Destiny

by A D Starrling

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘I swear he had it in here last time I visited.’

  Reid rummaged through a cabinet under Alexa and Ethan’s curious gazes.

  His fingers closed around the neck of a bottle just as Lucas walked into the room with a tray of coffee. Reid grinned and lifted out the expensive bottle of whisky.

  ‘It’s eight o’clock in the morning,’ Lucas said testily.

  Reid shrugged. ‘So?’

  He opened the cap and poured a generous amount of liquor into their cups.

  ‘I think we need an intervention,’ Lucas stated.

  Conrad came out of the corridor leading to the bedrooms, hands briskly rubbing a towel across his wet hair.

  He sniffed and raised an eyebrow. ‘Do I smell whisky-laced coffee?’

  ‘What are you, a dog?’ Ethan scoffed.

  Alexa propped her feet on the coffee table, brought her cup to her lips, took a sip, and sighed.

  They were in Lucas’s apartment in Boston, where they’d crashed for the night. Reid had gone to get fresh clothes from his own place before returning for a much-needed tactical meeting.

  A search of Miller’s fishing lodge following their encounter with the super soldiers the day before had revealed little in terms of useful information. They’d found the 4x4 he’d escaped in some thirty miles north of Summersville Lake, in the middle of some woods. Fresh track marks in the mud indicated he’d been picked up by another vehicle.

  As for Jessica Wu’s house, the only data of interest had likely been on her computer drives. Even though Eva and Howard had failed to identify the origin of the signal that had triggered the alarm, they had managed to upload a bunch of corrupted folders to their servers before their access was remotely shut down. Cleaning and decrypting the files were likely to take some time, even with the AI assisting Howard and his team of hackers.

  The identities of the men they’d killed in West Virginia and outside Boston had proven as elusive as those of the soldiers from the island, their fingerprints and faces not found on any database in the world.

  ‘It was creepy,’ Anatole had told them the previous night as he nursed a shot glass. ‘There was a bunch of them just sitting in the dark in that loft when I walked in. It was as if they were just—awaiting orders.’

  The facilities they’d uncovered in a concealed room beneath Jessica Wu’s garage suggested the same of the rest of the super soldiers who had stormed the mansion and attacked them.

  The sound of the front door opening traveled down the apartment hallway.

  Anatole appeared with two large paper bags in his hands. ‘Right, I got doughnuts.’

  ‘Jelly?’ Ethan said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Blueberry?’ Conrad said.

  ‘Always.’

  ‘Strawberry-frosted?’ Alexa said.

  Anatole paused. ‘What am I, psychic?’

  ‘All women like strawberry-frosted doughnuts,’ Alexa stated coolly. ‘I bet even Donaghy does.’

  Reid could see the words: “But you’re no ordinary woman. You’re a terrifying creature who can kill me with her little finger” flash across Anatole’s face as he stared at Alexa. The former Marine swallowed a grin and took a sip of his coffee; he’d been somewhat surprised when he’d discovered the red-haired Immortal was dating a CIA agent.

  ‘Leave my girlfriend out of this conversation,’ Anatole said with a grunt. ‘And, for the record, she’s a sucker for Chocolate Kreme.’

  Conrad dipped his hand into one of the bags, snagged a doughnut, and bit into it. ‘So, when are you going to make an honest woman out of Claire?’

  Anatole made a choking noise. ‘The hell that come from?!’

  Conrad shrugged as he chewed. ‘You’ve been going out for, what, like, six years now? I think it’s about time you proposed.’

  Anatole scowled. ‘What are you, my mother? Besides, there’s the whole Immortal-human thing.’

  Everyone looked at Alexa. She narrowed her eyes at the red-haired Bastian and took another sip of her coffee.

  ‘I don’t mean it’s wrong,’ Anatole said hurriedly. ‘It’s just—well—it’s gonna hurt like a bitch when they’re no longer there, right?’

  ‘Wow,’ Ethan murmured in the silence that followed.

  ‘I can’t believe you said that out loud,’ Conrad muttered dully to his best friend.

