The Mark of Cain Read Online Free Page B

well
at hiding her. No wonder Inac hadn’t known that she was still alive. The only
way he would be able to know otherwise was if he had done some extensive
digging.
    He couldn’t do anything about the past, but he could
remedy the situation before The Order found out that he knew she was still
alive. Before They found out that he was, once again, living in the same city
as she was. Before They found out that he’d met her and knew exactly where she
was. She wouldn’t escape this time because he was going to do what he should
have done twenty years ago. He was going to take care of her himself.

Chapter Two
    ***
     
     
    “Has anyone here ever heard these two words:
Noseriatif Tremokolio?” Professor Sampson, Hara’s Ancient Civilizations
professor, asked.
    He looked around the room before sitting on the edge
of his desk and tossing his sandy brown hair out of his chocolate eyes. The act
reminded Hara of how young he was. He couldn’t be older than thirty….
    Even under his scrutiny, nobody moved an inch.
Apparently nobody had.
    “Noseriatif Tremokolio,” Professor Sampson
continued, “is a secret society similar to the Masons, Illuminati, or the
Knights Templar. However, the Mokolios, as we like to call them, are much more
powerful than every other secret society combined.”
    “If they’re so big, how come nobody’s heard of
them?” a girl in the front row asked.
    “That’s a good question. The difference is that they
are so ultra-exclusive and secretive, nobody knows much about them other than
the fact that their symbol appears long before any other society,” he said as
the picture on the screen at the front of the room changed to show the sect’s
symbol: a mostly naked, well-built warrior with a bloody sword in one hand
connected to what looked like a heavily tattooed arm, and then one of his feet
perched on the chest of a disemboweled man. All around him were both alive and
dead men—all obviously kings from the various crowns they wore—the living ones
supplicating themselves in worship of him as though he was a god, offering their
crowns to him. It was quite disturbing.
    Before she could concentrate on it for long, her
professor continued, saying, “What is known is that they have been in
the background of many historically significant events, from the argued death
of Jesus of Nazareth to World War II. They are so powerful, in fact, that it’s
said that the most important world leaders of both yesterday and today must be
a part of it. Some figures I know you’ve heard of are said to have even once
been in charge. People like Alexander the Great, Vlad the Impaler, and Genghis
Khan are a few of them,” he said, looking Hara directly in the eye. He seemed
to be warning her with his gaze. Of what, though, she didn’t know. “And those
great conquerors who weren’t leaders of the Mokolios were said to answer
to them….”
    The society must have been evil if Vlad the Impaler
had been in charge once. Him, she’d studied a little bit. She’d even written a
paper on him for last semester’s history class.
    When the bell rang a few minutes later, interrupting
the lecture, she still couldn’t get it out of her head that her professor was
somehow warning her. As she stood to gather her things, contemplating it, she
once again felt eyes on her. The professor was busy shuffling papers on his
desk, so it wasn’t coming from him….
    She glanced around until she noticed a familiar face
in the crowd. Out of nervousness upon seeing it, she looked down at her
lavender book bag. When she looked back up, the face was gone. She was certain
where she’d seen that face before. It just didn’t make sense here , for
it belonged to Mr. Adamson from the club. What on Earth was the rock star doing
here? And, more importantly than that, why had seeing him loosed nauseous
little butterflies in her stomach?
     
     
    ***
     
     
    Inac peeked around the corner, watching for her .
He didn’t have to wait long before