The Tenth Legion (Book 6, Progeny of Evolution)

by Mike Arsuaga

  “But what more can we do?”

  “The solution’s there. I’m missing it. The answer must have something to do with Cithara’s prophesies, I’m sure.”

  * * * *

  Over the next week, fourteen more died. Since Bobby’s escape had compromised the quarantine, Ed allowed anyone who wanted to go home to leave. A glum procession of families and grieving relatives filed out of the compound.

  “If they’re spread out, it’ll be harder to infect them,” Ethan said.

  “True,” Lorna agreed. No matter what, barring a cure, in six months, the point became moot. On the day of the exodus, a thunderstorm drenched the sad procession. Even the divinities seemed determined to add to their misery.

  The next day, while Lorna visited the clinic for follow-up, a young female in the late stages of the virus crashed out of her containment tent. Before the human orderlies wrestled her to the floor, she coughed full in Lorna’s face. The medical staff rushed to execute disinfection procedures, understanding despite their best efforts within a day Lorna would most likely be lying in one of the beds, gasping for breath.

  Upon learning of Lorna’s exposure, Ed wanted to come to her.

  “It would be unwise, Father,” Ethan said. “Lorna concurs.”

  “You’re darn right I do,” she said from a quarantine bed.

  “How do you feel?” Ed asked.

  “I’m tired of being laid up. Otherwise, fine. More than twenty-four hours have passed, and nothing’s happened. I don’t think my fate is to end like this.”

  “The doctors recommended three days observation,” Ethan said.

  “And so it will be,” Ed announced, ending further discussion.

  Three days passed without symptoms. Cleared from isolation, Lorna wasted no time returning to the quest of finding a cure.

  “A call for you, ma’am,” a worn, submissive voice said from behind, catching up with her in the treatment ward. “It’s the Chairman.”

  Lorna took a break from work to clear her mind, passing the time by comforting the late-stage patients through the quarantine tents.

  Without the usual civilities, Ed launched into the conversation. “There’s an outbreak of virus among the New Orleans clan,” he said. “Do you have anything?” By “anything,” he meant a cure.

  “No,” Lorna answered, taking an exasperated breath, “God help me, no.”

  Ed, we need to talk.

  Before she could speak, he hung up, like her, chasing whatever hopes existed for the preservation of The Others. Lorna closed her eyes against the tears seeping out. She pictured the heroic shepherd driven without mercy by a quirk of DNA to defend the flock with everything he had, to die for them without a second thought if the situation came to that.

  She had another dream about Cithara. In it, she repeated—the unborn are the solution.

  The next day, the words swirled around in her mind while she worked. They tied into the prophecy somehow. Lorna believed herself on the verge of an epiphany, needing one more nudge to push everything into focus and understanding.

  The illuminated laptop monitor seemed to call out to her. The screen rolled through the day’s news, the latest on X-10, a famine in Kenya, the stock market. Then the display paused on a medieval portrait of the Madonna. “Is God within her?” the caption read.

  Lorna sat upright with a gasp of revelation. “God yes, but also the cure,” she said aloud in the empty room. Fingers raced across the keyboard, calling up the data on the Muslim Bomb. For three hours, she pored over pages of United States Army statistics. A list of people who the virus bypassed blinked on the screen.

  “What gave them immunity?” Lorna asked herself.

  Without exception, familial groups made up the list. Lorna picked up the internal phone, dialing the head of the in-house laboratory. He’d provided the survival statistics, and he knew more about them than anyone else in the compound.

  “Dr. Kelso,” she said when he answered. “I’m looking at a list of survivors from the Muslim Bomb.”

  “Yes.”

  “Correct me if I am wrong, but I see almost no record of anyone surviving who lived alone.”

  Dead air filled the space between them while he put aside some paperwork. “What screen are you on?” After calling up the same one, he browsed the information for a few seconds. “Yes, Ms. Winters. You are correct.”

  “Also, each surviving family has at least one adult female member. Is that not also true?”

