Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ IMMORTALS ❯ THE TRUTH ETERNAL ( Chapter 3 )

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO:

 

“You were suppose to stay in the car and not be seen by anyone.” Criss was beside himself with anger. “You know that the mortals are more susceptible to you than any of us.”

 

Syn merely smiled and adjusted the radio volume before leaning back to let the wind stroke his face. He hated that his brother and the others were so protective of him. He'd lived longer than he cared to remember by himself on the streets, running and hiding from mortals and immortals alike. He'd hardly known peace and safety until Harlot had found him and pulled him into his `family'.

 

“It kept you from killing each other and gave the Professor something to think about.” He murmured, ignoring the rest of his brother's angry muttering.

 

“Harlot will have something to say about that.” It was suppose to be a threat but it only made Syn smiled more.

 

The house they were currently residing in was a mansion. It was huge with fifteen rooms in which to live plus a kitchen, study, full gym, and pool. It was the only thing that Harlot passed on from one life to the next because of the memories he had of the house. It was rumored that his first love had asked him to buy the place for her and they had lived together for all the rest of her mortal life. There was a deep sense of love within the walls of the building that gave it's new occupants peace.

 

Jeffery, the current butler, stood waiting at the doorway when they arrived. His family had served Harlot for generations and knew the secrets of them all. His family valued their employer and his family and would never let their secret pass from them.

 

“I see you were successful, Master Criss.” Jeffery's cultured voice greeted them as he opened the door and helped lift Chorus out of the car. He was stronger than he looked and could easily keep them all safe. “Is Master Chorus all right?”

 

Criss shook his head. “Just ran into a little Syn is all.”

 

Jeffery wisely ignored the angry comment and lead them all into the mansion. “Master Harlan is waiting in the study.”

 

He relieved Criss of his burden and carried the sleeping boy up the stairs to recover.

 

The two boys nodded and headed down the paneled hallway to see their `father'.

 

Harlan Montgomery, or Harlot as his children knew him, was an imposing man. Standing well over six-four, he wore wealth like a skin. He exuded confidence and commanded allegiance with nothing more than a well placed look from his dark brown eyes. He kept his dark chocolate hair cropped close to his head in a style befitting a more conventional era. He favored suits to jeans and wore them made of silk and cashmere, depending on the season. In this incarnation he was the great-great- something grandson of the man, himself, who became a real-estate mogul during the early land years. He made millions in just a few years and that made it easy for him to `die' and be`re-born' without any questions.

 

After centuries of isolation, he found himself looking into the eyes of a young immortal who was hurt and lost. He opted to take the child in instead of killing him as some older ones were want to do. He saw in the young one potential and he had been proven right. From that one success, he'd gone out and found more. Now his home contained six `children' all of varying power and gender. It was not smart for so many to stay in one place for so long but somehow no mortals had ever questioned it and no immortal had ever challenged it.

 

When the door opened, he did not turn to look at who entered but kept his eyes firmly on the two outside by the pool. “I hear that our wayward son has been returned.”

 

“Yes sire.” Criss bowed slightly paying respect to the man who made him what he was. “He had tracked the journal to the University. It is in the possession of Professor Kenneth March.”

 

Harlot nodded before tilting his head slightly and asking, “Jerimiah March's kin?”

 

Criss looked unsure. “Yes.” Syn replied softly.

 

Criss scowled at him knowing that the only way he could know that was if he spoke to him, touched him physically.

 

Harlot nodded and turned to look at his two `sons'. They looked so much like brothers one would never know that they were not. Criss was strength, his body honed to be as strong and fast as it could be. He had suffered the rituals of the east to achieve that calm killer instinct. His special was his strength and he had learned early on that it was a burden and a blessing. He had to strive to keep from hurting his friends and it had left him with a vein of fear that had left a mark on him.

 

Syn was sin. He had been a street urchin all his existence, living from what he could steal or trade and had learned that there was no such thing as trust. Even now, Harlot knew the boy only tolerated them for fear that they would betray him. His special was hidden. Buried and disguised in several ways so that no one could tell exactly what it was. Some had to do with touch and some had to do with the mind, but it all had to do with control and illusion, that much Harlot had discovered. It had taken him weeks just to get the boy to come out of hiding and months before he'd allowed himself to move in with them.

 

“Sable gave that book over to Amiela March in the summer of his first years.” Harlot informed them, looking them over carefully. “She was his first love, of course, but she had married another before he could ask. It was a hard time then. She knew all about him.”

 

Criss looked surprised. “Why reveal himself? I thought it was understood that we merely shadow the mortal world, never interact with it.”

