“I’m Henry,” he said, extending his hand. Serena leaned forward to shake politely.
“Serena,” she offered with a smile.
“That’s quite a guy you’ve rounded up there.”
“Rion?” She nodded. “He is.”
“Now that you got him. What are you going to do with him?” Henry relaxed back into the couch.
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve been chasing Rion for weeks, haven’t ya?”
“I think we’ve been chasing each other.”
“Oh no. I distinctly remember him dumping you.”
Serena smirked at the old man’s play of the situation. “He’s the one who came back to me, Henry.”
“He breaks your heart and you just let him right back in. I had daughters. Trust me, I know how all y’all operate.” He winked at her.
Serena smiled a little shyly. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him, Henry.” She admitted. “I was just thinking about the two of us. We’re both very different.”
“And similar.”
“You think? How do you know?”
“You’re attracted. That’s how.”
“It’s just Nature, Henry.”
Henry shook his head. “Nah. More than just Nature. You have some very deep feelings for Rion, Serena. Deeper than I think you even realize.”
“Rion has a lot of unknowns to me, Henry.”
“He does. It’s quite a lot to deal with; a new culture, new people, new knowledge, and there’s an ugly war brewing that you barely know anything about. That’s not gonna be easy.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I am.” He smiled. “And to top it off, Rion just lost his parents. He’s not exactly at the top of his game at the moment.”
“That must be really hard. I can’t imagine.”
“It is hard. His whole world has been shaken.”
“I can sort of sense that.”
“Rion could use some stability right now.”
Serena chuckled.
Henry smiled, waving his hand at her. “I know what you’re gonna say.”
“I’m not, Henry. Stable at the moment myself here.”
“But you do have each other. I guess you like his company, don’tcha?”
“He treats me like a princess, Henry.”
“I know he does.” Henry got up straining and returned the books he had been reading to the shelves. “Serena, I’m not trying to tell you what to do. Rion’s not anymore or less perfect than the rest of us. We all make mistakes. He’s made his share of them already, looking out for you.” Henry’s gaze met hers.
“I know that’s why he broke up with me.”
Henry nodded. “He didn’t want to drag you into all of this nonsense.”
“I guess I’m pretty much in the thick of it now. I don’t know what to do Henry,” she admitted, not really sure why she felt completely comfortable confiding in a perfect stranger. “I love Rion, that’s really all I know.”
“I know you do.” Henry leveled eyes with her. They were kind eyes. Wise. “And he loves you. That’s a mighty powerful combination you two have going.”
“I don’t know, Henry. Part of me wants to be with him, but then, part of me just wants to go back home so I can wake up from this crazy dream and be normal again.”
“Serena—I wish you could, honey. But life sometimes deals us into a game we don’t wanna be in. The other players are ugly, ruthless. We’re then given a hand we’re too afraid to play.”
She stood up, nodding.
“From where I’m standing, you’re holding some mighty fine cards there, young lady. Cards you need to be playin’.
She nodded.
“I won’t lie to you. You’re being dealed into a tough game. Brutal. But you got some aces, Sweetheart, that ain’t yet showin’.”
Henry’s words brought encouragement and even mist to her eyes as she nodded her smile.
He nodded his good-bye without another word; only wise eyes and a kind smile.
She watched the old man don his hat and thump down the stairs in his weathered boots. She watched from the loft railing as he descended the grand stairway and then disappeared out the front door into the falling snow.
His words echoed in her mind. She wrapped her hands around the still hot cup wondering about what he had said, not just about Rion, but the two of them together.
25
H is watch read 4:00 A.M. when Jake arrived in San Antonio from Austin. It was a short drive through town to the college where he had once attended school with her. Jake parked off campus and walked in the direction of Serena’s dorm. He knew the campus well and took the usual paths and shortcuts. He still had the key Serena had given him when they were dating. It let him slip silently into the building of sleeping co-eds and then into her dorm room. He drew the curtains, stuffed some clothes along the bottom edge of the door and flipped on the light.
Jake scanned the room; it was neat and very clean for a dorm room, unlike her car which was usually the exact opposite. Standing in her room again brought back a myriad of memories that Jake greedily clung to. He sighed.
Donning a pair of latex gloves, he pulled a small camera from his pocket, taking both HD video and dozens of pictures. The police would be following up on the missing persons report in the morning and they’d no doubt destroy any real evidence that might actually be useful in helping find Serena.
Laying next to Serena’s iPhone, a thick men’s gold band had been looped with the fine 14 karat gold chain Jake had given her when they’d first started dating. He picked up the thick ring with it’s fine diamond-looking inlay. Whoa. Jake mused to himself. That’s not gold. It was just a little too heavy for its size. He examined the ring closely. Jake’s family was not unskilled in lapidary and that part of the family business had been instilled in Jake at an early age. Even without a loupe, he could tell the workmanship was exquisite. Nearly flawless. Something in Hebrew was written on the inside of the band—well, at least it looked like paleo-Hebrew. He could make out only two of the words, master and temple. Well, it was paleo, those words could have meant anything depending on their context. He slipped the ring still on it’s chain into a small plastic zip-locked bag and then into his pocket.
