Gods and Men- The Hank Boyd Omnibus, page 48
part #1 of Gods and Men Series
Predictable…
He could have just as quickly thrown off their aim with a quick burst of wind, or even a lightning bolt, but he needed them to get in close and use their abilities.
As the trio poured on the strength, Nannot absorbed most of it and willed it to transfer to the part of him that directed the seabed. He felt the very Earth cry in protest, like a bone breaking from the pressure applied. Then, it split again, opening the damaged fault beneath the city. The breakage started at the coast and quickly flowed deeper and deeper into the kingdom.
There… It is done.
Content with fulfilling his part of the mission, Nannot let down his guard and was instantly incinerated. The human he’d taken the night before instantly turned to dust, the ash falling harmlessly to the lowering sea level.
* * *
“It is done,” Nannot’s consciousness thought, relaying the message to his master, the orchestrator of this plan. Together they would exile the people of An’tala and spread their advanced bloodlines throughout every dominant culture around the world. They’d teach the savage inhabitants their ways, training those they deemed worthy in the forbidden dark arts. Then, once the master was ready, he would rise.
“Good,” the master replied. “Today is the day our influence will live on forever. Just remember, though you are imprisoned here, you are not doomed forever. Use your time here wisely and build your strength. Be patient. I foresee a chosen vessel coming in the ages ahead of us. You and I will live on until then, waiting for the right opportunity. You within the necropolis and I within the Citadel.”
“Yes, my lord,” Nannot thought. “I am honored that you would select me as your sword against the world.”
The master’s voice echoed a raspy laugh. “Do not think of it as a weapon against the enemy. Think of it as the beginning of the end. It is truly a day to celebrate. A day that we will remember as our independence.”
“Yes, my lord. I will remember.”
And so Nannot, the bane of An’tala, waited. As the millennia passed, he would gain strength, feeding on the hate and malice of humanity. He smiled inwardly, inside his fiery tomb. The world had gone mad, fighting each other over the pettiest of things. Land… Earthly minerals… Beliefs... These were but a few of the roots of hate. But like all roots, they grew into something more. If they were honed for good, they could be just as mighty. But these particular roots would grow into centuries of violence and bloodlust.
Once it was time, he and his master would rise and call upon those who that lasted as long as they. Nannot also hoped that she would survive too and stand by his side once again. Coaxoch was not only a queen to their followers, but she was Nannot’s everything and mother to their real children. It was another secret he had kept from Thoth and the others.
They would be king and queen of the new world, and their master would be—is—their god. Together the three of them would conquer and then destroy anyone who got in their way. Their enemies would either be enslaved, or tormented and killed. Nannot would see the strongest turned into his minions of evil—his Nightmares. He already had a small army of them hidden in the necropolis. He would summon them to protect his prison when the time was right.
But first, he would slumber. He would plan. He would lie in wait and be patient. He would mentally train and refine his abilities, using them on the world above, causing it a satisfying grief. Tornadoes would churn across the land, tsunamis would decimate the coasts, and fires burn out of control. The Earth would tremble.
He would also…dream of her…
Nannot smiled. He wasn’t actually imprisoned.
He was, in essence, free…
He was free to exact his revenge on the realm above—a reality in which he didn’t technically exist in at the moment.
Not yet.
The master had seen to this when his physical body was destroyed and his soul frozen in time. They would use Thoth’s kind heart against him. Nannot would wait until the chosen one came and released him.
He smiled inwardly.
Soon… He laughed, shaking the cavern around him. Very soon.
PROLOGUE II
Present Day
The Boyd Residence
Fairfax, Virginia
“No! Please, God, no!”
“Hank!” a voice shouts. “Wake up, Hank. It’s only a dream.”
Gun to my father’s temple.
A scarred psychopath coolly mocking me.
Kane, Brooks, and myself all pointing our own guns towards the killer.
Damn you, Brooks… Traitor.
“No, please don’t…”
Dad is dragged out of his office, gun jammed into his back.
“Please, don’t…”
“Hank, wake up!” The voice is pleading, borderline crying for me to do so. But I can’t. I have to save my father.
I step out of my own body and put myself in between Frost and my dad. I will the bullet to hit me first, but it doesn’t. It just passes right through me and quickly enters and exits him.
A familiar scream erupts from behind my immaterial form as I turn and watch as my other self lunges for my father, picking him up off the steps of our basement office.
“Hank?” Dad asks as his eyes fade.
“Dad!” I scream awake, sweating and crying, blubbering like a child. Two strong arms quickly embrace me and hold tight.
“I tried,” I say, wide-eyed, staring at the wall. “I tried to save him again.”
A gentle hand turns my head, and I see Nicole’s face slide in front of my vacant stare. Through salt-filled eyes, I focus on her natural beauty and calm a bit. She has that effect on me. She is truly my rock.
“Hank…”
I then notice that hers are also streaming with tears. My hand goes to them, and I wipe the liquid away. Delicately, I pull her in close, kissing her full, electrifying lips. My pulse instantly slows, returning to a less chaotic rate.
It’s another effect she has on me.
