Visci (Soul Cavern Series Book 2)

by Venessa Giunta

  Jorge nodded. “And then they turn up dead.”

  “What?”

  “That’s why Zoey was so freaked out when Jorge disappeared,” Jenny continued. “Jorge, Zoey, and Helen had figured out that the deaths that everyone thought were just deaths were actually something more.”

  “You guys,” Mecca said, “I am not getting what you’re talking about. What deaths?”

  Jorge slowed. “There are full-blood Visci and hybrids—those who are born with one human and one Visci parent.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “Okay. Visci have a lot of trouble having children between themselves. That’s why there are many more hybrids than there are full bloods.”

  “And you’re a hybrid.” Mecca pointed to him.

  “Yes. But for the last five or ten years, there has been growing tension between full bloods and hybrids. No one really knows why. We’ve worked together, lived together, for centuries with no problems. But hybrids started showing up dead. We’re easier to kill than full bloods. Not much easier, but a little easier. And then the occasional full was found dead as well. Each side blames the other. So now, there’s crazy tension all over.”

  “Zoey and Jorge realized that in many of the cases, the person was missing for several days, sometimes longer, before they were found dead.”

  “So we think there’s something else going on.”

  Mecca looked at Jenny, considering all of it. “Is this what you were talking about at Sara’s? What you were asking me about?”

  She nodded and looked sheepish. “I knew it couldn’t be you. But at that moment, I was mad and freaked out.”

  Mecca nodded. She didn’t know how to respond to that, her feelings in a messy, muddled ball.

  Jorge looked at Oliver. “I’m betting he can give us something really helpful.”

  Oliver looked both relieved and terrified. Mecca understood that feeling.

  Jenny looked at Jorge. “Emilia Laos…”

  Mecca didn’t hear the rest of the words. Just the name brought back a vision of those last moments in the forest. The dank scent of rotting leaves. The feel of Emilia’s old, hollowed-out Cavern. Freshly fallen snow—the taste that had come onto her tongue when in the Cavern.

  Emilia’s shrieks as she died.

  “…so like we thought, it’s not only hybrids. I’ll even bet that the few full bloods that came up dead, all of them had been missing before they were found. The good news is that it means we might still be able to save Helen.”

  Mecca blinked a few times to clear away the awful memories. She just wanted this done. “All right. So let’s get to work. You got the knife?”

  Jenny nodded. “I’m not sure if I can cut myself.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jorge said.

  Mecca wasn’t sure if she’d have trusted him, but Jenny nodded again. She kept the gun trained on Oliver, even though she thought the fight had left him. She wondered if he would be glad to be out from under one Visci’s thumb only to be under another. Though she was sure that Jenny was a better person than Oliver’s current “master,” the whole idea made Mecca’s skin crawl. She’d come very, very close to being in his shoes.

  “Oliver,” she said, as another thought crossed her mind. He looked older than her, but not much. Late twenties, maybe.

  He’d been watching Jorge and Jenny and now his eyes jerked up to meet hers.

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifty two.”

  The corners of Jenny’s mouth turned down in a frown.

  Mecca nodded. Not as old as Will but still older. At least he wouldn’t die once the Visci blood had filtered out of him. Mecca thought Will was starting to feel his “age,” but he hadn’t actually started aging again. He said that as soon as the Visci blood in his system burned off, he would die. Mecca didn’t want to think about it.

  She didn’t understand what their relationship was. They weren’t really romantic. They’d never even kissed. But they’d lived out of each other’s pockets since the confrontation with Emilia.

  Jenny swore. “Why isn’t it working?”

  Jorge bent over Jenny’s upturned wrist. The knife pressed against her pale, thin skin. “You have to concentrate on not healing,” he said. “Otherwise, it won’t be open long enough to get blood.”

  “I get it. But it’s hard. I’ve never done that before.”

  He laughed. “I can’t imagine when you’d ever want a wound to stay open under usual circumstances. Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  He bore down with the knife, and she gave a soft grunt as it cut through her skin. Mecca gaped, both fascinated and horrified, as blood began to well. He quickly moved her wrist to Oliver’s mouth.

