by Simone Sinna
They saw the buildings from a distance, though they were tucked in amongst the trees and vines had almost completely covered the roof. Checking the wind, they went to the island from behind so they could approach upwind and did so in their full, glorious transformations. With their wingspans of ten feet and green eyes gleaming, Zac broad and Wilson lean, they hovered above and swept over the campsite.
Torq had reacted too slowly. He was transformed but hadn’t made it to the water where he would have been safe. Wilson, swooping down, grabbed him behind the neck so to avoid the were-devil’s jaws of strong, sharp teeth. He tasted blood and ripped at the fur, the were-devil shrieking with the pain. Then Wilson glided upward and left Zac to finish him off. Zac took a larger, he was sure fatal, chunk from the devil’s back just before the animal sank in the water, leaving behind a bloody trail.
Their anger, rather than being satiated, left them wanting more blood, this time for the were-devil brothers that had taken Lena and Gabriella. In lieu of them, they took their anger out on all that was left on the island, smashing things in a rampage of revenge. When they found his lab their anger deepened. This had been where he had produced the virus that had killed his grandmother. Zac was about to send glass flying when Wilson stopped him.
“We aren’t immune, remember,” he said urgently. “We’ve no fucking idea if anything here is contagious.”
They stood still and looked around fearfully.
“Burn it then,” said Zac.
They threw cans of fuel over the lab and Wilson went looking for matches. As he did Zac caught sight of some notebooks and for a split second a picture of Lena formed before him. He picked up the notebook and wondered.
He was still wondering as Wilson threw the match and the place exploded.
* * * *
Linc rang Kael from the island as much to stop the wave of despair as for inspiration. But as he cruised back to the mainland he thought about what his brother had said. Home. As you aged, as your life came to an end, did you think back to the home of your childhood as your spiritual resting place? He would imagine he would think of Tarrabah, but would Torq? He had lost his wife and two children there, turned his back on the rest of his family, including two eight-year-old boys who needed him, and as far as Linc knew, never returned.
If he had managed to escape the ghosts, would he make for Tarrabah? Had he ever known anywhere else as home? He had been on a mission, a mission of revenge. If he had succeeded it must have been early, while still at the university. The vaccine maybe came later, on the island, but the original discovery must have been when he was still working and almost “living” in the lab. Linc wasn’t optimistic, but he was going to try there before he went back to Tasmania having failed.
It was early evening before he got to the lab, and the place was empty. He realized it was a Sunday which would account for the eerie emptiness. The building was void even of the diligent student cramming or handing in assignments. Linc sat in his office and wept. He wasn’t going to be able to save Lena. Despite every bit of him that shrieked that to be with Lena was why he was on the earth, he was going to have to watch the woman he loved die. He would, with Kael, nurse her to the end, but when she died, part of him would also die.
He was self-conscious enough, no one ever having seen him weep, not even at age eight, that when he heard the noise he stopped immediately and was instantly alert. The ghosts were on the rampage, and if they’d already killed Torq then whether they could smell him or not wasn’t going to protect him. Without Lena by his side, he had no doubts Zac would try to kill him without hesitation.
But it wasn’t Zac. He heard the faintest of moans and, alert for more, he crept toward where the sound had come from. The moan came again, fainter this time. Seymour’s office.
Linc opened the door cautiously and rushed to his father’s crumpled body, collapsed across the desk.
“Dad,” he said, holding the older man in his arms.
Torq slowly raised his head and smiled weakly. “Lincoln. Always the good son.”
Lincoln could feel his father’s pulse, rapid and faint. There was blood everywhere, now all over him also.
“The books, Dad,” said Linc. “Your formulas. Do you have the vaccine? Will it work on someone infected?”
“Vaccine, the antidote,” said Torq softly. “I had it all. Brilliant.”
“What was brilliant, Dad?” asked Linc urgently. “Where’s the book?”
“The virus,” said Torq. “Such brilliance. They know so much, you see. Ghosts, were-devils both the…” He started laughing but then seemed to lose consciousness.
Linc shook him. “Dad, I need you, don’t you die until you tell me.”
Torq’s glazed eyes opened and struggled to focus.
“You left us, you asshole,” yelled Lincoln. “I’ll forgive everything if you tell me. The answer. I need the antidote.”
“You infected her? I shouldn’t have given it to you, but I smelled them, sensed…Lane never could hide his feelings.”
Linc stared at his father. “You bastard. The last time we saw you? You gave us the virus?”
“Just a little. Wouldn’t have lasted long.”
But straight after seeing him they had taken Lena out to the beach to tell her they were were-devils. They had infected her then. She didn’t have the were-devil virus. She had the virus that had originally eliminated the vampire bats in Queensland and that then became Torq’s mutated one—Hendra.
“The book,” whispered Torq. “All in there. They are the same and not the same.” He coughed. “Virus and us, brothers you see, like children, all the same yet not, so strange.”
“Where is the book? What’s the code?” Linc was getting increasingly desperate.
“The code, yes brothers, and sisters, too, simple really.”
