Shade of Deception (Two)

Shade of Deception Hannah Graves Series Book Two Aria Storm Prologue: Roger McAdams was milling about after the break in legislative debates. Hawker and Senna had tasked him with representing the apex family’s wishes and opinions. His was just fierce enough a tone, without the harsher overtures a true apex might cause. Skylark was too young, despite already out classing Senna in power scaling, she was a minor, unable to represent the community hidden outside Doylestown legally, even in the larger world of Hidden politics. Roger knew that Fourteen was only three years until her majority. Hidden consider the youth adults at seventeen. While Skylark chomped at her bit, her mother and her elder family members all cautiously strode around her with a very wide berth. Nothing is as unsettling as what ear people refer to as “dragons” as they are maturing into adults. Skylark was entering that vicarious age which terrified those powerless to stop her if she were to turn upon them in a fit of rage. Sky was soon to be the apex, the Nix’s helmswoman. Roger was happy with their future leader. She was becoming a genuinely well-rounded teen. Some were unhappy that she was harboring and training a shade child, but even her fiercest opponents could not discount Hannah’s seeming purity of intention. Roger needed time away from the young shade, if he were being honest, she was like a siren to him, she was alluring in a manner no Nix female could compare. She was not, however, interested in men. Roger was keen to be further apart, lest his conflicting feelings around his little sister’s friend become more problematic. This was such a cliché and something he had believed himself many decades beyond happening to him. Roger was a young immortal being, but he had lived over a century. To his credit, had learned how to tread lightly upon the face of his new home. He was one of the second generation of Nix children in the second boom to their populace, after relocating to earth. While roughly eleven-hundred-years is a very protracted period for a new species in the short-view. It was a single drop in the ocean of the evolution of the natural and native species on the planet. The Nix had to be ever vigilant of their tenuous place upon the face of their strange new world. Some of the apex families had done the inter-dimensional equivalent of a summer vacation on earth many times, but this was different. This was their entire surviving population mass determined to carve out their own rung on earth’s new evolutionary sliding scales. Roger sighed, he closed his eyes, and he let his mind drift through the vastness of his arguably youthful life. His thoughts lingered on the young shade, and his loins ached when he thought of Hannah. He needed to further immerse himself in his people’s issues, he was determined to find something in the City of Hidden to keep his mind off the beautiful young mixed creature vexing his every moment of life waking or resting. “Lord McAdams?” A slender ethereal beauty with a pair of red vertically slit reptilian eyes inclined her head deeply to him. She was much older than Roger, despite the seeming appearance of nearly identical human guises they wore. Almost like a matching charade, but the truth was, no Nix ever looked older than a college-aged human. Not unless something horrid had been done to them using expression in some malignant manner. “Please, just call me Roger. We’re well beyond the old world now.” Roger told her, and she seemed to drift back to that place that Roger had never actually seen with his own eyes. A world with a dying star slowly extinguishing the last bastion of light. Nights ruled by chaos and blood drinking monstrosities that preyed even upon the Nix. Beings so romantically portrayed as vampires on earth. Not that these such beasts were beautiful with pointy teeth. Even by alien standards, these were horrid soulless creatures! She looked taken aback a bit and flushed her cheeks slightly. “A thousand pardons-mi—Roger. We had word that you were visiting from the Apex tribe. I only beg ask for a moment of your time.” Her English was heavily laden with terms of a more bygone era. Roger could imagine that when she was young, the separation of casts was a common place. He could not begin to fathom such ludicrous behavior, yet it had once been all the rage throughout the world. Even the Nix home world had not been devoid of the divide of classes and sects. Being apex born as he was, Roger was often subject to what most silver spoon born entitled nepotistic young men dreamed. He could rule most things if he wished, and short of defying Skylark, he could lead his people openly. However, Roger was loathed the privileges of birth. His life had made him appreciate all the hard-won challenges only available beyond pain and anguish. “Is there something I can help you with, dear one?” Roger asked, and his English approximate for the origin Nix word felt off to him. Sometimes the interfacing of two alien languages just seemed to clash. He kept is grimace inward only, and his audience was none-the-wiser. She too had been switching between languages for centuries now. The translational gaps were of no surprise to her. “Aye, we have need of one so bold and brave. Our young and our youth have begun to disappear at the midnight hour.” Roger’s stomach seemed to fall in his shock. The City of Hidden was a closely guarded secret. Hell, Hannah had spent the past year unable to enter it, despite being told of its existence recently. For a predator capable of hunting even the weaker of the Nix to exist within this city, something was foul. “Take me to the place they were last seen. I will tend to this myself.” Roger declared aloud, and several other older—youthful appearing—Nix seemed to slink towards him suddenly emboldened with hope. They all opened their holographical palm top computer devices and began displaying images of their lost