Drinking Destiny

by Pippa Amberwine

  “The only way to find out is get Cole alone and ask him, I guess,” I said once the silence had gone on too long.

  “You think he’d tell you?” Famil asked when Jevyn didn’t say anything.

  I still had mixed feelings about Cole.

  I lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t know, to be honest. I know Jevyn thinks he is up to something bad, but I’m still not sure. If we ask him and he denies it, we can then investigate, and if he’s lying, that will settle my thoughts about him and confirm Jevyn’s.”

  “And if he admits it?” she asked.

  “Then we ask him why he’s doing it. Once we know that, we can decide what to do from there. Truthfully, my main concern right now is getting a cure. Once the rips do close, that might be the end of ever getting a cure. Do you have any idea how close Lalnu is to finding a way to permanently close off access between the two worlds?”

  “No,” Famil said. “I heard she has people working on it, but that information is being kept very quiet.”

  I thought about that for a moment. What Jevyn had said to me was right. We did have to live in the moment, but at the same time, until the rips closed, there was no reason why we shouldn’t keep on searching for that cure.

  This seemed to be going nowhere, so I gave Famil a nudge.

  “What was it you said you needed to tell us?” I asked.

  “Oh, right. Yes. Well, that sample of blood you gave me?”

  “Ypalde’s or mine?”

  “Well, both.”

  “Yeah. What about them?”

  “Well, I was interested in what you told me about the different dragon bloods and how they affect the virus. Now, it’s early days here, but I discovered something, and I think it’s something you need to take back to Earth with you, so I’m glad you came to see me again.”

  “What is it?” I asked, leaning forward eagerly.

  “I took the two samples. I counted the virus markers in your blood, so I knew what I was starting with, and then I added a tiny amount of Ypalde’s to yours.”

  “And? According to Carol it should have destroyed almost all of the virus cells.”

  Famil nodded. “It did, and I was delighted to see it.”

  “But? I can feel a but coming.”

  Famil nodded slowly. “I’m sorry. There is.”

  “Go on,” I said, not really wanting to hear it.

  “What I discovered was that dragon blood you used before killed off some of the virus, enough for you to be free of symptoms for a while, but they kept multiplying, and after a while, you needed more blood, but the reproduction rate was the same as it was before, relatively slow. With Ypalde’s blood, far more of the virus cells were killed, but the ones that were left, the strongest ones, reproduced quicker than before—reproduced cells that were also immune to the blood, not all of them, only five percent or so. The difficulty with that is, as I’m sure you’ve worked out, eventually the number of immune cells will be sufficient enough that a dose of blood will only reduce numbers a little. In other words, it will stop working, and you’ll be left with blood that is overrun by the immune cells.

  “That dragon blood you had so many hopes for might very well make you even more sick than you were before, and normal dragon blood will then have almost no effect on it. The other downside is that it makes the virus much more contagious. I don’t know exactly what the result would be, but I think whoever is experimenting back at Nindock’s needs to stop while you have a rethink.”

  My heart sank. I knew I was looking at her with my mouth open, so I consciously made an effort to close it and try to think rationally about what she had said. The sun-dragon blood wasn’t even close to a cure. It made things worse, and we were sitting there while Carol was back at Nindock’s place merrily experimenting away with it, thinking she was getting somewhere but was in fact taking chances on spreading the virus around the camp.

  Just like that, my hopes were dashed.

  “We need to get back,” I said, staring at the opposite workbench blankly.

  “I think you should,” Famil said. “And I’m sorry.”

  I flicked my eyes around to look at her. “None of this is your fault. If it wasn’t for what you just told us, we could have been giving people a death sentence, not a cure.”

  “Come on,” Jevyn said, heading into the corridor and wasting no time forcing open a rip.

  “Thank you, Famil,” I said, still not sure where to go from there.

  “Good luck,” she said, “and goodbye.”

