The Blood of Ivy

by Jessica King

  Ivy nodded.

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “Dunno,” Ivy said. “Probably still a bit higher strung after it all?”

  “That could very well be it,” Wilkins said.

  The lights of the hospital room hummed with their white-light electricity, and Ivy looked out the window at the many cars in the parking lot. She was on one of the higher levels of the hospital, and a single red Volkswagen that was parked away from other cars made her imagine a red ladybug settled on a leaf, happy and content to stay where it was.

  “From here,” Wilkins dropped his pen and pad into the briefcase, “we’ll continue with a few sessions fairly close together. We’ll do some exposure therapy, which will likely be uncomfortable, but it will help you learn some techniques we’ll establish using stress inoculation training—how to breathe and bring yourself back when you feel yourself pulled by those memories.”

  Ivy felt sick at the idea of it. She didn’t particularly like the idea of putting herself back in the situation she was in at Long Beach. Especially if this man was involved with the Kingsmen… She didn’t want to be vulnerable around him. But she had to get into his office. That was going to be paramount to figuring out if he had anything to do with her mother’s death and the deaths of countless other women since.

  “It’ll be much better to practice in a controlled environment than in the field, Miss Hart,” Wilkins said, reading the other thought on her mind. The part of her that was terrified to put others in danger.

  “I know that,” Ivy said, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “But I am not looking forward to that, I guess.”

  “We would have much more difficult issues to discuss if you were looking forward to it,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips. Ivy tried to smile too, trying to play into his joke, but her smile was faked and flat, and she was certain he could tell. He cleared his throat. “I was wondering if you would be interested in medication for this if we decide after the exposure therapy that you would benefit strongly from it?”

  She wouldn’t be taking any pills he gave her. Especially not until she found he was definitely not the Justice her mother feared. “I’d rather not,” she said. “Can we maybe come back to that later?” She clasped her hands.

  “Of course,” he said, bidding her adieu and exiting the room.

  Ivy leaned back onto the pillows and closed her eyes. She knew she was going to have to give an account of what had happened, but saying it aloud made it both feel more real and more ridiculous. She was having nightmares after only a measly twenty-four or so hours with this woman. She felt like a coward when she’d realized it’d only been a day and not three. But at the same time, she had been carved up and had the scars to prove it. She locked out her jaw, remembering the feeling of the knife slicing into her skin with horrible precision. Her skin started to prickle and ache, and her vision went dark behind her eyelids, her mind recreated the blackout curtain-laden living space of Marsha Leeds’ bloodstained cabin.

  Something beeped next to her. Her heartbeat had gone higher than the doctor had wanted.

  She moved a hand to her shoulder. Pressed down. An ache spread through her. Another beep. But her vision cleared, the bright beige blinking back to life. She tried to breathe, tried to get the beeps to stop. She breathed long and deep in through her nose, out through her mouth. Imagined her throat like a tunnel stopped with rocks that were suddenly pulverized into tiny pieces, water and air flowing through unhindered.

  A nurse peeked into the room. “All good in here?” she asked, examining the machine next to Ivy.

  Ivy smiled, the fakeness of it hurting her cheeks now. Her lips were dry, and she could feel them cracking. “I’m good,” she said, metallic taste coming from said cracks. “Could I get some more water whenever you have a chance?”

  The nurse nodded and left, and Ivy stared at the television screen in front of her. A show about old crimes solved years later. She used to love cold case file shows. Now, her stomach churned at the mental images of bloodstains on a carpet, and she had to change the channel. The nurse returned with the water, and Ivy thanked her. She waited for the young woman to leave before she drank the whole thing in one gulp. She refused to think about the shower she’d taken last night, the strange ghost of breathlessness that had taken over her body beneath the cascade. I’m not afraid of the freaking shower.

  If Wilkins turned out to be innocent, should she tell him about that? She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to tell a therapist everything, or if that was simply considered complaining. Maybe he was there for her to complain. Perhaps that was part of his job. But she wouldn’t be trusting him with all her thoughts until she was sure that there was no need to drag him deep into the recesses of a dark, dark prison and have him atone for the work of the Kingsmen. She groaned against the pressure in her shoulder as she reached for the box of her mother’s journals.

  +++

  Wednesday, March 22, 2017, 7:12 p.m.

  David Webb squeezed a pipette filled with blue liquid into three test tubes. And waited.

  When his daughter, Trinity, had been killed, something in him had died with her. His interest in food, entertainment, sleep had all gone away. He’d tried to comfort his wife, who was entirely inconsolable, and his son Cameron, who made it clear he was more interested in spending time alone. He didn’t blame his son; he’d run from any type of comfort too. The members of his team had received an email early on Sunday that he didn’t want anyone bringing up his daughter, and he expected their work to continue as it normally would. He thanked them for understanding that he needed the distraction. And everyone had followed his request. No one had even replied to the message.

  He grabbed a clean pipette, pulling some of the now-blue liquid and placing it onto a slide. Using a microscope was second nature to him; he wondered if pianists sitting in front of the keys felt the way he did, using the lenses and adjustments without needing to look at them. He knew their feel. He pressed his eye against the ocular lenses and peered at the bacteria below.

