by Ana Calin
“Don’t worry,” the guard said in my ear as the tunnel closed with a deep metallic clang that seemed to echo from the underground, swallowing Damian in another world. “He’s safe. He’ll be safe.” He sounded compassionate.
“Oh, God!” I cried.
“Please, Ms. Preda,” Dr. Barbu addressed me, making me once again aware of his presence. He crossed his legs and lit a new cigarette. “Have a seat and relax. There’s nothing to be afraid of... just yet.”
The guard helped me in Damian’s place in the armchair opposite from Dr. Barbu, whom I inspected from head to toe without masking my anxiety and curiosity. It felt strange, being so close to the “famous and infamous” Dr. Barbu.
“You’re dying to know what his plans are,” he said. “I understand that, but hysteria isn’t going to provide the answer.” His stare sank into mine, his thin white fingers slowly turning the cigarette. His presence and words were reassuring in some twisted way, maybe because deep down I knew he had no reason to lie to me.
From the corner of my eye, I caught Tony lowering himself to the floor by the window, looking again like a pig that had barely just escaped slaughter.
“Will you provide the answer?” I babbled.
Dr. Barbu’s dark eyes narrowed at me as if they drilled into my soul. “You’re in love with him.”
“Madly in love,” I admitted. I particularly enjoyed the effect my confession had on Tony – the hurt in his eyes as they snapped at me. I couldn’t help glancing over a few times to relish it. A guilty pleasure, but no one is without sin.
“He’s not what he seems, Ms. Preda.”
“And what does he seem to you, Dr. Barbu?”
The sides of his mustache arched up as he smiled. “You’re asking questions a therapist would.”
“I merely ask what I want to know.”
He pushed his back into the sofa cushions, cigarette in one hand, the other one elegantly arranging his robe. He moved a bit like my gay buddy from high school, only more controlled, no exaggeration in his gestures. They flowed more naturally. “Well, I think your questions would be better posed directly to your lover.”
“He avoids straight answers.”
“Then I’m not authorized to deliver them either. I may be the safe-house guardian, the keeper to the gates that lead to the Viscount, and Mr. Novac may need my approval to see the Order’s leader. Still, the Executioner outranks me. I’m not allowed to disclose information he decides to withhold.”
“What’s the next best question you’re authorized to answer, then?”
“It doesn’t work that way, Ms. Preda,” he said, looking me straight in the face. “These are delicate matters we’re dealing with.”
“Dr. Barbu,” I leaned forward. “What is Damian? What has BioDhrome done with him, to him?”
He glanced behind at Tony, as if my question alone was too much for the man’s ears. “This is particularly delicate information. Have you read Nathaniel Sinclair’s books?”
“I went to the library and checked the titles you wrote on the blackboard. But I’m no science nerd, Dr. Barbu. Did you actually expect me to understand?”
“Forgive my mistake.”
“Forgiven. Now would you please explain it to me as you would to an idiot?”
“I can’t, Ms. Preda. We’re not alone. And you’re not an idiot, as much as you want to pose as one for the sake of fitting in.”
Tony jumped from his place, cheeks red, and stomped over to my side. He looked like an overly inflated balloon about to burst. “Listen, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, or whatever your imaginary friends like to call you. Damian Freaking Novac hates me, and he wants to have me extracted. It doesn’t take a genius to understand I’ll never be free again, so I doubt I’ll ever get a chance to disclose any secret you might now tell us.”
Dr. Barbu looked long at Tony, who stood by my chair with fists clenched and the face of a hysterical pig.
“Finally someone with a clear perspective,” the doctor mocked. “Well, the first thing you need to know, dear boy, is that Damian Novac is not a man. BioDhrome engineered him into a killer that transcends the human. It doesn’t get much clearer than that.”
“Cut the crap,” Tony said. “If he’s not a man, what is he?”
“Get a grip on your temper, boy.”
