cabinet for a while now.
“She did not make that up, but she did not share the whole truth with you I think. Let me show you, little one. Or, let Athena show you. She was not there but, as an Omega, she can transmit my mental images to you. Please. Let her in.”
Well how about that for being called out? Feculence. What to do, what to do . . . How do I let her in without her turning me into a mindless zombie follower? You know about Cotard’s syndrome, right?
Otto started to say something about insolence but Mareus held up a hand, and his lieutenant fell silent.
“She will only be a conduit to the truth I show you.” Mareus leaned forward and steepled his hands. “I swear it by the Five Rivers.”
What will I see? Sadie asked.
“Blood. Ashes. Death. But life and truth as well. You will see things as they are. This is what you want, yes? Behind your feistiness and brittle façade of humor, you want meaning. Tell me I am wrong, Sadie. Tell me you do not yearn for something more than you know. Tell me the reason you try to escape into your fiction novels is not because you secretly hope the worlds you find there are real, and that this life is the fiction. Tell me you do not want to understand why you are really here, and where you belong.”
Sadie’s mouth went dry. She let down her defenses. Athena’s touch surged into her mind, and it felt as if something within her head tore as Mareus poured images and scenes into her.
It was so real. She tasted the air of a foreign world, felt the ground beneath her feet—she was human in the vision—smelled the smoke in the air, and felt the intense heat of the fires around her on her skin as people screamed. They rushed past her as their homes burned, fleeing into the forests. Evil men chased them, cutting those who fled down with swords, beating them with cudgels. Even women and children.
Wolves attacked the evil men, buying time for the villagers to escape into the forest. Sadie turned and saw Mareus, younger than he was now, with a wolf by his side. Viersin. An Immortal Wolf. Sadie squirmed and tried to come out of the memory, but Athena held her mind firm, almost forcing her to watch.
Mareus wore a simple shirt with trousers, his face smudged with dirt and ashes. As Viersin warded off enemies that approached too closely, a sword took Mareus in the side. The boy collapsed, and Viersin tore apart the man who had struck Mareus down.
The vision altered, and she saw Mareus writhing in pain with two people—his parents—kneeling beside him. Daeglan and Thyra, Mareus’s voice told her. Your Kale and Shelby. My parents, once upon a time. Even in his other life, Kale was undeniably hot.
Good job, Sadie scolded herself. You’re getting proof of life on another world and your hormones do the talking. For defecation’s sake! A wolf sat beside Thyra—Eira—and another beside Daeglan—Skotha. And yet another blow to her self-esteem. Why couldn’t Sexy Lexi be an Immortal Wolf? Perhaps Otto was right; she wasn’t worthy. But the idiot German didn’t have one either, so . . .
Sadie saw how Viersin sacrificed his sovereignty to save Mareus, and she found herself respecting the nobility of that decision. It could not have been easy. I’d have a hard time giving up control of my own body for someone else.
You see, Sadie, Mareus said in her mind. I am the First, and there is power in that, in the making of something new. I am the Prime of our race.
Again, the vision shifted, and Sadie saw rivers turn red as the Lycan race spread across Alsvoira. The humans banded together and swore vows to each other, vows to find the Isluxua and stop the rise of the Lycans.
Then Sadie saw Thyra clad in a strange type of armor. She really does look exactly like Shelby. Eira, still by her side, healed the Sköllaer as they attacked human villages and settlements. Mareus, in the form of Viersin, tore into battlements and soldiers, tearing chunks of wood, armor, and flesh. Men screamed. Eira did not heal them.
Thyra took three crossbow bolts to the chest. She fell. Daeglan ripped the bolts from her and lifted his wife, hugging her to his chest. Eira, seeing the injuries were beyond her ability to heal, howled a solemn note, and bit her chosen human. They became one.
Daeglan, kneeling before his changed mate, looked at Skotha. The large wolf’s jaws dripped with the viscera of their enemies. Daeglan rose and charged the enemy lines with reckless abandon, slashing and smashing, crushing chests with one gauntleted hand. He spun farther into the horde while Skotha struggled to keep up.
