The Sleepless Stars

by C. J. Lyons

  The unseen men exclaimed as the smell leaked past the blanket and filled the cargo hold. The turbulence eased off finally. The blanket was removed, and one of the men appeared above me. He yelled at me in Italian, then jammed water bottles into the air holes, dousing me with the liquid, diluting the vomit until the smell was bearable. Then he vanished once more. Leaving me soaking wet, freezing cold, and sloshing in bilious water trapped at the bottom of the crate.

  Miserable. Frightened. Powerless. Exactly what they wanted.

  I was tired of giving them what they wanted. At least I could make myself more comfortable. Maybe even give me a chance to fight back when we arrived at our destination. Show them I hadn’t broken. Not yet.

  I tucked my knees up to my chest as tight as they would go and leaned back, stretching my handcuffed wrists down over my butt. Once I got them past my hipbones, I was stuck—not enough room to stretch forward, so no choice but to lay my head down into the foul water polluting the bottom of the cage. Every muscle screamed as I twisted and folded and inched my wrists up while pulling my legs down. Several times I thought I’d never fight free, not with the walls of the crate blocking every movement, but I refused to give up and finally my hands slid just far enough for me to edge my wrists past my heels.

  I lay curled up, panting, the exertion filling me with a momentary sense of relief, my motion sickness and sodden shivering forgotten. I raised my hands before my face, grinning at them as if they were small miracles. Of course, I was still handcuffed, trapped, but I felt in control, no longer subject to the random whimsy of gravity.

  With my hands in front of me, I could reach for Ryder’s pendant. My touchstone. I pressed it to my flesh, closed my eyes, and imagined his arms around me. A calm settled over me, my breathing steadied, and I was able to enter a fugue, casting my senses out beyond the crate.

  The men were across from me, sleeping. I could hear their rhythmic breathing. We’d already been flying for several hours, but in what direction? Italy? Or some far-flung hidden lab? The only light inside the plane came from dim red and green lights along the floor and ceiling. Nothing more to be learned.

  Which left me with nothing more to do except wait. But that didn’t mean I had to waste the time. Gingerly, but with more confidence than I’d had before in the isolation tank, I reached for Leo’s memories of his work with Tommaso. I needed to know everything I could before I faced my family.

  By the time we finally landed, I’d thrown up until my stomach was emptied and had also peed myself along the way. Sometime during the long flight, the blanket had slid free from the crate. Tyrone and the men had slept through it all.

  As soon as the plane stopped, I saw Tyrone pass my crate on his way off the plane. The other men sprang to their feet and removed the cargo straps.

  Through the open doors of the cargo bay, I caught a glimpse of sunshine, blue sky, no clouds, the scent of salt water and the sound of seagulls mixed in with the roar of jet engines. A quick transfer to the back of a van—no windows, no light, more nausea, but I was able to down the bottle of electrolyte solution they threw in to me. Proof that despite my discomfort, they still needed me alive.

  Another few hours’ drive before the doors opened once more, then the crate lurching as the men grunted to push it onto a boat.

  Not a cargo ship, a motorboat, not very large from the little I could see as they secured the crate to the deck. A tarp was thrown over top, blocking both my vision and my air. The ride was rocky, my body slamming from one wall to the other as if the driver was trying to ensure that I arrived at our destination with the maximum amount of bruises. I lost track of the time, but it felt as if I lost another night to the journey.

  I retched and dry-heaved but had nothing left to vomit. And little energy to fight. My muscles were cramped and locked into place from the confinement, and my vertigo was overwhelming. All I could do was clench Ryder’s tree of life pendant, holding on to my one last tie to him.

  Finally, we stopped. The tarp was thrown off, and I hauled in gulps of fresh sea air. The bright sunshine of the noonday sun made me blink. The crate was raised, then slid forward, then dropped onto solid ground, although my stomach still felt as if we were bouncing along the waves. I braced myself, wanting to fight, to kick, to show them I hadn’t broken.

  “Open it,” an unseen woman’s voice came.

