From the foyer, she led me into an enormous living room decorated with fine furniture and an abundance of nautical-based art. On the far wall was an elevator. She pressed the button and I could hear cables coming to life in the shaft.
"I will give you two some privacy. Just press number three and it will take you directly to Andre's quarters."
"Thank you." The wood paneled door slid open.
"It is you that we owe our gratitude." Monique paused, as if considering how to proceed. "I have been hoping to find you for a very long time." She smiled a smile that was as familiar to me as my own face, and finally, she removed the sunglasses. Our eyes locked for a brief second, and those too, I suddenly recognized. There was only one woman I had ever known with such azure-blue eyes as radiant as a summer sky.
"Go," she said, and then turned and walked quickly away.
"Monique?" I called, but she vanished around a corner.
I stepped into the elevator feeling numb, and pressed the button. The doors slid shut and the elevator moved smoothly up. In the brief time that the journey took, my apprehension level grew. The doors opened. I exited and looked around the open floor plan. A bed surrounded by electronic medical-monitoring devices caught my attention, but it was empty. I scanned an arrangement of brown-leather couches surrounded by tall bookshelves. A picture on an end table caught my attention. I walked to it and picked it up. It was an old black-and-white of Elizabeth. My heart fluttered. I had taken the picture around 1940.
"Monique is the spitting image of her. Wouldn't you agree?" I looked up and saw my son, old and frail, maneuver his motorized wheelchair in from an adjoining room. "Hello, Michael."
Chapter 26
"Andre, how have you been?" I sat the picture down and walked to my adopted child from another life. Before speaking, he broke out into a fit of coughing so intense that I grew worried, but it subsided just as I was about to call for assistance. He pulled a blood-speckled handkerchief away from his mouth, and looked up smiling.
"It would be a lie to say that I haven't been better. Please, sit. We have much to talk about." I eased into one of the couches while he situated his wheelchair across from me.
"Is there anything I can do to help you? I have…"
"Venom," he interrupted. "Yes, I know all about your powers. I wish to die with dignity, so no thank you."
"Okay." I shelved the idea, not wanting to provoke another round of coughing, but planned to bring it back up once he was more comfortable with me. "Monique, is she your daughter?"
"Ah, my friend, you are the eye of a hurricane, but you don't even know the hurricane exists beyond your sunny skies, do you?" Confused, I looked at him questionably. "For you to understand, I must start at the beginning, but first, would you like something to drink? I brought fresh blood in for your visit."
"I'm fine for now, thank you. I'm surprised you know so much about me."
"Actually, I know almost everything about you. We've kept an eye on you for years."
"What? Why haven't you contacted me then?"
"And tell you what? That you are an alien from another dimension who drinks blood for energy? You lacked your memory; you would have either laughed or gone mad."
"I'm sure you could have persuaded me. I knew I was unusual."
"Let me tell you a story, Michael. A story from my childhood." He cleared his throat and settled more comfortably into his wheelchair. "One day, my father vanished without saying goodbye. As I lay in bed that night crying, my mother sat next to me, trying to convince me that you were on a brief business trip, but I could tell that she was unsure herself."
"Andre, I'm so sorry. I did return, but you were gone." Guilt welled up within me.
"I do not mean to make you feel bad. I see now that all was necessary. So as my mother talked softly, I drifted off to sleep, but awoke later in the night to the sound of her screams coming from outside my room. Frightened, but worried, I snuck to my door and peered out. I saw German soldiers ransacking the living room, and then my door busted open. While they held us secured, they tore apart my room also. In the end, the entire house was in shambles. Neither of us knew what they were looking for, but I know they didn't find it." He paused, reached for a bottle of water in the wheelchair's cup holder, and drank deeply. After setting it down, he once again suffered a coughing fit, which I watched helplessly.
"I apologize," he said, recovered. "Where was I?"
"The soldiers didn't find what they were looking for."
"Oh yes. This upset them greatly, and I heard several worry that the devil would kill them if they didn't find it."
"The devil? Are you familiar with one named Samael?" I asked.
"Yes. He is the only devil, and he had considerable control over the Nazis. The soldiers threatened to torture us if we didn't tell them where a vial was, but of course we didn't know what they were talking about. They dragged us out of the house and to a nearby concentration camp…"
"Andre, if this is too painful, please stop," I interrupted, thinking it would be too painful for my ears as well.
"If I stop, then you will never see the hurricane that surrounds you." With a hard look in his eyes, he continued, "At the camp, mother was strapped to a chair and forced to watch the soldiers beat me. They promised to stop if she told them where some kind of potion was, but she suffered a seizure instead. When she awoke, her eyes were the deepest black and long teeth protruded out of her mouth. She broke the straps and decapitated every man in the room. Sadly, I was already paralyzed from the waist down from their torture."
A deep silence developed as I confronted the implication of his words.
"Michael, Elizabeth is one of your kind, taking the same memory-altering potion as you. She had purposefully taken it around the same time as you so that you two could hide together, and wake together."
"But how? I have no memory of her before we first met in the thirties. I would remember sharing the potion with her."
"How did you meet?"
