Of Stardust and Moonstone

Prologue

"This is the Department of Defense, not some amateur-run farce waiting for a lunatic foreigner to come feed us tall tales," the General huffed, turning his back to the unidentified intruder.

"General Townsend," the nuisance croaked with a voice so scratchy that he must have smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. "I svear ees true," he declared, Russian accent thick. He reached out a pale hand and spun the General to face him. "I vill prove it," he said, his eyes gleaming diabolically.

The leader of the headquarters surveyed him suspiciously. His ideas were positively ludicrous. The General was more worried that the man himself was a threat rather than the people he was describing. "So you're telling me," he questioned, shaping the words slowly and distinctly, "that there are dangerous teenagers with supernatural powers in this country that have managed to escape our knowledge for centuries?" His skeptical gaze intensified. "If they've been such a severe threat to us for so long, why haven't we discovered them on our own? Why haven't they attacked us before?" He rebuffed, growing more indignant with each word the man standing before him said. This was pure idiocy.

"I telled you truth. They have power, more than you could ever dream of." He stopped and interpreted the intimidating leader's distrusting expression.

Townsend cocked an eyebrow. "And how exactly will you manage to prove it?"

The stranger anxiously twisted the heavy chain that looped around his thick neck. "I have no proof yet," he said, dropping the chain to chew on his nail instead as he paced the length of the room.

The General rolled his eyes, exasperated, and closed the yellow pad on which he was writing notes of their conversation. The babbling fool had wasted far too much of his time already. He briskly gestured to the door and grunted, "I think we're done here."

"No!" The man shouted as a sharp gust of wind blasted around the room, knocking the General back into his seat and sending the chair crashing into the wall. Townsend's tough exterior crumbled and, for the first time, he looked fearfully at the uninvited and untrustworthy man.

"What are you?" the highest ranking member of the Department of Defense questioned, terrified. The man most equipped to combat any possible threat to the security of the United States of America was now defenseless, brought to his knees by an alien of sorts who was preaching insanity.

"I am Mortem! Now vill you leesten to me?" He roared, radiating malevolence and villainy. The longer General Townsend took to regain his ability to speak and cave to the demands of the madman before him, forced to toss away his sense of morality by the agonizing force he was facing, the quicker the cyclone terrorized the office, uplifting the entire room.

"Explain," Townsend choked out, the oxygen in the room abandoning his lungs to join the widening vortex in the center of the space. Mortem lowered his hands and the wind ceased immediately.

"Zere is thees stone. It has all answer you need."

The General searched the man's eyes desperately. He could not believe what this stranger was compelling him to do, since he could find no reason to trust the man in his gaze. He could be unleashing chaos and disaster upon the world, but this invader had made sure that Townsend's hands were tied. "How does a stone hold any relevant information?" the General ventured, one last ploy to try to free himself from the mess he was in.

Mortem smirked and said, "Eet ees magic. Eet ees enchanted. Eet vill reveal all of zere secrets, in time," though his words did nothing to relieve Townsend's deepest fears.

He looked as if he was about to throw up or pass out. "How will you find this stone?"

"Leave zat to me," he instructed as he grinned wickedly and turned his stare to a point off in the distance, lost in his maniacal plans.

The General leapt from his chair. "If you're one of them, these supernatural beings, why bring this to the government's attention? We could easily just detain you and send out our own search."

Mortem cackled, "You vould not be able to locate eet. The stone only reveals eetself to a child of the stars. You are not a child of the stars, General Townsend. The truth vill come out eventually, however. Eet always does. I vill find moonstone, you vill get answers. I vant to be spared when you do," he finished.

"You're asking for immunity when it comes time to handle this matter?"

"Precisely."

Townsend quickly weighed his options and calculated the possible consequences, but he knew his choices were few.

"Find the stone and I'll see what I can do," General Townsend concluded. He reached out his hand, swallowing his disgust at having to touch such a vial creature. When Mortem accepted his handshake, beaming, Townsend shivered with apprehension. He quite possibly just made a deal with the devil's spawn, so he couldn't resist the slump of his shoulders as the impending doom of his situation weighed down on his conscience.