by Linnea Hall
“How is she?” he talked quietly so Jewell wouldn’t overhear him.
“I don’t know. She’s hurt. She’s acting like she accepts it, like she knew it was coming. She’s putting up a good front, but I don’t buy it.” Ashley shrugged.
“Thanks.” Tommy stood up and tapped the top of the car as he moved away so that Ashley could leave. He watched Ashley pull out of the drive then turned to go into the house. By the time he got inside, Jewell was already in her room, sitting on her bed.
“Hey. Can I come in?” Jewell’s dad rapped gently on the doorframe, looking in at her through the open door.
“Sure dad.”
Tommy came in and sat on the bed next to his daughter. “You okay?”
“Yeah dad, I’m fine. He told me in the beginning that he didn’t like to get too close to people. I guess it was too much, too fast. I mean, it really was crazy, wasn’t it?” She forced out a laugh.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what? It’s no big deal, really.” She could hear the tremor in her own voice; she couldn’t talk about this now; maybe not ever. “I’m really tired dad. Can we save this for tomorrow?”
Tommy stared at his daughter, trying to judge Jewell’s true feelings. Finally, he leaned forward and gave her a hug. I’ll see you later then.”
“Night dad.”
“Good night Jewell. I love you.” He shut the door quietly behind him when he left.
That evening, Ashley came to pick Jewell up. She arrived early so that Jewell wouldn’t leave on her own. Both Tommy and Ashley were still apprehensive with Jewell’s apparent acceptance of Collin’s disappearance. Jewell grabbed a package of Pop Tarts out of the box in the cupboard. She kissed her father on the head, as she left to meet Ashley.
Jewell sat down in the car and opened her breakfast. She handed one to Ashley who set it on her leg until she had pulled out of the driveway onto the main road.
“So, did you do anything after I dropped you off?” Ashley was trying to keep the conversation going.
“I just went to bed.”
Ashley tried to think of something else to say. “Do you want to do something tomorrow? Maybe go see a movie or something?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m just going to hang out at the house.”
“Cool, I’ll rent a movie and come over. What do you want to see?”
“I don’t care. Whatever.”
“K. I’ll pick up a couple, that way we can choose.” Jewell turned to look out the window at Lake Pontchartrain as they drove across the Causeway.
Jewell threw herself into the cases that came in, trying to stay busy. Everything was pretty normal; at least it had been busy enough to keep her mind off of Collin.
“Jewell!” It was Collin. He sounded scared? Startled? Worried? Jewell turned to look before she realized that she hadn’t heard the sound coming from behind her, but from inside her head. It was like she was hearing Collin calling her, but only in her mind. She stood for a moment, surprised. The sound had been so real, not like the voice she often imagined when she thought of him. She could hear his muddled European accent that she thought was sexy along with the emotions in his voice. She glanced at her watch, four forty-five, still an hour and fifteen minutes of work. She felt tears falling from the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand as she continued what she was doing.
Chapter 32
As the sedative wore off, Collin started to remember things. Sevoflurane was an anesthetic gas. No wonder he felt so out of it. He looked around. He didn’t recognize the room; he hadn’t been here before. He tried to sit up so that he could get a better look at where he was, but when he sat up the room started to spin. He glanced toward the windows. The curtains were closed. It was dark outside; he wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway. The last thing he remembered was Aunt Gladys’ spaghetti. That made sense; the acid in the tomatoes and the garlic would cover the taste of whatever Mickey Finn his uncle had slipped him. He couldn’t believe it. His uncle had drugged him! No wonder Uncle Percy had been so disposed to let him stay. Uncle Percy figured it would be easier to drug him than to argue.
