Masks and Mirrors: Book Two: The Weir Chronicles Read online

  A NOVEL

  Masks and Mirrors

  Book Two: The Weir Chronicles

  Sue Duff

  CROSSWINDS PUBLISHING/DENVER

  Copyright © 2015 by CrossWinds Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  CrossWinds Publishing

  P.O. Box 630223

  Littleton, Colorado 80163

  www.sueduff.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout © 2014 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Masks and Mirrors/Sue Duff. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN 978-0-9905628-6-3

  For my sister Barbara

  The distant thunder that refused to fade

  CONTENTS

  Doubt

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Part Two

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Glossary

  Social Media

  Acknowledgements

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Doubt

  One of the most destructive tools an enemy can wield against a leader—a hero—a rebel. Delivered as a whisper, it creates a translucent fog that permeates trust and confidence. Time is its ally, transforming relationships like bursts of wind skimming across the dunes.

  The strong become weak, the weak paralyzed—the adversary has struck a commanding blow without lifting a sword.

  The Pur Heir, Book of the Weir, Vol. II

  Part One

  Those who walk in darkness can never be certain of their destination.

  {1}

  Troubled thoughts kept Jaered on the alert. Summoned in the middle of the night to meet his father, he shyfted to the texted coordinates and found himself in an office waiting room. He froze, not because Aeros had arrived ahead of him, it was the pharmaceutical company logo on the wall behind his father. This facility wasn’t part of his father’s network. It was part of Eve’s.

  Had Aeros stumbled upon Eve’s interests in the company, or worse, discovered Jaered’s collusion with the rebel leader?

  An elaborate stretch and yawn slowed his erratic heartbeat. “What’s so important it couldn’t wait until morning?” Jaered said.

  Aeros walked out of the waiting room without offering a response. The slight wasn’t uncommon, but did nothing to ease Jaered’s concern.

  “You will see soon enough,” said Cyphir, his father’s most trusted guard.

  Jaered lagged a few steps behind his father while the rest of their security detail followed at a short distance. The hallway was wide enough for the guards to flank his father, but no one kept abreast of Aeros. No one dared. The man commanded a presence that his inner circle respected and that those ignorant or outright suicidal, discovered soon enough.

  They walked down the research lab’s long antiseptic corridor with determined steps, headed toward a metal door. Its surface reflected abstract swirls from the overhead fluorescent lights. A tall, lean man stood next to it. He wore a custom-tailored suit and a silk tie that screamed position and wealth. His smug expression announced conceit.

  The troubled thoughts gave way to a searing heat in the center of Jaered’s chest. Eve had history with the CEO of the facility, but she would never say more. The midnight hour, coupled with Aeros’s summons, brought a new revelation. Had the CEO betrayed Eve?

  Cyphir pulled ahead the second Aeros’s pace slowed. The waiting man’s eyes widened and his lips parted, unable to conceal his horror at the guard’s scarred and deformed jaw. Cyphir raised the man’s arms and patted him down. A moment later, Cyphir’s nod bespoke safe passage to the door.

  The frisked man straightened an already aligned tie. He lowered his gaze in greeting. “Aeros, you humble us by your visit.” He extended a hand in welcome. “I am Richard Donovan, CEO of Lux Pharmaceuticals.”

  Cyphir grabbed Donovan’s hand and with the twist of the wrist dropped the pompous CEO to one knee. “Sire is the most powerful man in the universe.” He bent low and paused next to Donovan’s contorted face. “And the most feared for a reason. Show the respect he commands or you will replace today’s test subject.”

  Donovan lowered his eyes and bowed his head, in pain or in reverence, Jaered couldn’t guess. “Sire, I am your humble servant. I live only to serve you.” Cyphir let go and took a step back. Donovan cradled his injured wrist against his chest and rose on unsteady legs.

  Aeros remained silent, as though the man wasn’t worth his breath. As powerful as Jaered’s father was, he had but a single weakness. He had grown arrogant during his time on Earth. His swelling legion of Duach followers had infiltrated more than a thousand, carefully chosen laboratories around the world. Each one engaged in various forms of death and destruction on a global scale. Jaered’s father had moved up his timetable since losing his lab in Oregon a couple months ago to the Syndrion and the Pur Heir. They had robbed him of his pet project.

  A lone bead of sweat trickled down Donovan’s otherwise cordial face. He turned away to enter a code on a keypad, then pressed his palm against the nearby screen. A muted buzz sounded and a blinking red dot turned to a steady green. He pushed the lever down and tugged. Swish. The airtight seal separated and he stepped into a small control room, then paused between two men wearing white lab coats, seated at a console. A larger, circular room lay beyond. A middle-aged man clothed in wrinkled street clothes lay strapped to a gurney in the center of the sparse, well-lit space. A rolled-up sleeve exposed one of his forearms. Thick glass separated the two rooms. Its curvature offered minimal distortion.

