“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know,” I said with a sardonic smile, “but right now it’s more important that you get some rest.”
Cynda became visibly uncomfortable. “I don’t really like to sleep,” she said, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear. “I have…bad dreams sometimes.”
Ah, now we were getting into territory I understood. The problem with that however, was that there wasn’t much I could offer in the way of help. Given the similarity between us, I doubted medication would have any more effect on her than it did on me. Besides, what advice could I give? Despite what Dara thinks, you can’t just talk away nightmares. I decided the truth, however much I didn’t want to admit it, was my best option.
“I do too,” I admitted, “and not just sometimes. I don’t like it, but it’s not something I can control.”
Cynda was quiet for a moment and I worried that telling her was a mistake. After all, I was trying to convince her that she was finally safe and here I was admitting that my life was pretty awful. When I started with the outreach, I had planned on taking some basic psychology courses with the idea that I would have a better understanding of what I should say in situations like this. I never got around to it and I was kicking myself for that.
“Is that why you don’t want to fall asleep?” Cynda asked at last.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I didn’t think you’d appreciate listening to me yell and thrash about. It seems stupid for both of us to stay up though. I can probably get someone else…actually.” I jumped off the counter and slipped on my shoes. “I have an idea. There’s someone I want you to meet anyway and I think you’ll really like her. Will you be okay if I left for just a second?”
Cynda nodded and I took off sprinting down the hall to the kitchen. As I expected, Ida was already awake, brewing industrial-sized urns of coffee for the hunters, who would soon be ending their shift.
“Well there’s a sight for sore eyes,” Ida said with a smile that quickly turned into a horrified frown. “Oh lord, Lucy! I take that back, you’re more of an eye sore. Why are you even down here after the night you had?”
“Good to see you too, Ida,” I said with a wry smile. I wasn’t offended by her assessment, she was right, I looked like hell and Ida was nothing if not a straight talker. “Actually I was hoping you’d help me with that. I’ll make a trade. I’ll take over clean up and dish duty when the troops come back, if you’ll come with me and sit with Cynda for a while. She’s too traumatized to sleep and I’m afraid I’m not doing much to help with that.”
“Hmph, I bet not,” Ida sniffed. “Alright, I’ll see what I can do. But Lucy,” she said and leveled me with a hard stare, “when those dishes are done, I want you to find yourself a quiet room and hole up and sleep like you ain’t slept before. And when you wake up, come find me for a proper meal. I don’t like the look of them bones sticking out everywhere.”
“Thanks, Ida.”
Cynda took to Ida immediately, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Ida had an almost unearthly Zen that tended to have a calming influence on those around her. I stuck around just long enough to make introductions and to let Cynda know that I would be back in time to accompany her to her exam. By the time I was letting myself out of the room, Ida had already managed to get a quiet laugh out of her, something I didn’t think was even possible.
I slipped into the kitchen through the service door, avoiding the dining room and the hunters, who had begun to trickle in. Nan, one of the women currently staying in my safe house, was piling baked goods into a basket. I made a shushing gesture and nodded towards the dining room.
“I told Ida I’d clean up if she helped me with something,” I whispered. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let them know I’m here.” It wasn’t that I was purposefully avoiding the hunters. Most of them were good friends of mine, but they were also huge gossips and by now, I was sure that rumors had been flying about my Code Ten. Besides, I was too tired to deal with that and the inevitable questions about my noted absence for the last few months.
“Got it,” Nan said with a wink. “But whatever you got Ida doing, you’re getting the short end of the deal.”
She wasn’t kidding. Dish duty, it seemed, was a never-ending process, but I was grateful for the distraction of physical labor. Once I had worked myself into a rhythm, it was easy to clear my mind and focus on nothing except the stack of plates and cups that the girls piled up for me. I had been at it for three hours when Ida showed up, looking grim.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing like that,” Ida said with a dismissive wave. “Cynda’s sound asleep. Dara’s sitting with her in case she wakes up. But you and I have to talk about that farm she came from. I got a bad feeling I know some things and they ain’t good.”
I dried my hands and followed Ida into the small office off the kitchen. She must have had something huge to tell me because she locked the door and I hadn’t so much as seen her close it in the past. She sat down at the small desk and motioned for me to sit as well.
“Back in sixty-six I took in a young man who was prowling around behind Gilly’s. Now, I know you never met Isaac, but you may have heard me mention him a few times.”
That was an understatement. Of all of Ida’s ‘children’, Isaac was obviously the favorite. He had been the one to convince her to turn her compassionate nature into a full-blown outreach and had been the one to approach Evan about working in tandem with his organization in the mid-nineties.
“Like you and Cynda, Isaac was unique even by mod standards,” Ida continued. “He had the ability to change his appearance at will, but his natural appearance was very similar to Cynda’s.”
“Wait a minute.” I suddenly realized what it was about Cynda’s appearance that struck me as odd. “Some of the vampires in the ES could change their appearance, but they had white skin, like paper.”
