Chiromancist (Seven Forbidden Arts Book 8)

by Charmaine Pauls

  “At the beginning and tell us everything.”

  She clutched her hands together under the table. “Where’s Bono?”

  “Working out in the gym. Would you like for him to be present?”

  “That’s all right.” She felt calmer knowing he wasn’t far. She cleared her throat. “We met Godfrey when I was pregnant. He convinced Doumar I’d die in childbirth without a serum only he could provide. As payment for the serum, he demanded a partnership in Doumar’s business. Slowly, he infiltrated Doumar’s operation until he owned and ran it. By the time Doumar realized what was happening, it was too late. I didn’t understand Godfrey’s true intention for saving my life until yesterday.”

  “He did it so he could use you to gain the power he’s always been after,” Joss said with an angry scowl, “and to kill us.”

  “Worse.” She swallowed. “Yes, he wanted to wipe you out because you’re standing in his way, hampering his efforts. More importantly, he needed my DNA.”

  Cain rubbed a finger over his chin. “What for?”

  “It’s the seventh cell he needed to simulate a process of transdifferentiation.”

  “Transdifferentiation?” Sean asked.

  “It’s a process of reviving dead and damaged cells.” Lann pondered the information for a bit and then sat up straighter. “By God, he wants to make himself immortal.”

  The team’s faces transformed with shock as the understanding registered.

  “He hasn’t been after art practitioners to strengthen his army as we thought,” Joss said, “he’s been doing it for their cells.”

  “Which is why he was willing to sacrifice the life of his practitioners in battle,” Maya mused. “He’d already harvested their cells.”

  “That’s the research he did on Nicolas,” Sean said, his eyes wide. “It didn’t work because he needed your cell, Sky.”

  “Holy fuck.” Ivan tipped his fingers together. “Why doesn’t he just turn himself into a vampire?”

  “Vampires don’t age,” Sky said, “but they can die. With cell regeneration, he’ll be able to recreate himself. Indefinitely.”

  “This is worse than we thought,” Cain said. “Much worse.”

  “You should also know that his wife is holding the six cells in Brazil. He’ll be on his way there as we speak.”

  “Brazil?” Cain typed something on his wrist pad. “We’ve been looking in the wrong place all along. We need to abandon our search in Canada and look closer to home. He’s not far.”

  “He said the process will turn him into a quantumancist,” Sky said.

  The room went quiet.

  “The seven arts combined will result in the ultimate art of manipulating time, geographical space, and just about everything else,” Cain said with a tone of wonder, as if he’d only realized it himself.

  “We need to act fast.” Joss’s face was tense. “If he succeeds, we’re doomed. He’ll be indestructible.”

  “He wants to wipe out the weaker race,” Sky continued, “meaning humans.”

  “Fuck.” Sean slammed a fist on the table. “Why didn’t we see that one coming?”

  “We’re one step ahead of him,” Cain said. “We already have what he’s trying to achieve.”

  All heads turned to Cain. His gaze fixed on Ivan.

  “I think I know how the quantumancist brought you back to life, Ivan.”

  Ivan appeared startled. “Transdifferentiation?”

  “You must be carrying the seven cells.”

  “Wait.” Maya moved to the edge of her seat. “That makes him a…” Her lips parted in a silent gasp.

  Cain completed the sentence for her. “A quantumancist.”

  “I don’t have different powers,” Ivan said.

  “Not yet.” Cain appeared thoughtful. “Godfrey is ahead of us in terms of research. We need to catch up and fast. What do we know about this process?”

  “Not much,” Lann said. “There’s nothing documented about it.”

  “We could learn some from the animal species,” Sara offered. “The jellyfish is the only specie who has mastered this process to date.”

  “Now that you mention it,” Sky said, “he did use the comparison.”

  “How does it work?” Cain asked.

