The Artifact: Natasha Burrows Series Book One

by Phillips, Michelle

  “I have to do this” Xavier spoke first “I can’t, I just can’t let anything happen to you.”

  She nodded “But I can’t be around this, I can’t accept this, no matter how noble the reason.”

  He nodded, he understood. “I have to take some time to figure this out. This has to stop.” She nodded. “But I can’t let anything happen to you.”

  She looked up at him, lifting her head he dropped his and kissed her passionately, his arms tightening around her again. He released her gently, turning away to think, a thousand thoughts churning in his mind. “I know I can use the orb, I need to finish what my father started, but not the part about us being a superior species, the part about humanity being free, being aware, having a choice.” She understood.

  “I need to go back home for a while anyway” she tried not to look at him.

  He gathered her back into his arms, and she found herself practically swooning. “I will fix this for us. I promise. Don’t give up on me” he begged.

  She looked at him her heart skipping a beat. “I won’t” she said with a sense of certainty that belied the deepest of fears. Giving her heart to someone and then losing them. “I love you Xavier the Bush Boss.”

  He chuckled placing his hand under her chin lifting her lips to his “and I love you too, Natasha the Demotist.”

  “Lucky you got it right this time” she said placing her lips against his divine mouth, allowing him to take control of hers, letting the pressure of his lips to push every other thought from her mind.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Welcome Home

  Tasha was exceedingly weary, way down to her very bones. She had spent a couple of days in India with Xavier, before returning home on the plane, missing Xavier's broad shoulders as a headrest and his witty banter to pass the time. She sat looking around the place, and for once where she saw people, she now only saw cattle, oblivious all of them, to the truth, the reality of our existence on this planet.

  Could she choose to go back in time, would she make a different decision? If she had not gotten on that plane to Caracas, she wouldn’t have opened the proverbial Pandora’s box and would still be living in blissful ignorance. She also wouldn’t be missing Xavier bitterly like she was right now. She tried to rationalise the hole in the pit of her stomach to the equivalent of Stockholm’s syndrome or post-traumatic stress disorder.

  Like a soldier coming back from war, no one really truly understood what you had been through like the soldier sitting next to you in your troop, the one who had your back out on the battlefield.

  They could all gather around you and tell you they knew what you were going through, or they didn’t really know what you were going through but they wanted to help you. All you could do is crave for that one person who knew exactly what you had been through, had felt it, and as such you could sit with them, not saying a word and be comforted by the very fact that they too, had made it out just like you, and they too, saw the world in a new light, from a fresh perspective that made even the simple things seem mundane, useless, a triviality.

  The one thing that managed to cheer her up was picking Biggles up from the cattery. He was all fur and purr, rubbing himself against her, his love unconditional. She lifted him and held him against her face, rubbing his thick fur and scratching his ears like she did when he was a baby

  “I love you Biggles” she whispered. Blissfully unaware he kept purring nuzzling his head into her hand demanding more pats. She drove up the willowed driveway, imagining they looked as tired as she felt. If ever there was a tree that epitomised tiredness it was them, weeping willows as she used to call them, the limbs hanging down like limp tendrils being buffeted by the breezes, lackadaisically drooping in silent defenseless defeat to the buffeting winds.

  She pulled up to her doorstep and noticed something unusual. Her front door was ajar, as if someone had broken in. She moaned silently to herself. After days of being away from the comforts of home, she had returned home to find someone had trespassed on her sacred space, and if they were still there, heaven help her she would kill them with her own bare hands.

  She tentatively pushed the door opened and it moaned in protest. She knew you weren’t supposed to enter, but she had a whole list now of things she really shouldn’t have done, adding one more to it, didn’t seem like it was going to tilt the balance in favour of common sense when it was teetering already so closely to insanity.

  She entered slowly, gently placing Biggles to the ground, looking about her. She walked down the hallway, her footsteps making an obscene amount of noise. Turning into her conservatory, her caught in her throat and her heart jumped in her mouth.

