“We keep going,” Jonah said. “We stay in the shadows.” He looked at Ilya again. “How did you get inside?”
Ilya looked back to the gap in the fence that they had used to get inside. She thought back to the day that she had come in search of Ryan. After creeping through that gap, she had headed for the front of the factory and she pointed in the opposite direction of where they had been heading.
“I went that way,” she said. “I was trying to get to the front of the factory, but I didn’t get all the way around. There’s a door on the side of the building that I was able to get into.”
Jonah nodded and they all stood, rushing out from behind the pallets and into the dark section further to the side of the building. They kept up their pace as they made their way around the side of the factory. Ilya scanned it, looking for the door. She remembered that it was inset into the wall, down several small cement steps. Finally, she saw it and she gestured toward it, feeling that they should speak as little as possible, particularly while the light was still on. Though they hadn’t seen anyone react to the light, there was no way of knowing who might be inside the factory at that moment and if the light created another alarm or signal when it turned on, calling the attention of those inside. Staying safe meant staying undetected, and every step that they got closer to the factory made that more of a challenge. Finally, they reached the short flight of stairs that led down to the door. She nodded.
“That’s it,” she whispered, barely audible.
Jonah headed down the steps first, followed by Aubrey, Willow, and Gannon. Ilya wanted to be the last to go, feeling like she should usher them forward, but Mordecai wouldn’t allow it. He stepped back from her when she hesitated and gestured toward the stairs. She shook her head, but he stayed firm. Ilya knew that they couldn’t waste any time and relented, stepping down on the first step and feeling Mordecai come up close behind her. When they were all crowded into the small space in front of the door, Jonah looked back at them as if to confirm that they were all ready. He turned back to the door and grasped the handle. The door didn’t budge, and Ilya felt her stomach drop. She didn’t know why she had expected the door to be broken the way that it had when she crept through it. There was no reason that Ryan wouldn’t have noticed the breach and ensured that it was fixed to prevent others from using it to get inside.
“What now?” Aubrey asked.
Mordecai pointed to one side.
“Look,” he said. “Look at that window.”
Ilya followed his gesture and noticed a tall window several feet from the ground.
“We can’t reach that,” Ilya said. “It’s way too high.”
“I can get to it,” Mordecai said. “I’ll go in and come open the door.”
“No,” Ilya said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“You have no idea what’s in there,” Gannon said. “You could get lost.”
“I’m not going to get lost,” Mordecai said. “The window is right above the door. I’ll find it.”
“And what if there’s someone in there waiting for you?” Ilya asked, feeling a frantic sense of fear building in her stomach and starting to crawl up toward her chest at the thought of him going inside by himself.
He turned to her and looked at her with an expression that made her feel as though it was only the two of them there together.
“I will be fine,” he said carefully. “Just wait for me. Stay right here.”
“There has to be another way in,” Gannon said. “We’ll find another way.”
“No,” Mordecai said. “There is a way, right there. There’s no reason to keep looking. We’re wasting time. Going any further would just put us at more risk.”
Knowing that there was nothing that any of them could say that would change his mind or stop him, the group stepped back. Ilya felt his hand briefly run across her back and over her hip as he stepped past her toward the low wall that bordered one side of the steps. In one hop, he got on top of the wall. He briefly glanced over the building before placing his foot on the ledge at the top of the doorframe and using it for leverage to push himself up. For a moment, it seemed that he wouldn’t be able to open the window, but one hard hit with the side of his hand cracked through the aging glass. Ilya winced at the sound, but it didn’t seem to bother Mordecai. He simply pushed aside the pieces, grasped the windowsill, and seconds later disappeared into the darkness of the factory.
Chapter Three
The smell of the coffee wafting up from the cup on the table in front of him cleared Ryan’s mind and help to ward off the tiredness that was slowing his thoughts and his movements. He refused to allow himself to sleep for any more than a couple of hours at a time. He needed to stay awake, to remain alert and ready to take action at any minute. When he slept, he was vulnerable and ineffective, unable to know what was happening around him or to make the decisions that he needed to, to keep the situation under control.
Ryan breathed in the rich aroma and reached for the cup, wrapping his hands around it and bringing it to his lips. Strong and bitter, the coffee woke his mind up further. He was sitting at the dining table again, realizing that he had eaten almost as little in the last several days as he had slept. He took a few bites of the meal placed in front of him, acknowledging that the flavors of the food told him that it was breakfast. It was what he had wanted when he requested the meal, though the warped cycles of his body made it so that he didn’t actually know the time of day or if breakfast was the appropriate choice for food.
Just as he always did, Declan stood at the back of the room, just out of Ryan’s sight, but close enough that at any moment he would be ready to react to an order or a question. Ryan ate through both plates of food that he had been brought and then pushed them ahead of him on the table, reaching for the coffee cup. He took the last of it in one swallow and then held the cup to the side so that Declan could step forward and refill it.
