Alpha X

The All-Seeing God

Darkness defined Herod Oppenheimer's world; scents and sounds helped him see. 

And what the timbre of the heart-wrenching melody filling his office showed him was unbearable.

The soulful tune evoked such agony it rivaled the excruciating torture of the Queen of Lycans, Arianna Romulus, blinding him.

An ode to the purest form of love to exist; the lyricism seduced him. Yet he'd never allowed himself to experience anything so absolute.

He, the father of a New World for Therianthropes, couldn't afford the luxury of indulging in such sentiment. Without his eyes, and his beast, he labored on the practical aspects of building, maintaining, and protecting a haven for all shifters.

Perturbed, Herod failed to grasp how the instrument could produce such poetry. The violin, the soprano of the string family, in these particular hands, played unnatural music.

He scoffed at that unkind adjective. It was magical... no, hypnotic.

How could a hollow, wooden body, with a bow drawing across four strings, and fingers plucking them, fabricate this solemn, yet passionate concerto? A reverent hymn, it worshipped a female he both applauded and envied.

"A siren's song," he muttered to himself. An unbidden tear tracked down his wrinkled cheek. It flowed through the creases to disappear in his beard.

He couldn't remember his mother's face anymore. But after five centuries, three of which he spent blind, his earliest memories had faded. Now he remembered her, every startling detail, her scent, her touch, her tired smile. He grieved for her passing all over again. And worse, the refrain evoked a storm of regret... and thoughts of Inia, his fated mate, whom he had abandoned.

The speakers fell silent.

"I doubt your ticker can take this." The disgruntled voice had retained the hint of a German accent but had shed its stiff enunciation.

Hans, his chief executive assistant, seemed fed up with him too.

It reflected the general opinion nowadays. Often Herod felt he had outlived his welcome in the house he'd constructed.

A thump and whoosh indicated Hans had dumped a file before him.

He traced the braille letters in the hardcover. "It's been a decade already..." The years were flying past on raven's wings.

"Why do you bother with him? We'd all be safer if you passed the sentence and had him beheaded," Hans grumbled.

A grunt from near the open windows announced Hawk agreed with Hans.

"Hmmm... wouldn't that be hypocritical?" Herod argued.

After all, he preached 'non occide'. The 'thou shall not murder or maim your species' was the most important of their immutable laws. But the subject of this file had tested his resolve to put that maxim into practice.

They were all mythical shapeshifters. Each transformed between the anthropoid and their alternate animal forms. Mostly, they mimicked a human being but lived up to five centennials. Herod believed each of them should live out their natural span. With their dwindling populations, each life mattered.

But did it apply to this twisted male who had slaughtered so many innocents?

An Ancient, this criminal and his beast, a chimera hybrid, also represented a critically endangered subspecies.

"If you're willing to overlook his crimes against you and your blood, have mercy on—" Rage sharpened Hans' pitch.

Herod raised an eyebrow to hush the lynx who'd become his eyes.