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  “She caught you fucking one of her whore friends. You’re lucky she didn’t have the balls to kill you.” Olivia Terenzio sat on the leather couch pressed up against the wall. Above it hung a Van Gough painting that she thought was both ugly and depressing.

  “Simone’s not that type of woman.” Victor said impatiently, glancing briefly in Olivia’s direction, then back at Dominic. “I can get her back. I’ll get her to forgive me, okay? I just need a little time.”

  “Time is a luxury we don’t have, Victor,” Dominic said, frowning lightly. “The whole point of you marrying her five years ago was so if it got to this point, you’d be in a prime position to feed us information we needed.”

  “Or be a real husband and push the bitch in the direction we wanted,” Olivia added before she pressed a long, thin cigarette between her full, red painted lips.

  “I get it okay? I get it.” Victor stood up, buttoning the front of his suit jacket. “Just give me a week. I know Simone. She’ll forgive me and we’ll be back on track.”

  “You better hope those good looks of yours pays off big time, pretty boy,” Olivia warned while her pale gray eyes took in his tall, athletic build. Victor was a handsome man, with a charming smile and a silver tongue.

  “One week, Victor,” Dominic said.

  Victor clapped his hands together. “Consider it done, guys and gals.” Flashing them a reassuring smile, he walked out of the office.

  “I’m not entirely convinced he can pull that off.” Dominic walked behind his desk, sat down, and began to clean one of his small diamond rings.

  “I’m not convinced Kayla is so patient as to give him a week after fucking up like that.” Olivia uncrossed her long, muscular legs, made from running five miles every morning, and stood up. “This whole matter would be a fucking moot point if the Brotherhood would just give the order to have the triplets killed.”

  “Patience, Olivia.”

  Patience was one thing she was losing the closer they got to the winter solstice and the Brotherhood did nothing about the fucked up side of her family. “Did you tell Them about Loki?” Days ago, a strange man who looked human, but otherworldly, appeared in the house of Amadeo Terenzio, Olivia’s cousin and partner in crime. The stranger had introduced himself as Loki and told them that he would help them stop the Ascension.

  “I did. I expect They’ll want you to bring him in soon. They sounded very pleased.”

  “Am I going to meet someone in authority or some level of middle management?” Olivia walked up to his desk and used Dominic’s gold ashtray.

  Dominic smiled. “If Loki is really an Atlantean, then I’m fairly confident you just might meet Enlil himself.”

  Olivia’s eyes flickered with excitement. “Don’t bullshit me.”

  “No bullshit. As I keep telling you, cousin, this game is as good as won. The triplets can’t stop us. Our time is almost here.”

  §

  June 12, 2012 - 9:45 AM

  Monte Rio, California

  Bohemian Grove

  Bohemian Grove was twenty-seven hundred acres of campground. Nestled in a valley surrounded by high stone hills and towering redwoods that were two to five thousand years old, it was easy to hide what went on inside. Once a year, two thousand five hundred men came together to enjoy two weeks with like-minded individuals. Once a year, the true rulers of the world came here to utilize the energy of sacred space for dark purposes, and create reality as they saw fit.

  The celebration at Bohemian Grove was so secret the rest of the world could only speculate about what actually went on there, and the majority of the population had never even heard of it. Rich, middle-aged white men drank too much, enjoyed a weekend without a care, and solicited the waiters (mostly men) around the grove like whores when the lights went down. Six out of the thirteen royal heads of the Roshaniya, what conspiracy theorists called The Brotherhood, or Illuminati, attended the Western Event (another was held in Rome at the same time with the other seven) and made policy decisions regarding the future of the world. Usually, when the festival was kicked off with a “human sacrifice” signifying the cremation of care—a ritual explained as nothing more than a theatrical production symbolizing the removal of care for the two week vacation—the body in the bag was a real human. The Roshaniya, as taught by their Gods, the Anunnaki, used human beings like slaves. Humans were fitted into a system of control, bred to work in order to survive, and their true awesome potential was kept cleverly hidden. The news the humans watched controlled them. The papers they read controlled them. The State-run education system controlled them. They were taught that their lives were nothing more than a mundane cycle of work, reproduction, and death. Wars, technology and the duality of human drama ensured they would never question if something more magical existed other than their petty, everyday lives. Even those that questioned never took it a step farther. Those that even came close to the truth were labeled New Age hippies, or paranoid conspiracy theorists, and nobody took them seriously.

  It was easy to be cynical when one knew as much as Antonio “Tony” DeMarco II did. But everything was about to change.

  Standing in the security booth at the main gate, he pulled the walkie talkie out of his belt, pressing the talk button. “You clean up the Necrophilia room yet, Jimmy?”

  There was static before the reply came. “Aw, why the fuck can’t I delegate that assignment to one of the new guys?”

