The Return of the Gods (Children of the Sun Book 1)

Kaleth breathed out in irritation as he listened to that idiot Othar accuse him of stealing his keycard. He was right, of course, but Kaleth had better things to do than this. Unfortunately, he couldn’t just leave as that would probably only make the other man think he was right. Also, Othar was blocking the door to Kaleth’s office. Honestly, it hadn’t even occurred to him that Othar might figure it out. He was starting to regret not letting Rayni use a fake card instead.

“…so just give it back and maybe I won’t report this,” Othar finished, crossing his arms and generally doing his best to look down at Kaleth, both literally and figuratively because Othar was taller than him.

“I. Don’t. Have. It,” Kaleth replied slowly, mirroring the other man’s angry scowl. “Furthermore, you have no real evidence except for a hunch. You do realize that I could report your false accusations to the director?”

Noticing the badly hidden anxiousness that suddenly appeared in Othar’s eyes after he had heard that made Kaleth feel very pleased with himself. “Maybe just drop a hint about this little incident when I randomly run into her. Who is she more inclined to believe?”

Othar glared at Kaleth fiercely, but it was obvious he knew he had lost this verbal battle. “I’ll find that evidence, mark my words.” With that he stalked away, giving Kaleth one last dirty look.

Kaleth just shook his head in exasperation. And Elrin wondered why he wasn’t interested in promotions—most of their superiors behaved like children. Besides, he held as much authority as this asshat, he just didn’t have a paper that said so.

Once he walked into his office and closed the door, he took a couple of seconds to breathe in and out a few times to calm down. It would hardly help anyone if he yelled at someone who didn’t deserve it. Just when he was about to take a step toward his desk, there was a knock on his door. Kaleth couldn’t help but let out an exasperated sigh. “Who is it?”

“Kara, Al, and Ray,” said Kara’s muffled voice through the wood of the door. Kaleth raised an eyebrow as he opened the door once again.

“That was fast,” he commented as he let them in and closed the door again. “Have you cracked the database?”

“Well, yeah, but…” Kara pulled out her phone. Alor and Rayni watched her with interest, which probably meant that she hadn’t told either of them yet. She touched the phone’s screen a few times and then handed the phone to Alor.

“Look, I have no clue what the hell this is, but it looks like it could be useful.” Alor stared at the phone with what appeared to be confusion for a moment before giving it to Kaleth. “We just need to find a linguist or something. If this is even a language—”

“What are you talking about? It’s in Global,” Kaleth said, looking at the other three with confusion.

“What?” Rayni asked, folding her arms. “Are you sure you didn’t just close it and open something else?”

“I’m older than you, not old,” Kaleth snapped at her, looking back at the text. No, it was Global, although reading it did make his head hurt a bit. Rayni looked over his shoulder. Kaleth wanted to tell her to knock it off, but then she spoke again.

“Wait, I can read it, too,” she said. Could this be a language only people like them could read? Maybe something the Umbra used, then? But why would he and Rayni see something different than the others?

Kaleth decided to focus on the text rather than continue questioning this. “I think this is a report of some kind. It talks about a place with its name redacted.”

“Are you actually reading that?” Kara asked, looking at him in disbelief.

“Um, yes,” Kaleth said, not sure what to make of this.

“So, we have files from a secret database written in a language none of us have ever seen but somehow you two can read?” Alor summed up as he scratched the back of his head. There seemed to be a note of suspicion in his tone.

“It’s not just that me and Kaleth can read them. I don’t think we see what you see when we look at the text,” Rayni said, sounding thoughtful. That seemed odd to Kaleth. No, scratch that, it sounded completely ridiculous, but it was apparently true.

“All right, how about we ignore all these questions for now and figure out what the files contain?” Kara said, her voice a little uncertain, which was very unusual for her. Kaleth nodded, but that didn’t mean he was okay with not understanding most of this.

He let Kara do whatever she needed to get the files onto his computer as he continued reading the file on her phone. It kept mentioning how much power was being produced. Had Enoria invested in extra wind turbines recently, perhaps?

