Kindred Truths Read online

  “Who is that?” Nordik asked softly when he bent down close to Poe’s ear.

  “Agent Oenghus. Don’t be deceived by his looks. He’s a competent field agent. But he prefers noncombative jobs, and he’s mostly sent out to collect intel and negotiate with hostile locals. He never fails to reach some reasonable solution and alliance, even with those intent on being stubborn and recalcitrant.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He doesn’t get angry.”

  Nordik frowned. “Never?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  Poe glanced up with a smile. “Maybe for warriors like you and me, but not for him.”

  “Agents! Attention.”

  Conversation stopped and everyone’s attention turned to Hera.

  “I called you all here because we just had a wake-up call. Now we know why Arcas has been so successful at recruiting soldiers from all walks of life. He has the gift of persuasion that trumps that of Hitler himself.”

  Dark murmurs greeted that statement. Hera narrowed her eyes, and they faded.

  “We’ve now seen this ability firsthand. Followers have mentioned such persuasive powers, haven’t they, Captain Odin?”

  Odin stepped away from the wall. “Yes. During my sessions with them, they tried to describe Arcas’s hold over them.”

  “Interrogation sessions,” Poe murmured for Nordik’s ears only.

  Nordik leaned down close to Poe’s face. “Torture?”

  Poe’s mouth tightened as he gave a sharp nod. Nordik straightened, regarding Odin closely. He didn’t know what to feel about the method or those who implemented it.

  “Most often they said how they were compelled to please him, almost addicted to his words and praise,” Odin said. “They had to. It became their only purpose in life, their way of making a difference in the world. A cause greater than their own. They never once questioned what he said or what he asked of them. And nearly all of them used the same words to describe him: godlike, invincible. They revered him as a divine being who would lead them into paradise. And these were people from all social standings. Many of them were stable, healthy members of society who suddenly turned into mindless soldiers, recruited by the Knights. This explains why Arcas could touch so many, even those who had no direct involvement with shifters.”

  “Thank you, Odin,” Hera said.

  Odin stepped back, and Hera took control again. “This year has brought many revelations. Some in our favor, but most were detrimental to our fight against the Knights of the Dawn. A fight, I hate to say, we are losing.”

  Hera straightened her shoulders, and her face turned to stone. “But that stops. Right here. Right now. Whatever personal life you might have outside the Agency ends now. We are soldiers. We are going to win this war because there is no other option. All of you know what you signed up for when you chose the Agency, and now it’s time to give everything you are and everything you have. Anything less will allow Arcas to win. Over my dead body.”

  The ferocity of her tone had Nordik raising his eyebrows. Many agents in the conference room seemed bolstered by her words, their resolve hardening before his eyes.

  “Arcas wants to destroy everything that is good and soft and compassionate in this world. He wants to destroy the beauty and frenzy of life that exists, and we can’t allow that. We won’t. As your chief I give you this order: defeat him at all costs.”

  Nordik noticed the other chiefs on the monitors nod in agreement with Hera and found some satisfaction in that knowledge. Internal conflict was the quickest way to defeat. It was far more deadly than external fighting. His people had fought among themselves during those twilight years before the tribe had dissolved and split and perished. When a tribe didn’t stand together, it didn’t last. He softly cleared his throat and shook loose of memories.

  “To help us in our task, we compiled all the information we have at this point on Arcas. I yield the floor to Agent Oenghus.”

  She stepped aside, and the beautiful man stepped forward. He took a visible breath before clearing his throat. Without looking at the papers on the clipboard, he began to speak. His voice was light and soothing.

  “His bio is still incomplete, and some of it is supposition, but each claim has evidence, however circumstantial, backing it up. Before I present what I have, I wanted you aware of that fact.”

  Oenghus seemed to falter for a moment.

  “You got this, Oenghus,” Mac suddenly said. Oenghus smiled slightly at the encouragement. Captain Odin glanced at Mac but didn’t say anything. Mac’s audible support, however, seemed to ease Oenghus enough for him to continue.

