Page 44 of Dalla's Royal Guards
“And?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“You aren’t going to believe me, so I figured I’d show you.”
Kyle leaned over and tapped the Enter key. Another image appeared on the screen above Kyle’s head. Detri frowned. It was a comparison image showing the woman… and numerous statues erected throughout the countries of Kashir and Narva. Now he remembered a few of her stories. Dalla Bogadottir… thatwasinteresting. And strange.
“So… the woman resembles a mythical warrior from history?”
Kyle was shaking his head. “Not resembles…is.I did facial recognition. The woman is anexactclone of the mythical warrior.”
Detri scowled. “That is impossible. The stories have her in a dozen time periods for a thousand years,” he scoffed.
“Longer than that. I’m telling you, man. I ran comparisons from every image available. The clothing, the bow, her stance… everything kept coming up a match. Look at this,” Kyle added.
Detri’s gaze turned to a new video Kyle was playing. It was from a CCV camera with a view of the plaza. The image was surprisingly clear.
“After Kramer sent me the body cam, I decided to find out if there were any other videos. You guys really need to invest in better cameras. The ones you’re using suck. Anyway, I came across this one: newer than the others, more like a webcam than your usual dinosaur equipment. It shows the entire plaza. See… here is where you guys enter, and… wait for it— BAM! That was a classic ram.”
Detri ignored Kyle’s enthusiastic running commentary of the car chase yesterday morning. His attention was focused on what happened after. There was gunfire. The camera position gave a clear view of the Narva prince’s overturned vehicle.
He watched as his men moved in. Nasser Al-Rashid pushed open the door and was emerging when the Belgian merc that was part of his team confronted him. Nasser reached for something on the ground next to him, which, frustratingly, Detri still could not see, even with the larger screen and clearer image. The nextinstant, Liam was propelled backwards with a long shaft through his body.
“Rewind that,” he ordered.
Kyle paused, rewound the video several seconds, and hit play again. Detri watched it nearly a dozen times, unable to believe his eyes. One frame there was no one on the car, the next a hazy image of a person, and then it was clearly the woman. Kyle played the three frames over and over in slow motion. Detri paused the frame on the second one.
“Can you enhance that?” he asked in a low voice.
“Maybe a little. I can enlarge it,” Kyle said.
Kyle enlarged the frame. It was clearly the woman—only he could see through her body. He clicked through to the next frame. She was solid, but in the enlarged frame, he could see a slight glow around her body… and what looked like?—
“Shit!” Kyle breathed out, staring in awe at the frame.
‘Shit’ was right. Feathered out behind the woman was a pair of wings. Both the glow and the wings disappeared by the fourth frame—yet they had both seen them. Detri straightened when his cell phone rang.
“Send me a copy of that and destroy everything else,” he ordered.
“Yeah. I’ll send it,” Kyle murmured in a distracted voice.
“And Kyle.”
“Yeah?”
His cell phone buzzed again. “If this leaks—anywhere—I’ll cut your head off. Social media included.” Kyle gulped and nodded. Detri lifted his cell phone and answered on the third ring. “We have a situation.”
“What is it?” Kramer demanded.
“We need to meet. Dima.”
His brisk tone must have registered with Kramer because the annoyance was gone when Kramer responded.
“I’ll be expecting you.”
New York City:
Present Day
In the hidden room tucked under the multi-story Brownstone that he called home, Harlem Jones sat back in his computer chair. His first visit to the States had been in the service of a Viking that virtually everyone on the planet knew—Leif Eriksson. He had been alive longer than Leif… and his father Eric. Over the centuries, Harlem had served some of the most powerful rulers throughout history, and none at all. He preferred none.