I failed to respond due to anguished thoughts of betrayals and lies swirling in my head.
"How did you meet?" he repeated.
"Nothing special. A friend of mine introduced us."
"Are you sure there was nothing special about this friend?"
I considered and then said, "Not that I can remember."
"What color were his eyes?" Andre asked.
I thought hard, trying to remember the details of an acquaintance probably long dead. "Brown, I think, but wait…blue. I remember asking him what happened to his eyes. They were crazy blue that day. He claimed it was flash burn from a welding accident."
"And the person who gave you the potion originally? What about his eyes?"
"Nostradamus…" I felt my belly turn upside down. "Intense blue."
"I suggest to you that Nostradamus, and the man that introduced you to Elizabeth are the same person, and that this potion was not yours exclusively." He had been leaning forward, but now relaxed as if satisfied that he had made his point.
Inside, I gathered courage, preparing to ask a question that the answer to could change my life forever. "If Elizabeth is like me, then that means she should still be alive?"
He smiled and said, "Monique is not my daughter."
I stared at him for a moment, and then stammered, "She's…she's your mother?"
"Yes."
"What!" I jumped up, so excited that my fangs dropped down. "I must go to her now!"
"Michael! Sit, there is more I must tell you," he said.
"But if Elizabeth lives, that's all that matters!"
"No, it is not! Please, sit down," he said firmly. Hesitantly, I complied. "Like you, my mother had her own cache of potion. Ironically, she buried it in the yard, where the Nazis never searched but had to have walked over it several times. After escaping the concentration camp, she downed it in order to stay invisible from both society and Samael. She knows about you from what she told me when her memory briefly returned, and what we have disc
overed watching you all these years. She knows what you are, but Michael, she doesn't remember you."
"Well, if she took it near when I did, then it must wear off soon," I said.
"True, but until that happens, you must not push her. Do not try to rekindle what you lost."
"But…"
"No!" he yelled vehemently, shocking me. "During her brief awakening, while she sat at my bedside in the hospital, she told me many things. Things she must tell you herself. Nothing was what it seemed, and nothing is as it seems now. Do you understand?"
"No."
"Please, just trust me until her memory returns."
"Fair enough," I conceded. He cleared his throat harshly, and drowned the irritation with water.
"Now I must warn you about something else," he said.
"There's more?"
"Yours is a very large hurricane. Your enemy has been keeping close watch on you during your pretend life."
"Samael?"
"Yes, he has a very large organization now. I have developed my own, thanks to your gift so long ago, and have infiltrated many of his operations. I was told you made a visit with the woman, Karen Weiss, to a place called Plasma Worx?"
"Yes, but how did you…" I recalled the woman at Karen's work looking at me strangely. "The supervisor, Donna was her name…she works for you?"
He nodded and then said, "The company itself is owned by Samael."
"Oh my god, they tried to recruit me." I was dumbfounded, and then it dawned on me that my first trip to Plama Worx was preordained due to my nature, and Samael knew it. I recalled the receptionist at the blood facility, and how concerned she appeared when I first walked in, and her words on the phone…yes it is. What had been the question? Possibly, is it Mike Spencer? Then I remembered walking outside and thinking the cameras were off, but they weren't; they tracked me to where Karen conveniently emerged to confront me. The company Ricka had talked about was Plasma Worx. Jack was supposed to encourage me to go there, but instead I had raided it on my own.
"If you had accepted their job offer, Samael would have delighted in having you that close every day," Andre said. "He cryogenically stores the virus that is so deadly to you there, so killing you would have been easy once he got what he was after."
"Wait a second." A dreadful thought occurred to me. "If Samael owns the place, then what about Karen?"
"And that is my warning. Samael is also the listed owner of Karen's house, where you and your daughter were staying. Actually, we have intelligence that he was there when you first arrived." I looked at him, unable to speak, remembering the wet shower Karen said she never used, the pictures taken from the upstairs walkway of Lori arriving, and how Karen showed up in my bedroom just as I was exiting the window.
"I'm unsure of Karen's exact relationship to Samael," he continued. "She just appeared out of nowhere, but she is working for him. Of that I am certain."
"But…but she said she had AIDS and I cured her. Her ex left her due to it. She seemed so sincere and I didn't detect her lying!"
"I imagine the AIDS story was designed to make you feel sorry for her. She is a very good actress, I'll give her that. An FBI…” Andre heaved, fighting back the cough, but failed. He retrieved a clean handkerchief from the side of the wheelchair and struggled to breathe through an intense episode that lasted for over a minute. I considered jumping up and biting him, but felt that would be unforgivable in his eyes, so I just waited in turmoil. Finally, he took a raspy breath, driving the bluish color from his face.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"That is a stupid question," he replied, more in jest than irritation. "An FBI agent was found dead in Virginia. Do you know an Agent Blackwell."
"Yes. He's dead?"
"Uh-huh. Whomever he was driving with threw him out of the car, which was doing highway speeds at the time. Do you know who he was driving with?" he asked.
"Karen told me he was taking her to Little Creek. She said he had Navy friends there."
