by M. Lorrox
She reaches out and takes his hand. “Do you really want to kiss me?”
They’re behind the hotel they stayed at in DC, under the moonlight. Eddy swallows. “Yes.”
As she steps closer to him, the world around him disappears, and all sense of up or down is gone. Her face draws closer, her chocolate eyes staring into his green eyes. He parts his lips with an inhale, and her finger slides his hair away from his face.
Beneath him, he feels the soft grass he lies on. Her face is above his, and her hair dangles down and tickles his neck. It frames her face and shuts out the rest of the world like curtains. She closes her eyes and lowers her lips to his. He closes his eyes and wraps his arms around her.
A thousand miles away, Dr. Melgaard jolts his head closer to the monitor where his most recent test results display. That’s it. That’s it! The protein binds the virus in bioglass! I’ve never seen anything like this in mammals! Genius!
Lars closes his eyes and takes a breath as a shiver courses through his body. You’ve done it. He opens his eyes to the results, and he bites his bottom lip. Not dreaming!
Once again, he scrolls through the data, then he pulls up an image of the hard substance Candace found back in the lab. It’s a compound similar to the bioglass Tardigrades can make to survive dehydration, but this is profoundly more unique. This bioglass protected the virus and June’s blood from being obliterated by the autoclave. That’s how the viral envelope is protected during dehydration and extreme heat. Amazing... But how did she make it?
He checks the process on her DNA sequencing. 90%. Hmm, doesn’t truly matter, not time to find the genes responsible anyway, and no point—that protein is the answer!
The protein isn’t named; it’s only labeled with a number to track the tests performed. Lars licks his lips and types in a name for it: Mithrilin.
He checks his watch. It’s a little early for the team, but not too early. He switches to a different program and types a message to SeCComm:
@Hector, @SeCComm, I discovered the missing piece. Send both the Virology and Biotech teams to my lab immediately. We can launch our attacks in a few days.
-Beep, beep, beep, beep…- In the early hours of Sunday morning, the alarm on Sadie’s phone goes off, and she grumbles while reaching to silence it. Need more sleep.
Minnie, who was also sleeping in the bed with her, rouses and kicks Sadie in the leg. Minnie sits up and yawns.
Rusty, at the foot of the bed, also gets up. He shakes his body and vibrates the bed.
FINE. Sadie sits up and turns on the light. She blinks reality into her tired eyes: all around them, a small, cramped, crappy hotel room. She groans and collapses back to the bed.
Minnie shakes her mommy’s arm. “It’s morning, we have to wake up now.”
Sadie pretends to snore like Charlie.
Minnie giggles, then pushes on her mom’s side. “Come on, the desk lady said they’d have muffins downstairs.”
Oh right. Well, one plus of being in a cheap hotel is they give you free, cheap food...and coffee. Sadie sits up. “Okay, give me just a minute.”
Rusty takes a few steps and jumps his front paws onto Sadie’s thigh. He pants and wags his tail.
“Yes Rust, I see you’re finally awake too now. I’ll let you out.”
He jumps off the bed and runs over to the door. -Bark!-
Sadie holds her head.
Next door, in a non-adjoining room, Skip mumbles in his sleep, “No… Minnie…” He sleeps on his back, and his recently cast-encased leg is propped up on pillows.
Katlyn lies asleep, next to him. She’s on her side facing toward him with both her hands clasped together and held up by her face.
Skip twitches his head, and his face grimaces, mumbling a scream, “Zombies!”
Katlyn jolts awake. “Huh?” She notices that Skip is sort of quaking with his eyes squeezed shut, and she sits up and grabs his shoulder. “Hey, wake up. You’re dreaming.”
His eyes flash open, and he scans the room in a panic. He sees her face, then he calms. He closes his eyes and groans. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I was dreaming that I lost Minnie in the museum, and then that the zombie that tackled me on the roof…bit me and then got her.” He feels the ache in his leg rise above the waning painkillers, and he sighs.
Katlyn sighs. “It was just a dream.”