He closed his eyes. His head hurt and his stomach was queasy. When he started to feel better, he opened his eyes and looked around as much as he could without sitting up. The room was large. There was a tall chest of drawers next to the bed and a mahogany wardrobe opposite the bed. The walls were painted a sage green, with a parchment colored carpet. He pushed the covers down to see that he was still dressed in the same clothes as he had been wearing the other evening. He pulled his wrist to his face to see if he was still wearing his watch; he was. He stared, trying to focus on the tiny numbers on the face. It was six o’clock. Based on the faint glow starting to seep through the curtains, it was six o’clock in the morning, but what day? He couldn’t read the tiny numbers of the date at the three position on the watch. He tried for several minutes until his head started to hurt, before giving up. He picked up the glass of water on the nightstand and took a long drink before realizing what he was doing. He set it down and eyed it suspiciously. It seemed he couldn’t trust anyone anymore. He tried again to sit up. The room tilted and swayed, but at least it didn’t spin. He waited until the room stopped moving, and then put his legs over the side of the bed.
“Oh good, you’re up.” Uncle Percy came through the door, smiling.
Collin scowled at his uncle. “You drugged me, and then you kidnapped me!”
“I did not drug you. I sedated you.” Percy sat down on the bed next to Collin. Collin tried to stand up to move away from his uncle, but immediately collapsed back onto the bed.
“Still a little woozy? Well, that’s normal.” He picked up Collin’s wrist between his thumb and first two fingers to check Collin’s pulse. Collin jerked his hand away. The gesture was weak, but he had made his point. “I’m sorry, but there just wasn’t time to explain. We were in danger, all of us. I thought it would be easier this way. I want you to understand, I couldn’t leave you there alone.”
“I wasn’t alone. I had Jewell!” Collin said through clenched teeth.
Percy sighed. “I know, and that was the problem. Your relationship with Jewell was putting her in danger.”
“What? How?”
“The man that was stalking Jewell was after you, not her.”
“What are you talking about? Why?”
“Because of what you are.” Percy sighed as he realized it was time to tell Collin the truth.
Collin stood up. This time he was able to hold his feet, but needed to lean against the nightstand next to the bed to maintain his balance. “And you left her there? She’s in danger, and you left her? How could you?” Collin was incensed.
“Now that you’re gone, she’ll be safe. Sheriff Payne and his faction will see to it.
“Sheriff Payne and his faction? What’s that supposed to mean?” Collin was getting more agitated. He needed to get back to Jewell and his uncle was talking in riddles.
“Sit down boy,” Percy said simply, patting the bed next to him. “You are in no condition to leave right now. I think that it’s time we had that talk you’ve wanted to have.”
Collin glared at his uncle suspiciously before sitting back down on the bed. “Go on then. I’m listening.”
“Because of what you are, of what I am, of what your parents were; we are hunted.” Percy sighed.
“The longer we stay in one place, the greater the risk of discovery. Because of your accident, we were discovered. We had allies who tried to help us, but apparently their attempts were unsuccessful. We should’ve left when we took you from the hospital, but I got careless. I didn’t want to move you when you were still injured. And then, there was Jewell. I never wanted to deny you love, but I should’ve told you before you became so…attached.” Percy hung his head. “It wasn’t fair to you, and it wasn’t fair to Jewell. And for that, I’m sorry. You can’t imagine how much this hurts me.”
&
nbsp; Collin looked at his uncle. As usual, his uncle was evading the subject. “So who’s hunting us?”
“Most governments, scientists, religious groups…Anyone who finds out what we are.”
“And what exactly are we?”
Percy turned to his nephew. “Collin, I am eight hundred and ninety four years old.”
“Excuse me?”
“Collin, we are immortal. Well, not exactly immortal…”
Collin didn’t let his uncle finish his thought. He jumped up from the bed and barely caught himself as a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over him like a tidal wave; an effect of both the medicine, and the insanity that his uncle was telling him. “I always thought you were a little crazy, but I just thought of it as eccentricity. I didn’t know you were certifiable!”
“Collin, sit down before you pass out.”
Collin didn’t sit down. “So let’s pretend for a moment that you are immortal. So what if they find us?”
“Collin, Area 51; that was because of us. Vlad the Impaler, the original Count Dracula, the Salem Witch trials, that was because of us too.”