  Oliver hesitated for a moment, but then he latched onto her wrist and began to suck.

  Mecca turned away. Watching vampire movies where people drank each other’s blood was one thing. But this… She couldn’t watch this.

  “God, that feels so weird,” Jenny said.

  “Concentrate on keeping the cut open.”

  “I am. It’s just…ugh.”

  The sucking sounds became louder, and Oliver whimpered. Mecca glanced back and saw Jorge had drawn Jenny’s wrist away.

  “I don’t know how much this is going to take,” Jorge said as he wiped Jenny’s wrist with his hand. “The cut has already closed. He couldn’t have gotten much. Ask him again, Jenny.”

  Jenny looked down at Oliver. “Why did you kidnap Jorge?”

  The man in the chair didn’t respond. He stared at them with wide, blinking eyes.

  “All right. We’ll try again,” Jorge said, returning the knife to Jenny’s wrist.

  It suddenly struck Mecca that she might be able to see a change in his soul if it worked. She shifted her vision. She’d gotten so much better at doing it over the last few weeks. Oliver’s Cavern appeared over the scene in the cellar.

  His golden soul still held those grey veins worming through it. Perhaps it wouldn’t change at all.

  “Okay, keep it open,” Jorge said.

  When Mecca looked at the other two, their Caverns came into view. Jenny’s looked like it had when she’d peeked at it earlier. Jorge’s, whose Cavern she’d never seen, looked much like the man she’d killed several weeks ago, Hayden. That event had started this entire mess.

  It looked exactly like Emilia’s had. And Claude’s. Dark, with only a small glowing soul held by smoky grey tendrils.

  She wished she could choose to only see one Cavern. She didn’t like seeing Jenny’s Cavern with her friend knowing. But that wasn’t how all this worked. So she focused on Oliver and tried to avoid the other two.

  Behind the Cavern, he watched Jenny eagerly as Jorge sliced her wrist again. When Jenny moved to Oliver, he had no hesitation. He immediately started drinking.

  Mecca tried to ignore the sucking sounds and the vision of Oliver latched onto Jenny’s wrist. Instead, she focused on his soul and those grey snakes of Visci that wound through it.

  As Jorge encouraged Jenny to concentrate on controlling her healing, Mecca saw a slight change in the grey veins. They seemed to be developing a mild green tint. Not the entire thing, but occasional reflections of the golden light on the grey looked different.

  “I think it’s working.”

  “How?” Jenny said, looking at her.

  At that moment, Oliver groaned. “It closed,” he said.

  Jenny pulled her wrist back and looked at it. “Dammit.” She held her arm out to Jorge. “Mecca, how do you know—ow, dammit—how do you know it’s working?” She offered her wrist to Oliver and closed her eyes as he latched on again.

  “Because his soul is changing. The parts that are Visci are different.”

  That had gotten Jorge’s attention. His dark eyes bored into her. “You’re not human?”

  “I just have a Gift,” she said. It occurred to her that even two months ago, she’d never have been okay saying that. And she certainly wouldn’t have looked at anyone’s Ca
vern.

  He stared at her, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I have a lot of questions. I would like to hear about your Gift,” he said, “once all of this mess is handled.”

  Mecca didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to share anything about herself with Jorge. She didn’t even know him. And he was Visci.

  Oliver’s soul was shifting again. The veins had a definite dark green sheen to them now. And he was still sucking on Jenny’s wrist, so she must have gotten the hang of keeping the cut open for him.

  Jenny’s phone made a weird-pitched, buzz-farting sound. That was the notification of her mom texting. Mecca choked out a laugh. She’d forgotten about that sound.

  Jenny jerked, but Oliver kept at it, so Jenny was getting better at concentrating. She got her phone out with the other hand and read the text.

  “Shit.” She held the phone out to Mecca. “Would you text her back? She wants to know where I am. Just text, ‘I’ll be in in a minute.’ Hopefully, she’ll assume I’m out by the pool.”