“Thank you, Declan,” he said.
The words sounded almost powdery coming out of his mouth as if the sleep deprivation were stealing the energy from all elements of him. He gulped the coffee down, ignoring the pain of the hot liquid burning over his mouth and down his throat. Declan filled the cup once more and then lowered the now-empty pot to a tray on a buffet nearby. He took a few more sips of the coffee and then set the cup on the table. He leaned back in the chair, letting the hot, reviving liquid run through him. When he felt that he was waking up, he turned and looked at Declan.
“You said that there was more that you wanted to tell me,” he said. “Have you heard from the trackers about Frederick?”
“No,” the Valdician man said. “They are still working on finding him. They haven’t heard anything about his movements after leaving the transportation bay at the University.”
“Then what is it?” he asked, lifting the cup again to take another sip.
“Several people have appeared at the factory.” Declan took a breath. “Ilya is with them.”
Ryan felt anger explode within him and slammed the cup down onto the table with such ferocity that the handle cracked and the coffee splashed across the wooden surface.
“What do you mean that Ilya is with them?” he asked, his voice lifted to a growl now.
“She escaped from the laboratory with the others and is with two of the hybrids and three humans.”
“Three humans?”
Declan gave a single nod.
“Two women and a man. The man…” his voice trailed off as if there was something more than he wanted to say but he was unsure if he should say it.
“Yes?” Ryan said. “What about him?”
“He appears to be one of the men from the Nyx 23 crew.”
Ryan stood up from the chair so quickly that he knocked the cup over. It cracked the rest of the way and the remaining coffee spread across the table, dripping off the edge onto the polished wood floor below. He stared at the Valdician man for a few tense seconds before stalking out of the room and starting toward the
massive curved staircase at the front of the house. Being back in the home where his great-grandfather had lived when he had come to Earth from Penthos made Ryan feel more connected to his family and to the heritage that he felt that he had coursing through his blood. The opulence and luxury that Odin had lived in was the tangible representation of what Ryan believed he deserved. It showed the immense power that his great-grandfather had been able to gain for himself after only a short time on Earth and that he continued to enjoy throughout the rest of his life.
That was the power that Ryan wanted now. He had craved the control that Odin had, and the promise of even further power when he continued the experiments that the powerful Valdician man had designed. Odin knew the potential of his idea, of the work that he and the humans that he cooperated with had done to craft impossibly skilled, weaponized soldiers that would know only fighting and the strategies of war rather than the emotional trappings and entanglements of average warriors.
He climbed the stairs several at a time and stomped into the cavernous office in the middle of the upstairs corridor. The house seemed to tremble around him as he slammed the door and crossed the room in three long strides. He slid a small wooden panel out of the way on the wall to reveal a screen. Placing one palm against the screen, Ryan used his other hand to input a code on the keypad. He then switched hands to imprint the other palm. The wall moved out of the way and he stepped into a shallow hidden compartment. Turning around he revealed another control pad and input another series of codes to get into the next segment of the hidden network of rooms. The final segment of wall moved out of the way and he walked into the most treasured and valued room within the house.
This is the space where Odin had spent most of his time and what he guarded above anything else. Not just a room, this space was a temple to everything that was Odin and all that he had accomplished. Ryan walked to the large black leather chair in the middle of the room and settled into it. He relaxed into it, feeling comfortable and at peace on the furniture where he had spent countless hours. It was as though he could feel the energy of his great-grandfather still in the chair. Ryan reached down and picked up a set of electrodes. He attached them to his temples and rested his head back against the chair. Using a dial on the arm of the chair, he scrolled through the symbols on the huge screen that appeared on the wall ahead of him. Selecting his favorite, he let his body relax and disappeared into the memories that he watched play out on the screen.
This was how he was able to live alongside his great-grandfather. He had never had the privilege of being in the corporal presence of his great-grandfather, something that he miserably regretted, but watching these memories made him feel as though he was as close to being with Odin as he could ever be. Through these memories he was able to witness what Odin had, to see exactly what happened through his eyes. The electrodes allowed Ryan to feel what his great-grandfather had been feeling in those moments, letting him continue to experience his own thoughts, emotions, and reactions as he watched the memories but also an overlay of Odin’s so that he was fully immersed in the memory.
Ryan watched the memories that his great-grandfather had banked until the angry shaking had stopped and he felt more in control. Watching these memories always gave him a boost, restoring his sense of confidence and strength, and reminding him of why he did all that he did. When he was finished, Ryan returned the electrodes to their container and went through the protective stages of the security network to return to the office. He walked out of the room and went further down the corridor into another of the home’s important rooms.