  The door to the crate opened. Before I could launch any attack, the men grabbed my ankles and dragged me out into the sunshine. My legs were so numb I couldn’t stand, couldn’t do more than twist my torso so that I could get a good look at my destination.

  I was on a concrete jetty, the motorboat tied up to the piling behind me. In front of me was a large, ornate, wrought-iron gate. It had lethal-appearing spikes jabbing up from its top edge and also equally deadly horizontal spikes protruding out. No one was getting up and over it alive, it seemed to proclaim. It was obviously ancient, hundreds of years old, standing a good twelve feet high and at least that wide.

  The wall it was set into was brick, covered with cement or stucco. Higher than the gate by two feet or more, also with spikes lining its top edge. The wall extended in both directions as far as I could see, the seawater lapping against its base, green algae smeared at the high-tide line. At the far reaches of my vision, the wall curved—an island. This was an island.

  The men grabbed an elbow each and hauled me to my feet. I couldn’t stand, my legs sagging uselessly beneath me.

  “Welcome to your new home,” the woman said from behind me, her voice anything but welcoming.

  I twisted my head, fighting free of the curtain of wet hair that clung to my face, until I could see her. She was a little taller than I am, same dark hair, same dark eyes, a wrinkle-free face, yet I’d still peg her age in her fifties. Something about those eyes...they were...without mercy.

  The woman met my gaze with an unreadable expression then strode past me, forcing me to turn once more to keep her in sight. She was the leader, the one in command, the one I had to focus on. Another boat arrived, this one a sleek, old-fashioned wooden motorboat. I’d seen ones like it in old movies set in Italy.

  Tyrone emerged, hopping onto the jetty with a jaunty grace, ignoring me entirely as he strode over to the woman and kissed her on both cheeks. “Mother. What do you think of the present I brought you? Your long-lost daughter has returned to save us all.”

  Chapter 42

  FRANCESCA WALKED AWAY from the dock, schooling her expression until she was safely out of view of both Angela and Tyrone. Angela, her child who should have died in infancy, to see her not only alive but healthy, whole...it was beyond Francesca’s wildest hopes.

  Poor Angelo, so innocent and guileless. Dear, sweet boy. When she’d realized that the child she created with her egg and his sperm carried a lethal defect above and beyond the Scourge, she’d thought it a kindness to let him take the child, to have someone to love her before she died.

  Yet, here she was. Not dead but gifted far more than any Lazaretto in recorded history. The daughter she’d abandoned had returned to save them all.

  If Francesca could convince her to help. She nodded in passing to a group of health aides shuffling along with their patients then continued up to her office. At first she’d been furious at Tyrone for his treatment of Angela—crating her like a wild animal. But she understood his fury. Because of Angela, his brothers were dead.

  Worse, because of Angela, the brothers had failed. An unforgivable sin for a Lazaretto.

  As she paced her office, she came to a decision. They had only a few days to persuade Angela to join them. Otherwise, she would need to take what she needed by force—which would leave Angela dead or comatose, unable to use her gift.

  Better that than to risk the girl turning on them, joining forces with Marco.

  Perhaps Tyrone’s instincts had been correct. Angela had never had to endure the deprivations the rest of Francesca’s people had been subjected to. Perhaps by experiencing that, the girl would be mo
re sympathetic, malleable.

  Francesca nodded to herself. Her hand trembled as she reached for her phone, and her mind blazed with a kaleidoscope of stabbing, diamond-sharp colors. She slumped into her chair, barely reaching it before the fugue devoured her, imprisoning her body and mind.

  <<<>>>

  RYDER WOKE TO bright lights stabbing his eyes. He tried to wave them off with a hand but couldn’t. An IV was taped to his arm. “What happened? Rossi?”

  Alarms beeped, echoing the pounding in his head. His entire body felt bruised, but mostly his head. He couldn’t raise it. It hurt even to move his eyes.

  A man wearing surgical scrubs appeared at Ryder’s side, hovering over him. “You’re at Good Samaritan Medical Center, Detective Ryder.” He reached across Ryder to turn off the damn alarms. “You’re quite a lucky man. Some thoracic contusions, but no permanent damage. Your vest took the brunt of the impact. Nurses counted five bullets.”

