The Return of the Watchers (Armageddon Rising Book 1) (9 page)

              “I somehow don’t think this is about money anymore Yuki,” he said in a depressed voice.                                                                                                   “Why didn't you tell me in the first place? But I suppose you wouldn’t want anyone to know, especially the government.”                             She paused and looked at him, her mental wheels were churning. 

              “What is going on? Why is he after you? Why go to all this trouble to get some blood from you?”                                                                                                  “I really don’t know what is going on, Yuki. I wish I did, believe me. You’re right, things are not adding up. For one, why go through this whole elaborate scheme to buy up your family’s company stock to use as leverage against me? Why not just threaten me directly? I don’t get it; it doesn’t make sense. Also, what are they planning to do with it? Some kind of biological warfare?”                                                                                                   “So they’re not after money, certainly curing infectious diseases are counterproductive to profit oriented entrepreneurs. The immortality part I can see of being high importance. We can clone blood, but we can’t alter the genome to any appreciable extent,” she mused.                                           “With the exception of designer babies, no, not really,” he replied.               She sighed and rubbed her eyes and Dorian did the same.                             “We probably shouldn’t stay here for too long, I’m guessing that Dantanian is going to be looking for you again,” she said. “Who was that guy with the dog? It seemed like he was trying to help you. Did you see how fast he moved? Please tell me I wasn’t hallucinating.”                                           “Not unless we both had the same one. I can move quite fast myself, though I’m not sure if I’m as fast as he was, but that woman, if that’s what you want to call her, wow, that's on a level I can't comprehend.”                                                                                                                               “It seemed like he was trying to prevent them from getting your blood, which means he must know about its properties. Dantanian did say someone broke into his lab to steal the blood he took from you,” she said.              “There’s a lot more going on here than what we know about,” he replied.                                                                                                                               Yuki smiled slightly. “So what else can you do? Can you fly? How about breathing underwater? X-ray vision? What color is my underwear?”               He became flustered by the attention to his uniqueness.                             “Now you’re beginning to sound like Kasia! No I can’t fly, breathe underwater or microwave dinner with my eyes. To answer your other question, you’re wearing white with purple flower panties,” he said with a grin. She started to blush and crossed her legs.                                                         “Relax. You got in the limo before me, remember? Your underwear went above your skirt line.”                                                                       She playfully smacked him on the arm. “Baka!” she yelled- Japanese for ‘idiot’. There was a tapping on the glass from two of the guards outside, who seemed to be in serious discussion about the events they witnessed. Yuki lowered the window.                                                                       “Excuse me, miss, we really should leave the area. This island is very small and we really aren’t equipped to handle the supernatural,” the guard said, only half-joking.                                                                                                   Yuki peered over to Dorian. “I don’t think we should go back to the hotel. Let’s get to the airport and return to Michigan.”              
                            Dorian frowned in confusion. “You aren’t going back to Japan? What about your father?”                                                                                                  “My father will recover just fine; he had a mild heart attack. Now that he has controlling shares in our family company, he’ll want to get back to work as soon as possible. Also Aki is there, she’ll take care of him. I’m more concerned about you,” she said, looking at him, then down,  embarrassed by her confession.                                                                                     “Yuki, I’m not so sure you should get involved any further. Things could get dangerous. All I wanted to do was get some answers about who I was and where I came from. I never knew my biological parents, so research was my way to find out something about myself.”                                           She smiled at him. “I’ll be fine; I have you to protect me, right? Besides, who else is more qualified to help you find out about your family background?”                                                                                                                               He was still hesitant. “I may not be able to go back to the lab after all this. For all I know, my house is burning to the ground right now. You have a future and an education to finish. For now-”                                                          “For now I’m coming with you, because if I go back to the lab, who is to say Dantanian or this alien lady won’t come looking for me in the hopes of getting to you?”                                                                                                   A defeated look formed on his face. “I have a feeling we may end up seeing them again one way or another,” he replied. It was becoming apparent his immediate fate was joined to Yuki’s. Dorian sighed. “Ok, ok, we’ll need to find a safe place to work from for the time being.”                            She smiled, feeling scared and excited at what the future might present.                                                                                                                               “I suppose I can request a leave of absence from the university and inform Engel and Kasia. I had better check on my mother to make sure she’s all right. My return flight doesn’t leave until tomorrow, so let’s find a new hotel for the night. We can have your driver drop us off at one near the airport. Call your sister and see if she can book you a flight to Michigan.”                                                                                                                               Yuki looked confused. “I thought you said we need to get to a safe house or something?”                                                                                                                 “I left my laptop running in the lab; it has all my data on it. I can’t just leave it there,” he replied.                                                                                     She looked outside at the guards standing by their SUV. “Let’s get out of the limousine. We’ll ride with the other guys.”                                   
        The two got out and instructed the bodyguards to drop them off on the sidewalk near a strip of hotels not far from the airport. Once they found a decent enough looking hotel, they checked in for the night under  false names.                                                                                                                              They had a single room on the seventh floor that had double beds, and windows overlooking the ocean. After getting situated, she ordered some Thai food and had it delivered to the room. Yuki called her sister in Japan and told her to book them both tickets with their father’s credit card, just so they could stay together.                                                                                     “Should we be getting a disguise and fake ID’s?” she playfully asked trying to lighten the mood. Dorian gave her a look as if to say “stop fooling around.”                                                                                                                 “Sure, I saw an advertisement in the lobby for authentic-looking fake ID’s, I’m sure we can have them before our flight leaves. Besides, if they really want to find us they will, so you might as well give up on the whole cloak and dagger bit,” he said, deflating her balloon that was filling with fantasies of a couple on the run.                                                                       “If anyone asks, we’re a pair of highly trained counter-terrorism experts. My expertise is biological weapons and yours is field operations. That sounds pretty exotic,” she said, staring off into space the way she sometimes did on occasion, undoubtedly daydreaming about a romantic drama involving the two of them.                                                                                     “Yes, because that’s the sort of thing counter terrorism experts tell people when they want to know what they do. You’re better off saying we’re architects or something,” he said, laughing.                                                         “It’s my story, get your own!” she yelled back, sticking her tongue out at him. He started to get the idea she was enjoying this bit of excitement in her life. It didn’t surprise him; years of study and boring lab work brought out the hidden adventurist in Yuki. Even Dorian felt a bit more alive after recent events.                                                                                     They couldn’t go incognito for long; he had a considerable amount of time and money invested in the lab. Then there was the matter of this stranger who had shown up out of the blue and helped them. Was he being followed? How else would this stranger have known of their meeting time and place? What were his intentions? The lingering questions kept Dorian from getting any sleep.