“You aren’t making sense,” said Linc, gripping his father so hard he was afraid he might harm him, fearful of the anger in him that wanted to harm him. If Torq hadn’t already been dying Linc would have felt like killing him with his own hands.
Torq smiled sadly. “I’m sorry. I was a better scientist than man, but you are a better man than I. Say”—his voice was fading—“sorry to Lane to for me.”
This time when Lincoln cried it was more visceral and from the center of his were-devil core. He cried for his father, for Lena, and the fact that for the first time in his adult life he wanted to be, in one way only, like his father. A scientist first and good man second.
Chapter Nine
When Lincoln went back to his apartment he was preoccupied with grief. He should have sensed ghost long before he did, the scent lingering in the air as soon as he opened the door. In part he associated it with Lena, and it had positive connotations, but it was more, he reflected later, because he was distracted. Perhaps it was because of this that Zac, standing in his living room waiting for him, didn’t transform. If Linc had been angrier and less despairing and gone for him as a were-devil, they would have fought to the end.
“How is Lena?”
Linc stood very still. “Dying.” He could feel the agony in the other man, perhaps because it mirrored his own.
“Your father?”
“Dead.”
Zac nodded.
“He could have saved Lena. The only man with the knowledge.”
“How?” asked Zac suspiciously.
“He had a vaccine and an antidote.” Linc saw Zac frowning and explained, “One prevents infection. The other treats.”
“What about you?” asked Zac. “You’re a scientist.”
Linc shook his head. “My father worked on this for many years. Lena—” His voice choked up. “Lena doesn’t have that long.”
Zac seemed to be wrestling with something. Finally he pulled out a book and threw it at Linc. “Save her. But when we next meet don’t expect me to save you.”
* * * *
Lincoln went straight from the plane to the university to meet Tilman. He had been trying to make sense
of Torq’s formulas for most of the previous night and for the entire plane trip and had made no progress. Tilman had made no progress with the blood he and Kael had provided. Now they knew they were immune to what Lena had, but were-devil immune response was not necessarily going to benefit someone who was three-quarter ghost.
“What did Torq tell you?” Tilman said, turning the pages of the book slowly and frowning at the squiggles and arrows that Torq had adopted. “What the hell is Cy?”
“There’s an Ln and Sa as well,” said Linc. “Not sure that Ne really means neon either. Certainly makes no sense to me if it does.”
The chemistry equations looked like nothing either of them had ever seen. Any reference to the real periodic table seemed to be more coincidence than true reference. The pages didn’t seem to follow each other either. It needed an experienced cryptographer.
“Torq didn’t make much sense,” said Linc. “A lot about brothers and being the same. He was clear the answer was in here though.”
“Brothers,” said Tilman thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure if he meant really brothers or that biologically were-devils and ghosts were like brothers.”
“I think he meant me,” said Tilman. “We used to play science games at school.”
Linc wondered at the generational differences. He hadn’t been that obsessed. School life had been simple. He had done Kael’s science assignments and Kael his English ones with little discussion.
“And?”
“Torq loved beating me. His favorite was ‘hide the element.’”
Linc stared at his uncle. This was surely the answer. “So you can crack it?”
Tilman sat down and turned to the first page. “From memory it was only one element at a time. This is far more sophisticated. And there’s another problem.”
“Yes?”
“Torq always won.”
* * * *
Lena knew it was hopeless without Lincoln having to say so. He had said that Tilman was “working” on it, but the look he exchanged with Kael said a lot more.
“He coded it,” Lena said, reading Kael’s mind more clearly than Lincoln’s. As she was getting weaker, oddly her connection to them was becoming stronger. Perhaps her were-devil blood was fighting back.
“Yes,” admitted Linc. “But I gather it was a game they played. And our father told me his brother was the answer.”
Lena could see he was blocking something and it was eating away at him.
“It’s okay, Lincoln,” Lena said gently. “I know you didn’t do anything deliberately.”
“He did though,” said Lincoln. “He gave us the virus, and we gave it to you.”
Lena shrugged. “It was meant to be. Even if you don’t save me, it was your love of me that brought the answer to Tilman, and he will solve it for the rest of the ghosts.”
“No,” said Kael fiercely. “He will solve it for you. I know he will.” Kael turned to Lincoln. “Did he say anything else?”
Lincoln shook his head. “Only that we were all the same. Brother and sisters. He was delirious.”
“So,” said Kael slowly. “He didn’t actually say his brother would find the answer.”
“No, but I don’t think he had much faith in my science let alone yours.”
“But maybe this isn’t about science. It’s about a code and patterns, right?”
Lincoln had a copy of Torq’s book and now Kael took it. “Which are the bits that don’t belong?”
They spread the book, Lena between them, and they all pored over the squiggles. Lena took notes. Kael had her number the pages, and when they’d finished he started making notes of his own.
“How many elements are there?” he asked Lincoln suddenly.
“On which day?” asked Lincoln. “Over a hundred. New ones don’t exist in nature, theoretical particle accelerators that…”
Kael groaned. “Okay wrong question. I seem to recall it has a structure. How many rows and columns?”
