by C. L. Quinn
“Nay. We’ve both racked out brains and called everyone we know. We checked with Ahmose and the children of the moon because they seemed like the best place to find out about something possibly older than vampires. They can’t find anything in their ancient writings about an illness like this. We’re stuck, my girl.”
“Not until we can’t fight anymore. I have a team on this, and Sarah has some interesting theories about the first blood bodies they uncovered in Siberia. She thinks that there may be a link to the deaths of so many vampires and this virus. You need to get home to your family and just keep the children safe.”
“And what about my grandson?”
“Koen, I don’t know. This is new and I admit that I’m scared. It’s all I can do right now to remain calm. And father, my son hasn’t moved much in the past eighteen hours. I can’t connect with him.”
“Aw, darlin’…”
“Don’t. Don’t get emotional on me, I’m trying desperately not to cry. So, just let everyone know that I’m fine and we’ll keep them informed. And one last thing. I mean this, if anyone in the household feels sick or off, and especially if anyone comes up with a nosebleed, get them out of there right away and bring them here. Above all, we have to contain this. We can’t let it spread any further.”
“I’ll make sure. Park, if you get worse, promise me that you’ll have Bas let me know immediately.”
“I promise. Go home, father, and kiss everyone for me.”
Reluctantly, Koen left, but the entire way back to his villa, he felt as if the sky was going to crash in on him and crush him into the earth so deep, no one would ever find him. This was one of the moments that made the idea of immortality seem monstrous.
She had to get better and that baby had to be all right.
All of Sarah’s samples were in progress, every type of test or analysis possible. As she unpacked the rest of the leather bag, she heard a rattle and opened the mouth of the bag wider to fish around the bottom. Her fingers closed around a tube and pulled it up to look at it under the light.
She’d forgotten about the strange sealed tube.
“What’s that?” Aliene, a pretty ginger-haired girl who’d been assigned to assist Sarah stopped behind her.
“I don’t know. It’s a strange material for something that is obviously very, very old. The cap looks tight, I don’t believe air has breached it. Do you have a glove box?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I need to open this but I don’t want to do it without isolating it first, just in case.”
“Over in this alcove, ma’am.”
“Sarah, please. Ma’am makes me sound like every bit of my 125 years.”
Aliene blinked, her brows tenting. “What?”
Suddenly aware that this lab tech wasn’t read in on the vampire world, Sarah smiled and shrugged. “Just kidding. Ah, here they are. Thank you. Let me know as soon as you get the results back on the samples.”
Alone now, Sarah placed the tube inside the sealed box with gloves that allowed her access from outside. She could handle the vial with no exposure in case it was contaminated or the more likely possibility that it may contain something that the air might damage.
Once the box was secure, Sarah slipped her hands into the gloves and gently twisted the cap. It resisted, and she worked it every way possible. Even several carefully applied wrenches designed to grasp small things didn’t budge the cap.
“What I need is a telekinetic,” Sarah said out loud.
“Huh, don’t we all! Can’t get it open, eh?” Aliene leaned over Sarah’s shoulder, something that she had never liked. For her, it was too close and too personal and felt like an invasion. Pushing back, she stood. “Yeah, don’t we though? I’ll be right back. Don’t touch anything here, okay?”
“I understand.”
Sarah walked to the door, nervous to leave the young woman with her sample, but she needed some air and to call Olivia. She needed a telekinetic and luckily, she knew exactly where to find one.
“Holy shit. I’m a super-powerful vampire with an incredible family history, and now, I’m a research assistant. What a great week!”
“Yes, thank you for coming. Do you remember this tube we found in the burial chamber in Siberia?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I need to get it open, but the seal won’t budge. Do you think you can move it up and out of the tube with your telekinetic skill?"
“I can try. I’m quite new at this, of course, so don’t be disappointed if I can’t.”
“I will appreciate the effort either way, Olivia.”