Serena’s iPhone was next. He picked it up and tapped it to life. Serena still hadn’t taken his advice and changed her ridiculous passcode. Jake was glad she hadn’t now. Rion’s number was all over her phone’s call and voicemail history. Good. These would likely be all the clues Jake needed to find her. He turned the phone off, removed its SIM card and placed both of the items into another bag and into another pocket.
Her wallet was still in the desk drawer where she always kept it. He quickly thumbed through it. Finding nothing out of place, Jake placed it back into the drawer just as he had found it. Then his eye caught a glimpse of a larger dark velvet jewel box. He lifted the fine box from the drawer and opened it. His eyes widened at the sight of the massive diamond earrings; a soft whistle trailed off his lips with his closer examination of them. These were not the kind of thing you just had lying around in your dorm room drawer. They were obviously a gift to Serena from this Rion guy. Okay, so Rion had money; lots of money. Jake decided he had to return them to her––personally. He carefully slipped the box into his pocket as he continued looking around the room.
On Serena’s desk was a large photo of her and Rion embracing. Damn. Jake easily understood why Serena would have fallen for the guy. He was handsome; and nicely built. They made a great picture together. Knowing how Serena liked to take pictures, he was sure there were hundreds of pictures of Rion on her phone as well. Still, Jake studied Rion’s face. His look. His features. His hair.
Jake set the picture down just as he had found it and went to her closet. Pulling a hamper of wrinkled clothes into the light, Jake fumbled through them looking only at her shirts, examining the shoulders and collars. Holding up a fuchsia top he unfolded the collar.
“Bing
o,” Jake breathed.
He lifted a short thick dark hair from the back of her shirt collar and placed it into a tiny bag, locking it closed. He replaced the clothes and the hamper just as he had found it; then he scanned the room again for anything that might help him find Serena.
As he was about to leave, Jake’s gaze once again fell on the picture of the two of them. He fought the jealousy growing within himself, and mercilessly crushed his own feelings. He was a soldier; one with a job to do. This was not about him. This was about Serena.
“You had better hope to G-d she is still alive,” Jake warned to the image of Rion in the photo. “Because if she’s not, not even G-d will be able to save you from me.”
He clicked out the light and slipped out of the building like a shadow in the softly blowing night breeze.
* * * * *
Snow was falling hard all over the outside world of what had apparently become Serena’s new home, at least for now. She had not gone back to bed. Early morning crept dim light into the big home. Sevrin and Rion were still asleep and the piling deep drifts outside now rendered all of them prisoners within in the rugged lodge.
The third-floor library had held Serena’s interest since meeting Henry hours ago. Sevrin had quite an eclectic collection of books. There were a few Human classics written in English, what looked like French and Chinese, but mostly the books were written in the same unreadable language Serena had seen in the plane. The books appeared to be mostly literature, but then some were also science tomes; math and astronomy; and also a lot of history from some of the images scattered throughout its pages. The pictures gave Serena a thought and she began in earnest looking for a kind of photo album. Images. Pictures. Those she could readily understand.
She found a short shelf of photo albums and began voraciously flipping through them, seeing who she could see. Nameless people from ages past filled the pages, all having that telltale ‘Ra’ look as she had begun to recognize it. There were people in sharply detailed color photos of beautiful garden cities; others looking at large scrolls with half-constructed pyramids in the distance. It was like looking through a kind of time machine of ancient history. Serena recognized Jerusalem but only because it looked like the old Second Temple in the background. There were Roman Centurions, and Conquistadors, people dressed from what looked the European Renaissance, and the early American Colonies.
Finally, Serena found a section of Rion’s family. The first was an old and grainy eight-by-ten black and white photo of Rion; he looked like a late teen leaning against an old car from the 1920’s or maybe 1930’s.
“Wow,” she mouthed, her fingers sliding over the photo.
There were more of the sharp color pictures of Rion and his parents. Rion’s dad was really handsome, tall and stocky, while Rion’s mom was only slightly shorter and very thin and exotic looking. She could have been a supermodel. Rion was a split image of his mom and dad, carrying features from both, but he mostly resembled his mom. Those dimples were unmistakable. Serena could see how Rion had inherited his amazing muscular frame and good looks from both of these people.
She closed the album and descended the stairs quietly to the second floor and back to their room. She slipped out of her long johns and back between the covers. Her side of the bed was cold, the covers warmed only so much from Rion’s side. She felt him stir and then move close to her, wrapping his very warm body around her.
“Oooh, you’re really warm.” Serena tightly snuggled herself fully into his toasty spooning embrace.
“I felt you upstairs. Checking out Sevrin’s library?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Worried?”
“Yea. A little.”
“I’m sorry. I keep wishing I hadn’t brought you into this crazy world of mine.”