  Reid grunted. ‘You should write a book. How to make enemies and influence people the wrong way.’

  Lucas sighed, lifted his laptop from a side table, and headed for an armchair. ‘Let’s check in with the others and see where they’re at.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Alexa said, her sharp gaze lingering on a suddenly sweaty-looking Anatole. ‘I hope they’ve had more luck than—’

  Ethan dropped his cup. It crashed to the floor at his feet, spilling its contents across the wooden boards as it rolled under the couch. He sucked air between his teeth and gripped his left hand, a pained expression distorting his glazed features.

  Reid’s eyes widened. Shit! It’s happening again!

  He set his coffee down hastily and rose from his chair, trepidation sending his pulse racing. ‘You guys had better—’

  He froze, dread exploding inside him as Lucas let go of the laptop and clutched his chest. Alexa shuddered, her hand rising to the back of her neck, her eyes strangely glassy. Conrad grasped his left arm and stumbled into an armchair, color draining from his face.

  ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ Anatole said, alarmed.

  A curse left Ethan’s lips. Reid’s gaze dropped to the birthmark on the back of his hand. It was glowing gold.

  The same radiance fluttered along the snake on Conrad’s arm and shone from Alexa’s nape.

  Lucas gasped and dropped to his knees, sweat beading on his forehead and agony painted across his face, an unearthly light shining through his shirt from the birthmark over his heart.

  ‘Eva, start recording.’

  ‘Yes, Dr. Godard,’ the AI replied through the overhead speakers.

  Anna gripped the scalpel and moved the sharp edge of the blade smoothly down the middle of the corpse’s chest. Madeleine stood on the other side of the examination table, ready to assist her.

  They’d already checked the dental records of the two dead men from the island and had been unsurprised when they hadn’t found any matches. This had only confirmed their suspicion that they were dealing with super soldiers.

  The door of the lab opened. Jordan walked in with a box in his arms. Dimitri, Olivia, and Asgard followed him in.

  ‘You heard anything from Lucas or Alexa?’ Dimitri was saying.

  Asgard shook his head. ‘No. We’re waiting to see what Eva and Howard make of the files they retrieved from Jessica Wu’s hard drives.’

  ‘And Miller?’

  Asgard frowned. ‘There are no signs of the man yet. Victor has Bastian Hunters looking for him. Connelly already started an internal investigation into his activities at the DoD.’

  Dimitri dipped his chin stiffly. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.’

  Remorse lingered in the Crovir noble’s eyes.

  It was shortly after they had arrived at the estate in the early hours of the morning that he had revealed how Howard and Eva had uncovered the tracking device that had led their enemy to Balthazar island.

  ‘I cannot excuse what happened,’ he had admitted to Anna in clipped tones. ‘Again, you have my most sincere—’

  ‘Stop.’ Anna had crossed the foyer and gripped his hand tightly. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Dimitri. We know you would never do anything to harm us or our children. These people were determined to find out where we were, one way or another.’

  He’d swallowed hard at her words, his face dark with regret.

  It was late morning by the time they headed out to the research facility in the forest. Dimitri had shown them around the state-of-the-art complex and introduced them to his staff before taking them to the basement where a lab had been
set up for their personal use.

  Jordan grimaced and deposited the box on the table where Zachary sat working at his laptop.

  ‘This is the last of the stuff you wanted.’ His gaze skimmed the two dead bodies in the room. ‘If it’s okay with you folks, I think I’ll leave this—part of the investigation to you. Yell if you need anything.’ He turned and headed for the door.

  Olivia started across the floor, her expression hesitant as she glanced from Anna to Madeleine. ‘I feel a bit useless. Is there anything I can do to—?’

  She stopped suddenly, her feet freezing to the floor next to Zachary.

  He straightened in his chair. ‘Olivia?’

  Anna’s pulse jumped when she registered the blank expression on her cousin’s face. She put the scalpel down, alarmed.

  ‘I think she’s having another vision,’ Madeleine said on the other side of the table.

