Prologue

September 14th, 2018 - Unknown Location

The sounds of a heart monitor beeping softly, the low hum of air circulating through a vent, and the soft turning of pages greeted the man as he stirred into wakefulness. His mind was hazy and pained, as if packed full of cotton. It was hard to think let alone remember what happened. His head throbbed, his body ached, his lips and mouth were dry. He has to swallow several times to moisten them enough to feel like he could speak. When he did, his voice came out as a croak of words.

“Wa…water…” At the sound of his voice the papers stopped rustling and a man, the only other person currently in the room, got up and moved. He was a tall man, slender and well dressed. Thin glasses, behind which rested pale blue eyes, adorned a face framed by neatly cut, short blond hair. He operated the bed controls bringing the man in the bed to sitting up and provided water, which was grateful and slowly drank.

“Thank you, Desmond. Report.” The older man laying in the hospital bed said, his voice still rough but sounding more awake. The younger man nodded and moved to get the papers he had put down before returning to the bedside.

“You’ve been unconscious for eight days, seventeen hours and forty-six minutes, sir. You had…one of your episodes, the most violent one I’ve ever seen. Just before you fell unconscious you told us to send a cleansing team to the White Lightning bar because we were going to be too late to stop the incursion. You were correct sir, by the time the team arrived the incursion was already underway and everyone in the bar was either dead or corrupted. The site was cleansed, and our team suffered no casualties.” Desmond’s voice was calm, almost detached and there was the distinct impression he was making an effort to be precise in both word choice and pronunciation.

“It was the dog, wasn’t it. Got into the remains in the jar.” The older man spoke taking a slow drink from his second cup of water. His words made Desmond look up from his papers, eyebrows raised curiously.

“Yes, sir.” Desmond’s tone was carefully controlled but the old man laughed softly, as if he could tell what the younger man was thinking.

“I know you want to ask how I know about that. And you know I’m not going to tell you. Tell me Desmond, do you trust me? Truly trust me?”

“Yes sir, I do. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times when I’ve had cause to wonder about you and some of your motives. I do trust you, however. With my life.” Desmond said and the old man nodded.

“Good. Now, continue, what’s been going on while I’ve been asleep.” The old man asked, listening intently as Desmond began to explain various events and their reactions to them. The entire time he was also looking inward, examining his own mind, slowly dispelling the thick obscuring fog, and making sense of things. There were conflictions, but that was always the case. He was used to it by now. What he wasn’t used to was how intense this was. Part of the debriefing that Desmond was giving him was a rundown of his health. Apparently, he’d suffered several spontaneous brain hemorrhages and if Seffie hadn’t been right there and able to begin healing him immediately he might not have survived. As it was the doctors were planning on keeping in bed for another two weeks and had several appointments for brain scans scheduled. They were hopeful that he should recover but there was also a good chance that some brain damage had occurred.

“Valdrheim have sent word that they want a meeting with us to discuss a personal matter to one of their clans. We have sent word back that we will contact them soon with options for a date and location. A representative of The Order has asked for our help in dealing with a location that they believe is a potential site of incursion. We are handled that as per standing orders from you, sir. A video was uploaded to the internet, taken in Central Park, New York of a minor volcanic event. We have since had it removed, all trace of it scrubbed from the net and have erased the memory of the ones involved. The video shows a magma vent depositing a large rock into central park. It falls into a fountain and cracks open. There’s a lot of steam but it is believed that a man emerged from that rock and proceeded to stumble out of the park and into the city. We have run facial recognition on the man and as near as I can tell he has never existed. And lastly sir, one of the Voronin boxes was stolen from a museum in London. Scotland Yard has no leads.” Desmond lowered the papers he was holding and looked to the older man.

He was smiling to himself as if he was remembering a joke and he turned a little to place his empty cup on the table next to the bed. He paused as he set the cup down, and leaned back reaching beneath the hospital gown he wore. He pulled out a necklace, a thin chain and at the end a snake curled in a circle eating its own tail and on top of it a wooden cross. The old man looked at the necklace and for a brief moment Desmond would swear the old man looked as if he’d never seen it before in his life. Then that look melted away as a look of fond remembrance washed over the old man.

“Huh, Wardenism, is it? Well done girl. I’m proud of you.” He then lifted the symbol to his lips and kissed it before tucking it away. He glanced at Desmond who had watched all this with quiet curiosity.

“I didn’t know you were a religious man, sir.” Desmond prompted hoping for an explanation. He was swiftly disappointed, however.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Desmond. We’re going to have our hands full over the next little while, and I for one would like to get out of this bed sooner rather than later. So, get the doctor in here so I can berate him into letting me leave sooner than he wants to. It’s a brave new world out there, after all.”