  “Yes? Where is this going?”

  “Can we determine how many of the surviving families had a member who was pregnant at the time?”

  “Possibly, but for what purpose?”

  “It may be nothing, or maybe everything. Please put what you’re doing aside and attend to this right away.”

  The same evening, Lorna, Ethan, Doctor Kelso, and Ed met in the big conference room. “What do you have?” Ed asked.

  Lorna’s heart ached for him. Shouldering the burdens of the community showed. The flesh on his face sagged as if infused with lead. A dark area, like prunes, lay under each exhausted eye.

  “Show him, Doctor Kelso,” Lorna said.

  “Ms. Winters asked me to seek commonalities among families that survived the Muslim Bomb attacks of the last century. Until now, the explanation for their survival has been they possessed a shared genetic immunity. Ms. Winters called my attention to two facts. First was the perfection of the survival. The distribution of the genetic predisposition for immunity is random. Some members of the surviving families would have a lot, others less, and a few none. We would expect the unprotected ones to have succumbed, but survival was almost perfect, beyond what any mathematical model predicted.”

  “You’ll forgive me, Doctor, but how is this relevant to our situation?” Ed carped.

  “You’re going to want to hear this,” Lorna chipped in.

  Ed brightened at the sound of her presence. “Then continue, by all means.” The edge left his voice.

  “Then we discovered the single factor each of the families had in common.”

  “Thank goodness for the anally compulsive record-keeping of the military,” Lorna said.

  “Yes. Ms. Winters asked me to find how many of the surviving families had a pregnant member. We cross-referenced military data bases. All of them had at least one. Our conclusion is pregnancy somehow conferred immunity not just to the woman, but also to those close to her. The hypothesis is she transmitted protection through touch or breath or a more direct exchange of bodily fluids.”

  “There’s more,” Lorna said. “A pregnant lycan female here became exposed and did not contract the disease.”

  “Who’s the female?” Ed asked.

  Lorna thought him pretty dense not to figure it out, until remembering everything he had on his mind. “That’s not important now. Your laboratories need to concentrate on this avenue of research. Isolate the element, synthesize and produce a vaccine. In the meantime, keep everyone in the vicinity of pregnant females.”

  “This sounds crazy,” Ed murmured listlessly. “Do you think it will work?”

  “We have no better idea and nothing to lose. Besides fitting the prophecy, in a weird way, the idea makes sense.”

  “Then I’ll give the order.” Ed paused, looking Lorna straight in the face. “Tell the blessed mother the hope and love of all our kind goes with her.”

  Lorna choked up, but forced the build-up of emotions back long enough to say, “She knows.”

  Ethan, who’d been silent until then, spoke up. “This work is also personally important to me.”

  “In what way?” Ed asked.

  “An hour ago, the staff doctors diagnosed Wendy with the disease.”

  Lorna jumped to her feet. “There’s no time to waste. We have blood samples to take.” She departed for the infirmary.

  “Are you going to leave some for me?” she asked after they took the sixth vial of blood.

  The quick-moving little technician missed Lorna�
��s attempt to lighten the mood. “So many tests to run. A sample goes only so far.” He answered with the somberness of one who’d been in the trenches from the beginning.

  Lorna sat on a chair at lycan Wendy White’s bedside. If there were any truth to pregnancy protecting others by being near them, then her place had to be with the sick. Ethan’s wife was as ill as they came. On the other side of the bed, their images distorted by the plastic quarantine tent, Ethan, accompanied by his hybrid sons, sat silently, keeping vigil over the feverish bundle of pain in front of them.

  When Lorna stood up to walk around the ward to visit the other patients, Ethan followed. “Are the tests proceeding well?”

  “I guess so. For sure they took enough blood.” She repeated the standing joke about feeding the vampires. Ethan smiled briefly. They came to a bed holding a male. Lorna reached into the quarantine gloves, stroking his sweat-glistened forehead.

  “Aren’t you going to touch them?” Ethan asked.

