Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

It was impossible. A phrase he thought he’d gotten over since their expedition to the Temple; but as it turned out there were still things that could surprise him; things which seemed well outside any kind of natural order or rules. They may only make sense to them and those involved in their current operation, but their life now did have rules.

Powers were possible, those following along the rules they had determined. They were expressed through genes, they allowed control over some kind of natural force. Sandy had tried to explain it and he got some of it. She was able to manipulate the vibrational energy of molecules around her to generate heat which would spark an exothermic reaction (like fire). Rick could control hydrostatic forces that determined the movement of water molecules, while Andrew could manipulate the speed and bonds between his molecules to apparently ‘transport’ himself through the very air. Even other things they had seen – such as Stacey’s lightning had only been controlling the movement of electrons. The fact that neither Sandy nor Louise had yet managed to adequately explain using science how Angel had managed to bring Rick back from the dead that time and seemed to control healing and the life-force, he didn’t question.

An ancient super-culture was possible. That was part of their rules, the fact that humanity was around far previously to when they’d thought. Further excavation and painful work at the Temple site made things a little clearer. The cave system was formed well over a million years ago but further dating seemed to put the site a little younger than that – somewhere around 500,000 years old. It was difficult to determine because it straddled the relatively accurate carbon-14 dating he would use in his day to day work as an archaeologist, which would usually only determine the age of things in the tens of thousands of years; and the far more geologically relevant potassium-argon dating which would determine dates in terms of millions of years. Since current anthropological debate put the divergence of the homo sapien species from other ancestors somewhere around 350,000 years ago it was a much easier pill to swallow – even if colonisation into Europe had still been a damn long time away by that point.

They even had managed to establish rule and order in the understanding of their secret society of enemies (which even as he thought it sounded odd). There had always been ruthless men and women who would use their power and influence to ‘put the world right’. The Illuminati, the Knight’s Templar, they were only the author’s fodder but they were very real. Historical evidence shows men would meet under the hill in High Wycombe, have orgies and bring baboons – all under the sinister-sounding name of the Hellfire club. So it was no surprise in this day and age of connection that sinister shadowy people continue to manipulate the course of human history for their purposes.

Each of these newly established conventions he’d come to accept over the past two years – each of them followed their own set of logic, their own set of rules. What he had pulled from his former colleague’s suit jacket – that didn’t.

He felt bad in lying to DCI Mercer, not least because he’d been a solid ally to them over the past two years; but knew that in their world the less you knew, often the better. He’d immediately recognised the series of numbers he’d been shown. The first had indeed been his phone number – which made no sense for Nate to have typed in because he could have just gone straight to the contact name. In fact, it was a surprise that anyone even remembered a phone number these days.

The sequence of numbers which came afterwards – that gave it away: 766622255338. Innocuous, maybe even nonsensical. But to someone who’d grown up with a Nokia brick in the early noughties and was used to typing in text messages from a numbered keyboard, it made perfect sense. He’d typed the word ‘pocket’ – and by typing in Andrew’s number to begin with, he’d ensured that he would be brought into the investigation.

The question remained – why? Andrew and Nate had not been especially close for a long time. Not only was Andrew incarcerated in a foreign prison for a year of their friendship but with both of their careers taking them all over the world, a connection was hard to find. They’d exchanged a few messages on Facebook, he’d liked a few tweets and apart from his recent invitation to lunch that had seemed just casual, they had barely had anything like meaningful contact. He knew he was excited about his find, excited about showing it to someone who would appreciate it – his words. Was that enough to expend a dying effort?

He’d waited until DCI Mercer had stepped from the room and knelt immediately next to Nate. He’d compartmentalised a lot in his life but even he felt nausea at the still slightly warm feel of his friend as he’d slipped his hand into his pocket. Keys in one, melted boiled sweet (he hoped) in the other. Nothing. Then he saw the way his shirt jacket felt a little bit more to the right-hand side than it did the left. Suit pocket.