“You’re taking me for an idiot.” Tony grew angrier. It had absolutely no effect on Dr. Barbu though, who relaxed back into the sofa, comfortable with his knees crossed and the cigarette in his hand, as if nothing could bother him.
“I’m not taking you for anything you’re not.”
“Find a word to best describe him, Dr. Jekyll,” Tony insisted with the last drop of patience. “There’s a wide range you can use, from beast to demon. None of it will scare me.”
“Well, then,” Dr. Barbu said as he stubbed out his cigarette, “you’re an idiot indeed.”
Tony lunged toward him with a yell of wrath, but in a split second, a man bolted from the back and immobilized him on the ground. Never in my life had I seen anything happen so fast. It messed my hair in a gush of wind that whipped my face. When the air stilled, I got a good look at the man who’d taken Tony down.
I stared at Gino Bogza. Dressed in black leather from head to toe, he looked taller and bulkier than in the “civilian” clothes I’d seen him wear on campus. He had a swimmer’s broad shoulders and I could guess at strong, long muscles. His eyes had lost the dusty layer that must’ve been provided by a set of contact lenses, revealing electric blue eyes that stunned. His skin was as smooth as Damian’s, but fairer. He’d lost the golden locks, his hair now closely cropped, imbuing him with the roughness of a soldier.
Dr. Barbu remained relaxed, twisting another cigarette between his fingers and looking down at the struggling Tony. Gino’s arms were inescapable iron to him.
“Damian Novac is not a man,” he repeated calmly. “That’s all you need to know. Limited knowledge is what keeps you safe.”
“What is he then?” I reacted on impulse.
“You’ll find out soon enough, Ms. Preda.”
“Then why postpone the moment unnecessarily?”
“Oh, it’s necessary all right.”
“Dr. Barbu, please! I need all the information I can get.”
“What you need is patience.”
I gritted my teeth. “Then tell me this. What’s happening to me? Damian talks about my core talents having been unlocked. What am I becoming?”
Dr. Barbu stared toward the window that was dark from the shutters. “You’re becoming what your natural predispositions dictate.”
“Does it get any more specific?” I pushed.
Dr. Barbu sighed as if in surrender. “There’s a core talent in every human being, and it’s that core that can be upgraded best. The gas back in the mountains is what kick-started the process within you. Your father slowed it down with an antidote to the gas that he administered at the hospital. That is as far as we can go to unmake Upgrades, but the process isn’t fully reversible. The antidote keeps gas subjects sedated in the first stage. We keep pumping the antidote intravenously until the gas effects begin to fade. The disappearance of the fluorescence of the eyes being the first thing we watch for.”
His words brought back the sensations I’d experienced in the hospital, the slow heartbeat, the heavy head, the difficulty moving, as well as the way my own eyes had glowed in the windowpane at the cabin.
Dr. Barbu offered more information. Still, he seemed to be talking more to himself than to me. “The basis of what BioDhrome uses to create that gas is a drug similar to amphetamine without the devastating side effects. This drug focuses intention and annihilates fear. It is the fear that usually keeps people from attaining their goals. What we psychiatrists call hyperintention.
Hyperintention is the reason you seem to never obtain something when you want it the most, and only get it when your desire for it lessens. When the desire lessens, so does the fear that you won’t obtain it, to put it s
implistically. Anyway, what Mr. Novac and your father did was find a way to sedate gas subjects, whose potential is close to unlocking, until fear finds its way back into their psyche, and their minds cling to limitations again.”
I blinked, stunned. “Damian actively worked on this with my father?”
“The close relationship with your father awakened Mr. Novac’s taste for science. As much as I hate to admit it, he is brilliant.” Dr. Barbu measured me from head to toe. “Until you, science was the only thing he loved.”
My heart jumped. “I think love is a strong word to use for his feelings for me.”
“False modesty aside, I’m a top shrink, Ms. Preda.” He jutted out his chin. “I know how to pick my words.”
The butterflies flapped like crazy in my stomach, and my cheeks caught fire. “You really think he loves me?” I whispered.
