Drinking Destiny

by Pippa Amberwine

  I invited Cole in, stepping aside to let him by and then closing the door again once he was inside.

  “We got everything we needed, Cole. Thanks,” I said. I’d never had much of a problem with Cole, despite Jevyn’s misgivings. I couldn’t see why anyone who was trying to harm the vampires or dragons would spend so much time with them or so much money on them.

  “Great. Hey, after what we talked about the other day,” he leaned in to speak quietly, “about my machine?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, as you know I could never get it to work properly, so I lost interest in it. When I called in to our offices, I discovered that it had been stolen.”

  “Stolen? Who by? Who would want a non-functioning, rip-creating machine?” I was happy to hear the news in one respect. The last time Jevyn and I had spoken to Cole about it, I thought he’d been lying about the machine, that he still had it, but if it had been stolen, it meant he could actually be trusted. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “Was that you?” asked someone behind me.

  I swung around at the sound of Dr. Li’s voice.

  “Was that me, what?” Cole asked, clearly noticing the doctor for the first time. “And who are you?”

  “This is Doctor Li. We found her while we were out,” I said.

  “Found her? Was she just walking the streets or something?” Cole asked.

  “No, of course not.” I told him the whole story about finding Emma and the tent on the way back.

  Cole started looking suspiciously around the room.

  “It’s okay. We didn’t have a camera in here,” Dr. Li said. “We could only get a few up outside on the streets.”

  Cole sighed in relief. “How did you get them up?”

  “Bribery. Sometimes the old ways are the best ways. Don’t ask who was bribed though, because I don’t know.”

  I could see what she was saying, and I was sure it would have been straightforward enough to persuade a naïve dragon that there was some other purpose for the cameras. Especially if there was some financial benefit to be gained.

  In truth, the cameras were the least of my worries.

  “Forget the cameras for now,” I said, looking to Dr. Li. “How did you know about Cole’s machine?”

  “Because Chemosys . . . obtained it.”

  “You did?” Cole was wide-eyed.

  “We did. I even saw it at one of our facilities in New York when I was there for a briefing on the virus we just set free here.”

  “And did you use it to send people to Dracos, to Grayfair, masquerading as my company?” Cole asked.

  Dr. Li came over all coy at that accusation. “That may have been what happened. It was beyond my pay scale to know exactly what was going on, but that was the whisper around the facility.”

  “So, you got the machine to work?” Cole asked.

  “Apparently, yes.”

  “Whoa,” Cole said. “It worked. That’s incredible.” He was beaming the brightest of smiles even if the success of the machine was at somebody else’s hands.

  “Why did Chemosys want access to a rip? Why are they spreading a virus there too?” I asked, not really directing my question at Dr. Li in particular but still hoping for an answer from her.

  “Presumably for the same reason we put the virus out here, to find a cure,” she said.

  “And what would you do with a cure?” I asked.

  “Beyond my pay scale again, sorry. If it was me, I’d probably sell it. Lots of pharma companies would love a cure so they can make expensive drugs from it, maybe even sell it exclusively to the government, or at least what’s left of it. Pretty sure they would be desperate for a cure that worked.”

  “Sounds logical, I suppose,” I said.

  “Very logical and, typical of Chemosys, always looking to make a quick buck.” Cole’s enthusiasm had obviously been tempered by the prospect of another company profiting from his stolen technology.

  “So the question is what do we do now?” I turned to Dr. Li. “Do you know which facility the machine was being kept in? Was it the one you visited?”

  “Not as far as I know. The facility I was in was mostly administrative.”

  “I have a list of Chemosys facilities in New York,” Cole said. “Which do you think it would be most likely to be in?”

  Cole handed over a sheet of paper, and Dr. Li perused it for a while.

  “This would be just a guess, but I would imagine it would be the plant in Queens. That’s the biggest facility in the country, so the best scientists are based there.”

  “Where in Queens?” I asked.

  Dr. Li said an address while Cole pulled a map of New York out of his pocket. Why he was walking around with these items, I had no idea.

  “There,” he said as he laid out the plan on the table and pointed a finger.

  I took a look at the map but was none the wiser. New York was huge, even on Cole’s map, and although I’d visited a couple of times, I wasn’t at all familiar with it.

  “Do you know the place, Cole?” I asked.

  “I do. It’s not that far from our offices where the machine was stolen from. It makes sense they would take it there. It’s the Chemosys main R&D center.”

  I settled my gaze on Dr. Li. “Look. I know there’s no reason why you should help us, but we will keep you safe while you’re here, and it’s imperative that we get the machine back to Cole. It is his after all.” I didn’t feel the need to explain that the reason I wanted Cole to have the machine was to make sure we knew where it was and hopefully persuade him to break it up and forget all about it.

  “What happens to me once you get the machine?” Dr. Li asked.

  “We’ll set you free as soon as we get the machine and put Chemosys out of business,” I said. “They were the ones to spread the virus in the first place, and it’s the least they deserve.”

  “Why should I believe you? You threatened to set him on me earlier.” She pointed a crooked finger at Frankie who just grinned and went back to his conversation.