  “Arcas was the son of Diana Knight. Her family made their money in railroads and oil during the early days of the US. After her parents died, she became the sole heir to the family fortune.”

  Nordik knew that much, and the simple mention of her name had his gut twisting and his skin rippling. Poe seemed to sense his rage and pressed back against him. Agents standing nearest to them glanced over with caution, and Nordik vaguely noticed their stance adjusting to defense. Poe reached behind himself and grabbed his hand. It didn’t ease Nordik’s pain or grief, but it did firm his control. His last mate before Poe, Timothy, had been kidnapped by Diana and Arcas. He had been bait for Nordik. They wanted to kill him. Nordik ended up killing Diana instead, but Arcas escaped. The last remaining years of Timothy’s life had been hard, and he never recovered from his imprisonment at their hands.

  If Nordik had killed Arcas then, none of this would be happening. Guilt didn’t cover what he felt. He rarely indulged in the emotion. If he recognized the weight of guilt he had for the demise of his tribe, what some would call survivor’s guilt, he would be driven insane by that alone. Guilt would only hold him back, and he mostly managed to suppress the emotion. But hearing her name brought it all back.

  “She raised Arcas alone, never marrying. When she died he became the sole heir to all the family’s holdings and businesses, overseas and domestic.” Oenghus glanced at Nordik and cleared his throat. “She was killed by Nordik, and we can only assume he is on Arcas’s priority list.”

  Everyone glanced his way, but Nordik remained expressionless. He stiffened at the sudden attention, but at least most of their looks illustrated satisfaction that he’d killed Diana.

  “Arcas remains low profile. Others are in the limelight while he stays in the shadows as the puppet master. We’ve recently learned that during Diana’s pregnancy, she financed a treasure hunt of sorts. She recruited independent divers to find the location of a ship that sank off the coast of Florida in the late 1700s. It turns out the bird guardian for two of the scrolls had been a passenger on that ship. The scrolls allegedly went down with the ship and were lost. But Diana managed to find one.”

  Oenghus paused, clearly troubled. “The scrolls have been hidden for centuries, so how did Diana know where to look? With the new shifter contacts we’re making locally as well as internationally, we’re learning new histories unknown to us before now. The wolf pack in England recently confided to their Agency ambassador about their role in the scrolls’ history. The bird shifter guarding the two scrolls stayed with their ancestors before traveling to the US. The details are hazy, but it sounds like a pack member teamed up with the bird and they traveled together to the States. The bird shifter originated from Egypt and was being pursued by a countess.”

  “Is it just me, or does this keep getting weirder and weirder?” Poe murmured for Nordik’s ears. Nordik nodded as he set his hand on Poe’s hip.

  “The countess was killed during an attack on the pack’s home, but the strange things she said before she died made them think she’d lived other lives. That she’d always been in pursuit of the scrolls.”

  Nordik glanced at those gathered and realized they were all riveted by the story, just as he was. And it only served to firm his belief that everything happening now was a byproduct of what happened in the Beginning with Merlin, the plague, a
nd the three tribes.

  “If we take what the pack says as truth,” Oenghus continued, “then it means we aren’t simply dealing with a man bent on the destruction of a species. We’re dealing with a… creature. A creature that has lived other lives, one who has never deviated from his goal. We don’t know how long he’s been doing this or how many lives he’s lived, but he’s already nearer to his goal than he ever has been before. He has two scrolls—that we know of. He has half of what he needs.”

  “Pardon.”

  Everyone looked over at a slight Japanese man dressed all in black, his eyes and hair matching his attire. He held up a phone in his hand.

  “Yes, Agent Jin?” Hera said.

  “I have Pan on the phone, and he says Oenghus should get to the good stuff about the scrolls.”

  “He never was a patient man,” Oenghus said with a sigh. “This is for those of you who haven’t read Agents Pan and Jin’s most recent reports. They found out that the scrolls themselves likely date back to the time of Merlin. Back when there were three distinct tribes of intelligent creatures—humans, fae, and shifters.”

  Murmurs broke out among those gathered, and it took Hera shouting for silence several times to regain order.