  “Hydrozoans, or jellyfish, start out as larvae known as planula,” Sara explained. “As a planula settles down, it gives rise to a colony of polyps. The polyps form a branched structure, and jellyfish then bud off these polyps. All the jellyfish arising from a single planula are genetically identical clones. When sick or old, the jellyfish can revert to the polyp stage, and repeat the cycle, recreating itself via transdifferentiation. Transdifferentiation alters the differentiated state of the cells and transforms them into new types of cells. I know this because I recently read a study in which marine biologists expressed their concern about the rate at which these carnivorous immortal jellyfish prey on other jellyfish.”

  “Oh, my God.” Maya looked around the table. “Do you understand what this means? If the process of the hydrozoans is similar to the one Godfrey’s implementing, it means he’ll not only become immortal, but that he can also clone himself.”

  “That’s what he meant when he said he wants to wipe out the weaker race,” Sky said, “replacing it with an immortal creature.”

  Sara gasped. “He wants to make a whole world filled only with himself.”

  “He won’t need a female to reproduce,” Lann said. “He’ll only need himself.”

  “What about sex?” Sean asked. “He wants to fill a planet with clones of himself, making it an all male territory. Just speaking from a man’s point of view, that doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does,” Ivan said. “In fact, it makes perfect sense. The quantumancist I met was, by lack of a better word, a bisexual creature. Multi-sexual, even.”

  “You met one?” Sky exclaimed.

  “It’s a long story. All I can say is he, or she, was both man and woman, and animal.”

  “The properties of the seven cells,” Cain said.

  Ivan’s expression was tight. “I don’t like where this is going. I’m not eager to turn into a creature who can only have sex with itself.”

  “We don’t know for sure, yet,” Cain said. “Ivan, we’ll have to run tests.”

  “Whatever you need.”

  “Josselin, contact Eve and get Tim’s doctor here, too, for what it’s worth.”

  “Who’s Eve?” Sky asked.

  “Our team doctor. She specializes in the seven arts.”

  “What about going after Godfrey?” Joss said.

  “Before we jump into another fight, we need to get our facts straight. I have a feeling this war is not going to be won by weapons. This is a war we need to fight with knowledge. Which brings me to another matter. I know you’ve had your doubts about my intentions and those of our sponsors. I spoke to our government supporters, and we agree it’s time to announce your existence to the world.”

  The team members looked at each other, some brows raised in question.

  Cain held up a hand. “Before you say anything, this will obviously not be an easy or smooth process. Humans may not react well to discover that supernaturals live among them. What we need is a law system that will give us rights and protection. As you know, human law doesn’t apply to us, which is why, up until now, governments could have our kind eliminated. My sponsors are putting together a council for the formulation of these laws, working closely with government representatives from across the world. Each of you will have your say and input, seeing that you’re fighting and risking your lives for humans. What complicates the delicate matter of ensuring equality and freedom for all of us are the growing attacks by the Medusa Movement. They’ve caused a wave of panic with their propaganda against your kind, condemning the arts. They demand execution, not much different from how things played out in the Dark and Middle Ages, when your ancestors were burned on the stake.

  “I fear a civil war. It won’t be long
before every kind of shifter and vampire out there takes up arms in protest. The can of worms has been opened. Now that the lid has been lifted on the seven arts, humans who know about other supernatural beings are going to start spilling the beans.”

  “We’re not politicians,” Lann said. “How do you propose we handle this Medusa Movement?”

  “We fight them with the truth,” Cain said, “but first we have to find their source of information, whoever is feeding them this false believe that you’re here to wipe out the world.”

  “How’s Katherine doing with her research?” Joss asked.

  “Everything is secret,” Lann said, “and underground. There’s not much to go on. We’ve looked into every symbolic aspect of the serpent woman in the hope of finding a possible lead.”

  “It’s not the woman with the serpent hair,” Sky said with a gasp as the realization hit her. “It’s the jellyfish.”

  “Of course,” Sara exclaimed. “How could I have missed it? The jellyfish is the medusa specie.”

