The Belial Ring (The Belial Series 3) (5 page)

Clark nodded.
“Believe it or not, that applies to the Fallen as well. Some are actually good people trying to help.”

Henry looked over the desk.
“You have Fallen working with you.”

Henry
’s words hadn’t been a question, but Clark treated them like they were. He nodded. “Yes. They recognize their own kind. You are aware of that?”

Laney, Henry
, and Jake all nodded. Over the course of the last year, they had learned that the Fallen feel an automatic connection to other Fallen when they are near one another. Fallen will also feel a connection to a nephilim, the child of a human and a Fallen, although that connection is weaker. And nephilim, like Henry, felt a connection to one another, but not to full-fledged Fallen.

Clark continued.
“The Fallen working with us help us track down others of their kind. And sometimes, when the situation warrants it, they even help recruit them.” He nodded at Henry. “Nephilim, too.”

Henry gave the agent a smile that would have done a shark proud.
“Well, if this is a recruitment pitch, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

Clark gave an easy laugh.
“Not at all.”

“
I’m not sure I like the idea of the Fallen being recruited,” Jake said.

Clark nodded
, his easygoing mask slipping just a little. “Well, being recruited by us is a good thing. The problem is—we’re not the only ones doing it.”

CHAPTER 4

L
aney struggled to keep her face expressionless. Someone—someone besides this government organization that they hadn’t even heard of until two minutes ago—was recruiting the Fallen.
Shit
seemed too tame a curse for that kind of revelation.

“
Who else is recruiting?” Jake asked.

Clark shrugged, although his tense posture made it clear he wasn
’t as nonchalant as he was trying to appear. “We’re not sure exactly. We don’t have any names—at least not any names of the big guys behind the recruitment.”

Laney cut him off.
“Big guys? So you think it’s a group doing the recruiting, not just an individual?”

Clark nodded.
“The Fallen have, throughout time, occasionally made their presence known. But usually they stick to the shadows, gathering power individually. Every once in a while, though, they begin to group. And when that happens, it never bodes well for humanity.”

“
What do you mean—in the past?” Laney asked.

Clark raised an eyebrow.
“Hmm, I thought you would already know that.”

Laney reined in her impatience.
No, I don’t know that, jackass.

“
Well, there have been times in humanity’s history when the Fallen have united,” Clark said. “In those times, humanity has been on the edge of destruction.”

“
Atlantis and the world flood,” Laney said.

Clark nodded.
“That was one. The Trojan War was another. There have been other failed attempts as well, such as the Hundred Years War and World War II.”

Now Jake interrupted.
“World War II? Hitler was a Fallen?”

Clark shook his head.
“No, although it’s no secret he wished he was. He was part of a human group. But we believe some of his Übermensch may have been.”

Laney knew the
Übermensch were a later addition to Hitler’s Lebensborn program. Members of the program had to be able to demonstrate their racial purity back to 1750 and be in perfect physical condition. The program resulted in the birth of forty-two thousand babies before its end in 1944.

In the final years of the program, though,
Hitler added an additional membership requirement: each male member must be at least six feet tall. And members six feet six inches, or taller were regarded as Übermensch, the closest Germans to their warrior ancestors.

Laney
’s gaze strayed to Henry. One of the attributes that sometimes came with being a nephilim was extreme height. Laney had never thought of the Übermensch in relation to the Fallen. Had the Übermensch been nephilim? Had Hitler tapped into their unique abilities, or been trying to? It was a frightening thought.

Her head spinning, she shoved her curiosity into a corner of her mind, focusing on the issue at hand.
“And you believe the Fallen are grouping again?”

Clark nodded.
“Yes. And at the SIA, we don’t like that. We thought you should be warned.”

“
But why us?” Laney asked.

Clark leaned back, his hands entwined across his
flat stomach. “You three are interesting. For some reason, the Fallen seem to be swirling around you. You’ve been involved with at least four Fallen in less than a year. That’s significant. And you’re all still alive. That’s remarkable. In the process, you’ve uncovered Atlantis artifacts that haven’t seen the light of day in ten thousand years, if not longer. Whatever’s coming, all our analysis suggests that you will be involved.”

Laney felt
her pit of fear—the fear that had been created in Ecuador, and had never entirely disappeared—get a little bit bigger. Whatever the Fallen had planned, she really hoped it left her and the ones she loved alone. They’d been through enough at the hands of the Fallen and those tracking down Atlantis artifacts to last a lifetime. Now it was someone else’s turn to fight.

“Any idea
why the Fallen seem to be swirling around us?” Jake asked.

Clark stood up.
“Actually, I do. But I am not at liberty to say. Not yet.”

“
That’s it?” Laney asked. The man walked in, told them the Fallen were recruiting for some evil purpose, most likely some form of world domination, and now he was just leaving?

Clark smiled.
“For now. It was nice to meet all of you. And like I said, if you need us, call.” Clark walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Silence settled
over the room. Jake broke it. “What the hell was that all about?”

“
I have no idea.” Henry’s eyes narrowed, still focused on the door where Clark had exited.

“
Do we know if these guys are even legit?” Jake asked.