Six

The following morning Dorian took a quick shower to help him wake up and the two headed downstairs for breakfast. A breaking news story was being broadcast on the television overhead.
T
errorists had struck simultaneously at the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ building in New York, killing about one hundred sixty-nine people. Both attacks involved armored cars that smashed through the front door and detonated explosives. Authorities were stating it was an act of domestic terrorism, as evidenced by a website on which a group known as ‘Starve the Beast’ claimed credit for the attack.                                                                        “Wow, that was a big one. I wonder what the fallout from this will be. I’m guessing Engel is glued to the TV right now,” he said, sipping his orange juice.                                                                                                                               “I was just near there last week. I can’t believe this is happening,” she replied with a gloomy look on her face.                                                                       They finished up and took a nearby shuttle bus to the airport right away, since security was going to be extra tight after the attack in New York.                                                                                                                                              Dorian fell asleep on the first flight and had a dream where he was in a battle with about seventy others, attacking another group of about three hundred beings. He looked like an alien himself in a supernatural way, as did many of his comrades in arms. There were loud crashes and flashes of light and thunder all around him. He awoke with the shaking of the plane on touchdown at the Los Angeles International Airport. Yuki looked over at him and noticed that he was griping the arm rests tightly. He had apparently crushed them during his tumultuous dream session. The plane wheeled around and stayed put on the tarmac. A bomb threat had been called in to the airport, one of many they regularly received; however, after the attack at the stock exchanges everything was being taken very seriously. They waited on the plane for almost an hour until the Captain received the green light from the flight tower to proceed to the docking station.                                                                                                                  On the second flight, Dorian fell asleep again and had a dream of armies of immeasurable count gathered for a war. He saw beings that looked like a mixture of human and animal in the battle lines.

The dream had become more like a replay of future events; as if someone was fast forwarding a movie, stopping for a second and then moving forward again. At one point in time, he felt a terrible loss and the pain and sorrow associated with it. The face of the stranger had become familiar; Dorian understood a mutual respect and friendship between the two. Conversations took place with people and beings he had never seen before. All this flashed before him when suddenly the vision moved to a scene of three mountains and a river of blood that moved up and down over the tops of the mountains, into the valleys and onto the plains, going past modern buildings that transformed into the shape of X and Y chromosomes. The river formed a moat around the seventh building, the fourteenth, and the twenty first building. His visions began to fade and he awoke to Yuki wiping away the tears he had shed.                                                          “You were crying in your sleep. It must have been some dream, are you all right?” she asked, feeling sorry for him. He yawned and rubbed his eyes.                                                                                                                                            “I had this terrible sadness at one point in my dream, more than any I’ve ever experienced. It seemed so real. Thanks for not making me feel embarrassed. It’s not often you’ll see me get emotional.”                            A short time later the plane landed and they disembarked. After reaching the corridor that lead to the terminal, the icy cold air and dull, grey sky snapped them back to the bitter reality of a Michigan winter.               It was about ten days before Christmas and Dorian did not have time to even think about the holidays. His only thought right now was to get to his house, grab his bug-out bag and some clothes, and make some phone calls. It was finals week at the University and he had exams to give.                They grabbed some drive-thru fast food on the way and ate in the car. There were no lights on and no cars were in the driveway of his house when they arrived. The front door appeared to be closed and he could not see any sign of break-in. He handed the car keys over to Yuki.                             “Wait here; I’ll only be a moment. If you don’t see me come out in ten minutes, take the car and find some place safe to go,” he said while getting out of the car.                                                                                                                 She didn’t know what to say, except, “Be careful.”                                           He quietly made his way up to the front door and unlocked it. Nothing seemed unusual, so he opened the door and went inside where everything was dark and quiet. The house was so cold he could see his breath, having turned down the thermostat too low before he left. After checking out the kitchen he went upstairs to the master bedroom where his bug-out bag was stored. Grabbing the bag along with some cash and a taser he had in his nightstand, he turned around to leave. Then, out of nowhere, two beings appeared in front of him. One was the huge woman from before in Hawaii, her face unmistakable; the other was a very tall male with long black hair and ash-colored skin. His eyes were similar to hers and he had black markings like sigils on his skin. She clutched Dorian by the neck as the other being put his hand on Dorian's forehead. Dorian was unable to move.                                                                                                                “What the hell are you people? Let go of me!” he demanded. They  ignored him.                                                                                                                               “This could be the one, but it’s hard to tell; his Shi isn’t active so his blood would be useless to us,” Onoskelis said to the other in an alien language that Dorian somehow was able to understand.                                           “What do you want from me? Just tell me and I will try and help you.” His captors continued to ignore him.