Lincoln rolled his eyes and grabbed his iPhone and, after a minute, put a picture of the periodic table off the Web in front of Kael. He squinted. “Any chance of a printout?”
Lincoln went off to find a computer and printer.
“There are eighteen columns,” Kael said. “How many of the rows matter?”
Lena looked, and it seemed that the table got broken up further down.
“It’s highly unlikely that he’s using any of those lower elements,” said Lincoln, returning. “Chances are we’re talking about the first four rows.”
“Four?” Kael said thoughtfully. “Now that might be useful, though it’s not an eighteen by four.”
“So?”
“Brothers and sisters you said.”
“So?”
“Torq didn’t have sisters.”
Lincoln looked at Lena. Neither had a clue where Kael was going with this.
“We did.”
This still didn’t help.
“And were-devils are born as quadruplets,” Kael continued. “I can’t say I can make sense of it, but look here.”
They looked to the pages where Lena had started to go through and put all the “odd” initials onto one page. “There’s a Cy, Ln, and an Sa.”
“Yes,” said Lincoln. “So what?”
“Well, I nearly missed it because there’s no Ne, but in the original I note there is.”
“Ne is neon,” said Lincoln impatiently. “So it is a real element.”
Kael grinned. “Not in this document it isn’t.”
Lena thought if he didn’t explain soon she’d scream.
“Ne is also the last two letters of Lane, my real name.”
“And Ln is the last initials of Lincoln’s,” said Lena slowly.
Lincoln stared at Kael then grabbed the document. “Cy is the last letters of Lucy and Sa the last letters of Lisa,” he said softly. “Our sisters.” Lincoln grabbed a pen and started writing. To Kael he said, “Write down the names of every were-devil family group you can find.” But Kael was already onto it.
* * * *
Old man Adam was growing weaker, but he used his influence to ensure Zac and Wilson got a good turnout. Some flew in. Others came in cars and trucks that bumped along the dirt road to the rambling house in the rainforest. It was the biggest gathering of ghosts Zac had ever seen, more than his grandmother’s funeral, with strong representation of both Karlssen and Magnussen families. Angel had not been invited, and her daughter, Gabriella’s mother, was also absent.
“Two generations have passed,” said Adam to the gathered crowd. “And now we have proof that the devils are indeed Satan’s spawn and have plotted our demise.”
There was murmuring. “I am dying of the illness they gave me, the same that killed my wife and has infected Lena also.”
“No!” Zac knew without looking that it was Rose, Lena’s mother and Larissa’s half-blood daughter. The woman whose birth had started the whole curse. She pushed herself to the front of the crowd. “She can’t die! Angel said she was chosen to save us!”
“Save us?” snarled Adam. “Or save the devils that infected her?”
“Where’s my baby?” Rose cried out. Her husband, Randall, stood grim faced at her side.
“They have her,” said Zac, standing up. “And I mean to get her back.”
The crowd murmured.
“Torq Tremain as been here amongst us spreading a virus he made specifically to kill us,” said Zac, the crowd stilling to listen. “He is dead. But his sons are alive, and they have Lena who is one of us, a ghost.”
“We need to rescue her!” one voice came.
“Let’s kill the fucking Tremains, all of them, and have this over,” came another.
“So you’re with me?” asked Zac, punching his fist into the air.
“Aye,” said voice after voice. As Zac looked out into the shadowed, shimmering faces of his family and friends he saw a sea of arms and he felt a surge of optimism. He would get Lena back, and if the devil
had cured her then surely they could work from that to save the rest of them. Only two held back and didn’t look like they would follow him. Damon and Kadar, Charles’s grandsons, nodded to him and withdrew.
“Then listen up,” Zac called out, ignoring them. “Here’s Adam’s plan.”
* * * *
The brothers took their idea to the university and, along with Tilman, pored over it for most of the night. Sticking with the principle that they only needed the first four rows, they needed eighteen families. Even then there were multiple combinations possible for the four or less names. For the columns where there weren’t four elements, which was most, they tried to match to families who had lost members and used only those who had survived. It was painstaking work. Kael, finding he was little use after his first initial brainwave, left the scientists to try and make sense of the equations when substituting the real element and went back to find Lena.
She was already asleep, and he crawled in beside her. As she stirred she automatically edged back into his arms, allowing him to hold her and wrap his body around hers. He was sure she had lost further weight, and her breathing was more labored. Please let her be saved.
* * * *
Auntie Kate’s dreams had become increasingly disturbed. In them the stone glowed so strongly that she could feel its heat. From the stone emanated swirls of mist full of ill tidings, some wrapping around her so she could hardly breathe, waking her at times and then revisiting her when she returned to her slumber. There was a darker swirl, too, one which chilled her core and left her with a strong smell of smoke, burning, and decay. This time when she woke she saw it was five a.m. Rather than go back to sleep she pulled back the bed covers and, wrapping a heavy, purple robe around her ample frame, made herself a tea and returned to her stones.