by Dan Glover
"What time is it, Karen? God, what the hell did we do last night?"
"That about sums it up, my dear, but look here, Hector. My assistant Marilyn just sent this message. A man was discovered in his home bearing the same symptoms as Lance and those villagers on the shores of Lake Baikal. I bet it's the result of our girl."
"If I agree with you can I go back to sleep for a few hours?"
"Jesus Christ, Hector, didn’t you hear what I said?"
It pissed her off that he was such a little bitch. She was hung over too. Hell, she stayed up last night after he fell into a drunken stupor since it was her only time to work undisturbed.
The man was worse than a child to travel with... he couldn’t seem to dress himself, he was constantly losing things, and he insisted upon drinking way too much considering the dangers they were facing.
"We're not going back to London now. If we do, we'll only lose more time. Goddamn it, Karen, why did you let me drink so much last night?"
"Yeah, right, Hector, I held open your mouth and forced it down your gullet. Go on back to sleep, you big baby. I'm getting up to check this memo out."
Karen slipped out from under the covers damning the early morning Russian chill as she padded to the shower setting the water as hot as she could stand it. She noticed they didn’t use protection last night hoping to Jesus, Joseph, and Mary that she remembered to take her pill yesterday. The world did not need another little Hector.
Feeling better after showering she pulled on a warm woolen robe while padding barefoot into the living room of the suite and taking out her laptop. This hotel had WiFi so she logged on, went to the Centers for Disease Control website, and pulled up the file on Harrison Buckminster Nottingham the Third.
Jesus, what a moniker to hang on a kid, she mused, as she read the highlights of the case. The man had been found in his apartment after missing a doctor's appointment and not showing up for work. Apparently he'd been feeling ill shortly after returning from his overnight shift at the train depot in London.
"The body is awaiting autopsy."
She often read out loud to herself when she was alone.
"An unknown infection overran the patient's immune system causing multiple organ failure. By God, that's our girl."
She pulled up an itinerary of Harrison Buckminster Nottingham the Third's work schedule for the last month as well as ticket sales he had made. Marilyn had been extremely thorough in her research. Karen made a mental note to put the woman in for a raise when they returned.
Mr. Nottingham was a bachelor who worked the ticket counter at the Chunnel entry. She found it curious that two nights ago he issued a ticket to Paris using his own credit card, purchasing it at half price, his personal employee discount. Obviously he did not use the ticket himself.
She wondered if he might have bought it for a friend or a lover. Scanning his personal history, Karen could find no evidence of any love interest, not even a girlfriend. He had no close family. She became convinced that he bought and issued the ticket to Lily.
The more Karen read of Mr. Nottingham and his so-called life the more depressed she became. He worked the night shift even after being employed for twenty years. The man apparently let everyone run roughshod over him. It reminded Karen of her own life and how she had compromised so much and gained so little in doing so.
A notation jumped out at her. Apparently Mr. Nottingham took a long break the night before his death. A coworker wrote him up for being gone much longer than his customary ten minutes making a note that when he returned he almost seemed to be bragging of a sexual conquest.
It seemed so incongruous with the man's sheltered existence that Karen became convinced he had met up with Lily. She considered waking Hector with the news but his snores still punctuated the silence of the suite. She could almost hear his whining at being rousted out once again. She wondered why she continued being his little rag doll, someone he could screw once or twice a year as the whim overtook him.
Hector was the lousiest lover she had ever had the sad occasion to take. He grunted like a pig in heat, climaxed way too fast, and fell into an instant and comatose-like sleep afterwards. He had no regard at all for her feelings. She understood she was being used yet she also knew she was as much of an exploiter as Hector.
Karen fired off a memo to Marilyn back at the compound before calling room service, ordering a continental breakfast, and charging it to the company. At least the snoring mongrel in the other room was good for something.
Chapter 14—Orchardton Hall
Coming of age in Orchardton Hall was equal parts idyllic and exasperating.
Nate grew so much faster than his peers—both physically and intellectually—that he left those his own age far behind yet could find little commonality with the older children. Still, with his natural good looks and genteel manners a few of the girls of the People were drawn to him as much as the two older boys shunned him calling him names like Freak, Toad, and Guppy.
He grew his dark hair long to hide his gills but the children of the People all knew of his infirmity. When he turned four years old Nate visited the Ladies with mother Natalia. Pulling back their hair and removing their shoes they showed him how they too shared his features: gills where a human being had ears and webbed fingers and toes.
"We all start life with these gills, my precious Nate. As our kind grows inside the womb these features become more pronounced while they become vestigial in human beings... what were once gills turn into ears. We retain our gills."
Lady Lauren smiled as she pulled back her tresses rolling her neck to reveal gills on each side of her head.
"But I have ears too, mother Lauren. I can hear sounds like the others."
"Of course we can hear, darling Nate. We actually see sounds, however. The organs we use to hear sounds are much more sensitive than the ears of human beings. They are more like eyes than human ears."
"Is that why I hear pictures, mother Lauren? I tell the People how I do that but they laugh at me and call me a liar."