Skip slips his hand into hers. “I’m sorry if I woke you… I had nightmares all night.”
She tries to hide her frown. “Friday was pretty traumatic, but you helped save everyone.”
“Tell that to my hippocampus or wherever dreams come from.” He glances past her to the edge of the curtains. A soft glow of light soaks beyond them. “Looks like it’s morning.” Maybe I can take another pill soon.
“Is it?” She flops over and reaches for her phone to check the time. “I guess so...” She turns back around and nuzzles up next to him. “I don’t want to get up.”
He pulls his hand away from her and wraps his arm around her, rubbing her back. “Me neither. I’m so glad you stayed with me...” He swallows and takes a relaxing breath. “It feels so right...with you beside me.”
She nuzzles into him again. “You’re welcome.”
They rest for another minute, then there’s a knock at the door. Katlyn gets up and answers it. When she is greeted by Sadie Costanza, the interim prime minister, Katlyn realizes that she answered the door wearing nothing but her silk nighty. “Oh! Good morning.” She hides her body behind the door.
Sadie smirks. I’ve seen it all before, girl... “I’m sorry to bother you. I texted Skip, but he didn’t answer.”
From inside the small room, Skip’s voice calls out, “Sorry… I turned it off.”
Sadie shrugs. “I’m taking Minnie down for breakfast, and I wondered if we can bring something up for you both. Would that be okay?”
Katlyn’s eyes dart between Sadie’s. Do I accept? Would that be rude? Would it be rude NOT to accept? What wouldn’t be rude? Should I go instead?
Skip’s voice calls out again, “Thanks Sadie. As long as the coffee is hot, I’ll tolerate whatever you can bring back.”
Sadie smiles at the conflicted Katlyn. “How do you take your coffee, dear?”
She shakes her head. “You’re too kind, I couldn’t imagine imposing—”
“She takes cream and no sugar.”
Sadie leans her head into the room. “Thanks, Skip.” She smiles back at Katlyn. “It’s the least I can do to thank you for watching Minnie. We’ll be back with your breakfast in a couple minutes.” Then, without waiting for a response, Sadie walks away.
Katlyn closes the door and stares, then she glances into the room and sees her and Skip’s things tossed around. She tears into the mess and starts to pick up. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe she saw all this.”
“Hey... Katlyn... BABE!”
She turns to him with a pile of clothes in her arm. A dirty sock falls to the floor.
“Just pretend Sadie’s like...my sister or something. She’s not the kind of person that likes special treatment.”
She drops all the clothes from her arms and drops her mouth open. “Do you think I offended her? I mean I—”
“Katlyn, chill. Just come here and snuggle me, will you?”
She walks over and plops her face into the sheets beside Skip like an ostrich hiding from the world.
He smiles and rubs her neck.
An hour later, Sadie drops Minnie and a bag of toys off in their room. “Thank you so much.”
Katlyn, who hasn’t touched her breakfast but who has showered, dressed, and cleaned every inch of the hotel room, smiles beside the door. “It’s no problem at all!”
As Sadie leaves, she glances again through the door to Minnie and waves. Damn their room is clean... I’ll give that about ten seco
nds. “Have fun Minnie, and don’t worry, you’re safe.”
Minnie purses her lips and nods, but at the same time, she squeezes Valentine harder.
As Katlyn closes the door and turns around, Minnie dumps the bag of toys onto the hotel’s faded carpet. She situates Valentine in the bag so the little unicorn’s floppy arms and head stick out. Minnie smiles and holds the bag out to Katlyn. “Valentine wants to pretend she’s a cannonball. We need to make a proper canon to shoot her out of. Any ideas?”
Sadie walks down the hall to another room and knocks on the door. She’s let inside, and as she enters, she’s greeted by a mostly grumpy-faced High Council. The only exceptions are the new interim high councilors: Dr. Penelope Peeters, the Army Research Laboratory scientist who volunteered to chair the Advancement and Studies Cabinet; and Raúl Lucas, Sadie’s old friend who is right at home as the chair of the Treasury Cabinet.
