by AD Starrling
‘Where are Bruno and Anatole?’ I said, taking the seat.
‘I sent them out to get provisions,’ Victor replied.
A tense hush fell across the room. I sighed. ‘So, are we going to get to the point or are we going to indulge in some small talk first?’
Victor shifted awkwardly in his chair. Reid unearthed a cigarette from somewhere and struck a match lazily. Anna’s head whipped around at the sound and she frowned at him.
To my surprise, a chuckle escaped Tomas Godard’s lips. ‘You always were impatient, even as a child,’ he said, gazing at me warmly. ‘In that respect at least, you resemble your mother.’
I stiffened, a tremor of shock coursing through me at his words. I stared at the blue eyes so alike to mine. The strong feeling of foreboding that had lingered at the back of my mind since I first met Tomas Godard suddenly crystallised into a cold certainty. I knew this man. Though I could not recall his features, I felt that I had known him for a long, long time. ‘Who are you?’ I said in a low voice, almost afraid to hear the answer.
Godard suddenly looked incredibly old. His shoulders sagged and his face slackened, as if he carried a burden too heavy for him to bear. He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. ‘I am your grandfather,’ he said in a clear voice.
Anna’s head snapped up. Her eyes widened. ‘What?!’
Though I could feel the tension suddenly coursing through him, Reid remained silent at my side. Victor took a sip of his coffee and put the cup down carefully.
I sat frozen, Godard’s words ringing in my ears. Although my whole being resonated from the surprise his statement had engendered, deep down inside I knew that he spoke the truth.
‘Your mother, Catarine, was my eldest daughter,’ said Tomas Godard, his eyes meeting mine steadily. He glanced at his granddaughter. ‘Anna’s mother, Lily, was my youngest child.’ The logs in the fireplace crackled and hissed loudly in the shocked silence that followed.
‘How—’ Anna started haltingly, her expression troubled. ‘Why have you never spoken of this before? I thought mother was an only child.’ She could barely mask the accusing tone in her voice.
Godard looked at her with a sad light in his eyes. ‘I’ve kept this secret for so long, I’m afraid that it has become a force of habit over the years,’ he said tiredly. He reached out and touched her face with gentle fingers. ‘Besides, the knowledge would only have brought you pain.’
‘What do you mean?’ Anna’s voice rose slightly. Anger and anguish darkened her irises to a cloudy sea green. ‘In what way would knowing that I had—’ she glanced at me—‘a family have hurt me?’
A hush followed her tormented words. ‘I take it she doesn’t know about the half-breed thing?’ I said coldly. I was surprised at the anger that suddenly surged through me. My hands fisted under the table.
A pained expression flitted across Tomas Godard’s face. The old man looked positively haggard.
Victor Dvorsky frowned. ‘We don’t like to use that term.’
‘Why not?’ I retorted sharply. This time, I was unable to hide the fury in my voice. Reid laid a hand on my arm. ‘After all, it’s the reason why my parents were murdered and I’ve been hunted all my life! Why be coy about it now?’
‘I don’t understand,’ whispered Anna. She stared from me to her grandfather, her face pale.
Tomas Godard leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes briefly. ‘Five hundred years ago, well after the last days of the Red Death, Catarine fell in love with a highborn Crovir noble. They met at one of the balls organised jointly by the immortal societies to foster kinship between our two races following the end of the war.’ He paused and looked at Victor with a troubled expression. ‘The noble’s name was Balthazar Thorne.’
I flinched. ‘My father’s name was Slovansky,’ I said harshly.
Tomas shook his head. ‘Slovansky was the name your parents adopted when they went into exile,’ he said. He stopped as if to gather his thoughts. ‘Despite my protests, Catarine and Balthazar married secretly in the year that followed their first meeting. As immortals, they recognised that they were each other’s destined soul mate and were determined to never be apart from that time forth. You were born forty years later, in fifteen sixty, in Prague. When the two immortal societies found out about your existence, a warrant was immediately issued for your capture and execution.’ He turned to Anna, his expression troubled. ‘You know of the old law that prohibits the union between a Crovir and a Bastian?’
