by Jess C Scott
Anya felt a lump in her throat. She didn’t know if the pure iron in the ropes were enough to kill them, or if Julius was planning something more sinister.
“I have a happy pill in the works too,” Julius went on. “It induces good and long-lasting feelings, with few harmful side effects—I intend to sell it as a love pill for single people.”
A jolt of a shock ran through her body when she thought of the look Julius had given her in her room, when Leticia had seen the slip of paper on which Anya had written about a certain “Mr. Perfect.” Good Lord, Anya thought, that’s why Julius was looking at me that way—I was just another experiment!
Julius turned back slightly, as he and Leticia walked out arm in arm. “I forgot the diamond dust.”
“I’ll get it,” she replied. He continued up some stairs, while Leticia re-entered the lab.
Leticia grabbed a packet on a counter, which held three crystal pendants. She turned back, making sure Julius was nowhere near, before hurrying over to Anya. Leticia produced a small wire cutter from her back pocket, and cut through the ropes holding Anya’s hands. She gave Anya the packet, and held up her own icicle pendant, which she had hidden in her pocket. She also handed Anya a small thumbdrive.
“He didn’t know I had one,” Leticia said in a hushed voice, even though Julius was out of earshot. “He cracked one open and poured it into one of the vials.” Leticia pointed to the blue box, before pointing at the thumbdrive. “Has Julius’s password—I set the video in a loop for just a short while—pass this to Dresan—he’ll know what to do.”
Anya looked around the room, and Julius’s laptop in the corner, and understood. Julius would surely have cameras spying on their every move while he was away from his home and underground lab.
Anya gave her best friend a tight hug, then stared at her with an open mouth. She managed to verbalize what she meant to ask. “How did all this happen?”
“I’m so sorry,” Leticia whispered to Anya and Nin. She clasped her hands, begging their forgiveness. “I had to make him think I was on his side, then he said Tavia was here, and he said he could use that to lure all of you here, and he was right! There was no other way!”
“For what?”
“To see what he knows,” Nin said, joining Leticia in placing the blame primarily on Julius, “and what he really has in mind. You’ve done enough, sweet lady. He’ll be wondering where you are if you don’t join him soon.”
Leticia nodded. “What do we do?”
Nin shrugged. “See you at the Amazon. We might beat you to it…15-45, 47-57…”
Leticia stared at Nin.
“The exact location at the Amazon,” Nin said with a smile. “Using the latitude and longitude co-ordinates.”
Leticia hurried out. Nin made sure Anya hid the wire cutter, as he counted to one hundred—in case Julius came back down—which Anya felt was like counting to a million. But having her hands unbound saved Anya a lot of time, as she could get straight to the rope at her ankles, then proceed to assist the elves out of their misery.
“What is that symbol?” Anya asked, as she started cutting through the rope that bound Nin’s wrists.
Nin gave her a swift, sweet kiss on the lips, when she came close enough. Anya barely noticed. She was more concerned for the elves’ well-being.
Anya continued in one breath, “Are you okay?” She gazed at his slim, white body, searching for any other bruises, cuts, or scars she might have missed. “Did he take your blood? Are they”—she turned her head toward Dresan and Tavia—“okay?”
Tavia slumped onto the ground right at that moment, with a soft thud.
Anya froze. A sense of dread surged within her—had she and Nin delayed for a minute too long?
“Help Tavia,” Nin said to Anya, shaking off the remaining rope from his hands. “She’s weak—Julius took her blood.”
Anya ran over with the wire cutter. The wire cutter slipped out of her trembling hand once, due to anxiety. Tavia wasn’t moving, but was still breathing. Anya’s hand was sore by the time she cut through a third of the rope holding Tavia’s wrists. Tavia had a few cuts across the surface of her skin, from the rope.
“Use the other hand,” Nin advised Anya. He had already untied a portion of the iron twine fastened round his ankles.
Anya did as she was told, using both hands to add more pressure to the wire cutter. She flung aside the pieces of rope as far as she could, once they were off.