  Asgard cursed and clutched at his heart. Anna startled. Madeleine took a step toward him, gasped, and bowed over, her hand rising to her own chest.

  A golden glow erupted inside Olivia’s right hand. She uncurled her fist and stared at the radiant lines of her birthmark, her fingers shaking.

  Zachary slipped from his seat, his knuckles white where he gripped the flesh over his heart, the tendons of his neck bulging as pain filled his reddening face.

  Anna’s mouth turned dry with fear.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Dimitri said hoarsely.

  ‘Eva!’ Jordan barked. ‘Can you—?’

  ‘Their vital signs are spiking,’ the AI said. ‘There’s something else. Some kind of energy coming from their hearts and Miss Ashkarov’s birthmark.’

  Anna stared helplessly at the four figures who had fallen to their knees across the room and were struggling to catch their breath.

  Long dead souls shuddered as they woke from timeless sleep.

  They gasped, air filling their lungs from their first breaths in several millennia. Their life forces surged forth and spread through the bodies of the ones they dwelled in, filling their flesh and bones. It took but a few beats of the hearts racing inside their chests for them to find one another, the golden lines of their souls reaching out across the thousands of leagues that separated their physical selves.

  Dread rose within them when they connected.

  There were two others in this world with them. Two souls that did not belong. Two souls whose very revival had roused them from the place where a piece of them had been reborn, inside the ones who had inherited their powers and more.

  One had sacrificed himself for the greater good.

  The other they thought they had defeated a long time back.

  They fisted hands that did not belong to them as the dire truth sank in.

  In the Kingdom of Heaven, the Archangel stirred and looked upon the Dominion of Earth. ‘So it begins.’

  Arael fluttered down onto his shoulder, claws clinking against his golden armor and feathers glimmering with ethereal light. The Angel of Crows followed his gaze, beady eyes glinting keenly as he too stared into the world of Man.

  Lucas’s eyes snapped open. He was on the floor on his hands and knees, his nails biting into his fisted palms. Reid was at his side, fingers shaking his shoulder, his mouth open and shouting.

  Lucas barely felt his touch or heard his voice. The inexplicable pressure that had exploded inside his head and the terrible fire that had consumed his heart in the past few minutes were starting to abate, leaving his blood thundering wildly in his veins.

  Something else had replaced them. Something eerie.

  He sensed it behind his eyes. A presence. No. Two of them.

  Lucas looked up shakily. His pulse stuttered as he gazed upon the three Immortals opposite him.

  There were others in the room with them. Ghostly specters like the ones inside him. He could feel them in his cousins’ bodies. More than feeling them, though, Lucas was shocked to realize that he knew them. He had known them for an eternity, it seemed.

  ‘Mila?’ Lucas startled at the sound of his own voice. It twanged, a strange echo underscoring the name he had just said, as if two others had spoken as one.

  Alexa stared at him unblinkingly. ‘Tobias?’

  ‘Ba—Baruch?’ Conrad stammered. He looked from Lucas to Ethan. ‘Jared?!’

  ‘Rafael?’ Ethan blinked at Conrad, his face deathly pale.

  Reid’s voice finally penetrated the ringing in Lucas’s ears. ‘Okay, you guys are seriously creeping me out now!’

  ‘What the hell happened?’ Anatole said. ‘You all looked like you were having a heart attack or something.’ He scowled and pointed at Lucas. ‘And what was with that weird-ass, fiery stuff?’

  Lucas looked down where he indicated. There was an exact replica of the alpha-omega symbol on his heart scorched into the material of his shirt.

  That was when he sensed their anger. The anger of the other beings in the room with them.

  He stared at his cousins. ‘They are back.’

  Fury flashed in the silver depths of Alexa’s eyes, eyes that were at once hers and the eyes of another.

  Zachary gazed at Olivia, his heart racing. Shivers shook him, the fever in his chest fading and the pain in his head subsiding. In its stead was something new. He could feel it in his mind. A weight. The consciousness of another.

  ‘Navia?’ Shock flashed through him at the name that left his lips.