“Oh my God! You’re telling me you’re a vampire or something? You really are nuts.” Collin tried to stumble to the door, but was short of reaching it as he fell hard to the floor. “We’ve been running from myths and fairytales my whole life!” He pushed himself up into a kneeling position.
Percy walked over to Collin and bent down, gently trying to help his nephew off the floor and back to the bed. Collin jerked away, crawling toward the door, trying to escape this man that he now realized he didn’t really know. Just as he escaped his uncle’s grasp, the door opened. Gladys came in followed by Kendryck, Carl, Dot, Ann, and John. He shrunk away from them, pushing himself protectively into a corner.
“Collin,” Gladys said gently.
“It’s okay Collin.” Kendryck added.
“So you’re all in on this? You all think you’re some sort of immortal vampire freaks or something? What, do you drink your blood in private? Do you shop at the local blood bank?”
Percy held his hand up, signaling the others to let him handle it. “Collin, you are one of us, as were your parents.”
“So what, I’m supposed to go out and make my first kill to complete the change? Or do I just need to drink your blood?” Collin had calmed down a little, his initial fear replaced by anger.
Percy sat on the floor, keeping several feet between him and Collin so he would be less threatening.
“I was born in 1114 in what was then Normandy. My family name was Kilkenny, and my given name was Peredur. When I was 16, I joined the Templar Knights.
“While serving, I had an accident where I should have died, but did not. I served the knights for nearly 200 years. When King Philip accused the Templars of heresy in the early 1300s, I was brought before the accusers as proof that the Templars had found the Holy Grail and had used it to grant me everlasting life, thus condemning me a heretic and accusing me of defiling the Grail. I was imprisoned, awaiting execution when I was rescued by a group of fleeing Templar Knights who took an oath to protect me, and those like me. I changed my name to Percival Knighton, after the knight of King Arthur’s court and escaped to Scotland. Sheriff Payne, as you may have guessed, is a Templar, as is Dr. Babineaux. They and their order are duty bound to protect us which is why they will protect Jewell.
“When I met my wife in 1331, she was mortal, like Jewell, but chose to live her life with me. We moved often, as we do now, so as not to raise suspicion. Our flight brought us to London in 1347.” He looked at Collin. “As a history major, I would assume you know how I lost my wife.”
Collin stared at his uncle, unable to speak. He swallowed, hard. “1348, the Black Death swept London, killing millions,” he whispered.
Percy nodded slowly. “It was December, 1348. Avelyn was one of its early victims. She was only twenty seven.” Percy was crying, the pain as fresh as if she had died yesterday instead of nearly 700 years ago.
“What did you do?” Collin had forgotten his earlier incredulity.
“Well, I tried to kill myself. I started working with the priests, visiting plague victims in hopes of catching the plague myself. I wasn’t so lucky. When that didn’t work I threw myself from the cliffs, knowing that my Avelyn was waiting for me on the other side.”
“What happened?” Collin asked.
“It hurt,” Percy answered acerbically. “I was encouraged as the tide came in and I found myself completely submerged, but in a wretched twist of fate, the tide receded before I died of suffocation. I laid there for three days before a local fisherman found me, and took me back to his home where I stayed until I had recovered enough to escape his hospitality. Like I said, we are, for the most part, immortal, as my suicide attempt, and your most recent escapade has displayed.”
“What do you mean, for the most part?”
“Well, we do age, just more slowly than everyone else. It’s different for each of us, but on average we age about one year for every twenty. Eventually, just like everyone else, we die of old age. We can drown, though as I discovered, it takes an unreasonably long time; fire will eventually kill us but as with anyone else, if we don’t die from the burns, the pain is excruciating. Decapitation is the quickest way to ensure a premature death. That’s about it.”
Collin’s hand involuntarily rubbed at his throat as he thought back to his parents. They had been decapitated, and then the house was burned. Someone hadn’t been taking any chances. “But, I’m 23 and I look my age, well, maybe a little young, but I don’t look like I’m only a year old.”
