by Ramy Vance
“So, if you don’t mind,” Serena said, nodding for the boys to wheel Justin away.
“To repeat myself—like hell you’re going to—” I started.
“No, Kat—she is right. The kind of facilities they have here won’t save him. He needs other facilities. Besides, I’ll be there to help.” She looked Serena in the eyes, and for the first time in this conversation, she showed her backbone. Good for her.
“Yes, of course,” Serena said, obviously not expecting Isabella’s reaction. “We’ll need your help healing him. Healing them all.”
↔
A SLOW-BURNING RAGE built up in me, and I had to take three slow, deep breaths to stop myself from punching this middle-aged mad scientist in the throat. “OK, and how long will that be?”
“Unsure. It depends on his constitution. Anywhere from a month to ten weeks.”
“Ten weeks,” I scoffed.
“Could be a month,” she said in a way that implied it definitely wouldn’t be a month.
I wanted to scream with rage, but then the little demon in me spoke up and said what it always does in moments like this: Patience, Kat. You’ll get her in the end. You always do, as the wheels of a plan started to turn.
“Fine, a month it is. But before I walk away from this pleasant exchange, I do have one more question. You’re taking him because you have an Anti-Other poison ward, not an Anti-Other ward that deals with poisons, right?”
She rolled her eyes. “A common mistake civilians always make. You all think that just because we wear the uniforms and are mostly composed of humans that we’re anti-Other. We’re not. Look at Isabella here. She is one of our most valued recruits.”
“I’m not a recruit, I’m a scientist that is technically employed by the university—”
Russo lifted a silencing hand. “And funded by us. We foot the bill.” She eyed me up and down, her tone changing. “I know you. Have seen you around. Heard about your … escapades through the gossip mill. You know, you could work for us just like Isabella here. She’s employed by us, does her good work and we stay out of her way, and all of us couldn’t be happier. She is truly brilliant.”
“Ahh, thank you,” Isabella said, clearly unsure if she should be thanking someone who basically said she owns her.
“We love this new GoneGod World, and we’re committed to making it as bright and beautiful as possible. Isn’t that right, Isabella?”
“Well—”
“You should read the literature some time.” Dr. Russo pointed at a World Army poster on the hospital’s local bulletin board. The sepia paper had the World Army’s logo and motto as well as some contact information. Beneath that was a picture of several human cadets helping an Oni demon with his homework. “Can’t you read? ‘Making the world better, safer, stronger … together.’ ”
“Humph,” I said. “I see that. Thank you, Dr. Russo. You have been most helpful.” And with that, I turned on my heel and hooked my hand through Isabella’s arm.
The World Army was definitely into some dark shit, and I was going to get to the bottom of it … in the form of coffee.
Foamy, latte-art coffee.
FRIENEMIES CONSPIRING
J ust five minutes’ walk from the Royal Vic, Isabella and I came to a cute joint called the Dolphin Café. How apropos.
“Been here before?” I asked as we entered.
She swallowed, glancing toward the restrooms. “You could say that.”
Another loaded response. And she seemed nervous; I could feel the tension in her arm, which my hand was still hooked through. This called for more than just coffee.
When we got to the counter, I stepped up. “Two vanilla lattes.” I pointed to the glass display. “And two cherry danishes.”
“Oh,” Isabella said, “I don’t eat sugar or—”
I patted her arm. “Today we’re living a little, sister. My treat.”
She didn’t object further. As we sat down at one of the wrought iron tables in the corner with our mugs of coffee and our danishes, I leaned forward with both hands around my mug.
“Okay, dish.”
She glanced up from picking apart the danish. “Dish?”
“Yeah. Talk. Spill the beans. Give me the 411.”
“411?”
I sighed. “Tell me the truth about what’s going on with Justin, the World Army and that obviously insane scientist you call your boss.”
She sighed. “It’s a long story.”
I waved a hand around. “Can you think of a better place for long stories?”
She shrugged. “Point taken.” Her eyes lowered to the table as she recounted the past few weeks. “It all started with a phone call from my professor. I had gotten funding for my research from the World Army.”
As Isabella told me about the events of the past few weeks—the World Army’s appearance, then the stymphalian birds, the murders on campus by a creature called Empusa and Justin’s increasing strength and quickness—I sipped my coffee like we were having a regular old girly heart-to-heart.
Best not to draw too much attention to ourselves. By this point, I had begun to understand the pervasiveness of the World Army in Montreal. Who knew? Serena might have even sent someone to keep an eye on us.
When she finished, Isabella slouched into her seat like all the strength had gone out of her.
I set down my mug. Deep as I had been in my rivalry with her over Justin, I realized I had vastly underestimated Isabella. She had been through a hellish three weeks; I could only imagine the stress. “Well.”
“Yeah, well.”
“That’s a hell of a time you’ve had. And why are you working for the source of all evil, again?”
She shook her head, eyes still on the danish. All at once, she took a huge bite of it. “Because mapping Other DNA will solve all our problems,” she said through a mouthful. “Including the issue of babies.”
