Synarchy Book 2: The Ascension (19 page)

A pleased expression slid over Enlil’s
face. Even if the Terenzios’ team of scientists found the Cave of
Creation, they would not be able to access it without the crystal.
Enlil pulled his gaze from Loki and looked at Amadeo and Olivia.
“Your family has admitted its wrong doings and wishes to try and
stop us?”

“
The stupid ones, yes,”
Olivia said.

Enlil looked briefly amused. “If you
can keep your family contained, then perhaps we will hold you in a
higher regard than foot soldiers. I have more to speak with you
about, but for now, leave us.” He waved his hand.

Olivia opened her mouth as if to say
something but Amadeo grabbed her arm, squeezing tightly, and made
her silent. “Yes, sir.” Amadeo tipped his head to¬w¬ards Enlil and
Loki and guided Olivia from the room.

When the door clicked shut, Enlil’s
eyes transformed, exposing his true reptilian irises. “It has been
a long time since I’ve tasted the blood of an
Atlantean.”

Loki’s shoulders tensed. “That is your
intent for me? I can help you stop this Ascension.”

“
I no more need your help
than I do that of a human,” Enlil walked closer.

Setting the crystal carefully aside,
Loki stood his ground. “You could not beat us on our own planet,
reptile. You will not beat me on this one.” A pale purple light
suddenly surrounded his hands.

“
You have blocked yourself
by your traitorous actions and the fear that clings to your heart,”
Enlil hissed, his serpent-like tongue licking out between his human
lips. “You are no longer more powerful than I.”

“
We will put that to the
test,” Loki snapped, and charged.

The sounds of their battle were fierce.
Waiting in the hallway, Amadeo and Olivia glanced at each other as
the walls shook and the lights above them flickered. At intervals,
furious animalistic growling and the imposing shout of a man
resonated throughout the Holy See. When silence finally reigned, no
more Atlanteans lived on Earth.

§

July 4, 2012 - 9:12 AM

Alcyone Island

Loyalty Airlines International
Airport

Kayla leaned against the sedan as the
private jet taxied to a stop. When Caesar emerged from the cabin of
the plane, she forced the tension in her body to ease. They had
been posing as a happily married couple for the last twenty years,
and yet the very sight of him made her uneasy. Fortunately, she was
exceptional at hiding what went on inside of her—especially how
much she hated it when he touched her; how much it nauseated her
and left her on the brink of a panic attack every time he decided
to take his “rights” as a husband, but more importantly as her
handler, and roughly, often cruelly, fuck her.

Caesar smiled at Kayla as he walked
towards her, despite his lingering agitation with his new set of
orders. Patience. He just needed to exercise patience. Before he’d
come to Alcyone, he’d brought a group of abducted children to the
Chrysthamum Underground laboratory, then removed three ineffective
Trainers. Trainers were highly specialized servants that kept the
other mind-controlled minions of the Brotherhood in line. Both
small assignments had helped take the edge off, but he still wanted
Terenzio gone. “Hey, baby.” Bending down, he kissed her, and Kayla
returned it as a loving wife who had missed her husband should.
Inside, her stomach turned.

“
How was Guatemala?” she
asked, waiting until he climbed into the back seat of the car
before she slid in beside him.

“
Productive.” Once enclosed
in the vehicle, Caesar put up the privacy window. “Orders have
changed. We’re not going to kill the triplets, yet.”

That was surprising, Kayla thought.
“What about their team at the sacred site?”

Caesar shrugged. “Tony told me they’d
take care of it. They are probably just waiting until some sacred
day to kill them, and the triplets, too. You know how much they
like their rituals.”

That Kayla did know. Dark memories of
cold, shadowy rooms and the smell of blood still plagued her
dreams. “Victor is becoming useless. He got caught cheating, and
Simone is going to divorce him.”

“
Fucking idiot. Have Dominic
get rid of him before he ends up shooting his mouth
off.”

“
All right.”

