by Leji Albano
The Chronicles of Alexander Matthews
Book One
L. D. Albano
Contents
Credits
About the Author
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Author Notes
Credits
The Chronicles of Alexander Matthews: Book One
by L. D. Albano
Edited by Michael Waitz (https://sticksandstonesediting.net/)
Cover design by Mallory Rock of Rock Solid Book Design
(www.RockSolidBookDesign.com)
Copyright © 2020 L. D. Albano
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Your support of authors’ rights is greatly appreciated.
All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The use of any real company and/or product names is for literary effect only. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.
Created with Vellum
For everyone in my family (Liz, Ainsley, Mom, and Tammy) who encouraged me to pursue writing this book…even if the content really wasn’t their thing.
Special thanks go out to Aimee Brayman, the only soul brave enough to give me honest feedback when she Beta-read this story. This book wouldn’t exist in its current form without you.
And to editor extraordinaire Michael Waitz, who saw something in the semi-coherent ramblings of a first-time author. You rock.
About the Author
L. D. Albano is as surprised as anyone else that he had the opportunity to write this. He is an IT professional who has worked in the field since 1997, performing duties ranging from service desk, to network engineering, and management. The five years prior to that were spent in Germany, Colorado Springs, and assorted other places while serving in the US Army.
He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, daughter, and a cinnamon-colored Siberian Husky named Ronin. He will give you one guess as to who runs the household….
Prologue
Outside Taos, New Mexico, July 1903
Alexander Titus Matthews could hardly believe what he was seeing. Nearly perfectly preserved within the hot and dusty confines of the cavern he was currently exploring, and partially buried under millennia of detritus, was the carcass of one of the Pleistocene’s great carnivores. Its size and the shape of the head and muzzle made identification easy. Canis Dirus, better known as the dire wolf, had roamed much of the Americas for tens of thousands of years during the last ice age, and earlier. This specimen was abnormally large, upon cursory inspection, and some rough estimations indicated that the animal would have been almost seven feet long, the top of its head reaching armpit high on Alexander himself, and weighed in at around two-hundred-sixty pounds.
Any Smilodon, more commonly known as a saber-toothed tiger, would think twice about taking on a wolf this size, much less a pack of them. Granted, the outcome would favor the feline in any one-on-one battle. Still, it wouldn’t be a sure thing, and it would definitely result in severe injuries, even for the winner. Both species were top predators during the Pleistocene, but the cats were most likely solo hunters and would be at a disadvantage if they came across a pack of dires. Realistically, they were probably on each other’s prey menu, and encounters would have been frequent.
Alexander placed the lantern carefully on a small ledge near the jumble of rock, wood, and other items that had accumulated in the back of the now-collapsed limestone cavern. He had stumbled upon the sinkhole while searching the area for artifacts that could be studied and incorporated into his doctoral thesis on ice age fauna of North America. Scrambling through dusty and dangerous places was all in a day’s work when one wanted to find fossils. Carefully scraping away and removing the litter that the remains were semi-buried in took time, but was well worth it when he finally was able to view it in its entirety.
This was a spectacular find, especially since most dire wolf fossils were found as fragments, or wholly disassociated, just a bone here and there. The La Brea tar pits were currently the best source for dire wolf fossils, but even that location had not provided actual tissue samples. This mummy, for lack of a better term, was as unlikely as finding the Holy Grail. Alexander's future career in archaeology was set with this discovery. Still, his hands weren’t trembling because of that; rather, it was the sheer excitement of seeing and touching something no other modern man had ever experienced. Not only was the body intact, but much of the tissue had survived, as had much of the pelt. While time had taken its toll, and the pelt was a bit sparse in places, patchy in spots, the vast majority was still present. The dry environment of the cave had leached the moisture from the carcass rather than letting it decompose. Even the eyes, though shriveled and sunken into the sockets, were there. In fact, the remains seemed eerily similar to Egyptian mummies he had seen pictures of, the skin stretched taut over the bone structure itself.
His eye was drawn to a metallic glint that reflected the lantern light. This was odd because there shouldn’t have been any modern materials associated with the remains of a Pleistocene animal. Had someone already been here? Did a scrap of metal wash into the site during a rainstorm? He leaned closer to get a better look and was surprised to see that it appeared to be a chain of some sort…a necklace perhaps, and that it led into the jaws of the wolf, almost as if the creature had taken it into its mouth before dying. Alexander tugged gently on the chain, but it was firmly lodged and would not come free. With both hands, he slowly worked the body loose and pulled it farther into the light. Alexander took a knee and grabbed the muzzle, one hand on top and one on the bottom, then tried to gently pry open the mouth without damaging it. Carefully applying pressure yielded the desired results, and he saw that a pendant of some sort rested upon the desiccated remains of the tongue. His right hand reached in to dislodge the item, but before he could do so, the jaws slammed shut. Alexander cried out in pain as the sharp teeth of the animal quickly pierced the skin of his hand. Something stung his palm in multiple places where it rested against the object that he held wrapped in his hand. Seconds later, a burning sensation crawled up his arm and quickly spread throughout his body, his panicked breathing was loud within the confines of the cavern, and his vision faded out as he lost consciousness.
