by I. T. Lucas
Amanda leaned into the aisle. “I want to hear it now.”
Kian glared at Syssi. “Yeah, me too.”
She rolled her eyes. “Would you all relax? I know what I’m doing, and I’m very careful.” She patted her belly. “First, I beseeched the Fates to help me find David’s mother, and then I did what Madame Salinka taught me. I opened myself to the universe and summoned a vision.”
“Why the hell did you do that? We agreed that you should do your best to avoid having visions during the pregnancy. Who knows what damage they can cause our daughter?”
“I had to do it, Kian.” Syssi put her hand on his bicep. “If we have any hope of finding David’s mother and her husband alive, we need to hurry, and every minute counts. We can’t wait until the Guardians cover every inch of the territory between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It will take days.”
Kian crossed his arms over his chest. “With all due respect to David and his mother, my daughter is more important to me, and she should be more important to you as well. I can’t understand how you could have taken a risk like that.”
“You have nothing to worry about. Unlike my other visions, this one was very gentle, and it didn’t drain me at all.” She leaned down and pulled her tablet out of her big bag. “I was shown where Ronja and Frank are.” She activated the device and handed it to him. “I drew a map of the terrain, and I marked where their car is. I hope William can match it to a real map.”
Fortunately, Syssi had artistic talent, so the drawing was much better than what could be expected from someone reconstructing a vision. If what she’d seen was real, then William should be able to match it to the actual terrain.
He was still angry at Syssi for summoning the vision, but the information she’d obtained could potentially be a game-changer in the search.
“Did you see whether they were alive?”
Syssi cringed. “Both their seats were fully reclined, and they looked as if they were sleeping. But given how pale they were, I think they were passed out. They didn’t look dead, though.”
“Let’s hope so.” Kian pulled out his phone, forwarded the drawing to himself, and emailed it to William. “It would be a shame if you endangered our daughter for nothing.”
“Would you stop it? We are both fine.”
“I pray to the merciful Fates that you are. But you didn’t know that going in, and that was irresponsible of you.” He leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “Someone has earned herself a spanking.”
Grinning, Syssi squirmed in her seat. “Then it was doubly worth my trouble.”
8
Sari
Lisa tapped David’s shoulder. “I need to pee.”
Those were the first words she’d said since they’d entered the car more than an hour ago. After the initial volley of questions that the girl had fired at Sari, her mood had soured, and she’d spent the entire drive looking out the window.
David was somber and silent as well, and Sari didn’t feel like assuming the cheerleader’s role. If she were in their situation, she would have hated an outsider trying to cheer her up with meaningless chatter.
A cup of hot cocoa, though, could improve Lisa’s mood.
“I could use a bathroom stop as well,” Sari said. “Let’s find a gas station with a restroom and a coffee shop.”
David cast her a sidelong glance. “If you can hold it in for a little bit longer, we can stop at Victorville. It’s only about fifteen minutes away.”
“It’s not urgent.” Sari turned to Lisa. “How about you?”
“I can hold it in.” The girl slumped in the back seat and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t think that we are going to find my parents out here. Why would they leave the highway and turn onto one of those deserted roads? There is nothing to see other than dirt and rocks.”
Sari had to agree. California was a far cry from Scotland. Whatever greenery there was had been planted and was kept alive by irrigation, and as soon as they had left the densely populated area, the landscape turned dry and barren.
Miranda complained about the snow and the cold, but Sari doubted that her assistant would find the desert more appealing.
When her phone rang, David’s shoulders visibly tensed under his T-shirt, and Lisa leaned forward between the seats. “Is it Magnus?”
“Let’s see.” Sari lifted the device out of her purse. “It’s Kian.”
Lisa let out a disappointed breath. By now, she knew the main players in her parents’ rescue effort, and Magnus was the one who was calling them with updates. So far, they had consisted of the areas already covered by the search teams. But no new information.
“Hello, Kian.”
“I have potentially good news.”
Sari’s heart thundered in her chest. “Can I put you on speakerphone?”
He hesitated for a moment. “Sure.”
“Go ahead. David and Lisa can hear you.”
“I don’t want you to get your hopes up yet, but Syssi had a vision. She saw Ronja and Frank sleeping in their car with their seats reclined, which would indicate that they weren’t incapacitated by an accident, or they couldn’t have done that. The airbags didn’t deploy either. She thinks that they are both alive.”
In the back seat, Lisa started sobbing quietly.
“How reliable are Syssi’s visions?” David asked.
“Very. The problem is that usually Syssi doesn’t know the where, when, and how. This time, however, she was shown the terrain from the bird’s eye view, and she drew a map. William compared it to actual topographic maps, and he found a close match. We are sending a helicopter to search the area.”
Gripping the steering wheel with both hands, David accelerated. “Where is it?”
“Utah. I can’t begin to guess what prompted them to head out there, but the map that Syssi drew matches the terrain north of a town called Kanab, and it’s in Utah.”
“Utah?” Lisa exclaimed. “What were they doing there?”
David waved a hand to shush her. “Can William text me the location?”