Anna frowned and nodded. ‘I’ve always thought it an archaic rule. The only function it appears to serve is to separate the two societies further.’
A sorrowful smile crossed Godard’s face at her words. ‘Yes, I thought so too, from that time forth.’ He glanced at Victor again. The latter was frowning into his coffee. ‘With both the Crovir and Bastian Hunters after them, Catarine and Balthazar had no choice but to go into hiding. They chose to do so in the Carpathian Mountains, which were vastly unpopulated and isolated from the rest of the world at the time.’ He paused. ‘Nine years passed and they managed to stay concealed. On their tenth year in hiding, the Hunters finally found them. By the time Victor told me they were on their trail again, it was too late. When we got there, Catarine and Balthazar were already dead.’
I stared at him, still doubtful. ‘Weren’t you the Head of the Bastian Hunters at the time?’
‘No.’ Tomas Godard looked down at his hands. ‘I gave up that position on the day you were born,’ he said quietly. He lifted his head and gazed at me with a tortured expression. ‘I could never order the murder of my own daughter and grandchild.’
‘Grandfather,’ Anna whispered. She placed her hand over his.
‘It was my father who issued the order on the Bastian side,’ said Victor curtly. ‘He received a tip from the Crovirs as to the whereabouts of your family.’
Reid frowned at the immortal. ‘But—the old man said you tried to stop the Hunters.’
Tomas bestowed a forlorn gaze upon Dvorsky. ‘Victor loved Catarine,’ he murmured. ‘And I believe he still does to this very day.’
Dvorsky cleared his throat, the tips of his ears reddening. ‘Look, I wouldn’t go that far. That woman used to bully me.’
‘She was a hundred years younger than you,’ said Tomas.
‘She had a sharp tongue on her,’ Victor retorted with a heavy frown.
Tomas smiled. ‘True.’ He paused. ‘Had Balthazar not stolen her heart, I had hoped the two of you would marry one day.’
Victor’s ears glowed brightly. ‘Stop talking nonsense, old man,’ he mumbled under his breath.
‘You were there when my parents died?’ I said at last. The rage that threatened to overwhelm me had abated. In its place was a cauldron of mixed emotions. Memories of that snowy day in the Carpathian Mountains rose afresh in my mind.
‘Yes,’ said Victor. He hesitated. ‘We got there just after your first death. Tomas and I took care of the rest of the Hunters before you awoke again.’
A dozen questions clouded my mind. I stared at my grandfather and asked the one that troubled me the most. ‘Why did you leave me?’
Godard looked away from my gaze. ‘Victor and I debated this time and time again,’ he said. ‘We always arrived at the same conclusion. If you had remained with me, the Hunters would undoubtedly have found you again. Though it was the most difficult choice I have ever had to make in my immortal life, you had a much better chance of survival on your own, in the world of humans.’
‘I made sure you at least got out of the mountains and reached the nearest village safely,’ Victor added gruffly.
An incident from that time suddenly came to me. ‘The wolves?’ I said questioningly. As I made my escape from the mountains, a lonely, frightened and hungry ten-year-old, I had been trailed and almost attacked twice by a pack of wild wolves. They had unexpectedly disappeared after the third day.
Victor smiled faintly. ‘It took a while to get rid of them. I have to admit, I
nearly gave myself away the second time.’
I stared at him, unable to voice the feelings that choked my throat. My gaze shifted to Godard. ‘Did you know where I was all these years?’
‘Yes, sometimes. I always heard of your deaths at the hands of the Hunters,’ Godard replied with a grimace. ‘Over time, when it became clearly evident that you posed no threat to the immortals, Victor and I finally persuaded both Orders to call off the hunt.’ He paused. ‘In exchange, I promised never to make contact with you.’
I was silent as I digested this information. I now knew the reason why the Hunters’ attempts to kill me suddenly abated a century ago. I thought of his words at the Hauptbahnhof and finally understood their meaning. ‘Is that why you didn’t want me to get involved with—whatever’s going on?’