 

Syn snorted and folded his arms across his chest. “Like that ever works.”

 

Harlot ignored Syn's disrespect. “She found out about him and his brethren before Locust laid down the great rules. I believe that it was because of her kind that he felt the need.”

 

“Her kind?”

 

“Seers.” Syn answered, bored he fell onto the couch. “It's a genetic thing.”

 

Criss frowned at his brother's actions and looked to their father for confirmation.

 

“Yes, seers.” Harlot moved to take his seat at the desk and motioned for Criss to sit in front of him. Once he was comfortable, he continued. “The seers are an off shoot of the seekers of old. They mean us no harm but they can detect us if they are strong enough. Does this Professor March share in this gift?”

 

Two pairs of eyes landed on the casually seated braided boy, each with their own questions. Ignoring the displeasure radiating off Criss, he answered his father's quietly asked question. “Some. It's not as strong as it could be and not as honed.”

 

Harlot nodded. It was a given that some of the descendants would share the gift. Oft times it skipped whole generations before showing itself again. That was why their kind was not killed off during the first insurrection. It was what had kept most of them alive in the centuries to come. The gifts of the seekers had been less honed as the generations to come.

 

“Does he wish to know us?”

 

Criss cringed, he didn't like the fact of a new mortal knowing of them. It would make security all the more difficult.

 

Syn shrugged and played with the end of his long braid. He didn't look at the man he'd slowly been willing to trust, afraid of his reaction to his offer to the bewildered Professor. “I offered to make it a dream or to blank the time, but he wished to remember so I told him we would return.”

 

Harlot nodded, which surprised Criss.

 

“Sire?”

 

Harlot sighed. No matter how often he tried he could not get Criss to ignore his royal status. He also could not get him to ignore his self appointed duties. It was the boy's training. So many of them had similar training and it was hard to make them understand that they needn't be on guard constantly. The old ways had been so ingrained that it was hard for some to relinquish them.

 

Taking a seat at his desk, he looked both boys over carefully. Criss was giving a cutting glance to Syn, which Syn was ignoring. It was a game both boys played often enough that Harlot knew what was being unsaid.

 

“We would have had to contact the family of Jerimiah March eventually. It is just as well that it happened now. I will have Tamis look into the family before we invite them here.” Harlot sighed. He knew the confusion that meeting would cause. “In the mean time I will take care of Chorus.”

 

Criss nodded and stood from his chair, knowing that he had been dismissed. Syn moved more slowly as if afraid to turn his back on either of them.

 

“Syn?” The boy just stopped and waited for Harlot to continue. “You did very well. Criss would not have been able to bring Chorus in without some damage if you had not been there.”

 

Syn gave a small nod, his head bowed as he spoke in a quiet voice. “I don't like to see blood. Criss wanted to erase Chorus for revealing himself and Chorus wanted to play with the Professor. It was going to get ugly really fast.”

 

Harlot started at the words. He'd known that Chorus had some darkness in him, but not how much. The boy had never officially come into the fold and refused to acknowledge that he needed anyone. Some thought, and Harlot was want to agree with them, that he'd found another, darker, element to become a part of. Syn's words were merely confirmation that the status quo was changing faster than any could imagine.

 

“I understand.”

 

“Do you?” Harlot was startled by the harsh change in Syn's voice. He'd never heard it before. “It's a special that needs to be stopped. There is a darkness coming, Harlot. One that can no longer be ignored. It will sweep this world and change it for all time. We cannot stand still.”

 

Harlot wanted to see the eyes of the speaker, but knew that it would do him no good. Syn was an enigma. The voice he heard was not the boy's but something else, something stronger and more powerful than anything they had ever seen. He'd heard and seen it only once before and that was enough. It made him wonder just how old Syn really was and how powerful.

 

“What do you suggest?” he asked quietly, watching carefully. He was not disappointed.

 

The boy turned around with eyes that glowed a bright purple. The power coming off him was like a warm caress and Harlot knew that was not all the power he could channel. There was a glow surrounding him and a faint trace of another that seemed to shadow the youth's features as he spoke in that deeply calm voice.

 

“You must prepare them. They all need to know that the mortals needs be protected. We cannot have the same happen as before. We cannot have the destruction of the past visited upon us again. This time we will not survive.” Syn blinked and his whole body changed in that moment. Once again he was the glib boy that Harlot knew.

 

Harlot barely had time to blink at the change before Syn, winked and turned back to the door.

 

“How long do we have?” He asked quietly, not knowing that he wasn't sure that he wanted the answer.

