Cronin's Key II

by N. R. Walker

  Kole’s eyes went wide. He seemed to understand and he nodded. “Go.”

  And Cronin leapt.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Cronin changed direction three times mid-leap, something he’d not ever done. He was so torn as to where to go, when all he wanted to do was to go back to Alec and tear the doctor apart for touching him.

  His first thought was to go to the fields of Dunadd in Scotland, where he’d taken Alec many times, the field where his human life had ended. He’d found such peace there with Alec, but there would be no peace. Not without Alec.

  Then he thought to go back to his apartment. Jodis and Eiji were there and they’d know what to say, what to do to calm him. But that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to rage, to let out the anger and frustration, so found himself in the darkened streets of San Pedro Sula. Rife with crime, this city was easy pickings. Murderers, rapists, the city was infested with human maggots, and when Cronin leapt to a darkened alley, he didn’t even have to look or listen. It was happening right in front of him. Two men held a struggling man down, face-first into the garbage-filled street. One held a knife to the back of his neck, the other was pulling his pants down. They noticed Cronin approach and they stopped, but before they could even speak, Cronin had them both by the throat, one in each hand.

  The man on the ground scurried away and the two attackers kicked the air with their feet, a good ten inches off the ground. Cronin didn’t waste a second. He threw one man into the alley wall, hard enough to render him unconscious. He grabbed the other man by the hair and violently tilted his head back, almost snapping his neck. He sunk his teeth into his throat, feeling the hot blood soothe his throat as he drank the life out of this man.

  And when the first man was drained and lifeless, he let him fall to the ground like the garbage he was. Then, like he hadn’t fed in weeks, Cronin picked up the second man and fed from him too.

  But it didn’t taste right. It wasn’t rich enough, it wasn’t sweet enough, it wasn’t sustaining enough.

  It wasn’t Alec.

  Alec.

  And just like an answered prayer, Cronin heard him.

  It’s okay, Cronin. The doctor’s nearly done. I’ll see you soon.

  Relief, coupled with shame, swept through him. Cronin picked up the two dead men by their throats and leapt.

  Disposing of bodies was dependent on where it was still night somewhere around the world. Tonight’s choice was one of his favorites.

  Sunlight was almost breaking across the Serengeti, highlighting the plains of Tanzania in a spectacular mix of beauty and wild. He let the two bodies fall to the ground and stepped forward, smelling the air around him. His old friends were here, if that’s what he could call them. He’d never brought anyone here, he’d never shared this secret with anyone. He knew he’d bring Alec here one day, though not while he was human. He wouldn’t risk it. But yes, when Alec became a vampire, they would come here and they could marvel at it together.

  Sometimes he’d discard of bodies in an ocean, or a ravine, or in the vast frozen lands of the arctic. Though the polar bears didn’t appreciate the takeout like the lions of Tanzania did.

  Cronin let his head fall back and he snapped out a roar. It was his calling card. He’d made that call for hundreds of years, and the pride knew his voice. As clear as someone chiming the dinner bell, the largest male lion appeared first.

  What made cats attracted to vampires, Cronin could only guess. But a large lion thundered in to see him, nudging his hip before he sniffed out the closest body. Cronin ran his hand along the fine animal, feeling its coarse fur, feeling its strength as it walked, padding its huge feet in the dirt. As the light of the new day threatened to break over the horizon, the rest of the pride came in for the second body, and Cronin smiled with satisfaction as he leapt back to Kole’s house.

  He arrived in the kitchen and found Alec and Kole in the small living room. The doctor was, thankfully, gone. Alec stood up quickly and put his hand to the side of Cronin’s face. “Are you okay?”

  Cronin couldn’t help it. He pulled Alec against him and breathed in his scent. “I am,” he said. After a long moment, he turned to look at Alec’s father. “I apologize for my behavior. I’ve not acted like that before.”

  “Like what?” Alec said. He pulled away but not too far. He looked worried. “Tell me what bothered you.”

  Cronin glanced at Kole and said, “Maybe it is a discussion best left for another time.”