“No, don’t say that. Besides, I think fate or Nature or God, or someone had already planned on me being part of this ‘crazy world of yours’, a long time ago.”
“It does kind of seem that way.”
“I was looking at pictures of you when you were younger. Your mom was beautiful.”
“She was. They were both kind people.”
“How old were they? When they had you—”
“Dad was close to ten. Mom was about half that.”
“Ten? Thousand?”
She felt him nodding.
“How long were they married?”
“They weren’t married, Hon.”
“Oh. Right.”
“They fell in love and had me. Mom was pretty sure she was never going to have any more kids.”
“More kids?”
“Uh-huh. Both of my parents had numerous previous families, Serena. Long before they found each other and I came along.”
“So you have half-brothers and sisters?”
“In Human terms, yea, I guess I did.”
“What happened to all of them?”
Rion was silent. But she could feel him grimace inside. “The war, Hon.”
“Oh, Rion. I’m so sorry.” She held tightly onto his arm.
“It’s alright. I never knew any of them. They were all gone millennia before I was born.”
“Still. It’s really sad. All those people.”
“I know. It’s no fun living with a target on your back.”
26
J ake walked into the lobby of a tall office building. Back in Austin, the Israeli-owned company developed software for a myriad top U.S. banking firms and a few defense contractors. The company also harbored clandestine offices for the IDF. He briefly smiled as he walked past the receptionist who had no idea who he was.
“Can I help you sir?” She asked, not recognizing the young man dressed in well worn light blue jeans and an equally worn brown leather jacket with a tossed hip hair cut.
“No thanks, I’ve got it,” he replied.
Jake flashed a card against the security panel for the door in front of him. The panel beeped and went green. There was the clack of the security bolt disengaging. He opened the door and disappeared behind it.
The receptionist shrugged.
Jake found the secured lab offices he was looking for and walked into one of them unannounced.
The lab technician briefly glanced up from her monitors and then went back to studying them. “Most people like to knock,” she offered, her Hebrew only slightly accented by her obviously Indian heritage. “You must be Jacob.”
“Only my family still calls me that; call me Jake.”
She stood and extended her hand. “I’m Mira. Nice to finally meet you, Jake.”
“You said in your text that you had something interesting to show me; so show me.”
“No small talk. You Mossad don’t beat around the bush do you?”
Jake ignored the comment.
“Oh-kay,” she offered a bit intimidated now. “The hair sample your courier delivered this morning. We ran a full spectrum analysis and DNA pattern match against every database we have. Even some we don’t have, officially,” she added.
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not exactly interesting, Mira.”
She looked wryly at him. “You obviously don’t work in my field. Whenever we run really broad scans like these, we always get hits, false positives, sometimes tens of thousands that we then have to then drill down into. This guy you call Rion; nothing. His DNA pattern matches no one. Not even close.”
“Ah, Mira, what are you saying, exactly?”
“It’s like the guy’s his own race. You’re Semitic, I’m Indian, this guy is like …” she shook her head, “way something else. Like his own species.”
“You’re sample’s bad.”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Jake. I know the difference between a good and bad sample. I got two really good cells from that hair and ran the second test on a completely different machine. Same result.”
“I don’t have time to be chasing dead ends, Mira. A woman is in grave danger. We alread
y have one body; I don’t want the next one to be hers.”
“It sounds personal.”
He shot a steely stare at her. “It is.”
* * * * *
Serena entered the upscale kitchen of the massive lodge home. Their room’s stone shower and bathroom felt like a personal spa. She had then found an entire closet full of nice clothes, and everything just her size. She had dressed in some jeans and several layers of warmer, long-sleeved shirts and boots. The home was warmer than outside, but the big fire didn’t keep it altogether completely livable, at least not by Serena’s standards. Apparently these Ra liked the air to be practically freezing.
Rion had just poured batter onto the hot griddle of the huge commercial stove. After a quick shower, he had slipped commando into some comfy, well-worn jeans with tattered holes in the knees and donned a white flannel Henley that he had not bothered to tuck-in or button. Still barefoot, he waited for Serena to finish before pouring the batter.
“Where’s Sevrin?” she asked.
“Probably whatever ‘Sevrins’ do. I’m sure he’s planning for our celebration.”
“Our celebration? What are we celebrating?” She poured herself some coffee.
“Your coronation.”
“Coronation? Rion, what are you talking about?”
Rion sighed. “My—mom’s side of the family was a kind of royalty, Serena. Dad’s family had some of that royal blood as well. It’s how they got together.”
“Royalty?” she looked curiously at him over the top of her cup.
“I know. It probably seems a little silly, but the rest of the family is being very insistent.”
“So you’re a prince?” she asked.
He groaned. “I guess,” he nodded holding his spatula in front of the stove, not looking very princely at the moment.
“Rion!”
“Hmmm?”
“Is there anything else I need to know—about you and this, this royal family of yours?” Her tone grew a bit incredulous.
Interra (Awakened Series Book 5) Page 25