  “Godfrey,” Joss said through clenched teeth. “This is his orchestration.”

  “Another reason to find him quickly,” Sean added.

  Maya’s face lit up with sudden insight. “This is why he’s buying up communication companies and enforcing a global communication monopoly. It’ll give him the means of spreading his propaganda, turning the world against us to slow us down while he’s turning into some hideous jellyfish–figuratively speaking, of course—in his lab.”

  “I’ll start making preparations,” Cain said. “In the meantime, there will be serious council decisions to be made that will affect your future and tests to learn what we can from Ivan’s altered state. Joss, you’re in charge of Eve and the doctor. Get them here quickly. Lann, continue the search for the Medusa leaders. Maya, set our satellite on Brazil. The rest of you, start working on finding Mrs. Godfrey Reid or whatever name she uses.”

  When the team members started leaving one after the other, Cain held Sky back.

  Once alone, he said, “You’re a brave woman. I admire your courage and your single-handed effort to sacrifice yourself in an attempt to eliminate Godfrey.”

  “I won’t take credit where it’s not due. I did it for my son.”

  “Also for Bono, I imagine.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, staring at her hands, “I couldn’t be the cause of his and your deaths.”

  “Any plans for your future, yet?”

  “I haven’t thought that far. I suppose I can’t go back to the Netherlands. The secret police will be looking for me, and some of Doumar’s accomplices may want to kill me.” Anyway, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go back to the old memories.

  “Quite right. We stamped out Doumar’s slave trade operation and closed the club. A lot of angry people have lost a major source of income. As for the police, they’ve made the connection between you and the deaths of the senator and the president.”

  “I didn’t know how Godfrey was going to use the information.”

  “I understand.”

  “I still don’t. Why did he have them killed?”

  “They opposed the tender to launch his communication companies in their countries.”

  “I see.”

  “You feel guilty.”

  She looked up quickly. “Of course I do.”

  “There’s a way of finding absolution that will also make it logistically easier for you and Bono to stay together without him having to sacrifice his job. I’d like to offer you a position on the team.”

  “I’d like that,” she said without hesitation. “However, there’s Niels to consider. He needs stability.”

  “So do Thomas, Laudren, Khwezi, and the twins, and they’re doing just fine. You can have a job that requires traveling and provide a stable home for your child.”

  “Who are Khwezi and the twins?”

  Cain smiled, a flicker of warmth creeping into his eyes. “You’ll meet them soon enough. In two weeks, to be exact. What do you say? You’re the last link, Miss Val. I’ve searched a very long time for you, and whatever you may believe about me, I always knew it would work out this way. I just needed to give Bono his chance at redemption and to realize the lengths he’d go to for you—for love.”

  “How could you know?”

  He lifted a flask that stood by his elbow. “Coffee?” Without waiting for her reply, he poured two cups. “Now, tell me how it works. I’m eager to learn about your art. There’s not much in our arsenal of information, I’m afraid. How can you change the future, when it’s already predicted?”

  “The future changes constantly. Every internal and external circumstance has an influence and a resulting effect. What I see comes true when those internal and external influences don’t change, and I guess also because once we believe in an outcome, we unconsciously set our goals so that our path will lead us there. The past never changes, but the present always has the ability to change the future. This is what I used to tell all the people, all the hundreds whose fortunes Doumar made me predict.”

  “Yet, you were never wrong.”

  “There’s fortune telling, and then there’s future prediction. Fortune telling is a business. At least, it was for Doumar, even if he didn’t understand the difference. Future prediction is what the term implies. You go into a place in the future and observe. What happens in the present may or may not change it. That’s why we call it a prediction and not a fact. With fortune telling, you tell people the broad, general parts of things they want to know, foolproof happenings that can’t be altered by their behavior, no matter how they change, in other words things outside of their control, like if a business partner is stealing money, if a lover is cheating, if they’re going to fall pregnant, or if their illness can be cured. These are the things people will pay money to know. Nobody wants to know when they’re going to die.”

