“Mr. Suchos, sir—do you still want the airport?” the driver asked quietly.
“No,” Vachlan said. “The water. The water. The water—water will be good.”
The biggest fear in his chest was that somehow, the woman beside him actually was Visola in disguise. He could not tell, because he simply could not allow himself to look. When their eyes were open and their lips were moving in speech, he had no trouble in telling his wife apart from her sister. But asleep—or dead—they looked exactly the same. Of course, there were differences, but Vachlan could not bring himself to search for them. He could not bring himself to check the corpse beside him for muscle tone or scars. He dug his hands into his eyes harder.
Dylan fingered the bullet hole in Sionna’s skull. “Your beautiful brain, Sio,” he whispered to her. “There’s no greater treasure on land or sea. You knew all the secrets. All sealed away here in your little head. Bleed on me, Sio. Let me soak you up in my skin and try to keep every drop of you. The world can’t lose you. It’s too much. It’s the greatest possible loss. Let me be you. Use your magic and come back to life. Can you still make miracles?”
“Shut up,” Vachlan said, his breaths coming in short, quick gasps. “I can’t—I need to think.”
Dylan ran his fingers over Sionna’s throat, skimming for any hint of a pulse. “Come back, Sio. Don’t you understand? Your final hours were spent teaching us. Why? Why would you bother trying to teach inferior beings, knowing that we could never comprehend your capabilities. We just sit around like fools, admiring you from afar—all of us wanting to be your friend, wanting to be more like you. All of us wishing we were you. Come back,” he begged her. “Please come back.”
Vachlan stole a glance at the corpse out of the corner of his eye, and he thought he might vomit. He realized that part of his wife had died today. He now understood what Glais had said about the world ending in Cairo. If Visola ever found out about what had transpired in this place, on this day, there would be no end to the suffering she would bring upon her enemies. She would bring down everyone responsible, along with their allies. She would bring down anyone she felt like bringing down, while she was at it. While many believed that Visola was out of her mind, Vachlan knew that she was sharp and sane, more so than most. But not anymore; not if she found out about this. Visola would lose her mind. More so than when her daughter had died. More so than when Aazuria had died. More so than ever before.
“What do I do, Prince Vachlan?” Dylan was begging through his tears. “What do I do? I’ll do anything. Please, Prince Vachlan…”
“Don’t call me that!” Vachlan roared. He reached out and grabbed Dylan forcefully by the shoulders. “Listen to me, man. You and I have to do some damage control now. Do you understand? No one can know about what happened here.”
“What are you talking about?” Dylan sobbed.
“I’m talking about the end of the world,” Vachlan said seriously. “You cannot tell my wife that her twin sister is dead. Do you understand me? Visola cannot know. This will destroy her. She will destroy everything.”
Dylan nodded slowly. “I will do what you ask on one condition, Vachlan.”
“What is it?”
Dylan gestured to the gun in Vachlan’s boot. “Please shoot me in the head so that I can die with Sionna.”
Vachlan was silent for a moment as pain and nausea swept over him. “I can’t do that, my friend.”
“Prince Vachlan, I’m begging you. You don’t understand the pain I’m in. My wife and kids died before my eyes. Sionna was my salvation. She was my fresh start, and my happiest memory. She was my lifeline, my hope, my love. She was my past, and she was supposed to be my future. I don’t have another reason to be on this earth if not for her. You don’t understand. I didn’t need to be with her—I didn’t need her love. I just needed to see her. I just needed to listen to her talk about her work in that passionate, intelligent manner of hers. I just wanted to be around her. That was all I wanted out of life. Just being in Sionna’s physical presence was the most I could have ever aspired to in my whole miserable existence. I don’t have a reason to breathe air or water any longer. Please shoot me in the head.”
“No, Dylan. I can’t do that.”
Seeing that Vachlan was adamant in his refusal, Dylan reached for the gun in the man’s boot. He pointed it at himself, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger.
Vachlan had managed to strike out and hit the gun, deflecting the angle of the gun by a few degrees so that the bullet missed Dylan and embedded itself into the leather seats of the car. Dylan immediately tried again.
