by L A Kennedy
After a long pause, his mother spoke again. She was almost an expert in governing her emotions, but Zylan could hear the sadness in the silence.
“My heart aches for you, my son. I will send the pure Vestal Virgyn to you at once. Use caution with her. She is not of your world. She has spent time there, learning the ways you would return home with, but she is not accustomed to them all. Please be of kindness.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Zylan replied.
They both hung up. No one spoke words of love in his family home. Love was weakness. It was a tool to be used against opponents. Zy remembered what his father had said about love. ‘You do not love, you do not mourn and you are not tender or kind or forgiving. You are ruthless. To be a ruler, you have to be willing to kill your own children with your bare hands as they sleep in their cribs.’
Zylan felt cursed. He would not be one of the privileged. He would not get to live out his life with the one he loved. And Zylan did love someone, but her name wasn’t Amity.
He pressed the back of his head into the wall he was leaning against. He had to go to Cael and inform him of what was happening with Amity and her impending arrival, but he was currently avoiding Cael.
Earlier in the evening, Cael had called a team meeting of the Slayers. It had gone as well as removing a spider with a fire bomb. For the first time in his career with Cael, when Cael pushed, Zylan had pushed back with force. It played over and over in his mind now, since the moment he’d drawn that line in the sand.
“God damn it, Cael. We don’t need her!” Zylan had yelled, leaning across the long wooden table. He’d felt the angry heat in his cheeks. He’d known his face had to have been bright red, and his eyes had been almost surely about to pop out of their sockets.
Cael had paced. He did this when he was nervous about something. And after he’d opened his mouth, everyone had known why he was pacing. Cael had been asking Zylan to bring in his Fyrvor.
He’d stood firm against Cael, the makeshift leader of the Slayers. His body had been vibrating, the table legs tapping the floor from the fury flowing out of his hands. Cael wasn’t one to back down. Zylan knew this, but he wasn’t backing down either, not when it came to his Fyrvor. No one backed down when it came to their only reason for breathing.
The Slayers had stood shoulder to shoulder in the main hall. A long table ran twenty feet in length, down the middle of the room. There had been fourteen of them left, seven on each side—Cael on one side and Zylan on the other. After four months, they had been down a few, lost to the war against the Proletaryans and the Order.
“We do, Zy. We need Nerissa,” Cael had spoken, his voice soft, like he understood exactly how Zylan felt.
Zylan had pointed at Des, Cael’s Fyrvor. “We fought to keep her out of this. I spent weeks, months—hell, years—trying to keep your Fyrvor away from this. I was paying rent in her fucking buildings to keep an eye on her for you. I followed her around like a bloody puppy dog, making sure she was solid, because you couldn’t go out in the daylight. And now you want to pull in the one person I love?”
“She doesn’t know you love her,” a voice had interrupted them both. Riam, with no last name, put his two cents in, earning a glare from both Cael and Zylan.
“Do you know a Kler’odient who’s stronger than she is? Who can read the future? One who knows the dormant irregular gene as well as she does?” Cael had asked. “She’s the only one who fits the bill, the only one who can do what we need. Are you willing to risk the entire race of irregulars for her?”
Zylan had pounded the table. His shoulders had shaken with the need to punch something, someone. “Yes! Are you happy? Yes, I’m willing to risk the world for her. Aren’t you willing to do the same for Des?”
Des had stepped forward, shaking her head. “No. He damn well isn’t, and he shouldn’t be. I wouldn’t risk you all for him. I wouldn’t risk the citizens who are counting on us for him. I’d want to, but I wouldn’t. I’d want to watch the world burn to the ground for him, but I wouldn’t. That isn’t what love is. That’s infatuation. That’s ownership. Cael would kill for me. He’d kill one of you to protect me. He’d die for me, but he wouldn’t sentence the rest of you to the same fate. He, like me, wouldn’t sacrifice our entire race for his love. If he died, I’d follow soon after, and I would meet him in the Overworld.”