  He leaned away, disappearing from Ryder’s vision but continued his litany of Ryder’s injuries. “Which left me free to address your head injury. Again, lucky man. If I were you, I’d go buy a lottery ticket. The bullet impacted your skull at an upward trajectory.”

  Ryder blinked, his vision filling with the image of a muzzle flash below him, the darkened stairway, his back to a door.

  “That created a minor depressed skull fracture with minimal parenchymal bleeding. We surgically elevated the fracture, extracted a small blood clot, and have been monitoring you. So far, no signs of excessive intracranial pressure or swelling. And, I’m glad to report, your post-op scan is clear of any further hemorrhage or cerebral contusion. Like I said, lucky man.” The surgeon bounced back into view, beaming as if he was the one responsible for Ryder’s luck instead of Ryder’s tactical position.

  “What day?” Ryder choked out the words. His mouth was dry, tasted of sour lemon that made him even more thirsty.

  “Day? December twenty-eighth. You’ve been here two days.”

  Two days? Ryder struggled to sit up. Rossi could be anywhere in the world by now. How was he going to find her?

  “Whoa there, cowboy.” The surgeon effortlessly restrained Ryder with a single palm against his shoulder. “You just got out of the ICU. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “When?”

  “When can you leave?” The surgeon considered. “If we can get you eating and on your feet today, I’ll repeat the scan tomorrow. If not, the next day. If the scan looks good, you can go.”

  Two more days? No. Not going to happen. Ryder knew better than to plead his case with the surgeon—he’d learned that the hard way during his last hospital stay after he’d been shot.

  The surgeon began to leave, then turned back as if sensing his patient might not be among the most compliant. “No matter what, you’ll need to take it easy for several weeks, maybe even months. No strenuous activity, no work. Even TV is out. I’m serious. You were incredibly lucky. Don’t push that luck. Not if you don’t want to risk complications like a re-bleed or post-concussive syndrome.”

  With those grim words, condemning Ryder to basically sitting on his thumbs while Rossi was out there facing Lord only knew what and while some crazy Italian family unleashed an epidemic of lethal prions on the world, the surgeon left.

  As soon as he vanished, Ryder scanned the room and planned his escape.

  <<<>>>

  MY FIRST DAY on the island passed in a blur. At first, no one spoke to me, no one looked me in the eye. They were all so frightened of me. As if I were a feral beast, untamed and dangerous.

  Francesca’s people—I was not sure how to label them. More than servants, they were all part of the Lazaretto family, yet there was a definite hierarchy, some kind of caste system. Anyway, that first morning on the dock, Francesca stalked off, leaving Tyrone to shuffle me through the massive gates.

  We stood in a large courtyard, a distinctive modern building to my right, all metal and steel. It was a sharp contrast to the ancient stone monastery that stood across from it, its length hugging the shoreline. Tyrone led me into the monastery, his two men holding my arms as I stumbled, still not steady on my legs.

  Daniel’s memory overlaid my vision as I passed through the arched corridor with its stone walls. Parts of the monastery dated back to the years when the Black Death threatened Venice, but I could see that it had been updated with all the modern conveniences, such as security cameras in every room and hallway.

  The room they ushered me to would have been called opulent and given five stars by any hotel reviewer: a crystal chandelier suspended above a large bed, thick wool carpets in rich colors under my feet, wide windows framed by expensive silk drapes that swung open to a view of Venice with its towers and domed buildings filling the horizon in that direction. Of course, any review would need to overlook the restraints attached to the bed frame, the dressing table filled with medications and lab equipment, and the monitors tastefully hidden behind a screen.

  Two women waited for me. Neither was older than I was, but they both had the hardened expressions of prison guards. Tyrone and his men left me with them. Wordless, they undressed me, scrubbed me clean in the adjoining bathroom—a bathroom as large as my apartment with its toilet, bidet, sunken tub with jets and gold fixtures, walk-in shower area large enough to accommodate a patient on a stretcher, and its own isolation tank.