Henry
looked over at him and nodded. “They are. I was skeptical when Clark first explained who he was. But he gave me the numbers of a few highly placed individuals within the government and military, most of whom I know personally. The SIA is real.”

Laney glanced down at the business card in her hand.
“So, do we think the SIA are the good guys . . . or the bad guys?”

Jake sat down next to her.
“Jury’s still out. For now, we stay suspicious. I’ll tap some sources, see if anyone has any info on these guys. Henry, have you ever heard of them before?”

Henry shook his head.
“No. Never.”

Laney pulled out her phone and typed the name into a search engine.
“Well, unsurprisingly, they have no official website. The only sources that do mention them seem to be conspiracy websites.”

Jake leaned over to glance at her screen.
“What do they say?”

Laney skimmed through the first few websites, her dread growing.
“Nothing good. Apparently some consider the SIA to be the origin of the men in black myth. Others attribute multiple abductions and disappearances to them. And according to at least two sites, they aren’t just an American group. They’re multi-national.”

Henry sighed.
“Well, that’s just great.”

“
How about your mom?” Jake asked. “Has she ever mentioned them?”

Henry shook his head.
“No. But she does tend to keep things close to the vest. I’ll ask her though.”

Laney slumped down lower in her chair.
“So, along with the knowledge that the Fallen are grouping together, which cannot bode well, we now have a shadowy government agency that seems interested in us. Fabulous.”

Jake stood up, pulling Laney with him.
“True. But the reality is that, as of this moment, nothing’s changed. I say we put Agent Clark and his group out of our minds for now. We have a family vacation to take.”

Henry smiled.
“Danny’s been practically bouncing off the walls all afternoon in anticipation.”

Laney nodded, trying to smile.
She knew Jake was right. Nothing had changed, but still. “Are we sure? Maybe we should cancel.”

Jake shook his head. “No. Fact is, the only thing that’s changed is our knowledge of this agency. There’s no direct threat, no reason to put our lives on hold.”

Henry nodded. “I agree. And besides, I think we’ve all earned a little fun.”

Laney looked at both of them for a long moment and then blew out a breath, determined to make the best of it. “
All right. Let’s head to Hershey. A family vacation. What could go wrong?”

Henry and Jake
went silent. Laney saw the concern that crossed both of their faces. They were no doubt thinking about the last few times this last year when peace had descended upon them. And then, of course, all hell had broken loose.

Laney sighed.
“Well, let’s just hope for the best, okay?”

CHAPTER 5

Athens, Greece

1,500 BC

T
he wind pushed eleven-year-old Helen’s long blond hair into her face. She swiped it back with an impatient gesture. She’d love to cut it off. But girls weren’t allowed to have short hair.

Until, at least,
she was married, a woman of Sparta—then she would be allowed to. She couldn’t wait.

A crow let out a shriek as it flew overhead.
Helen looked up with a shiver. She hated those birds, the harbingers of death.

“
What’s the matter, child?” Aethra sat only a few feet away in the garden, her embroidery in her lap, a basket of colorful threads beside her. Her hair had begun to turn to grey, but kindness shone in her brown eyes.

A kindness her son did not have.
It wasn’t Aethra’s fault her son had kidnapped Helen. Helen tried to keep that in mind when dealing with the older woman.

Helen pointed up at the disappearing black shape.
“The crows. They’re a sign of death.”

Aethra opened her arms and Helen walked into them.
Helen sighed, enjoying the comfort. Aethra’s arms weren’t her mother’s, but sometimes they were a good substitute. Like right now.

Aethra stroked
Helen’s hair. “You have nothing to fear. Theseus has made sure that you are well protected.”

Helen glanced at the two guards who were always with them
, but who never smiled. They were brutish men, both of them tall and battle-scarred. The two men had been her constant shadows for four months. But she was most definitely not comforted by their presence.

Theseus had dropped her in Athens with his mother after
—

Helen buried her head in Aethra
’s chest. She didn’t want to think about that night. About what he’d done.

Instead, Helen tried to
just enjoy being outside, feeling the sun on her face. She was allowed outside for only short periods of time, after all. And although the courtyard was bordered by tall stone walls on all four sides, it was still large enough to allow her to run. It even had room for a small arbor of olive trees.

A familiar whistle sounded. Helen looked up in disbelief, stepping out of Aethra
’s arms. Hope bloomed in her chest. Could it be?

The guards stepped forward,
pulling their swords from their sheaths.

From over one of the walls, an arrow flew, lodging itself in the neck of one of the guards.
The guard grabbed at his throat, but blood already gushed from the wound. He collapsed to the ground.

Helen
’s eyes flew to the top of the stone wall opposite the only guard who remained.

Two blond teenagers lay flat on the wall. One threw down a rope
and quickly slid down. The other simply jumped from his high perch, landing with a nimble roll.

Together, the young men
pulled their own swords free. Tall and muscular, they looked strikingly similar as they advanced on the remaining guard.

Aethra clutched Helen close, her arms trembling.
“Oh no, child, you must run. You must escape.” She tried to push Helen toward the door.

Helen sidestepped Aethra
’s hands before taking both of them in her own. Her eyes, though, never left the twins advancing on the remaining guard. She’d seen her brothers defeat men double this guard’s size without breaking a sweat. This guard would be no match for them.