  “Tatty” a voice growled resonating deep and loud, a face looking back at her from under a tattered hat.

  “Dad?” her voice shuddered. He was older now, time had been unkind and his face was now leathery, creased and wrinkled like a well-read book. Despite this she recognised him instantly. “Dad” she repeated, her voice reduced to a whimpering bleat. Her legs gave away, she wobbled slightly and fell. “Tatty” he cried out, jumping up and pulling her into his arms. “Come now Tatty” his voice trembled. She could no longer see him for tears.

  “Dad” she cried beating his chest, if not in anger, then to prove he was there and not just a specter, haunting her troubled mind. She grabbed the front of his shirt in her fists wresting it up and ripping the buttons clean away. “Come now Tatty” he cried. “It’s me, I’m here.”

  She looked up and deftly slapped his face. He winced “I guess I deserved that.”

  “No, no, no, no” she cried, wrapping her arms around him, kissing him on his cheek

  “Where have you been?” she wailed. “We thought you were dead?”

  “I practically was for a while” he answered “I was in India and I got injured.”

  Her eyes widened “did you have amnesia?” She was still shaking and he lifted her to the couch. She refused to let go of him and he was forced to sit beside her, her hand clutching his for dear life.

  “No, but that would have been preferable.”

  “Dad, dad” she was still crying “I have so much to tell you.”

  “I know” he said matter of factly.

  “How?” she questioned, she was feeling volatile, testy and short tempered.

  He looked at her shrugging “I have been keeping watch of you, you and that boy of yours.”

  “You know?” her eyes widened till she felt they could pop out of her head.

  “I know, everything” he said, “and I’m here to help you, you and that lad of yours. Xavier.”

  How did he know everything? Was she sure he wasn’t just a specter? A figment of her overtaxed imagination.

  “Dad” she couldn’t stop saying that word, that blessed word to him, it was like honey rolling off her tongue. “Dad, what happened to you?”

  “I was sent to India” he replied, taking off his hat with his free hand and brushing his hand through his now greying hair. He was once a very handsome man, now he looked a little tired, worn down, but there was still a sparkle in his eyes. “That’s where I ended up meeting Xavier's dad.” Tasha's eyes widened again. “I came to question what I had been doing for The Brotherhood, all those years.”

  “You saw, the factory?”

  He nodded, solemn, silent. “I saw it all. I was disgusted, disillusioned.” Tasha nodded silently. “I was bit younger then as you know, and very foolish. I recklessly told The Brotherhood what I thought.” Tasha placed her hand over her mouth stifling a gasp. “Exactly. Needless to say, they tried to dispose of me.” He lifted his shirt, disclosing a long, jagged deep scar travelling the length of his chest. Tasha stiffened at the sight of it. “When that failed, they got a message out that made it quite clear that my family would never be safe, as long as I was alive.”

  “They threatened you?” she stared in disbelief.

  “Yes, and it worked. I could never return to you and your mother, I could not bear putting your lives
at risk. They were watching you for many years.”

  “Dad.” She wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. “I missed you so much.” She started sobbing again. He stroked her hair, hushing her “I know, I missed you to.” Her body was wracked with grief, the sobbing stopped, but sudden little shudders would rise, causing her to jump slightly like she had the hiccups.

  “I had to watch you grow from a distance, I missed so much, and your mum. You were a kid so you didn’t really know our relationship was crumbling, it was on the rocks before I left the last time, but still, no-one should have gone through what she did.”

  “They took that from us” she said angrily, her mood flipping from anger to grief and back again.

  “I know, but you got to live, and your Uncle, I know he cared for you that stupid bastard. He got you wrapped up in this whole thing when I spent my life keeping you out of it.”

  “He’s dead now” she said softly.

  “I’m sorry love,” he said “the poor fool. Your mother loved him so.”

  “Mother,” exclaimed Tasha, “does she know now?”