He fished inside and sure enough, it was there, heavy enough he was surprised the whole side of his jacket hadn’t clunked to the floor like a leaden suit of armour. A gilded smooth coin he barely had a chance to glance at before he heard the DCI coming back. He’d slipped it into his suit pocket, made his excuses and left before any further questions could be had – or before his deep sense of guilt at hiding something from an ally gave him away. He rationalised that if it was a message meant only for him, then by the rules of privacy he had the right to determine who else got the message. Or something like that.

In all the chaos of the next day, he’d barely had time to look at it. So he waited until the day had gone, made excuses to Louise that even sounded fake to him – slipped out of their shared bed and allowed insomnia to be his guiding light. There in his study, he’d slipped it once more out his suit’s jacket pocket and placed it under his lamp on his table. It wasn’t until he saw the inscription that his mind was thoroughly blown and he sat contemplating just what the hell had happened to reality again.

“I haven’t seen you look that intense since they cancelled NCIS,” Rick’s voice came from behind him, drawing him out of his thoughts.

“What do you want?” he asked him, knowing the coolness in his voice but not caring anyway. Their one to one interactions had been mainly out of necessity and rarely longer than a minute. Whether Rick knew that and intentionally stayed away, he didn’t know – or frankly care.

“Saw the light was on,” Rick responded, coming around the table to the other side, “Couldn’t sleep, what with all the ‘back from the dead’ drama. Well, you know how it is.”

Andrew finally levelled his gaze in Rick’s direction, a frosty glance that hopefully told him not to pursue his current line of thought.

“I also heard about your friend,” Rick continued, a little more seriously, “and thought with everything going off, maybe it was worth checking in. Making sure you’re okay.”

“And where does your sudden interest in my well-being come from?” he asked.

“Despite rigorous attempts at the opposite, I am still a human being,” Rick reminded him, “and I’ve had more than my fair share of people die before their time – so offering condolences shouldn’t be too much of a stretch of the imagination. If however, you are still your robotic self, may I suggest it might be time for an oil change?”

At that moment they were interrupted, a fact for which Andrew was grateful – feeling as though his frosty gaze was heating up might not have ended well for either of them. It was Ruth, who still, somehow at that ungodly hour of the morning, looked like she was ready for a board meeting. Fully dressed, fresh and ready for the day ahead. He glanced at the clock and realised it was already four in the morning.

“Andrew, Rick,” she greeted, as though it was a perfectly normal thing to find them both in there in the nightwear in his space at four o’clock in the morning. “Andrew, I have managed to find the information you were looking for regarding Dr Steele – I believe it is now your turn to tell me what this is all about.”

“DCI Mercer not fill you in?” Rick asked her, the ghost of a smirk at the corners of his mouth.

“Given I am your boss and landlord, perhaps you can keep smart comments to yourself?”

“Only if you say sexy things like that more often.”

“Where is it?” Andrew asked her, completing ignoring the sidebar.

“Our Northern hemisphere satellite ADAM has managed to locate the signature of his boat near the strait of Gibraltar – in waters disputed between the British, Spanish and Moroccan governments none the less,” Ruth answered him quickly. “So before I authorise the third use of the company jet in the past forty-eight hours, would you care to tell me what this is all about?”

“Well, really it’s about this…” he pointed at the coin on the table, at which all three of them then peered. “I found it in Nate’s jacket pocket after he left a message for me. Coming as it has on the heels of us getting Cyvus and given that I believe in coincidence about as much as I believe in leprechauns – I think the person or persons who killed Nate were after this find.”

“And what’s so special about one coin?” Rick asked the question, before adding, “Nazi Gold? El Dorado’s left testicle? Chocolate inside?”

He turned it over to reveal the inscription on the other side: Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος. He expected a bigger reaction than the blank stares he got.

“Okay, so you guys don’t read Greek – well roughly translated it says ‘island of Atlas’.”

He knew Rick got it at that very moment. Though Ruth looked at them both blankly, clearly not in on the conversation, Rick’s grin began to grow like the Cheshire cat’s.

“Is that meant to mean something?”

“Oh yeah, Ruth,” Rick agreed, “What Andrew is saying is that this coin here...it comes from a very special, very well-known place.”

“Atlantis.”