“Mm Hm. I’ve seen them too, but no, they can only blend in with their surroundings. Isaac’s ability was more advanced than that. One day he’d be blonde-haired and fair skinned and the next, he’d be darker than me and sporting jet-black hair. The only thing that never did change was his eyes.”
“Did they look like Cynda’s?” I asked, wondering if that was where Ida was leading.
“No, actually Isaac’s eyes were the same golden brown as yours. Hm…” She narrowed her eyes and scrutinized me. “You know, you do kind of look like him.”
“Oh?” For a moment, my interest was piqued, but then I realized that any similarity Ida saw was purely coincidental. “Abe checked the entire database when I first got here. I think he would have mentioned if he found something.”
“True enough,” Ida said with an apologetic smile. “Now what was I saying?”
“Isaac could change his appearance,” I prompted.
“Ah yes. Now whether or not Cynda has the same ability I don’t know, I didn’t ask her. But here’s the thing, most all my strays had the standard story, born into a local clan and taught to hunt. I was just fortunate enough to get to them before the brainwashing had a chance to stick. Isaac was different. He didn’t try to attack me and he was obviously on the run. It took years to get the story out of him, but when he finally felt trusting enough, he told me about the farm where he was raised.”
I think my jaw dropped. “The farm? As in…”
“Not just the farm, but the same horrible madman hell bent on creating a new breed of monsters. Isaac described a man he only knew as Father, who created genetic mutations and bred them for the purpose of sport. Now Isaac’s story diverges from Cynda’s in that none of the other creatures were allowed any humanity. They were literally human-shaped animals with nothing but the most basic brain functions, which is why Isaac felt no regret in his method of escape.”
“What did he do?” I almost regretted asking, based on Ida’s grim tone.
“He set fire to the manor and ran.”
Admittedly, that was pretty grim, but understand
able. I had seen firsthand the relief expressed by a victim of torture when they knew death was imminent and it was something that will haunt me forever.
“I’m guessing you suspect this Father guy and Bluebeard are one in the same and that the fire somehow failed?”
“The fire didn’t fail. Isaac stuck around long enough to ensure that. But I think Isaac, and all of us by extension, underestimated the survival instincts of those infernal creatures who have staked their whole lives on a quest for immortality. I think he got himself out and set up another farm somewhere up north. Cynda’s not too clear on the details of where she came from, but Isaac came from down south. The land where the farm had previously been is uninhabitable swamp now.”
While what Ida had to say was informative, I couldn’t help but feel the least bit disappointed that it didn’t offer me any insights into either where the farm was or how Cynda and I were linked.
“Have you told Evan any of this?”
“I was planning on-” Ida’s words were suddenly drowned out by the emergency alarm system.
“CODE TWO RESIDENTIAL ROOM 1610! MEDICAL AND SECURITY REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY! ALL RESIDENTS IN THE IMMEDIATE VICINITY ARE REQUIRED TO STAY IN THEIR QUARTERS WITH THE DOORS LOCKED UNTIL NOTIFIED OTHERWISE!”
Ida and I exchanged horrified looks before I sprinted out the door. Sixteen-ten was my room.
Chapter 5
I found Dara standing in the hall outside my room, along with two members of the in-house security team whose names I could not remember.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Is Cynda all right?” My answer came in the form of a loud crash coming from inside the apartment.
“I’m not sure,” Dara said hesitantly. “She started whimpering and I thought she was having a nightmare, but when I went to check on her…” Another crash came from my room, followed by a scream that was more animal than human. “I think she’s going through some kind of a transformation.”
“What do you mean by transformation?”
Dara was about to answer when the door opened and we both gasped. Abe’s white lab coat was torn and streaked with blood, and he had a two-inch gash across his cheek.
“I’m fine,” he said dismissively and motioned to the security officers. “Hugh’s got her. Take her to observation room five. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Hugh Dixon emerged from my room carrying what I knew was Cynda, but her appearance was frightfully wrong. Her pale hair was now jet black and her normally translucent skin was an unnatural shade of muddy gray. Even more disturbing, she was sporting silvery talon-like claws that looked exactly like those I’d previously seen on ES vampires. Hugh acknowledged me with a short nod before following the security officers to the elevator. I turned back to Abe, hoping for an explanation.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before. She threw Hugh off of her twice before I could sedate her.” Considering that Hugh was over three hundred fifty pounds of lean muscle and Cynda couldn’t have been more than ninety pounds, I had some trouble wrapping my head around this. “I’m sorry I don’t have anything else at the moment,” Abe continued, “but if she’s anything like you, the sedation’s going to wear off pretty quickly and I need a sample of her DNA if we’re going to figure out what’s wrong with her.”
Abe took off before I had a chance to say anything, so I followed Dara into my apartment. Aside from an overturned armchair and a broken coffee table, there was no real damage. I made the mistake of sitting down and realized exactly how exhausted I was.
“I should make some coffee,” I said as I struggled back to my feet. Dara put a hand on my shoulder to stop me.
“What you need is sleep, you look exhausted.”
“I’m fine, really. How can I sleep right now anyway?”