  The finality in her voice was plain. She wasn’t expecting to see me again.

  I wheeled around and hurried after Jevyn.

  Chapter Twelve

  Katie

  Nindock’s town

  Earth

  ALTHOUGH IT WAS almost dark by the time we got back to Nindock’s Town, we had to go straight to Carol’s house. The risks of her continuing the research were just too great, even though I desperately wanted to cling to hope. I couldn’t, in good conscience, risk the health and lives of every dragon for the sake of a cure that might not even be what it seemed.

  I said as much to Jevyn as we headed toward Carol’s house. The marketplace was deserted other than the odd rat scurrying around, pilfering delicacies from the trash that littered the walkways. I could hear the rodents rustling around through the debris.

  “Thank you, Katie,” Jevyn said with a combination of sincerity and regret in his voice. “You know I want this cure more than anything for you, but I appreciate you putting dragon lives above your own. I didn’t want to say anything in case you thought I was putting undue pressure on you.”

  “I can’t be responsible for a load of sick dragons as well as sick people,” I said, offering him a thin smile in gratitude for his understanding.

  “Rightly so. What’s the plan when we get back to Carol’s?”

  “We have to tell her to stop. The person I feel sorry for is Ypalde. I get the feeling she was looking forward to working with someone who didn’t judge her for her powers, or lack of them.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that,” Jevyn said, sounding like he was feeling guilty about that.

  “Neither had I with what has been going on. Whatever happens, we need to make sure she’s okay and doesn’t get thrown to the wolves.”

  “There are wolves around here?”

  I couldn’t help but giggle. “No, not around here. Farther north up in the foothills, maybe, but not here. At least, not as far as I know. But anyway, it’s just a saying. It means we need to protect her from those who might want to harm her or even just make her life miserable.”

  “Oh, right, I understand now. One of your peculiar human sayings.”

  Once we reached Carol’s, my mood had lightened slightly. Being in Pathya had made me wonder if I was ever going to be able to say the magic words that a cure had been found. It made me think about my relationship with Jevyn and how it was still unresolved, but I also found the whole place kind of oppressive. The tiered society. The political games. Everything about the place, apart from Truth’s small patch of marketplace, was so opposite of the sense of freedom being back in Nindock’s town made me feel. That came as a surprise.

  I could understand completely why so many of the dragons Nindock had brought to Earth had been so forceful in their desire to stay.

  Jevyn knocked loudly on Carol’s door, and we waited. Oscar was nowhere to be seen, which I hoped meant that there had been no further trouble while we had been gone.

  We didn’t wait for long. Ypalde was at the door in a few seconds, and the smile on her face was gratifying to see.

  “Hello, Katie. Jevyn. Come on in.”

  Only a bit of time had passed since we had left her with Carol, but the change in Ypalde was remarkable. The scared creature we had picked up from her house was, in all likelihood, still there waiting to put in an appearance if things went wrong, but even after a short time, an extra layer of confidence seemed to have developed within her.
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  The other major difference was the lounge, as it could truly be called at that point. There was not a scrap of paper to be seen, and the furnishings had been cleaned and, unless my sense of smell deceived me, polished to within an inch of their lives. Candles were burning, giving the room a soft and gentle flickering ambience, made even cozier by the fire in the freshly brushed and cleaned-out hearth that I hadn’t even noticed the last time I was there.

  All of the seats had patterned throws over them and cushions plumped up and ready to be relaxed in against each chair of sofa arm. The floor was covered in rugs that had also been hidden before.

  It looked, especially compared to the more spartan décor of Jevyn’s and my quarters, like a veritable home.

  I felt an overwhelming urge to go lie on a sofa and rest my head on a pillow, drift off to sleep, and wake up when everything was all over, but I knew I couldn’t do that. Jevyn might call me a control freak, but the rest of my group were my friends, and I needed the cure as much for them and the other vampires who had been affected as I needed it for me.

