[Tuesday 7AM – Northern Ireland]

The two had been riding in silence since Patricia’s discovery, each lost in their own thoughts.

“Granda?” she asked carefully.

“Yeah?”

“Since I’m ya gran daughter, do I have a griffin form?” she asked.

“It doesn’t look like it, Toma,” he said reverting to her nickname since they were no longer training.

Patricia seethed at the name. It was short for tomato, an allusion to her bright red hair, which she didn’t mind as a child, but despised now. “Why not?”

“Doesn’t run pure in human-griffin pairings,” he said dodging a pothole in the road. “Skips generations sometimes. Some siblings get one while others don’t. No rhyme or reason far as I know. All o’ us griffins are born humans. No way t’tell at first. It isn’t til puberty hits when the other form appears, mostly. Your ma was a griffin, but your uncle isn’t. That’s why I don’t think Nana is a griffin.”

Patricia's eyes bulged. “Did Pa know about Mam’s?”

Cain internally growled at the thought of his son-in-law. “Oh yeah...he knew. Before I did. Bloody damned bastard. Your pa found out during an activity that I would have killed him over had I known at the time. Took her innocence far too soon, he did. Tore that woodshed down right quick after that!” Cain mumbled angrily. He looked over and saw Patricia’s eyes lit up with curiosity.

“Your ma and pa were childhood buds. He bein’ a child o’ some o’ our people. Knew each other since they could walk. Every day when his parents came t’work, he’d spend the whole day with Anna. Caught ‘em in the act myself when they were fourteen. Anna said they’d been doin it for a while before that. Lots. Saw some livestock doin’ it, and decided t’give it a try themselves. Your Nana never did find out.”

“About the sex or the griffin?” Patricia asked concernedly.

Cain glared at her sternly. “Neither. Let’s keep it that way,” he said indicating that the subject was finished.

Patricia waited a few minutes to allow the mood in the truck to stabilize. “So, since I’m older and haven’t changed yet...”

“You’re not likely t’have one,” he finished for her.

Her expression dropped. “Ya said that there were other mythical creatures...”

“Too many t’easily list. The most common are the satyrs. They’re everywhere, almost. Other than their hooves.. and their horns, which can easily be hidden or removed with surgery. These days you’d never know a person was one unless they told you so, or you’re uncomfortably close. There are also dragons, damned sneaky bastards they are, rarely ever changing from their human forms. Some go so far as t’hide inside normal humans I’ve been told. Don’t know if I believe that part or not. I think there are merfolk around as well, but they stay in the oceans and never expose themselves. I’ve heard stories o’ others as well. But most have gone extinct. Human’s aren’t too shy ‘bout killin those different from them.”

“Hmmm,” Patricia mumbled.

“Read some o’ the old Greek and Roman stories, if you’re interested. Most o’ the creatures there are, or were, real. Most folktales o’ fantastic creatures are based in fact, though no one in this age o’ ‘science’ wants t’believe it.”

Cain slowed the vehicle down and turned into the drive for their home. Patricia’s grandmother was standing on the porch waiting for them.

“Remember, Toma, no one can know. Not Nana, and not anyone downstairs either,” he said putting the truck into ‘park’.

“Gotcha,” she said hopping from the truck to run up and embrace her grandmother, speaking enthusiastically about something Cain couldn’t hear from inside the truck.

He looked over at his wife of 77 years as she entertained whatever Patricia was bombarding her with. She was as beautiful as ever. She had the same shoulder length red hair as Patricia, with natural curls where Patricia’s hair was straight, and her color faded with age and streaked with grey. Many days, Makaila didn’t even bother to try to tame her unruly curls, preferring to let it hang and he found that just as beautiful.

He had convinced her to marry him when he was twenty, but she was much older than he was at the time. Back then, he had guessed her age in her early forties, but even at that time he found her to be the sexiest woman he’d ever seen. In his opinion, that was saying something after the perceived perfection that had been Misty. In contrast to Misty’s young, fit figure, Makaila was voluptuous. She had large breasts, ample hips, and soft curves in all of the right places. While Misty had been a sexual compulsion, Makaila was happiness.

Even after all of these years, two children, and three grandchildren, she still didn’t look past her fifties in age, he thought as he ogled her through the windshield.

For the first time since he fell in love with the voluptuous woman with red hair all of those years before, he truly wondered who she really was. Just as he was contemplating telling her the truth about himself, she waved him into the house.

“Plenty o’ time t’tell her, I guess. Maybe I’ll surprise her sometime soon,” he said aloud wondering if hearing it said would increase his resolve. It didn’t.

“Coming, Dear!” He yelled as he exited the truck.

[Monday – Omaha, Nebraska – USSTRATCOM Offutt AFB]

William walked through the double doors of the cafeteria. Like institutional cafeterias everywhere it was a large open room filled with round tables and a large stainless steel food bar along the back wall that served items that were labeled as food but looked more like chemistry experiments gone horribly wrong served by workers clad in garb that could have been mistaken for hazmat suits if they had been colored differently.