  That’s when I realized the truth of this place: It was where the Lazarettos came to die.

  Daniel’s and Leo’s memories filled in the gaps. The Lazarettos had many facilities scattered around the world, but this island was special. During the plague years, the family’s founding father, himself a physician, realized that members of his family were strangely immune to the pestilence, and yet half of them were still dying young, devastated by their own strange plague, what he termed the Scourge.

  When the Black Death struck, the Venetians were the first to use quarantine measures to slow its progression. Their doctors established island sanctuaries where the sick could be cared for away from the main population. This island was one of those, its monastery converted to a hospital.

  By the time the Black Death passed and Venetian society returned to normal, the Lazarettos had conceived a plan to use the special gifts their family Scourge provided them and began their climb to power.

  Now the island housed family members with the Scourge. They acted as servants, trained as researchers, cared for other family members too sick to care for themselves, and, like me, played the role of laboratory rats to Francesca’s Dr. Frankenstein.

  Second in power to her younger brother, Marco, who, since he did not carry the fatal insomnia genes and therefore was not at risk to develop the psychosis, dementia, and early death that went along with prion disease, ran the family business elsewhere in the world.

  But not here. This island and everyone on it were ruled by Francesca.

  All this passed through my mind quickly—thanks to my enforced confinement on the plane for all those hours, I was becoming more adept at accessing the knowledge I wanted without falling into a full-blown fugue. Knowing that I could exert some control over my body—for the first time in a month—helped me to remain calm.

  Even when they toweled me dry, wrapped me in a plush robe, and sat me in a chair where they cut off my hair and shaved my head.

  I sat in silence, knowing my words were useless, and simply let them do it. My priorities were to get the cure for the children, to stop Francesca from releasing the prions. But still, it took everything I had not to cry when the first long lock of hair fell to my lap.

  Save the children, I thought as the razor buzzed and more hair flew. Stop Francesca. It became my mantra. Along with one more, less charitable thought: Make them pay.

  Chapter 43

  AFTER SHAVING MY head, the two women secured a wireless EEG cap—just like the one Louise had had me wear earlier—to my scalp and stood back as if admiring their work. One leaned forward to reach for Ryder’s pendant, the last memory
from my old life. Whiplash fast, I grabbed her wrist and twisted it hard, bringing her to her knees.

  “No.” It was the first word I’d spoken since I arrived.

  They exchanged glances, and she nodded without meeting my gaze. I was expecting a struggle, some reprisal for my rebellion, but when I released her, she scurried away, fear filling her face.

  My triumph was short-lived. They dressed me in silk pajamas, a robe, and slippers before leading me, without actually touching me, from the room and along stone corridors that twisted in a maze. Thankfully, Daniel and Francesca had explored the island together, searching for hidden corners away from her family’s prying eyes where they could find some privacy.

  As we walked, I overlaid a rough map from Daniel’s memories, pleased to see how accurate his observations had been. It made sense. After all, Daniel had been an architectural engineer before he devoted himself to finance.

  Leo had also been here with Tommaso, but he’d had little regard for his surroundings, had been more obsessed with the lab and the research opportunities. Also helpful. During my time on the plane, I’d developed a theory about Tommaso’s research. Now, as I sorted through Leo’s and Daniel’s memories, a plan began to form and, with it, a glimmer of hope.

  All I had to do was learn everything I could about Francesca’s cure, elude the guards and the security cameras, escape the fifteen-foot-high walls, and cross miles of open water until I reached Venice.

  As a plan, it was definitely lacking substance, but it distracted me from why I was really here: for Francesca to experiment on.

  Her office was on the top floor of a tower twice as tall and twice as wide as the bell tower I’d left behind at St. Tim’s. The walls were just as thick and even more ancient—it served as a watchtower to defend the island. The views through the new, modern windows were amazing. In addition to stunning views of Venice to the south, I could also make out the outlines of several islands nearby, each with its own distinctive towers jutting up from sea level. Murano and San Michele, Daniel’s memory informed me.