by Unknown
Her head slowly fell back on the ground as her limbs grew numb. The group of men screaming for Sharia law slowly laid down their weapons and fell silent. The last thing she heard was the sound of medics running to her side.
Chapter 1
Emma rolled onto her back. The mixture of her father’s talk radio blasting from the other room and the sun creeping in from behind the cracks in the sunshades dragged her from her sleep. Her hair was a clumpy mess, like a tangled web of granny knots and mops jetting out in all directions.
She sat up, swaying her feet over the hardwood floorboards, and stretched. Even though it was three years old, the gash she received that one fateful night still ached. She pressed her right hand over her scar and firmly circled her fingers around. Her friends and family told her to get it looked at and fixed, but she kept it as a reminder. She needed confirmation that what she saw was real, and that the man who was made of mud really existed. She vowed to never forget his pale, rigid face and menacing eyes.
She walked out of her room and down the hall. Her father ambled in circles, talking to himself in his study. He was still wearing his pajamas. In fact, he always wore them. She crept up to him and kissed his forehead. He rubbed her back, smiling, and muttered gibberish under his breath.
“You have a good sleep, Dad?” she asked, turning the radio down. The voices emanating out of the mid-twentieth century oak box were talking about a disastrous scene that unfolded in Moscow just a few hours prior. Emma paid it no mind, but her father pushed her aside and turned it back up. “Hey now.”
“You need to get ready for school, Emma. Mother will be leaving shortly,” he replied, scattering his books all over the floor.
“Did you take your pills?” She sighed, shaking her head. She began picking up his books, but soon stopped when she realized he was just going to make the stacks bigger. She touched his shoulders, sliding her hands around his arms and along his chest. She pressed the side of her face to his shoulder blades. “I love you, Daddy.”
“Yes, alright, Dila,” he replied. He sometimes mistook Emma for her mother who’d died nearly thirty years ago when Emma was just in grade school. Emma had an exotic look and aura about her like her mother, despite being raised her whole life in the London suburbs. Her father used to say it was her mom’s spirit watching over her.
She quickly moved to the kitchen and opened his case of pills specified for that day. They were all still there. She laid them on the counter next to a glass of water and wrote a note for the nurse who would be checking up on her father later that morning.
After prepping herself for the day, she set off to buy Jonas and herself their morning coffee. It was their daily ritual, but really something she felt obliged to do. The attack that graced her with the scar on her chest had left him paralyzed from the waist down. After three months in intensive recovery, his fiancée decided she had enough and left him to his own devices. Soon, others in Jonas’ life would do the same. Emma felt responsible.
The whole ordeal ostracized the partners. At first, people mistook their outlandish story of what really happened that night as a traumatic illusion. Eventually, their pity turned into agitated annoyance. Jonas and Emma were given numerous psych evaluations, but when the results didn’t meet the expectations, pressure was put on the MIT to relieve the duo of their positions. Emma and Jonas agreed to quietly resign.
On the way to see Jonas, she noticed the streets were unusually empty. She didn’t think much of it and nodded to the beat of the music. She took a sip of her coffee and stared out the passenger side window at the masses huddled around a corner shop, watching the televisions. Her light was red, yet the motorists traveling the intersecting direction stood idle, peering out their windows at the televisions. The light changed and she went on her way.
Pulling up to Jonas’ house, she could see him sitting beside the window looking out into the street, waiting for her. They exchanged glances and he smiled. She walked up the steps to his flat, avoiding the motorized chair that was built into the railing on her right and he opened the door.
“You have no idea, do you?” He laughed, taking his drink from her hand as he wheeled himself backward. She hunched over and gave him a hug while he wrapped his left arm around her waist. “Come on, you lazy ass.”
“I’m not lazy.” She giggled, shutting the door behind her as she chugged her coffee to try and stay awake. “I was out again until three. I got some hot leads after visiting the Progeny Lounge.”
“They’re about to get hotter.” He positioned himself in front of his television and turned the volume up. She grabbed her head, grimacing from the shrieking sound coming out of the speakers. “How many doses did you have last night?”
“As many as I needed to stay coherent.” She covered her ears. “Does that racket have to be so loud?”
“Yes.”
“Damn it, you are a jerk.” She rolled her eyes.
“Would you look at the bloody telly?” His voice was firm.
She sighed and stood next to him. The screen displayed post-destruction carnage of the high rises in Moscow’s financial district. Winged creatures torn to shreds, large giants with one eye shot to death, and skyscrapers which were torn apart worse than on September eleventh had been caught on tape. She looked at him, holding her breath.
“We’ve never seen these kinds before,” Jonas said, pausing the broadcast. He rolled out of the living room and down the hall into a dark room. The lights flickered on, revealing a cascading landscape of fluttering papers, photographs, and charts. Every bit of research was plastered to the walls, connected by string. The trash overflowing from the bin, and last night’s dinner sitting cold on his desk, drove home the story of his obsession. Some days Jonas only left his small bunker to use the toilet. “But it confirms what I’ve long suspected. They have an army.”