  Tony rolled his eyes. “Because it don’t look too good for rumors to start about how the Secretary of Defense and a few other Forbes cover CEO’s like fucking women that are already dead. Go clean it up. If you miss garbage incineration, I’ll put you on Hillbilly camp duty.” At the Grove, the two thousand members were divided into different camps, each with their own name. Some were symbolic. Some were just for fun.

  Nobody wanted to be assigned to the Hillbilly camp, though. That was the right kind of employee motivation. “Fuck that,” Jimmy said. “I’m on it.”

  “You know, it’s not exactly smart of you to discuss the Secretary’s sexual preferences out loud either, amico.”

  Tony slipped the walkie talkie back onto his belt, casting a nonchalant glance over his shoulder. “You’re here early, Director DeMarco.”

  “I knew you missed me, so I took an earlier flight.” A cigar was held comfortably between Director of Homeland Security Alexandro DeMarco II’s fingers as he lounged in the doorway of the small building. “Such a waste of space, no?” The DeMarco brothers were nearly identical as far as facial features went. They shared striking, wheat-hued eyes that crinkled at the corners when they laughed, and strong jaws. The similarities stopped there. Alexandro had a old-fashioned, very politician-like demeanor, and his thick head of black hair had begun to gray prematurely. Tony was taller, more muscular, and a little rougher around the edges.

  “This place? Without question.”

  “Mhm.” Alex brought the cigar to his mouth, pulling in the heavily scented smoke, and rolled the flavor of it around his tongue. “Let’s take a drive.”

  “Sure.” Tony followed him out, walking over to the golf cart that carted the suits around the acres of the camp ground.

  “You have it on you?” Alex asked.

  “Always.” Tony slipped his sunglasses on, climbing into the driver’s seat. “Get in.”

  Alex nodded and climbed into the passenger side of the vehicle. Tony reached into the front pocket of his uniformed shirt, removing what appeared to be just a stick of gum. When he bit down into it, a signal was thrown out that blocked the sound of their conversation to those who might be listening. Unless they were two feet away and in which case could be seen, they would hear nothing but nature.

  “So what’s up, big brother?”

  Since the early 1920’s, the DeMarco Crime Family controlled New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the surrounding areas. They had aligned themselves with the Terenzios, and Alexandro DeMarco Senior had been a close friend of both Stefano Terenzio and his wife. Alexandro I
had slickly made his way into politics, despite the rumors that his brother, Antonio DeMarco I, was the boss of the crime family. It was the first Alexandro’s stellar political career that inserted the DeMarcos into the inside position they had today. Alexandro I’s son, Matthew, had kept the partnership with the Terenzios alive, and secret, ensuring that both of his sons, who Matthew smartly named as the men from whom they reincarnated, were ready to finish what they had started.

  “Marcello has passed,” Alex said.

  “Sucks. Tell me more.”

  Alex sighed, shaking his head. “You could at least have a little respect for the dead.”

  “Look, I didn’t know him in this life, or my last seven. Aside from the sympathy I’ve been programmed to have for the natural occurrence which is death—which nobody really minds by the way, they just think they do—my ‘sucks’ is a little bit more than is needed, all right?”

  “But you did know his father.”

  “Everybody knew his father.”

  “He’s back.”

  Tony pulled his eyes from the dirt road that cut between the towering redwoods to shoot a sideways glance at his brother. “No shit?”

  “He’s not alone.”

  “Whole crew?”

  “All but Carissa. But I think she’s already moved into different form, probably somewhere in the Pleiades.” Alex smiled, sticking the cigar back between his teeth.

  “The universe really isn’t fucking around this time.”

  “Well, there is some importance to the third dimension.” Alex paused to puff lightly on his cigar, and then continued: “They reincarnated as the Triplets. I want you to meet with them. Give them the next round of information.”

  Tony glanced over at his brother. “Xavier can’t do it?”

  “I need him on a different assignment right now. Plus, we need to keep his involvement in all this as hidden as ours.”

  “All right. What do I need to tell them about?”

  Alex reached into his pocket and removed a USB. He handed it to his brother. “It’s all on there. They are on their way to Virginia, now.”

  Tony took the drive and dropped it into the front pocket on his shirt. “I’ve got to finish up here first, and then I’ll take care of it.”

  “Grazie.”

  “No problem. Does Stefano’s wife know he’s back in form?”

  Alex paused. His brother was right about death, but there was an old soul that had left form on Earth. Her physical presence was missed. “She did.”

  Tony gave that revelation a moment of silence. “Now her, I’m going to miss.”

  “Me, too, amico. Me, too.”

  “I’m telling Mona.”

  “Do it…” Alex leaned back almost lazily in the shuttle, sticking one foot up onto the dashboard. “…and I’ll tell her you were her slave a thousand years ago.”

  Tony made a face, letting loose an exaggerated shudder. “You’re a bastard for even bringing that up.”

  Alexandro laughed, grinning around the cigar between his lips.