  It was multiplying twice as fast as it was dying, and he wrote his observations blindly into the notebook next to him, unable to pull his eyes away from his work. It only took a few minutes for the rapid multiplication to steady and slow. A quick, violent start that petered out as he had calculated.

  The tricky part would be getting the particles the right size for inhaling. He wanted to get them into aerosol cans for easy distribution. More than ever, the name of their weapons manufacturing company, Gray Dynamics, was fitting. He had been hesitant when his work with antidotes and vaccines had been shifted to creating a possible biological weapon—a very gray area in his own morals. But not for Gray Dynamics, and he wasn’t going to scoff at the price tag they’d placed on the completion of the project. They’d told him to work on a weapon that could disable most and kill some. A fast-catching, contagious virus that would work through the body then disappear without a trace. He took a step back from the microscope and crossed his arms.

  He’d be running tests for the next few days, but he was fairly certain he’d done it. This was the round. The lights around him turned on.

  “That looks like a…successful stance?” his main assistant, Lorie, said. She was a tall woman with blond hair always in a bun and pink eyeshadow always on her eyelids. “Why do you work in the dark, David?”

  “I think this it,” he said. “Vomiting, dizziness, and difficulty breathing within three minutes of contact, maybe quicker.” He dropped into a squat; his legs were tired, but he refused to accidentally disturb one of the many tools on the table, and he didn’t like working with chairs around. “I can see it as well in the dark,” he said, answering her question. “Having the lights on makes anything in glass have a weird glare.”

  Lorie ignored his point about the light and pointed to the microscope, only lifting an eyebrow like she’d never experienced such a problem. “How deadly is it?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Shouldn’
t be bad. But it’ll get some people if, God forbid, they use this stuff.” It’d duplicate like crazy, be insanely contagious. Most people would recover. “It’s meant to disable, not kill, so that’s what I’m going for.”

  Lorie gave him a half-smile. It was the only type of smile they’d given each other since they’d been placed on the project. Lorie liked the idea of creating a virus like this about as much as he did. “I feel like I’m pulling the trigger,” she said.

  “Can’t think of it like that,” he said. “I think we’re making the bullets. We don’t call the shots.”

  Lorie nodded. “How long will the tests take?”

  “Not long, just need to run a few tests on it,” he said. “But it’ll take a few hours. Do you want to head home? I’ll just need to collect the data; then, I’ll shut down.” Not to mention his near hour-long commute back to Sherman Oaks.

  Lorie’s light eyebrows furrowed close. “Are you sure? I can do it if–”

  David shook his head. “Don’t like being home right now with everything.” He knew he should be home. That his wife hadn’t been able to throw herself into work the way he had, that his son couldn’t possibly be taking Trinity’s death as well as he seemed. But he wasn’t ready to be their rock, and he felt awful about it. If he couldn’t stand up under the weight of his own grief, if he had to keep running from it, how was he supposed to carry theirs as well?

  Lorie bit her lip. “Okay, boss,” she said. She turned to leave but hesitated. “I hope I’m not overstepping my bounds here, but if you guys need anything, let me know, okay?” she said.

  “Thank you, Lorie,” he said, hoping his voice sounded warm enough that she would know he appreciated the offer, but that he didn’t want the help.

  Lorie slipped out of the lab, turning the lights off behind her, and David’s shoulders shook with his shuddering, cleansing breaths, as he placed samples of the latest strain of the Disabling Bacteria DB1307 into appropriate containers for their tests. He was most concerned with whether it would be a good candidate for an aerosol can, and he added more dye to the bacteria to make the spray visible. Waiting for cultures was like watching grass grow, but David had always enjoyed using the glove box.

  After placing the mixture into the aerosol can, he placed the can in the glove box and sealed it. He felt a bit like his hands weren’t connected to his body when he used the glove box, slipping his hands into the box through the attached gloves and picking up the aerosol can inside. “Just a sneeze,” he said, pressing the top of the aerosol can, away from the sensor, as it spewed a nearly invisible light blue into the air. He waited a moment before checking the sensor. The person near the sneeze would be infected. He waited for two minutes, the sensor showing him the colors that meant a person would already be dizzy, would already be having difficulty breathing.

  He shook his head.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Wednesday, March 22, 2017, 9:13 p.m. Fwd: Good Work Team

  David opened the attached PDF from his boss and nearly spat out his nighttime snack. The presidential emblem sat atop the PDF, and David scrolled slowly.

  The White House

  Washington

  March 22, 2017

  Dr. Gareth Varner

  Gray Dynamics

  Ventura, California

  Dear Dr. Varner,

  Thank you for taking the time to send your proposal to our Department of Defense. I have particular interest to talk in person about the possibilities DB1306 (and the development of DB1307) might have when it comes to our military interests abroad.

