The First Read online

  The First

  Book One

  A. Claire Everward

  Copyright © 2016 A. Claire Everward

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  Published by Author & Sister

  www.authorandsister.net

  Visit the author at www.annaclaireeverward.com

  eBook ISBN 978-965-555-935-4

  Print ISBN 978-965-555-934-7

  Cover design by Damonza

  To my sister, whom I’m lucky to have by my side, and to our mother, for her patience

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter One

  By the time the airliner touched down in this place she called home, she had put it all behind her. Homecoming and the weekend ahead drowned any thoughts of it that might have remained, and by the beginning of the week a busy horizon was once again the focus of her mind and all memories of what had happened during her vacation had disappeared into the past. It was time to settle back into real life.

  Sunday was already well on its way to last week, the sun now closer to its debut into a new day, when the executive jet extended its landing gear and began its descent. Its only passenger turned his head to the window but his dark blue eyes were blind to the distant city below, his mind busily going for the umpteenth time over his next moves.

  It was time.

  She backed the car out of her parking space and drove through the familiar underground garage toward the gate and out onto the road, unconsciously bracing herself for the day ahead. Mondays were never easy as it was, but a Monday that followed a couple of weeks' vacation, that was even worse. At least she didn't have to work today. Anticipating it would be difficult to return to normal life, she had taken the day off. She always did that when she took long vacations, made sure she returned on Saturday, early Sunday at the latest, so she'd have time to rest, get reoriented in her own time zone, then took the beginning of the week to settle back into her routine.

  Errands followed one another mindlessly throughout the day, and she was just turning to drive out of the supermarket parking lot when she braked with a protesting screech of her car tires. There was a man just ahead, standing, watching. Watching her. And something about him . . . He didn't look out of the ordinary, nor did he seem menacing. Young, in his early twenties, she guessed. Well dressed, quite meticulous in his charcoal suit and tieless shirt, yet managing to look casual in them, as if this was his normal attire. Light-haired, a sharp contrast to the clothes he was wearing. Light-skinned. Light, but not pale. Burly, quite clearly. She couldn't see the color of his eyes from this distance, but she could feel their intensity. This man seemed entirely focused on her.

  No, he wasn't, not entirely that is. Once in a while he would turn his head and scan the area around her. The parking lot behind her car, the cars around it. The road she was about to drive onto. But his eyes always came back to her, lingering. Watching.

  Honking startled her and she realized she'd been sitting there staring at him, blocking the path for other shoppers behind her. But just before she took her foot off the brake and continued on her way, she noticed something odd. Other than this man watching her, which was certainly odd enough. When the car behind her honked, he seemed to stiffen, and his eyes locked on the car whose driver was honking. As if he was ready to take action if needed. To pounce. But the moment passed and he relaxed, and she wondered if she might have imagined it all.

  Except she knew she didn't.

  As she turned onto the main road she threw a look in the rear-view mirror. The man was gone.

  He disembarked inside the private hangar and got into the black sedan that stopped beside the jet. A luxury car with darkened windows and a professional-looking driver, of course, trust Jennison to demand only the best. He settled back into the soft upholstery and sighed. This day had been awaited for so long, it was amazing how only chance brought it to be. Or was it chance? Intervention, maybe?

  Either way, it was promising to be interesting.

  She felt a little better after the electronic gate of the underground parking garage at her building closed behind her with an audible click. As the elevator reached her floor, she wondered if she had in fact imagined it all. After all, she wasn't anyone special, no one had any reason to take any interest in her. By the time she put the groceries away, she'd convinced herself that it was nothing. Leaning on the kitchen counter with a glass of delicate rosé in her hand, she chided herself on her reaction, and mused that she wouldn't even be thinking about it if not for what had happened on her vacation, its memory now once again vivid in her mind.

  Chapter Two

  She had just returned from Rome. She traveled alone, invariably so, because she loved the freedom of it, the ability to decide for herself what to do and when. Her everyday life was always so very busy, day chasing day and disappearing into months, so once a year, twice when she could, she would escape it, go abroad, far away, to experience a different culture. She would choose a city, one that had a history, and book a hotel, a small, cozy one. Quaint, when she could find it. Crammed in some small street, surrounded by the local culture, where possible. At a location where she could feel the city, lose herself in it.

