Chapter 37 The Shadow Government.

Chapter 37 The Shadow Government.

Luna POV

The bakery received a package with no return address on it. The letter was written in an excellent hand, and there were a bunch of photographs inside.

The letter had the following: Dear Luna, I have been observing you. I have been following the documentary. I have been seeing how the peace movement has spread. And I have learnt a very significant thing. You're dangerous. Not what you have done, but what you are! You symbolize the hope of change. And transformation is the foe of order. I had been working on something during the past century. A government in the shadows. A government that is real and can actually run the world but the visible governments are pretending to be powerful. And your peace movement is menacing all I have created. So I'm coming to Pine Ridge. I'm coming to take what I want. And I am going to ruin all that you love. Your friend The Architect of Tomorrow.

I presented the letter to the council. Everyone's face went pale.

"The Architect of Tomorrow?" Kieran said. I have heard some rumors about this organization. But I believed that they were mere myths. I believed that they were just stories people had to say explaining why the world was like it was.

They are real, Thomas said to himself. It ran out of him as though he had been ten years old in the past few seconds. Thousands of years I have known about them. Since the existence of humanity, they have been pulling strings. They have been developing wars to dominate the population. They have been dominating commerce to dominate wealth. They have been right there in full view.

"What do they want?" I asked.

Everybody wants what those in power want, and that is what Thomas said. "Control. But not forceful control. By making the world so complex and unstable that individuals require the shadow government to offer them stability, they have created a way to control them.

"How do we fight them?" Elena asked.

"We don't," Thomas said. There is no means of engaging them directly in the fray. They possess resources which we can not even imagine. They have individuals in all governments. Every business. Every military. When we engage them in a straight battle we lose at once.

And so we are to leave it at that? I said. Supposed to leave them to ruin the peace movement?

"No," Thomas said. The peace movement is supposed to do what it has always done. We are expected to make a different choice. We're supposed to expose them. We are expected to demonstrate to the world that they exist. When the truth is revealed to them when they realize that there is a shadow government who runs their lives, then they will not take it any more.

"And how do we expose them?" Kieran asked.

Like Luna has ever told the truth, Thomas said. He was looking at me. "We tell people. We make them listen. We say to them what they cannot disregard.

But before I could make it out what that was, something happened that changed all that.

My mother disappeared.

She had to go to work in the hospital one morning and never returned. Nobody saw her. Nobody knew where she was. She was swept away like a person had been wiped out of existence.

I was frantic. I searched everywhere. I checked every hospital. Every shelter. In every spot she might conceivably be.

Then a message came into my phone. It was a video. And my mother was sitting in a chair looking terrified in the video.

Hello, Luna," some voice said behind the camera. "Your mother is mine now. She's my guest. And she will go to aid me in showing something noteworthy.

The screen went black. Then it showed coordinates. A spot in the mountains way out of Pine Ridge.

"It's a trap," Elena said. She was certain. "It's obviously a trap. You can't go."

"I have to," I said. "My mother is in danger. I have to save her."

You can not get her by strolling into such a trap, said David. You will simply find yourself in a trap.

But I was already packing. I was about to take my departure. Since however evident might be the trap, I could not allow my mother to suffer.

Before I could go Ethan caught me by the arm. "I'm coming with you," he said.

"No," I said. You must remain here and guard Pine Ridge.

Ethan said, "I have to defend you. "We're married. We protect each other."

He could not listen to my arguments. He came with me anyway.

We drove into the mountains. The directions brought us to a dilapidated mansion that was years old. As we approached, I felt it. The presence from the letter. Inside the Architect of Tomorrow.

We entered slowly. Cautiously. But there was no ambush. No guards. Nothing but an elderly gentleman sitting at a table and drinking tea.

He appeared to be seventy or so. But his eyes were ancient. Old and chilly and perfectly sane, which only made them more horrible.

The old man said, Luna Matthews. He grinned as though we had been friends a long time. "Please sit. Have some tea. Your mother is safe. For now. She's in the library upstairs."

"What do you want?" I demanded.

I have something to propose, I want to make an offer to you, the old man said. I would like you to end the peace movement. I would like you to explain to people that human beings and werewolves should not coexist. I wish you would apply your influence in preventing the extension of this idea.

"And if I don't?" I asked.

And then your mother dies, said the old man. "And then your friends die. And then all the people you love die. And then I break down the wall and leave the Void to be. The world will end, Luna. You would not compromise, that was all it was.

"You can't threaten me," I said. I was articulate, and my heart was jumping.

"I'm not threatening you," the old man said. "I'm offering you a choice. You can save the people you love by stopping the movement. Or you can watch them all die. Which will it be?"

Before I could answer, Ethan did something unexpected. He transformed into his wolf form and attacked.

The old man didn't even flinch. He raised his hand and Ethan was thrown backward like he was made of paper. Ethan crashed through a wall.

"Your lover is bleeding," the old man said. "Shall I let him die? Or will you accept my offer?"