Cronin's Key III (5 page)

After a moment, Alec nodded. “Very
well. Thank you.”

Jorge
blinked his eyes back to normal and shook his head. “What is a
Zoan?”

Alec
shrugged. “I was kinda hoping you could tell me.” Then he looked at
Cronin, Eiji, and Jodis. “They’re getting someone who can help. Who
knew that heaven had a call center?”

“
They’re
getting
someone
?” Eiji asked
incredulously. “What does that mean?”

“
Well, she used the words ‘call forth
,’ but if I said that, I’d sound like a pompous
ass,” Alec said. Eiji laughed.

“
Who did you speak to?”
Cronin asked.

“
Heather. My mother,” Alec
answered. “She seems to be on speed dial or something.”

Jorge looked
confused, obviously not familiar with modern technologies. “She
links to you. If you need her, she answers,” he said. His chubby
cheeks heated pink. “Jorge like her.”

Jorge must have thought something next, because
Alec answered. “She is pretty,” he
agreed. “But not as pretty as me.”

Jorge laughed, and
snatched the ball from Alec and kicked a winning goal
between the two trees marked as posts.

Cronin smiled as he watched them play, but something Jorge
said had stuck with him. When they’d gone inside and
were seated around the table, Cronin
brought it up again.

“
Jorge, before you said
that you liked Alec’s mother?”

“
She’s nice to Jorge,” he
replied.

That’s what Cronin thought he meant.
“Are there people there that are not nice to Jorge?”

Jorge’s face darkened a fraction. “Jorge doesn’t like some
things they show.
Not all
things make Jorge happy.”

Cronin recalled how Jorge had seen
visions of the starving vampire mummies in Egypt being slaughtered.
“No, I presume not. But the people there are nice to
you?”

Jorge nodded.

Cronin smiled at him but pressed on with his questions.
“
Are there a lot of people
there?”

Jorge half nodded, half shrugged.
“Jorge doesn’t see them all. Just those who want Jorge
to see them.”

Cronin
, Alec’s voice
sounded in Cronin’s mind.
Are
you okay?

Cronin knew Alec would see why he was asking such things.
He looked to him and gave a nod.
Of course.

I didn’t mean to pry
,
Alec went on.
But your mind
is the clearest to me. Your thoughts are pretty loud right now. Can
we talk about this later?

Before Cronin could reply, Alec spun to face Jorge.
Apparently whoever they were going to find with information on the
Zoan had returned
because
Jorge’s eyes were all black again. Alec smiled at Jorge. “It’s
Johan! I can see Johan!”

Johan was the vampire who had died protecting Cronin when
they’d fought in Egypt. Cronin had known him for many years, and
although Johan made his affection toward Cronin known, Cronin had
respectfully declined his advances.
They’d remained friends. Johan—a talented cartographer—had
drawn the maps of the Great Pyramid tunnels for them and had died
in battle against Queen Keket’s Illyrian guards.

He’d taken a wooden bullet to the heart so Cronin
could live.

“
It’s good to see you again,” Alec said, staring at Jorge.
“You’re happy. I can see it.”

“
And you make quite the
vampire, Alec,” Johan replied through Jorge. It took some getting
used to, watching Jorge speak for someone else, as though he was
possessed. “We always knew you were special.”

Alec smiled fondly at him. “I owe you
an immeasurable debt, Johan. You sacrificed yourself to protect
Cronin, and that will not ever be forgotten.”

“
But I am happier here
than I ever was in all my years there,” Johan said.

“
You met your fated one,”
Alec said. “I can see the bond.”

Jorge nodded his little head. “And it
is he who knows the information you seek.”

“
Can I show Cronin, Eiji, and Jodis?” Alec asked. “I can let
them see what I see, if that’s okay with you.”

Jorge smiled and gave a nod. “Very
well. I have a feeling Cronin will want to see.”

Cronin was unnerved by what Jorge was
saying on behalf of Johan. “See what?”

Then an
image flashed in his mind and he could see Johan; Alec had given
everyone the gift of seeing what he saw. Johan was just as Cronin
remembered him, though Alec was right; he did look
happier.

The background was unclear, and
exactly where Johan was standing was a mystery, but he held out his
hand and another man joined him.

Cronin couldn’t believe what he
saw.

“
Cronin,” a familiar but long-forgotten voice said. “It is
good to see you again, my old friend.”

A face Cronin had not seen in seven
hundred years. The only other lover he had ever known.

Willem.

The only other man Cronin had ever bedded now stood
in
front of Alec, in Jorge’s
mind. He was a roguish-looking guy with a sparkle in his blue eyes.
He had blond hair, a wide forehead, and a strong jaw. He was
handsome, no doubt about it, and Alec felt a pang of jealousy twist
in his belly.

He contained his
emotions, so the others wouldn’t know he felt that way. He
could have let it seep from him like an angry mist and crawl over
their skin the way it seemed to crawl over his, but Alec controlled
it well.

“
Willem?” Cronin said. “It
is a surprise to see you, I will admit. Though a pleasure, all the
same.”

Alec’s jealousy bubbled a little bit
more.

“
And you, my friend.”
Willem looked at Eiji and Jodis. “You keep the same company, I see,
Cronin,” he said with a smile. “Eiji, Jodis, time has kept you
well.”

“
And you,” Jodis replied.

Willem bowed
his head a little, and when he looked up again, he looked straight
at Cronin. “Ah, Cronin. Fate has chosen well for you. The key, and
I would expect nothing less for you, my friend.”

Cronin
stepped closer to Alec so he could put his arm around him. “Willem,
this is Alec. Alec, my old friend Willem.”