“The Lazarus Gene, the key to this…disease, lies dormant until after puberty, though there are other signs that are present before that. The rapid healing, a photographic or near photographic memory, we tend to be stronger and faster than everyone else. Not excessively, but enough to make it noticeable. And some of us have other…” he paused, searching for the right word, “talents. The aging doesn’t begin to slow until after the Lazarus Gene becomes active, usually between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five.”
“What kinds of talents?” Collin asked, curious.
“Well, telepathy is common, but there are other unusual traits as well; traits that most people would refer to as ESP.”
“So, because both of my parents were, well…were like this, I am too? Why didn’t you tell me before? Why keep it a secret?” Collin’s anger had been replaced with curiosity.
“Because most children born to our kind, even those exhibiting the trait, are considered skips. In other words, one or more of the factors is missing. In some, the Lazarus Gene is never triggered, but lies dormant throughout their lives. These people live abnormally long lives, super centenarians who live to be over one-hundred years old.” Collin’s uncle paused for a minute. “Even though both of your parents were carriers of the disease, there was only a slim chance, perhaps one in ten million that you would exhibit all of the traits as well, and the Lazarus Gene would activate. You should have been a skip.”
“But I wasn’t.” Collin replied succinctly.
“No.” His uncle’s response was short, poignant.
Collin’s uncle slowly stood. His face was weary and filled with pain. He walked slowly to where Collin sat, still huddled in the corner, and reached his hand down to his nephew. Collin took his uncle’s hand and allowed his uncle to help him stand. His uncle put his arm around Collin’s waist to support him as they walked slowly to the bed.
“You still need some rest, and I haven’t slept in…” Collin’s uncle thought for a moment, “nearly forty-eight hours.” He looked at the rest of the people still standing in the room, watching the exchange between uncle and nephew. “Gladys, you need some sleep too. Dot, can you bring him some breakfast? Nothing heavy. Some fruit and toast. Maybe some scrambled eggs.” Dot nodded and hurried from the room, followed by the others. “I’ll let that sink in a little. You’ll have questions I’m sure. We’ll talk more later.” He leaned
over and gently kissed Collin on the forehead before walking slowly from the room, his head hung dejectedly, a beaten man.
Collin lay in bed thinking about what his uncle had told him. It couldn’t be true. There was no such thing as immortality; well, not physical immortality. Of course there was religious immortality, the idea of life after death, and hypothetical immortality, living on through one’s fame, but humans had been yearning for immortality since the dawn of man. There were stories of immortality in every culture. The Iliad, Gilgamesh, Ponce de Leon, the Holy Grail; maybe these weren’t just stories; maybe they had some basis in fact.
What else had his uncle said? Other traits? He had always been better at sports than all of his friends. And telepathy; he thought that having telepathic powers would be really cool. It just seemed so unbelievable. Everyone knew that physical immortality was not achievable, at least not yet. He remembered the movie Highlander. “There can be only one,” he said to himself with a small laugh. Then he thought about what Ramirez had told McLeod about McLeod’s mortal wife, “You must leave her, brother… When Shakiko died I was shattered. I would save you that pain. Please, let Heather go.” Wasn’t that exactly what his uncle had been trying to tell him? Collin jumped when Dot opened the door, bringing him his breakfast.
“How are you feeling honey?” Dot asked, carefully placing the bed tray over his legs. Collin hadn’t realized how hungry he was. Well, he thought irritably, of course he was hungry; he hadn’t eaten in over twenty four hours thanks to his uncle.
“A little better, I guess. A little hungry, actually.” Dot smiled and started to leave. “Wait. Can you sit with me while I eat?”
“Sure.” She pulled up the chair that Percy had been sitting in earlier and placed it next to the bed. She sat quietly, watching Collin pick at his food. “Did you want to talk about something, or did you just want the company?” She smiled warmly.
Collin ate a strawberry and then took a bite of scrambled eggs before answering. “I think…I want to talk.” Dot waited patiently while Collin ate a few more bites of his breakfast. “Is my uncle crazy? Is that what’s really going on here? You all wanted me to know that Uncle Percy is delusional?”