Luke counted off his steps, walking silently west-by-northwest, from the large granite boulder at the base of the cross while the early morning Nova Scotian fog covered his path. He listened carefully to the sound of bird calls, squirrel arguments, the breeze through the tree branches, and the other little murmurs that told him that the animals hadn’t noticed him. When he reached the right distance, he searched in a southward arc to find the square hole in the ground that was the entrance to the labyrinth. It didn’t seem to be disturbed, despite the excavations taking place throughout the rest of the island. He looked around slowly to be sure he was alone, then he knelt on the damp mat of dead leaves, the rich smell of decaying wood filling his senses with every cool, humid breath.
He jumped into the artificial depression, then reached a finger into a crack between the rocks on the sidewall, which released a latch so he could remove an entire set of stones in the wall. He dropped onto his belly to squeeze himself into the tight passage. A twig dug into his hip, another into his shoulder as he slid into the dark passage, arms stretched forward as if it were a pool of water.
Wriggling forward, he finally found himself in a small granite cave. He came to the designated location and reached straight up into the ceiling of the tiny cave to find the alcove where there was… nothing. Alarmed, he pushed his hands higher and grunted in pain as his knuckles scraped on the rock, and one of his fingernails tore to the quick. Nothing. With both arms and hands, he felt around every inch of the jug-sized space. Nothing. The crystal skull was gone.
Luke pulled in a deep lungful of air and immediately let it out in a whooshing howl of agonized despair. He was tired, so very tired – nearly three millennia of tired. His responsibilities throughout the world had grown too much for one old wolf to handle, no matter how genetically fit and skilled he was, and he was just so damned exhausted. And now, he’d lost one more tool he needed to retrieve his own memories when he became forgetful of a language he’d once known, or the location of a weapon he’d hidden, or, more personally, to keep alive the memory of the one person who had ever fully understood him, and loved him anyway. He reminisced briefly about the exquisitely beautiful, black-haired woman his heart had been faithfully married to for several thousand years. It was the one luxury he allowed himself in this difficult and nearly thankless job.
Now there was only one crystal skull left that was sufficiently accurate for clear memories of her, in the jungle thousands of miles away, in a country wrought with fractious guerrilla warfare. The other skulls had all been found and placed in museums, or private collections, and making new ones was always dangerous, leaving Luke open to discovery while the artisan crafted a replica decent enough that he could place it in the ark, then set it to store and retrieve sharp, clear memories. He also had to mind the laws – even as the oldest member of the species, Luke had to answer to someone. And they would be coming, soon. His use of the skulls for personal memories was questionable. They’re my memories, dammit! I have a right to keep them alive,’ he thought.
Luke took a moment to consider what other memories were stored in this skull, in case whoever had taken the skull knew how to decipher them, as was most likely the case if it was the witch he’d locked horns with long ago. Most of the memories were old codings, but what had been on his mind when he engaged with it for his latest journal entry? He had just learned of a newly infected werewolf in Washington that had been abandoned by the pack responsible for him. His contact, Sarah, had been watching him, and said the cub was wasting away, which meant he would have to be executed, and soon. If left alone, there was a risk he would learn that a steady diet of human blood would keep him alive, though he would lose the ability to transform.
Luke considered the possibility that he would be unable to get the skull back. If the one remaining anatomically correct crystal skull was lost before he could make another good replica, his bright memories of his beautiful Julia would slowly fade as they were transferred from one hazy memory to the next, losing resolution every time. In time he would be completely alone in this world, a place he hadn’t belonged in since the death of the Holy Roman Empire. Luke stifled a sudden urge to howl again. He crouched back through the tunnel out of the cave and made the journey through the labyrinth and up to the surface of the earth. Luke had nothing to show for his trip. Nothing at all.
He reached into the medicine pouch that hung around his neck and pulled out his cell phone to dial his regional assistant.
“Hey Luke, what do you need?” Dwayne asked, having answered immediately.
“Dwayne, the skull is gone. Did you come here since I showed you where it was?”
There was a moment of silence, then a panicked voice, “Oh no, Luke, how could anyone find that? I could barely get in there myself, and there’s a latch that’s damn near impossible to locate! Who–”
“TACIT!” Luke said, sharply. “It is gone. Have you come here since I showed it to you?”
Another brief silence. Luke didn’t need to hear the next words, he already knew. “Yes, I went there to test myself and make sure I could access the memories without you. Oh God – you think someone followed me?”
Luke closed his eyes as his vision went red with rage. “Did someone follow you, Dwayne?”
“Oh God, Luke,” the shaky voice answered. “There was a car behind me, but it went and parked at the museum.”
“Was it daytime?” Luke asked.
“Yes, museum hours–”
“Vae!” Luke spat, cursing in his native Latin. “Why would you come at a time when people are likely to be about?”
“I wasn’t thinking–”
Luke cut him off. “Think now!” This could be disastrous. “What type of car?”
A short pause, then, “It was… it was black–”
Luke cursed again. “If you do not know the make or model, just describe it.”
Dwayne’s voice had crept up at least an octave and was still shaking as he continued, “It had a weird front portion, with a line down the middle of it. It didn’t have a bumper. Two headlights each side of the grill, separate, oval, more grill where I expected a bumper, and the license plate hung down, it was really weird…”
Luke clenched his jaws together, then asked, “Do you know what a Bentley sedan looks like?”