Zylan had pushed the table toward Cael, stepping back and releasing a groan. “Please, don’t do this, Cael. Not. Fucking. Her!”
“She will have a choice, but, Zy, we’re losing. We need help, before there’s no one left to help. You’ll go check her out. That’s an order,” Cael had said, and he’d turned away from the table. Before leaving the room, he looked back to Zylan. “We would protect her as you protect my Fyrvor.”
“Fuck your orders, Cael. If she dies, you will follow,” Zylan had spat, backing away.
Zylan had watched the rest of the team scurry off. He hadn’t been able to blame anyone for ducking out. The air had been too thick to breathe without leaving the sour taste of rage. Riam and Des had still stood at the table. Zylan had paused in the hall, secretly watching and listening to the only two people who’d have to pick up the pieces if this all went south. A long sigh had filled the meeting room.
“Well, that went better than I thought it would,” Des had said, rolling her shoulders. “The tension in the room damn near stopped my heart.”
Riam had taken a seat at the table, drinking down the rest of his beer. “It’s not over yet, Des. You see how Cael is with you? Zylan doesn’t have that control. Things are going to get bad. This was just the tip.”
* * * *
After the events of the day, there had been only one thing to do. Zylan had hit the gym, as he had done each time his stress pushed him to the brink of homicide. He knew the Slayers had listened to him work out his anger in the gym many times. His screams tonight had echoed through the compound, bouncing into every room. His soon-to-be future had been chasing him since the day he’d left Sola-Nosfer. It’d scratched at his sanity, inch by inch. There had been no doubt in Zy’s mind that everyone could feel his anger and, below that, his sadness and fear.
Now back in his bedroom, he collapsed. “My Fyrvor,” Zylan whispered, holding on to a photo of his Neri, his Fyrvor.
Nerissa Sung was smiling in the photo, taken by Zylan, who had been pretending to take photos in the park where Nerissa had been having lunch in the sunshine. She was leaning forward. Her long, black, straight hair was draped over one shoulder. The sun kissed her hair as it kissed her skin. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
He and Neri had met several times at the Netherworld. She worked tirelessly on the dormant gene, trying to manipulate the active irregular gene. Her goal was to find a way to deactivate it. Her proposal carried a lot of weight with the Netherworld. Klers didn’t waste their time on pointlessness. They always had a purpose. Her flavor of second sight was the future. Everyone listened to someone who could see the future. When a Kler was working toward something, the Netherworld gave them free rein.
If Neri could deactivate the gene, it would change the face of their war against the Rancor Order. The only irregulars left would be Vampyre. The Vampyre DNA wasn’t part of the irregular gene. It was simply who they were destined to be. It was the same with a lot of the Therians. It wasn’t an irregular gene that created all of them. They always had been and always would be.
Zylan curled up into a ball in his empty bedroom. He would tell Cael and the others about his fate later. For now, he would mourn. This was going to be what took his life. He would either carve out his own heart, leaving his love behind then become a husk of the man he wanted to be, or he’d keep his love and be hunted by his people. Either way, he would be dead. He wondered for a moment if Neri knew he was coming for her. Had she seen all of his wicked deeds? Would she hate him before he even knocked on her door?
Chapter Two
“Neri, are you coming?” a female’s voice called out, pu
lling Neri’s attention from her computer in the lab. “Doctor Sung? Neri?”
Neri sighed and tucked stray black strands of hair behind her ears. Her hair was poker straight, just like her mother’s. Dr. Neri Sung was a first generation child in her family tree to be born off Korean soil, and she’d followed in her mother’s footsteps. Both of her parents had been born and raised in Korea, but they had moved to Van City when her father was offered a job with the Netherworld Agency. Neri was a second generation molecular geneticist, like her mother, specializing in the irregular gene. And like her mother, she was usually engrossed in her work, to the point of neglecting her body’s most basic needs. But tonight wasn’t about work. Tonight was about survival.
