Something Wrong.

Elena was looking at Marcus with a malicious look, but the man could not help smiling. Her pouting lips and frowned eyebrows brought Taubert back to the past when his daughter was just learning to walk and talk, but even then she was showing her independent character.

The man laughed, pulled Elena to him and hugged her so tightly that her annoyance seemed to wash away with water, "I love you so much, my girl. You are beautiful even when you are angry. So beautiful."

"This is a dishonest move, Mr. Taubert," Elena muttered, burying her nose into the man's chest, but didn't resist.

"Ahaha, well, honesty and I are practically parallel lines, we rarely cross," Marcus waved his hand at Simon, signaling that he could walk away, what the man willingly did.

"Master of manipulation is your middle name. I remember how you forced me to eat boiled carrots, promising that I could then move objects with the power of thought."

"You did move them," Marcus grinned.

"Yeah, or they were moved by one cunning dad, who was sitting behind the child at that time. Admit it, did you and mom enjoy fooling me?"

"Undoubtedly," the man confirmed the words of his daughter, pulled back a little and looked at Elena, "Sorry about that situation with the murder of the professor. When Rick found you, he got down to business too actively. Although, judging by the notes of your mother, this still could not have been avoided."

"What notes?"

"Let's go and I'll show you. There is a message for you too," Marcus took Elena's hand and led her to the bookcase. He entered the password, and the rack slid to the side, revealing a staircase that led down.

"Amelia left me over three thousand notes with versions of events that were to happen. I have already burned most of them since they are no longer relevant, but some have been saved. You can have a look," the man took out one of the folders that was dated twenty years earlier and handed it to Elena.

The woman turned to the front page and saw the name, "Rick Lawrence. London. Mother died, father is an alcoholic. The boy makes a living selling newspapers and walking the dogs. The cause of possible death is bruises and hypothermia. The importance of changing the event is critical. Outcome options - preservation of the current personality, suppression by the old personality ... What is it? Is this about our Rick?"

Marcus grinned as he heard the word "our" from the mouth of the woman whom that man had almost killed, "Yes, this is about 'our' Rick Stein. When you were reborn, only David remembered his past life. Memories returned to you chaotically, and Amelia managed to block them. Rick, unlike you, did not remember anything at all.

Memories were supposed to return to him after clinical death. The child was severely beaten and left outside in the cold, and according to the original plan, a bystander had to find him and call an ambulance. But it was too risky an option. I think you have not forgotten that your souls were connected, and the death of Rick would mean the automatic death of you and David?"

Elena nodded her head. To break this connection, they went to Tibet, where Rick later died.

"Amelia left an order for Polina to restore the boy's health, and I awakened his memories. Then the choice remained with Richard, but this idiot, as usual, chose the most stupid path," Marcus swore.

If Rick Stein was not such an important element in their complex chain of intertwined destinies, then Taubert would not hesitate to erase his memory from the very beginning and send him somewhere to Alaska or Siberia so that he would not get in the way of his daughter.

"You know what kind of person Richard Steiner was in a past life, and, unfortunately, the personality of the officer of the Third Reich turned out to be stronger than the personality of a thirteen-year-old teenager from London. If Rick had told me no from the very beginning, everything would have been different and we would have avoided many problems. It would not have affected the outcome, but the path itself would have been much easier."

"Hmm, it turns out that mom knew about all this in advance? And I kept wondering what she was constantly writing in a notebook wherever we were," Elena flipped a few more pages, "So, if Rick hadn't agreed to go with you, he would have been raised under the custodianship of David's father?"

"Yes, as you can see, these two were destined to become friends. Fate has a weird sense of humor, don't you think?"

Elena smiled slightly; their lives were really intertwined in an unusual way.

"Rick grew up and worked under my leadership, but he was very self-confident and ambitious. The Berne Group signed an agreement with Lee Pharmaceuticals to study the virus, the one that the press of the whole world called the LDM virus, or the "Last Day of the Mankind" virus.

