12.21.12: The Vessel (The Altunai Annals)

by Killian McRae

She rolled over and caressed his cheek. “You’re not, nor will you ever be. And they’re not inherently evil, Alex. Just like us, they chose to be what they are. We’re just trying to protect what’s right. Our right to thrive is not for them to determine.”

  He seemed to accept this. Or else, he didn’t think it was worthwhile to argue. She could sense his weariness, and leaned over to rub his shoulder.

  “Sleep a little. It was hard, but it’s over now, and you’ll have to leave for London soon.”

  She kissed the back of his head before rolling off the mattress and throwing a nearby quilt over him. His body was too exhausted from the process to resist the pull of slumber, and by the time Victoria reached the door, she could hear the gentle purr of his sleep.

  As expected, Priest was waiting impatiently for her right outside the door.

  Victoria shot him a menacing glare as she turned to lead them up the hall. “You’re a bit of a pervert, you know that? Is this a habit of yours, lingering outside people’s doors and listening in on them?”

  Anton shrugged as he followed her. “More of a profession, really. Whenever Dmitri was enjoying one of his conquests, he specifically asked me to—”

  The smack of her open palm reverberated through the hall. With eyes suddenly bloodshot from the force of the impact, a bewildered Anton straightened, nursing the heated flesh of his cheek.

  “Your Grace?” he attempted to grovel.

  “What is it with you?” she demanded in a hissing, whispered shriek. Her eyes shot daggers at him, and woefully Anton noticed how those eyes had darkened. “Dmitri would never lay with a human. Never. What are you getting at, trying to make me jealous?”

  “It was a lie,” Anton let out, his voice uncharacteristically shallow and low. “I’ve never seen him with another. At least, not more than needed to maintain his persona. I don’t think he’d have it in him to ...” His voice trailed off as her eyes and expression softened. “Anyway, I’m sorry.”

  Victoria took a moment to collect herself, her eyes brightening back to their emerald tone. She turned on her heel and made way for the stairs.

  “I’m sorry I reacted like that, but I’m a little off kilter. None of the other proxies have been able to create delusions in me.”

  Anton was having a hard time keeping up, finding himself almost jogging behind her. “Is there something unique about Alex?”

  “Nothing I can put my finger on,” she answered as they rounded the corner of the barrister and made way for the library. “No doubt genetics play in his favor. I only hope it makes him better able to outsmart Dmitri.”

  “He’ll do fine, I’m sure.”

  “No thanks to you,” Victoria snapped back as they entered the library. She immediately took her place behind the large, oak desk overlaid with blueprints. “The boy was basically clueless, Anton. I know you’ve been undercover and all, but you couldn’t shoot him a quick email or something? You know, something simple like a link to the Wikipedia page on Sekhmet or an FAQ on ‘How to serve your goddess’?”

  “You’re not a goddess,” Anton remarked, a rebuking grin on his face.

  “Keep that up, and you won’t be a priest, either.” Her focus turned to the details of the building on the table top. “This is the plan of the building you said Dmitri is in.”

  “How did you get this so fast?” Anton asked, staring at the blueprints in disbelief.

  “One of The Order works for the Metropolitan Buildings Office. Dmitri had some retrofit done a few years ago, so the plans were submitted for permit.”

  “Russian mobsters apply for permits?”

  Victoria groaned. “He always said you get away with more by playing with the rules than against them. Anyway, the flat you say he occupies is here,” her finger snapped down on the page, “6B. Oddly, there are no records of sales on the other flats, and their plans were never submitted for permits. I think he has the whole building empty. Or, he’s renting them out under the table for a little extra cash.”

  “Because he’s so in need of it.”

  “Never hurts.” Victoria shrugged.

  Anton pointed to the left side of the building. “He must have paid a few extra quid for false records then, because this isn’t what’s actually there. He’s made all the flats on this side of the building into one unit, and he’s using it as a warehouse. He’s also converted the two flats on the first floor into barracks and living quarters for his security detail. Easily big enough for twenty-five. What’s the plan?”

  “Given the time constraints, I’m wondering if a ruse is the best option.”

  “Meaning?” Anton asked.

  Her tone lacked confidence. “My proxy will see to it.”

  Priest laughed, the full-bellied sound filling the room. “You don’t think Dmitri won’t see him for what he is in three seconds flat?”

  She pounded her fist on the desk and Anton jolted. “If you have a better idea, Anton, I’m all ears. There’s no time for strategizing. The baktun ends in less than fifty hours.”

  A methodic rubbing of his chin, and Anton posed his query. “Just out of curiosity, you’ve known where the amulet was hidden for well over a thousand years. Why didn’t you just collect it before now? Maybe, I don’t know, put it in a safety deposit box in Zurich or plunge it into a polar ice cap or something?”

  Victoria huffed. “You’d think it’d be that easy, but the amulet isn’t passive. It’s designed to send out a sort of homing signal toward the end of the baktun. I thought I’d have more time to recover it, so I hid it where I knew the lay of the land the best, where I would have the advantage when the time came to retrieve it. Dmitri is a full-blooded Altunai. He must have started hearing it sooner than I anticipated. It still hasn’t spoken to me.”