“Not tonight, Beth. I’m running a few more tests. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Neri called back, not turning from her monitor. She knew she wouldn’t see Beth tomorrow. She wouldn’t see Beth ever again.
Neri rubbed her brow. It felt like dry sandpaper dragging across her sore eyes every time she blinked. On a good night, she was a workaholic, an addict. On a bad night, she was so captivated with finding a cure that she ignored her body’s cries for sleep and food. She was the worst kind of addict. She loved her addiction. The only reason she slept was to store up more fuel to feed her work habit.
Neri waited for the office lights to click off. She was finally alone. Normally, she liked being alone here. She liked the silence. The offices of the Netherworld Laboratory were bustling during daylight hours. Her zone alone held over fifty personnel for the day shift and twenty during the night shift. Vampyres had this thing about working when the sun was beaming in on their labs. Man, they’re a demanding lot.
Tonight was different. Tonight the uppity-ups were putting on a dinner for some random retiree, a Vampyre who she didn’t know personally. Two hundred years bought dinner and a pat on the back. She thought it was odd, a Vampyre retiring. They had almost an endless supply of years. She couldn’t see herself retiring willingly. She’d likely die at her monitor with a few test tubes in her hands.
Thankfully, all of the office blood drinkers were out in celebration, which left the office—and most of the building—empty. Any reason for the Vampyres to celebrate, and they were there. They were the life of the party, no pun intended. They regaled partygoers with stories from a time that could only be read about. The odd time she was forced to attend some Netherworld social, she enjoyed the stories most of all. It was the only thing she enjoyed about being away from her work.
Neri downloaded her work onto a thumb drive and packed her things into a small banker’s box. Her files and life’s work were reduced to one small white box. Being honest, her life in general was just tucked into that box. She was her work, and she never let anything else interfere with it. She lived alone, slept alone, ate alone and made her way through life alone. There wasn’t room for more when her life consisted of living and breathing the cure for humanity. She had never planned to end up this way—alone—but there was little room for the hurt that would come from being left. She couldn’t risk her mind focusing on something other than the cure. Plus, how do I tell a lover that I’m running late and will be just another nineteen hours?
She was ready to leave, and turned around, watching the clock. She did a mental check in her mind, remembering she’d forgotten to order flowers to be delivered to the workmate who was retiring. She knew she should have taken them herself or, at the very least, donated a bag of blood. But she wasn’t a people person. She was a Petri dish person. And plus, giving flowers was lame, and giving blood was weird, even for her. Regardless, she had other plans tonight, plans she couldn’t put off. Hell or high water, this was happening with or without her. She wished it wasn’t, but fate didn’t give a shit about her wishes. She’d read that in a fortune cookie somewhere. She was sure of it.
Nine on the nose, not as late as it usually was for her to be checking out for the night and leaving the office. She had a foldout bed in the corner and three changes of clothes, a toiletry bag and a stack of books for that very reason. She rarely got out of the office before midnight, if at all. She spent hours dissecting the irregular gene—researching the variations and trying to find ways to enhance or deactivate it, while factoring in the natural mutations that occur throughout generations. She had built off the foundation her mother had laid out years ago.
At the age of three, she had begun dreaming of the future. She had known this would be her life. She had known she would spend her days and nights working toward a cure. The only part she hadn’t dreamed was if she would find the cure or die trying. From her dreams, she knew death would tap on her door a few times while she worked tirelessly to save mankind.
The pressure to show progress was overwhelming. The weight from above felt like a cockroach lodged in her ear, trying to burrow its way out through her brain. The Netherworld wanted a cure—and yesterday. She was close. She could feel it. She’d almost seemed to touch it with her fingertips a few times. But even if she’d found the cure, the natural mutations that occurred centuries ago had nothing to do with the irregular gene and would not be cured by any vaccine she’d create. Vampyres had been in existence prior to the irregular gene and gone unaffected by it. Therianthropy was a blood infection, not an irregular gene. And when infected, the Therian virus killed the irregular genes within the body. There was room for only one beast.