“
Nicholas still earning his
keep?”

Kayla slowly nodded. “He’s been very
helpful with small, fill-in-the-gap bits of information here and
there.”“That’s a real hard ass, right there. I probably would have
been pretty fucking pissed off if I’d lost my family like that when
I was supposed to have inside information.”

Kayla turned her head to look out the
tinted window, watching the island scenery flash by. “His father
knew. He decided not to tell him.”

Caesar laughed. “What a fucked up
family.” He dropped his head back against the seat. “How was the
funeral?”

Her father’s letter came to mind. She
should tell him. If Marcello knew about her and Caesar, it was
possible other family members did, too. It was information that
should be reported. Kayla decided not to. She would have to share
the details of Marcello’s letter with him, and she didn’t want to
do that. That was hers. She would play this one herself, and if
exposure was a true threat, she would deal with it then. “Typical.
I reined Olivia and Amadeo back in. They should be monitored,
though.”

“
Put Dominic on it. He’s
good at that.”

“
All right.”

“
Are the triplets in their
ivory tower?”

“
Yes.” Kayla looked over.
“Are you going to see them?”

“
Yeah, I’m going to pay
Vasco a visit. If he’s been through his past life therapy session,
I want to know if remembers me. And if he does, that might be
enough leverage to get the Brotherhood to let us kill them sooner,
rather than later.”

Kayla studied Caesar for another
moment, then merely nodded and stared straight ahead. If Vasco was
Stefano, the master of wearing the veil, then Caesar’s plan wasn’t
likely to succeed. Marcello had welcomed him with open arms,
treated him like a trusted son-in-law, yet the whole time had known
differently. Kayla wondered what that kind of knowledge did to a
man who loved his children despite the evil that resided within
them.

“
But first, why don’t you
come over here and make the boss happy.”

Nausea spilled into Kayla’s gut. She
felt a cold sweat immediately start to cling to her skin. Yet she
smiled, turning in her seat to reach for his belt. “Yes,
sir.”

Chapter 10

“
What lies behind us and
what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within
us.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

July 4, 2012 - 12:12 PM

Alcyone Island

Dion Corporation
Headquarters

Don move yet, please. I love
tha way ya feel.”

Vasco sat at the head of the conference
table with his fingers against the side of his temple. His eyes
were closed. Memories clicked away like the flash of a camera, all
of Stefano Vasco Terenzio’s second wife, Cleona DeCalvante; the one
Vasco had gotten a moment with this lifetime and lost after mere
hours, because it was her turn to end her existence on this planet.
Slowly, Vasco rubbed his fingers across his temple, as if the
gesture could soothe him in some small way. He missed her. God, did
he miss her.

He supposed it was Karma. Stefano had
left her, after all; a costly misjudgment that had taken him away
before he’d gotten the chance to say good-bye. That misjudgment had
left Cleona with seven decades of misunderstanding why Stefano had
allowed himself to be killed. She thought he’d done it simply to
bring his son onto the chess board. While that was true, the reason
extended a lot further than that.

Stefano had walked into those
assassins’ bullets because his son had to become the heir. Marcello
had been the perfect mix of strength and gentleness to set the game
up to where it was now; with them in position to win. Stefano could
never have stood idly by and just watched, and he had not been
foolish enough to think that he would have been a good father. His
death had been a catalyst that set so many other things in motion;
like his sister.

Vasco sighed into the silence and stood
up, restless. He found it almost amusing to know that even in those
semi-noble moments, Stefano’s ego had never been far behind; he’d
also known that, when the time came, he’d be back to finish what he
had started. But Vasco was realizing that his alter ego had
misjudged a few things. Stefano couldn’t have known the type of man
he would reincarnate as, and this man wasn’t so concerned with ego.
Vasco might carry a natural affinity for wearing the veil, keeping
both thought and emotion private, and his love of the game was in
his blood, but he lacked the quiet excitement he had felt a
lifetime before. Vasco felt robotic in his movements. He was
playing the game because he had to, because he was good at it, and
because he was meant to. He no longer felt any motive deeper than
that. He was tired; tired of the intrigue, of the constant
manipulation of pieces, and soul weary of the violence and loss
that came with living the way they chose to.