  Eyebrow arched, Anton asked her to explain.

  Victoria found herself at a loss for words. “It whispers. Speaks? Instructs? There are two parts to opening the gate, me and him. We both need to share in the boost of energy the amulet contains to make it happen. It doesn’t sit back and wait for those two things to find each other out haphazardly.”

  An eerie cackle met his ears, and Anton realized it was Victoria’s laughter. “When I found out about the excavation, I was glad I decided to ask you to embed with Plaxis. If you hadn’t been able to get me credentials, I was going to have to stage a mass murder.”

  “Yeah, instead you killed only the poor sap on the plane.” He shrugged. “And Hector.”

  That snapped her resolve. “Dmitri killed Hector, Anton, not me.”

  “Potatoes, potahtoes,” he murmured. “Look, I’m not blaming you. All I know is that I’ve been in your service since I was fourteen years old. I’ve never seen you fly by the seat of your pants like you have on this. You told us we were going to prevent the end of the world then, and you sounded absolutely sure of that. Now, it seems like you’re wavering.”

  The moment of doubt was so quick that, if Anton hadn’t been searching for it, he would have missed it. It was briefly lived, however, and immediately Victoria’s expression hardened into one of determination.

  “I don’t lack commitment, Anton. I’ll deal with the Altunai, no matter what their High Council,” she spat the words with vehemence, “thinks. I will protect us from destruction, no matter the cost. I haven’t gone to such extreme lengths, and suffered so much, for nothing.”

  Chapter 20

  Victoria shook Alex gently, trying to rouse him from his slumber.

  “Time is fleeting, Alex.”

  His body rolled over in what could best be categorized as a slump. His tongue tapped the dry roof of his mouth a few times, though his eyes remained closed.

  “Thirsty,” he mumbled.

  Victoria had had a cup of water waiting on the bedside table. He took it to his lips and drank down the tall
glassful, following with a relieved grunt and rapid breaths.

  “How am I getting there?” he asked as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  She smoothed his hair out of his face as he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Any car you like that’s here, or we have a motorbike if you think that would be ... Oh!” Victoria’s hand flew to her mouth as she stared unbelievingly at a now bewildered Alex.

  “What?”

  No explanation could she find for why Alex’s eyes now reflected the unique blue-green aspect of her own. No other proxy had ever adapted the feature. Something about Alex’s bond was so much tighter than any other she had ever attempted. Her DNA had taken such a strong hold. “It’s … it’s nothing. Other than thirsty, how do you feel?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I can hear myself echoing in your thoughts. It makes it hard to concentrate.”

  “That’s because you lack energy. We’ll get to that in a minute.” Victoria locked gazes with him. “Can you hear me now?”

  However, her lips had not moved. Perplexed with the sensation, Alex’s head cocked to the side like a curiosity-stricken puppy. “I can, but—”

  Victoria admonished him with a wag of her finger. As she continued, her lips again remained still. The words, though perceivable, were more like a second line of thought than an outsider’s tongue. “Think at me. Don’t speak.”

  Alex stared at the floor. “Um, okay. How?”

  “It’s like the difference between whispering and yelling. You just have to project.”

  “I don’t have a diaphragm to squeeze in my head, Vick.”

  “Your brain is the strongest muscle you have,” she chastised aloud. “You’ve been thinking your whole life. Now just push those thoughts toward me.”

  Alex took a deep breath, formed his thoughts and tried to ... put them somewhere else.

  Her emerald-jade eyes blazed with frustration. “Try harder.”

  “Excuse me, grandma, but I haven’t had five thousand years of practice at this like you!”

  “You won’t have five days more to live if you don’t force yourself to do this now.”

  “Why the hell is it so important anyway? We have cell phones in this modern era of ours. Text messages are the ESP of the twenty-first century.”

  “Cell phones don’t communicate images the way I do,” she explained. “And there’s no need to throw my age in my face.”

  Alex proved incredulous. “You’ve never sent a picture with your phone?”

  “Look, Alex, this thing works no matter how many bars we have. It’s more than pictures; we can pass emotions, sensations. As far as I recall, there is no app that allows you to let me smell what you’re smelling.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and suddenly became concerned with the creases in the bedspread, smoothing them out with her hand. “Of course, if you don’t think you’re talented enough, or you think this is above your capabilities, then—”

  “Are you saying I’m not good enough?”

  “You are only human,” she thought condescendingly, before speaking aloud. “I guess I was just expecting too much of you.”

  “I’m plenty capable of ... doing it!”

  When her hand slapped over his mouth, he felt the words tumble forward unspoken. As Alex realized what he had just achieved, his grin rivaled hers. He felt now the sensation, what speaking through thought felt like. In the form of a true master, she had tricked him into teaching himself.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Loud and clear. Well done.”

  “That is so freaking cool. What else can I do?”

  She had worried that Alex’s anger would be amplified by the suffering he endured, but much to her delight, he seemed to have decided the matter had been put to rest.

  “Every proxy is different, but you picked up telepathy pretty quickly. It took the last proxy almost a week. You’ll notice you’re stronger, and your senses will be heightened. The ambient buzz in your head will normalize. You’ll be able to screen out the influx of whispers you probably hear right now.”