Sarah led her to the isolation box. “Here it is. We need to be careful. I don’t want the tube broken or the contents, if there are any, to be damaged. You just need to get that cap to come free. I think it’s like a cork, and must seal tight into the tube. Since it’s been there for likely thousands of years, it may not be possible.”
“I’ll give it my best. I’ve been pretty good at doing some impossible things in my time.”
“I have faith in you.” Sarah stepped back enough to let Olivia have full access to the tube, which lay on its side in the box.
Taking a deep breath, Olivia began by closing her eyes and controlling her respiration. Suddenly, Olivia’s eyes popped open and honed in on the tube, her body completely still. Shifting her gaze to the tube, Sarah watched for movement.
Minutes passed while nothing happened. Sarah blinked to remoisten her eyes from staring without doing so for too long. Then she saw the tube begin to roll.
It was a slow roll at first, then quicker. Unexpectedly, it lifted and then dropped back down onto the floor of the box, but now vertical instead of horizontal. Still quiet, still unmoving, Olivia reached out to the tube, not to the cap that covered its contents, but to the inside of the tube. She felt for the bottom of the cap.
“You’re right, Sarah, it is a cork, like nothing we’ve ever seen. But I got it.”
She did, too. The key wasn’t to try to pull it out from the outside, it had to be pushed from within. Pressing against the bottom of the cork, Olivia pushed, gently, and it began to slide upward, upward, upward, slowly and steadily, until it came completely off with a quiet hiss.
Olivia turned to look at an ecstatic Sarah. “Freaking awesome, isn’t it?”
“Freaking,” Sarah agreed. “Thank you so much for this. I don’t know if I would have ever gotten it off.”
“You wouldn’t have. Sarah, the tube is from a first blood clan, and it was meant for only a first blood to know its contents. You could never have pulled the cap off, it had to be pushed from the inside, with magic.”
Olivia put her right hand over the top of the box and twisted her fingers. “Here is what you seek.”
A rolled scroll traveled from within the tube, lifted and uncurled to hang suspended above the empty tube that now fell back over onto its side.
“It’s a document,” Sarah commented as she moved closer and tried to read it. She couldn’t.
“Olivia, do you recognize this language?”
“No. It’s obviously ancient. It’s possible that one of the old ones at the villa can read it, or at least point us in the direction of something or someone who can.”
“Let me catch some shots and we can take them…”
“Not necessary.” Olivia shook her head, lifted a hand rapidly almost in a salute, and the glove box popped open. “The scroll is not contaminated. Nor is the vessel.”
She reached in, gently lifted the scroll out and placed it on Sarah’s hand. “But it is important.”
“How do you know if you can’t read it?”
“Intuition? Prognostication? I don’t really understand either, but I do know that it is true. This document must be read and soon.”
“Let’s find Eillia, Xavier, and Koen.”
“Ah, ha! I win!”
Park laughed as Vaz yelled his victory over her in a fourth game of chess. “You did. Fair, too. I think.”
S
he put a hand to her temple and pressed.
Vaz moved closer. “Park, you’ve been doing that all night. Are you okay?”
“Umm, yeah. Just a really nagging headache. I assume that’s to be expected. Have you felt any symptoms yet?”
Shaking his head, Vaz carefully reset the chess board.
“No. Baron says I’m still negative on all the tests. I was in close proximity to every victim in Switzerland, so I don’t know.”
“There must be some natural immunity. Maybe this thing guns for cute American girls.”
He smiled. “That fits, then. Do you need to lie down?”
“I might. Sorry, I’ll give you another chance tomorrow night, okay? My head is pounding out a heavy rock beat.”
“Sure. Lie down and I’ll bring you a couple of those Macadamia nut cookies Bas brought.”
“Oh, God, yes.”
“I wish Bernie would wake up. She loves anything from Hawaii. I bought her a hula skirt and lei last year for Christmas and, let’s just say, we got creative.”
“Ugh, no, don’t make me picture it. I already desperately miss my mate.”