  “I did,” I said. “But Frankie’s a sweetheart compared to some of the people in the camp. Take it from me, we’re the reasonable ones here.”

  She didn’t look convinced, but she hadn’t said no either, so I persevered.

  “So, what is Chemosys like to work for?” I asked. “I heard they were in a little trouble cash wise. You been paid lately?”

  She glared up at me as if I were the devil incarnate.

  “Not lately, no. There aren’t many jobs going right now though, and I definitely wouldn’t get paid if I left.”

  “How long since you last got paid?” I pressed.

  “Three months. Why?”

  “Okay, how about this for a deal? You tell me everything you know about Chemosys, including the location of any of their facilities, and I’ll pay you your three months of salary, and another six months on top. When you leave, you’ll at least be able to pay bills and live for a while. How much are we talking here?”

  “Thirty thousand dollars.”

  I coughed at her quick calculation, which I guessed was probably inflated by at a least a quarter.

  “Okay. Thirty thousand it is.”

  “Have you got that sort of money?” Dr. Li asked.

  I laughed at that. We had nearly all the proceeds of the armored truck robbery still. Not having to fund cures through Nindock had left it virtually intact.

  “We have that sort of money, yes,” I said.

  “Cash?”

  “Yes, cash.”

  “In that case, count me in. I don’t owe Chemosys anything, and they owe me plenty. I always thought that releasing the VAMP virus was a stupid thing to do without having a cure available.”

  “Great. Give me a minute with Cole, and we’ll get to work.” I glanced at Cole who was leaning over his map, but I could see he was actually listening to the guys talking about the day we had.

  “Hey, Cole. Dr. Li has decided she’s going to
help us. You want to be a part of it, I guess.”

  “Hell, yeah. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see the Chemosys edifice come crashing down. They are evil, Katie, you know.”

  “I know,” I said, feeling the first stirrings of bloodlust urges again. I was okay for a few days, but I would need to take blood again soon. Maybe it was time to try Carol and Ypalde’s idea of sun-dragon blood in reality to see if things really did get worse. They would need a VAMP volunteer at some stage.

  It took little more than a half-hour with Cole and Dr. Li providing the information and Nova, me, and the rest of the guys planning the logistics before we had a workable plan in hand.

  When we had finished, Dr. Li had been allocated a room, and unknown to her, a guard—just in case. I stepped back to Cole.

  “There is one other aspect of this I wanted to talk to you about,” he said quietly, tipping his head toward a quiet corner of the room.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s about what happens after the raid, once we get the machine back and make sure it’s working.”

  “You’re not thinking of using it to open more rips, are you? I don’t see Jevyn, or his mother, being happy about that.”

  “No. Funny you should say that though. I was actually thinking of doing exactly the opposite.”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, the machine works by—”

  Cole went off into a long-winded explanation of how the machine worked, which went totally over my head. When he started writing down formulae on the back of the map, I put up a hand in submission.

  “So what are you actually planning?” I asked.

  “Simple. To run the machine in reverse. Close the rips. Seal off Dracos again.”

  I thought about that for a moment. It meant that the time when Jevyn and I would have to part was approaching, and faster than I would have liked by a long shot, but then I thought back to the death and destruction a full-blown infection on Dracos might mean. It meant that no more dragons would be coming to Earth and the work for a cure might have to go on without dragons to help to avoid the urges. It could mean disaster on my own planet, to save another.

  Was it a sacrifice I was willing to make?

  I thought about Jevyn and everything we had been through together.

  “I’m in,” I said, even though my heart threatened to break at what was to come.

  “Thanks, Katie. I know that must have been a tough decision. The only thing is, I need Derek and Lynnette to make my plan work.”

  “Oh. Crap. I have no idea where they are.”

  “No way of getting in touch with them?”

  “No. Derek’s been missing a couple of days, and Lynnette’s been gone for weeks.”

  Just as Cole spoke, the door swung open, and Jevyn stepped inside the room. He looked around and saw me talking to Cole. Jevyn’s face darkened, but he walked over anyway.

  Jevyn stood, towering over Cole, and then moved to speak to me.

  “We got a lead on Derek.”

  Sparks squealed from her end of the sofa.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Katie

  On the road near Boise, Idaho

  “NICE CHAT WITH Cole?” Jevyn asked.

  “Actually,” I said, resisting the urge to respond with a similar level of sarcasm, “it was very enlightening.”

  We had left everyone else planning for the raid on the Chemosys plant in New York, which Jevyn had been puzzled by, but there hadn’t been time to explain. I needed to try to fill him in while we were in a car heading off to where we hoped Derek was being kept captive.

  I spent the next five minutes going over everything Cole had said and his plan for closing the rifts.

  After I stopped, Jevyn sat quietly, steering the car, and peering out along the straight road.

  “I got him all wrong, didn’t I?” he asked.

  “I think you did, yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be, Jevyn. You were doing what you thought was best for the dragons and Dracos. You have nothing to be sorry for. I thought he might have been responsible for Grayfair until he told me about the machine being stolen. It’s pretty clear who was responsible now, and it was sneaky to make it look like it was Cole’s company.”

