by Simone Sinna
Silas nodded.
“So at worst we have to wait until the current youngest is beyond reproductive age to be sure they will not find a cure. No more than forty years to be rid of the purebloods. Because it doesn’t affect men, however, we have had to consider that they might reproduce with…someone other than a were-devil. The page with the green writing is the trajectory if they mate with ghosts, the red if they mate with humans.”
“Excellent,” said Silas, nodding. “Mordecai?”
“I don’t understand this bit in green,” said Mordecai, sounding sulky. “It seems to divert into two possibilities.”
Silas looked at Kadar but it was Damon who answered. “The first, short one is if the ghosts aren’t given the antidote.”
Silas looked at him in amazement and started chuckling. “My oh my, I was right about you.” His son glared at them, but Silas ignored him, and, taking a set of keys from his robe, he unlocked Damon’s handcuffs.
Damon rubbed his wrists and waited pointedly for his brother to also be released.
“I might be able to dispense with the rest of the family,” said Damon mildly. “But Kadar is part of the package.”
Silas hesitated, but then undid Kadar’s lock as well.
Kadar walked to the end of the room. “What’s this?”
Damon, now able to go closer, saw that in the sunken pit there was a large circular plaque, maybe ten feet in diameter. It looked like it was made up of millions of small pieces of colored glass. The very center was circular and black, with a small spiraled prominence surrounded by a rim of white in the shape of an eye.
“The Oracle,” said Silas, watching Damon.
Damon was certain he was being tested but had no idea what he was meant to do or feel.
“So tell me,” said Silas. “If I was to ask the Oracle which gene it was we were most interested in, which one would he tell me?”
Silence hung over the room, thick with threat. Mordecai smirked in delight. Damon closed his eyes and when he did, he knew immediately. It was what Misty had told him as he had struggled to find her through the doors.
“Twenty-second.”
Mordecai gaped.
“The arm with the G protein receptor,” Damon added. “Ghosts and vampires have the arm that is missing in were-devils and humans, so they don’t recognize viruses that have it. So their immune response doesn’t get activated.”
Silas smiled, his eyeteeth, yellow and stained with age, in full view. “It seems that the time may have come to put our differences to rest,” he said.
Damon bowed his head. “I think this could be a most profitable alliance.”
“Now we can listen to what the Oracle says,” said Silas. “But Mordecai? Perhaps we should let our little friend join the fun?”
Mordecai looked set to refuse, but after a quick glance at his father, he stiffened and nodded. Silas smiled at the ghost brothers while they waited to see what else he had in store.
* * * *
When the vampires had effortlessly pushed aside her attempts at barricades, Misty had instantly transformed and tried her best to bite and scratch them, fighting with every ounce of energy, as if her life depended on it. She knew it probably did. But there were four of them and only one of her. They must have knocked her unconscious, because when she woke, she was chained up in a damp cellar, the smell of salt thick in the air, the distant sound of the sea pounding against the walls. She figured she was in Robin Hood’s Bay. It smelt too similar to her earlier experience hiding in the cellar, and besides, obviously either there or Whitby was where the vampires hung out.
She was alone for a long time. Time enough to rage at her own stupidity and despair that she hadn’t been able to help her men. But not long enough to lose her willpower. When the vampires came to feed her, the rage boiled inside her and she refused to speak.
“It doesn’t matter,” said the evil looking vampire who seemed to enjoy her discomfort. “We know you’ve told the secret to the Karlssens. Whether you have or haven’t, you’re as good as dead, anyway. I enjoyed killing the last were-devil, but he died far too quickly. With you, I’m going to take my time.”
He was so close she could smell the foulness of his breath. In that instant her grandfather was with her and she knew she was looking at the person who had murdered him. She spat in his face.
“You’ll regret that,” said Evil Vampire, wiping her spittle from his cheek. “I’ll watch you burn like I watched him burn. But you, you will still be alive.”
Later an older man came in, grandly dressed in a black robe with gold trimming and a gold medallion, and stood watching her silently, his scrutiny all the more disturbing for its pointlessness. Finally he came closer.
“Do you really think they love you?” he whispered.
She knew he saw her start, knew that he knew his words had hit their mark.
“In the end,” he whispered, “blood will win out.”
A lot more time passed. Misty dropped in and out of sleep. In one dream she found herself back in the white room where she had been with Damon, looking at the door he had told her not to open when he’d wanted her to stay with her feelings. This time her feelings were not of ecstasy but of fear, a cold hardness in the core of her being that told her she would die. But that before she did, she had to save Damon and Kadar. She opened the door. In it were all the feelings of terror that had gripped her at Auntie Kate’s. Her skin once more crawled with pests eating away at her and she smelt the burning flesh of her grandfather. But she kept on walking, and through the next door she could see Damon in the distance, but was tied down, prevented from reaching him. The last thing she did before she woke was send him the information he needed.