“The Descendants are a private bunch. They only meet at the club to confer with one another, keep themselves secret, and to—”
“—Organize,” he interrupted, handing her a piece of paper. “This symbol—the one found underneath the girl that night. Do you remember it?”
“Yes, the egg made of many cubes.”
“Right. Take a look at this.” He handed her a newspaper. It was about an exhibit coming to the National History Museum. The exhibit curator was a Dr. Abayomi Nambitu, and behind him in one of the display cases was a rock that looked eerily similar to the image painted under Zari—the dead girl from the night that forever changed their lives. “New artifacts of an ancient Arab civilization have been discovered in northern Iraq close to the Turkish and Syrian border. They’ve been brought here for study and display.”
“You think this has something to do with our mystery man?” Emma rubbed her scar. The mere mention of their fugitive caused the mark he gave her to ache.
“Fits the region the family was from.” He nodded. The two had dug through countless archives, ancient texts, and sources for a physical copy or visual of a stone shaped and made just like the symbol found at the crime scene. This was the first piece of hard evidence to surface.
“Still doesn’t mean this is what brought forth the monsters in Moscow.” She shook her head.
“Oh, it doesn’t? Let’s examine the facts. One, this exhibit comes live, giving us our first actual glimpse at the real representation of that image. Two, whatever that was in Moscow takes place. Three, you’re thick headed that you don’t believe the two events are more than a coincidence?” He huffed and rolled past her back toward the TV. “They’ve been playing us, Emma. This artifact we’ve been looking for, that night three years ago, the invasion in Moscow. It’s all related.”
“It’s because of them that we know as much as we do,” she argued, following behind him. “We know that man was an Ourea. And we know they’re supposed to be extinct.”
“That’s all just little minnows to keep you on the hook and satiated.” He wiggled his fingers around, making them dance in the air. He resumed play on the te
levision. “None of that information has gotten us anywhere closer to finding the bastard that did this to me and ruined your credibility with the MIT.”
“We’re going to find him. We just have to be patient...”
“That’s easy for you to say,” he snapped back, glaring at her. “You can still use your legs.”
“That’s not fair.” She looked away, crossing her arms, unable to look at Jonas without saying something she’d regret. Her inquisitive nature clawed away. She relented, glancing back at the television. Cell phone footage captured off a social media account played on the screen. An image of a man dressed in a shiny black and blue armored suit flashed across the screen. His face was ghoulish in nature. Blue eyes radiated from behind the skeletal features. Her heart skipped a beat. “Who is that?”
“I don’t know…” Jonas paused the program. “Go back to the club and get some answers.”
* * *
A blast of pink light sizzled through the corridors of the large stone fortress. The rift opened up, spitting out Oreios and his master, Lord Zeus. The king of Olympus was weak, slouching over and barely able to prop himself up against the coarse walls. Oreios draped his master’s right arm over his own shoulders and carried him down the hall.
“Charon,” he yelled, his voice echoing for what seemed like an eternity. Zeus’ feet dragged behind him, continually snagging on the jagged stones that sprouted up from the floor. Oreios called out again. “Maya.”
They entered the desolate grand throne chamber. Statues lay overturned. The lavish carpet that drew a line in the massive room was burned in places and the throne itself was broken into pieces. Oreios’ eyes shifted up and the normally abrasive crowd was non-existent. He looked back down at Zeus, whose armor had completely rescinded, and then dragged him to Maya’s residential suite.
He laid Zeus on the bed and quietly left the chamber. Once in the throne room, he scaled up the walls to the platform at the top of the cylindrical arena. He looked intently at a few of the spiraling cracks formed in the glass dome and along the ceiling.
“That was Roman glass,” Oreios scoffed, sarcastically shaking his fist at the expensive glass that lay ruined. “Good luck getting insurance to cover that. You just can’t account for the manners of some people and their skirmishes.”
He pushed forward toward the residential wing. Upon walking through the large doors that separated the wing from the cylindrical throne hall at the center of the ancient fortress, his heart skipped a beat. What lay before his eyes was more of a scene befitting a Nazi concentration camp than a safe haven for the followers of Olympus.
The men, women, and children who took up residence in the home Zeus once built were sickly and famished. Many more of them already dead. They looked up toward Oreios, lifting their hands.
“We have nothing to eat,” an elderly man cried out, his skin sagging on his skeletal fingers.
Oreios pulled his shirt up and covered his face as he walked by a room piled high with sickly children. The crowd swarmed around him, crawling.
“My child,” a woman moaned, cradling her baby. Oreios’ eyes shifted across the group and landed on the dangling arm of an infant. His stomach turned upside-down at the sight. He turned around and pushed through the crowd, doing his best to nod and shake them off gently.
“An Ourea,” a voice sobbed. “Are we protected again?”
“They were destroyed,” another voice yelled, doubtful one had returned.
Suddenly, the grand hall was filled with whispers and excitement about an Ourea, Oreios’ kind. Oreios stared at the floor, not wanting to make eye contact or initiate more prayers and conversation. Finally, he found his way back to the throne room and sealed the doors off to the residential ward. He leaned against a wall to collect his breath, slapping his face in order to remind himself that he didn’t care about them.