Raúl smiles as Sadie walks in. “We’re a little short on space, but you can sit here if you like.” He pats the spot beside him on the queen-sized bed.
She smirks and shakes her head. “It might be more appropriate that I stand. Now, Vincent, I need your approval for a special mission.”
He sips coffee from a styrofoam cup that he got downstairs. He grimaces at the texture of the cup on his lips and the taste of burnt beans on his tongue. “Is it to put us out of our misery?”
Sadie shakes her head. “It’s actually to prevent something like that.” She glances at Raúl and Penelope, then to High Councilor James Cartwright, chair of the Culture and Histories cabinet. “James, perhaps this is a good time to brief the new councilors on some ancient vampire history?”
He squints at her, then he realizes that others are watching him. He clears his throat while spinning a ring around his finger. “Are you talking about the, uh—”
“I’m talking about my charge as the protector of the Cardinal Vengeance Armlets.”
He wipes his suddenly sweaty forehead. “As you wish…”
He tells a story similar to the one Sky shared with her friends in DC, about a betrayed god, a deal with death, ancient relics, and the importance of keeping a set of four pieces of jewelry—a ring, a pendant, and two armlets—safe and separate. “And so you see, these pieces of jewelry and the information they protect must always be guarded.”
Penelope is skeptical. “Skipping past all the gods and demons nonsense, you’re telling me that there are artifacts out there from the very first vampires, and that they’re actually dangerous?”
James nods.
“I find it hard to believe that they actually pose a threat.”
Sadie clears her throat. “Whoever went through the trouble of hiding the relics and inscribing these pieces of jewelry certainly believed the threat. In any case, the armlets were stolen, and they need to be recovered.”
Vincent purses his lips. “In the past, whenever there was an issue regarding these items, it was kept quiet. We never officially sent knights on any missions…”
Sadie shakes her head. “Ideally, I’d just send my husband, but he’s already deployed. I do have a plan involving those kids that attacked my son and Enrique. Whoever we send will have to work with them.”
Vincent’s eyes light up, and he nods. “I believe I have just the person, but he’ll need supervision.”
Vincent gives Jambavan his first official—albeit off the record—mission as a fully-fledged Knight of the Order, where he will aid the prime minister. Jambavan nods with determination and then meets privately with Sadie.
She gives him his first task: find an experienced knight to supervise him.
His spirits crumble. “But, uh, I’m a knight now.”
Sadie places her hand on his shoulder. “Yes, you are, but you are inexperienced. This is an important mission, and you’ll need backup. Find a knight to work with you. They will technically be calling the shots, but this will always be your mission as much as theirs.”
“Okay.” He snaps into a partial attention stance: his right forearm is in a cast and that arm rests in a sling, so he only moves his left arm.
Sadie gives him a nod. “Dismissed.”
He steps outside the room, then he pauses. He tests his shoulder with the broken clavicle, and as he moves it, it hurts. Not too bad though, I’ll just be careful. He takes off the sling, and he goes hunting. His prey: a capable and experienced knight. His hunting ground: the breakfast area of the hotel where preservative-laden muffins, packages of oatmeal, and de-concentrated frozen orange juice concentrate pours from a large dispenser. While those areas are mostly ignored, the coffee pot has a line. Jackpot.
He walks up to Coach. They met about a year ago with when Coach and Korina worked together. At that time, Jambavan was still Korina’s squire. “Sir, do you remember me?”
Coach blinks at him a few times and leans closer to him. “Jamby, I haven’t had my coffee yet.”
He smiles. They used to call me that when I was a squire, but now... He smiles at Coach. “I’m a knight now. Use my full name.”
Coach nods. “Very right.” He clasps his large hand onto Jambavan’s uninjured shoulder. “Neith will be remembered.”
“Yes, she will... I was wondering if you’d like to volunteer to help me on a mission. I’ve been asked to recover some important items and, ideally, the man who took them.”