* * * *
“We have here records of every gene,” Silas was saying, “completely mapped.” He pushed a button and the stone walls opened behind the drapes. The Karlssens gaped when they saw what was behind them. As far as their eyes could see, a corridor extended, on each side rows and rows of bookshelves.
“You are aware, of course, how handy it has been to know about our immune system and how we can manipulate it. This has been the work of centuries.”
Silas led them into the main corridor and turned left down one of the aisles. At the end of the aisle was a group of people poring over computers.
“As you can see, we are bringing ourselves into the twenty-first century,” said Silas. “But it takes time. The new leader of the Order”—he looked pointedly at Damon—“will be responsible for all of this.”
Damon could barely hide the awe he was feeling. This was far greater than anything he had ever imagined. Humans had started to map the genome, but if Silas was to be believed, here it was, already done in its entirety.
“This aisle,” said Silas, selecting a random folder, “covers the secrets of, let’s see, ah, yes, diabetes.”
“That’s surely more than one gene,” murmured Damon.
“Indeed, which is where the computer mapping will be so helpful. At the moment we have a color scheme. See here”—he pointed to a red squiggle and a number—“this correlates with this other gene that is involved in autoimmunity.”
“You could cure everything,” said Damon in wonder.
Silas laughed harshly. “Why on earth would we want to do that? Ourselves, yes, but there are already far too many humans making a mess of the world. Much better to use it to control and limit their effects.”
They heard the door open in the room they had just left.
“It is time,” said Silas pleasantly. “Do join me.”
He was ahead of them, back turned, when Misty sent the warning. She hadn’t been sure, Damon was fairly certain, of whether the vampires could read it. So she sent her grandfather, Edmund, who hovered for only a second and said three words. “End this now.”
Misty had her hands tied behind her back and was glowering at them all, her expression not changing when she saw Damon and Kadar.
“Traitors,” she yelled at
them, tearing herself loose and running at them, kicking Damon in the shin. Damon reeled back as Mordecai caught hold of her.
“Dear me,” said Silas, looking carefully at Damon. “You appear to have upset her.”
“Seems that she thought that because her brothers were foolish enough to fall for a ghost, she was safe doing the same,” said Damon coolly, rubbing his shin.
Mordecai snorted. “At least she’s a lot cuter than the last one that made it here,” he said. “I’m looking forward to having time with her before her demise.”
Silas frowned at his son, missing, Damon hoped, the twitch in Kadar’s right arm.
“Whatever takes your fancy,” said Damon. “Weren’t we going to hear from the Oracle? Why does she need to be here?”
“Because,” said Silas, “we need her blood.”
* * * *
Misty closed her eyes and messaged Damon. She’d have to take her chances on the vampires being able to read her as well. She took herself to the room in her mind where she had met Damon the first time and wrapped her message in all the love she could as she told him what he had to do.
When Misty opened her eyes it was as if no time had passed, but one glance and she knew Damon had received what she’d sent. And no one else had. He looked at her curiously.
“Do you need much?” asked Damon, looking at the Oracle, which he now noticed glimmered and flickered, each tiny glass square alive beneath the surface.
“Just enough for the Oracle to give us the answer.”
“The answer to what?”
“How to be rid of them.”
“But you’ve already told us that,” said Kadar.
Silas smirked. “Of course, but the Oracle sees the future. We can ask it questions only once every hundred years, and the question I will ask will involve her kind, as well as yours.”
“What did it say a hundred years ago?”
“It said,” Silas replied slowly, “that we would prosper, as we have.”
“But what else?” This time it was the Evil Vampire, that Damon knew as Mordecai, speaking. He had an edge to his voice, loosening his hold on Misty as he watched Silas come closer.
Silas ignored Mordecai and, taking a knife, went closer to Misty.
“May I?” asked Damon. “I rather fancy giving her a bit of pain in return for that shin kick.”
“Indeed that might be…rather appropriate,” said Silas, handing Damon the knife.
Damon walked around her. Misty barely trusted herself to breathe.
“Can we uncuff her?” he asked. “I’d rather like to drag the knife over her forearm.”
Silas nodded to Mordecai, who reluctantly unlocked the cuffs. Misty stood completely still, then slowly brought her arm up in front of her, eyes defiantly glaring at the vampires. In Damon’s touch, as he held her arm with one hand, there was a message of love and sorrow, which said he couldn’t do what she asked.
Yes, you must. There will be one chance and one chance only. You have released me and I will escape. I have talents they and you do not. If you do not do this they will continue to destroy the world. This is bigger than just us.
But if I take over the Order, he messaged back, standing in their own private room of the mind, this can all be in my hands. I could save so many people, make so much difference.
Misty looked at him sadly. Power corrupts. Do you really think Mordecai would sit around and let you do that?
