Gabriel Elder book II of the Warlock Series

Grace had effectively killed two birds with one stone and she was quite pleased with herself. She had used her American political influence to have a mission sent to the twins to take Zeus out. Once they were dispatched, all evidence of the mission had been erased. If they survived, it would be their word against that of the council and the ‘provable’ record.

Warlocks around the world had heard time and time again about how badly Zeus had embarrassed Anthony when he attacked the master warlock. Few would have trouble believing the male half of the deadly duo hadn’t been waiting years to take out his revenge. No matter what the results were, it would cause an international uproar within both governments.

The ensuing chaos would allow her to begin putting her master plan into motion. Even if Zeus managed to kill the two Americans, the following investigation would keep him from interfering with her plans as well. Yes, she was very pleased with herself.

Now, all she needed was the final piece of the puzzle to allow her to gain access to Gabriel. She was convinced he was the key. The way the black mist, whatever it was, had come to his rescue in the cemetery had convinced Grace the young warlock was the key to everything. His abilities may have been dormant before, but they were on full display the night she dealt with him in the cemetery.

He had managed to hurt her. It was a minor injury and she barely felt it in her shifted form, but the fact he had given her any pain at all was somewhat of a shock. As the white Alpha, Grace believed she was the supreme creature on the planet. She maintained her full intellect while shifted and through the manipulation of her previous version’s DNA along with Zeus’s formula, she was now bigger, faster, stronger and smarter than any other shifter. She would soon rule the planet!

Even that wasn’t enough for Grace. She was already planning on moving out among the stars and taking her shifter virus with her to conquer other worlds. In all her intellect, there was no possible scenario she could think of, where she could be stopped. Things could go wrong, they often did, but she had planned for every contingency. No matter what happened, she was ready and she would win.

At least, as long as she could get control of Gabriel, or at least his corpse. She wouldn’t implement the final stage of her plan until she had him. He was crucial in her next incarnation. The material was already growing and the next Grace could be released within a matter of weeks, once this one was gone of course. But, Grace wanted her next incarnation to be the best imaginable.

If she could isolate the elemental properties of the Scythians, she would be unstoppable, not only on this planet, but all the other planets as well. She could imagine herself as the black mist she had encountered on the mausoleum, she could use that form on any number of worlds where a human or shifted form might not survive. She would become a virtual god!

“Miss Stevens? Miss Stevens?” asked the voice on the intercom.

“Yes,” replied Grace, a little peeved her daydream was being interrupted.

“We have lost the video feed from the compound as well as our GPS tracking abilities on the compound’s vehicles,” answered the male’s voice.

“No worry, it was only a matter of time before they figured out we had been getting access to the inner video feed for short periods. Still, I don’t like being blinded, get a few men out to the perimeter of the compound and deploy some of our drones. I want to know what’s going on out there and anyone who comes or goes. If Zeus or Gabriel leave the compound, I want them followed,” said Grace. “and I will not accept any failure on this, is that understood?”

“Ye…yes ma’am,” came the stammering reply on the intercom.

Grace had been expecting this for some time, but she was still curious. How had they discovered she had been stealing the abilities of one of the U.S.’s most important spy satellites for years now to keep tabs on the compound.

It had told her previous version when Zeus and the strange little man were both out of the house at the same time and she had attacked the compound. She had ensured Zeus was off on a ‘wild goose chase’, but having the little man leave as well was just luck. The two women had managed to give the previous Grace all she could handle.

The fact her previous version had died because of her wounds from the battle did not concern Grace. She had already implemented the improvements in her new incarnation and was just waiting for a chance to include them in her new self. She had been just as large during her last version, but she wasn’t nearly as in control as she was now. She also wasn’t nearly as strong. And, it was all thanks to Zeus.

Grace had learned from her spy on the Canadian warlock council that Zeus had been experimenting with a new formula. It was a cocktail of steroids, minerals and metals, like silver nitrate, for his daughter to use which would allow her to be able to take down shifters. Grace had realized if she got the original formula and all the experimental notes from him, she could improve the serum and use it for her next incarnation.

Getting the information was the reason for the raid on the compound. Killing the wife of the master warlock was just a bonus. She thought she had killed the daughter as well, but she somehow managed to survive. Grace had been mortally wounded by the young upstart. How was the young genius to know the daughter was actually better than the master warlock himself?

Luckily for Grace, her previous version had managed to encode the formula and all the notes and send it to her secret lab in Europe before she died of her wounds. Her trusted assistants had been able to follow her instructions and infuse her very DNA with the super serum. It amazed Grace how she was so frail and weak in her human body compared to her shifted form. Even the mightiest of the shifters cowered in her presence once she had shifted.

Thanks to the latest manipulations of her DNA, she didn’t need the moon to be able to shift. It was easier when the moon was up, but Grace had managed to re-sequence enough of the original Scythian DNA attached to her human DNA to allow her to shift to her wolfen form whenever she needed it. A surge of adrenaline was the only thing required and she had mastered being able to do so quickly.

Grace still wasn’t sure what was so special about Gabriel, but she wanted…no, she needed to find out. When she had examined him as a child, she knew there was something completely different about him, but she was never allowed to take him to a lab for a more thorough examination. The truth was, if she had gotten him away from the compound, she had planned on dissecting him.

Unfortunately, the old coot Zeus wouldn’t allow it. She had planned to kidnap the child when he left the compound, but he rarely ever did. When Zeus reported to the council that Gabriel was beginning his patrols around the compound’s wooded region, she thought she might be able to abduct him then. Grace sent her scouts to try to trap him while on one of these patrols, but they were unable to handle the teenager. It had been three of her best shifters, but they came back to her bloodied and wounded.

