Ancient Evil (The First Genocide Book 1)

by Griffiths, Brent J.

  “Good day today, Angus?” Finn asked.

  “Aye.”

  “Jonni and I are going to the ball tonight at Old Hall. Are you coming?”

  Angus shook his head.

  “Could you keep an eye out for Jonni? If he comes in can you let him know I am upstairs getting ready?”

  “Aye.”

  “Yes, an eye. Can you keep an eye out for him?”

  Angus opened his mouth and then narrowed his eyes at him and turned back to the TV.

  Almost got him, thought Finn.

  He was in his tuxedo heading down the stairs when he saw Jonni coming out of his room in his kilt and jacket. He looked a little like a toad in a skirt: short, stocky, bulging eyes. “Ah, don’t you look pretty,” Finn said.

  “Fuck you. You’re just jealous that you aren’t a Scot and don’t get all the shiny silver buttons and such.”

  “Um, no, I’m not jealous and I am a Scot. I speak like this because I went to a good school. I just don’t like wearing skirts, thanks very much.”

  “Um, yes you fuckin’ are jealous, you sound English and you are probably ashamed of the size of your cock and that is why you don’t want to wear a kilt,” replied Jonni.

  “Please tell me you’re not wearing your kilt in the, shall we say, traditional manner,” Finn said. Jonni smiled and lifted the front of his kilt. Finn flinched and turned away. He gave his shoulders a little shake. “You know you don’t have to prove it to anyone who asks.”

  “Aye, but it’s way more fun this way.”

  “Let’s just agree to disagree and leave. Alright?”

  “No way am I agree’n to anything. Let’s go.”

  “It seems like your hip flask is fully functional. Give me a swig.”

  It took them about half an hour to find Bex and her friends at the Ball. Finn had tried to nonchalantly examine every girl with dark hair to determine if she was Bex. People looked different in fancy clothes and makeup. Jonni not so nonchalantly examined every female to determine if there were any impending nipslips.

  When Finn finally saw Bex across the ballroom floor he caught his breath. She looked fabulous in a little black dress and her usual cherry red Doc Martins. Her dress suited her slim figure and displayed just the right amount of cleavage: visible, but not in danger of a Chernobyl; there would be no fallout.

  Finn looked over at Jonni. Jonni’s mouth was slightly open. He became aware of Finn’s attention and looked back with a start then said, “Ah man, the beast is stirring in my pants.”

  “Classy,” said Finn. “And untrue. You’re not wearing pants, remember?” said Finn. “Let’s go over. Try not to embarrass me too much.”

  “Look, it’s not my fuckin’ problem you get embarrassed easily.”

  “Actually, I have a remarkably high embarrassment threshold. That’s why I am the only one who hangs around with you.”

  Jonni pouted and said, “Mean.”

  They walked over to Bex and her friends.

  “Hiya, Bex,” Finn said awkwardly, quietly.

  Bex did not hear him.

  Jonni muttered, “Oh for fuck’s sake,” under his breath and punched Finn in the arm, hard.

  “Hiya, Bex,” Finn said, louder. At least his voice did not crack.

  Bex turned and smiled warmly. His heart lurched in his chest.

  “Hello, boys,” she said playfully and put her hand on Finn’s shoulder and pulled him into her circle of friends. “Finn, Jonni, this is Lindsay, and of course you both know Diana.”

  Jonni nodded his head at Diana and said, “Duchess.” Dianna scowled back.

  Lindsay was a heavy girl and, unlike Bex, she was in danger of spilling out of her gown. “So this is Finn. Nice to meet you, Finn.” She turned to Jonni and looked him up and down. “I’m glad you’re here, Jonni, was it?” she asked. He nodded. “We were hoping you could help us to clear up that old urban myth about what a Scot wears under his kilt.”

  Jonni turned slightly to Finn and half shrugged in apology. Then he turned back to Lindsay and bent forward to grab the hem of his kilt.