As Damon sliced her skin, pouring love into her, she sensed a shift in him. But would he do it, or had power, the promise of things he had never dreamt of, already sent him to the dark side?
Silas stepped forward. He had taken the medallion from around his neck and now held it out. “Put a few drops on this.”
Damon, no longer looking at Misty, squeezed her arm and they both watched her blood drop onto the gold. It slowly went to the center indentation, which was already a little red. Damon could see it was in the shape of a triple helix.
“Now yours,” said Silas.
Damon rolled up his sleeve and with the same knife sliced his arm, turning it to drop onto the medallion, mixing with Misty’s.
Silas walked over to the Oracle, but Mordecai moved to stand in front of him.
“What did it say last time?” he asked angrily.
Silas looked at him sadly. “That my time would end in exactly one hundred years’ time.”
“Today?”
Silas nodded.
“Then you must anoint me,” said Mordecai. “I have been a good son. I have stayed by your side. I have done your bidding.”
“You are a good son,” agreed Silas. “But you have not been chosen. Yet.” He walked around his son and from the edge leant over and placed the medallion in the center of the eye, fitting it exactly over the central prominence.
At first nothing happened. Then the whole Oracle began to come alive. In the center, the medallion began to whirl around, at first slowly and then with such speed that they could no longer see it. Lights started to radiate out from the eye, millions of tiny flashes beneath the glass. Then the whole sunken floor began to move, creaking as it did. Misty watched on in fascination as the room transformed, color and light shooting up from the floor. Silas stood at the edge.
“One hundred years has passed and I have returned as you said I would. Now, I bring also what you asked and, humbly your servant, wait for your response.”
It felt to Misty that the room itself began to shake. Perhaps it was part of the magic, perhaps part optical illusion, as lights began twirling, somewhat like a disco ball but much bigger and multicolored, and shooting light into the air rather than from the ceiling. She sent out one last plea to Damon but before he could reply, she slipped out of the door and turned right, down the dark corridor beyond.
Chapter Nine
Kadar was not sure the exact moment he knew that something was wrong. The floor show had grabbed his attention, to say the least. The lights were extraordinary and as they waited for the Oracle to reply, Kadar wasn’t sure if it would speak or if the answer would light up on the ceiling. Perhaps only Silas would be the one to hear the message.
He was suddenly aware of Misty’s absence and stiffened, looking to Damon but not daring to send him a message. Then he became aware of unrest amongst the gathering group that was joining them from the library. At first he’d thought they were concerned about Misty’s absence, but then he realized that it was something altogether different. Most had never seen the Oracle perform before, so they had the same fascination the Karlssen men had, but it appeared it was doing something it was not meant to do.
Silas sank to his knees. “Oh, wise council, tell me which blood is dominant, let our Order be strong and pure.”
At this, the walls began to quake. Kadar decided this was sign enough. He grabbed Damon’s arm. “We need to get out of here,” he said in a low voice.
Damon looked dazed. “What?”
“We have to get out. Misty has already left. We need to find her.”
There was now so much noise and confusion that no one was paying them any attention. Damon, half in a trance, allowed himself to be pulled from the room. Kadar started to go right, but only a few paces down Damon stopped dead. “No, this way.”
Kadar frowned. “No, I can sense her this way.”
“She…we have to go this way,” Damon mumbled and transformed, flying off along the corridor before Kadar could protest. Kadar growled, torn. He had always looked after his brother. But this once, instead, he took off after Misty’s scent.
* * * *
When Damon arrived at the place Misty had sent him to in her mind, he recognized it immediately. The passage had been long and tortuous and he had needed to negotiate several doors, the method of opening them not always obvious. But each time they’d led into another tunnel until finally a steep staircase took him up a level. This was the level he needed to be on, the one where she had told him he would find a lever by each door. And he had to pull the lever.
* * * *
When Misty had turned right, she had known it was the wrong direction, but somewhere in the labyrinth were her grandfather’s ashes and she wasn’t about to go anywhere without them. Transformed, she followed her instinct, bounding along the corridors until she brought herself up abruptly. There was a door to her right and it looked just like the door of pain she had seen in her dream. Back as herself, barely able to turn the handle, she opened the door and was at once overcome with so much emotional and physical pain she fell to her knees, unable to breathe. The room held an enormous incinerator, the one she was sure Mordecai had intended to feed her into, still alive, had he had the chance. The door was open and below, ashes poured out on the floor. Misty knew this was not just her grandfather but many, many, others who had fallen foul of the vampires. Perhaps the bodies, too, of those they fed on. Pictures of screaming women flashed before her.
She turned to leave, but an image of her grandfather flashed before her, pointing. She crawled across the floor and there, midst the ash, was a silver chain hung with army dog tags. Shaking, she put it around her own neck. It had been his and the knowledge flooded her with extra strength.
She was going to need it.
* * * *