  “Dad’s okay with everything,” Alec said. “He gets it, Cronin. He does.”

  Cronin sighed. “My whole body objected to someone else taking your blood. I could barely contain it. I wanted to kill him.”

  “But you didn’t,” Kole said. “And that’s all that matters.”

  Alec looked concerned, but he tried to smile. “So where did you go?”

  “To feed the lions of Tanzania,” Cronin replied.

  Kole laughed as if Cronin had made a joke, but Alec eyed him curiously. Before he could say anything, Cronin said, “I heard you again.”

  “Did you?” Alec asked. “I wondered if you would. I think Doctor Benavides thinks I’m crazy. I spoke to you like you were right there, but I’d hoped you’d hear me.”

  “It was grounding and most appreciated, thank you.” Cronin didn’t think Alec knew just how much he needed to hear his voice in that particular moment. “What else did the doctor say?”

  “We’ll have results in forty-eight hours.” Alec held out his arm where a bandage held a cotton swab in place. “It took no time at all. And my physical was fine—”

  Cronin growled again. “I don’t think it prudent to be telling me of him touching you right now.”

  Alec kissed him with smiling lips. “It’s not like he gave me a prostate exam.” Cronin’s growl got louder, and Alec laughed. “You ready to go?”

  Cronin turned to Kole. “Again, I apologize. Thank you for being so understanding.”

  “No problem,” he replied. “Be sure to let me know whatever you find out. If I can be of any help, just let me know.”

  “Thanks, Dad. I’ll see you again soon,” Alec said. Then he slid his arm around Cronin’s waist. “Take me home and cook me breakfast.”

  Cronin smiled. “Your wish, my command.”

  * * * *

  Cronin had become quite adept at cooking omelets with ham and peppers. The texture was repulsive, the smell offensive, but Alec would moan with every mouthful, and that alone was worth it.

  As Alec finished his meal, Cronin told Eiji and Jodis about the visit with the doctor. “I’ve not experienced anything like it,” he said. “It was a jealousy and anger like I’ve not felt before.”

  Jodis darted out of the room only to come back in with one of the books we’d taken from Prague. She had it opened to a particular page. “I found this. Fifth century Romania there was a vampire who was unable to feed. Her face was badly disfigured in her human death, and her change to vampire somehow resulted in no fangs. The one who changed her took pity upon her and would gather the blood in a bowl for her to drink from. It worked for some time, then he decided it would be easier to keep a human and bleed them as needed.”

  “The vampire repeatedly fed from the same source,” Cronin concluded.

  Jodis nodded. “Yes.”

  “The ill effects?”

  “None,” Jodis said. “She lived for another hundred years.”

  Cronin was disappointed. He wanted answers. It would somehow be easier to learn this poor woman vampire had gone mad.

  “You want to know what I think?” Eiji asked. “I think you’re reading too much into it. Your behavior today toward that doctor was understandable, Cronin. Alec’s your mate. Believe me, if someone tried to take anything from my Jodis, I would want to kill them too.”

  “It was the taking of his blood that bothered me,” Cronin added.

  “Even more reason to be possessive,” Eiji said simply. “Vamp
ires are territorial over a human they’re feeding from, let alone one they’re fated to.”

  Cronin didn’t particularly care for Eiji’s phrasing, but he understood the sentiment. “So this is normal?”

  “There is no normal in this scenario,” Eiji said with a smile. “Just what’s understandable or not surprising, at the very least. Cronin, Alec’s blood is different. It’s special. We know that. There’s been no other blood like it that we know of or, if there was, that human wasn’t a key to the vampire world. The fact that he is both is unsurpassed, or maybe his special blood is the very reason he is the key. Cronin, we have no way of knowing. But I think Jodis is right. As long as you stop drinking it, you’ll be fine.”

  “I do not wish to stop drinking it,” Cronin admitted quietly. He looked at his two dearest friends and lowered his voice so there was no way Alec could hear. “I fed off two humans today and I still want more.”