  And in every city she had ever visited, she would immerse herself in the local life and spend whole days walking through the streets where the locals lived, narrow paths winding through age-old squares. Feeling the city, its people, their ancient ways seeping through to modern times, talking to them about their past and present and searching their eyes to glimpse into their hopes for the future. And at the end of each long day she would return to the hotel through streets that soon became familiar, feeling after a while as if she was returning home.

  Young as she was she’d already visited so many places, walked among so many people. Tried, for a short time, to be one of them, even if only to a limited extent. And at the end of every trip she would fly back home with a pang in her heart, not wanting to leave, not ready to return to her reality, but also feeling a bit richer in experience. And after a while, just as the city she had just left would forget her, she too would allow her own life to envelop her again, immerse her in its endless routine, and memories of her last journey would be replaced by the anticipation of the next one she would already begin to plan for.

  Bu
t Rome was different. Something happened in Rome. It had felt different from the moment she entered the city, and this feeling only grew stronger as the taxi dropped her off at the hotel after driving through old, tiny streets it could barely pass through. The air here felt charged. It was as if the city was watching her. As if unseen ghosts all turned away from gazing at the endless processions of tourists, to her. As if they'd been waiting, for her. The silent bearers of an unspoken secret, eager witnesses of her arrival.

  Although she was tired after the long flight, she felt restless. The first time she walked out of the hotel, that same evening she arrived, the city seemed to envelope her, embrace her, as though it had awaited her. Its very air seemed to penetrate through her skin, possessing every cell in her body, whispering ancient stories into them.

  She wandered through the narrow streets, ancient buildings close on both sides, old paving stones under her feet. The falling darkness felt comforting, allowing her to reflect on the ancient city's past, see through all signs of the present into a time long gone. Her path took her among tourists stopping at shops, eager sellers rushing to convince them to buy another memorabilia they simply must have, and among weary workers for whom this was just another end—or beginning—of a workday in this tourist city that had long lost all charm for them. Home, for them, was elsewhere. This place, these people, were just another way to make a living.

  She heard the water before she saw it, before she reached the awe-inspiring view of the Fontana di Trevi. There were people around it, sitting on its wide steps, some talking, others silent, perhaps pondering the wish they had made that sunk into the water along with the coin they had thrown in, wondering if there was a miracle here for them. She didn't throw in a coin, it was not her belief, but she enjoyed the beauty, the ambience. The buzz of life.

  Except that the statues were looking at her, large stone figures that seemed to be focused on nothing but her. The seagull that had somehow found its way there, standing on a statue high above, was looking at her. The windows of the ancient buildings surrounding her, they too were looking on, and even the gentle gust of wind coming down from the rooftops, caught between the buildings and spiraling down to the Fontana, even it seemed to be there for her, stroking her hair, beckoning, beseeching. She stood up and left. It must be her tiredness, the long day, the flight, she thought. Her imagination was playing games with her. Yes, surely that must be it.

  Still, this feeling, that first evening there, did nothing to mar her visit to this magnificent city, and after a good night's sleep she was ready to continue her quest. And her days of travel were most satisfying. The architecture, the history, the people, they seemed to fill something within her, and she felt good here, in this ancient city.

  Until she entered that cathedral, with its ancient paintings, its silent statues, its rambling space. And it hit her, the feeling. She halted, perplexed, and looked around her. There were so many people here. Some were tourists walking around, speaking in hushed voices, others were locals, for whom this was their place of worship. Some people just sat, awed, others prayed. Even if they were not religious, this place got to them, it was nothing short of inspiring.

  That wasn’t what she felt, it wasn’t like that, religion had never been a part of her. But then she’d always had the tendency to question what others simply accepted, never feared the uncertainty of the unknown as others did. Did not have the same questions of purpose and fate that they had, their need to believe that someone was watching over them, that they were not alone. She simply accepted that there were things she could never know. Accepted, and decided for herself.

  And yet here, now, in this cathedral in the ancient city of Rome . . . no, there was nothing religious about what she was feeling, what she was sensing, really. It was something else. Something she could not define, it eluded her. She stood there, oblivious to the people around her, her gaze searching, trying to understand.

  And then she saw him, standing in the shadows, beside a distant wall. The man. Wearing white, all white. A white suit, modern, she noticed fleetingly, a white shirt with a Chinese collar buttoned up. Elderly, white-haired, distinguished. Not one of the clergymen, but not one of the tourists, either. He seemed to belong there. As did the younger man standing beside him, a step back in deference. A big man, burly, light-haired, wearing a well-cut charcoal suit, a white shirt, no tie. Both just standing, looking at her. No, not just looking. The older man was frozen. Staring. As if he was seeing a ghost. She turned, perhaps he was looking at someone behind her. But there was no one there. She turned back and he was gone, they were both gone. She shrugged inwardly and returned to her sightseeing, but it was futile, she knew it was her that man was looking at. She knew.