Most of a day passed while Alexander was caught up in fever dreams. The sights and sounds that were experienced granted him knowledge of an unknown history that humanity had either forgotten, or that had been deliberately stripped from its collective memory. Mankind’s origins were both far older and much more complex than anyone had imagined. The gods of pre-history were real, but they weren’t gods at all. Aliens had enslaved humanity and used mankind for their own selfish purposes.
1
“…After I recovered from the transformation that the virus-laden bite and the amulet had imparted, I made my way
back to Taos, where I hid in my room at the boarding house and thought about what my plans should be. I knew without a doubt that I would never curse another person by turning them into a monster like I had become…and that is an oath that I have never broken. This was also the time when I lost what little religion I had left. How do you believe in a god, when your memories show you hundreds of gods, each and every one flawed by hubris and a condescending conceitedness that allowed them to treat humanity with such total disdain....”
An excerpt from the diary of Alexander Matthews
February 1980, Temple of Seti, Abydos, Egypt
Maria shivered in the cold desert air, the light jacket not nearly enough to insulate her body as the heat rapidly dissipated from the rock and sand. She and Alexander had come to this temple to study curious carvings that could only be found here. Of course, she hadn’t realized that breaking and entering were going to be part of the evening fun, but then again, Maria was finding that her boss was a man of many talents. Not all of them legal.
He was standing near the top of the ladder, which he had purchased earlier in the day, currently shining a flashlight onto the hieroglyphs carved into the sandstone lintel and attempting to take photos. She might not be any kind of expert on Egypt or even history in general, but those definitely looked like flying machines to her. A helicopter, a plane, and other less recognizable figures jumped out at her.
Why Alexander would be so interested in them was also a mystery. Yet, it was readily apparent that he found them fascinating…and was willing to go to great lengths to study them.
He turned his excited face her way. “I’m almost positive this stone was recycled from an earlier structure. How much earlier is the question. And where was it located?”
“What are you implying, Alexander?”
“You’ll think I’m crazy.” His cheeks bulged until he expelled the air in a rush. “Let’s just say that I suspect an earlier advanced culture occupied the Nile River Valley prior to the Egyptians.”
She scrunched her face in confusion. “What, like Atlantis or something?”
He descended the ladder quickly. “Or something. It’s not important, and we need to get out of here before we get busted.”
A high-pitched howl, and barking yips, shattered the silence of the desert night. Alexander's head elevated, and he scanned the area around them alertly, seemingly sniffing the air. His broad shoulders tensed, and his fists clenched as he took two quick steps forward. His demeanor changed, becoming more aggressive and predatory, prepared for violence.
“Maria, I need you to pay very close attention to what I am about to say.” When he looked at her, his expression was severe, almost clinically cold. His eyes, though, burned with anger that was palpable in the air. She could practically see the humanity drift away on a seething current of self-loathing, hatred, and excitement, all somehow rolled into one overpowering emotion that was barely restrained.
“I had hoped to shield you from what you are about to experience, but it would appear that I can no longer do so.” He quickly crossed to where she was standing. “We are going to be attacked…soon.” His words were harsh, almost staccato sounding as he spoke them.
Her eyes opened wide in shock, and she stammered, “What are you talking about, Alexander? Who is going to attack us?”
His hands grasped her upper arms, and he pushed her gently back against the wall. “Not important. I need you to trust me, OK? No harm will come to you, I promise, but you need to stay right here. If you run, I will have a harder time protecting you.”
Loud growling was coming from the entrance to the temple, and she could see gleaming red eyes reflecting the light at her. She shook her head in denial. “I don’t understand….”
Her boss was unbuttoning his shirt. “I know you don’t. This is going to get very ugly, and you are going to see things that you believe to be impossible. Frightening things. No matter what, though, you need to understand that I will protect you. Can you do that?”
She turned frightened eyes to him and jerked her head in a sharp nod, noticing for the first time that he wore a thick chain around his neck that supported a sizeable disk-shaped piece of jewelry, and he had a half-sleeve tattoo of some kind of animal. The ink covered part of his chest and his arm from shoulder to elbow.
