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Excerpt
By the time the
coroner carted the three corpses out of Raiken’s house, the sun had risen. They
had questioned him repeatedly about the men who shot up his house. He told them
he knew nothing about the gunmen and why they had tried to assassinate him.
He requested time to sleep before the
next round of questions. They left, except for three police officers who
guarded his house.
He went inside his battered house
where Dalia and Sally waited for him. Thank God his wife and sister had
survived this hellish ordeal. It would have shattered him if either had died.
“Scott, we need to talk,” Dalia said.
During the attack, the gunmen destroyed
the kitchen chairs, so Sally sat on the floor. “I know you were lying to the
police, and we’ve had enough of your lies.”
“We want to know what’s going on,”
Dalia said, “and we want to know now!”
“And we’re not just talking about why
these guys shot the house apart while trying to kill you. We want to know
everything.”
“It’s impossible for a person to do
what you did tonight.” Dalia paced around the kitchen. “You moved so fast, I
couldn’t even follow you with my eyes.”
Sally looked up at him. “Not to
mention that you know about, oh I don’t know, sixty languages or so, and talk
about places that you’ve never been to as if you’ve lived there your whole
life.”
“It doesn’t add up, Scott. We want
you to explain everything.”
Raiken tilted his head back and
closed his eyes, clutching the bandaged area above his hip where the bullet had
pierced him. Weariness sank deep into his bones as if the past twelve millennia
had crept up on him.
Raiken gave a harsh laugh that made
Sally and Dalia jump. “I’ve never told anyone my story, but for the first time
I need to let someone know the secrets
I’ve buried for so long. You want to know the truth? You’ll have to forget what
you thought you knew about the world.”
Dalia’s face tightened. “After what
we saw tonight, that won’t be too hard.”
Raiken took a deep breath. “What I’m about to
tell you is a tale that spans thousands of years. The pyramids in Egypt weren’t
even a thought when I entered this world. This is a tale of good and evil. It’s
a tale of betrayal, heartbreak, and revenge. But in its essence, this is a tale
of two people. Scott Mullen is the latest of many names I’ve had. The other is
my dark twin, who is responsible for tonight’s attack.” Raiken closed his eyes
and sighed. “Where do I even start? I guess the only place to start is in the
beginning.”
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