“God, man!” Vachlan shouted, snatching the gun away and seizing Dylan by the throat. “What the fuck are you thinking?”
“Too much,” Dylan answered. “I’m thinking too much, and I don’t want to think anymore. Vachlan, I have never been a religious man. But today, I believe in the afterlife, because I truly believe that Sionna was too vibrant, too strong to be gone. She must be… she must be somewhere. She’s somewhere. I need to be there with her. I can’t be here anymore. And if there’s a bullet in her brain, it’s nothing. What she was—she was so much more than that. She’s more than this. She’s more than this beautiful body, and beautiful mind, all of which they ruined. She has a beautiful soul, and it’s somewhere, Vachlan. Do you believe that? That it’s somewhere? She’s somewhere?”
Realizing that he had to acknowledge what had happened, Vachlan turned to observe the body. He gulped as he reached out and placed a hand against Sionna’s cheek. He did not try to stop the tears that spilled over his eyes. She had been more than his sister-in-law. She had been his equal. His better. She had been his partner in crime. Most of all, she had been his friend.
Vachlan was not sure why it had taken him this long—why he had needed to touch her dead body—before realizing that Sionna had been one of his closest friends. He was a man who did not trust many people, but of all the people on the planet, Sionna had been the only one he could have implicitly entrusted with anything.
“Yes,” he told Dylan, trying to nod in an assertive manner. “She’s somewhere. And you will join her, but not today.” Tucking the gun into his clothes, away from Dylan’s grasp, he considered what he would have done if he were in the doctor’s position. It was easy; he simply would have not missed with the bullet. He would have kept shooting at himself until the job had been finished. He could not imagine life without Visola. Of course, his situation was different, because they had children he was responsible for. He suddenly envied Dylan. If the man had killed himself, he would have been blameless. There was no one who would miss him greatly, and no one he needed to live for. Vachlan reconsidered handing him the gun again, but he frowned at himself for this thought.
Dylan had reached out to collect Sionna in his arms, cradling the limp woman against his chest, and rocking her slightly. “Shh,” he told her. “We’ll fix you. We’ll fix you. We have to; we owe you that. You always healed us, so we need to heal you. But who can do it, Sio? Who knows how? Are the gods smart enough to fix you up perfectly right? Exactly the way you were? Are the gods as smart as you were, Sio?”
Vachlan pressed a hand into his hair, looking at the rearview mirror where his driver sat. The driver looked back, making fleeting, sorrowful eye contact with Vachlan before returning his gaze to the road.
“It’s my fault,” Vachlan whispered. “This is my fault. I was so focused on protecting Visola that I didn’t realize… it was never about her. They played me. They toyed with my emotions to get to Sionna. And the worst part? They killed her because of a favor she did for me. It was the diseases. The epidemics in Asia. They traced them back to Sio, and used me like a pawn to get at her.” Vachlan inhaled sharply. “They wanted to make sure that she was separated from her sister. They were waiting for this conference, when they knew she’d be far from home. How could I be so fucking stupid? Stupid! Stupid!” Vachlan pounded his fist into the bulletproof glass again and again. “So fucking stupid! I�
��m the one who got her into this mess! I should have confessed to them right off the bat that I was responsible for everything. This is what I get for being a piece of shit member of the royal family of filthy Ker-ys!”
Vachlan growled. “I’ll admit something to you, Dylan, something that I could never admit to anyone else.”
The doctor looked up through eyes that were red and bloodshot like veiny cherries with dark, soulless centers. “Yes, sir?”
“Sionna was my greatest ally,” Vachlan said frankly. “If I were to plan any offensive, anywhere, anytime—I would go to her first. So, the fucking CIA researched us well. So, they did it. They killed the world’s most dangerous woman; a woman who was good, and who only ever used her power for the general betterment of society. She wouldn’t have assisted me for any price. She couldn’t be bought; she would only work for genuine good.”
“I hope the world is ready for her other half,” Vachlan hissed, “because in killing Sionna, they may have inadvertently created a monster like nothing they’ve ever seen before. If Visola finds out, there won’t be anything left of a wife or mother in her. She’ll be a pure killing machine. I won’t be able to stop her. She’ll burn cities. She’ll burn continents.”