  Zachary blinked. He knew he was looking at Olivia. He also knew she was someone else in that moment. There was another woman staring at him through her eyes. A woman from the past. One whose name had come unbidden to him.

  Olivia’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly.

  ‘Aäron?’ she finally whispered.

  The word vibrated in Zachary’s bones and resonated inside his very soul, bringing forth a surge of warmth from his heart.

  Olivia stared around the room. She stiffened and gasped when her gaze fell upon Asgard and Madeleine. Tears spilled from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, unchecked.

  ‘Oh God.’ A tremulous smile curved her lips, pure joy filling her face. ‘Oh my God!’

  Asgard and Madeleine stared at their hands and bodies, their expressions stunned, as if they had never seen themselves before.

  Madeleine looked up and cried out when she saw Asgard. She bolted to her feet and launched herself at him, carrying him to the ground, sobs leaving her throat. Asgard swallowed convulsively and wrapped his arms around her, his blue eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

  Some of the elation faded from Olivia’s face then. She gazed at Zachary, alarm widening her eyes. ‘They are alive.’

  Zachary frowned. ‘Who?’

  ‘Our fathers.’ She swallowed. ‘We killed them. But they walk this world once more.’

  Chapter Twenty

  The man studied the Immortals at the oak table. For the first time in his considerably long life, he felt nervous.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ he murmured.

  Crovir, the first Immortal king, looked at the carafe of wine he indicated. He dipped his chin, his expression cool.

  The man turned to the second Immortal. ‘King…Bastian?’

  Bastian nodded, his gaze fixed on Crovir sitting opposite him across the table.

  Though he kept his own face impassive, the man was as surprised at the tension he could sense between the brothers as he had been by the shocking event of their revival.

  Neither he nor Wu had expected them to be in so much physical and mental pain following their resurrection. Nor could they comprehend Lily and Tomas Soul’s reaction, which had mirrored that of the kings.

  In the minutes that had followed their revival, as their screams of agony and those of the children had filled the lab, doubt had flashed through the man’s mind. For a moment, he had sensed that he had meddled with things that should have been left well alone. Things he could not comprehend. Things of an unholy nature.

  Seconds after the kings had collapsed inside th
e isolation chamber and fallen into a deep sleep, the children had fainted too. Wu had wanted to start her experiments on them straight away. The man had denied the request and ordered the guards to take them back to their cells.

  For some unfathomable reason, he felt it would be wise not to harm them. Not until he’d spoken to the kings about them anyway.

  An hour had passed since the two men had roused again, this time more naturally. While they had been unconscious, he had had them moved to the living quarters Jonah had had specially designed for them.

  Even though they had not known the whereabouts of the dead kings’ tombs for several years following the events in the Ural Mountains when Alexa King and her allies had killed Alberto Cavaleti and disbanded their sect, Jonah had known exactly how to prepare for their rebirth if and when they found them.

  The man had read the journal Jonah had found in his ancestral home all those centuries ago, the journal he had realized once belonged to Kronos. It had led him on a burning, life-long mission spanning thousands of leagues and many a century. Nowhere in it had the man seen details of the rooms Jonah had built for the kings, not the ancient objects within nor even the clothes that stemmed from a long bygone era.

  He knew Jonah’s mysterious inspiration had been on the mark from the approval he had read in the men’s eyes when they had inspected the surroundings they’d awoken in.

  They were currently in an elaborate dining hall that linked their two living quarters, the chamber reminiscent of the palaces of the Mesopotamian dynasties from the period of history when the Immortal kings last ruled.

  Crovir carefully sipped the wine the man handed him. He arched an eyebrow. ‘This is good.’

  The man smiled faintly. ‘My father had it made for you.’

  ‘Your father?’ Bastian said.

  ‘Yes,’ the man said. ‘Jonah Krondike.’ He looked at Crovir. ‘The Immortal who discovered the journal that belonged to your son, Kronos.’

  Crovir straightened in his seat, his knuckles whitening on his glass. ‘Kronos? My son is alive?’