It was only later she learned it had been their fault the young warlock had managed to ally himself with the grey wolf. She had made one of her rare mistakes when she assumed it was nothing more than a child’s pet. A wild wolf, tamed for the little warlock. After it tore the throats out of a few of her men, she began to understand it had been trained to the same level as Gabriel.

She was still hoping to be able to dissect the wolf after she was done with Gabriel. It would give her a good understanding as to the effects of the serum on an animal other than a human or a shifter. Perhaps she could inject a few dozen polar bears with the serum? If she could control them, they would be valuable and deadly slaves for the white Alpha.

The twins should be arriving in Vancouver at any time. She had people placed at the airport and they would keep her notified as to when the American warlocks arrived. She was hoping to have a drone hovering outside of the compound when the three of them, or four, if Gabriel decided to take Zeus’s side, began to fight. She wanted a ring-side seat for all the action.

Unfortunately, Grace was about to be very disappointed. Anticipating things were not as they appeared, Jaida had ordered the pilot to land at the Pitt Meadows Airport instead of Vancouver international. From there, they had rented a seaplane and landed at the Vancouver Harbor Flight Centre, a seaport near downtown Vancouver. Grace’s spies were waiting at the international airport, but the twins were already on the ground and in a rental truck headed for the compound. Grace was going to be furious at having been fooled by the American warlocks.

That had been a constant problem, for not only this version of Grace, but all the previous versions as well. They couldn’t seem to get and maintain quality help. Of course, Grace would never admit her paranoia over underlings trying to take over her proposed empire had anything to do with the fact she couldn’t keep trusted helpers. Grace couldn’t trust anyone, no one except her lab assistants in her secret lab in Europe.

The assistants were members of her extended family. Most recently there were three cousins. It wasn’t that Grace really trusted them, it was more like she had ensured their loyalty. They were highly educated, well paid and protected, and although they were brilliant scientist, they were also Grace’s personal slaves.

Thanks to Grace’s grandfather, they had been rendered medically unable to live past twenty years of age without regular injections. Only Grace could provide them with the formula they needed to keep living. This was not the first set of lab assistants Grace had had, but each set was always infected with the same life-shortening virus.

Her grandfather had provided everything for her to be able to keep on reinventing herself with each new clone. State-of-the-art equipment, financing, and even the best assistants blackmail could ensure. One of the previous cousins had believed if Grace died, they would be free of their duties. After her last incarnation was killed, he tried to run away. He found out the hard way, Grace had made sure that would never happen. There were security forces in place, who did not get paid if either of the assistants did not return to the lab as scheduled.

Once the security team returned the runaway assistant, and the new Grace had been created, she had dealt with the traitor as a cat would a mouse. She played with him for a short while and then she slowly dismembered him in front of the other cousins. That’s when she decided it was time for a new set of lab assistants. She had a set of triplet cousins who were just finishing up with their P.H.D.’s and would be ready to return to the lab to work full time.

Her grandfather had been a genius, far ahead of his time. He also didn’t care about things like laws and since he had no morals, he made breakthroughs few other scientists would have even attempted. He had perfected the ability to clone a human long before others were even able to understand the true properties of DNA. Grace had been the pinnacle of his success. He could have chosen to clone himself, but he had given that gift to the one and only thing he had ever truly loved. Every aspect of the reincarnated Grace Stevens was a miracle in itself.

Even the process of passing on her memories had been a scientific breakthrough. She could only explain the process as being similar to downloading one computer hard drive onto another. Her new body had a fully formed brain and nervous system, but it lacked information. The pathways were there, but they weren’t connected to anything. By inducing a series of electrical shocks, the memories were imprinted onto the new brain. By the time the new Grace awakened from her induced coma, she was fully formed as an adolescent and fully aware of everything the previous editions of Grace had known and experienced.

One of the few problems with the process which had never been corrected was the aging issue. The telomeres in Grace’s body still believed they were much older than they were. Thus, Grace began to break down by the time she was in her mid-thirties. Unfortunately, she didn’t see this as a detriment. To her, that meant she would always be young! She’d never have to experience the ravages of old age on both her body and her mind. However, she didn’t comprehend she’d also never experience true wisdom. The kind which only comes from years of decisions, and the successes and failures that come from those decisions. No matter how intelligent she was, Grace would never truly become wise.

By the time Grace learned the twins had managed to slip past her lookouts, she was in a foul mood. She tried to convince herself it didn’t really matter, but she wanted to see the carnage when three of the best warlocks in the world started tearing each other apart. Blood-sports were one of the few things which still excited Grace. She often pitted two of her new recruits against each other, just to see them rip each other apart while in shifter form.

If they survived, they would re-grow some of the damaged areas during the shifting process, but not always. It didn’t matter to Grace, these shifters were only a means to an end, nothing more. Perhaps she should keep a few thousand humans alive after she conquered the world just so they could worship her? At the very least, she could use them as breeding stock, since shifters couldn’t breed.

That was another reason to dissect Gabriel and find out why he was alive. He shouldn’t be, but he was. Why was the shifter virus dormant, or even dead, within him? A dead virus shouldn’t exist within the body, it should have been eliminated, but it wasn’t. Too many questions, and no way to answer them until she could get Gabriel on her table. After he hurt her during their last encounter, she planned to do all her experiments on the young warlock while he was awake. She would keep him alive just for that purpose.

Her great-grandfather would have been proud of her! The thought made her smile…it was an evil, twisted smile, but it was a smile and Grace rarely experienced a genuine smile.