Most of the tables had at least one person at it, or in the absence of people, the recently abandoned trays from the previous occupants. It irritated William that military trained personnel were so lazy as to leave their garbage for someone else to handle than to take the necessary steps to the nearest trash can.

“William!” Shouted Alice from a table in the far corner. She was standing, waving her arms in the air. The other officers at the table did their best to try to be invisible.

William walked toward the waving woman. Alice continued to wave her arms until he reached the table.

“Stop that,” he admonished her. “You look like a high school girl flagging down girlfriends.”

“Who are you to be correcting me, Sonny?” she laughed using a gravelly old hag voice. “I’m older than you by a fair amount.”

“Where’s Puddle Pirate Bob?” he asked noting the absence of the Coast Guard Admiral.

“POTUS is having polling issues and ordered him to the White House to get his orders direct,” said Geoff. “I suspect he’ll be in the Gulf interdicting drug shipments from South America in a few hours.” He smirked.

“Better him than me,” snorted Frank. “If I were to do it there’d be nothing to show the evening news cameras. BOOM! Drugs at the bottom and dealers in the sharks’ bellies. Too much theater these days. The drugs they confiscate just end up ‘missing’ from the lockup and on the streets anyway.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“You don’t know that,” Alice chided him.

“Don’t I? You see all of these huge hauls of captured drugs on TV and then nothing after? Who is paying for the storage? And where? We all know that storage space is at a premium. Never ending stream of that shit on the streets,” Frank grumbled taking a drink of his coffee.

“Coffee?” Geoff offered William trying to change the subject.

“Thanks, but no,” William begged off. “I promised Maria that I’d back off on the caffeine. So water is now my ‘drink of choice’, at least for the moment,” he chuckled.

“You said she went to school in Brazil?” Alice asked.

“Yeah. She said she wanted to visit her mother’s homeland, and meet ‘her soulmate.’ Never mind that the campus is nowhere near where Tonya grew up and the fact that she’ll only be 18 in a couple of days. If she brings a man home at her age I’ll blow his balls clean off his body.”

Geoff returned with a fresh cup of coffee and a bottle of water for William.

“Thanks,” William said taking the bottle from his friend.

“She’ll be 18, an adult, and far away from home,” said Alice. “Not much you can do. I remember those times. Different era though,” she said sipping her coffee.

A ruckus erupted at the cafeteria door as a couple of green clad soldiers rushed in. “We need General Hartford!”

“Over here,” Hartford bellowed in a voice that was likely heard on both coasts.

The soldiers trotted over to the table, saluted, handed the General a note and left.

“Welp. Break’s over, lady and gents. We’re getting our live feed, but it won’t be in the conference room. There’s a developing situation and we’ve been summoned to the operations room,” Hartford said rising from his seat.

[Tuesday 7am – North Africa]

The sun rose above the hills to shine directly in the eyes of the eight people commuting in the multi-passenger van. The six college graduate students riding in the back of the van groaned in unison at the discomfort of having the bright North African desert sun glare into their eyes so early in the morning. The driver quickly retrieved her sunglasses to put them on.

The lavender-gray multi-passenger van was a long-term rental being used by the staff and students from the Archaeological Department from the Tanlyn State University in the United States. Although the van had numerous dents and dings, it was in far better condition than any of the other vehicles in the area. The few private vehicles in this part of the country were patched together conglomerations of whatever parts could be found to fit. Most people living in the area used bicycles, ox-pulled carts, or simply walked to their destinations.

The so-called road that was being driven was mostly gravel with a few hints of pavement that might have been used to fill potholes at some time in the past or possibly the remnants of the original road which had otherwise crumbled into gravel. In either case, the van's occupants were being jostled around violently by the van suspension's inability to cushion the jolts from the poorly maintained road. The fact that the van had no seat belts other than the one being worn by the driver made the passengers prime candidates for positional variance.

If the students hadn't been close before this African assignment, they were now. Every morning they all were subjected to the brutal trip from their rented home to the dig site. During the morning commute, everyone was subjected to accidental “violations” of their persons due to being tossed around in the van, not too terribly unlike bingo-balls being tossed in the cage before being drawn. It was not uncommon for a seat-mate to end up in the lap of their neighbor, for multiple people to end up in a tangled pile on the floor, or even for the occasional “wardrobe malfunction” to expose intimate parts to whomever in the van happened to be awake at the time.

At the current moment, the van was being used to transport students to their daily assignments at the site. Construction workers had uncovered an unexpected ancient complex while excavating a foundation to create a new multi-dwelling tenement facility. Under normal circumstances, the workers would have been told to ignore the find and continue the construction. However, the Government of the small region was sorely strapped for revenue and was looking for any way to increase the income to the local coffers. An archaeological find gave them an excuse to get desperately needed outside currency into the local economy. The Government had shopped the find to many major Universities and Museums around the world, but the area was deemed too uninteresting for those to bother with, or they had put conditions on the work that the local officials would not accept. Finally, the local representatives approached Dr. Gregory Rostoloy and his department.