  “We are told that the four scrolls are keys to a weapon,” Oenghus said. “If we take all of this as fact, then it means not only do the scrolls date back to Merlin’s time, but Arcas does as well. If he found the secret to reincarnation, then he’s been in pursuit of that weapon since before modern human civilization started. We aren’t dealing with one megalomaniac with a fixation on destroying shifters. We’re dealing with someone with the knowledge and strength that could even rival that of Merlin’s, whose sole purpose in life is destroying all opponents—”

  “And setting himself up like a god,” Jin said. All eyes turned to him again. “On my last mission with Pan, Gregor took Brian, the mate of a wolf shifter, hostage. Gregor didn’t mince words with Brian and boasted loud and long about the greatness of Arcas and that he is, in fact, a god, and all those who followed him would be rewarded. All enemies would be eliminated.”

  “Arcas sees himself as a god,” Oenghus said, nodding. “And has proven to have the muscle to back up the claim.”

  “Where is Merlin?” someone asked. “What does he know?”

  “Merlin wasn’t exactly chatty when we met,” Jin said with a raised eyebrow. “Pan has something to say.” He held up the phone high in the air, and Pan’s voice, though slightly muffled, came through clear enough.

  “Like I said in my report,” Pan said, “Merlin himself called Arcas a blood-soaked god of war and death. Apparently Merlin believes this is fated to happen. What this is, we don’t know yet. Merlin mentioned a pattern and a prison and about waiting so long for something. But he didn’t elaborate. Chief, I have to think ‘prison’ meant where the cage the so-called ‘beast of rage’ resides. He definitely knows more than he’s willing to say. I have to wonder if Merlin thinks Arcas is fated to find the scrolls.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said. “I can’t. None of us can afford to think that way. There’s too much risk in bowing to so-called fate. If we’re wrong, the blood of the world will be on our hands.”

  Oenghus stepped back, looking paler than before. Mac touched his arm gently, but his smile was strained.

  Nordik considered all that had been said. He thought back to what clues Merlin might have dropped during their association. Did Merlin know the identity of the beast? Had he known Arcas? Had they been enemies in the Beginning and were only now continuing their fight? What of the plague? Had that been a natural occurrence or Arcas’s first attempt at shifter annihilation?

  “You all needed to know this,” Hera said, cutting through his thoughts. “You need to know what we’re up against. But don’t let this information deter you or make you feel hopeless. We must know our enemy as we know ourselves.”

  “And you need not fear the results of a hundred battles,” Poe murmured.

  “What?” Nordik asked.

  Poe glanced at him. “Sun Tzu again. I’ll have you read it.”

  “Remember, Arcas has tried over centuries to achieve his goal,” Hera continued. “Others have stopped him, and so shall we. Yes, he’s had a lot of time to plan his attacks, but we simply have to catch up. The world won’t end on my watch. You hear me?”

  “Yes, sir!” came the resounding confirmation.

  “Good. Agents, see your captains for your assignments. Chiefs, if you could stay on the line, please, I need a little more of your time. Everyone dismissed!”

  People began the arduous task of filing out of the room.

  “Now what?” Nordik asked.

  Poe shrugged. “Now we wait for our assignment.”

  THE WAIT was becoming unbearable. It had only been two days, but Nordik was on edge. He wasn’t used to taking orders. He was alpha, and he’d been guardian of Sanctuary so long that having others strategize and plan didn’t sit well. Granted, Hera and the captains didn’t ignore the ideas of their soldiers, but it was far from the open environment of his youth. Despite centuries living among the descendants of European settlers, the militaristic chain of command still grated. His tribe had encouraged an exchanging of ideas, casting votes, and the council of women often prevailed over even the council of elders. Only during war did his word hold more weight. It was the women and elders who voted his tribe keep their distance from their human neighbors, to avoid too much interaction. His had been the largest clan of bear shifters in the north, but in the end, that didn’t seem to matter when the European invaders arrived, both human and shifter. He’d tried to band the tribes together, humans and shifters, but old grievances and grudges, and his own tribe’s vote to avoid the newcomers, forced him to make impossible decisions. Only now, centuries later, did Nordik realize one way or another, his people would have perished. It was simply the way of the world… one group conquered another. He only hoped the situation with the Knights wouldn’t follow that pattern.