  Just as she knew she was still being watched. She walked around, thinking she might find this man again, but he was gone, they were both gone. There were doorways she couldn’t enter, and they must have ducked into one of them. After a while she left. It was difficult for her to tear herself away from this place, but at the same time she felt unsettled at being watched and was unable to resolve that unfamiliar feeling that was tugging at her, mind and soul.

  The white-haired man stumbled back through a doorway and, his voice trembling, uttered a single word. In a secure complex far under the cathedral in Rome, all hell broke loose.

  The feeling remained. She distanced herself from the cathedral, but that didn't help. It pulled at her relentlessly, the rest of the day, the next, and the ones after that. The feeling just wouldn’t go away.

  Nor would the conviction that she was still being watched.

  Still, it was easy to allow herself to think that perhaps this ancient wonder of a city was getting to her and she could not convince herself to leave, go back to her own life. And when the last day of her vacation arrived, she found she regretted leaving. There was always regret at the end of her vacations, her excursions into different lives, but this time she felt like she was leaving something behind, something important. Like she was leaving part of herself behind. Like she was leaving her self behind.

  Back at the hotel, that last day, she walked to the taxi, her bags already inside, and a motorcycle came out of nowhere, whipping by. She would have been hit, but from a corner a man stepped forward, blocking the way to her, and the driver swerved, almost fell, cursed, then continued on his way. She turned to thank her savior but there was no one there. Whoever it was, was already gone. The taxi driver had urged her to hurry, and so she took one last look around her and let him take her from this place she already began to miss. But while she waited for her flight, standing close to the airport's glass walls to see the sky, Rome's sky, for a few more moments before she had to leave, she knew she was not alone, although she could not identify whoever was watching her. And yet she was not afraid. She did not scare easily and, after all, no one had tried to harm her. On the contrary.

  She was being protected. She had no idea how she knew this, but she did. She was being protected.

  And then she was on the plane, and by the time she landed under that same old sky of the reality of her own life the feeling ebbed, and she could more easily chalk it all up to her imagination, leave it behind.

  Except that now that man was there.

  The man from the cathedral in Rome, who had accompanied the distinguished old man who had stared at her, looking so stunned.

  The light-haired young man, right there, in the parking lot of her neighborhood supermarket. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the United States.

  At the scheduled time a command was activated, and an unattended computer system under the cathedral in Rome sent data that was received on a single laptop in a secure office in southwestern Arizona. The man behind the desk, until that moment busy with the routine tasks entailed in running the organization's main training facility, turned distractedly and opened the message received. When he saw its contents he pushed away from the desk so violently that the back of his chair hit the wide shelf behind him, sending the framed ph
otos carefully placed on it to the floor, glass shattering. He sat still for a long moment, then took a deep breath, moved slowly closer to the desk and read the message again.

  He closed the laptop and sat still, his mind churning. He’d known it could happen, of course. He’d spent his entire professional life preparing for this. Still, he'd hoped it wouldn't come to be. Not in his lifetime. Perhaps never.

  And yet it did.

  And it wouldn’t go away just because he wanted it to. It was his responsibility to deal with it, and he would. He knew what to do, and he knew there was no choice. This had to be done.

  Howard Jennison straightened up and reached for his phone. “Rhys,” he said, and the phone dialed.

  In a secluded mansion above Italy's Amalfi Coast, the men and women of the Council stood up in deference as the doors of the Council Hall opened and the old woman entered. Her entire demeanor spoke of elegance and stature, and her eyes had the serenity and wisdom of old timers. As she moved, her robes flowed around her, all white except for the light-colored band that seemed to encompass all colors, at the edges of the soft fabric.

  Usually she would simply approach the large table and sit down, signaling them all to do the same and begin the meeting. They met once a year, traveling from the farthest reaches of the world to meet her in this very room. Once a year, for decades, she would walk in, resigned, and sit in on this meeting that always began the same way.

  “We are yet alone.”

  But tonight hope flickered in her eyes. She approached the table and looked around at her loyal Council, her gaze stopping at the white-haired man immediately on her right. He bowed his head in respect and said the words she and others before her had waited so long, too long, to hear.