  He shook his head “No, but let’s keep it that way. She seems pretty happy, she has moved on now with what's-his-name?”

  “Greg.” Answered Tasha, “his name is Greg.”

  “Yes, Greg the accountant?”

  “He’s a lawyer actually.” Tasha chuckled.

  “I knew he had something to do with books,” her father said absentmindedly.

  “So you know what they are doing, what’s being going on for centuries?”

  “Yes, and just like Neron, I want it to stop, although he lost it near the end there.”

  “He’s dead now too” she said.

  “A common theme when The Brotherhood get involved” said her father sarcastically. “I understood they sent in the Turk to do their dirty work?”

  “Guillermo.”

  His eyes narrowed “yes, the wolf, they really meant business.”

  “What do you mean by wolf?”

  “He’s not really a full-blown werewolf, he’s been touched by a werewolf a descendant of the Wepwawet.

  “Wepwawhat?”

  “That's what they called them, the ancient Egyptian wolf god’s. They proceeded the jackal, some think that the jackal started as a wolf and developed into a jackal over time, they would be right. Mayans and Aztecs had them, Indians, just about all them have a ‘wolf god.’ They were a bit of joke on behalf of the Patriarchs, manipulating men, making them half dog, half human. They had fun with genetic experiments, I suppose it kept them entertained.

  They used them for their dirty work, fairly mindless but loyal and easy to train. The Wepwawet accompanied the gods on their hunting and assisted them in the dissection of their dinner. They had the body of a man and the head of a wolf and were capable of procreation.

  “Any link to Anubis? The god with the jackal head?”

  “Yes actually,” her father nodded at her astuteness. “He followed them, a progenitor of the Wepwawet. As always, things get convoluted by the imaginings of man, but he was still associated with death. Anubis was closely associated with mummification and as a protector of the dead, conducting the deceased to the hall of judgement. It is suitable that he would be associated with the removal of their organs for Patriarch's, the ones who go by many names.

  Only problem was, their offspring couldn’t decide if they were one or the other, wolf or human, and the eternal battle began, the fight between wolf and man, the viciousness of the wolf emerging when night descended, human by day. Guillamo fought an entire pack and was scratched, leaving him tainted or touched by the wolf.”

  “It can be passed on? Are there more creatures out there like this?” asked Tasha incredulously.

  “Yes, more genetic experiments, back from the time when we were the playthings of the gods. Their genetic abomination can be passed on like a virus. If they infect you with some of their bodily fluids, it can start a chain reaction, the destruction of part of your DNA replaced with the mutation, and you become just like them.

  They start you out hunting for things like this, thinking you are doing humanity a service. I can tell you though, if they had the internet, Facebook, mobile phones, Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram back when we first started hunting and collecting, it would have been extremely difficult to keep this all under wraps.”

  “Uncle said they sent you in search of a Naga, in India?” she asked, dying to find out the full circumstances surrounding his disappearance.

  “Yes, I went in search of a Naga, and what I discovered made the Naga look like a Nun.”

  “Neron?” she asked.

  “What?” he started chuckling, amazed at how quickly she caught-on. “Yes, Neron’s factory. In fact, Neron was the one who saved my life.” She looked at him shocked.

  “So what happened then?”

  He studied her carefully for a few moments, admiring her stoicism. “Well, I can truly see you aren’t a little girl anymore. You are quite ready to hear the truth.” He bent to scratch Biggles who had decided to rub himself back and forth across his shin. Biggles was a good judge of character, she mused, but then she had always known that.

  “I ended up finding the Naga, and at the same time something was far above my paygrade. Do you know what a Naga is?” She nodded her head to indicate no. “Do you remember what I said about the Wepwawet?”

  She nodded again affirmatively. “The Naga is a mix between snake and man. It does not manifest physically apart from a set of fangs. They are concealed, but can flick down from the upper jaw line behind the teeth, and protrude several centimetres. The Naga would be what you would consider a Vampire.”