“Man, that’s making my head hurt,” said Rayni, rubbing her forehead and walking away from Kaleth. Kaleth wouldn’t say that the headache induced by reading the file was that bad, but he didn’t comment. “You can read those files by yourself, right?”

“Of course,” he deadpanned. “I’d better start, then.”

“Speaking of, I really should go back to work,” Kara said and promptly left the room, saying nothing else. Kaleth watched the door for a second before sitting down at the desk and looking at what Kara had prepared for him on his laptop. Grabbing a pen and a piece of paper, he began reading, starting with the file he’d already looked at.

“Found anything yet?” Rayni asked after about five seconds, and Kaleth sighed tiredly. After six years of working with her, he really should be used to this, but somehow he wasn’t. Maybe he should take up smoking again.

“Surprisingly, not yet,” Kaleth replied, not taking his eyes off the text. “Don’t you have something better to do than watch me go through twenty-eight files?”

“Nope, not really since we’re both supposed to be on vacation and all,” said Rayni, gesturing to herself and Alor.

“Well then, you can use your free time to figure out how to give that moron Othar his keycard back without him noticing,” Kaleth told her, moving on to the second file. At least this one was short. The first one hadn’t told him much except for the fact that the place with a redacted name produced electricity. An alarming amount of it. Although now that he thought about it, it had only implied that the electricity came from the unnamed location.

“You stole the card from that guy? He’s paranoid as it is!” Rayni complained but slowly stalked out of the room, dragging Alor with her and muttering something about the entire thing being unfair.

“And don’t give it back to him yet, we’ll still need it,” Kaleth called after them just before the door clicked shut. Looking back at the text, Kaleth shook his head and blinked rapidly as if that could relieve him of the headache. It was getting kind of annoying.

The next file seemed to be an email from someone called Tharos. That name sounded familiar, but Kaleth couldn’t figure out why. However, whoever this Tharos was, the email itself was worded like an order. Which was incredibly odd because no one outside the organization had any say in how it was run. Or was that a lie, too? Or, more disturbingly, were there members of Luxarx that Kaleth didn’t know existed?

The email went on to congratulate them on their relatively recent success in capturing Umbra agents, but it also told them to let them win a few times, so they didn’t get too discouraged and go into hiding.

Kaleth read the message again, just to make sure he’d understood it correctly. There was actually someone who let innocent lives be lost just because it would mean the Umbra would be easier to find.

It was true that they hadn’t had a mission in a while, but Kaleth himself had done his best to look for any suspicious activity to stop any attacks before they could happen. Thankfully, there had been none, but apparently, that had all been due to luck.

He wrote all of this down, circling the name Tharos, just to make sure he didn’t lose track of it, using a little more force than necessary.

He opened another file, which didn’t contain any text except for the title, which was once again several Xs, the same number as the previously redacted name.

The rest of it was photos that Kaleth didn’t like one bit. All of them showed people behind bars, looking hopeless and tired. There was a metal strip around each of their right wrists. Wires were connected to the bracelets and disappeared into the wall of the cells. Kaleth had a feeling he already knew who these people were, but he scrolled through the photos anyway, searching for a face he recognized.

He almost reached the end when he came across a picture of a woman, and then Kaleth was sure.

These were the Umbra. And not just that—these were the Umbra they’d arrested. He’d helped with the capture of this woman about two months ago. Swallowing, he scrolled down the rest of the file, and his fears were confirmed.

Right at the bottom of the list was Mel. He didn’t seem as tired as the others, but unlike most of the others, he was looking right back at Kaleth, his wide, terrified eyes glassy.

Kaleth had been too preoccupied to think about it, but the fact that Mel hadn’t texted him back in a week had worried him. A while after he’d slipped Mel his phone, he’d explained through a text how to unlock it, and they’d begun talking to each other. He’d grown to like the ex-Umbra in those few weeks, so, of course, Kaleth had been concerned about his safety, and now he really had a reason to be.

He had to find this place, but it would be for the best not to mention this to the others, or he’d be accused of being emotionally compromised. It would be for the best if he tried to forget what he’d just seen for now.