However, the research did not progress as quickly as they wanted. And since this virus was originally created in the Ahnenerbe laboratory, Rick knew that the vaccine formula for it should be stored in your memory, like everything else. He suggested creating a stressful situation to awaken your memory. Simon was working undercover as your professor at the time, and I offered to 'eliminate' him," explained Marcus.

"So the documents that were stolen from the laboratory, which professor asked me to give to David, weren't actually stolen? You knew about everything from the very beginning and led the operation? God, we didn't even notice that..."

"It's not common for people to notice when they are being manipulated, my girl. Most people think that they make their own decisions, but in fact, even the choice of shopping in the store is conditioned by the advertising or information that they have heard before." Marcus took the folder from his daughter's hands and put it back on the shelf.

"Even my decisions are based on what your mother wrote. Would I have acted differently without knowing this information? I cannot say. But I know for sure. I decided to trust Amelia and her words, whatever it may cost."

"But still you want to reproach her, don't you?"

"Ahaha, yes. It's personal," Marcus flicked Elena on the nose and put a small envelope in her hand. "You look a lot like your mother, my princess. Therefore, if you suddenly decide to hide something from your husband, it is better not to do so. Even for the good. I'll be in the next room."

The man stroked his daughter on the head and went into the workshop, the door to which was at the end of the room. Elena opened the envelope and took out a folded sheet of paper. It featured ancient Sumerian symbols, but to her, they were like ordinary letters.

Amelia knew that this letter could only be read by the one in whom Teser's blood flows, so she didn't even seal the envelope.

Elena carefully reread the lines several times, and then put the sheet back into the envelope. Her gaze was thoughtful, her face was very serious. "Hmm, that's what the situation is like."

She went into the workshop and saw more than a dozen canvases depicting her mother and Elena herself. "I forgot how amazing you are at drawing, dad! They are like alive!"

The woman ran her hand over the nearest painting, which depicted laughing Amelia with ice cream in her hands. The paint was still slightly damp and left marks on Elena's fingertips. The smell of paint in the workshop awakened in her memory pictures from childhood, where she played on the floor next to her dad while he worked on the painting.

"Could you read the letter? This cunning woman specially wrote it so that I would not understand anything," smirked Marcus, "I confess, I asked the most famous specialists in the Sumerian language to decipher it, but they did not succeed."

"This is because the letter is written in the language from which Sumerian originated," Elena said quietly, and Marcus watched her fingers touch each painting as if studying it. Something has changed in his daughter's movements. She seemed to be the same Elena, but at the same time, she was different.

"And what is written there? Elena, did you only remember your childhood or something else?"

The girl's hand froze a couple of centimeters from the next picture. She turned her head to Marcus, and something flashed in her eyes for a moment.

Marcus could swear that in that brief second, his brain felt the urge to kneel in front of his daughter and bow his head in respect and complete submission. This desire was so unexpected and fleeting that he was taken aback.

"Dad, I think I'm hungry. Do you think uncle Simon has cooked something?"

"What? Oh... Y-yes... Of course, let's go," Marcus gathered his thoughts and waved Elena towards the exit, letting his daughter go ahead. As he closed the secret door to the basement, he realized that she had not answered his questions.

But now something else worried him.

It only lasted a split second, but Marcus was sure he wasn't imagining it.

When Elena turned to him there, in the workshop, in addition to a flash in her eyes, symbols appeared on her cheek. Similar to the ones in Amelia's letter.

Elena felt Marcus's gaze directed at her back and turned around, "Is something wrong?"

"It's okay," the man smiled, his eyes returning to their previous color a second before Elena turned her head.

Yes, something was wrong with his daughter. The aura that Marcus managed to see was very different from all that he had seen before. And if he was asked what this aura looked like, he would not be able to answer this question.

As if this aura did not belong to a human being.

~~~~

Author's comment:

The cover and teaser for book 3 of the series are available on my profile page. Add it to your library to get notification of the first update.

Fragments of Time: The First Guardian.