“Babies?” I leaned forward. “Do you mean …”
She nodded, taking another bite. It was like a dam had been unleashed, and she was taking out her stress on that danish. “Yes, I mean procreation. I mean Others having a shot at a future.”
“Fuck. That changes everything.”
Isabella finally met my eyes. “Now you understand my position.”
I sure did. Between the oath she’d made to Justin and the importance of her research, she was stuck between a rock and a Serena Russo. She was trying to do good, even under a pitch-black umbrella of evil.
I set a finger on the table between us. “We need to figure out how far Russo has gotten with the gene modifications.”
She blinked her wide, green eyes. “I’ve already broken into her office. I found a folder with a list of Others she’s been harvesting, tweaking. But I didn’t get to look at everything before I was interrupted. And then …”
“Then what?”
“They moved her office after that—to the World Army’s Montreal headquarters. It’s locked tight as a vault.”
I sat back, an idea percolating. “A vault, eh? As it happens, I visited a museum over winter break. And vaults have got nothing on that place.”
Vaults-schmaults. We were getting into that place.
PART TWO
The figure came barreling down the hall. As she ran, I noted that she flailed her a hand a wee bit too much, turning her superhero run more into something a toddler does when trying to run as fast as they can.
Other than the un-graceful run, she looked exactly like me.
“Perfect likeness,” Egya said.
“Except the run,” I said. “I’m more Usain Bolt than Stewie Griffin.”
Egya gave me a side glance. “Like I said, perfect likeness.”
“Shut up,” I said as I reached out my hand for, well, me.
My doppelganger handed me a key card before transforming back into her true form.
“What are you doing?” I said. “There’s cameras everywhere. They’ll recognize you.”
“Once they see two Kat
s, they’ll know it’s me. I’m the only shapeshifter employed by them.”
“Good point, Isa,” I said.
“Hey, you called me Isa.” A proud smile painted her face.
“I figured that since we most likely aren’t going to survive this night, might as well die with a friend.”
“Than a frenemy,” Isa giggled.
“Frenemy?”
“What?” She looked at me confused. “You know … friend/enemy. Frenemy. It’s a word.”
I shook my head, amazed that an Other was teaching me new words. “Ahh, because you’re combining the words together to create a clever play on words.”
I’m not going to lie. My ego was slightly bruised by that.
Sighing to myself, I slid the card through the machine and it beeped as the door slid open.
“OK,” I said, “Isa and I are going in. Make sure this level is cleared, then come meet us inside. You should be able to find us with the tracker.”
“My nose is better,” Egya said.
“Nose, tracker—I don’t care. Just find us. We’ll need you to get Justin out of here. Are you sure your contact will come through?”
Egya nodded. “He’ll need a few days to sort things out. A few days that Isa and Justin will need to be in hiding … but yes, she’ll come through.”
“Good. Then let’s do this.” I put my hand in the middle like you would in a football huddle, or if you were a Power Ranger. Both Egya and Isa just stared at my hanging hand. I guess Others never watched 80s Saturday morning cartoons.
“Never mind,” I said, bitter that my ‘Go team’ was denied.
Egya pulled me in close for a kiss. “You stay safe.”
OK, not totally denied.
↔
The inner bowels of the World Army’s headquarters couldn’t have been any more evil, secret layer-ry. The far wall had numerous screens that displayed images of various Others classified in three ways: Captured, Processed and At Large.
In front of them were several rows of computers where the grunts of the World Army probably supplied field agents with data.
It would have been very much like a 1950s’ military bunker if not for the surgery table sitting at the base of the theater. The table was surrounded by various medical equipment: an IV stand, monitors and a surgical tools counter. Typical stuff you’d find in any hospital.
But what made it especially creepy—outside of it being in what was clearly a military HQ—was that the table was surrounded by a giant pentagon.
I stared. “What the holy hell?”
Isa looked down at it. “It’s a binding circle. To suppress magic should one of the Others wake up during surgery. It’s standard practice now.”
“It’s creepy.”
“Better that than an Other waking up and frying everyone with a fireball.”
“I don’t know about that. Where now?”
Isa sat at one of the computers and started banging away at the keyboard. “I’ll download the data. You get Justin. He’s in there.” She pointed at the far wall, where two metal doors had the words Restricted Area painted on them. “He should be behind the door on the left.”
“And is the aqrabuamelu still behind door number two?”
She looked in the tiny portal and nodded. “Still there and still dead.”
“And still being pumped for all his worth.”
Another nod … this one more solemn.
↔
Leaving Isa to her hacking, I went into the restricted room. I had expected a corridor with several rooms on each side—you know, something that you’d find in a hospital.
What I didn’t expect was one simple room with a single bed in it. Justin lay on that bed with two IVs in his arm, and he was wearing a pleasant smile on his face.
Interesting, I thought, he’s lying there like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Clearly he didn’t know that he was covered in green scales and growing a horn.