  Donovan kept his hands to himself. Jaered questioned if he ever touched anything inside his labs. His facility secretly contained the types of virus
es that brought nightmares to life and could change the course of history. Eve had commissioned the CEO to create such a weapon. Her interests often mirrored Jaered’s father’s as her rebel forces walked a precarious line between good and evil. Too often, Jaered found the line blurred—in the name of the greater good.

  “This is Dr. Chang, head of the team that designed the weapon.” Donovan indicated a man seated next to him.

  The wiry man looked up at them with pride. Aeros discarded him with a glance.

  “The test subject is a Sar?” Cyphir asked. “He has a powerful core?”

  “A Duach, although I would have preferred to use a Pur scum,” Donovan said. “This one commands animals.”

  Aeros scoffed. “You promised me a drug lethal enough to take out any Weir Sar, Pur or Duach.” He turned to Donovan and the whites of his eyes turned a fiery crimson. “To convince me of its potency, I would expect it to be tested on the most powerful of Weir Sars, not the most common of them.”

  The deep tan flushed from Donovan’s face. “I wasn’t notified of your interest until yesterday, sire. The first trial wasn’t scheduled for two more weeks.” He stared down at Chang’s bald head. “This is the best I could do on short notice.”

  “Cyphir will supply the next candidate,” Aeros said. “For now, carry on with this inferior.”

  Donovan nodded, then cleared his throat. “Proceed.”

  Chang grasped the joystick and flipped a switch. A high-pitched screech from the other room pierced the window separating them. An overhead mechanical arm came alive and descended, then stopped inches above the man. A hypodermic rotated into view.

  The prisoner turned his head toward them and his face contorted. The thick glass muted his shouts. The subject struggled against his bindings. The needle thrust into the port attached to his arm and an amber-tinted fluid drained from its vial.

  Chang pressed the screen in front of him. Seconds counted off on the digital wall panel. Donovan regarded the clock, then turned toward the window.

  Jaered hung back near the door, willing with everything he had for this trial to fail. Donovan and his research team would never leave this room alive, and the latest threat from his father will have been averted. If the trial was successful, would he be able to stop his father from using it, or discovering that Eve had a hand in creating it?

  Seconds swelled into an eternity. The digital numbers on the wall rose with indifference to the suffocating tension in the room while Donovan’s pungent sweat overwhelmed the airtight space. One of the scientists’ coughed.

  Aeros swept his arm. Donovan rose and hovered a few feet above the floor. “Wait! I have knowledge that you would want. I have a son—”

  “What I want you did not deliver,” Aeros snarled.

  A scream from beyond the glass. Jaered stepped toward the window, aghast at the test subject’s transformation. The center of the man’s chest glowed crimson, bright enough to be seen through his shirt. Heated fumes emanated from every pore of his translucent skin. He pressed his head back and his mouth opened, releasing flames into the air. The man’s core burned him alive from the inside out.

  Aeros’s hand dropped. Donovan crumpled to the floor, sputtering. “Delivered as promised, sire.”

  Jaered focused on his father’s reflection in the glass. A smile parted Aeros’s lips as he stared at the test subject’s body engulfed in a brilliant blaze. The room filled with smoke. An alarm sounded. Overhead sprinklers kicked on and a torrential rain drenched the corpse. Aeros’s entertainment was cut short. The disappointment on his father’s face was palatable.

  “I will require tremendous quantities,” Aeros said. “My legions are vast. There are many Weir Sars scattered across Earth.”

  “I was under the impression there weren’t that many Pur Sars left,” Donovan said.

  Cyphir grabbed the CEO by the arm and jerked him to his feet. Donovan’s face twisted. “Dare to question the master again, and you will not draw another breath,” the guard hissed.

  Jaered clenched his fists at the man’s naïveté. His father wouldn’t limit its use to the Pur. All Weir Sars, Pur or Duach, were viewed as a threat to Aeros’s global annihilation agenda.

  “The serum is ready in its current form? Nothing further is required to mass-produce it?” Aeros said.

  “No sire, unless you want to find a more suitable subject and test it further.” Donovan rubbed his sore arm.

  Aeros stared at the corpse through the glass. “It will be tested soon enough.” He regarded Jaered for the first time. “You will see to it that the drug is ready for distribution within two weeks.”

  Jaered cautioned himself not to appear eager. He crossed his arms and threw the CEO a hateful glare, but the frightened expressions on the cowering scientists stole the edge from his voice. “I’m not babysitting him, or his pit crew.”