Those with the ability to control with the mind, read the future, see the past, have superhuman strength and those who were classified by children as monsters… Almost all would be cured. No more claws and no more razor-sharp teeth. No more using abilities to dig around in the mind of someone else.
Part of Neri had mourned the outcome of a cure, as she was certain it would remove her own abilities. Maybe she was more hopeful than certain that being normal for once would be nice. Whatever the outcome, she was willing. For the good of mankind, she was willing to give up her own abilities. To keep people alive, to keep children safe, she would do a lot more than that. She’d end her own life for that cure.
She picked up her box and headed to the stairs at exactly four minutes past nine. She didn’t take the elevator. It was too slow. Down six flights of stairs, she hit the lobby and pulled the silent fire alarm. It flashed on every floor, without the irritating scream that no one could think over the top of. The alarm would read on everyone’s phones, computers and panic buttons that they were forced to wear while here. The highest level of the Netherworld made up each floor. All of their secrets had built this structure from the ground up.
After releasing the metal arm on the alarm, Neri walked out. Anyone left in the building had just over ten minutes to escape. That was double the time they’d need. She knew exactly how long it would take to leave. She had practiced the drills with them—countless drills over the years—and every new employee was trained accordingly. It took a maximum of five minutes to exit the building, even from the very top floor.
Loading her little red car with her white cardboard box, she pulled away to a safe distance. The building—which looked like every other building in the immediate area, minus any signage that gave the purpose of the place away—was leveled at exactly twenty-one minutes past nine. The explosion shook the block. Glass blew in all directions. Car alarms echoed down the street. Everyone for miles would be coming to see what happened.
It played out exactly as her dream had shown her. She had known this would happen, at this exact time, on this exact day, years ago.
As she pulled away, she remembered how her path had crossed with an undercover agent in a park. He’d taken pictures of the flowers and trees, but she knew he’d been taking pictures of her and that they’d met many times in various places. She had felt him watching her, but she wasn’t afraid. Since meeting him, she had felt safer.
She knew he would come out of the shadows if she needed him. She could feel the affection he had for her. Somehow, he loved her. And in some odd way, she loved him back. He was her only friend—one she never spo
ke to or spent time with, shared stories or coffee with. But he was more of a friend than anyone else in her life. More than that, she knew he would be coming for her. The reasons were still unclear, but she knew she had to go with him.
She put her car in gear and headed to the safe house. It was a safe house for the Slayers. No one outside of the Genesys Project and their liaison with the Netherworld knew of its location except her. That was as far as her dream had taken her, to the front door of a broken-down cabin once used as a meth lab on the outskirts of the city, tucked behind Cypress Mountain. It was condemned, boarded up, and it had blood on the floor and walls from the last raid. The Slayers had taken it over, left it a shit-shack on the outside, but fortified it down below.
Driving with her radio on, she was calm. Her dreams always led her in the right direction. But in her calmness, she mourned the finale of those dreams. She would have no more visions in her dreams about this path. Her last dream of this night ended with her on the doorstep of the safe house. The rest was eaten up by darkness. It was never good when her dreams stopped cold. It usually meant the person in her dream was dead, and there was nothing left to tell. It was like closing a book. She hoped that in this case there would be a part two.
She could feel the darkness coming down to the very marrow in her bones. She had dreamed of this darkness. Always, in her dreams, she felt it behind her, like a shadow that she could never clearly see. A weight pressed over her body, something pushing down on her shoulders with nails that cut her skin. She breathed in a thick dread. She knew it was coming—the darkness—and it hungered for her pain. It didn’t compromise. A ruling had been made.
Chapter Three
Zylan stepped into Cael’s office, closing the doors behind him with sweaty palms. He had spent the last twenty-four hours holed up in his bedroom, curled up on the floor, staring into the darkness. He would have to bring his one true love back to the compound then leave her. He would abandon her in order to take on the duties of his birthright. It was that, or they all died. What was the point of any of this, if he was sentencing them all to death?