  Finn and Bex were hot and breathless from the Ceilidh that Jonni had claimed to hate. Finn now knew the little bastard had manipulated him into going to the Ball from the start. Jonni knew every dance and had taught Finn, Bex and Lindsay the steps to the Dashing White Sergeant and Strip the Willows. When Jonni started to snog Lindsay, Finn and Bex quietly slipped away.

  Finn got some drinks from the bar and they sat at a table in the sterile, brightly lit cafeteria. Bex was flushed and laughing. “I can’t believe she’s kissing him. I thought she was going to punch him in the face when he flashed her.”

  “Maybe she saw something she liked. She certainly didn’t seem to mind the rash,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

  “Finn!” she said, pretending to be scandalized. “Oh the rash,” she covered her face with her hands for a second. “I was hoping I imagined that part.”

  “Nice imagination you have there.”

  “Finn!” she said again, actually scandalized this time.

  “You know, he does have a certain charm, and no matter what he or anyone else says, his heart is in the right place.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it,” she said. “So, Finn, where do you call home?”

  “This is my home for now.”

  “What, Old Hall? This is an all-female hall.”

  “Uh, no, I mean that I live here in town.”

  “Oh, um, no family around then?”

  “My parents died in a car accident when I was young.”

  “I’m sorry, I had no idea,” she said.

  “No really, not problem, I don’t even really remember them. I was raised by my grandmother, until she passed away when I was fourteen. I was away at University by then, so I have just being living at various universities since then. The trust fund my parents left me means I can just study as long as I want to. I’m going to have to leave academia sometime, I suppose. But not yet; I like it here.”

  “Yeah, it could be worse. So, how young were you when you first went to University?”

  “I started at Cambridge when I was thirteen, well, almost thirteen.”

  “Wow, what does a thirteen-year-old do at University, anyway?”

  “Grow up fast. You develop a thick skin too. People try to treat you normally, but you can see it in their eyes that they think you are a freak.”

  “There’s that freak word again. You said that the other night. You shouldn’t put yourself down like that.”

  “I used to think I was putting myself down, but then I realized everyone is a freak in their very own special way. It is just more obvious in some of us. That is what makes us special. And the special ones need to stick together.”

  “Hmmm, I suppose this explains your tolerance of the intolerable Mr. Brown?”

  “That is part of the reason, but it’s more than that. I met Jonni four years ago when I was going through my physics phase.”

  “Your physics phase?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I have been at Uni for eight years now. I started out in Maths like most so-called academic prodigies, then became really interested in Quantum Physics, theories of action at a distance and entanglement, that sort of thing. That led of course to my current disreputable field of study, Parapsychology.”

  “Of course. Obviously,” she said with a flourish and an eye roll.

  He flushed a little. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be pompous. Anyway, when I was studying physics, Jonni was an undergrad in my some of my classes. He did not seem to have any friends either. There were some people who hung out with him, but they weren’t his friends. They kept him around to have someone to make fun of, the same sort of people who made fun of me. I observed him and I noticed that, while he seemed completely oblivious to social niceties, he was actually really sharp and just pretended to be oblivious as a way of giving himself a shield to say some vicious, biting comments to the bastards who tormented us. He eventually got bored
of them and we started to hang out. You know, he has really helped me with my lack of self-confidence.”

  “You are going to have to forgive me, Finn, but I don’t think he is doing a great job.” She smiled to take the sting out of the comment.

  “You think I am shy now? You should have seen me before Jonni Brown walked into my life.”

  “OK, OK. I get it; he is not a sexist, xenophobic toad, just a misunderstood shy boy like you.”

  “Let’s not go too far now. He is a sexist toad, he just has a shiny side too. Enough about me … how about you? How did you end up here in Old Hall with the Wee Marys?”

  “Offensive! What if I’m a Wee Mary, or my friends are? You may have just blown your chances.”