  “So many voices, but I can’t separate any one of them distinctly, except yours. It’s louder.”

  “That’s simply because I’m closer.” Victoria frowned. “Getting the whispers” was a term the Guardian had taught her. It was a sign of energetic dehydration, and he cautioned her not to let it go too long. Alex would need to draw life force soon, or that hum was going to become an overwhelming affront to his senility and encourage him toward the savagery of a discriminate kill.

  Alex’s eyes brightened. “Can I teleport like you?”

  “Oh, God no!” As concern overtook him, she quickly moved to reassure him. “I can do it easily enough, but it takes tremendous amounts of energy. You’re talking an entire shift in the space-time continuum, and that doesn’t come cheap. If I did it without proper preparation, I could all but kill myself. And, of course, I can only pull it off by taking a life.”

  Alex’s face went white. “Taking a life.” His hands slicked back over his head. “I have to take a life.”

  She walked forward, taking his hand in to hers and pressing it against his cheek. “Yes, you do. I’m so sorry, Alex. I wish there was a way around it, but the life force will seal the bond. If you don’t take it, the want of it will fester. Desire to feed will hijack your thoughts, and you’ll strike whomever is closest when it becomes undeniable, be that an enemy, or an innocent child.”

  “I couldn’t live with myself if I killed a kid.” Rubbing his eyes, he fell back to the chair. “Who, then?”

  Victoria crossed to the door, peaking into the hallway. Priest awaited her, but this time, not because he was spying. While Alex had slept, she asked him to address the members still present in the house and learn if anyone would volunteer. To her relief and her horror, the old man who answered the call stood with Anton.

  “Lazurus?” She slipped out of the room, closing the doors behind her. “No, Laz. Not you.”

  The old man leaned forward as he pressed the goddess’s hand to his lips and deposited a kiss on her knuckles. “Milady, I am old. The oldest here, in fact, other than yourself.” His coy wink made her giggle. “I am eighty-one, and I’ve lived a magnificent life. My own children have children. My grandson is a student at Edinburgh this year. If young Alex can help you to make sure my Scott is alive long enough to earn that degree, it is a far more valuable thing than that they should know their eccentric grandfather managed to live a few years longer. I am happy to serve.”

  Tenderly, Victoria rolled up on her toes and kissed the wrinkled cheek of the old man. “I hope there is such a thing as the Heaven the Christians speak of, because I want nothing more than to know you are in it.”

  A moment later, Victoria led Lazarus by the hand into the bedroom. Alex startled, but when his eyes fell on the old man, his gnashing teeth and downward gaze reflected perfectly Victoria’s emotions.

  “Somehow I knew it would be you, Laz,” he said.

  Lazarus lowered his weary body to the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “I think it’s my name, Master Alex. It leaves nothing to the imagination.”

  Trying to remain aloof, Victoria beckoned Alex forward. The conflict brimming in his psyche as well as in his expression almost turned her stomach. Victoria relaxed her mind and let tendrils of suggestion work their way into Alex’s thoughts, tempting him with the sensation of being sated.

  “Alex, put your hands on his arm. Feel the buzz of his life force. Do you taste his soul on your lips?”

  Alex paused, looking for the right words. The sensation was so alien to him, the sting in his throat—though the hunger he felt was more mental than physical—tempting yet foreign. “I taste... heat?”

  “That’s it,” Victoria confirmed, “the taste of a soul is more temporal
than tactile. Reach out for him. You must have physical contact. I promise, this is the only time you must do this. Allow that heat to become your own. Draw his warmth into you.”

  “He’ll die,” Alex muttered.

  Lazarus shuddered, the strength of his resolve waning in this shadow of his demise.

  Victoria bent over, whispering in Alex’s ear. “If you do not take his life, you cannot serve as proxy. If you do not serve as proxy, Monique will die. Do you want Monique to die, Alex?”

  She hated herself in that moment, and hated knowing just how to manipulate him to commit murder. Victoria took both his hands in hers, guiding them towards the sacrifice.

  With a quivering lip, Alex answered. “No, of course not. I love her.”

  She lowered his hands to Lazarus’s face.

  Alex jolted. “He’s burning up.”

  “That’s his life force, which he offers freely. He understands the benefit of his death. That all men had such a privilege.” Gingerly, she again positioned Alex’s fingers onto Lazarus’s temples. “Be done with it.”

  They closed the old man’s lifeless eyes a few minutes later. If this had been any other proxy at any other time, she wouldn’t have dreamt of pressing him onward. As the case was, Victoria didn’t feel as though she had a choice.

  “There’s only forty-seven hours until the Altunai are likely to arrive if we fail. Please, Alex, I know this is asking a lot, but I need you to focus. I need you to stay strong. You need to go.”

  “I’m ready. Just tell me where I’m going, and what to do when I get there.”

  Chapter 21

  No more legends of ancient deities. No more tales of alien civilizations. No more history-on-its-head, now-the-universe-makes-sense, everything’s-been-a-mass-cover-up-by-clandestine-societies revelations.