  Just then, Alec walked into the living room carrying a whiteboard. “Time to get to work,” he announced. “Much to do, much to do.” He set the whiteboard up on the table and wrote down some points of what he knew so far: disappearances in China and Mongolia and coven relocations.

  Then he wrote down Jorge’s cryptic words of silver river, blue moon, red hand, blood and stone, and when he turned around, he saw the three vampires were watching him. He clapped his hands together. “Come on, look alive you lot. We have work to do.”

  Jodis smiled and collected her book before standing up. Eiji laughed and said, “You’re bossy for a human.” They were still smiling as they disappeared toward the office.

  And all Cronin could do was smile at him. Alec simply grinned back as though he didn’t have a care in the world. He collected his laptop and threw himself onto the sofa beside Cronin, putting his feet on the coffee table and scanning internet sites on Genghis Khan. He jotted down points of interest and dates into his small notebook while Cronin was supposed to be reading Chinese news sites for anything of interest. He wasn’t really. He was watching Alec.

  “Are you just gonna watch me all day?” Alec said, not looking up from his laptop screen.

  “I was thinking I would, yes,” Cronin replied. “I like watching you do your detective thing. It’s fascinating.”

  Alec snorted. “Fascinating?”

  “Yes, the cognitive leaps your mind makes are remarkable.”

  Alec raised one eyebrow. “Leaps? I think your version of leaping is enough for both of us.”

  “Not that kind of leaping,” Cronin said, amused. He leaned in and whispered, “Though I could leap us to bed if you’d so prefer.”

  Alec laughed and playfully pushed Cronin’s shoulder. “Work, remember? We have a new psycho vampire to stabilize, if you recall.”

  “Stabilize?”

  Alec grinned. “It’s the politically correct way to say kill an enemy.”

  “Tell me what you have so far,” Cronin said.

  “Well, I only know what human history tells me of Genghis Khan, but as you guys said the other day, the numbers of deaths by his hand or in his name were staggering. He was very powerful and his power of persuasion must have been even more so. Or, persuasion was his literal vampire talent. Is there any way we can check that?”

  Jodis and Eiji were suddenly in the room. Alec was getting used to their vampire speed. “The talent of influencing another vampire’s behavior is called manipulation,” Jodis said. “A manipulator is not welcome in any coven. In more cases than not, they are killed as newborn vampires, quite often by the one who made them. They cannot be controlled and come to power quickly.”

  “Could Khan have been a manipulator?” Alec asked again. “From a profile study, I’d say it fits the bill.” He didn’t wait for an answer. He stood up and walked to the whiteboard and wrote ‘manipulator’ under the name Genghis Khan. Then he circled the word blood and did the same to the word stone.

  “So,” he went on to say. “Blood, we assume is mine. But stone,” he tapped the whiteboard with the marker. “What does stone mean? And what does it mean for Genghis Khan.”

  “The Great Wall of China is constructed of it,” Jodis offered.

  “True,” Alec said. “Though how does that relate to vampires? Are they buried in it?”

  “No,” Eiji said. “It was constructed by humans in a vain attempt to keep vampires from crossing into their lands.”

  “Hmm,” Alec frowned. “Well, clearly they weren’t too bright.”

  Cronin snorted out a laugh. “Not impressed by a constructional wonder of its time?”

  Alec shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong. I mean the wall itself is a masterpiece, but not for the purpose of keeping vampires out….” He frowned again, as he obviously thought of something, and stared out the glass wall as he collected his thoughts. “Of course!”

  He dashed to his laptop and tapped the keyboard, bringing up several tabs at once. “Why didn’t I think of this before? You told me in the beginning,” he said looking right at Cronin. “It makes perfect sense.”

  “What makes sense?” Cronin asked.

  “Pyramids. You told me in the beginning when we were dealing with the Egyptian vampires, there are burial pyramids all over the world, including China.”

  The three vampires stared at him, waiting for him to piece it all together.

  “Now the Chinese government has kept these pretty quiet, but there are a few photographs of the Chinese pyramids leaked to the outside world. But tying these clues together—Khan, the Shaanxi province, pyramid, and stone have to mean something.” He typed in a few more words and waited for the internet searches to come up. His face went pale, drained of all color. “Oh fuck.”