  “Well, the way I see it, I should be safe. If you don’t consider yourself a Wee Mary, you won’t be offended. On the other hand, if you do consider yourself a Wee Mary, I am guessing that you probably think of it a reverse ‘too cool for school’ type of label, like ‘Hey, look at me I’m a Wee Mary, I’ve never kissed a boy and I’m proud of it’.”

  She looked at him for a few seconds then said, “Do you have a fucking theory for everything?”

  “Well, interestingly enough …” he said.

  She cut him off. “I grew up in Cardiff. Pretty boring story, really. Parents not divorced, an older brother who lives in America. Oh, and I have an abiding love of rock climbing.”

  “Rock climbing, really? That is interesting.”

  “And the rest isn’t.”

  “Sorry, not what I meant.”

  “I’m teasing you.”

  Finn plowed on, “So … you study Evolutionary Genetics. What exactly is that?”

  “I am trying to figure out what happened to the Neanderthals.”

  “Huh?”

  “OK, here’s the deal, Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis co-existed for a hundred to two hundred thousand years, and then, boom, forty thousand years ago the Neanderthals start to disappear and are extinct about five thousand years later.”

  “I thought I read somewhere that they were wiped out by an ice age or something,” he said.

  “That may have played a part, but I don’t think that is the whole answer because their extinction was so sudden. I think we killed them. I think we raped their women, and I think it was the first genocide perpetrated by our species.”

  “Wow, that’s sad and more than a little scary. Why would we live in peace for hundreds of thousands of years and then suddenly wipe them out?”

  “I don’t know, but I want to see if we can find out. We have a lot of work to gather evidence to support the theory. For example, did we change at about the same time that the Neanderthals started to die out? If so, how did we change? Did we breed with Neanderthals? Once the Human Genome Project wraps up we should have a lot more to go on. In the meantime, we are running gene studies on early man and Neanderthal samples to get some more insight into what happened.”

  They sat in silence for a couple of minutes and then Bex broke the somber mood.

  “So, I joined this club at the Freshers Fair at the start of the year, the Alternative Sports Club. They are doing an event next weekend. Do you want to go?”

  “Alternative? How alternative?”

  “I think it is a piercing marathon. You know, we go to Dundee and everyone gets something pierced in every tattoo parlor we pass.”

  He just looked at her, eyebrows raised.

  “I’m just kidding. Your face! You should see it.” She laughed a little. “They are trekking into the Cairngorms with sledges. I think they are planning on staying overnight in a bothy, climb a mountain in the morning and toboggan back down. It should be fun.”

  “If you say so. What’s a bothy, anyway?”

  “It’s like a little house out in the hills that provides shelter for travelers. Don’t worry, it’s free. Come on, I paid three quid to join the club and I am going to go on an event.”

  “Sure, let’s go,” he said uneasily.

  “Brilliant! Want to dance again? I think I just saw your pal stumble off to the toilet so we should be safe from his flailing arms. How can he still dance when he can’t even walk straight?”

  She looked over her shoulder at the dance floor. When she turned back, their faces were inches apart. Finn leaned forward to kiss her but she pulled back.

  He pulled back too, hurt.

  “I am so sorry, Finn. I like you. I like you a lot, but I have a boyfriend back home.”

  “A boyfriend.” His tone was flat.

  “Yes, I meant to tell you earlier, but there never seemed to be a good time to just bring it up. To tell you the truth, Brian and I have been drifting apart.”

  “Brian.”

  “Yes, his name is Brian. We have been going out for five years or so. Even though I think it is going to end, it hasn’t yet, so it wouldn’t feel right to kiss someone else.”

  “Sure, no problem, no kissing. Got it.”

  “Look if I do break up with him, you will probably be a big part of the reason.” She reached out and grabbed his hand. “Finn, please just give me a little time; let’s take it slow and hang out. Can we do that?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  Old Hall had hired a psychic as part of the entertainment. The Old Hall Ball planning committee had set up a makeshift tent under the stairs.