A spear took Daeglan in the stomach. He groaned but did not go down. Skotha killed the spearman, and took an arrow to one of his hindlegs. Daeglan tore it free and his wolf healed almost instantly. Three men rushed Daeglan. Two crawled away with broken limbs, but the third found an opening, thrusting a dagger under his armpit and deep into his chest. Daeglan bellowed a short yell, then sank to his knees. He grabbed the man by the head, dagger still impaled in his side, and broke his neck.
Sadie flinched at the raw violence.
The Sköllaer pushed their advance and broke the human lines, forcing them to retreat. Eira came to Daeglan’s side, staring at Skotha. Viersin joined them and shifted back to Mareus. He was not a boy any longer, but a young man, much the way he was now.
“Do it,” Mareus said. “Skotha, you must.”
Eira-mit-Thyra whined. Skotha heaved with the adrenaline of battle.
“It’s okay,” Daeglan said. “I accept my fate. Keep your sovereignty.”
But, for the love of his human and the human his own mate had joined with, Skotha could not let him die. He bit Daeglan’s thigh and let the venom of change drip down his fangs into the wound. Daeglan grimaced, his neck muscles going taut. The magic of the union did its work.
The vision changed again, and Sadie felt as if she were floating high above this strange world. She witnessed turmoil spread over the planet, the oceans turn black, and the clouds red, raining blood. A temple came into focus with a book on its altar, and Sadie recognized it immediately as the one Mareus was always reading.
Thyra stood beside the altar, bent over a beautiful woman beyond Sadie’s ability to describe. She was dead. Thyra took the Isluxua from the altar, but Mareus grabbed her hand.
“No,” he said. “You must not.”
The vision turned blurry, the sounds muted, but Sadie understood that a conflict occurred that she could not make out. Thyra descended the steep steps of the temple with the Isluxua, Daeglan running beside her. Their son, Mareus, lay across the altar of the temple, bleeding.
The events that followed shook Sadie. She saw her best friend in her former life reaping destruction and havoc with such brutality, the Isluxua in her grasp as she and Daeglan spread their forces across the lands of the world.
Then, Sadie saw Thyra kill with nothing more than a thought. Men and women fell before her without a mark on them, just blank eyes.
She unlocked the first key of Ascension before coming to Earth, Mareus told her. Wherever Thyra stepped, grass turned to straw, fertile soil to stone. She left a trail of bloody footprints as she walked. And the screams!
He shared the screams with her, complete with the faces of the dead and dying. Terror made Sadie clutch at her ears. Her heart felt as if it would burst free from her rib cage, and she wished it would if it would end the carnage she saw before her. Mercifully, the vision ended.
Sadie lay on her side in the study, hugging her knees to her chest. She did not know when she had shifted back to her human form, but the shock of what she had experienced, not just witnessed, took the shame of her nudity away. A single tear welled on the s
ide of her nose then spilled over to the wooden floorboard.
One thing she knew. Shelby Brooks must not become the Summer Omega. Sadie heard the smile in Athena’s words. “She is yours, Father. Completely.”
She began to layer her defenses once more, giving Athena and Mareus a semblance of her being open to them, while regaining her control. Elias gave you a mission. But could she complete it after what she had seen? Elias trusted you.
Mareus put a hand on her head. “Sleep now, child.”
Sadie closed her eyes. Mareus’s words came back to her from before the vision. “. . . a conduit to the truth I show you . . . to the truth I show you . . .” Was there more than one truth? What happened to you after I saw you on the altar? Sadie wondered to herself. He had not died, obviously, but was suspiciously absent from the vision thereafter. A voice, distant but discernable, came to her mind.
Do you trust me, Sadie?
Elias. She nodded slowly. But do you know what you’ve asked of me?
No reply came. She wasn’t sure Elias could hear her.