“I know he does.” The confirmation went down my insides like sweet port wine, but the way Dr. Barbu looked at me – as if I were weak and ridiculous – made me eager to change the subject.
“What about Nathaniel Sinclair?”
“What about him?”
“He is the one who founded the Order, right? The one who discovered all this in the first place. What became of him?”
“He was the one to discover the gas that kick-starts the upgrading process, yes. But soon he also discovered that the secret to unlocking human potential for good doesn’t lie in the chemistry of the body, but in the workings of the mind.”
Movement to the side drew my attention. Gino wrestled Tony up from the floor and pushed him to the back of the house. I understood Tony wasn’t supposed to hear the rest of Dr. Barbu’s speech, who continued only when the two were out of hearing range.
“What Dr. Nathaniel Sinclair later discovered was that there were ways of unlocking that potential by merely guiding the person. This implies something similar to hypnosis, something we call induction. We call it induction because it can be done against the subject’s will, which, contrary to popular belief, isn’t possible with traditional hypnosis.
“Even people who are easily influenced develop resistance during the process of hypnosis. Instead of resisting entering the state of trance, they will act against suggestion during it. For example, they’ll lift their left arm instead of the right arm when the hypnotist prompts them. Induction, on the other hand, is a different story.”
He paused. I pushed for more information. “Is that what they did with Damian? Induction? Keeping the subject in a dark place to facilitate connection with his sub and unconscious is part of this technique?”
Dr. Barbu’s eyebrows rose. Obviously, he recognized that part. “He gave you his file?”
“Let’s just say he let it slip into my hands.”
He nodded to himself, tapping his lips with his finger. As much as he tried to hide it, I saw he was surprised.
“Yes, that is part of the technique,” he said. “The gas sets the upgrading process in motion, and induction takes it from there. BioDhrome’s strategy of maneuvering people with high predator potential into one place and making them fight each other in order to select the best – the most deserving of upgrading, so to say – wouldn’t be such a bad one if it weren’t so starkly immoral. So anti-civilized. So martial and anarchic.”
He lit another cigarette and, after having sucked it to the filter, stubbed it out nervously. Same with the next one, while I watched and listened to the sound of his smoking and the rumbling of my stomach. The silence was beyond awkward, but I sensed at a deep level that it was necessary. My nostrils felt dry and tender, and my eyes watered a lot, not to mention the headache that smoke gave me.
“It’s good to see that you dropped the dumb-girl façade, Ms. Preda,” Dr. Barbu eventually spoke again. “You never blended in well with that kind.”
“I didn’t blend in with any kind.”
“You fit in with Upgrades pretty well.”
He paused and took a long drag from his cigarette, cracked thin lips pursing on the filter. There were no nicotine stains on his mustache, which was conspicuously black. He must’ve dyed it.
“What else did Mr. Novac tell you about himself?” Dr. Barbu wanted to know.
“What exactly do you mean?”
“Did he tell you about his childhood?”
“He did.”
His eyebrows shot up and then down. “Wow. That’s a first. Well, I guess love impairs even the greatest minds. He’s making the mistakes of a love-struck thirteen-year-old.”
A loud clang from the back made me sit up straight. Damian returned from the back, unencumbered this time, and my heart flared with joy. I knocked back my chair and ran straight into his arms. They wrapped around me as I pressed my cheek on his chest, breathing in his scent of young fir.
“It’s done,” Damian announced to Dr. Barbu. He sounded calm, but when I looked up at his face, I saw something very different.
“Damian, what’s wrong?” I whispered.
He gazed down at me, the look in his eyes enhancing the feeling that something was terribly off. He smiled the resigned smile of someone who’s terminally ill.
Chapter Eight
Gino brought Tony, and we walked back to the car. It was dusk, a bloody sky staining the horizon among skeletal tree branches. Beautiful and wild. The air was chilly and wet; refreshing after all the smoke I’d had to swallow. My stomach grumbled, and I made myself small in embarrassment. But all I could really think about was being alone with Damian as soon as possible so I could insist on answers. The calm resignation in his face unsettled me.