  As Finn and Bex walked past it, she said, “Come on, let’s get our fortune told. It’ll be a laugh.”

  Finn pulled back a little. “I really shouldn’t. You know, with my field of study, I need to avoid the appearance of supporting this type of thing. I must appear objective, you see.”

  Bex blew a raspberry and pulled him through the curtained doorway.

  Inside an older woman sat at a small, round table draped with a colorful cloth, with a crystal ball in front of her. She was reading a paperback. She did not look up as she said, “Sorry, I’m on a break. Can you come back in half an hour?”

  Finn started to turn, but Bex held his hand firmly. “Please, can you just do us quickly? I don’t think I’ll be able to drag my friend back in here later.”

  The woman glanced at them and started to look back to her book but then did a double take and looked at them quizzically. She stuffed her book under the table and motioned them to sit.

  “Hmm, I suppose I can make an exception. Something seems interesting about the both of you. I sense something looming in your futures; let’s see if we can find more details.”

  Finn caught Bex’s eye and then rolled his. Bex pulled Finn further into the tent and they sat down.

  Bex spoke, “So something’s looming, is it good or bad?”

  The woman raised her hand for silence and leaned forward to look deep into the crystal ball, humming slightly to herself. She rocked back and forth and then looked up at them sharply.

  “I’m sorry, I made a mistake. There is nothing to see.”

  Finn stood and pulled Bex up with him. “Come on Bex, we should go.”

  Bex followed along, disappointed with the experience. As they stepped through the curtain she looked back and saw a tear running down the face of the psychic.

  The coven was hiding out in the mines under the ruined castle.

  The mines had been excavated during a particularly boisterous period of the University town’s history, when the castle had been under siege. The besiegers had been trying to dig their way into the castle to kill those hiding inside. The besieged realized what the enemy force was up to and had dug a counter mine to meet them. The besieger’s mine was more professional and roomy. The desperate counter mine was cramped and hurried. A bloody subterranean battle had been fought when the miners met. The outcome of the battle was of crucial importance to the besieged and besiegers, but now, however, no one really cared about who won or lost. It certainly did not matter to the coven.

  What mattered to the coven was that there was a concealed side passage that led to a spacious, hollowed-out area that they could relax in. A place that the
y could feed in. The rock shielded them from any potential rivals in the area and the ward they had activated on the side tunnel prevented the uninitiated from stumbling in by mistake. The ward also prevented the sounds of their feeding from escaping the cave, an important attribute, as they were noisy eaters.

  The hollow was a place that they and others like them had used in the past. The ward had been carved into the stone of the passageway long ago, and they had merely needed to energize it when they arrived. Unbeknownst to the uninitiated, the world was covered in wards that Quickened had hidden in plain sight. Wards were carved into stone walls, woven into the design of carpets, hidden amongst the chaotic graffiti scribblings of the inner cities. Tthey were even carved into the wooden studs and supports of buildings prior to the installation of drywall.

  In the center of the cave there was a piece of meat that had once been a person. It had been brutally beaten. It was impossible to tell for sure if it had been male or female; however, the length of the torso suggested a male.

  Leader would not be happy if the corpse was still in the cave when she returned from her meeting, so one of the coven would need to dump it up the coast later that evening before it started to stink. They only fed on the living, the dead held no interest for them and the ward did not have a stench suppression attribute.

  They had snatched their victim from a beach party a few days earlier. People would assume he had wandered into the North Sea and died. They had done this before.

  The coven was in high spirits. Not only had they had recently fed, but the town’s violent past had laid a stain on the old stones that they basked in. However, they knew they could not stay in the town for long. It was too small; it was easier to hide in a crowd. In fact, they had been mildly surprised when Leader had announced the excursion, as they had last been in the town only a year or so earlier. In the past they had gone decades between visits.

  The town also seemed to attract an unusually large number of the Herd with latent abilities. Latents were not only very satisfying to devour, but they could also be made into recruits. Strong latents were more likely to survive initiation.