‘Yes,’ said Tomas. A frown clouded his face. ‘Of course, that was before I knew that the Crovirs were after you again.’ Anna rose and switched on the lights. Night had fallen outside.
‘The man who killed me said his name was Felix Thorne,’ I said after a while, still shaken by the astonishing revelations of the last hour. ‘Is he related to my father?’
Godard’s eyebrows rose. ‘Felix was there that night?’ he said in a stunned voice.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
Victor and Godard exchanged troubled glances. ‘He’s your uncle,’ Dvorsky said finally. ‘And the Crovir Head of Counter Terrorism.’
Tomas’s frown deepened. ‘They’re getting bold. For Felix to join a hunt is practically unheard of,’ he murmured almost absent-mindedly. He blinked and turned a solemn gaze on me. ‘Agatha Vellacrus, the Head of the Order of Crovir Hunters, had three sons. Their names were Cecil, Felix and Balthazar Thorne. Of the three, only Felix is still alive.’
Another jolt of shock darted through me. My eyes widened. ‘You mean Vellacrus is my grandmother?’ I said, astounded by this latest disclosure.
Tomas grunted. ‘Yes, although she has tried her best to keep it a secret from both immortal societies. There are only a handful of us still alive today who know the truth.’ He sighed. ‘I will never understand how she gave birth to someone as gentle and as kind as your father.’
A door slammed at the front of the house, startling us all. Bruno and Anatole entered the kitchen moments later, their arms laden with bags. They paused at the sight of us at the table.
‘Hey, you’re up,’ said Bruno. He glanced at me awkwardly while he placed the bags on the countertop.
Anatole was more straight-forward. ‘You gave us all quite a shock when you started breathing again,’ he said bluntly.
‘Anatole,’ Bruno murmured tersely.
The Bastian driver shrugged. ‘What? It’s true. I mean, the guy survived his seventeenth death. No immortal has ever done that before.’
My gaze switched to Tomas Godard. ‘He’s right,’ I said quietly.
The old man stared at me, his eyes reflecting my own perplexity at the most staggering fact in this whole affair so far. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that question,’ he murmured. ‘I was just as surprised as everyone else.’
‘Does it have anything to do with the fact that I can kill other immortals?’ I pondered out loud, thinking of the Angel of Death again and the unique birthmark over my heart.
Tomas Godard shook his head regretfully. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Anyone hungry?’ said Anatole in the silence that followed. Bruno glared at him. ‘What?’ the driver said with another shrug. ‘We still gotta eat, right?’
Chapter Fourteen
The manor house was owned by Victor’s family and stood, as I had suspected, on a large estate a few miles outside Prague. Once a popular entertainment venue for the Dvorskies, it had become abandoned since the end of the Second World War and now mostly served as a hideout for the nobles. Victor assured us that only he and his father knew the exact location of the property.
I stared at the moonlit trees that lined the long, wide driveway to the house and caught a glimpse of Anatole as he patrolled the grounds. Bruno was guarding the rear of the manor. Only a spatter of leaves still clung to the bare branches high above the ground: autumn was well and truly here. I turned away from the window and faced the room.
We were in a large study on the ground floor of the mansion. Ceiling to floor bookcases lined the walls around us. The furniture was old and sturdy. A fresh fire crackled in the hearth at the head of the room.
‘How did you know Strauss?’ I said, looking at Anna. ‘And what were the two of you working on?’
‘Hubert was a Professor in molecular genetics,’ said Anna. ‘We met twenty-five years ago, when I was working at the UPMC in Paris. At the time, we were both doing research in potential genetic therapies for cancer.’
‘So you were trying to find a cure for cancer?’ said Reid, eyebrows raised.
Anna shook her head. ‘No, not a cure, as such. We were attempting to—well, control the disease, really.’ She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. ‘If we could affect the rate at which cancer cells replicated, we would be able to extend the life of the patient to such a time when a cure might be available,’ she explained.
I frowned, still unable to see a clear link between Strauss’s research and the Crovir Council. ‘Why did you leave Paris?’
