Something that always happens to me when traveling. Constantly caught by Swedish customs because I did not declare an object, and I had to sit in the room waiting for the Swedish police. Checked around to see where the cameras were, and luckily, I was sitting close to the wall with no cameras behind me. I need to act quickly now, as I cannot risk the object getting seized by customs. Looked at the damn ugly wooden object resembling an eagle. Covered my mouth so the cameras wouldn't see me speak, and I whispered to the eagle:
"Listen, shithead! You have carved yourself with text written 2888 BC. They think you are from the Egyptian Empire and that I have stolen you from a museum or something. You can speak back to me in a low tone, but do not move your body or even your head. The camera can see it!"
"I may have copied an object from the museum."
"No shit, smart ass. Put a stamp in its place so it looks like I have bought an object from a store."
"You want me to spoil my beautifully carved body in wood because you want to put a stamp on me. I will not go so low."
I looked at him while his wooden eyes stared at me and gave me a smirk. I looked at the cameras that were exactly pointing towards me, and I moved a little to the left with my body, with them following each movement. I covered my mouth again.
"Listen, pipsqueak! I will take a saw and cut you into pieces, and feed them to the Deavers, you know, the wooden eating creatures we have two of, imported directly from Valiant. You want that?"
The statue started to shake, and I grabbed it quickly, not wanting to draw attention to the cameras that the wooden eagle was not alive. I dug down in my pockets and found a receipt for groceries I had purchased in France. I quickly pulled it up on the table and put the statue down so it could get a good view of the receipt.
"Copy the damn receipt so the BC things disappear, you damn idiot!" I whispered when the door to the room suddenly opened.
A young female officer with blond hair, resembling a photo model, walked in. She sat down on the other side of the table and glanced at my passport.
"Zark Van Polan!"
"Yes!"
"Are you not too young to be an archaeologist?"
"Pff! Age does not decide what you want to do in life. It is like love, you fall in love and you can fall in love at any moment. It is the best thing there is." I responded with a fake smile as the eagle glanced at me with my weak attempt to flirt at the same time.
"What are you trying to imply. You are only 24 years old. How did you become an expert archaeologist?
Ah...Shit! I need to come up with something fast.
"I am a so-called hobby archaeologist, I love it, love to artifacting."
It was apparent that she had no interest in the responses. She was looking to put me in jail. She looked down at the passport again and began to review the pages. Got damn it! She is looking at all the countries I have traveled to over the last month.
"For the last six months, you have been in several countries. Why did you travel so much without returning home?"
Great, how do I give a good response so she will let me go? I was in Germany to hunt down a creature who ate kids, I mean, she will put me in a psychiatric ward if I do honest responses.
"Well! The museums and artifacts that I had the opportunity to see when visiting each country."
She nodded sarcastically. I knew that this would start getting problematic at any moment. She put on white gloves and lifted the statue from the table to inspect beneath it. I noticed that the BC numbers were gone, but in their place were a couple of items from the grocery list on the receipt.
"Two X croissant! One X Baguette!"
She was now confused because it was something fake.
"W-Where are the numbers and BC printed below the statue?" She asked.
Shrugged my shoulders in denial and played dumb.
"I have no clue what you are talking about. It is just a souvenir I bought when I was buying some groceries in Paris." I explained with a smirk.
She put the statue down on the table, went around the table, and started to go through my handbag, and she was damn frustrated with a little bit of red color on her cheeks.
After searching around for a while and throwing her bag to the ground in frustration, she sat down on the other side again.
"Where is the artifact?" She asked.
"I only have the souvenir, it happens that the toll customs sometimes makes mistakes, don't you?"
She lifted her hand and went up, opening the door as another cop threw my luggage to the ground and they searched it together.
"Fuck The Police Customs Tolls!" The eagle whispered while nodding its head up and down.
When the search finished, the woman came in and slammed the door behind her, which surprised me. She put both her hands on the table and stared at me.
"You are free to go, Mr Van Polan." She uttered in an angry tone.
If I had given her a nonchalant response, which I wanted to, she probably would have arrested me for nothing. Keep it cool, Zark, keep it cool.
"Thank you!" I responded in a low tone and put the things in my handbag, and lastly, of course, the damn eagle.
I came out of the terminal with the luggage dragging behind me when a pink-haired woman in a suit waited for me outside.