“I know,” I say, responding to her unsaid declaration. “I know… He’s gone, and I can’t change anything.”
My hand runs down her face and ends up on her shoulder, just barely missing her healing bullet wound. It’s almost fully mended now, having the stitches removed earlier in the week. I reflexively squeeze, affirming my appreciation of her being here.
“I’m worried about you,” she says, either not feeling my hand or uncaring that it’s there. Like I said before, she’s strong.
Nicole’s been worried since the day of the funeral, fearing a large-scale nervous breakdown. I was already having panic attacks after what happened in Algeria, but now with the brutal slaying of my father in D.C., I’m having full-blown night terrors too.
“We need time away from work,” Nicole softly says. “You need to rest and try to pull yourself together.”
If it were anyone else telling me to “pull myself together,” it would have ended badly for them. It’s not exactly a topic I like to openly speak of—my sanity, I mean. I know what Nicole is implying, though. She is correctly inferring that I need to stitch myself back together before I go totally mental.
“I can’t,” I say, getting out of bed. I routinely have to get up and towel off the sweat. In some cases, I just jump in the shower and rinse off. In even better cases, Nicole joins me. “We’re too busy. We need to finalize the location of Babel and—”
“I already booked us a week in South Beach.”
“What?” I ask, shocked she’d do that.
“Just us—a real vacation,” she quickly adds, trying to deflate my anxiety of leaving our work behind. “It’d be our first one together.”
I’m about to refuse, but see the bags under her eyes. Nicole needs this as much as she thinks I do. Maybe I do…
“Fine,” I say, giving in to her wisdom, “but only if I get to pick out your swimwear.”
“Or lack thereof knowing you,” she says, smiling.
“Come on,” I say, holding out my hand.
“What?” she asks.
I tilt my head towards the bathroom. “Shower time.”
She laughs, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What is it you always say about bathing together?”
I smile wide, cheering up a little. “Conserve water, shower with a friend.”
JUDGMENT
1
One Week Later
Marriott Stanton Hotel
South Beach, Miami, Florida
“I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my—”
“Hank!” a voice yells, making me flinch. “For the love of everyone on the beach, and the world itself, including Zac Brown, would you please stop singing? You’re tone-deaf and have no rhythm. Even the sharks are getting scared and beaching themselves with how you’re butchering that song!”
Halfway through the rant my eyes snap open, startled by the outburst. I then proceed to spill some of my ice cold drink on my sunburnt chest. Apparently, I started to doze off while still holding it.
If that doesn’t wake someone from their half-drunken slumber, I don’t know what will. I leap out of my resting place, which is difficult, considering it’s a hammock. As I attempt the half-roll half-jump, it swings and flips me. I subsequently eat it…hard, tipping and slamming face first into the sand beneath me. And in true Hank Boyd fashion, I find the only rock on the beach with my head. Plus, to add insult to embarrassing injury, the rest of my beer comes with me, pouring on my equally scorched shoulders and back.
But instead of reacting like I did the first time, all I do is lay there trying not to look up into my beach mate’s cheerful face. And I know she’s laughing. A diver in Lake Michigan could hear this woman. It’s loud and Caipirinha-induced. The lime rum drinks have that effect on you after the second or fourth. They go down easy and well…easy.
“Please stop…laughing at me,” I mumble, spitting sand out as I talk. “I’ve had…a bad couple of months.”
Her guffaws immediately stop. She, more than anyone, knows what I’ve been through. Three months ago, I lost the greatest man on Earth, killed right before my eyes. Dad was my hero and someone I will miss dearly. The woman who had just been laughing at my own clumsiness has been there every step of the way, tending to my every need.
Which wasn’t much.
I either wanted to work or be left alone. It’s why we came to my favorite spot. It’s actually the same exact beach I was on when Dad first called me to help him in Algeria.
When we found him.
Nannot was literally the devil himself. He hated mankind as much as I hate spiders, and that’s saying a lot. But the loathing he felt for his family was something else entirely.
He and his brothers were abandoned at birth when their mother died shortly after labor. But thankfully, they were blessedly taken in by none other than the king of Atlantis himself. Thoth would eventually become the Egyptian god of math and writing, cementing himself as one of the most—if not the most—famous of all the ancient deities.
His kids would eventually become his students as well. They were called the Priests of An’tala—An’tala being the ancient name for the mythical island kingdom. Their jobs were to protect the city and their king.
Why did the all-powerful Thoth need protection? I’d never thought about that until now. Huh…
“Hank?” Her question is laced with concern. It’s normal, though. I’ve become somewhat of a downer lately.
I look up and see the same beautiful face I saw outside Djanet, Algeria. She was instantly seared into my brain as the next major conquest I had to surmount. Something I couldn’t live without.
Something I still can’t live without.
“Yeah,” I say, lying, “I’m fine. Gonna need another drink, but other than that I—”
“Hank…”
Her voice is soft and smooth, laced in the Swedish accent I’ve come to adore. I could sit and listen to her read the “V” section of the dictionary for hours and not get bored. It’s seductive without trying to be, but man, can it acquire an evil side too—if, and when, I do something wrong. Like a female Bond villain or something.