The line for the coffee moves up one, and Coach takes a quarter stride forward. “I look forward to working with you someday, but...” He shakes his head. “Well, I feel compelled to go back to DC. Ever since Friday when I first went in, I’ve been helping out at this college there. There’s still zombies to clear out inside the quarantine, and I’m going to ask for permission to go back in.”
Jambavan nods. “Okay, I understand.” He stares for a moment.
“Everything alright, knight?”
He snaps out of it. “Yes... Could you introduce me to someone that might be able to help me? I mostly only know Council Guards, and they all have their hands full with security.”
Coach smiles, then he glances past Jambavan, over the tall boy’s shoulder, to the knight behind him. “What do you think, Qilin? Want to get back to work?”
Jambavan turns to face the shorter woman who wears tight jeans and a t-shirt.
Her hair is a mess, and her eyes are half-closed, but she still manages a smile for the young knight. “Jambavan, right? I’m Qilin.” She extends her hand, and he shakes it. “I’ll help you.”
Jambavan smiles. “Excellent. We need to leave soon—”
Her smile fades. “Slow down now, I need my coffee first.” A devil’s grin swirls up and onto her lips, and she clears her throat. She speaks loudly, “If there’s an official mission, I’d say that’s grounds for cutting line.”
All the knights in front of her groan, and she steps forward past them. She pours her coffee. “So, Jambavan, what’s this mission?”
“I’ll summarize: we need to stake out a parking garage where a deal is happening, then seize the merchandise, and if possible, the buyer.”
As she finishes pouring the coffee into her cup, the aroma—which is more delicious than the actual coffee—reaches her nose. It carries rich notes of cherry and molasses. Mmm... “Who’s the seller?”
“That’s the interesting part. There’s two of them. One is the hooligan that stabbed Enrique, the squire, in the stomach. He’s not the sharpest, and so we’ll have his other friend—who was also part of the group that stole the initial merchandise, but who herself was stabbed by the other seller—we’ll have her on radio contact with our seller, hopefully unbeknownst to the other seller and the buyer.”
Qilin finishes making her coffee and snaps on a white coffee cup lid. She steps out from the line. “All I heard was, it’s complicated.”
He nods. “Slightly. Come on.”
She takes her first sip and tastes th
e same disappointment that those who had gotten coffee earlier experienced. Jeez, this is terrible.
When the 747 finally lands in Queenstown, New Zealand, the passengers and pilots are approaching full-on stir-crazy. They’ve been traveling for the past sixteen hours, and although that’s not usually problematic, their trip has been unusually stressful.
The pilot, Jim Cook, and copilot, George Russo, taxi the plane to where they were instructed. When they park—before they finish the insanely long, shut-down procedure—they both drop their arms from the controls, close their eyes, and shake their heads.
George, groans. “I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking I should definitely take some shore-leave for a few days. You?”
Jim nods. “Yeah, man...but I hope you realize that those shores will be in Hawaii; we have to swap the planes back.”
George closes his eyes and dies a little, then considers that right now in New Zealand, they’re in the southern hemisphere, in their fall, while Hawaii is in the northern hemisphere and is closer to the equator, in their spring. He opens his eyes and rubs his hands together. “Sounds perfect.”
Jim laughs. “Alright, deal. We’ll sleep here, then leave in...say, ten hours.”
“Done.” George attacks the list of steps he needs to complete in order to shut down the plane.
The team is also ready for something...anything other than being on the plane. Now that the plane has stopped taxiing, they leap from their seats and prepare to unload their gear. At the cockpit, Charlie takes a moment to thank Jim and George, and then he leads his team off the plane.
Due to airport regulations, they’re not allowed to carry their weapons inside the terminal past the security checkpoints—something everyone ignored in Honolulu, because ZOMBIES—so the team climbs down a ladder truck onto the tarmac. They make their way to a nearby hangar with their gear in tow and with a renewed sense of purpose now that they’re on the ground.
Hecate walks alongside Charlie. “Are we leaving the children or taking them with us?”