“There is no point in you heading out there. It will take you five and a half hours just to get to Kanab, and then you will need to navigate dirt roads to get to them. The helicopter will be there in less than an hour. If they are found, they will be evacuated to a nearby hospital. And if they are not, the search continues as planned. Your best option is to wait. Magnus or I will call you as soon as we know one way or another. Where are you now?”
“I’m ten minutes south of Victorville. How soon will you know?”
“Since we couldn’t report it to the authorities based on a vision, we hired a private tour operator from Kanab. He should have an answer within an hour or maybe a little longer.”
“What about sending one of ours?” Sari asked.
“That would have been my preference, but it would have taken our chopper too long to get there. Not only that, it would have had to stop to refuel in Las Vegas.”
Sari shifted in her seat. “Perhaps you should send it anyway as backup. I don’t like leaving an important task like that in the hands of humans.”
“I’ll send Magnus with the helicopter and have him refuel in Victorville. If the private operator finds Ronja and Frank, Magnus will airlift you to the hospital in Kanab. If he doesn’t find them, he’ll head out there and do another flyby.”
“Thank you,” David said. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you for all the help you are providing us.”
“You are part of the family now. We take care of our own.”
9
David
“Humans?” Lisa asked from the backseat. “As opposed to what? Aliens?”
David cringed.
Given the startling news, he’d hoped Lisa hadn’t noticed Sari’s slip, but it seemed that his little sister didn’t miss much even under extreme circumstances.
Sari waved a dismissive hand. “It’s just an expression.” She turned to look at Lisa. “A private joke between my broth
er and me.”
Lisa arched a brow. “Really? You sounded dead serious.”
“That’s part of the game. We are both into science fiction, and we act out scenes from Star Trek.”
David stifled a chuckle. Not only was Sari a lousy liar, but he also couldn’t imagine Kian engaging in role-play. Thankfully, Lisa hadn’t met Kian yet, so she might believe Sari’s story.
“Aren’t you too old for that?”
“Ouch.” Sari pretended to recoil. “Do I look old?”
“No, but you act old. Don’t get me wrong, you are enviably gorgeous, but you dress old, and you are so serious, even when you are smiling. It’s cool that you still nerd out with your brother, though. I used to do that with Jonah.” Lisa’s voice hitched.
Frowning, David glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Are you okay?”
She wiped her eyes with her sleeves. “I’m not okay. But what can I do about it? Absolutely freaking nothing.”
“We’ve gotten good news, kiddo.” He plastered on what he hoped looked like an encouraging smile. “There is hope.”
She looked back at him in the mirror. “A woman who I don’t know had a vision, and I’m supposed to believe it? I know that you are into all kinds of weird stuff like reincarnation and near-death experiences, but come on, visions?”
“Reality is much more complex than what you can see, hear, smell, or touch.” David pulled into the parking lot of a Starbucks. “But let’s talk about it after you empty your bladder and then refill it with a venti Frappuccino.”
“Yeah. I really need to go.” Lisa opened the back passenger door and rushed out.
“Do you need to go as well?” he asked Sari.
She shook her head. “I don’t need to, but I’ll go nonetheless.” She cast him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry about the slip-up.”
“That’s okay. We will need to tell her sooner or later, right?”
“It can wait. She’s still a kid.”
“What if my mother and Frank don’t make it? If we bring Lisa to Scotland with us, we will need to tell her what’s going on. Besides, I want her to turn immortal as soon as possible. I need her to be safe.”
“It might be a problem. Lisa is past puberty, so she’s too old for the bite alone to do the trick, but she is too young to have sex with an immortal male.”
“Can we send her to spend time with your mother? Perhaps she will transition just from that.”
“Lisa is not a baby or a toddler either, so that’s not going to work. But she’ll be safe there.”
He sighed. “If our mother doesn’t make it, Lisa will need me. I can’t send her off to live in your mother’s sanctuary until she is old enough to fall in love and have sex.”
“Let’s worry about that later.” Sari opened the passenger side door. “Do you need to use the restrooms as well?”
“Yeah. I’ve been chugging water like a camel.”
“It’s good for you.” She waited for him to lock the car. “You’ve just started your transition, and you are overtaxing yourself. Perhaps I should drive from now on.”
He cast her an incredulous look. “When was the last time you drove a car on the right side of the road?”
“Never. But so what? I’m an immortal with incredibly fast responses. I will learn in no time.”
“Not with my still very mortal sister in the car.”
“Admit it.” She leveled her eyes at his with a pretend glare. “You just don’t want to relinquish the steering wheel to a woman. It’s a macho thing.”
“It’s not. And to prove it, when we get back to Scotland, you’ll be the designated driver because I’ve never driven on the left side of the road.”
Sari deflated. “Okay. You win.” With a sigh, she leaned on his arm. “Let’s tell Lisa now. I think that hearing about your experience with Jonah will give her comfort, and it will also make her more inclined to believe in Syssi’s vision. I can thrall her memory of it away later and replace it with something else.”
“Shouldn’t you test her first? What if she’s immune?”