ENCANTADOS AND EX-VAMPS CONSPIRE
T HE INNER WORKINGS OF ISA RAMIREZ’S MIND -
I LOOKED AT KATRINA DARLING, ex-vampire, kickass chick and fantastic dresser, with utter disbelief. “You want to do what, exactly?”
“Take them down. As in downtown … to the ground.”
I was sure that last comment was some sort of human expression … and an antiquated one at that. We weren’t going to take the World Army downtown.
But she was suggesting that we could take them down.
As in, destroy them. End them.
Obliterate them.
“How?” I asked. What I didn’t add was that I was an encantado and Kat was … well, she was just a human.
I also didn’t add that she might be reacting to meeting my boss, Serena. The two of them got on like a house on fire.
By which I mean, Kat wanted to light her house on fire.
And then, after our little chat, she was all about not only destroying Serena’s home, but also taking down one of the most well-funded government organizations in the world.
Remind me not to get on her bad side.
Check that … I already did when I hooked up with Justin. Remind me not to get any more on her bad side.
Still, she needed to hear my thoughts on her little plan.
I cleared my throat and, diverting eye contact (it was scary confronting Kat), I said, “The World Army is an organization that … it should be pointed out … has almost unilateral support among all the human governments in the world. They function way better than any other organization in human history: NATO, NAFTA, the Axis or the Allies, and the United Nations included.”
“I know, but—”
Summoning an inner strength I didn’t know I had, I added, “Destroying them would simply be impossible. Worse than impossible ... irresponsible. Taking them down would only fuel their resolve. A resolve, might I add, born out of human distrust of Others. The attempt to destroy them will only mean that they come back stronger than ever. And hate Others more than ever.”
Kat pursed her lips, listening intently. And from the way she carried herself, I could tell she wasn’t just waiting her turn to speak. She was actually listening. Taking in my thoughts and considering them for all their pessimistic worth.
After a long, silent moment, Kat spoke my name.
“Isabella,” she said, her tone harsh. She paused, and lightening her voice, spoke again, “Isabella—I mean, Isa—hear me out…” She walked over to her dresser and sighed before pulling it away from the wall. There was a small indent in the wall where part of the stone had eroded—I guess these old buildings needed a bit of structural work—and pulled out a cherub mask.
Scratch that … the cherub mask.
“Ah, I said. “So there it is.”
“You knew?” she said, not taking her gaze off the mask. She held it like it was a heavy weight in her hands.
“Justin let it slip when I was pretending to be you.”
“Ah.” She sighed again—more heavily this time—and handed me the mask. “Yeah, that’s me.”
I couldn’t believe that I held the Cherub’s mask. This fighter was a legend on campus, having saved the dorms from a ritual sacrifice. And then there was the whole superhero debacle. And that didn’t include the dozens of sightings where the Cherub saved students from muggings, fights and the occasional Other misunderstanding.
The Cherub was a legend, and now I was holding her mask.
Kat’s mask.
“That’s my father’s mask. He was the first Cherub hunter. An order of monster hunters he created to stop monsters like the one I was,” she said. “I took it off him when I …” Her voice trailed off in such a way that she didn’t need to finish the sentence … but she did. “I killed him.”
The pull of those last three words seemed to cancel out all sound in the room, like the words were a force of gravity that pulled everything else into it for what felt like an eternity as I processed what that meant.
She killed her father. And then she t
ook up his mask. I didn’t know much about Kat, but I knew she wanted to be a normal girl. A cutesy, fun-loving college kid.
No wonder the mask weighed so much in her hands. She was a creature burdened by two incompatible wishes: one to make amends, the other to live.
In my five hundred years of life, I’d often seen humans hampered by two conflicting desires. Those who found peace between those desires lived well, but those who didn’t … well, let’s just say that graveyards are filled with humans who died with tortured grimaces from unfulfilled wishes.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
She took the mask from my hands. “Carry the heaviest burden possible. That was one of the things my father told me growing up. Told me over and over … carry the heaviest burden possible. He believed that if we all did that, then the world would be a better place. A heaven on Earth, if you will. But we must all decide how much we can bear. And that’s why I’m not telling you to do anything. But what I am doing is telling you what I believe is best.”
“They’re too strong.”
Kat nodded. “Yes, they are. And that is exactly why we must stand up against them. I’m not saying we’ll win. Hell, I’m not even saying we’ll survive. But at least we’ll be doing something. And, if we’re just clever enough we might be able to deliver them a blow that will set them back a few years.”
“Set them back?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Yeah. The DNA mapping you’re doing might have wonderful applications. It’s also friggin’ dangerous, too. In the wrong hands—and they are the wrong hands—it will be used for terrible purposes. We need to stop them. If not stop them, then set them back. The longer, the better.”
She paused before adding, “I’m an Other. And I am human, too.” She shook her head as those last words left her lips. “Humph, I guess Egya was right…” she muttered, and I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me or thinking out loud. I’m guessing both, because she said, “I’m an Other and a human. I know how powerful—how dangerous—being both can be. We have to stop them.”