loved ones. Most were fighting-fit boys, most fully awakened to their individual gifts and most under fifty. Most youths take nearly half a century to fully manifest themselves and their full might. Power matures and deepens with age and control hones such expressive potential to a razor-sharp point. “Please, everyone, take a step back, and forward these images to my public e-mail. You have my word; I shall look for each and everyone of your lost ones.” Roger had not visited the lower district in a long time, but something in the almost down-trodden expressions gave his heart pause. His empathic soul seemed to sting deeply with each needle jabbed into the hearts of his Nix brothers and sisters. He was the apex son, he was one born to lead, born to defend the weaker of the tribes. Roger could not help but feel he had failed his people, Hawker, and his apex mother. Roger even felt like he was somehow enfeebled in his sister’s perception. He could sit on his ass and kick this problem off to Skylark, or he could handle it like a true-born apex son! “Roger, you really don’t have time for all of this.” One of the cadre of guards protested and he turned and glared at the man. He was an alchemist, a natural born magus. One of the rare beings evolved amongst the humans, born to them, yet not of them. Sometimes mortal wombs could be filled with he powers of a very random gene mutation, and a nearly extinct breed is born. A breed that also shares everything in common with the elites who war against the Nix and the Hidden, the Architects. Though not exactly the same as the magi off-shoot, they’re comparatively similar and capable of crossbreeding. Many Architects have kept choice mortal stock just for such occasion. (Not that the world at large seems aware of any of this.) “There is always time for my kith and ken. I will make bed wherever this new discovery takes me tonight. Send back that I shall be staying the night amongst the Nix of lower district.” Several of the guards looked annoyed, but not the Nix guards. The two Nix looked to be smoldering with bride for Roger’s ferocity of character and his willingness to tend to his own kind. All beings live their whole lives hoping to encounter such a hopeful ray within their own ranks. A stark reminder of the light that seems all but forgotten in the fathoms of the deep-dark. “Lord Roger, you have breakfast with the lords of the city. Then you have a meeting with the council of war regarding the recent increases in Architect-lead forces. We also need to discuss that one reaper lady who seems to have slipped in and out of your own territory several times without reprisal!” One of the more prominent guards, a captain of some merit, complained to Roger, and he gave the man a obstinate smile. “I do not forget my duties, or what has brought me here. Have my men send word back to my sister and apex mother. Let them know of this issue of the disappearing Nix. The apex family has every right to know what is happening to its people. Let mother and Skylark determine the merit of my actions, not politicians.” Roger said, he was practically a step away from finding a soap-box form which to further deliver his sermon. However, the captain, however annoyed, opted to murmur into his holographic com device and relay the orders issued. It was not his job to command Roger, that distinct displeasure fell only to the pair of apex females in his tribe capable of roaring him into submission with their ferocious dragon cries of rage—not that this usually happened of course! Usually, Skylark enjoyed the freedoms of having an older brother. Even still, in recent months she has begun to take more command of every situation. Sky was soon to take the reins. There were but pitiful final years left to their mother’s lengthy and respectable rule. Even the prime huntress must concede to her daughter at some point, as would one day remain true for Sky herself. Roger expected he would see his own nieces and nephews jockeying to position themselves as the hierarchy of their almost pack-like lifestyle was shaken up. That was all dependent on Roger solving this mystery and coming home intact, of course. It also meant that he needed to try to force himself to stop pinning away over a beautiful young lesbian shade who was never going to return his feelings. In his century of life, Roger had come to one absolute agreement with a single popular phrase—Love stinks. “Anything in particular you wish to say to the apex pair?” One of the two Nix guards asked respectfully. She was almost six-foot-tall, and she was a lean huntress with a mighty prowess for her tiny size. She was not apex born, but her power was still prominent. She was young, and she was almost perfectly human in appearance. Her eyes were sharp, and they seemed to slit upwards as her mood darkened. Nix was forever linked in some minor physical ways to the place of their genesis. “Tell my mother and my sister all that was conveyed to me. Leave nothing out and see that my word reaches Skylark or Hannah Graves.” The young Nix woman seemed to recoil at the mention of the infamous shade. Word tended to travel at warp-speed when a new shade was in the mix. Hannah had saved an entire Hidden town, the apex town in Doylestown, PA, the year before. She was known throughout the Hidden community world-wide. Panic spread at the potential new oppressor roaming the halls of her senior high school halls. “if I must, Lord Roger.” The young Nix woman said, making her stance on the matter perfectly candid. He gave her a sly smile and a wink. “My deepest appreciation, milady.” While it was not common in the area Roger was born, the phrases tended to translate well in place of a formal thanks to an attractive Nix female of mating age. It was flirtations but respectable, which caused a flush in the girl’s cheeks. No power could stop a girl from her swoon moments in life. Roger was better at captivating hearts than he currently knew!