Read Cronin's Key III for Free Online

so very pleased to see you once again. I owe you my
life.”
    Johan smiled warmly. “It was my fate,”
he said simply. “I didn’t know it at the time, but I had to leave
your world to meet my fated one. He was waiting for me.”
    “ Fate is an incongruous, ironical thing, is it not?” Willem
asked rhetorically. “That my Johan and I both knew you,
Cronin.”
    Cronin tightened his hold on Alec.
“Fate is a curious thing indeed.”
    “ You look well, Cronin,”
Willem said. “There is a light in your eyes that was absent when I
knew you. A light I assume we can thank Alec for.”
    Alec hated that this man, this
ex-lover, had a history with Cronin. Hated that he’d touched him in
the most intimate of ways. Hated that they’d seen the world at a
different time. Hated that Alec would never have that.
    It was an
irrational feeling; the vampire was dead, living on some ethereal
plane. Hell, he was even fated to someone else. But still, Alec
couldn’t help the way he felt. Regardless of how much he confined
the emotion, it was still there.
    “ The Zoan?” Alec asked, probably sounding more abrupt than
what would be considered polite. He didn’t care. He needed this to
be over. “You know of them?”
    Willem tried not to smile , as though he could read Alec’s mind. Maybe he could, Alec
reasoned. He still didn’t care.
    “ I know of them,” he
replied. “I’ve not seen them with my own eyes, but I am familiar
with their kind.”
    “ Who are they?” Jodis
quickly asked. “Where do they come from?”
    “ And why have we not heard
of them?” Eiji added.
    “ They are, as their name suggests, zoanthropes .
They are known to humans as many names. Lycan, chimera ,
or therianthropes .
Though humans believe it is a psychosis where the person can change
into another animal. That’s not quite correct. Zoan are creatures
who can change into a human. They shape-shift, for the want of a
layman term. But their true form is not human.”
    “ So they have many names?”
Alec asked.
    “ Yes,” Willem clarified. “In the same way a human does.
Human, Homo Sapien, American, English, Caucasian. The list is
long.”
    “ So l ycan and chimera
are the same thing,” Alec repeated, more to himself than anyone
else.
    “ Chimera , by human
definition, is a hybrid creature,” Willem said. “Forget human
definitions and misconceptions, Alec. They are close but not exact.
Humans confuse mythology and fact. What they choose to believe as
myth and folklore quite often is the truth, but that truth is
horrific and frequently unexplainable, so they choose to paint it
as a fairytale.”
    “ Yes, we know,” Jodis
agreed kindly.
    “ Why now?” Alec asked. “And why have we only heard of these
creatures now ?”
    Cronin
didn’t wait for Willem to reply. “What do these Zoan want with
Alec?”
    “ I would imagine they want his power,” Willem said bluntly.
“Alec, when you were changed there was a great shift in energy. The
Callanish Stones created a vortex of immense power, the circle of
light, if you’ll recall.”
    “ What of it?” Cronin
pressed.
    “ Well, there was an equal ly powerful but opposite effect,” Willem told them. “It
seemed to open a portal.”
    “ A portal?” Alec snorted.
“Oh, good. I’ve seen this movie. Great big mechanical worms fly in
and destroy the world.”
    “ Not mechanical worms,” Willem corrected, like he’d missed
the joke all together. “Zoans. There was an energy flux in Göbekli
Tepe, Turkey. The oldest circle of stones on earth.”
    “ They came through a
portal?” Alec repeated. “For real?”
    Willem chuckled. “I like him,
Cronin.”
    Alec growled. “Wait a goddamned minute. Look, I appreciate
your help and all, but mystical creatures from portals ?”
    Johan put his hand up. “Alec, is it no more incredible than mummified vampires
or terracotta vampires?”
    Alec sighed. “Johan, your logic is
doing my head in right now. Please stop it.”
    Johan laughed. “You