  Nordik shook himself before he descended too deeply into that abyss of grief, to memories of the twilight of his people. He reminded himself he’d asked to be a part of the Agency. If he tried to go off on his own, he’d waste more time trying to locate anyone.

  But the wait gave him too much time to think and dwell. The mention of Diana had sunk claws into his mind, and he couldn’t yank himself free from the memory. He told himself he was simply too old to allow his mind to linger over past regrets, to allow guilt to weigh him down, to play the “what if” game. If he indulged in such things, he would never move forward. He would be paralyzed by the past. But the guilt and regret gnawed at him like a dog at a bone. He wanted action to refocus his attention, but none was forthcoming.

  And he couldn’t shake the biggest question in his mind: where was Merlin in all this? What was his role in this war? Nordik had tried to reach Merlin on his island, but the phone only rang before clicking to voicemail. He left several messages but doubted they would reach Merlin. He had to be traveling. Nordik knew Merlin was ashamed of something in his past, a sin he couldn’t atone for. But he would never elaborate. It was like they had a jigsaw puzzle mostly assembled, and a picture was starting to form, yet there were still too many vital pieces yet to be compiled, and a few were missing they didn’t know about.

  He and Poe had talked about the puzzle the last two nights but hadn’t formed any sure conclusion.

  Nordik sat back and rolled his shoulders and neck.

  There were bunks in the basement of the building. They were as comfortable as such things could be, but Nordik was grateful he and Poe had a private room. He had tried to distract himself from impatience by learning all he could about the Agency, and the more he learned, the more he respected every single one of them. They were good people. He was proud to have them as allies.

  But that didn’t stop the itch for battle.

  He knew Poe felt the same, and they would often work out their respective kinks in
one of the many training rooms. But it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t stop imagining his brethren being killed by the followers of Arcas while the Agency did nothing.

  But they weren’t doing nothing, he told himself. This was war. There was no place for rashness in war. He knew that better than most.

  The feeling of uselessness was galling.

  Nordik stood up to pace the small office where Poe worked at a computer. They were the only ones in the office, the two other agents having gone for lunch.

  Genii, a buxom redhead with sharp blue eyes, poked her head into the office. She was casual today, wearing jeans and a cotton T-shirt with a lavender hoodie. She was also one of Poe’s closest friends in the Agency.

  “Poe, get your butt out of that chair. We’re going out.”

  “We?” Poe leaned away from the screen and rubbed his eyes.

  “Yeah, we. You, Nordik, Oenghus, and myself. We’re going to a karaoke bar, and I don’t want to hear one thing against it. We’re going to get a little drunk, sing off-key because, God help me, if I stare at any more files to decrypt, I will lose it.”

  Poe eyed her. “And what did Odin say?”

  “He wants us sharp, so he approved.” Genii looked at Nordik. “I don’t want you thinking we aren’t taking this seriously, Nordik. But sometimes the brain could use a break.”

  Nordik nodded. “You need to remember what you’re fighting for.”

  She smiled. “You found a winner here, Poe.”

  “Don’t say that. He has a big enough head as it is.”

  Nordik raised an eyebrow at Poe, who winked at him. Poe grabbed his jacket.

  “What do ya say, Nordik? Want to come with us and revel in debauchery?”

  Nordik snorted. “This should be interesting.”

  “Oh, it will be,” Genii assured him as she led the way out of the room. “If Oenghus wasn’t an agent, he’d be the winner of American Idol.”

  Genii led them down the hall past a couple of offices before turning sharply into one of them. Nordik looked in. The office was identical to the one they’d left. Only one agent was in there, but there were obvious signs of having been others. Oenghus was as casual in his choice of wardrobe as Genii, but instead of combat boots, he wore high-top sneakers.