"We sense many things human beings do not. This is not something to be ashamed of, lovely Nate. It is our heritage. Our lineage goes back much farther than that of the People... they are not much more advanced than monkeys just down from the trees."
"But my mother Natalia doesn’t have gills, mother Lauren. Why is that? Is she a human being like the ones who taunt me?"
"This is difficult for an adult to understand, much less a child. You have two mothers, sweet Nate. I am your mother, and Natalia is your mother too. This is something I tell you and you alone. It will be best not to share it with the other children.
"I fear they live to find a weakness in others and then exploit it to the fullest. That isn’t to say having two mothers is a flaw, however. It is in actuality a great and wondrous thing.
"Unfortunately, the others may not see it that way... especially those boys, Drummond and Kirk. Take care around them, darling Nate. Though they might feign friendship they mean you harm."
"Some of the kids call me Frankenstein... especially Drummond and Kirk. I read that book. Dr. Frankenstein created a man out of dead people's parts. Is that how I was made too, mother Lauren? Is that why they make fun of me?"
"Oh no, darling Nate... no... you were created out of love. Ignore those cruel children who call you names. One day you will be much stronger than they are and although you might be tempted to take revenge upon them, remember they are poor fools who know not what they say.
"You are destined to become great among the People, but remember, all those who would lead must first learn to follow. Take this time to study their ways and learn their habits... but take care that you do not emulate them for they will lead you astray."
"Are you my mother too, Lady Lily?"
"No, sweet boy... I am not related to you at all. Still, I love you just the same as if I was your mother."
"Fish have gills, Lady Lily."
"Yes, my precious Nate... fish use their gills to b
reathe under water."
"Can we breathe under water too, Lady Lily?"
"Well, it wouldn’t do us much good to have gills if we can't breathe under water, now would it. Long ago, I had no idea I could breathe the air... in fact, I thought the whole world existed inside Lake Baikal.
"One day in a fit of panic I surfaced by breaking through the thinning ice. For centuries the surface was frozen hundreds of meters thick but then a warm spell appeared and it began to melt."
"Why were you afraid, Lady Lily? Was something chasing you?"
"Yes, my darling Nate... something horribly hungry... I thought it was going to eat me. In making my escape I learned a secret few of my kind seemed to share... I could breathe the air as well as the waters of the Lake.
"In time, I began spending longer stretches upon the shores of the Lake. It was as if I was a bug who spent its whole life rolled up into a sock and suddenly the sock was unrolled. I had no idea the world was so big... or perhaps I had merely forgotten, for it seemed as if I had dreamed of it before.
"As I went forth into the new lands I learned so many things both good and evil. I discovered my touch could kill those who breathed only the air yet at the same time it could heal and renew them. They seemed drawn to me as if I was some sort of savior and later when I told them I wasn’t they didn’t want to believe me.
"I was careful—like you, my darling Nate—to hide my gills in order not to reveal what I really was. As I crept close to their fires I listened and I learned their language and how the villagers around the Lake told many stories of those like me appearing in their midst and spreading disease and death.
"I knew if they were to find out what I was, I would be killed. Yet I had done nothing to deserve such treatment. Like you, I thought I was being unjustly persecuted by those who were bent upon cruelty without cause.
"Later, however, I learned that all the stories those villagers believed about my kind were true. We had an innate defense mechanism within our bodies to ward off human beings, perhaps evolved over the eons from our long bitterness toward one another.
"You see, my special Nate, from the time human beings climbed down from the trees and started meddling in the Lake, we were on the defensive from one another.
"They seemed to revel in capturing our kind, torturing them, and... well, I am not going to dwell upon the more gruesome details of those times now... let us just say they thought we were denizens of the deep out to take from them everything we could steal.
"For our part, we came to view human beings as little more than animals. We watched as they constantly fought with one another if not with us... we listened to their screams in the night as they were put to death by their own people.
"If we happened upon them while they were swimming in our Lake, we made a habit of pulling them under where they could not exist for more than a minute or two. It was perhaps cruel on our part, I will admit."
"Why do we live with human beings if you and mother Lauren are enemies with them, Lady Lily?"
"That was my doing, sweet Nate. Your mother Lauren wanted to send them away the day they appeared here at Orchardton Hall. I changed her mind."
"But why did you do that, Lady Lily? If they are as mean as they seem, wouldn’t it be better if they all died away?"
"If that had happened, my precious Nate, you would not be here. Think of that before casting too many aspersions towards those with ears rather than gills."
Nate came away from his talk with the Ladies feeling he was a part of something instead of always being the outsider. Though he yearned to share his secret with his peers he knew if he did it would only be a misguided attempt at aggrandizing himself and not out of any sense of camaraderie.
Of all the other children of the People, ten year old Lucy was the one he was closest to. They were friends the way children the same age might be and although he was six years Lucy's junior they were the same size. His intelligence was much greater though he knew better than to exhibit it.