  “A Vampire, you mean they drink blood?” She shuddered.

  “Yes. Like a snake when they bite they inject an intoxicating venom, and they feed off your blood. If they do not entirely exsanguinate you, then you will turn from their bite.”

  “That’s a lot like the Vampire legends.”

  “Yes, I believe they were derived from the Naga. It's a bit quieter now these days, there is less activity with these sorts of creatures than there used to be.”

  He continued his story. “The Naga also have the power to mesmerize people, this is the main way they catch their prey, by seducing and enticing them. Normally they are secretive creatures, hiding away much like snakes. The one I found in India, had gone quite mad. It was living in a cave near a village and feeding off the villagers in the night.”

  “As luck or serendipity or whatever you call it would have, this village was near Neron’s factory. At night-time when I was on my stakeouts, I would notice a lot of strange activity occurring at the factory, late night arrivals and container trucks. I thought at first it was drugs, oh boy, how wrong was I?”

  “One night I could swear I heard screaming coming from one of those vans. So I left my stake-out to investigate the factory and that was when I stumbled across the going’s on there. I was shocked, to say the least, it was extremely confronting. You know the old saying, curiosity killed the cat.”

  Tasha nodded “Yes, I know it.”

  “Well, the cat got curious and almost got dead. I flew out of that place like a bat out of hell, wondering if what I saw was actually real or I had fallen asleep on stakeout and was having a bad dream. I ran straight into the welcoming arms of the Naga.

  I wasn’t really prepared for him at that moment, to say the very least, and it was actually Neron who came to my rescue before he could bite down on me, of that I thank my lucky stars.”

  “The rest is history.” He grimaced, “that night ended my relationship with The Brotherhood. I came to realise only a select few are invited into their exclusive circle, they are the ones privileged with the real truth, the rest of us are just lackeys, dispensable. They were never going to tell me the truth. Now in their eyes I’m a defector, a traitor, because I saw what was happening and I disagree with it.”

  “Ok, so now you spoke with Neron, right, he changed your m
ind, influenced you?”

  “Yes, he did. He wasn’t always like that, the way you found him when you met him. He was different when his wife was alive. He deteriorated afterwards. His motivation was once pure, to cease the purge, end the offerings and stand up to the Patriarch's no matter what the outcome.

  “But to do that you need the orb, right?”

  “Yes, that would give us our only real chance of winning.”

  She looked up at him, a determined look on her face. “I want to fight. I want to end this.”

  “I still don’t think you understand fully the history of what you are stepping into.”

  “Then explain it all to me, I need to know.” He nodded, holding true to his promise that she was ready to hear the truth.

  His face turned even more serious. “Ok, so your Uncle would have told you about the arrival of The Patriarch's? I believe they had a different name at that time, one which has since been lost in the annals of time.”

  “Yes, he told me, but maybe you should start from the beginning?”

  “Ok then. Well, once they arrived on Earth, things got messy. The Patriarch's were aliens from another planet and they came with a clear purpose. They came to rule, dominate and destroy. They had a lust for flesh and blood and a wicked desire to pervert the true course of nature. The Patriarch’s quickly became the top of the food chain, rulers of man, subjugating them until The Fall.”

  “The Fall was recorded as a time when some of The Patriarch's defected, choosing to live with humans as equals, mate with them and have offspring. They split away from their cohorts and were reviled by them. To them it was considered akin to what we consider as bestiality, they saw us a lower being, like we see animals.”

  “The scarier part for them was yet to come. The alien human hybrid was genetically superior, stronger, more intelligent and possessing some unique qualities. Ostracised by The Patriarch's they began to identify with their human counterparts, and decided to rise up against their tyranny. The Patriarch's grew fearful of them, they became aware of the talk of an uprising and they sought to destroy the abominations. Annihilate any existence of the perversion of their bloodline, and as such started a war which sadly ended in the greatest catastrophe the world had ever seen, the flood.”