  “Alec, what is it?” Cronin asked.

  Alec turned the laptop around to show them all. On the screen was Mount Li. A seemingly inoffensive tree-covered hill in the green fields of Shaanxi province, China.

  “Mount Li,” Alec said. “Mount Li was a pyramid. It looks like a hill now, but two thousand years ago, it was a pyramid. If they’d built it out of stone like the Egyptians did, it’d still be standing today. It’s a fucking pyramid, bigger than anything the Egyptians ever did. It has a tomb and everything.”

  Cronin stared at him. “Of course. And the reference Jorge made to earth coming to life wasn’t about the Earth or volcanoes or earthquakes. He was referring to earth, as in terra.”

  Alec paled. “Terracotta.”

  “The Terracotta Army,” Eiji whispered.

  Alec nodded mechanically as realization sunk in. “The Terracotta Army will come to life.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Is there anything else you guys’d like to tell me?” Alec asked. “We’ve been through the famous people in history who were vampires, but what about armies of vampires buried in the ground? Are there any more? The Egyptians, now the Chinese. Anyone else I should know about?”

  “Well, there are Aztecs in the Tenochtitlan pyramids,” Cronin said.

  “And the pyramid of Cholula in Mexico is one of the biggest pyramids in the world for a reason, so….” Jodis added.

  “There is still much human debate over whether the Visoko pyramid in Bosnia is even a pyramid,” Eiji said.

  The three vampires all laughed.

  Alec rubbed his temples and he sighed, long and loud. “You know what? I don’t even want to know.” He stared at the whiteboard for a while and reluctantly wrote Terracotta Army under Genghis Khan. He shook his head at how absurd it all was. “How the hell am I supposed to kill six thousand terracotta soldiers?”

  Cronin was beside him in a second with his hands cupping his face. “With us. We will figure it out, but please know Alec, you are not in this alone.”

  “The Terracotta Army are vampires,” Alec said quietly. “How is that even possible?”

  “A mason,” Jodis said.

  “No shit.” Alec rolled his eyes. “I’d say it took a thousand masons.”

  Jodis smiled at
him. “No, I mean a mason, as in a vampire with the talent to turn things to stone.”

  Alec’s mouth fell open and he blinked. And he blinked again. “A what?”

  “There aren’t too many of them these days,” Eiji added. “But the vampire who turned the Terracotta Army to stone lived even before my time.”

  Cronin pulled Alec against him and Alec melted. Overwhelmed by what he’d just learned, Alec allowed himself to be held, to be protected, cradled by arms that made him feel safe and warm. “The Terracotta Army aren’t technically stone,” he mumbled.

  “Maybe the mason could use the earth or clay instead of stone like how I can use water to turn to ice,” Jodis explained. “No talent is an exact science.”

  “What other talents are there?” Alec asked. “I asked this before, but I mean the other ones. There are seers, leapers, and Eiji does his DNA lifespan thing, and Jodis can turn stuff into ice. Keket could regenerate the dead, it seems maybe Genghis Khan can influence the behavior of others. You mentioned mind-reading but they usually go mad. So what other ones haven’t I heard of?”

  “There are pyrokinetics, or fire starters,” Cronin said.

  “Like the guy in London?” Alec asked. “At the bar.”

  Cronin gave a nod. “Yes.”

  “Hydrokinetics can control water,” Jodis said.

  “Like you,” Alec pressed.

  She smiled. “Similar, but not the same. What I can do is called cryokinesis.”

  “There are some who can manipulate the air.”

  “Like that cartoon with the little guy with the blue arrow on his head who’s an airbender.”

  The three vampires stared at him. No one spoke.

  “Never mind.”

  “There are some who can influence what a human will hear,” Cronin went on to say. “Like bells or a telephone, or a voice.”

  “So when you think you’ve heard someone call your name but when you look there’s no one there?” Alec asked. “That’s a vampire?”