“Sleep,” Mareus again said, and Sadie let her eyes slowly fall closed. Sadie waited a full two minutes after she heard the door shut, and then her eyes snapped wide open. Her gaze floated over to the ancient book on the desk.
Yes, Elias. I do trust you.
Sadie ran as fast as her wolf body would take her, the Isluxua slung over her back. She kept seeing flashes of movement behind her as the sun began to rise, hearing snapping branches and padding feet on sand. And I’m being followed already. She bet it was Otto. No way he trusted me, even after the vision quest thingy.
She was masking her scent but masking the scent of something you carried was a harder accomplishment. She could smell the old leather and parchment leaking from her satchel. She tried to adjust her scent to counteract it. Rubbing her coat against branches while giving off strange pheromones and bizarre olfactory cocktails meant to confuse.
The snarling growl she heard behind her a minute later confirmed her suspicions about who followed her. She whipped around, letting her momentum still carry her forward as she spun in the air and lashed out at the huge black wolf. Her claws raked his snout, and she continued her aerial spin to land perfectly, then sprinted faster. Nice one, Lexi! You go girl!
Otto snarled, gnashing at her legs. She felt his hot breath on her coat, which released a new sheen of sweat from her spine.
He’s going to catch me.
He shouldn’t have been this fast, not for his size.
She jacked into the pack link, knowing her abrupt reconnection would be jolting to Elias.
Help!
Otto lashed out a powerful paw, catching her hindquarters and sending her sprawling.
Grant Brooks, former Delta Force Special Operator and werewolf Hunter, stared at the encrypted satellite phone in front of him. He knew if he used it he might be exposing his daughter's pack to more danger than they already faced. Worse, he knew he may drive an irreparable wedge between him and his daughter.
They may not even answer, he thought. They may just ignore me. Or, they might use his contact as a reason to seek retribution against him. Do I dare kick that hornets’ nest?
He had abandoned the Hunter order mid-mission after falling in love with Moriahna, Shelby's mother. Of course, Moriahna had also been his assigned target in that mission. And instead of fulfilling your mission, you married her.
Do I feel any shame for not completing my mission? For loving Moriahna? He had wondered both many times. But to feel shame would mean regretting his life with Moriahna before the cancer took her, regretting Shelby—and there was no power in heaven or hell that could make him regret his daughter.
He had just listened to the cleaned-up recordings from Gennesaret’s signal expert at the NSA. The analyst wrote a note, saying it was the strangest thing he had ever heard and took some serious algorithms to filter out most of the interference. After hearing the adjusted recordings, Grant knew powers now swelled that caused even him to fear. Prophecies he had studied as a Hunter, but believed to be apocryphal, now materialized. The Alpha Prime, his former order's ultimate target, had revealed himself. And somehow, the most feared aspect of what the Hunters fought against seemed to be rising in his very daughter.
The Summer Omega prophecies were the ultimate boogey man for Hunters.
Their projections of Lycan bloodlines had indeed made startling predictions of Moriahna's genetic potential. It’s more than genetic potential though, Grant thought. How can genetics predict something like this? Magical reincarnation crap? I think not.
Somehow, through a secretive process that he was not privy to, the order had identified his dead wife's bloodline as highly conducive to the conditions required to foster prophetic fulfillment.
“In other words,” Grant muttered to himself, “your blood contained a high concentration of magical DNA, Moriahna.” The words came out with a good dose of dark sarcasm.
Sherman had been right, though. Grant understood what the Hunters thought it meant if Shelby became the Summer Omega, but he also knew the Hunters didn’t know everything.
Prophecies can be misunderstood . . . or come to pass in unforeseen ways. At least twice over the centuries the Hunters had claimed to find and kill the vaunted Summer Omega, stopping the prophecy from being fulfilled.
But the prophecy had not been stopped. The Alpha Prime was real. The Advent was real. And all of it was here. Now!