  “What happened to all the papers, Ypalde?” I glanced at the fire, noticing some charred scraps of documents. “You burned them?”

  “Yes. Carol said that most of them were either showing bad results or were out of date, so we burned them all.”

  “She didn’t want them?” I asked, surprised.

  “Well, at first she did—secretly, I think she’s a bit of a hoarder—but I persuaded her that she didn’t.”

  “How?”

  “I dragged her away from her beloved experiments and made her look at what was there. She only went through one pile, and then I think she got bored and said to burn it all.

  “You’ve done an incredible job in here. It’s lovely.” I offered a smile of encouragement.

  She grinned shyly and inclined her head in acknowledgement. “You want to see Carol?”

  I nodded.

  “Have you tried the sandwiches yet?” Jevyn asked.

  I could have kicked him for reminding Ypalde just how vile Carol’s sandwiches sounded.

  “I have, Jevyn.” Ypalde kept her face as straight as she could. “They are very—interesting. I got Carol to let me go to the market to buy some more supplies.” She leaned in and spoke conspiratorially. “Hopefully I’ll persuade her to let me make the sandwiches.”

  I suppressed a laugh at Ypalde’s diplomatic answer.

  Ypalde led us through to the kitchen. She clearly hadn’t had the opportunity to get to work in there because it was just as much of a mess as it had been before.

  Carol was leaning over the table and writing up some notes and looked up when we came in. Then she went back to her notes.

  We stood in silence while her pen scratched across the surface of the paper until she got to the bottom of the page. She dotted the last period and then picked up the paper and slid it onto the waiting pile.

  I couldn’t help but wonder how she was going to take the news and how Ypalde would take her part of it.

  “So, you two, have you had a productive day?” Carol asked.

  “You might say that.” I watched as Ypalde went outside with the kettle.

  Carol nodded. “Good, will that speed up your looking for my daughter?”

  “That is my sole focus tomorrow, I promise,” I said.

  “Okay. Well, I’d offer you somewhere to sit, but—” She held out her hands, indicating every flat surface covered in paper.

  “It’s okay. We’ll stand.” The thought of going into the lounge was tempting, but I would have been in serious danger of nodding off while I spoke.

  “So, what have you been up to?” she asked.

  I hesitated. I wasn’t even sure if she knew where the dragons came from, but I decided to plow on ahead anyway.

  “We’ve been to Pathya today.”

  “Yep, I know about that.”

  “You do? Good. That saves a lot of explanation. While we were there, we found out that dragons are disappearing—”

  “Yeah, they’re all here, aren’t they?” Carol cut in.

  “No, not all. Somebody seems to be taking them, but we can come back to that. The other thing we found out was more important. It relates to your work.”

  “Okay . . .” She let the word hang out.

  Jevyn took over. “I have a friend over there who has been working on the blood and cures for a while. She tested some of Ypalde’s blood. You were right about it killing almost all of the virus.”

  Carol clapped her hands in delight. “I knew it. God, that means we’re nearing a cure as we speak, and once that’s in place, Nindock said I could go home. Although the more time I spend here, the more I like the people. Ypalde’s an absolute gem.”

  Jevyn held up his hands to stop her from speaking before she really got going.

  “There’s a problem though.” Jevyn went on to explain what Famil had found out.

  I swung my gaze at Carol after Jevyn stopped speaking. I’d never seen anyone as downcast as she was right then.

  “Shit. So, the sun-dragon blood is no good. Hell.” She slouched, dejected.

  “Yes, so whatever you do, don’t let any dragons near the mixture.”

  “Why?”

  “Because sun-dragon blood plus vamp blood leaves a virus that is stronger than the normal version we are carrying around and can cross from humans to dragons in ways the original virus can’t,” I said.

  “Like a mutation?”

  “I guess so. And there’s already a virus outbreak in Dracos, in a place called Grayfair,” Jevyn said.