Dylan studied the man curiously. “And you’ll just let her?”
Vachlan gave a small shrug of his shoulders. “No. I’ll help her.”
Cocking his head to the side, Dylan considered this. “For what it’s worth… I will too.”
Princess Yamako was asleep when one of her tracking devices started to sound an alert.
“I know,” she mumbled to her tracking device with displeasure. “Sio and Dylan are probably getting it on in Egypt big time. Maybe in a pyramid. With Kai’s mummies.”
The alarm kept beeping, and without pulling her face away from the pillow, she reached out to shut it off. She continued to sleep.
The alarm beeped again. Princess Yamako lifted her face a few inches and stared at the machine in surprise. “You mean something more serious is going on?” she asked the device. “Why didn’t you just say so?” Groaning, she lifted herself to a seated position.
“Let’s see—fourteen out of fifteen signals active? What the fuck?” She began to scan through the programming to check for errors. “Stop malfunctioning, you piece of crap.” Princess Yamako performed the delicate engineering process of slamming the device into the headboard of her bed a few times, and then viewed the screen again. Seeing that nothing had changed, she pushed the power button and turned the device off completely.
Turning over onto her back, she breathed out a cloud of vapor as she waited a few seconds. Finally, she pressed the power button and allowed the device to reboot. Staring at the screen, Princess Yamako was met with the same information.
Fourteen out of fifteen signals active.
“No,” she murmured, checking and rechecking the codes. She knew precisely which code was inactive, but it did not make sense. She needed to confirm the data. And reconfirm the data. She quickly scanned for information from Dylan and Vachlan’s microchips, and she found their heart rates and vital signs to be erratic. Everyone else seemed stable. The device had not malfunctioned.
Sionna’s microchips were offline.
There was no heart rate. The woman’s body was at room temperature, which was impossible. The human body could not survive without sustaining a much higher internal temperature.
It was impossible.
“She just has hypothermia,” Yamako whispered. “She’s just sick, that’s all.” Even as she said this, she knew it was ridiculous. Hypothermia did not cause one’s heart to stop beating completely. She studied the screen of her device as Sionna’s microchips indicated her movement. It looked like she was moving in a vehicle with Vachlan and Dylan. Yamako frantically fumbled across the bed for her phone, and dialed Sionna. There was no response. The sinking feeling in her gut had begun to intensify.
It felt like rodents were gnawing at her entrails.
Her fingers shook as she dialed Vachlan. She waited. There was no response. She gritted her teeth and dialed Dylan. There was no response. For some reason, she found herself dialing Visola. Again, there was no response. She remembered that Visola had gone off the grid, and would no longer have access to her phone. Princess Yamako pressed the back of her hand against her forehead, uttering a silent prayer in Japanese to Suijin, the god of the sea. Closing her eyes, she finally called Aazuria.
“Hello?” the woman answered, before too many rings had passed.
“Zuri…” Yamako closed her eyes and forced her voice out in a shaky whisper. “Zuri—tell me. Is Sionna dead?”
Glais woke up to a prick of a small needle against his tongue. He blinked in confusion, seeing that Varia was floating near his bed.
“That’s going to temporarily paralyze you,” Varia signed. “Aunt Sio taught me.”
“What are you doing?” he asked in confusion. “Why would you do that to me?”
“I’m running away,” Varia explained.
“Why? Varia, what’s going on?”
“Your dream came true,” she told him. “My Aunt Sionna was just murdered by the CIA.”
He looked at her with horror. “Fuck. Varia, don’t do anything crazy. Where are you going?” He grabbed her wrist. “Varia, please…”
“We should have been there,” Varia told him. “They should have let us help. We could have done something. Maybe she’d be okay if they listened to us.”
“Sometimes you can’t escape fate,” Glais said. “This isn’t your fault.”
