Bones Of Contention: The McKinnon Legends - The American Men Book 3 (30 page)

“I guess it is a possibility she told me everything,” Josh confessed he really could not say one way or the other. He knew what he had been told, and one did not know what one did not know. “I suspect none of us knows the whole story, Jacob, and I reserve judgment on the Sidhe Fae until I do.”

Gage looked suspiciously at him with one dark brow raised in question. Josh instantly understood what was behind Gage’s unspoken query.

“If you are asking me with that look, Gage, which side I will choose, even without the whole story, I can safely say if the chips are down I will do what I must to help defend this treaty. It is a legal document and a law, even if a little known law. A violation must be answered with swift and justifiable action, and Jamie’s life is in the balance because of it.”

“Yes, it will and yes it is,” Gage commented almost cryptically.

“I’m missing something here, aren’t I.” It was a statement, not a question as he sat back hard in his chair crossing his arms in the process. Josh was beginning to feel like this was an interrogation, and he was not being made aware of the charges.

“He doesn’t know,” Gage stated to Jacob as Josh felt the weight of the room press in on him.

“I told you so.” Jacob did not look triumphant. “It is time. We cannot keep him in the dark any longer regardless of the fact he is not ready. Furthermore, we have no time to get him that way. I just hope it doesn’t kill him.”

“Hope what doesn’t kill me?” Josh asked receiving no response.

Gage reached behind his desk, took his fist and firmly tapped the right top corner of the panel directly behind him. Standing, he made room for the panel to completely swing wide. The large panel silently swung open just as Gage dialed a number on a secured cell phone.

“Send them in,” was all Gage had to say.

At the words Josh felt his insides twist. Instinctively, he understood this was about to be one of those life-altering moments for him. He was about to be forced to zig onto a different pathway when in fact he was currently in a zag pattern.

He stood up.

By God, if his life was about to go to hell, he was not going to let it happen while he was sitting down.

One by one a stream of men and women filed through the secret passageway fanning out across the study floor. Multiple nations stood in representation. Even to an untrained eye this group was no normal fighting force. Josh was not an untrained eye.

This group was a magnificent display of raw human power mixed with something else he could not quite put his finger on. It felt like a pulse of raw and barely contained energy. The aura of power emanating from the band was more than just slightly disconcerting. This alone would be a weapon if turned full force during the heat of battle. It slightly fogged the mind. He shook his head as if to dispel the effects. Willing himself to concentrate, the fog lifted allowing him to see them for the full force they were.

He whistled. “I’m impressed. All right, I’ll bite. Which one of you gentlemen have assembled what is arguably the most impressive, elite fighting unit on this planet?”

“We cannot take credit for what you see here, Josh.” Gage was very quick to set the record straight as he stood and came around his desk to stand beside Jacob.

Again, to Josh, the resemblance was more than just striking. What he did not know and very few did was that Jacob and Gage were brothers born of the same mother, but sired by very different fathers.

Josh raised one dark questioning brow. If Gage and Jacob did not assemble this group then who was the ultimate alpha?

Jacob stepped forward. “What you are being made privy to here today is a band of warriors only a privileged few, besides the three of us in this room, have ever seen.”

“At least have seen and lived to tell the tale,” Gage interjected.

“Innocents have died?” Josh did not like this connotation, especially since he was now one of the few to know of their existence.

“It is, unfortunately, a necessary evil. This unit’s existence is so secretive and clandestine that individuals sometimes disappear for having accidentally laid eyes on them. Other times, they swear loyalty and are used as soldiers indoctrinated into the ways of the Brotherhood. However, on that rare occasion when the secret is breached, few are allowed to live. The risk is just too great.” Jacob offered his knowledge. “It goes against what I personally believe, Josh, but it is not my call to make.”

This added one more piece to a puzzle Josh hoped they would soon solve. He had not been called here by accident and wondered why he was even here given the nature of the topic of conversation. If knowledge of this group’s existence was so protected, then they were placing his life at risk. There had better be good reason or there would be hell to pay. He was thinking of Jesse and Jamie. Both needed his protection, protection he could not give them if he were dead.

“In centuries past in some countries, children were terrified into compliance with the mere threat of one of these making a midnight visit,” Jacob continued.

“The Boogieman? Come on, you’re kidding right?” Josh looked back and forth between the two men.

Gage shook his head. “No, Josh. Not the Boogieman, something way scarier, at least to those who would have the need to feel their wrath. These are the Protectors.”

Josh felt the hair on his arms stand and the muscles in the back of his neck bunch. It was a sure sign he was in some kind of danger.

“What have you exposed me to?” Unconsciously, Josh placed his palm on the butt of his gun unsnapping the strap of the holster with his thumb.

Gage could not blame Josh for this reaction. Calmly, to steady Josh's hand, Gage covered Josh’s hand with his own.

“You are not in danger from any in this room.” Gage waited until Josh removed his hand. “What you see are the wizards' elite defenders of the treaty, Josh. These are
The Protectors
.”

“So,” Josh felt the tingle trail his spine, the burning settle at its base, “they do in fact exist and are not just urban legends.”

He was beginning to understand that elusive quality he sensed in this band. He understood the feeling and where it was coming from. It originated from their focused sense of purpose, the precision discipline, and a pack moving as one organism.

This was not just a byproduct of hours of rigorous training. It was magic bequeathed by the wizards that strung them together, and tied them into a single bundle, a single entity comprised of many parts. It was subtle, yet strong, as he felt the blood quicken in his veins. It was magic oddly calling to him. “I read it myself in Jamie’s library. They were destroyed thousands of years ago. Even Jamie has confirmed this fact.”

“Not entirely, Josh, another reason why we have kept their existence so secretive. It has taken thirty-six centuries to rebuild this core after the disaster of Thera,” Jacob offered, giving Josh the distinct impression this Maji king was more than just on the fringe of this revelation.