Vaz’s gaze moved to Bernie. “I do too. We never made it official, but when she gets well, we’re having a huge ceremony.”
“Whenever it is, it’s on my calendar, Vaz.”
“The moment we’re all cleared and out of here.”
He brought the cookie to Park, and after a few bites, she laid it aside, and dropped her throbbing head onto her pillow.
Her head ached horribly, true, but it wasn’t what hurt most. This time away from Bas and Cairine was impossibly painful. She couldn’t even think about the chance that she and her son wouldn’t survive this. With focus, she was able to find comfort in sleep.
Sometime later, Park startled awake to screams as something loud clattered near her bed. Torn from sleep so sharply, she wakened sluggishly. She’d been dreaming of waking next to Bas, sunlight coming through a window to warm her face, the heat and light so welcome. It was a common dream for her.
But the screams in the room shattered through the dreamscape and Park rolled upright to scan the room. What the hell was happening? Her eyes landed immediately on Burne, up from her bed, pressed against the glass divider, arms outspread, Vaz beside her, the object of her screams.
“Bernie...” Park whispered and hurried over to her.
“Where the fuck am I?” Burne yelled, her eyes wild and searching as she kept kicking out at the man who was trying to get closer to her.
Vaz reached for her. “Baby, it’s me, you’re all right. Bernie...”
Burne slammed a fist into Vaz’s face hard enough to knock him onto the floor. Park moved in to protect him in case Burne went after him again.
Disoriented and terrified, Burne’s eyes dropped to Park, on the floor beneath her with Vaz.
“Where am I?” she screamed again. Then, after a confused stare and hesitation, she barked, “Park?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Bernie. And Vaz. Look.” Helping him to his feet, Park reached for a towel nearby and handed it to him since Burne had torn a gash above his left eyebrow that bled freely.
“Bernie, baby, it’s me.” Vaz tried to move closer, but Burne kicked out again.
“No! No, Vaz is in Switzerland. He didn’t come, and now it’s too late.”
“I’m here. Nothing is too late. I wouldn’t leave you alone when you need me, Bernie.”
“I can’t breathe.” Burne shoved Vaz back once more, but with less force, and walked away from him. “This room is small and the air is stale. I’m hungry and I need a deep breath. I need to see the sky.” She whirled around to face Park and Vaz, who’d followed her.
Tears welled in Burne’s eyes now. “I miss the sky. Clouds rolling past bright blue as the sun sneaks back out. Rainy days that clean the land. I miss swimming in the ocean, and watching the sea lions sunning themselves on those big old rocks jutting up from crashing waves.”
“Oh, Bernie, we all do. Right now, we have to get you well, and then we’ll take a walk along the sea again, okay? Bernie, you remember Vaz, don’t you? This is Vaz.”
“Yeah…” Bernie slowly walked up to Vaz and laid a hand on his cheek, the un-spilled tears still caught in glittery eyes.
“I love you, vampire. I did from that first moment you sat across from me in Vancouver and told me that I was going to be an awesome vampire. I wouldn’t have wanted to have missed meeting you.”
She grimaced. “I hurt, so bad, worse, I think, than then.”
“Worse than your conversion?” Vaz asked, hoping she didn’t.
“No.” A moment later she nodded. “Yes. This is different.” Silent for a few moments, she leaned closer to Vaz and Park, her eyes moved back and forth between them. She whispered, as if it were a secret, “I know that this is killing me.”
Taking her arm, Vaz gently led Burne back to her bed as Park called Baron.
“Burne is awake. We’re taking care of her right now, and I’m going to take her vitals, but could you send in some food. She hasn’t eaten in days, she’s gotta be starving.”
“I’ll send something in right away.”
“Thank you.”
Park looked back at Burne, tears pressed against her eyes too. Vaz lay on the bed with her, holding her close as she moaned. She was in so much pain, and so was Vaz. Not because he was sick, he continued to test negative for the virus, but because she was…because he knew that he was losing her.