  “Not with you exposed. Later today, the staff will wheel all of them to the containment room. They’ll seal me in so I can remove the tents. We don’t understand how the source of protection works, or what curative powers I have, so I breathe on them and have a lot of physical contact, the obvious things.”

  “Have you told Father about your condition?”

  “No, I haven’t,” she said. “Neither will you. He must never know.”

  “What will you do?”

  “If we get out of this alive, I’m getting rid of them.”

  “If you do, I can promise Father’s love will turn to hate.”

  “Why should he care?” The bitterness that crept into her voice arrived unexpectedly.

  “He told me what you said about a member of the family being a traitor,” Ethan said. “He thought your suspicions were unfounded, even offensive. I suppose that precipitated the argument between you.”

  “Yes, but considering I relayed the information from the First Mother who talked to me across two thousand years, I think he should have listened instead of walking out with his ass up in the air and taking up with the Brazilian slut.” Lorna hadn’t meant to bring Valeria into the conversation. “Forget what I said about the Brazilian girl.”

  “Her name is Valeria.”

  “I know that,” Lorna snapped back.

  “Do you know who she is?” Ethan asked, becoming calmer while her agitation increased.

  “No, should I?”

  He chuckled. “If you check our genealogy on any search engine, you’d learn Valeria Arriago is the hybrid granddaughter of Malvina Arriago. She is Father’s goddaughter.”

  “But she lives in Brazil,” Lorna said lamely. “Malvina Arriago came from Spain.”

  “The story’s complicated,” Ethan answered. “The short version is this. Valeria is the youngest daughter of Benefacio Arriago, son of Malvina. After Malvina’s death, they moved to Brazil.”

  Lorna took a deep, hopeful breath. “Are you telling me she’s not involved with him?” She braced for the answer.

  Ethan laughed. “Heavens no, unless lavish birthday and Christmas gifts count.”

  “But she accompanied him to the Academy Awards.”

  “Yes. He wanted to take you, but you didn’t return his call,” Ethan nudged her, winked, and added, “I think he had something big planned. A special reconciliation, if you get my meaning.”

  “My pigheadedness messed everything up? Damn!”

  “You’re not too late. Maybe it’s even for the best things turned out this way. Trust me when I say I believe your call would give him a great lift.”

  Contacting him through the computer feed, she could have spoken to the imposing image of his face, but right then, something more intimate seemed appropriate. Her hands trembled while she punched in the number on the cell phone.

  “Ed White,” said the level voice.

  Since no one besides Ethan learned of her suspicions about Valeria, she decided not to complicate things by bringing them up. “It’s me, Lorna. I understand everything. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you the way I should’ve been, but I’m here now, if you’ll have me.”

  “Of course I’ll have you.” Ed’s tired voice reflected hope like that of a man who’s been sick for a long time, but is told he’s past the crisis, on the way to recovery. “I’m nothing without you.”

  “Ed, there’s one more thing I need to tell you.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “I’m leaving right away. Cynthia, Thomas, and the others will follow shortly. We’ll fight this thing until the last of us succumbs, but if we must die, then let it be together, as a family. At least, you’ll finally get to meet my goddaughter.” His statement sounded like a declaration of war rather than an acceptance of inevitable death. Did the new tone arise because he had more to fight for, or because the hope of a cure lay before them? Both, she decided.

  Lorna put the cell phone down. Ed was coming to her. Once he learned about the pregnancy, nothing would stop him. The fact she carried twins would remain a surprise.

  On occasion over the past month, idle thoughts created a list of preparations for the first time together in the event of reconciliation. Now that he was less than an hour away, she put the plan in motion.

  First, she gusted through the apartment, putting things away and dusting. Changing the bed linens, she replaced the household set with some Egyptian cotton. The thousand threads per square inch were fine, soft to the touch. Over the snow-white sheets stretched a green comforter, blending well with the brass four-poster bed frame. After a few sprays of air freshener, she started a smooth jazz CD, judging the scene ready for a homecoming.