Why, he asked himself silently, was he not surprised to discover this family, of which he was a part, was bone marrow deep in the enforcement of an ancient treaty brokered for the protection of mankind?

Honor, Protect, Defend, Serve.

They were not just a string of superior and strong words. Apparently not by accident, this was the creed on the family’s coat of arms. Through the ages, the McKinnon clan oftentimes found themselves drawn to law enforcement in one vein or another such as military commanders, intelligence agents, cops, personal security, secret service, special forces, and at one point in history even the personal guard to royalty.

So, he wondered, just how deep was the family? How big of a part in assisting the defenders of the Treaty of the Sidhe Fae were they?

Back up perhaps?

Maybe at one point a McKinnon witnessed the Protectors, and rather than be put to death they swore allegiance, and from that point forward found themselves providing shelter and maybe even financial assistance to the Protectors themselves? The Templar Knights were few in actual number, but required hundreds of thousands to support them in their quest to protect the holy lands. Were Jacob and Gage assisting this group and now needed his help as well?

“Josh, unbutton and remove your shirt if you will, please,” Gage politely requested. Yet, the undertone was unmistakable. It was not a request.

“Why?” he questioned

“Just do it!” Gage barked, clearly out of time and patience.

Josh followed the command without further argument. Gage was the undisputed leader of the family when they were all gathered. Nevertheless, he still did not have to like it. Forcefully yanking the tail of his shirt out of the waistband of his jeans, he quickly unbuttoned the front of his shirt. Thinking the men wanted to see if he was carrying any other weapons, he did not completely remove his shirt, but instead he held it open leaving his chest bare.

Jacob, hissing his disapproval at the blatant disregard for the command, moved with blinding speed. Taking the shirt by the collar, forcefully, he yanked it down to Josh’s elbows bearing the upper biceps of his arms.

Not quite a scar or birthmark yet, not a tattoo either, Josh was self-conscious of the strange markings on his body that looked to be a conglomerate of random designs.

As if on cue each warrior including Gage and Jacob, raised his or her right sleeve revealing an identical marking.

Josh felt the room closing in. “Now, would any of you care to be Paul Harvey and give me the rest of the story?”

London, England

Jamie donned the dust mask just for good measure. She handed Darren one as well. The latex gloves and eye protection were a given.

She had asked Dr. Goff, the professor she met on the airplane, to join her after their speaking engagement. He had eagerly joined her in this examination. Jamie felt sure he might bring some insight to the cause and brought him into the loop. They had spent a great deal of time with each other over the last few days. She liked him and they shared a lot of common ideas and philosophies. He was intelligent, thoughtful in his appraisals of the artifacts, and it also got under Josh’s skin, just a little added bonus, she confessed.

Serves Josh right, as she thought back over the last tiff they had about the number of hours she and Darren had been spending together.

“Is he moving in?” Josh asked her with that flat edged sarcasm she really hated. She had tossed a sofa cushion at him accompanied by a hearty “None of your damn business, Lawman.”

The dark expression that comment garnered was almost not worth the price. The kiss Josh delivered afterwards was.

She and Darren had been spending a lot of time together on a purely professional basis leaving Jesse and Josh to their own devices. She did feel just a little guilty about letting Josh stew. She, nonetheless, was not about to let him know that Darren had a live-in girlfriend of fourteen years and was in a very committed relationship with her. His partner, Joanna, was in the oil industry, and that was how Darren had ended up going to Texas Tech from Oxford.

What Josh did not know would not hurt him.

However, very soon she was going to clue him in because the game had become tedious. She had been poking the bear, something she knew better than to do. At least she knew better than to poke the bear with the frequency she had been the last few days. The jig was up.

However, that was not going to stop her from utilizing Darren’s expertise before he went back to work in Lubbock.

These mummies, if you could call them that, were in remarkably good condition considering they were over three thousand years old. She began piecing together facts from her initial visual inspection and the archeologists’ field notes. This group of individuals belonged to the household of what was most likely a wealthy trader.

The underground cellar where they were initially discovered, by all the accounts and the pointed evidence, had been filled with two priceless minerals that for the time period would be worth a Fort Knox fortune. There was salt, whose molecular content traced its origins to the dead sea and crushed limestone used to this day as a major ingredient of concrete.

The limestone, coupled with the heavy volcanic ash thrown off from the eruption and the addition of water from the tsunami, produced the environment and provided the elements needed for perfect preservation. The limestone and ash were not enough alone. Water invading the space by the tsunami was actually the last and final ingredient to produce the concrete-ash mixture that encapsulated the bodies and preserved them until they were finally unearthed. As seven of the eight bodies decomposed, the loose, powdery limestone slowly replaced the organic materials of most all the bodies which resulted in a very strange petrifaction process. The end result turned them to a stony material. In other words, these people were fossilized.

Unfortunately, she could feel nothing more from these bones than if their likeness had been carved from the very stone composition they had become. These definitely were interesting, magnificent specimens, and extremely rare even for small organisms, much less specimens this size and of this nature. However, she could not assist the scientific community other than the visual inspections that she and Darren had completed before turning their attention to the one exception.

The eighth victim found over on the opposite side of the storage space was more what she would have expected to find at such an archeological dig. As with any natural disasters, some things just could not be explained away. The mosaic under her body, while in a room full of destruction and devastation, was perfectly preserved.

Jamie viewed the photos of the room and wondered if the woman had been protecting it for some reason. She found it odd that the woman was found separated from the other seven. Perhaps the force of the water or some other divine intervention pushed her into the small alcove away from the large stores of the limestone. She had not been buried alive and then drowned by the tons of crushed stone and water. Her cause of death could be something other than asphyxiation.