  “Who else knows of this?” Aeros asked.

  “Only those in this room,” Donovan said without the merest hint that it was a lie.

  Aeros waved his hand.

  “Ugh.” Chang slumped down in his booth chair. His extremities contorted at unnatural angles. His eyes glassed over. The other scientist bolted from his seat. Cyphir reached out and grabbed his head. With a twist, the scientist’s face lined up with his back and he slumped to the floor.

  Aeros brushed past Jaered. “Now, it’s manageable.”

  Jaered clenched his jaw, but hid any other reaction behind the mask he wore like a second skin in his father’s presence.

  A muted chime came from deep within Cyphir’s pocket. He withdrew his cell and swiped the screen.

  Movement under Jaered’s feet. A ballpoint pen on the console rattled, then rolled off. One of the scientist’s chairs moved a few inches but stalled next to the man’s corpse. The puddles of water in the test room beyond sloshed in a rhythmic dance.

  Donovan grabbed the edge of the control panel to steady himself. “These are common in San Francisco, but the tremors are occurring a lot more frequently.”

  Cyphir pocketed his cell and followed Aeros out of the control room.

  Jaered stared at the pen on the floor until it stilled. His father’s draining of Earth’s core had triggered the mild quakes. Their frequency was on the rise across the globe, and soon, would begin to intensify. Jaered had lived through it before.

  Once Aeros’s legions killed every last Pur and Duach Sar, there would be no stopping him from sucking the life out of Earth.

  {2}

  Rayne jolted up in her bed. Awake in an instant, she held still, listening.

  Whatever had roused her didn’t repeat itself. A moment later she gasped, unaware that she’d been holding her breath. Her nerves prickled while unease settled across her shoulders. She checked her cell on the nightstand. No messages. If Tara had tried to reach her, she would have left one.

  Did her friend’s date end early? “Zoe?” she called. “Is that you?”

  She slipped into a robe without bothering to cinch it and grabbed the first thing she could wrap her hand around, a tall, slender brass statue.

  The cold hardwood floor numbed her feet as she wandered down the hall, and she rubbed her arm to erase a shiver. She knocked on Zoe’s bedroom door. Silence.

  Rayne inched herself down the stairs and, holding the statue like a baseball bat, she paused next to the kitchen threshold. The moon flickered in the windows. Swaying trees teased evening’s natural light, compliments of a strong coastal breeze.

  A metal chair scraped across the patio, then crashed into the gas grill. Clang!

  Her bottled-up breath escaped in a sigh, and she lowered the statue. It’s just noises from a storm, she tried to convince herself. Paranoia, fueled by Ian’s ever-heightened concern for her safety, had held her prisoner for weeks.

  Emerald sparkles formed over the kitchen counter, and she shielded her eyes as the glow intensified.

  Ian appeared in the vortex stream and scooted off, but he didn’t get far. The strap on his backpack cau
ght on one of the burner grates and he bent over the counter. When he saw Rayne standing across the dimly lit room, his eyes grew big and he thrust out his hand. “Stay back!”

  The backpack became animated and rose, towering above Ian’s ebony hair. What Rayne had taken for straps were arms that extended like unfurled wings. A high-pitched screech filled the room.

  Ian had a monkey on his back.

  The animal leapt off and landed on the wooden dinette table then skidded across the slick surface, knocking a bowl of oranges to the floor. A second before reaching the table’s edge, the animal vaulted in the air and grasped the cast iron curtain rod over the patio doors with a deafening screech.

  “What the hell!” Rayne screamed over the animal’s cries when Ian didn’t intervene.

  “Wait!” Ian shouted when she headed for the monkey. “I’ve got this.” The animal gripped the curtain with its feet then sprang toward the dangling lights over the counter leaving ripped fabric in its wake.

  “Clearly,” Rayne snapped.

  The monkey latched onto the light’s narrow cable. It swayed under the weight, then gave way and crashed onto the counter. The shattering glass exploded like shrapnel, and Rayne shielded her face in the crook of her arm. The monkey clung to the remaining light fixture. It disconnected at the ceiling and dangled precariously by its wires.

  “Ian!”

  He spread his arms. “Unapaswa kuwa kuja.”

  The monkey hugged the swinging light pole and quelled it’s squawking. Its eyes darted about the room.

  “Since when do you speak monkey?” Rayne said.

  “It’s Swahili.” Ian took a step toward the frightened animal. “I warned you that hitchhiking wasn’t a good idea.”

  The monkey’s chatter resounded off the stainless steel appliances. Rayne covered her ears as the animal argued its case to stay.

  “Basi la kwenda nyumbani.” Ian took a couple of steps toward the monkey. “You need to go home. I promise to come back and visit again.”