“Good. If you need to, you can close your eyes—that way you will miss everything, good and bad.” He had removed his boots as he was talking, and quickly pulled his pants off, standing naked before her. The growling was closer now, and she could hear claws scratching against the stone floor.
Alexander turned to face whatever was coming, and crouched down into an aggressive arms-wide stance. Suddenly, two indistinct forms rocketed at him, and he surged forward to meet them. Now she saw the animals were thin, graceful, and more resembled coyotes than wolves. A large black-backed jackal latched onto his calf and began to worry it with the razor-sharp teeth in its maw. In the meantime, Alexander had caught the other by the throat and was beating it to death with his free hand.
She heard vertebrae break as Alex twisted the head sharply, then tossed the carcass against the wall, where it fell limply to the stone floor. Even as he reached down for the jackal that was attached to his calf, a more substantial form approached. There was something wrong about it, though. For one thing, it was much larger than the others, and it was on two feet, clawed hands stretched out toward her boss.
Alexander spotted the creature and glanced back at Maria, and an apologetic look crossed his face, quickly followed by anger. His fist smashed down onto the skull of the jackal that was trying to hamstring him. Brains and blood flew from the impact, and the animal released its hold on him, collapsing bonelessly to the floor. Alexander straightened to his full height and…changed. She blinked her eyes, not believing what they were telling her.
Where a man had stood just moments ago was a very, very angry werewolf. He leaned forward aggressively and roared out a challenge that reverberated throughout the temple. The jackal-headed creature that had been stalking him paused, reevaluating what had become a much more dangerous situation. Maria couldn’t believe her eyes. The thing facing off against Alexander looked almost exactly like the illustrations of Anubis she had seen since their arrival in Egypt. Additional jackals peeked around his legs, growling at Alex, but not yet attacking.
Evidently, her boss wasn’t willing to wait for them to make up their minds—he leapt into their midst and began methodically killing them all. Soon, only the werewolf and the werejackal stood on the field of battle. Claws had scored Alexander's chest, and blood ran freely down his fur-covered torso. Other wounds, including his savagely mauled calf, marred his body, but if they bothered him, there was no sign of it. The jackal was limping heavily from an obviously broken leg, and one arm hung limply, the shoulder mangled from the bite that had savaged it.
Maria almost felt sorry for the Anubis lookalike; Alexander towered over him, the muscles in his body tensed and ready to end this.
But rather than continue the fight as she expected, her boss stepped back and changed into the naked man who had assured her that she would be safe.
Still glaring at the jackal, he said, “There has been enough death tonight. Take any remaining members of your Pack and go.”
His opponent cocked his head in confusion, whining as he licked his snout. Finally, he dipped his head in acknowledgment and limped off into the night, leaving Alexander and Maria alone with the bodies of the dead.
Alexander took a deep, shuddering breath and turned to face her. She almost burst out laughing because he looked more afraid of what her reaction would be, than the curiously muted terror she felt. He made no attempt to approach, merely hung his head, and waited.
“I’ll understand if you decide you don’t want to work with me anymore. What you saw tonight was never supposed to be part of the job, and I’m truly sorry it happened,” he said softly.
Shivering uncontrollably, Maria replied through chattering teeth, �
�What are you? What were they?”
His head rose slowly, mournful eyes meeting hers steadily. “We are the things that go bump in the night. The monsters that tales are made of. Not many normal people even know we exist.”
Maria found herself calming down, which was strange, considering that her boss was a werewolf. Still, she sensed no danger from him, only a great sorrow and vulnerability. For some reason, he didn’t frighten her, even though he should have.
“Alexander?”
“Yes?” he whispered.
“You should come over here, so I can tend to your wounds.”
Maria Ferrante was having an increasingly difficult time hiding her amusement at the antics of her soon-to-be-former employer on this sunny June day. He was pacing in front of his large mahogany desk, frantically waving his arms about, and rapid-firing questions in her direction.
“Are you absolutely sure about this, Maria?” he asked plaintively. “You could retire in a couple of years instead.”
“Alexander, we’ve talked about this already,” she replied patiently, much as one would to a small child. “I’m not getting any younger, and God knows all of the travel has begun to take its toll on my body. It takes longer and longer for me to recover from jetlag these days.” Her expression softened as she continued, “The spirit is willing, as it always was, but I’m a realist. I’m 58 years old, and I want to enjoy the years I have left doing small things like normal people do. I own a house that I’ve barely spent any time in, and I want to putter around in the garden doing nothing more than working on a tan while drinking iced tea.”