While his memories remained banked in the hidden room, this is where the body of Odin lay. Ryan’s grandfather had chosen to keep his great-grandfather’s body in the home rather than interring it in one of the Earth cemeteries or traveling back into the dangers of space to dispose of it in the ritual ways of the Valdicians. Keeping it in this room had ensured that it was respected and honored in the appropriate way and that it couldn’t be confiscated or damaged by those who opposed him. It was a tradition that Ryan’s father would continue on when his grandfather died. Ryan visited Odin’s tomb first. He knelt in front of it as he always did, reaching forward to rest his hand on the deep engravings on the front that spoke of Odin’s accomplishments in the ancient language of the Valdicians. Ryan spent several minutes there, seeking the peaceful calm and guiding influence of his great-grandfather. This was the only man who Ryan would ever consider more powerful and capable of glory than himself. He sought in all things to embody him and do as he would have wanted, following the path that he had laid ahead and carrying the spark that he had begun so many years before.
When he was finished, Ryan stood and started back across the room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the piece of twisted acrylic sitting on a table several feet away. He turned and walked to it, pausing by the table to look at the sculpture. The smooth, clear acrylic was accented with swathes of blue, accenting the vein of grey through the shape. That was the blended ashes of his parents, swirled together so that they were inextricable from one another throughout the rest of eternity. Though there was some sadness when he looked at the ashes, Ryan felt mostly anger and bitterness toward his parents. He couldn’t understand why his father would waste all the work that the generations before him had done. Ryan knew that Odin was fully and completely devoted to the work that he was doing, and even his grandfather, though he had a child with a human woman who had been blended with another species, gave of himself totally to the efforts that Odin had started. He believed in the work, in the experiments and the future of the Valdicians. They were unimaginably strong and powerful, much more so than the Valdicians now, even though the species was still very strong. He couldn’t imagine why his father would choose to reject all that they had done, all that they had accomplished, to marry a human woman and live out his life as a human.
Though he knew that it was illogical, Ryan felt like it was this rejection that had somehow resulted in him not having any of the characteristics of the species that created him. Born with the blood of the Valdicians and blended with the other species that had remained a closely guarded secret that even he didn’t know, Ryan expected that he would grow into the features and characteristics of his heritage. He thought that one day he would develop the strengths and abilities that were his birthright, but he never did. Instead, he was nothing more than human, his more youthful appearance as he aged the only thing that set him apart as anything different.
Ryan felt his resolve strengthen and refresh within him, and his goals seemed clearer than ever before. He was ready to pursue the next step. Leaving the shrines of his great-grandfather, grandfather, and parents behind, Ryan went back down the stairs and found the Valdician man who was his direct connection between him and the rest of the army. He instructed him to gather the army and strode into what once had been a beautiful and impressive ballroom but was now used for business with the army.
Several minutes later the army joined him there, falling into the formation that they always did when called into a meeting with him. Ryan looked out over them, ensuring that they were all there and in their correct positions. When he was satisfied with their positions, he gave them what he hoped was a motivating smile.
“It’s time, my friends,” he said, calling on the camaraderie that he sometimes neglected to encourage them and boost their drive to prepare for the challenges ahead. “We are nearing the day when we prepare for our return to Penthos.”
“Why ‘nearing’?” one of the men asked. “We have already been waiting for so long. We’re ready to take what is ours.”
“There is more to be done first,” Ryan said. “You – we – need to be stronger, and I need to ensure that the army is as powerful as possible before we go. I didn’t expect this much resistance and now that I know what they are willing to do, I can’t risk any mistakes. We are coming up against ancient enemies, those our kind has not encountered in countless years. It has been lifetimes since the Val
dicians have faced these species, but the hatred still runs true, and the time for vengeance is upon us. We have already brought the Order into our influence. Now we must be sure when the moment comes for us to fight, we will be fully primed and prepared for victory.”
Chapter Four
Mhavrych could feel the tension in the room around him. It felt like the air itself was heavy and thick, pressing in so that it was more difficult to breathe. He looked around at the gathering of people who filled Rey’s drawing room. He had been in this room before, but it looked different now that it was so crowded, filled not just with the trusted few in the village, but also all the Eteri men who had come to fulfill Creia’s request for assistance. They knew that things were reaching a boiling point and that action needed to be taken.
“Something needs to be done now,” Creia said pointedly. “We didn’t have the luxury of time like before, it has become far more serious now. We have been betrayed.”
“Someone was able to hand Malcolm back over to the Order,” Mhavrych confirmed. “He’s fortunate to be alive. I witnessed some of what he endured, and I can attest that he would not have survived much longer.”
“Where is he now?” Rey asked.
“That’s not something that I can reveal,” Mhavrych said. “He is safe, that’s all that I can tell you.”
Rey looked angry and he leaned toward Mhavrych.
“I have been kept out of enough of the developments within my own kingdom. It is disturbing enough to me that I did not even know about the existence of the Order when it was operating just beneath my feet. I will not tolerate being kept out of anything else. I am still King of this kingdom and I expect that when I ask something of you, it is given to me without question.”
“You are not my King,” Mhavrych answered calmly. “I don’t follow you or your commands.”
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