Hmph.
I puff out a sigh and sit up, accepting the offered towel from the ever-beautiful Nicole Andersson. I’m now sitting in front of her, barely a foot from her face. She’s lying face down on a lounge chair, tanning her already perfectly bronze skin. I see she has the back of her bikini top undone to even out the tan lines, making me instantly forget what I was thinking about. But her worried eyes kickstart my brain, and I confess what she already knows.
“I thought this was a good idea.”
“Thought?” she asks, leaning on her elbows. It’s not enough to expose herself, but it is enough for her to get a really good look at me. I’m a disheveled mess. It’s plain to see. Everyone knows I’m this close to going bat-shit crazy. It’s why we’re here instead of back at the Smithsonian confirming our travel plans to the Middle East.
“You thought all of this,” she waves a hand around her head, “was a good idea.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I better get this right before I stick my foot deeper into my mouth. “What I meant was going on vacation wasn’t a good idea. We have so much to work on—to plan. We need to organize with our contacts overseas—”
“Ben is handling that while in Algeria,” she says, cutting in. “He’s personally overseeing and cataloging the surviving necropolis tunnels, making sure the murals and carvings are properly recorded. He even brought in his son to help, remember?”
I nod, knowing and approving. Dr. Ben Fehr was one of my father’s best and most trusted friends. After Dad died, Ben begged to come aboard and help us with our work. With the blessings of the CIA and a few other secretive people in Washington, he did, taking over the helm that Dr. William Boyd left behind.
“Ben can only do so much,” I try to counter. “What about the logistics and equipment? We need to—”
“Kane has that all taken care of already. He’s as prepared as a Boy Scout. Plus, anything he hasn’t done was given over to Todd.”
Damn, I think.
“Look, Hank…” she says, biting her lip. “I’m really worried about you. We may not have known each other as long as some other couples do, but we know each other better than most. What we’ve been through in these short months, regardless of the things that happened to us, was special. I know what you used to be like before Nannot showed up. You’ve changed.”
I’m about to argue against it and tell her off, saying that she doesn’t have the right to say that. We’ve only known one another for three-plus months now, but alas…she’s right. No one on this planet knows me better than this woman. The last person that did isn’t around anymore.
Plus, if I had actually voiced my opinion, she’d probably have kicked the snot out of me for doing so.
“You’ve hardened, Hank. You’re not as jovial and happy-go-lucky as you were when we first met in the desert.” Her face softens even more. “You don’t even wear your Tigers hat anymore for what it’s worth. When we lost your father…” her voice catches. I instinctively reach out and hold her hand. She and Dad were close. They knew each other for years before this. Nicole’s late husband died working for him. She took his place as a project leader, and the rest is history.
She continues, choking back a sob. “When we lost him, a piece of everyone that knew him died too. Even Kane couldn’t hold back at the funeral. Ben was a mess—so was everyone else there.”
I look away but get my chin tilted back in her direction. “But you weren’t… You were emotional for sure, but you haven’t properly grieved yet. You’ve surrounded yourself with work to keep it from happening.”
“And the hat?”
“You’ve buried your past, including the pain that comes with it.”
She’s right of course—like always. I think about Dad all the time, but only until the memory starts to hurt. Then, the panic attacks begin to kick in again, like they did in Chichen Itza.
Like the night she told me about the trip.
Ever since I was mentally and physically taken over by a bunch of dead Atlanteans, I haven’t been able to sleep for more than a few hours at a time, waking up screaming most nights. The doctors even prescribed me some really horrific antipsychotics. While they helped me sleep some, my dreams went from hellish to downright demonic.
After I dreamt that I ate Nicole’s skin for breakfast, I stopped taking them, flushing the pills and throwing the bottle away.
Her skin is perfect right where it is, I think, shivering at the memory.
“Babel,” I say, shaking my head, still in disbelief, “I still can’t get my head around that. All this time we assumed An’tala was the beginning of—”
“Can I offer you another drink, sir?”
I look up at the interrupter. He’s young, slight, but solidly built…and Asian—not that it matters. Regardless, he’s way too good-looking to be standing around my half-naked girlfriend. It has nothing to do with me thinking that she would leave me—far from it. I just get really jealous and start to act like a moron when threatened.
Shouldn’t be too hard since I’m lying in the sand with beer drying all over my body.
“No thanks, I’m good, but…where’s Tiffany?”
Our waitress had been waiting on us for three days now. It’s been her and no one else. We even found out that she’s working at the resort to pay for her medical schooling. She wants to become some sort of DNA specialist or something. I jokingly offered her a job once she graduated, stating we’re kind of in the same field.
“Maybe someday,” she said, not taking the offer seriously.
“She went home sick, Mr. Boyd. My name is Susanoo, and I’ll be taking care of you for the rest of the day.” The man’s words are short and clipped, giving credence to his visible heritage.
“Okay…Susano-o…” I say almost questioning his odd name as I carefully pronounce it. I’m really itching to call the guy Susan but refrain from it. “So, we’re stuck with you I guess.”