"Welcome home, Mr Van Polan!"
I gave her a sarcastic smile because when it came to camouflage to blend in with the crowd, the Witches sucked at doing that. I was wearing a black suit, but I blended in with the crowd. However, I never understood why all Witches had different hair colors, especially the pink hair that seemed to be screaming for attention.
She grabbed my handbag from me and we moved to the stairs to the parking lot.
"I luv, yu fjell in luv and age foss no nonent. It is fest ther ist!" I heard inside the handbag while we were going up the stairs.
"If you do not shut the fuck up, I will use you as wood for fire."
We came up, and I couldn't see my brother, which reminded me why he was not the one greeting me.
"Where is my brother?" I asked the pink-haired one before the door opened on the black car, and Veronica stepped out.
"Can you get into the car, Zark!"
I gave my luggage to the girl with pink hair and got into the car. Veronica was not smiling, as she had not seen me in six months. My brother is not here. Something is seriously wrong here.
It was silent in the car, with Veronica not saying a word.
"Look at the video on the mobile, Zark!"
I looked at the screen when a video was playing. A door opened from a train, and it was clear that it was my brother. Both his hands were bloody, and he was holding something in his right hand. That cannot be the Berk I knew. He looks like he is in shock. Several Valiant soldiers surround him on the platform with blue lights around him when the whole screen suddenly shone up in white light before the picture came back. Veronica and a couple of Witches were protecting Berk, who had fallen to the ground, not moving. I turned off the video and looked at Veronica.
"You are the one supposed to take care of him when I am not here. How did he end up in a train station covered in blood?"
"I-I-I got a request. While Berk had been on easy missions, a joint operation request came from the Valiant King Mart Von Vollden. Berk had an assignment to follow a civilian in Paladin who might have had connections with a serial killer that Mart has been looking for. A simple operation, where his only job was to determine if any visitors would come, got messy. She died, but Mart was requested to take Berk and Stella with him when they were going to follow up on a tip that the serial killer might show up at the Paladin train station."
She got silent suddenly, did my brother die?
"Did he die on the operation?"
Veronica was crying but nodded in denial, which put me a little bit on edge. Why was he crying if he was alive?
"Are you in some silent mode? Keep going!" I uttered to her as I grew more agitated.
She started to cry, and it piss me off. One freaking job that she could not do was to take care of Berk while I was away.
"Stop crying and continue!"
"O-O-On the train station. The king, Mart...died. T-T-The one killing him...was Berk!"
That can't be true, Berk would never kill a royalty. He wouldn't do something like that and put our last name in the gutter like that.
"Why would he kill the king? It does not make any sense."
"His eyes were red when he came out of the train, the same glowing red eyes you saw when you pulled him out from the cave that day."
She is talking about that incident, but nothing happened except that a lot of blood came out in a flood from the cave. It is weird as Hell, but he always had a little bit of powers or skill, but it was nothing special because he was not strong. Someone as strong as the king of Valiant should be impossible for him to win over. Something is fishy.
"Where is Berk?"
Veronica calmed down a bit and cleaned her tears before responding:
"He is in a high-security prison."
"Take me to him!"
Veronica was quiet.
"You are taking me to him, right?" I asked.
"I am sorry, Zark! The Queen does not allow any visitors!"
In a swift move, I grabbed Veronica's throat and whispered to her:
"My mother may have loved you as her apprentice, but I am not as forgiving and friendly as my mother was. You may be a powerful Witch, but in this small space in the car, your powers won't do well against a strong human. You can not protect yourself here."
"MAM! SHOULD I STOP THE CAR?" The pink-haired girl driving the car yelled.
I saw the sad look on Veronica's face as she did not even try to resist. She could if she wanted to flip the car and probably get me killed, but we were the only bond, we were her only family after my mother disappeared, and she was the only family we had."
I released the grip from her throat. I am not like this, would never hurt Veronica.
Veronica turned away from me and watched out the window.
"I am sorry, Veronica! I don't know what came into me."
She refused to turn towards me and only commented:
"It is okay, it can happen to any of us!" Still refused to face me.
"Take us to the prison!" Veronica told the girl.
"BUT MAM!.." Veronica interrupted her, "Don't worry about the consequences. We will handle it when we arrive there."