Park turned to Baron. “There’s nothing that we can do for her.”
He answered even though he knew that it wasn’t a question. “As you know, no known antiviral works on this thing. Park, it kills an infected human host too, but the recent tests with Burne’s blood shows that it really latches onto the cells altered with the vampire virus. It’s like this new virus ramps up into a super-virus when it encounters the one that makes you vampire. And your own virus is losing the battle.”
“There’s never been anything like this in the thousand years of first blood history. How do we beat it?”
What Baron said next was no surprise, but Park’s chest seized and the tears that threatened came.
“So far, we can’t.”
There was little left to say. A team of the top professionals in the field of pathogens of this nature had found no cure, nothing hopeful in days of focused, desperate research.
The spirit amulet bonded to Park by the universe and first blood magic was still. When she reached for it to protect her, as it was always meant to do, it was silent. If Burne didn’t make it through this, surely Park’s first blood powers could help her to do so. That had been the expectation, but it was a flawed hope. This virus was killing Park’s body too.
Baron coughed. “I’ll get another blood sample from each of you before you go back to your rest. We won’t stop, Park.”
“Thank you. I’ll be over with Vaz and Bernie.”
As Park said goodnight to the gentle man who had tried as hard as humanly possible to help her people, she knew that this was beyond human medicine. It was time to try the only possible course they had left.
First blood magic was the only chance now.
The six pages were intact and in spectacular condition for paper that had to be several thousand years old. She couldn’t decide if it was some type of textile or wood pulp product at first, but after looking at a page under a microscope, she knew that it was nothing she’d ever seen before. It was smooth, pristine, with no visible flaws, and had a slightly vanilla scent, pleasant for something sealed inside a tube for so long. The paper had no degradation at all.
When they arrived back at the villa, all of the first bloods had retired for the day. Olivia grabbed some food and peeled off to go to her room.
“We’ll finish tonight, Sarah. We’ll figure this out.”
“We will. Rest well, Olivia, and thank you.”
“No need. What is happening here, this sickness, nothing is more important than that scroll now. We have go
od minds and strong magic, and I feel as if we’ll need them all.”
Twenty minutes later, Sarah stood on the balcony on the main living level and watched the sun rise over the edge of the shining sea. She’d been just outside of Paris for most of her over 100 years of life, and seeing this extraordinary beauty made her heart swell in joy. For someone who’d lived so long, she realized she’d done little and been very few places in that time.
After she helped unravel this mystery, Sarah knew…it was time to make some changes. So, back to the contents of the tube. It would be 12 hours before she could check with the elders in the household, so she used Koen’s big new computer station, fortunately placed at a large desk facing the balcony, and searched through every archive she could find through the day. No site had any information on writing even similar to the characters on the ancient papers. Four hours later after frustrating, unsuccessful research, Sarah stopped to get something to eat and to take a nap since she would be up all night with the vampires. Taking a long last lingering look at the sun shining on the now sparkling water as far as she could see, she went to her room, peeled off her clothes and dropped into the incredibly comfortable bed. Night would come too soon.
Dreams of summertime and sunshine kept Park asleep longer than usual. Tonight, she could not wake easily. She watched the sun rise between buildings in downtown L.A., long shadows stretching down alleys. As usual, all she wanted to do was go towards the light.
But something pulled her abruptly away, something dark on the other side of the light, something important. From that beautiful sleep, she heard a voice insist.
I need you…
Park lay still, her eyes suddenly open, urgently wakened. Under-cabinet lights threw strange shadows into the room as she sat up. Who was calling her? No one was near, she scanned the big room. Forms in the two beds to her right were Vaz, sleeping, his bright hair spread on the white pillow, and Bernie, wrapped in her blankets.
She pushed upright, swung her feet to the cold tile and walked past Vaz to Bernie’s bed. Her covers were bundled high around her.