  Mecca smirked, but started typing. “Swimming in November. Because you’re the smart one.”

  “We’re both the smart one.”

  That had been their standard back and forth since they were young teenagers.

  “Okay. Done,” Mecca said. She handed the phone to Jenny.

  “Yeah, and you’re done too,” Jenny said to Oliver.

  Jorge sat, quietly observing all of them. “Ask him something.”

  Jenny focused on Oliver. “Why did you kidnap Jorge?”

  “I didn’t kidnap him,” Oliver said.

  Jenny rolled her eyes as she wiped the remaining smears of blood with her hand. “Okay, fine. What were you going to do with Jorge?”

  “Sedate him and take him back to the lab.” Oliver’s lips widened into a big smile. “I’m so glad this is working!”

  Mecca shook her head. “You’re the worst bad guy ever.”

  “I’m not a bad guy. You think I want to help them?” He shuddered and looked at his arms, still bound to the chair. “Can these come off? I’m not a threat to you.”

  They looked at each other, none answering at first. Finally, Jenny crouched and began untying the knots around his arms.

  The upstairs door opened. “Why is this light…? Jenny?”

  Everyone froze. The expression on Jenny’s face when she looked at Mecca reminded her of the time they’d gotten caught with her dad’s whiskey bottle in the upstairs bathroom.

  That hadn’t ended well, either.

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Jenny

  Jenny tried not to freak out as her mom looked from person to person. When she spotted the knife in Jenny’s hands, those green eyes looked at her with such intensity, Jenny wanted to run away, hide, whatever.

  “What’s going on here?” Her mom’s gaze moved down Jenny’s arm to the knife she still held and then to Oliver. Jenny cringed when she realized blood still smeared Oliver’s mouth. Her mom grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her aside, near the wall.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Her whispered words came in an impassioned rush.

  “It was the only way to get him to talk!” Jenny said, her voice low to match her mom’s.

  Mecca came up, and Jenny wasn’t sure she’d ever been so glad of her best friend. “One of Jenny’s friends is still missing, Mrs. B.”

  Her mom glared at Mecca and back at Jenny. “You don’t have any idea what you’re doing. You don’t—”

  “Whose fault is that?” Jenny blurted.

  Mouth clamping shut, her mom looked between them again. She pursed her lips and drew in a long breath through her nose.

  Jenny snuck a glance at Mecca, who shrugged.

  “You’re right,” her mom said. “That is my fault.”

  She only had a moment to feel a measure of satisfaction before her mom continued.

  “But it doesn’t change the fact that you don’t understand anything about what you’re doing.” She looked Mecca up and down. “You two obviously have shared some things.”

  Mecca huffed. “Good God, does everyone know?”

  Carolyn swung her gaze back to Jenny. “What the hell is happening?”

  She wasn’t sure what to do. Mecca wasn’t much help. She only raised her eyebrows and shrugged. A tap on her forearm brought her attention back to her mom.

  “No secrets, remember? It works both ways.”

  Jenny sighed, but before she could even begin to explain, Mecca spoke.

  “Jorge was kidnapped. We rescued him, but when we found him, it was clear they were doing something medical. So we grabbed Oliver over there when we left. He was the one in charge of the”—she waved a hand in the air—“medical things. But he’s not in charge for real. He’s tied to one of the Visci who are doing…whatever they’re doing, so Jenny decided to try to override that connection and create one of her own, so we can find out what’s going on.” Mecca met Jenny’s gaze. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Nope. I think that’s about right.” She wanted to kiss her best friend.

  Carolyn glanced between them and brought her gaze to Oliver. “And did it work?”

  “It seems to have,” Jenny said.

  Her mom groaned. “God, I hate this. It’s exactly what I didn’t want for you. This is what I was protecting you from.”

  “You can’t protect me from who I am,” Jenny said.

  Her mom stared at her, silent. Then she nodded.