While Dr. Rostoloy and his wife were world-renowned archaeologists, researchers and professors, they also operated under the auspices of a small, independent university in the Midwest of the United States. This meant that the amounts of money that they could bring to the project were smaller than the local officials (and criminal organizations) were hoping for. Also, Dr. Rostoloy was known for doing things his way and had a reputation for uncompromising ethics and morals, the latter virtues the powers-that-be in the area were none too terribly fond of. The two Rostoloys always required that, in addition to unfettered, unimpeded, and uncomplicated access to the dig sites, Dr. Lillian Rostoloy be given a position at the most prominent university, college, or academy in the area where she could teach a class on advanced archaeology.

Dr. Lillian “Lilly” Rostoloy brought the van to a stop in front of the gates to the site. She was a beautiful woman in her latter forties, though she looked no older than her mid-thirties. She had very short smooth black hair with red tinges and her skin was the light mocha color common to those of Egypto-Mediterranean descent, although her facial and body structure were more Anglicized due to her mixed-race parentage. Over the years, she had declined uncountable offers of sometimes quite persistent suitors.

“Just a reminder,” she announced loudly, looking into the rear-view mirror to ensure that everybody was awake and listening before continuing. “I will be staying late at the college today to proctor a few students so they can take their delayed final exams. This means that everyone will need to take the bus back to the house. Does everyone have their documents and sufficient money to get by today?”

A cacophony of affirmative sounds emanated from the young adults in the back. “Then have a good day today. Remember that Gregory will be returning from the States later this week with news of our funding situation.”

“Dr. Lilly,” came an anonymous male voice from the group. “What happens if our funding is denied?”

“That's a good question,” She said, putting the van's transmission into park. “Considering that we've been here for the last 12 weeks and that we've found nothing of real value --”

“Beth found that jewelry a few weeks ago,” interjected a female voice.

“-- That's true. However, the local officials were hoping for much more valuable artifacts --”

“You mean loot that they can steal and convert to hard currency,” came a snort from another male.

Lilly chuckled. “Probably. Regardless, the power brokers in the area are becoming bored with our presence – and the cost of the bribes for many of our amenities is starting to become a major issue with the bean-counters back home. Not to mention that I'm starting to worry about the safety of our young ladies. Rumors that certain groups are looking for new 'blood' for their enterprises have surfaced. Everyone needs to be extra careful.”

She sighed, “But to answer your question directly, when you return to the house today, it would be prudent to collect your things and have them packed and ready to go if you haven't already done so. Our lease is up for renewal in a few days, and if the funding is not there we will need to leave. Now off with ya. I've got to get to class.”

Suddenly, Lillian remembered that she needed to pass along important information. “Oh shit!” She said loudly, getting the attention of everyone. “I almost forgot. A bulletin was issued late last night about atmospheric instability over the region. There are warnings about possible unseasonably strong sandstorms. I need to emphasize that those are nothing to make light of. Like any storm, they can be deadly if you get caught unprepared.”

The students started filing from the van, and Lilly looked at the girl next to her in the passenger seat, her daughter Aimee.

“Mom, everything will be OK. Dad will get the money,”

Lillian looked to make sure that the others were outside of earshot. “I'm not so sure that I want him to, Aimee,” she said putting her hand on the girl's knee and looking into her hazel eyes.

Aimee’s face was a younger clone of her mother but her face was framed with a barely brushed bobbed copper colored hair sun-bleached at the moment to a dark amber instead of her mother’s exquisitely coiffed black. Where Lillian spent time carefully applying make-up and skin care products, Aimee never even considered it. Her forehead and cheekbones were sunburned and peeling, and patches of acne were showing in places on her cheeks. Though she was just hours away from eighteen years old, she was nowhere near as voluptuous as her mother had been at her age. While Lillian was a curvaceous woman, Aimee was lean and muscular, apparently inheriting her father's build. “These rumors I am hearing are about abductions. There are elements in this region that abduct girls and young ladies and then sell them into slavery – or worse.”

“It’s called ‘human trafficking’, Mom,” Aimee provided. “It happens everywhere, even in the States.”

Lillian stared at Aimee for a second, debating what to say next or whether to say anything at all for fear of terrifying the young lady. She chose the latter.

“The fact remains that our group contains five young and attractive Western girls. Despite the warnings given before we came here, some of those in our group have been a bit more 'visible' in their actions than is healthy. And it has drawn unwanted attention, especially Beth. This country is nowhere as accepting of female freedom as we are used to and Beth’s evening behavior has been bordering on unacceptable even for home.”

“Surely no one would think to --” started Aimee.

“We can hope,” Lillian interrupted. “Now go! I'm going to be late.”