  “Speaking of the bitch—I mean your wife…” The bitch remark earned him a solid punch to the shoulder from his brother. “She coming up for the festivities?”

  “As if she’d let me shoot anyone without her.”

  “Good point.”

  “Where are you headed next?”

  “To see the Brotherhood of Light.”

  “What a stupid name.”

  Alex chuckled. “I agree. I doubt they call themselves that.”

  “Why do you get to go see them? Why can’t I do that, and you go prep the triplets.”

  “Proof positive, mi amico, that you will never be as cool as I am.”

  Tony rolled his eyes. “You and your wife deserve each other. You both live in the same world of self-delusion.”

  Chapter 2

  “The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.”

  -John Maynard Keynes

  June 12, 2012 - 9:00 AM

  Alexandria, VA

  S.V.T. Think Tank

  They’re on their way? Sure, of course. We’ll be ready.” Dr. Derek Vaughn III hung up the phone just as Dr. Shirley McDermott walked into his office. Derek, who had a crush on Shirley, smiled instinctively.

  “What are we getting ready for?” Shirley asked before she lifted her hand to cover her yawn.

  “The new Presidents of Dion Corp,” Derek said, standing up and stretching. His glasses sat atop a thin nose and covered golden brown eyes. His short, brown hair was graying at the sides and still a little damp from his recent shower. “Sleep okay?”

  Shirley nodded. “As soon as I hit the pillow, I was out like a rock.” She pulled one of three pens from the front of her white lab coat and pinned her fiery red hair atop her head. She eyed him speculatively. “Did you sleep?”

  Derek smiled. “Probably as good as you did.”

  “I brought coffee since I’m not ready to swallow the shitty stuff Derek makes.” Dr. Abe Donahue came strolling into the office with a tray that housed three Dunkin Donuts styrofoam cups.

  “You love my coffee and you know it,” Derek teased, reaching out to take the offered cup.

  “I’ve tasted better shit on a Navy Sub, and that’s saying something.” Abe had done a brief stint in the Navy before he’d given over to his braniac potential. He looked like it, too; his build was lean and muscular, and he kept his black hair cropped close to his scalp. He disliked shaving, though, and a thick beard covered his cheeks.

  “Before we go jump into the Orgone machine, has anyone ever heard of the term Theophany?” Shirley asked, cradling the warm cup of coffee between her palms.

  Both Derek and Abe shook their heads. “What is it?” Derek asked.

  “It refers to the appearance of a God to a human, usually for the purpose of some sort of divine disclosure. Before I went to bed last night, since I had aliens and the Anunnaki on the brain, I did a search on alien abductions.”

  “You know, it’s a little early to send my world into another flat spin,” Abe muttered. Six days ago, Abe and Shirley, five miles underneath the Antarctic Ocean, found a man floating to the surface, carrying a golden rod with a crystal on the top that was emanating some type of force field. Menes, as the man had called himself, had given them a dire message about finding the Cave of Creation before the winter solstice and using their employer, the Terenzios, to protect them from the Anunnaki a race that apparently had enslaved mankind. Derek, the Director of SVT Think Tank, had sent a second team to Piedras Negras to search for this mysterious Cave. They believed they had found it underneath ancient Mayan ruins.

  Shirley laughed. “It’s not that bad, I promise, just interesting. The term is also used in reference to some alien abductions, because abductees have claimed that they have had profound mystical experiences, accompanied by a feeling of oneness with God or the Universe during their visits with the aliens.”

  “Huh.” Derek looked thoughtful. “More proof to support the Ascension?” The Ascension was a worldwide spiritual event that dealt with the power of consciousness and a connection to some divine source. What little evidence there was to support it indicated that it was already occurring, but would reach some as of yet unidentified zenith on December 21st, 2012; unless they didn’t find the Cave of Creation in time. And they still didn’t know what the Cave of Creation actually was.

  “Maybe. I just thought it comforting to know that all aliens who have apparently contacted us are not evil,” Shirley said.

  Abe eyeballed his co-workers. “Would you like me to make you two your own tin foil hats?”

  Derek chuckled, and Shirley looked over at Abe in amusement. “After everything we’ve been through—the dreams that started this, Menes, and all the evidence based in science that talks about the power of your mind—I remained shocked you still sound so skeptical.”

  “I know, I know.” Abe sighed. “But look, here’s what we know.” He started ticking off points on hi
s finger around his coffee cup. “We’ve got a dead guy whose DNA is impossible, but only because I think he’s a different species. The reason he was able to float up like he was, was that crystal, and I haven’t figured out the way it works, yet. Doesn’t make it mystical. And all your evidence about the power of consciousness is a science still in its baby stages, okay? And I’m not even going to touch aliens on Earth, for obvious reasons. Plus, I think I might have a nervous breakdown after I find out all this is true, so you just leave the skeptic alone, missy.” Abe gave her a wry smile.