“A what?”
Luke felt the cell phone dig into the base of his thumb as his grip grew tight. “Are you at your computer?”
“Yes.”
“Google images of a Bentley,” Luke prompted him.
Keys clacked, then, “That’s it.”
“Faex!” Luke swore. “Never allow a Bentley to follow you when you are working for me! It is not a common car, certainly not on this continent, and it is a car one of my enemies, a clan in England, prefers. It is a high-end luxury car. No one would choose to drive a high-end luxury car on the dirt roads of Oak Island. You were being followed.” Luke cursed again. “Learn to recognize all models of Bentley, and report to me immediately if you are ever followed by one. That damned witch is on my trail again. And she has resources to rival my own. Gods, but she has resources I will never dream of.” Luke scrubbed a hand through his hair.
“Can she read the skull?” Dwayne asked.
“Yes. Her people created them. She is the Sh’eytan Imperial Princess, though far more a witch than she is noble. We must track the skull down and get it back; it is dangerous to have that information in her hands. If she wanted the skull enough to drive a Bentley all the way out there, or more likely have one of her minions do so, she must have a very good reason. She’s looking for something. And if she reads the memories, she will gain far too much knowledge about the location of packs… the Skykomish pack, for one, and she will know they are on the verge of going rogue, if they haven’t crossed that line already. I must get out there. They are due for a reckoning.”
“You mean about that guy that got transformed? The one who’s dying?”
“Yes, that one. He should never have been infected, but being infected, he should not be on his own. He should not even be alive, at this point. There is no good prognosis. He will waste away soon enough, unless he discovers the blood cure and becomes a vampire. Deos. I will have to take that into my own hands. You are on notice, Dwayne. I am not sure I can work with an assistant who cannot do as he is told. I told you to see that you were not followed.”
“Oh God, Luke, I was sure that car wasn’t following me, in the end! Give me a chance to fix this. I’ll find them – I’ll get it back.”
“No, Dwayne. You will find it, and I will get it back. The skulls are off limits to you until I can trust you again. Do not even think about touching one, or going anywhere near it. I will be checking your memories every time we meet until I can trust you again, and you had best stay in alignment with my orders.” Luke took a moment to consider dismissing Dwayne immediately, and decided he needed time to think about it. Dwayne’s ability to manipulate information over the internet was hard, perhaps impossible to replace, and it gave him an edge he couldn’t afford to lose. He continued. “I need you to use your hacking skills to get the information I need to track the thief down. This most likely occurred immediately after you left the island. You will review all flights from the nearest airport to Seattle – that should be Halifax International. I’m sure she sent someone who could read the skull; it has ever been her desire to find our people. That’s the only pack clearly identified, recently enough to still be where I located them when I encoded my local annual update. She’s clever, she knows me well enough to move quickly to stay ahead of my actions. She will want to execute them all… or worse, and perhaps more likely, turn them against me. Futuo, I should let her, then destroy them all!
“And find me a flight to Seattle. Bump a passenger, put me on first standby, and email a boarding pass to me. By the time I touch down, I expect you to have a list of names and addresses: anyone who came into Halifax between the time I showed you the location of the skull and the time you returned yourself, then flew to Seattle within a week… three weeks… Deos! Since then, but record the dates, I’ll have to check them all, though surely by now someone is there. And God help us if the thief is not the same person as the one who hunts the Skykomish pack. This will be difficult to track if that is the case.”
“Got it, Luke. I’ll have that for you by the time you arrive. Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll have a flight for you.”
“Good,” Luke replied. “Call me when you have it, I’ve still got work to do.”
“Yes, sir,” Dwayne’s voice was almost back to normal when Luke hung up the call.
He tried not to let his fury get the better of him. His new batch of assistants was less reliable, less aware of danger. It was hard to find good help anymore. He had to think about whether he was going to end Dwayne’s service to him. It was problematic; Dwayne was a liability with all the information he had gained as Luke’s assistant. If Luke didn’t watch over him, his existence would be too tempting for Luke’s enemies. Obviously, the enemy knew Dwayne now, so, if he kept Dwayne, he would have to find a new identity for him, a new home, and get him relocated. If he decided to find a different assistant, he would have to execute Dwayne, and he would no longer have an assistant who could break into and alter computer data anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes. And he had to keep in mind the two primary laws that his species was judged by; do not allow humans to discover you, and do not harm humans. But Dwayne was not a human. Like Luke, and all Luke’s people throughout the world, Dwayne was Homo lupanthrus: a werewolf.
Luke knew, of course, that since Dwayne wasn’t human, the second directive didn’t apply. Luke was free to injure or execute any Homo lupanthrus that was a threat to the species, to either of the two laws. Dwayne was pushing it with this transgression. The crystal skulls held enormous amounts of information Luke had used, over the millennia, to do his job as chief protector, commander, and judge of all the werewolves throughout the world. To have that knowledge fall into the wrong hands would be disastrous. Luke would have to get the skull back, then eliminate anyone who had learned of its contents. He would suspend judgment on Dwayne – for now – and wait to see how well his assistant handled this crisis. For now, Luke had a witch, a werewolf cub, and a disobedient pack to deal with.