  “Basically, it’s where New York is here,” I added.

  “How did that get there?”

  “We don’t know yet. So, have you given anyone the blood mixture here?” Jevyn asked.

  “Only one.”

  “Damn,” Jevyn swore. “Who?”

  I heard Ypalde sneeze out back, and Carol peered at the door. She really didn’t need to say any more. Jevyn and I exchanged unhappy looks.

  “And she went out to the market earlier to get supplies?” he asked.

  “Yes. She didn’t seem to like my sandwiches.”

  I looked at Jevyn. His face looked even more tired and drawn than it had earlier.

  “Are we too late?” I asked.

  “Maybe. I don’t know,” he said. “We won’t know until we see people becoming ill. We also won’t know what effect it will have on anyone.”

  “So, what do we do now?”

  Jevyn looked pained. “We have to tell Ypalde, first off.”

  “We do,” I said. “Listen, Carol. None of this is your fault. Can Ypalde stay here with you still? You can monitor her condition.”

  “What happens if I catch the virus?” she asked.

  “Then you’ll be looked after. We know that traveler-dragon blood will still give some control if we catch the problems early, but if you take suitable precautions, hopefully it won’t spread to you.” Jevyn laid a hand on Carol’s shoulder.

  Eventually she nodded.

  “I’ll tell her,” Carol said. “I know she’s not been here long, but I like her. She’ll probably take it better from me than from either of you.”

  I was so relieved. I would have told Ypalde, but my slightly blunt approach to situations might not have gone down so well as Carol’s.

  “One other thing,” Jevyn said. “Grayfair. New York. URS. Does any of that mean anything to you?”

  Carol dropped her head. Something clearly rang a bell.

  “Grayfair and URS don’t,” she said quietly.

  “New York?” Jevyn asked.

  “Yes?”

  “What about New York? Come on Carol, this is no time to be getting coy. What do you know about New York?” Jevyn asked. I think, if he hadn’t been so far away, he might have grabbed her and shook her, but I was glad he didn’t. I didn’t feel like spending half the evening nursing the wounds Carol was likely to inflict on him.

  “Okay, okay,” she said crossly. �
��Chemosys started in New York.”

  “What were they doing there?”

  “Similar to what we were doing here, but they were getting their dragons from somewhere else, so I assume they had some way of getting to Dracos.”

  “Why are they keeping Dragons there?” Jevyn asked.

  “The talk was, and I wasn’t officially in the know about this, they had found a partial cure and were hoping if they gave it to dragons, their blood would get to work and make it a hundred-percent effective. That was the talk anyway. Whether that was right or not, I honestly don’t know.”

  “It makes sense. Taking dragons from Grayfair would have been a straightforward rift trip, there and back in a matter of minutes. But how were they getting a rift to open?” Jevyn didn’t seem to be speaking to anyone in particular. I think he was just thinking out loud.

  “Cole,” Carol said.

  “Cole?” Jevyn and I said together.

  “Again, this is just rumor, but I heard an outside company had developed a machine for tearing an opening between Earth and Dracos. It wasn’t until Cole mentioned the name of his company that I realized it was one and the same. Unlimited Resources Scientific.”

  “URS,” Jevyn said. “I asked if you’d heard of URS?”

  “I didn’t realize. I didn’t put two and two together that it was them. I thought URS was a courier company or something. There are Chemosys plants all over the country, and from what I know, again not officially but just on the grapevine, there were dragons at some of those too.”

  “Oh, hell,” Jevyn said, slapping his forehead. “This gets worse and worse. Now we have to track dragons down all over the USA. Do you know where these places are?”

  “I can write out a list, but apart from New York, I don’t know which ones were keeping dragons and which weren’t. Is anyone else in possession of this machine thing that Cole has developed?”

  Jevyn let out a long sigh. He looked very disheartened, and I couldn’t blame him.

  “We should go,” I said. “We are due on guard duty soon.”