“I’ve been trying to figure that Zodiac symbol out,” Nin replied, fatigued but focused. “The two versions of the parchment—Gilbreth’s and the Elven one—they’re exactly the same, except for the symbol. I’m sure the Tree of Life bears the answer we seek.”
“The VU,” Anya began, “I mean, The Velvet Underground…is it connected?”
“It is, indeed.” Nin stood up once the rope around his ankles were off, and detached the wires that Julius had hooked him up to, before taking over from Anya with the wire cutter. “There’s a station near the location. We’ll need to walk a short distance, but it’d still be way faster than a jet plane.” He paused, before adding, “I hope.”
Anya went over to the blue box, as Nin quickly cut through the ropes that held Dresan. Anya saw that the glass vials were labeled at the top with a black marker. ‘H’ stood for human blood, while ‘E’ was for Elven. The liquid solution in one of the vials had a slight shimmer, and no label. The partial elixir that Julius had tested.
“I wonder why Julius didn’t draw my blood,” Nin said, checking his arms, which showed no marks, apart from where the iron rope had bit into his skin. When Tavia’s ropes were free, Nin lifted one of her eyelids. Her pupil was dilated.
“He found a kindred spirit in you,” Anya replied over her shoulder. “He liked talking with you.”
“Isn’t that disturbing?” Nin wore a befuddled look on his face. He got that impression from Julius too. Nin pondered on it, as he continued working the wire cutter. He had Dresan’s set of ropes left to cut through.
“He’s mad,” Anya said, feeling absolutely powerless against Julius and his plans.
“Real love is not equal to looks.” Nin thought about Julius, youth, and aging. “If a person loves your looks only, they don’t really love you as a person…how you look and how you love are two different things—it’s what under the surface that really counts. A happiness elixir—I’d make that if I knew how, and give it to everyone for free. What’s the point in having all the money and all the things in the world, if you’re not content with what you have? The more you acquire, the more you desire.”
Anya didn’t interrupt, quietly inspired by Nin’s perspectives. Nin matched Julius in terms of intensity and passion in his own beliefs.
“Hey…” Dresan slurred, opening his eyes. “Guess I woke up at the right time?”
“Yes,” Nin said. He checked Tavia’s pulse once Dresan was free from the metallic ropes, and noticed an injection mark he had missed earlier. “I think she got a heavier dose of the drug. Anya’s got something for you.”
“Yeah,” Dresan told him, shaking his wrists to get the blood circulating. “She said something he didn’t like. You know Tavia.”
Anya handed the thumbdrive to Dresan, and pointed at the laptop, and looked up at the corners of the room, even though she couldn’t tell where any of the cameras were located. Dresan got the message, and went over to the laptop right away. Nin’s shirt was near the laptop—he grabbed it and put it on, once Dresan had tossed it over.
Dresan retrieved the laptop’s password in a snap, and set to work tweaking the security devices. “Just a couple of minutes…” he muttered to himself, relieved it was a standard security system he was familiar with. He could alter the images so that Julius would not see what had just happened, if he checked in on them from one of his devices en route to the Amazon.
Nin lifted Tavia’s limp body in his arms. Nin knew Tavia was a tough femme. But right now, he wasn’t entirely sure whether they had managed to
rescue her in time. They weren’t accustomed to the severe circumstances they’d recently run into.
He turned to Anya, who was staring at Tavia’s hand. Even the ink marks on her tattoo seemed pallid. “Does Julius have more than one car?” Riding back on the motorbikes was out of the question, with Tavia in her present condition.
Anya nodded. “Three in the garage.”
“Good,” Nin said. He looked around the room. The charts and graphs could be left behind. What they needed were the vials, and what they had brought along with them.
“I’ll get our stuff,” Dresan said, pointing to a black duffel bag chucked in one corner. He went over and lifted Nin’s N-Gage device from the bag to make his point. Julius had stuffed the elves’ items into one of his gym bags.
“I’ll get the keys to the car.” Anya dashed up the stairs. Keys, keys, keys, the refrain chanted in her mind, keeping in time with each step that she took. In the past few hours, keys—simple objects with the sole, simple, singular purpose of unlocking security devices—had played such a significant role in her life.