Because his headache was getting worse, he looked away for a moment and searched his desk for a bottle of water and a painkiller. He knew both were here somewhere. It took him about five whole minutes to find them, only to find out there was barely a quarter of the water left in the bottle. He sighed and put two pills in his mouth, drinking all of the water in one go. Then he closed his eyes for a moment, hoping it would lessen the headache at least a little.

He looked back at what he had written down. For a moment, the notes, while still looking like his handwriting, seemed unreadable before changing into normal writing a second later. Kaleth glared at the paper for a moment before turning back to the laptop, determined to finish reading, but as soon as he looked at another file, another spike of pain stabbed through his brain.

Kaleth breathed in deeply to calm down and focus. Maybe he didn’t need to read the rest of it—at least not yet. It was quite straightforward what they needed to do if they wanted some answers, and he wouldn’t find the name of the prison in the files.

They’d been told that after arresting an Umbra, they were sent to a high-security prison in the north called Kior. But that wasn’t long enough for the code name XXXXXX. Kaleth also knew the location and name of the prison, so why would it be coded? Furthermore, he’d never been asked or encouraged to go visit Kior, and he had always been too busy to do it just because, which in retrospect had not been very smart.

He needed to tell this to Kara. Maybe his head would stop hurting in the meantime.

Knowing where she was, Kaleth used Luxarx’s communication network and dialed the room. She picked up after a few seconds with a look of disapproval on her face. While it was better to talk face to face, sometimes Kaleth wished Luxarx didn’t only use video calling for security reasons.

“You realize you’re using a very unsecure line of communication, right?” she asked dryly. “Anyone in the agency can watch this with a little know-how.”

“I am aware,” Kaleth replied. The video feed let him see most of the small room, including the younger Arithar, who was rapidly typing on his keyboard, and Rayni…for some reason.

“Oh, hiya, Kaleth. Found out anything?” Rayni waved at him, and while it still made Kaleth want to sigh, it did get him right back on track.

“Yes, in fact. It seems Luxarx is getting orders from the outside, or at the very least, someone else is involved in running it. Furthermore, the secret location with the redacted name is the prison where the Umbra are sent, and I’m sure it’s not located where we’ve been told.”

“That’s impossible. I looked the place up. It exists where they told us it is,” Kara argued, but she didn’t sound too sure of what she had just said.

“Have you actually been there?” Kaleth asked.

“…No.”

“Well, if you want to check if the place is in the database, these two haven’t cracked it yet,” Rayni told him helpfully. It took Kaleth aback for a second that Rayni deduced that. Or was Kaleth starting to become predictable? Probably. “Apparently, they increased the defenses or something. But you could always call Terry.”

Kaleth narrowed his eyes at Rayni, whose smile only grew wider. Kaleth had thought of that, of course, but didn’t particularly want to call him. He would rather avoid dragging Teran into this.

“No,” he replied, and it came out sounding way more resentful than he had meant.

“Look—” Kara started, but Kaleth interrupted her, knowing exactly what she was going to say.

“I’m not calling him.”

“Who’s Terry?” asked Nef, finally turning his head away from the screen and to Kara and Rayni. Rayni looked at Kaleth with a smirk, ignoring the glare the other was sending her, and answered.

“Teran Dehro. You know, our dear defense minister? But as we know him, Kal’s ex.”

Kaleth rubbed his eyes, trying hard to pretend this was just a bad dream. A very, very bad dream. He couldn’t even remember why he’d thought mentioning any of this to his teammates had been a good idea, but by the gods he regretted it.

“Anyway, he sometimes tells us—by which I mean Kaleth—things we wouldn’t be able to find out on our own, at least not fast enough. Which is kinda the situation we have right now.” Rayni shot a pointed look at Kaleth who glared back and shut the laptop, ending the call before he was forced to hear any more of this.

As annoying and infuriating as Rayni was, she did have a point. They didn’t have time, and calling Teran was worth a shot. Still, he would be more on board with the idea if someone else called Teran instead of him, but he knew that wouldn’t happen. He was also having doubts that Teran would help them since he was so hell-bent on taking their funding away.