  Now to do the same for herself. Donatello’s talents would come in handy, but he hunkered down on the island.

  In the shower, every part of her body experienced a slow, systematic washing, a symbolic removal of traces from every previous man in her life. She wanted to present herself to Ed clean and new as if he were her first lover and this was their first time. In the soft shower water, the aromatic soap conjured up rich, thick lather like whipped cream, making her slippery all over. The tactile sensation of snaking soap-slick hands down thighs or over arms and breasts warmed the inner caverns of her loins.

  Stepping from the shower wrapped in a large towel, she ruffled her hair with the edge of a second, smaller one. Despite the efforts at preservation, the hold of Donatello’s perm on the pageboy had almost completely relaxed. Still, after not much toweling, followed by a few minutes under the blow dryer, enough remained so everything fell pretty well into place. After a quick pat or two, the bangs hung in a straight line across her brow, ending an inch above the eyes. Eyelashes curled up from alert, dark eyes, almost touching the matching black eyebrows.

  Sometimes, Lorna wondered what attracted him to her. Not in possession of luxurious beauty like Cynthia or elegance like Valeria, the best you could call her was cute. Ed travelled in the proper circles to meet any number of women—the kind who take over a room when they enter. They move with unhurried elegance, lingering to chat. For the fortunate, they might brush a kiss on a cheek or give a brief embrace. The majority make do with a handshake, and they’re on their way—for there are many to enthrall. They reminded Lorna of the exquisite pink jellyfish with twenty-foot-long tendrils drifting among the oceanic currents of the Australian reefs, only without the stingers.

  By contrast, Edward White had fallen in love with a smallish, compact, tawny-skinned lycan with a strong will accompanied by an equally strong sense of independence. One, who took pride in having worked for everything she had. From habits born out of the corporation orphanage and police training, she carried herself erect, lacking extravagant beauty, but in receipt of a fair share of male attention because of her approachability. Her dark eyes brightened upon solving a problem or a case. The legs of a sprinter, which seemed continuously poised on the edge of an explosive display of kinetic motion, were matched by small arms that could, like the legs, instantly be on th
e move.

  Lorna applied a scent to block Ed’s sense of smell. He’d have to gage her readiness in the way of humans. The idea of him proceeding cautiously by judging reactions excited her. A dab of perfume behind each ear, in addition to throat, and she was ready to get dressed. Observing from over a shoulder the hard, uplifted buttocks presenting themselves in the mirror pleased her immensely.

  Even being pregnant, she could get by with a sports bra. She smiled to herself, not wanting to make removal too hard for him. The small blue garment pushed her up and erect, covering hardly more than the aureoles.

  The underwear drawer in the bureau glided open with frictionless silence. The piece was antique, at least two hundred years old. The drawer handles and hinges were original equipment, a rough-cast dull brass, but the drawers moved on modern Teflon gliders. Lorna held out two scanty pieces of silk, hesitated for a moment, and put them back. No underwear tonight. She settled on a pair of biker pants. Being a little bit trashy wouldn’t hurt. Besides, the feel of the material stretched over her from waist to knees, drawing in at her crotch and her butt, was sexy.

  At his trademark soft knock, her heart did flip-flops. Quickly, she dimmed the lights and reset the CD to the beginning before opening the door. Ed stood in the doorway; a shoulder rested against the frame.

  Slowly, she looked the hulking specter over. For a month, she hadn’t seen him in the flesh—a damn long month, one that felt like a decade. Then, moving faster than she believed possible, he flew into her arms. “Oh, God,” he said, with uncharacteristic emotion. “I thought I might never see you again.”

  Eagerness shone in her eyes when they imprinted their lips on each other. His great hands splayed across her back, pressing her against his tight, sculpted torso. Reaching under her buttocks, he lifted her so they were face-to-face. She wrapped hot spandex-encased thighs around his waist. Her femininity slid against his stomach, evoking a reaction from farther below.

  “Should we be doing this in your present condition?” he asked, breathing in her ear.