"We researched him. Blackwell was never in the Navy," he stated.
"But she said he was a SEAL. The president was waiting to talk to me there for Christ's sake, so there has to be some truth to it."
"The truth, Michael, is that the United States government is now a puppet government. Samael is pulling the strings."
"How do you know all this?" I asked.
"I told you, I have developed a very large organization of my own. Soon, Samael will publicly announce himself to the world."
"Then I'll just kill him."
"You must stay away from him!" Phlegm rose in his throat, and he cleared it loudly. "If he kills you with his virus, then all is lost. They…need…you." Andre's face turned red as he fought back more coughs. He reached for his water, but stopped short as hacking spasms overcame him. I worried as his face turned from red to blue once again, and blood filled the handkerchief he grasped weakly. With a shaking hand, he reached for an electronic pendant hanging around his neck, but missed it. I jumped up and pressed the tiny button for him, and then stared at the man. I couldn't just watch him die, not only for love, but because I also needed his information. My fangs snapped out, dripping venom ready.
"No," he managed to wheeze. The door burst open and Monique rushed in, followed by a nurse.
"Andre!" Monique cried out, racing to his side and opening a storage area recessed in the wheelchair's arm. I backed away and watched her in fascination, now knowing her true identity. She withdrew an inhaler. "Okay, try to relax for just a second." Andre complied by passing out due to lack of oxygen.
"It's too late for that," the nurse said, a portable respirator in her hands. She slipped a facemask over Andre's head and began forcing oxygen into him. "We have to get him back to bed."
Monique wheeled the still unconscious man to his bedside, and her and I gently lifted and placed him on the mattress. Quickly the nurse went to work hooking him up to a permanent respirator, giving him a shot, and checking his vitals.
"He insisted that he not be in bed when he first met you," Monique said as we watched and hoped.
"I wish he hadn't," I replied.
"He told you everything?" she asked.
"I think so. He told me about you."
She turned and looked at me, her face filled with confusion and fear. Andre's eyes fluttered and then opened, causing Monique to turn away and lean close to him. "Take it easy. Don't speak. Everything is fine. Just rest, Son," she said. It was very strange to see a thirty-some-year-old woman call a man in his seventies son.
"The test?" he asked, his weak voice muffled by the mask.
"Don't worry about it now," she told him.
"Tell me," he insisted.
"Positive. Now rest."
"Tell him."
"Andre, now is not the time."
"He needs to know. Tell him or I will."
"Okay, okay. Calm down or you'll bring on another episode." She stood and faced me. "What he's talking about is the contents of the box your lady friend brought along."
"What about it?" I asked.
"We had it analyzed."
"Why? It's just dried out blood."
"The plastic packages are, true, but we were more interested in the test tube of liquid."
"The one she said she filled with water before we flew out of the base?" I asked.
"Yes, but it's not water. It is contaminated with the virus that can kill you. You should choose your girlfriends more carefully, Michael."
"She's not my girlfriend. Where is she? I want to talk to her now." There was a good chance talk would turn into murder, such were my emotions.
Chapter 27
"We've checked her out. She has none of the virus left in her possession, and she still insists she's innocent," the talented English-accented, chauffer-pilot, and apparent head of security informed us in front of the door behind which Karen was being detained.
"Thank you, George," Monique responded.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to be alon
e with her," I said.
"I understand. I have to review some reports, and then perhaps we can get together for lunch?" Monique asked.
"Sure," I replied, too consumed with Karen's betrayal to let myself get nervous about lunch with my former wife.
George unlocked and opened the door for me, and I stepped into a second-floor apartment designed for long-term guests. In front of me was a living room with a couch and loveseat focused on a large wall-mounted television. Karen was not there. I walked in further as the door closed and locked behind me. To my right, light streamed in through a large bay window that displayed a picturesque view of the ocean. Karen stood there, her back to me, staring out at the world beyond. As I walked towards her, she turned around. Her face was red and streaked from crying.
"Mike! Thank god! We have to get out of here. These people are crazy!" She rushed to me, but I backed away, causing her to stop short. "Mike? You don't believe them do you?"
"Is it true that you work for Samael?"
"Jesus! It's true I went to work for Plasma Worx because they offered me a lab and research autonomy, but I didn't know some rich psycho-demon owned the place."
As she talked, I watched her face close, my eyes searching for micro-expressions that may indicate lying. My nostrils flared, sniffing for a hint of deception. I wasn't happy about the information my senses perceived. It wasn't that she was lying, but neither was she telling the truth. Somehow the results were mixed, which I had never seen in a human before.
"The vial you said you filled up with water to test that freeze-dried blood was contaminated with Samael's virus. If we had tested it like you wanted, I would have died in front of my daughter." She looked down, fingers fidgeting as if she had suddenly become very nervous. "Karen, tell me the truth."
"I…I don't remember the truth, but I swear I thought it was water," she said, her red and swollen eyes pleading for understanding.
"Did you fill the vial up with water or did someone give it to you?" I circled her, trying to figure out where the deception was.
"Mike, I can't…shit!" Her face lit up in revelation. "Somehow I knew it was there, ready to go!"
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