“What did I miss?” Dresan asked.
Nin pointed to the box of vials, and the packet of crystal pendants lying next to it, gesturing to Dresan to get the items. Anya had left the all-important vials and diamond dust behind, in her excitement to get the car keys.
Anya came rushing back in, and took the materials when Dresan held it out to her. She turned to Nin. “Glass door. I don’t have the password.” She left out that she had almost tripped on her step when she was thinking of the keys.
“All right,” said Nin. For a moment, he glanced at the packet in Anya’s hand, which held the three pendants.
Anya understood what Nin wanted when she looked into his eyes. The pendants were a sign of the elves’ kinship. She held the three crystals out—Dresan stepped up to take two. One for himself, and the other for Tavia, who was being carried by Nin.
“Hold on to mine,” Nin said to Anya.
The elves followed Anya up a flight of stairs, then down a walkway to a glass door. Anya felt like she was in an experience of déjà vu—the glass door reminded her of the one at the Gilbreth Institute.
“Stand back,” Dresan let the rest know, as he drew one of his guns from the duffel bag. A few shots positively melted the glass panel. Anya watched as the glass melted from the center outward, charring some of the edges of the door’s frame. There was a slightly sizzling sound coming from the singed edges, like invisible sparks were still leaping off from the metal. The melted glass gave off a rank odor, but at least it didn’t irritate the lungs, like the plumes from the black-and-silver tube had. Nin stepped through after Dresan and Anya.
“Emergency case,” he let Anya know, when she turned back to survey the damage.
A lift brought them up to the basement of the house, before Anya finally got a set of keys and headed to the garage. Nin pulled out of the driveway in a deep red Lexus, with Anya beside him, and Dresan at the back, with Tavia stretched out.
Nin paused for a brief instant, to wear the crystal pendant Anya returned to him.
“We should get her back to Velvet,” Nin said, glancing back at Tavia, before facing forward again to keep his eyes on the road.
Dresan tried to make sure Tavia was in a comfortable position. He lifted one of Tavia’s limp arms, then held his breath. He thought he saw one of Tavia’s hands give a slight twitch.
“Where am I…” Tavia mumbled, in a semi-articulate low groan.
“She’s awake!” Anya would’ve hugged Tavia if she wasn’t on the passenger seat. She grabbed the steering wheel when Nin swerved off the road for a moment, as he heard the good news.
Tavia thrust a hand into the duffel bag, and took her gun back, the one with the matching embellishment to her tattoo.
“Julius…” Tavia spat his name out. “Said I didn’t even put up a fight, when he crept up on me at the Gilbreth.”
“He drugged you?” Anya meant to ask if that’s what he had done at the Gilbreth. Tavia would surely have defended herself, otherwise.
“Yeah, he must have.” Tavia raised one of her arms, observing a small red mark. It was the injection mark Nin had seen. “This second one wasn’t too bad though…”
“What was that one?” Nin asked, glancing at Tavia by taking a quick look in the rear mirror.
“Don’t know,” Tavia mumbled. “The second one was…mind-altering. You’ll see bursts of color in your mind. They make the colors of a rainbow look weak.”
“You were half-dead five minutes ago…” Dresan said, in a tone that indicated he wasn’t surprised at all, “and now you’re ready to roll...”
Tavia waved her hand up. “Totally.”
Chapter 17:
Nin sped all the way to The Velvet Underground club.
“This is one of the number one cars in the world,” Anya couldn’t help but mention, as she studied the dashboard.
“I can see why,” Nin replied. The Lexus Roadster was fashioned from lightweight carbon aluminum fiber, powered by a high-revving V12 engine, and featured a speed adaptive rear wing.
Nin swerved at one point, narrowly missing a group of junkies passed out on the side of the road. The Lexus screeched to a halt when he slammed down the brakes. Dresan carried Tavia in his arms when she got groggy, as she was making her way down the stairs. Anya held onto the blue box tightly, as she followed the Elven trio down the passageway to the train carriage.