The car came to a stop in the garage at the villa, and Damian helped me out, while his men took Tony away.
“No safe house for this extraction,” Damian said. “Take him directly to base.”
And that was the last time I saw Tony. He kept calling my name as Damian’s men forced him out of the garage. I actually felt relief for him – the further he was from Damian, the safer. As for me, if I only saw him again in the afterlife, it would be too soon.
Engulfed in darkness the place seemed as gothic and ghostly as the first time Damian had brought me here, but somehow more habitable. Damian kept me plastered to him as if I were an extension of his body, arm coiled around my shoulder, as he led his men to the library. Vintage oil lamps lit up automatically.
The she-butler I’d knocked out of my way in the morning as I’d dashed out into the street waited by the old piano, dressed in a navy blue buttoned-up two-piece, her hair coiling atop her head in a braided bun.
I felt awkward, but she seemed to look right through me. Nothing in her attitude betrayed that we’d met before, let alone under what circumstances. As Damian talked, she walked around with a tray and served everyone scotch. When she faced me, she looked stern and distant, yet not reproachful.
The scotch burned right through to my bowels, making me grimace and squeeze my eyes shut. I used the moment to steel myself to face the woman, but she went over to the man next to me, sparing me the awkwardness.
“Redouble the guard,” Damian told his men. “No one gets in or out except the Cleric. The Viscount said BioDhrome bred a new project – something they’ve hoped to keep secret until the right time, and until we know who it is, everyone is a suspect.”
His men stood in a semi-circle, their expressions stiff and unreadable, but Gino stepped forward.
“And who do you suppose it is? Or better yet, what? You must have at least a theory.”
Damian leaned against the piano and swirled the content of his glass, looking down at it.
“I don’t like theories, Gino. I go with proof.”
I couldn’t hold back anymore, the words flying out of my mouth. “The big guy? Giant? Could it be him?”
Damian avoided my gaze, eyes still on the liquid in his glass. “Could be.” But he didn’t sound convinced.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Damian’s deep voice covered mine.
“Gino, I’d like you personally watching Leona
Ignat. If necessary, follow her and Varlam in bed.”
“What?” I whispered. I looked around, lost for words. Was Leona a suspect?
Gino nodded, spun around, and signaled his subordinates to follow him.
“Gino,” Damian called, his voice filling the room. The young man stopped at the door and turned. “Report to me as soon as you have something. Personally. If I’m not available, report to Alice.”
With this, Damian dismissed Gino, who took a few moments of eye darting from Damian to me before he shook his head in silent disapproval and left the room. I remembered how little he liked me. The butler woman quietly vanished as well.
“Is she a suspect?” I whispered to Damian. “Leona, I mean.”
“No,” he replied. “But Varlam is. And she’s around him too often.” He looked at his men. “Get guards into position, in and around the house.”
The men turned on their heels and stomped out of the room, leaving us alone, facing each other. I walked over to Damian and clung to his jacket.
“What are your plans? What do you intend to do?”
He took my hands in his, his striking pale eyes searching mine. “Alice, just for tonight, don’t ask questions. Just have dinner with me. Like we don’t have a care in the world. Like it’s –” He smiled sadly, – “our first real date.”
I’d never been good at grooming, but I did my best. I strained to remember everything Leona had taught me over the years.
After a hot bath that managed to get the smoke of cigarettes out of my skin and hair, I put on a cocktail dress of black lace and silk ribbons, elegant but sexy. The fabric fell soft on my naked body, shoulders left bare. A snaking pattern highlighted my waistline, and the lower part fell like a compliment on my thighs. The split revealed a leg with every step, and stilettos finished the look just right. I didn’t have any panties that went with the dress – even thongs protruded through the material, making an ugly contour – so I chose not to wear any for the first time ever.
Nervous to the point of wobbling I walked down the stairs, hand following the wooden banister. The moment my eyes fell on Damian my cheeks caught fire.