  The doorbell chimed faintly upstairs. Carolyn took her phone out of a pocket and pulled up the doorbell app. A thin, young-looking man with blond hair stood in front of the camera.

  “Shit,” her mom said.

  “Is that Claude?” Jenny asked. It looked like Claude.

  Mecca closed the distance between them and looked over her mom’s other shoulder. “Shit.” A shudder ran through her best friend.

  Her mom looked at Mecca. “You know him?”

  “He’s one of the ones who…” She didn’t finish the sentence but just nodded.

  “Why is he here?” Jenny asked.

  “I have no idea. But I should go find out. You guys stay quiet.” She met each of their gazes in turn with an intensity that conveyed the importance of her words. She mounted the stairs, pausing for a moment near the top to stare down at them. Then she shook her head and continued, closing the door behind her.

  “We can’t stay,” Jorge said. “Especially if Claude is here. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  His face had gone pallid in the time her mom had been downstairs. “You okay?” Jenny asked.

  He nodded and stood, keeping a hand on the stack of boxes beside him. “Yeah. But we need to go.”

  “Where?” Mecca asked.

  “We can go to my place for now,” Jorge said. “I don’t know if it’s safe, but…I’m starting to think nowhere is at this point.”

  They all nodded.

  “We’ll have to be quiet,” Jenny said, going to the stairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Claude

  Claude rang a second time. He was sure Carolyn was home. At least, her cell phone was. After a moment, footsteps sounded beyond the thick wooden door.

  Carolyn didn’t look surprised when she opened it to him. Leaving the screen door between them, she inclined her head. “Claude. You’ll forgive me for being surprised that you would show up at my home.”

  He beamed. “I hope you will forgive my forwardness. I’ve brought some of the information you requested. It occurred to me that you may want it at once.”

  She studied him for a moment, in that way she used to do when they were children. That way that told him she was scrutinizing, evaluating, his every movement. He shook off his apprehension as she unlocked the screen door.

  They’d come a long way from childhood.

  “Very well. Come in.” Her gaze never left him as she stood aside to allow him to pass.

  Claude wasn’t used to feeling on edge like this. It was always he who had the upp
er hand. Carolyn had been out of the game for a long time, and he’d forgotten how it was to have someone as old and experienced as he in play. He needed to be sure he adjusted for her.

  As the latch clicked shut, she gestured to a set of closed French doors off the foyer. “Please, we can talk in there.”

  The office they entered was nicely appointed, with a formidable cherry wood desk at the far end, and a leather seating arrangement in the center. Dark bookshelves lined most of the walls. The areas without bookshelves housed some strangely out of place neo-art deco framed prints. Curious.

  “So, you have something for me?” Carolyn said from behind him.

  He turned his back on the desk and held a manila folder out to her. “I am still tracking down your request about the police, but here is information I’ve gathered on other influence within the city. You may be particularly interested in the sections about medical influence, in light of your inquiries about hybrids being killed.”

  Carolyn took the folder and held his gaze for a moment longer than necessary before flipping it open and fingering through documents. She scanned the pages of printed material. When she looked at him again, he saw the question in her eyes before she spoke it.

  “You believe Arabella Connelly controls the medical franchise in Atlanta? The leader of Memphis?”

  Claude paced to his right, giving a grave nod. “That is what everything points toward. She seems to have a strong hand in Emory, but also the public health sector. We’ve seen her influence within the county systems, especially Fulton.”

  “I see.”

  Claude faced her again. “I do not know whether or not it was with Emilia’s blessing. Obviously, I have not spoken to Arabella herself about this.”

  “Obviously.”

  The word was not spoken sarcastically, but then, Claude had never been able to read Carolyn perfectly. Outside, he picked up the sound of an engine starting.

  “Thank you for this, Claude,” she said as she closed the folder. “I will look into it more closely tonight. Do you have any update on the police situation?”

  The soft rumbling engine died away.

  “I should have something for you soon. I have a name, but…there is not enough information to be sure yet. Or even confident in the name. So give me another day or two, if you would, and I will have something solid.”