“I hate this world. I hate these people,” Varia said into the water. She knew that Glais would read her lips. “Aunt Sio showed me a few amazing things over the years. She encouraged me a handful of times. Now she’s gone. The sheer wealth of information and inspiration she possessed—all of the things that she could have done far outnumber the things she did. She had so much more knowledge locked away inside her brain that I will never access. None of us will. The world will never know what she knew. But even worse than that, is the love she had in her heart that is now locked away forever. She never got to marry Princess Yama—or ditch the princess at the altar and elope with Dr. Rosenberg. That’s what I was betting on. It would have been so cool.”
Glais found that his body was becoming effectively frozen. His muscles had grown heavy at first, but now it felt like they were no longer attached to his brain. He could not use his hands or lips to respond.
“Anyway, you’re probably wondering why I’m here, talking to you,” Varia said. “I’m here to say goodbye. I can’t be your friend anymore, or whatever this is that we are or we aren’t. I know you often feel like I’m this obligation or burden on you. Take care of little Varia, everyone says. Thanks for putting up with Varia. Keep an eye on Varia.” She smiled sadly. “You don’t have to do any of that anymore. I know you don’t have many friends your own age—or many guy friends, and you should have that. I’ve been holding you back. I’ve been really demanding, consuming all your time and energy. I monopolized you, and pretty much stole your youth. I’m sorry for that.”
She continued to quietly hover in the water near him for a few seconds before speaking again. “I’m setting you free. I know I was pushy. I know I wanted too much from you, more than you could give me. I’m really sorry. I won’t ask anything from you ever again. I’m being stern and straight-faced about this because that’s how my mother taught me to be. But you know me well, and I’m sure you can tell that it’s going to break my heart to leave you. Maybe I’m hurting you as well, but it’s better to hurt you a little now than a lot later.”
Varia pried his fingers away from her wrist, where he had grabbed her. She slipped her arm out of his grasp, and swam away a few inches. “The truth is, we’ve been codependent. But I don’t need that. I can be entirely self-sufficient. I don’t need to prove this to you as much as I need to prove it to myself.” She paused again, for a few seconds, staring into his angry amber eyes. “So, I’
m not even going to kiss you goodbye, as much as I want to. That would be rape.” Varia smiled at her private joke. “I just had to say goodbye to you, and tell you that I love you. I’m not going to say goodbye to anyone else. They’ll probably come to you, and ask where I am, and you can tell them that I slipped away quietly in the night. I do that, you know.”
Gathering herself together, she nodded.
“Okay. Bye, Glais. I can’t think of an appropriate donut. So just… bye.”
Chapter 24: He Doesn’t Understand
News of Sionna’s death spread quickly through the undersea world, devastating everyone. Adlivun chose to honor the doctor’s memory by explaining to the public that Sionna had, in fact, been responsible for the spread of diseases in Asia which allowed for the defeat of Zalcan. However, this information did not demonize Sionna; it made her more endearing to all the people whose lives had been improved by the victory at Damahaar. It made her a hero, and a martyr. It was especially bad in Adlivun; the entire country had been plunged into mourning.
But Vachlan knew that the sadness and devastation would be temporary. Already, grief was segueing into anger. The CIA had issued official press statements explaining their actions, and Agent Poole had spoken publicly about the situation.
Now, Vachlan sat by himself in his bedroom, playing a recording of Jackson Poole’s speech.
“According to our data, retrieved from reputable sources, Dr. Sionna Ramaris was the most dangerous woman in the world. An undersea terrorist organization led by a man known as The Leviathan has been causing problems in coastal areas across the globe. While we knew that Sionna Ramaris was a member of a friendly nation, an ally in fact, we feared her involvement with The Leviathan would threaten global security. As many of you know, Sionna Ramaris was a medical pioneer, constantly innovating and inventing products which improved the life of many Americans. However, unfortunately, we assessed that she posed a dire threat to our defense. In the same way that we would not allow a nuclear physicist to live if he was considering selling high-tech nuclear weapons to our enemies, we could not allow this biochemical and biomedical engineering genius to continue to produce lethal agents that could fall into the hands of our enemies. Dr. Sionna Ramaris possessed and used infectious diseases as weapons of mass destruction. Five years ago, due to her carelessness, 30% of the population of India was wiped out.”
Tides of Tranquility Page 31