Tavia and Dresan reached out for a couple of silver cases that were located under of the carriage’s seats. They set to work assembling pieces of a gun, from the compact cases that they could carry about which contained the individual parts.
Tavia’s tattoo had taken on a stronger glow, as she thought back over the day’s events. “I just feel like it’s my fault. I’m the one who said we had to break into the GI, like…now.” We have to act now, she remembered saying to Anya, when Anya and Leticia had first visited their underground abode. Or it might be too late. Tavia had just been following her gut, that Bloodstar and all of life were in imminent danger. “Maybe we should have waited a bit more.”
“And let nobody stop that psycho?” Dresan gave Tavia a simple pat on the back of her shoulder. “We’re safe and alive—that’s all that matters.”
“For now,” Tavia replied with an all-knowing sarcasm.
“Julius’s parchment,” Nin said to Dresan, once they had stepped into the train, “had a Zodiac symbol, of twelve segments, each representing one of the Zodiac signs, framed by a golden circle.”
“Albrecht’s Sky Map of the Northern Hemisphere?” Dresan asked, as he called up a database of Elven and medieval emblems, on his laptop.
“That’s what I thought too.” Nin scanned the rows and columns of the pictures on the screen. Several were a close match, though none were an exact match.
Tavia set the train’s destination, before slumping onto the seat next to Nin and Anya. Anya carefully opened the box and lifted the partial elixir.
“It had a slight shimmer, just now.” Anya shook the vial, and pieces of the diamond dust inside swirled up, like the little particles in a snow globe.
“That’s missing the tree root, and moonshine,” Nin noted. He held up the pendant Leticia had passed to Anya, which glinted in the train lights overhead. “Moonshine never fades.”
Nin pondered for a moment, then summed up the reason for their journey to the Tree. “I believe we need to find the redroot,” he said, “and the symbol.”
“What if the symbol was just…a design?” Anya asked. “We don’t know much about…the human version of the parchment.”
Nin nodded. He considered for a few seconds, before adding, “It’s Bloodstar that needs the elixir, not us.”
He didn’t know how he knew—it was just what he felt needed to be done. ‘2, 1, 7’ was a code of some sort. He was fixing the pieces in his mind—the numbers, along with the Zodiac symbol and o, i, l lettering, which didn’t match up in the two parchment v
ersions.
“How do you know?” Anya asked, echoing his own thoughts.
Nin struggled to explain. “The tree…the symbol…” He wanted to fit the pieces together—and felt he might be able to discover how, once they got to the main site of the Tree of Life.
“You’ll figure it out.” Anya had faith in his capabilities, as did the other members of the Elven trio. Anya lay a hand over his, to show her care and support. She quickly drew it back when Dresan and Tavia noticed.
Nin gathered the team. “The last time we were there, the area surrounding the tree was cordoned off. There are guards patrolling the perimeters, while the scientists”—he paused for a moment—“or Xenith employees, are inside the compound. They’ve tents set up.”
“How many tents are there, exactly?” Anya asked nervously. She’d help the elves if they needed more backup, in terms of defense. But did she trust herself with one of their plasma guns?
“About ten or so,” Dresan answered. “The scientists would go to the tree, take some measurements, or samples, and then scuttle back into their tents. A few of them were armed too.”
Dresan brought up a 3D map on the laptop, which showed Xenith’s compound in the Amazon. Red dots were scattered at various points around the broad chasm. When the map zoomed out, a green circle in the middle denoted the Tree of Life.
“These were ‘safe zones’ we recorded,” Nin explained to Anya, referring to the red dots he was studying, “the last time we were there. These spots give us a panoramic view of the compound, while keeping us safely hidden. Guards are situated all around the perimeter…and are on constant patrol.”
“They don’t fall asleep on duty too,” Dresan said in a daunting tone. “And have more…sophisticated weapons, than the guards at the Gilbreth.”
Anya gulped. She remembered the hulking figure of the head guard, and it was far from a pleasant memory.
“Tell her about the stone,” Tavia said, with a surreptitious grin.
Dresan rolled his eyes. “We were checking the place out,” he began. “There were guards crawling all over the place that day. I was being careful—”