On warm summer days drawn by the afternoon coolness of damp air hanging under the forest canopy encroaching upon the banks the two of them frolicked in the creek that ran behind the castle. Diving in Nate's senses screamed at the richness of the water flowing through his gills as he swam beneath the surface taking great gulps but never staying down so long as to make his playmate suspicious that he really could breath liquid as well as air.
"Here they come, Nate."
As she sighed Lucy didn’t say who 'they' were though Nate understood instinctively to whom she was referring. She was nearly fully submerged in water with just her eyes and nose above the surface like a brown otter. Someone long ago dammed the creek using heavy rocks to cause the water to pool behind it wide and deep. The sound of water trickling over the stones was more than music to Nate.
Once he had exclaimed to Lucy about the myriad colors he saw dancing around the dam of stones but she had laughed derisively at him and for a moment he thought he had lost the one friend he had... but later she apologized.
"I'm sorry, Nate... I shouldn’t have laughed at you. Can you really see sounds?"
"No... I was just making it up, Lucy."
Though he hated lying to his friend Nate sensed it was better that she didn’t know the full extent of his sensory powers. Lucy had a tendency to run her mouth at times though Nate was sure it was more on account of her low self esteem than any purposeful way of hurting him.
She liked to tell stories. Sometimes they were so engaging Nate found himself believing her until some telltale sign emerged. Lucy had a habit of biting her lower lip when she was making something up... he doubted she even knew she was doing it.
Drummond and Kirk seemed to always know when Nate and Lucy were playing at the creek. When they showed up there their goal seemed to be more one of getting drunk and hassling Nate rather than to fish even though they carried poles. They were grown men yet their behavior was so child-like that Nate often thought of them as no more than boys his own age.
Today they stood on the banks of the creek drinking from an enormous brown whiskey bottle they passed back and forth while pitching rocks into the water sometimes so close to Nate that he had to duck out of the way.
"Stop it you guys. You might hit him."
"Shut up you little guppy lover or I'll drag you into the weeds by the hair and teach you a lesson."
"No you won't, Drummond."
"Oh? And just who is going to stop me... you and baby Frankenstein?"
Kneeling on the high bank Drummond made a grab at Lucy but she eluded him by swimming out of his reach to the middle of the creek. While the others were engaged in their own duel Nate dove under water making his way down past the bend in the creek to emerge out of sight of the older boys.
Picking out a stout driftwood branch laying on the banks where the spring floods deposited large clumps of debris—the stick tapered down to a smallish handle yet the club end was the size of a muskmelon, heavy yet not unwieldy—he crept back to where Drummond and Kirk were standing. Drummond was in the process of removing his clothes seemingly to dive into the water in an effort to catch Lucy.
Barefoot, Nate stepped so quietly over the sandy ground that neither man heard his approach. He announced his presence by clubbing Drummond over the back of his head knocking him to the ground before swinging and missing Kirk, who turned, dropped his fishing pole, and fled in terror.
"You little asshole... I'm going to make you wish you were never born."
Drummond struggled to get to his feet while cursing Nate. By the time he looked up it was too late. The end of the heavy driftwood club caught him under the chin toppling him over backward. Nate delivered another blow to Drummond's midsection. A sudden odor in the air indicated he had emptied his bowels.
"Come on, Nate. We better get out of here before he wakes up."
Lucy emerged dripping from the creek to take her friend by the hand leading him away from the scene of the crime. Nate tossed his club into the water flowi
ng past as they walked back to Orchardton Hall.
"You're my hero. But we better not tell anyone what happened today, Nate. You might get in trouble."
"Do you think Drummond will be okay? I hit him pretty hard."
"I hope you killed him. He deserves it. If he caught me he would have hurt me really bad again."
"Again? You mean he's hurt you before?"
"Come on... let's just go home. I don't want to think about that."
Nate lay awake that night, his mind befouled by thoughts of Drummond doing unspeakable things to his friend Lucy. He suspected the man would really have it in for him now but he was not concerned with his own safety. Drummond was a coward. He would seek to come at him indirectly, wounding those closest to him.
Nate vowed to be ready.
Chapter 15—Train to Moscow
The train bumping to a stop jostled Karen awake. She was embarrassed to look down and notice a drool spot the size of a saucer upon her shoulder where her chin had rested while she slept upright leaving a large darkened blemish on her otherwise flawless gray and white Indigo Ivy pants suit.
"Why is the train stopping again, Hector?"
"It's doubtlessly because that stupid assistant of yours put us onto a train that stops every goddamned fifteen minutes, Karen. For Christ's sake, I'm going to fire that goofy bitch first thing when we get back."
Great, Karen thought... Hector was in one of his moods again. She was used to his erratic behavior which was the main reason she withheld her findings from him. They both realized Lily was dangerous to any human being she came into contact with but Hector didn't know the whole truth.
As the train jerked to a start again though she tried to remain awake the sound of the tracks lulled Karen back into fitful slumbers. She dreamed of her time with Lily and how they bonded, or so she thought. Now that Lily had vanished, Karen wondered if she was being set up all along for this turn of events. She remembered that during one of their all-night talks Lily told Karen how she once married a human male.