 

Cheekily Syn turned to walk backwards out the door as he whispered in a singsong way. “Wouldn't you like to know.”

 

Harlot shook his head at the antics of the young man. He knew that they were passed the moment and Syn wouldn't give anymore than he had all read. Harlot sighed and followed, knowing that Jeffery would have placed the boy in the unused room at the top of the stairs.

 

@@@

 

Chorus lay sleeping on the top of the covers. He'd been laid out as comfortably as possible and had the look of a sleeping child, but Harlot knew otherwise. Chorus was a different kind of special. He was like Criss, a warrior but there was a hint of maliciousness inside him. Harlot had noticed it when he'd first seen the young immortal and had hoped to help rid him off that darkness, but the boy had ran.

 

“Why?” He whispered the question, knowing that he was never likely to get an answer. Settling himself down in the chair beside the bed, he waited for the boy to wake. Then he would begin to find out why he'd sought to hurt a mortal and why the journal of an old forgotten immortal was now so important.

 

When the eyes started to flutter, Harlot leaned forward so that he would be the first thing seen as the eyes opened.

 

“Shit!” Chorus snapped awake and jerked away.

 

“I would prefer that you watch your language please.”

 

Chorus shuddered and shook his head to clear it before looking hard at the man seated near him. “What the hell do you want?”

 

Harlot shook his head in disgust. It was just like Chorus to ignore his request. Standing he walked to the foot of the bed and looked down on the crouching boy.

 

“I wonder what you think you were doing revealing yourself to a mortal. Did you think that you could erase his mind or leave him drained and no one would notice?” Harlot shook his head again, his gray eyes beginning to glow silver. “You have been a disappointment to me from the moment I met you. You have ground every decent act I offered you into the dust. I have given you a home, an education, and a future but you spit in my face and stand beside the dark ones in order to under mind me. What have you to say, boy!?”

 

During the tirade, Chorus had made himself comfortable against the headboard, letting his one time mentor to rant on. “I found the journal for you.” He spoke softly, an innocent look plastered on his face. “And you sent your hunter after me.”

 

Harlot didn't even blink. “I never asked you to get the journal for me. I didn't want the journal nor did I need help to retrieve it should I so desire.”

 

Chorus took a breath before saying arrogantly, “Shoreman did.”

 

Harlot sneered and turned away. “He would never have known about it if you hadn't spoke up.”

 

Chorus jerked and stood. “I could never make you happy. Any and every thing I ever did was always looked at as beneath you. I'm not you, Harlot. I don't and won't sit idly by and let the mortals take this world on the track they are. It's stupid when we can . . .”

 

Harlot grabbed the boy's collar, forcing him to meet his eyes. “There were certain rules that immortals follow no matter their own personal agenda. Shoreman knows this and he used you to break two of them. He cares nothing for his own kind let alone the mortals. He wants it all destroyed.”

 

Shaking the boy once, he tossed him back on the bed, trying to get his anger back under control. “You are a fool to think that we can govern the mortals when we can't even govern ourselves.”

 

Chorus wiped his mouth and sneered at his former mentor, but before either could say anything else the door opened and Syn walked in.

 

Glowing bright purple eyes locked on Chorus making the boy scramble away. The door closed without use of hands as Syn slowly entered the room.

 

“What the hell!?!”

 

Harlot made to step in between them only to find that he was locked in place.

 

He'd changed into more comfortable loose clothing. Grey sweats and tank top that molded to his body to show the muscles of his lithe form, but the power coming from him was crushing as he stood facing them.

 

“Time is running out.” He whispered as he moved to face Chorus. Hands stretched forth and drew Chorus to him, closing him in a hug and keeping the prone boy from struggling. Their eyes met for a second before Syn's mouth closed over Chorus' as if in a deep kiss.

 

Chorus went limp as the power caressed inside him and drew out everything he was and knew. It was worse than a physical attack and better than sex. It was intimate and probing; and it was like becoming again. His blood sang and his heart pounded. It was the most erotic and intrusive thing he'd ever felt.

 

It seemed to last forever but it took only a few minutes before Syn released the boy and laid him carefully down on the bed to sleep. Turning he stepped to Harlot and the tall man allowed his head to be drawn down toward the boy. When their lips touched it was like lightning, but in seconds the intimate transfer was complete and Harlot had his information. Syn then turned and left the room the same as he entered it.

 

Harlot groaned and moved to straighten his clothing before covering the sleeping boy. He waved a hand over him, a small gesture which would allow him to know the moment Chorus woke. With one last look, he left the room to find a place to rest.