“Lucy,” Dara frowned, “there’s nothing you can do for Cynda right now. Abe will keep her sedated long enough to get as many tests as he needs. When we find something, we’ll be happy to let you know. But you can’t avoid sleep. Are you still having trouble with nightmares?”
“Occasionally,” I said offhandedly, but Dara was no more convinced of my lie than I was. “Maybe more than occasionally, but it’s fine really. I’m working through them.”
“You know I can’t help you if you don’t let me,” Dara said firmly.
“I know,” I sighed, “but I don’t know if you can help me. I think this is something I need to face on my own.”
“Well I won’t press you, but think about it, okay? Right now, I’m going to see if there is anything that I can do to help Abe. I don’t want to see you again until you’ve had at least a few hours of sleep.”
I nodded and dragged myself toward the bedroom when I suddenly realized I was forgetting the most important part. “Oh, Dara wait!” I relayed to her the information that Ida had just given me about the farm and Cynda’s possible connection to Isaac.
“Isaac told me about his past once. It was quite a while ago, but I do remember him mentioning the others. It does seem possible that Cynda is the creation of the same man, perhaps even an evolutionary step up from his previous attempts.”
I didn’t like the use of the word ‘creations’ even if it was accurate. I knew that Dara and Abe used all kinds of terms to maintain professional detachment, but creation seemed to take away humanity in a way that ‘subject’ and ‘patient’ did not. But I was too tired to argue the point, so instead I said goodbye to Dara and fell into a deep and immediate sleep.
Of course, I still woke up thrashing about in the throes of a gruesome nightmare, but a glance at the clock showed I had been asleep for over six hours. I must have been exhausted because I could not remember the last time I had gotten more than four. I was disoriented for a moment, before I remembered where I was, and why I was here. Without even bothering to look in a mirror, I threw my hair into a messy ponytail and ran down to Abe’s office in the lab.
“How’s Cynda?” I asked, barely waiting for Abe to finish opening the door.
“She’s stable,” he answered, shutting the door behind me. “We haven’t unlocked all of her secrets yet, but what we have learned is revealing. You might want to have a seat.”
I didn’t like the way that sounded, nor did I like the all too familiar look Abe was giving me, as if I was a newly discovered species. I took a seat at the desk and peered at the computer monitors. As usual, they displayed a bunch of blobs and squiggles that meant nothing to me. Abe typed in some command and the blobs disappeared. In their place, a computer model of what I assumed was DNA came up.
“What we’re looking at is a computer generated model of Cynda’s DNA structure. I know this won’t mean anything to you, but this will.” A second model appeared on the screen. “This is your DNA. I ran a cross match, looking for any markers that would be similar. I assumed that there would be similarities, but I wasn’t expecting this.” Abe hit another command and a bunch of words and numbers flashed across the screen too rapidly to read. After a few seconds, they stopped and one line of ominous, yet confusing, text remained. I looked at Abe for an explanation.
“One hundred percent of your DNA markers are an exact match for ninety-five percent of Cynda’s.”
“I don’t get it. Are you saying we’re related?”
Abe shook his head. “Not exactly related,” he trailed off with a curious look. “Cynda is not only carrying the same vampire DNA as you, Lucy. She has all the same DNA markers, including those you received from your mother’s side of the family. The other five percent was added to your DNA. That additional five percent however, is what disturbs me.”
I wasn’t sure that I had just heard Abe correctly. “Wait, did you just imply that Cynda is my clone?”
“It would appear so.”
“And the other five percent bothers you?” Sometimes I wondered if doctors really understood how to talk to normal people. “I don’t even see how that’s possible. Sixteen years ago, I was nine years old. My mother was still alive and we lived in California.”
“It is possible that your DNA was obtained not long after conception.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. Abe gave me another look that meant I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
“I had Mike run a search on your mother’s name. In 1985, your grandmother filed a missing-persons report with the New Orleans police department.”
It had never occurred to me that my mother may not have been a willing participant in my conception, but given the fact that my father was a modified vampire, I couldn’t deny that it was a possibility. But something, well actually a lot of things, was not adding up.
“I get what you’re saying, but if my mom was abducted by a mod, why would they let her go? Especially if they knew she was pregnant. And what about the eerie coincidence that Cynda’s full name is Lucinda? I’m named after my great grandmother and my birth certificate clearly shows that I was born in Oakland.” Of course, on the other hand, there was the vampire who seemed to know who I was. I decided to keep that to myself for the time being.
“I wish I knew the answer for that, Lucy,” Abe said with a sigh, “but you’re turning out to be quite the enigma.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said a bit too sarcastically, but it made Abe smile. “I’m sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for both me and Cynda. Speaking of which, I interrupted you. What were you saying about the other five percent of her DNA?”
Abe turned back to the computer model of the DNA again. “I’m sure you know that the modifications vampires make to their genetics incorporate changes based on plant and animal DNA, but these modifications are made to the genetic code directly. For example, your ability to heal is a modification based on the DNA structure of lower animals that regenerate limbs. While the code is similar, it doesn’t mean you are part starfish.”
The Eyes of the Sun: The Complete Trilogy Page 36