  The ability to use a biological weapon that only stuns and does not kill, the majority of the forces opposing our military poses a significant opportunity for us when it comes to taking on terrorist forces using civilians as cover. My utmost concern with this weapon is, of course, its ability to spread to our own soldiers, and the effect it might have on the economy and healthcare capacity of the areas in which we might use this weapon. While that information must remain secretive for obvious reasons, the leaders in our nation’s department of defense, as well as myself, would like to send a member of our team to your location to discuss the expected outcomes of the use of this weapon in a variety of situations, so that we can decide if and where DB1307 might best be used. You will be receiving an email shortly to set up this appointment.

  The ongoing loyalty of Gray Dynamics for creating weapons with intention and thought behind them, as well as your loyalty to selling solely to our military and allies, is greatly appreciated. The ability to trust those who create the tools and devices we use on the front lines is of utmost importance, and having a company culture to rely on allows us much peace of mind.

  After the initial assessment visit described above, I would greatly appreciate a meeting with you and the secretary of defense, as I have two specific implementations of the device in mind that I would like to execute as soon as possible. However, it is important for me to know exactly what will happen upon the release of this weapon before we begin putting plans in place. Please prepare a list of dates and times you are available in the next month or two to allow easy scheduling, to be planned at the conclusion of the aforementioned initial assessment.

  David stared at the president’s signature for a long time. He wondered if his daughter would be proud of what he’d made, or if she’d be appalled by the possible implications. She’d been bright, curious. He used to discuss his work with her before he started working on classified projects and had to maintain a level of secrecy that had annoyed Trinity to no end. He swallowed, hoping she’d be proud but knowing she’d be terrified of what he had created.

  +++

  Thursday, March 23, 2017, 6:13 a.m. | Central European Standard Time

  Tatiana Rossi padded her way across the grass of Giardino di Nifna, clasping a canvas bag in her hand, a rose quartz bracelet clinking against the simple silver band she normally wore. She’d never been here so early in the morning, and it was beautiful in the blue light right before dawn. But she felt an anxiousness in the pit of her stomach as the chill of the morning nipped and pulled at her skin.

  She wouldn’t have gone through with this ridiculous charade if her friend Livia had not sworn by it. She wanted a child so badly, and no amount of prayer had seemed to do her any good. Her mother had told her that if she wasn’t pregnant yet, it simply wasn’t her time. But she had dreamed of being a mother since she was barely alive herself. Perhaps she would have left well enough alone if it hadn’t seemed that all of her friends had gotten pregnant within the past year. They’d laughed like schoolgirls about their children getting married, and now she was about to be left out.

  Witchcraft was not easy, and until two days previous, Tatiana had not even believed it might be real. But Livia had told her what to do, given her the bag, and wished her the good luck she’d had with the ritual.

  Livia had already had two children, with another on the way.

  Tatiana had always believed in symbolism. She’d grown up around the church, often ending up in St. Peter’s Basilica once a month or more since she’d been born. And the way Livia had described things, it seemed the more personal symbolism one put into their witchcraft practices, the more likely things were to work. So, she’d come here to the garden—where her mother had scandalously told her she’d been conceived a few short weeks before she’d married her father. Granted, her mother had been quite tipsy at the time. They’d brought a bottle of wine along with them for a picnic, and Tatiana had immediately decided that red wine was not for her. She much preferred the sweeter white wine she’d had sips of growing up. But when her mother spat out the secret, she’d covered her mouth with a shocked hand.

  If you ever tell your grandmere about that, I’ll skin you myself.

  Tatiana had laughed.

  She sat at the edge of the water and unloaded the sack Livia had given her. She was already wearing the rose quartz bracelet, but there’d also been a green candle, for life and fertility, and a series of crushed
herbs, provided by Livia. Oakbark, poppyseeds, mistletoe, and hawthorn berries. She lit the incense as Livia had shown her before, using the smoke to cleanse the bracelet, the candle, the air, and herself until she was surrounded by the musky scent of it. She carved Leo’s and her names into the candle using a toothpick.

  Tatiana and Leo.

  She carved a small heart after it for maybe a little extra bit of good luck. She dripped almond oil and lavender oil into her palm and closed her eyes. She imagined a ball of white light, and slid the candle through her fingers, top to bottom. She felt silly, but she kept her face calm, her breathing careful. She’d already written the letter. Her desire for a child. How much she wanted one. How much she wanted to participate in all the baby things with her closest friends. She poured the crushed herbs Livia had given her and poured them into the folded letter. She lit the candle and slipped out of her shoes.

  She dipped into the trickling water of the Giardino di Nifna and waded toward the arched bridge, the burning candle in one hand, the letter describing the love she’d give the child, should she be gifted with one, and made her way beneath the arched bridge. The water had to be near freezing, she imagined. It was so cold, but her bare feet managed to go numb enough against the rocks and sand until she was directly under the bridge. She’d watched it so many times, imagining that the reflection of it in the water made a full circle. But as she’d thought more about it, she imagined it now as a womb.

  She sat in the water, her white dress buoying up around her, and she floated along the little currents. She held the note above the flame and watched as it slowly burned. The paper was pink—she’d secretly been wishing for a girl—though the letter did mention that it didn’t particularly matter to her and that Leo wanted a boy, so they would be perfectly content with either. The paper burned from pink to brown, and the herbs smelled sweet and spicy as the fire turned them to a crisp.