Kaleth wished he could just ask Teran at the meeting, but they most likely wouldn’t be alone there. Kaleth grimaced. He’d almost forgotten about the meeting, so now his mood was even worse than before.

Kaleth sighed as he pulled out his phone and saw that Relioth had sent him three text messages. Skimming the texts, Kaleth quickly put together that Relioth was inviting him for drinks later. Because apparently twice a month was not often enough. And Kaleth wouldn’t mind if Relioth used fewer winking emojis, as well. None would be good.

Kaleth ignored him and instead started scrolling through his list of contacts. There were quite a lot of numbers he hadn’t called in so long that it made him wonder why he had even bothered saving them in the first place. But he would never get around to deleting them because he didn’t care enough to do more than just complain about it.

Finally finding Teran’s name, Kaleth closed his eyes for a moment to steel himself for the call. How long had it been since they had spoken last time? A month, or maybe even less? That was still too often in Kaleth’s opinion. He hadn’t thought that after they had broken up, they’d talk to each other, much less on a monthly basis.

He finally pressed the call button and put the phone to his ear, waiting for the other man to pick up. A part of him wished he didn’t.

“What do you need?” asked Teran as soon as he picked up. He didn’t sound irritated or angry, which would have made this so much easier for Kaleth. Of course, Teran always had to be infinitely patient.

“Not even a hello?” Kaleth grumbled, unable to help himself.

“I’m not from Imbera. Don’t need to have your ridiculously good manners,” he teased, and Kaleth’s mood worsened further.

“There are plenty of assholes in Imbera,” Kaleth scoffed.

“Oh, I know, I was just there,” Teran said and chuckled. Kaleth noticed that a smile had crept up on his face and put a stop to it immediately, even though nobody was around to see it. “Seriously though, what’s up?”

“Do you know where the captured Umbra are kept?” asked Kaleth, making sure to phrase it as vaguely as possible. It would do no good if Teran got assassinated for knowing the details.

A long sigh came from the other end of the line. “I really doubt I know more about this topic than you. You know how I feel about your organization.”

“Are you sure?” Kaleth cut him off, unable to keep sarcasm out of his voice. “Look, if you know something, anything, it could help.”

There was just silence for a moment, long enough to make Kaleth check if Teran hadn’t hung up. Kaleth was about to ask if he was still there when Teran finally spoke. His voice was suddenly a bit shaky.

“I really don’t know anything.”

Kaleth frowned. If Teran didn’t know, or if he didn’t want to tell Kaleth, he wouldn’t be nervous. He’d just say so and hang up. Maybe he was being blackmailed? Kaleth glared, feeling a sudden spark of protective anger.

“Look, Luxarx really isn’t my specialty,” Teran said, letting out an awkward laugh. “Sorry, I can’t help you, Kal. Have you tried talking to Elrin? You guys are friends, right?”

Kaleth sighed. Almost twenty years of working for the government and Teran was just as useless at lying as he had been in college. Or was he being terrible on purpose? But what purpose could this possibly serve when Teran hadn’t given him any useful information?

“Naturally,” Kaleth said dryly and would have hung up if Teran hadn’t said anything else.

“Look, Kaleth, I’m not even gonna pretend I have a clue about what you’re up to, but…just be careful, all right?”

“I’m always careful,” Kaleth said and Teran answered with a sarcastic laugh before ending the call. Kaleth sighed for the second time and threw the phone on the desk, rubbing his eyes. He really should get himself some coffee. Just then his phone vibrated, the sound amplified by the table.

Kaleth reached for it, expecting another text from Relioth, but as it turned out the message had been sent by a private number. Kaleth frowned, opened it, and frowned some more. The entire text was just one word: Carcer. For some reason, the words prison and dungeon immediately sprang to his mind and Kaleth’s eyes widened in realization.

Carcer had to be what was hidden behind the redacted name in the files. And if he was right about that assumption, the search for the location had just gotten much simpler.