“You’re right. I should.” Sari shook her head. “I keep thinking of Lisa as part of the family, and my guard is down.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“I really like your sister, and I hope for her sake that she has more time with her parents and her friends in the human world. She would be lonely in Scotland.”
“She’ll have us.”
“That’s not enough for a teenager, but if need be, it will have to do.”
10
Sari
“This is heaven.” Lisa slurped her Venti Frappuccino. “I do feel better after peeing and having this yummy Frappuccino.”
Her body was vibrating with stress, and the brave face she was putting on wasn’t fooling Sari. The next hour or so was going to be the longest in David and Lisa’s lives.
He wrapped his arm around his sister’s shoulders. “You should know by now that I’m always right.”
“Except for when you are wrong, like believing in visions and reincarnation and all that nonsense.”
David looked at Sari over Lisa’s head. “How are we going to do this?”
“Let’s get back in the car. I don’t want us to be overheard.”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “Ooh, that sounds so mysterious.”
“I have a better idea.” David started walking toward an outdoor sitting area. “Can you shroud us?”
The lone guy sitting at one of the tables looked up at them. His eyes widening, he gave Sari a thorough once-over.
She lowered her voice. “He already saw us, so I can’t make us suddenly disappear. But I can shroud the sound of our conversation. He will think that we are deaf.”
“Good enough.” David pulled out a chair for Sari and another for his sister.
Her brows dipping low, Lisa looked at David, then at Sari, and then at David again. “You are really weirding me out. Are you on drugs?”
Smiling, Sari waved her hand to cast a shroud around the three of them. “Yell help.”
“Why?”
“Just humor me. Yell at the top of your lungs.”
Lisa shrugged. “Okay. Here it goes.” She looked directly at the guy. “Help! My brother and his girlfriend are crazy! Help!”
When he just kept looking at Sari, Lisa yelled even louder, “Help! I need help! Save me from these crazy people!”
The guy looked away.
“Maybe he is deaf?”
“What about them?” Sari pointed at a couple walking toward the restrooms. “They should have heard you.”
For a long moment, Lisa gaped at her. “Are you seriously blocking the sounds we make? How is it possible? Are you a witch?”
“No, I’m an immortal, and I can manipulate humans’ minds.”
“Like hypnosis?”
“It’s a good analogy.”
“What about David and me? We are human, so how can we hear you and ourselves, but the others cannot? Can you pick and choose?”
Sari nodded. “Just don’t ask me how I do that. I think of who I want to include inside the bubble, and who I want outside of it.”
“Sari is not just an immortal.” David took Sari’s hand. “She is a demigoddess.”
“I’m dreaming.” Taking the Frappuccino with her, Lisa slumped back in her chair. “I just don’t know if it’s a good dream or a nightmare. Can someone wake me up, please? So I can go and kiss Mom and tell her that I love her and that I’m never letting her go anywhere again? Dad too. But mostly Mom.”
Poor kid.
Sari commanded the tears stinging the back of her eyes to retreat. It wasn’t about her. It was about Lisa.
“I wish I could tell you that you are dreaming, but you are not, and it’s not all bad. You and your brother are carriers of godly genes. David’s were recently activated, and since you share the same mother, we know that you are a carrier too, and we will activate yours as well.”
“Our mother is not immor
tal. I wish she was.”
“She is a dormant carrier. The immortal genes are transferred through the mother, and since David successfully transitioned, you and your mother must be carriers as well.”
Cradling the Frappuccino in her hands, Lisa leaned forward. “Assuming that I’m not dreaming and that you are not high on drugs, how did you know that David was a carrier?”
Expecting Lisa’s disbelief, Sari wasn’t offended. “My cousin met David and felt a strong affinity toward him. The best way to explain the affinity immortals and Dormants feel toward each other is that it is a sensation of like recognizing like.”
“Like members of the same tribe?” Lisa asked. “Us versus them, and all that?”
“That’s a good way to describe it. Anyway, Kalugal decided to play matchmaker and convinced David to accompany him on a vacation to Scotland. He didn’t tell me or anyone else that he was bringing a potential Dormant to my castle. He hoped that as soon as we laid eyes on each other, sparks would fly, and no one would get mad at him for doing such a crazy thing.”
Lisa smiled. “I guess that he was right?”
“Absolutely. David and I fell for each other hard and fast, and that was even before I told him my secret.”
“No wonder. You are gorgeous, and David is a hunk. So how did you activate his dormant genes? Was it like kissing the frog and turning the human into an immortal?”
Lisa was still pretending that it was a big joke to her, but Sari sensed that she was on the right track to acceptance.
“Female immortals can’t activate a Dormant’s genes. Only male immortals have the fangs and venom necessary for the induction. My cousin induced David.”
Lisa arched a brow. “Fangs? Venom? Don’t tell me that you are bloodsucking vampires.”
“We don’t drink blood, but I imagine that the vampire legends are based on us.”
Turning to David, Lisa pointed a finger at his mouth. “Do you have fangs?”
“Not yet. It will take about six months for them to grow.”