“Halt where you are,” a voice called out from behind Oreios. The sharp point of a spear prodded his left shoulder blade. “On your knees.”
“No, you’re not my type,” Oreios replied out of the side of his mouth. He slightly turned his head to the right, taking a look at the guard out of the corner of his eye. “Unless you’re very well hung, in which case, I may switch teams.”
“Don’t make me repeat it.” The ironclad guard prodded his spear into Oreios’ back once again.
“I don’t like being poked.” Oreios spun around, backhanded the spear out of the guard’s hand, and then pushed the stocky man over the side of the railing. He grabbed the guard’s right ankle and let him dangle for a few seconds. He shook the man. “What happened here?”
“Please, pull me up,” the cry returned.
“This is what happens when you drop the soap.” Oreios let his grasp on the guard slip just a little bit, prompting a flood of urine to soak the guard’s pants. “Be a man about this, jeez.”
“She took the light.” His hoarse reply was disjointed. “I hate being this high up.”
“Then you won’t like this.” Oreios let his grasp slip just a bit more, eliciting a high pitched squeal from the guard. “I want you to be a little more specific.”
“I will, I promise, if you pull me up.”
Oreios whipped the man up and slammed him into the wall. His left hand formed a mudstone clasp around the guard’s throat while his right morphed into a pointed edge hovering inches from the eyes.
“You were saying?” Oreios grunted, shaking the guard’s head back and forth.
“The Princess… she took the star,” the man gasped. “The power of our realm cut out completely. The light of our sky vanished. So did our food and ability to protect ourselves...”
“What do you mean she vanished?” Oreios let the man go, allowing him to collapse on the floor and catch his breath. He handed the guard his spear and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “How long?”
“I don’t know. The sky stopped moving.” The guard looked at Oreios and recognized him. “You’re the Ourea. The one we were instructed to kill.”
“What can I say? The redheaded bitch had it out for me.” He stood up, offering his hand to the guard. “What’s your name?”
“Niko,” he replied.
“Niko, you’re telling me everything that makes this realm habitable for its people was dependent on the starstone Maya had?”
“Yes, sir.” Niko nodded.
“Don’t call me ‘sir’.” Oreios walked down into the crowd of sickly people. They pulled on his feet, hands, and clothes. “My father is ‘sir’.”
“Your father?” Niko asked, tilting his head sideways and furrowing his brows.
“Yes, didn’t I say?” Oreios turned, looking at him with a smile. “I’m putting this place under new management.”
Chapter 2
Emma sat in one of the clerical lobbies at the Natural History Museum. She had arranged an appointment with the archeologist from the print clip Jonas showed her: Dr. Abayomi Nambitu. Her insiders at the MET—the remaining few at Scotland Yard who didn’t think she was crazy—had pulled a descriptive background check on Dr. Nambitu.
He was in his mid-forties, married to a woman from Kolkata, and together they had three kids. All of them girls. Nambitu himself was from the southern part of Sudan which meant that there wasn’t much on him in his early years. His father, a wealthy and decorated member of the Sudanese government, had been a target for hostilities upon the inception of the second Sudanese Civil War in 1983.
Most of the early reports that came up on Nambitu originated from his time at a school in Cairo where some of his former classmates ended up being linked to several Al-Qaeda and Hamas factions, though nothing ever stuck to them. Needless to say that was a life Nambitu himself seemed to have left far behind as he went on to study Archeology at the University of Michigan, and later at Oxford where he met his wife, Ramita.
She pushed her files back into her large gray and orange backpack. Dr. Nambitu approached her. His large glasses slid off his short, rounded nose. His
cheeks were big, bubbling up with a never-ending flood of enthusiasm which seemed to be plastered all over his face. His head was round and bald. Emma thought it looked like he’d recently shaved and coated it with a new layer of wax that morning.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. His accent was incredibly posh, as if the words flowing from his mouth were also glaring down their noses at her. It sounded like he’d spent most of his time growing up in the Mayfair area of London, which Emma knew couldn’t be true. “Who did you say you were with?”
“The Inquisitor.” Emma smiled, quickly standing from her bench to shake his hand.
“I thought the press had mostly run the stories on the new exhibit?” He nodded, gesturing for her to walk alongside him as they headed through the fluorescent encased hallway. “Besides, I would think a tabloid such as the Inquisitor would have its hands full with the events in Moscow this morning. Certainly a much more arousing spectacle than ancient carvings of a civilization long dead.”
“We’re taking a new approach with our focus. We don’t want to be considered just a tabloid anymore...”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t intend for my words to offend.” His hand went over his heart.
“Don’t be. They didn’t.” Emma bit her lip and grinned, winking at him as she waved her hand that he was in the all-clear. “It’s what one can expect upon reading the latest romps of the Duchess’ sister in a Manchester nightclub. We don’t have the most well regarded reputation in London, but we’re hoping to change that with stories like these when most of the world is asking the question ‘are we alone?’”
“What do you think about that?” he asked.