  We sat in silence for a while then; the noise of tires on concrete and the rhythmic bump as we crossed the joint between each piece of road filled the car.

  “Jevyn,” I said.

  “I know. It’s the first thing I thought of when you told me about closing the rifts. I have a decision to make, don’t I?”

  “You do, but you don’t have to make it right this minute.”

  Jevyn swung his head around to look at me, smiling. “I know that. But I will have to soon.”

  I nodded. “Look, I want you to know that I’m not expecting you to stay here for me. Your position is . . . well . . . unique. You have a whole kingdom to be responsible for. I’m just me. No pressure from me.”

  “You don’t want me to stay?” He was looking more than a little puzzled.

  “No, no, you know I want you to stay more than anything else in the whole world. When you’re with me, I feel stronger, more complete. I even feel taller,” I said, which made him cough a little. “I know this is really cheesy, but you make me feel whole, Jevyn, like we are two halves of something bigger and better than the both of us separately.”

  He was quiet for a few moments, and then he glanced over at me before fixing his eyes out front again.

  “You’re right,” he said quietly.

  “Thank you,” I said. “But like I say, no pressure.”

  “No, you’re right, that was really cheesy.”

  Slowly, he turned to look at me, his eyes sparkling, and we both burst into laughter that made my ribs ache.

  Once I’d calmed down, I said, “Great, so right at the end you learn sarcasm.”

  “It might not be the end, Katie. I genuinely haven’t made up my mind what to do. I have so many thoughts going through my mind that I can’t seem to sort into any kind of logical order.”

  “I know. I’m not going to do anything to help you though. This is your decision, and one only you can make. Just know that whatever you decide to do, I will understand, okay?”

  “Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Anyway, it looks like we’re here.”

  “What is this place?”

  I looked out the front of the car to see a long driveway stretching out to the right of the road we were on. There were no signs. Just a closed metal gate with a large thick chain and a hefty padlock.

  “It’s an old farm. When we couldn’t find Derek back at Nindock’s, I sent some of the dragons out to scope out the surrounding area. Because they were flying, they could cover more ground than searching on foot. One of them caught sight of someone in this farm—a man and a woman. The man fit Derek’s description.”

  Jevyn stepped out of the driver’s side of the car, parked off the road in a field opposite and out of sight of the gate, and then quickly stepped around to open my door.

  “What about the woman?” I asked as I took his hand to help me out of the car.

  “He only caught a tiny glimpse and couldn’t describe her. He did say there was a Chemosys vehicle there, which is why I thought it was worth checking out. I thought we could park here and fly in to see what’s what.” He had already started to strip his clothes off, and after the last few weeks, I didn’t bother to turn away. I couldn’t think of one good reason why I should. If he was going to be heading back to Dracos permanently, I needed to fill my well of memories to the brink, and seeing him naked in the bright sunshine, which lit his body with a heavenly golden glow, was one I would cherish for a long, long time.

  In a flash and a whoosh of moving air, he transformed into his dragon form. He was just as beautiful like that as he was in human form. The sun flickered off the scales on his body, making it look like he was shimmering, almost like I was looking at him through a heat ha
ze minus the haze.

  He really was glorious, and I felt a sharp pang of regret course through me that this might be one of the last few times I saw him in his magnificence, both human and dragon.

  “You okay?” he said in his slightly gruff dragon voice. It made me jump and realize I’d been staring at him open-mouthed. It couldn’t have been more obvious how I felt about him if I’d been dribbling drool from the corner of my mouth.

  “I’m fine. Sorry, I was daydreaming.”

  I clambered up onto his back and grabbed onto the back of his neck. I knew I couldn’t fall off, but the takeoff was the scariest part of flying on Jevyn.

  Thirty seconds later, we were soaring, the wind flicking my hair back and then flipping it around to slap across my eyes so I couldn’t see where we were going. That didn’t matter, though, as Jevyn had perfect control. He had soared away from the house to gain some height, so we could glide over the farm to see the lay of the land.

  When we finally turned and started circling the farm, the farmhouse itself seemed deserted. There was certainly no vehicle there, and I wondered if we had come too late. If Derek was there, then maybe he had moved on. It also made me wonder if Derek, and whoever the woman was, were being held or if they were there voluntarily and we had trusted Derek too much.

  “Should we go down?” I yelled into Jevyn’s ear over the sound of onrushing air.

  Jevyn craned his head down, which made me wobble a bit, and then brought it back up level. “I think we should.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  My stomach leaped up into my throat as we suddenly dived down in a wide spiral, each circle bringing us closer and closer to the farmhouse. In a matter of a few seconds, we had landed in a yard that sat between the two wings of the main house.

  There seemed little point in hiding our presence if there were no guards there.

  The place reminded me of the other farm we had visited after the bridge collapse in a time that seemed an absolute age ago.

  While Jevyn put on some shorts, I hurried over to look through the dusty, dirty windows into the building. Just to be on the safe side, I pulled the pistol I’d brought with me out of my waistband and held it ready. I hoped it wasn’t going to be needed, but better safe than sorry.