And Grant had helped usher the prophecies to the brink, for he was Shelby’s father. A former Hunter, protecting her into an age where she could manifest late. Oh, the dark irony played havoc with his emotions. He loved his daughter more than life itself, prophesied anathema be damned.
But, whether the Copelands realized it or not, they needed help. He imagined how this conversation might go with Shelby, how she would inevitably see him inviting Hunters — those who had just weeks before kidnapped her and killed several of her pack — to meet with her. Don’t forget they also tried to kill you, he reminded himself.
“Terra enim semper.” He repeated the Hunter motto. Always for Earth. “Fidelium hominum.” The faithful of humanity.
Grant snatched up the satellite phone and turned it on. After punching in a code, he heard three tones signifying the line was secure. A voice came over the handset. “Code in.”
Grant took a deep breath. There was no going back if he answered.
“Code in,” the tinny voice repeated.
“Operator four one niner. Iron Ice. Mission: Free Fall. Status: Failure.”
The other end of the line crackled with a pregnant pause. He had just given the name of his last mission’s call sign from nineteen years earlier, along with his operator number and code name. He had been given the name for his stature, strength, and color of his eyes, pale blue. Just when he was sure the line would go dead, the voice returned.
“Sit rep?” The request was for a situation report.
“Eyes on Paramount. Repeat, eyes on Paramount.”
The line again went silent but for the crackling static. After nearly a minute of tense waiting, Grant heard the response.
“Hold for transfer.”
Again came the three flat tones, repeating every ten seconds. A new voice came on the line, one he was familiar with. It was not a warm reception, but he had not expected one.
“Authenticate,” the new voice said.
Grant heard the thumping of helicopter blades in the background. “Operator four one niner. Iron Ice.”
He knew their systems were doing a higher-level identification process, trying to authenticate his voiceprint. They would have already captured his satellite phone’s unique International Mobile Equipment Identity Number and confirmed it was his old unit.
“Tell me where you are, traitor,” the voice said, “and I’ll have a team there in twenty-four hours to carry out your execution.”
“You know where I am, Jack,” Grant replied. “And you know your team would be dead a ha
lf hour after they landed.”
Jack Wilstead was the head of the Hunter order for the Western Hemisphere. He did not sit in some office surrounded by mahogany wood paneling, smoking cigars. The old cuss was someone Grant had always respected, both for his physical ability in the field as well as his ability to lead. If there was one person Grant did not want to fight in hand-to-hand combat, it was Jack Wilstead.
“Like the last unit we sent to your location?”
“Yes, the unit you sent here is dead.”
Several moments passed. “We know. Sherman was found pinned to the concrete floor by a knife through his neck. I recognized the knife.”
There was no use denying it. “Yes, I killed him. Call it retribution. Keep the knife. I’ve already ordered a new one from Fallen Oak Forge.”
Grant thought he heard a mumbled curse through the static.
“What do you want?” Jack demanded.
“I have eyes on Paramount.”
“I don’t believe you. All our reports indicate he is in the north. Most of our forces are mobilizing there.”
Grant gripped the sat phone tighter. “It’s a diversion. I’m telling you, Jack, he’s here.”
“Clarify ‘eyes on’.”
“First hand,” Grant said. “Do I really need to spell it out for you?”
“How first hand?”
Grant punched a wall. “Certainty at 100%. Voice recordings. Self-proclamation. Other hostiles confirm authentication independently.”
“Forgive me if I’m finding it difficult to trust someone who betrayed the Lord’s Errand because he couldn’t keep his little pecker in check and spawned a little pup of his own!”
Grant gripped the phone so tight he heard the plastic crack. “If you’re done braying like a jackass, Jack, maybe you can attempt to listen and understand what I’m telling you. The Alpha Prime is here. In Lansborough, Texas. His name is Mareus. His lieutenant is Otto. I’m sure you’ve heard those names by now. How would I know them?”
Jack went silent again for a long moment. “Let’s say I believe you. Why would you tell me this?”