‘Ten years ago, I received an invitation to work at the FGCZ,’ said Anna. ‘I was promised my own lab and as many research assistants as I wanted. It was too good an offer to refuse. Even Hubert agreed.’ A sad smile crossed her face. ‘Even though I left the UPMC, we kept in touch. After all, we were still working in the same field and shared common interests.’
‘Then he received the grant from GeMBiT,’ I murmured. The pieces of the puzzle were almost all there. I just couldn’t see how they fit together yet.
Anna nodded. ‘Burnstein approached him directly. Hubert was quite surprised. It seemed that the scientists at GeMBiT Corp had been keeping an eye on his research for quite some time.’
‘What was it again?’ said Reid with a frown. ‘Advanced cell—’
‘Advanced cell cycle control and DNA transposition,’ said Anna. ‘Hubert was attempting to manipulate genetic material to create some kind of “off” switch to down regulate cancer cell production.’
‘Slow down cell production and you control the cancer,’ I said, staring at her.
‘Yes,’ she replied with a nod.
‘What happened?’ I added quietly.
Anna closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, I could see the answer to my question in their green depths. ‘He succeeded.’
Stunned silence fell over the room. Subconsciously, I think I had known what her reply was going to be even before she uttered the words. The potential ramifications of such a find were truly staggering: whoever owned the rights to the discovery would be raking in billions every year. At that notion, a different thought crossed my mind. ‘That can’t be what this is really about,’ I said, frowning. ‘The Crovirs have more than enough money to buy the entire European continent. They couldn’t have been interested in Strauss’s research just for the financial gain.’
‘It sounds like a big enough reason to me,’ said Reid. ‘And the entire European continent? You’re kidding, right?’ he added in a tone of disbelief.
‘I’m afraid he isn’t,’ said Victor wryly. Reid paled slightly. ‘I have another snippet of information for you,’ the immortal continued, gazing at me. ‘Frederick Burnstein is actually a member of the Crovir First Council. He’s the Head of their Research & Development Section.’
Somehow, this latest news hardly came as a surprise. I stared at Anna. ‘It still doesn’t explain why the Crovirs are after you. Or why they’re trying to kill me again.’
Anna hesitated. ‘You’re right,’ she murmured. ‘Hubert discovered something else. Something far more staggering than a cure for cancer.’
Reid snorted. ‘What could be a bigger find than a cure for cancer?’
Anna glanced a
t him with a frustrated expression. ‘That’s the thing. I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I lost contact with Hubert before he could tell me. His last email indicated that whatever the discovery was, it would change the world as we know it forever.’
A reflective silence followed this statement. ‘You were helping him?’ I said.
Anna nodded. ‘Hubert wanted someone outside of GeMBiT to look over his work,’ she explained. ‘I guess the only one he trusted to do this objectively was me.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘Did Burnstein know he was sharing research information with you?’
‘No,’ Anna replied, shaking her head firmly. ‘Our messages to each other were always encrypted.’
The flames in the hearth popped and crackled loudly while I absorbed this new piece of information. ‘Why did Strauss open a bank account in Zurich?’ I said after a while.
Anna’s troubled gaze shifted to the fire. ‘About two months ago, Burnstein suddenly visited Hubert in Paris. He wanted access to the latest research data. This was just after Hubert made the major breakthrough. From what he told me, Burnstein was quite forceful. Hubert got scared and contacted me.’
I frowned. ‘Was that when he went into hiding?’
Anna glanced at me. ‘He stalled for time as long as he could,’ she said. ‘When Burnstein sent some men to follow him, Hubert panicked and ran away.’
‘Is that how they got your picture?’ I said.
It was Anna’s turn to frown. ‘What picture?’ she said, puzzled.
‘We found a photograph of you and Strauss on Burnstein’s computer. You met in a restaurant, at night,’ I explained.
‘Oh.’ Anna’s expression softened. She looked at her grandfather with a faint smile. ‘Yes. That was before our trip to Italy.’
‘Where did Strauss go?’ said Reid curiously.
‘We have some mutual friends who live in the Rhône region,’ said Anna. ‘He was staying at their farm until I returned to Zurich.’ A sad light dawned in her eyes. ‘He was going to join me there.’