Page 2 of Dark Witch Resurrection

"Relax." Bridget put a hand on his shoulder. "Nothing will happen while we are gone for a couple of hours."

"It's going to take much longer than that," Merlin grumbled. "It's not like we're going to throw some fresh water on the twins and leave. If it was that easy, Anandur could do it by himself. We must monitor them until they stabilize and intervene if they become distressed."

Bridget nodded. "Just in case, we should revive them one at a time."

"I agree a hundred percent." Merlin leaned back in his chair. "And you can handle it on your own, so I can stay here in case any humans need medical attention."

It seemed to Kian that Merlin didn't want to leave the village for some reason, or maybe he had a problem with reviving people from stasis, or maybe his problem was just with reviving the royal twins. Whatever his issue was, he wasn't wriggling out of it.

Kian leaned forward and squared his gaze at Merlin. "I need you there. You are our expert on tracker removal after performing dozens of these procedures on the Kra-ell. There is every reason to suspect that the twins have trackers implanted in their bodies, and we cannot risk them being activated when the twins are revived. It is critical to remove them while their bodies are still at minimal functioning, so the trackers don't go online and alert the Eternal King. It is crucial to hide their survival from him."

For a second or so, Merlin looked like he was searching for a rebuttal, but then he nodded his agreement.

Gertrude frowned. "Will we be able to move them into the scanner, though? I thought their condition was so bad that Julian didn't want to even remove them from the pods before they were brought to the clinic."

Kian nodded. "William rigged up a hand scanner that we hope will be sensitive enough to find the trackers while the twins remain in their stasis chambers. He will explain when he gets here."

2

KIAN

"Sorry I'm late." William rushed into the office with a large bag dangling from his fingers. "I had to wait for the earpieces to be tested. They were fresh off the assembly line."

Merlin cocked a brow. "You have an assembly line?"

"Of course." William pulled out a chair and sat down. "How do you think we put together all these gadgets you all love?"

The doctor shrugged. "I thought one person did everything from start to finish."

"It's less efficient that way." William reached into his bag. "But we do that when we're working on a one-of-a-kind like this beauty." He pulled out a device very similar to the wands used by airport security to scan individuals manually. "This portable tracker scanner is just as efficient as the big machines we used on the Kra-ell. I calibrated this one for the dimensions of the Anumatian trackers and their X-ray signature."

"When did you do that?" Merlin eyed the device suspiciously.

"Right after the gods arrived, they told us they were looking for the other Kra-ell pods. I figured that we may again find ourselves needing to look for these implanted trackers and may not have a CT machine available." He chuckled. "I didn't expect to have to put this wand to the test so soon."

Looking closely at the device William handed him, Merlin still seemed skeptical. "Won't the stasis chamber interfere with the device's readouts?"

William shook his head. "The wand is programmed to look for the specific trackers we found. It will ignore anything else, even if made from the same material."

Kian sighed. "Scanning them in the stasis chamber is not ideal, let alone performing any procedure on them if trackers are found. In their condition, that may prove fatal, but the trackers going live poses an existential risk not only to the clan but possibly to the entire population of Earth. It is not a risk I'm willing to take to save the twins."

He wasn't being paranoid or dramatic for effect. The Eternal King would not allow such a potential risk to his reign to continue.

For a long moment, no one spoke, and when the door opened and Anandur walked in with trays of coffee and bags of pastries, there was a collective sigh of relief.

"It's a madhouse down at the café," Anandur said as he put the trays on the conference table. "Wonder hopes the new human arriving in the village this afternoon will apply for a job. They need help desperately." He put down the paper bag and started pulling out wrapped pastries.

"Who is the human?" Merlin asked.

"She is from Igor's former compound," Anandur said. "You've probably seen her around during the cruise. The server with the blue hair and the piercings. She and Peter got close, and she asked to be transferred to the village."

Merlin's face split into a huge grin. "I know who you are talking about. Marina is lovely. I'm so glad that they are going to live here."

Kian had approved Marina's transfer because he believed the Fates must have brought her and Peter together for a reason, although he couldn't fathom what that reason might be.

Unions between immortals and humans were a prescription for heartache, and Kian knew that better than most.

In his youth, he had fallen in love with a mortal, married her against his mother's wishes, and had a daughter with her.