Brief, wry amusement flickered in
Vasco’s eyes. If Stefano were to meet himself today, he’d call him
a pussy.

The phone on the conference table
beeped, pulling Vasco back into the present. Turning around, he
pressed the speaker phone button. “Yes?”

“
Dr. Medicci is here to see
you, sir.”

Vasco’s gray eyes darkened, and that
thick plate of steel slammed into place. “Send him in.”

Caesar Medicci. Kayla's
handler. Enemy. The man Stefano Terenzio had hated most. Of course,
Vasco knew Caesar this lifetime, and even before his experience
remembering his past lives, he had never particularly liked the
man. As Kayla’s husband, Caesar had been in the family for years,
though he didn’t work in the Terenzio Empire. Caesar’s cover story
was that he was a doctor, and often volunteered for
Doctors without Borders
,
an international humanitarian group that worked in third world and
war torn countries. Caesar’s involvement in the program explained
his disappearances.

Caesar pushed open the conference room
doors and smiled warmly at Vasco. “I’m not bothering you, am I? I
just wanted to pop in and see how you, your sister, and your
brother are.”

Now that the connection had been made,
Vasco could see the likeness, and immediately felt an answering
tension creep up the back of his neck. Caesar didn’t quite look
like a typical doctor, but because of the third world countries he
supposedly visited, he could get away with his shaved head, his big
rough hands, and his stocky but athletic build. He did work, on
occasion, at Alcyone Memorial, so his M.D. was legitimate. His
smile could be easily described as comforting and warm, except it
never quite touched his eyes. Few people really looked,
though.

“
No.” Tempering down his
urge to snatch a pencil off the conference table and slam it into
Caesar’s neck, Vasco returned Caesar’s smile and walked around the
table to greet him. They clasped hands and hugged, just like
family. “We’re overwhelmed, but dealing. It’s good you’re back.
Kayla took the losses hard.”

“
I know she did.” Caesar
sighed. “I got a little teared up. Marcello was like a father to
me. Kayla is a trooper, though. She’ll pull through it.”

“
It’s in the blood,” Vasco
agreed. The irony of their conversation was not lost on him. “How
was your trip? Where were you this time?”

“
Guatemala. It was by turns
disappointing and rewarding.”

An interesting coincidence,
Vasco thought. He had no doubt that Caesar had been in Central
America. He was also positive that Caesar had not been doing
anything that even remotely resembled the kind of work
Doctors without Borders
did. “I’m sure that has to be hard. Lots of people need
help.”

Caesar shrugged. “You learn in this job
that you can’t save everyone.”

No, Vasco thought, but they could put
people in a position to save themselves. “Wise words.”

“
How’s the leg? Rains coming
in.” Caesar watched Vasco’s face closely.

Vasco looked down at the
limb. The dull ache in his left leg had alerted him of the incoming
storm hours ago. It was a left-over physical reminder of his life
from the past. Nearly a century ago, S.V.T had walked with a slight
limp. Caesar was trying to figure out if he remembered his past
life, Vasco realized, and almost smirked.
Fucking amateur
, Vasco thought.
“Acting up like it usually does.” He shrugged. “I’m used to
it.”

Lucien bumped open the conference room
doors, carrying two brown paper bags. “I brought you lunch, because
I’m such a good brother.” He paused mid¬-step when he saw who was
in the room, and in the next second had a smile on his own face.
“Well, well, welcome back, doctor.”

Lucien was the epitome of a waste of
space, in Caesar’s opinion. He forced a smile. “Thanks. Listen, I
won’t keep you guys, I just wanted to let you know I was back. And
if you need anything, prescription for Valium, whatever, just let
me know, all right?” He smiled at them.