  “You said we were going to die.”

  “When I saw Joss, Bono, and the rest of your team in that helicopter, I saw Godfrey strike a match. I saw the flames leap into the air. I knew the aircraft was going to burn, and you were going to be cooked alive. Had Bono not seen through my plan to steal your chip, Godfrey would’ve had access to your escape plan, to your technology, and everything else. It would’ve happened that way had Bono not provided false information with the intention of setting a trap.”

  “Godfrey’s technicians emptied the heli’s fuel tank, installed the gas pockets in the vent system, and tampered with the controls via remote access. Bono had time to fix all of that before Godfrey deliberately set off our perimeter alarm and breached our security to ensure our escape plan would be set into action.”

  “Doumar would never let us go, and Godfrey wasn’t going to kill Doumar. He needed him to run the underground sex operation. It was the perfect place for Godfrey to launder the money that paid for his bigger operation. I decided the only way to change your fate, free myself for good, and save my son, was to lead Godfrey into a trap, just like he’d set for you. Shooting Godfrey was too risky. Doumar would’ve taken me out before I had time to turn the gun on him, and he would’ve executed Godfrey’s plan to kill you. His jealousy was big enough to make him hate Bono that fiercely. If I’d shot Doumar, Godfrey would’ve killed you, and taken off where Doumar had ended, by using Niels to manipulate me. With the explosives, I could take them both out at the same time and be free from the hell I was living. I left a note for Bono, asking him to find Niels and give him to a good family who’d take care of him. I knew Bono wouldn’t fail me. I trusted him enough. I also knew he’d figure out a way of getting the aircraft doors open. He’s clever that way.”

  “Indeed. Well, we had it under control. The plan was to fake our defeat and take Godfrey by surprise. I didn’t expect you to show up wearing a suicide jacket.”

  “I’m sorry if I ruined your chance of catching Godfrey.”

  “I believe,” he gave her a confident smile, “that everything always happens for a reason.”

  The
door was flung open, making them both turn their heads in that direction. Bono stood in the frame, sweat dripping from his naked torso and an exercise towel draped around his neck. His tracksuit pants sat low on his hips, exposing the hard-cut V of his groin. Sky tore her gaze away from the shapely bulge in his pants to land on his thunderous expression. Bono was not a happy man.

  “What the hell are you thinking, Cain,” he said in a low voice, “offering her a position on the team?”

  “I’ll let you two iron out your domestic issues.” Cain got to his feet and left the room.

  “Is it true?” Bono asked, walking to the table and stopping next to her chair.

  “Cain only asked a moment ago. Did you eavesdrop?”

  He clutched the ends of the towel. “I saw Sean at the gym. He said Cain may be popping the big question.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “No, Sky. I won’t let you risk your life that way.”

  She pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “This is not your decision to make. I’ll never tell you what you can and can’t do.”

  “It’s my job to protect you.”

  “Then it’s a good thing we’ll be working on the same team.”

  “Damn, woman. This’ll kill me. I can’t—”

  She went on tiptoes and, cupping his face between her palms, kissed him. “Shh. We can do anything together. I wasn’t made for a glass cage or a cushy office job.”

  Some of his resolve already evaporated. She saw it in the way his tense muscles relaxed. “You’re dangerous.”

  “I never said I wasn’t.”

  “What if, one day, I can’t save your ass?’

  “Then I’ll save yours.”

  The atmosphere changed. Just like that, sexual energy sizzled between them. His gaze darkened with lustful intent. “I always knew that cute ass of yours was going to land you in trouble.”

  “Yes?” She kissed the hollow of his neck and trailed a path with her tongue down his chest to his navel. “What kind of trouble, exactly?”

  Air wheezed through his teeth.

  She kissed his erection through the fabric of his pants. “The kind of trouble my mouth is going to get into?”