Alec forced a tight smile. “Cronin has told
me about you. Nice to meet
you.”

“
And Johan,” Cronin bowed
his head. “I am so very pleased to see you once again. I owe you my
life.”

Johan smiled warmly. “It was my fate,”
he said simply. “I didn’t know it at the time, but I had to leave
your world to meet my fated one. He was waiting for me.”

“
Fate is an incongruous, ironical thing, is it not?” Willem
asked rhetorically. “That my Johan and I both knew you,
Cronin.”

Cronin tightened his hold on Alec.
“Fate is a curious thing indeed.”

“
You look well, Cronin,”
Willem said. “There is a light in your eyes that was absent when I
knew you. A light I assume we can thank Alec for.”

Alec hated that this man, this
ex-lover, had a history with Cronin. Hated that he’d touched him in
the most intimate of ways. Hated that they’d seen the world at a
different time. Hated that Alec would never have that.

It was an
irrational feeling; the vampire was dead, living on some ethereal
plane. Hell, he was even fated to someone else. But still, Alec
couldn’t help the way he felt. Regardless of how much he confined
the emotion, it was still there.

“
The Zoan?” Alec asked, probably sounding more abrupt than
what would be considered polite. He didn’t care. He needed this to
be over. “You know of them?”

Willem tried not to smile
, as though he could read Alec’s mind. Maybe he could, Alec
reasoned. He still didn’t care.

“
I know of them,” he
replied. “I’ve not seen them with my own eyes, but I am familiar
with their kind.”

“
Who are they?” Jodis
quickly asked. “Where do they come from?”

“
And why have we not heard
of them?” Eiji added.

“
They are, as their name suggests,
zoanthropes
.
They are known to humans as many names. Lycan,
chimera
,
or
therianthropes
.
Though humans believe it is a psychosis where the person can change
into another animal. That’s not quite correct. Zoan are creatures
who can change into a human. They shape-shift, for the want of a
layman term. But their true form is not human.”

“
So they have many names?”
Alec asked.

“
Yes,” Willem clarified. “In the same way a human does.
Human, Homo Sapien, American, English, Caucasian. The list is
long.”

“
So l
ycan and chimera
are the same thing,” Alec repeated, more to himself than anyone
else.

“
Chimera
, by human
definition, is a hybrid creature,” Willem said. “Forget human
definitions and misconceptions, Alec. They are close but not exact.
Humans confuse mythology and fact. What they choose to believe as
myth and folklore quite often is the truth, but that truth is
horrific and frequently unexplainable, so they choose to paint it
as a fairytale.”

“
Yes, we know,” Jodis
agreed kindly.

“
Why now?” Alec asked. “And why have we only heard of these
creatures
now
?”

Cronin
didn’t wait for Willem to reply. “What do these Zoan want with
Alec?”

“
I would imagine they want his power,” Willem said bluntly.
“Alec, when you were changed there was a great shift in energy. The
Callanish Stones created a vortex of immense power, the circle of
light, if you’ll recall.”

“
What of it?” Cronin
pressed.

“
Well, there was an equal
ly powerful but opposite effect,” Willem told them. “It
seemed to open a portal.”

“
A portal?” Alec snorted.
“Oh, good. I’ve seen this movie. Great big mechanical worms fly in
and destroy the world.”

“
Not mechanical worms,” Willem corrected, like he’d missed
the joke all together. “Zoans. There was an energy flux in Göbekli
Tepe, Turkey. The oldest circle of stones on earth.”

“
They came through a
portal?” Alec repeated. “For real?”

Willem chuckled. “I like him,
Cronin.”

Alec growled. “Wait a goddamned minute. Look, I appreciate
your help and all, but mystical creatures from
portals
?”

Johan put his hand up. “Alec, is it no more
incredible than mummified vampires
or terracotta vampires?”

Alec sighed. “Johan, your logic is
doing my head in right now. Please stop it.”

Johan laughed. “You have not changed,
my friend. So do what you do best. Put the pieces together so you
can see the bigger picture. Do your detective thing.”

Willem gave Johan an adoring squeeze.
It should have pleased Alec to see him being affectionate with his
fated one, but it didn’t. He was jealous and petty, and he didn’t
care.

“
The
Göbekli Tepe
circle of stones dates back to prehistory,” Willem went on to say.
He seemed impervious to Alec’s mood. “So these creatures are
old
, Alec. Every so often, the Zoan is believed to have
appeared but only from portals in newer standing
stones.”

Alec was tired of the riddles. “What
does that even mean?”

Willem wasn’t smiling now.
“To come from the oldest portal on the planet, I would
assume these are the oldest Zoan. The most powerful.”

Alec put his hands through his hair
and sighed. “How do they stop time?”

“
I do not know.”

“
Why do I have no powers
over them?”

Willem
answered quietly. “I do not know. I would assume it is the time
differential that inhibits your abilities. That your talents, in
multitudes as they are, simply do not exist on that
plane.”

“
How do we fight them?”
Cronin asked.

When Willem didn’t answer, Alec
rephrased the question. “Do I win? Or do I die?”

Willem frowned. “That I cannot tell
you.”

“
Or you won’t,”
Alec
quipped back.

“
I cannot,” he replied simply. “
For I do not know.”

“
But you can see them?”
Alec kept on. “When they show themselves to me? You can see that,
wherever it is you are?”

Willem
gave a nod.
“Yes. We see most everything.” Then he smiled sadly. “I see pits of
fire, Alec. That is all. The Zoan breathe it.”

“
They breathe fire?” Eiji
asked, his voice almost an octave higher.

Willem gave a nod. “I would assume it
is from where the myth of the dragon stems. A hybrid creature of
bird and lizard, if you will.”