by Jess C Scott
Redroot and diamond
dust; one part moonshine; one part
Elvenhumankind.
~~~~~
“The, ingredients…for an elixir of everlasting life,” Nin made clear. “And there are some familiar numbers, here in this circle.”
Anya’s heart froze over. “Elvenhumankind” sounded sacrificial, like the mingling of blood—the life force—between humans and elves. That Tavia, who embodied the spirit of a female Elven warrior, could very well be involved in some kind of horrific ancient rite was unimaginable.
The elves had been right then, according to what Nin had said at Helli’sandur.
Nin was the one who was idealistic, who believed in some value of the poem entitled lir.
Anya remembered what she said. She’d asked Nin why he’d want to bother with humans, when most of the species was selfish and destructive.
“Why are you crying?” Nin’s voice drifted towards Anya like a cool breeze.
Anya looked up at Nin through damp, matted eyelashes, oblivious to the hot tears that streaked down the sides of her face. The tears gave her a sense of vulnerability and fragility she was not accustomed to showing. Not even to Leticia, if she could help it.
“At Helli’sandur…” Anya started, in a constrained whisper. “You seemed to really care for…your side…and the human side.” Anya reflected on the current situation, concurrently reflecting on the nihilistic lyrics of a Nine Inch Nails song, one of her favorites. “And this is what you get. Life is always cruel to the dreamer.”
Nin gazed up at the stars.
“Real life is what we are…dreams are what we could be.”
He didn’t know what life would be, if he didn’t have his ideals. A quantum leap of faith could end up going both ways: soaring high, or crash-and-burning. Nin thought it was a fair price to pay for being true to oneself.
Anya was shaking by now, feeling utterly powerless. Nin draped his arms around her, to soothe her delicate soul buried deep within.
Anya was sobbing, soaking a patch of Nin’s shirt. “Sorry,” she said, upon noticing.
Nin just held her. “There’s an Elven poem…called Tears from the Stars.” Nin’s tone of voice was musical and lyrical. He recited it, sending goose bumps all over the surface of Anya’s skin.
“Stars shine, they are so bright,
Each one for us ignites,
When they cry it is a melancholy sight.
Tears unmask sorrow. The cleansing is purity, pure divinity.
Each of us a star in the night—alone in the dark—together undivided.
Tears fall, and the earth glistens…like stars.”
For a moment, Anya envisioned The Star Prophecy, of the maiden that had sacrificed herself, and her lover’s tears who had glistened like the stars, which mingled with her blood. Anya could feel her blood turning to ice, as she thought of the prophecy. Even the air seemed to have turned chilly.
Nin was aware of her fears, and held her close for a while, in silence, under the moonlight, as the rest of the world passed them by.
Chapter 14:
“There’s something you should know,” Anya began, when she had calmed down. “Leticia’s boyfriend, Julius, might have something to do with Tavia’s disappearance.”
Anya was a little hesitant, as she said Julius’s name. She knew he must be involved somehow. She just couldn’t prove it, beyond all shadow of a doubt.
“How so?” Nin was all ears. Even the slightest bit of information could point them in the right direction. At times, there could be a tendency for everything to happen all at once. He didn’t think the current situation was any different. He was waiting for a turning point—something that would show them what to do thereafter.
“Leticia thinks he drugged her, just before the break-in. She didn’t know what happened, while she was unconscious.”
“Who is this…Julius? What does he do?”
Anya gave all the details she could about Julius, including the photo of his dad, and their ties to Xenith. Nin seemed to perk up at the mention that Xenith was a “pharmaceutical company.”
“And…” Anya remembered the open document she had the day before, when Julius stepped into the room. She knew he had seen the document too. “Elves!” Julius had exclaimed. Anya could hear his voice, as if Julius had just spoken before them.
“Is there something else?” Nin prompted.
Anya blinked a few times, looking into the kindness in the depths of Nin’s eyes. “I was gathering facts on elves,” she said, noticing one of her tears had fallen onto Nin’s boot. “On my computer…Julius noticed. But I turned it off before he could read anymore.”
“Checking up on us?” Nin asked, with more good cheer than necessary. He didn’t like seeing anyone unhappy for too long.
Anya shrugged. “I read about the pure iron.”
“Did he say anything?”
Anya thought hard. “He said…something about how it wasn’t possible for elves to exist.”
Nin gave a nod. He was interested to know more about this character, that he hardly knew anything about, at the moment. “His reason, being?”
Anya pictured the scene—Leticia gazing at Julius’s light gray eyes, and the latter chewing on the slice of pepperoni pizza. “Something about a lack of evidence. No remains…”
Anya wouldn’t know where to put her face, if she later discovered that Julius had nothing to do with Tavia’s disappearance. All she could prove was that he had noticed an open document on elves, which she and Leticia had claimed was research for a project. Anyone could have seen the document, and not given it a second thought.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Anya said. She smiled when Nin gently tilted her chin up.
“Mind what?”
“That I’d been checking up on…”
“Ah.”
Anya shuddered for a moment. When Nin said “ah,” his voice somehow sounded uncannily similar to Julius’s.
“Some of us make…good detectives,” he let her know, taking her hand in his.
Anya held his hand—a simple touch could be more reassuring than a day’s worth of words. She took a good look at the long, elegant lines of his slender hand.
Leticia was into the art of palm reading, and had shared some of what she knew with Anya. An hour was the most Anya had enough patience for, to sit down and figure out the names of the various sections of the hand, along with the lines and markings that held different meanings.
“A lean palm,” she remembered Leticia saying, “embodies grace and sophistication.” Nin’s thumb and fingers were thin too, which highlighted refinement and good taste. Maybe Anya had retained some of the facts related to ancient palmistry, from the accumulated hours she had put in so far.
“Reading me some more?” Nin joked.
“Nothing you don’t already know,” Anya said with a grin.
Nin turned to the side slightly, and was just about to take a step towards the tree with the door, when Anya held on to his hand just for a brief moment more.
“That’s your fate line,” she said to him. It was a line that cut vertically down the surface of the palm. She let go of his hand, once she had pointed out the line to him.
“Is there anything wrong with it?”
“It’s, a little fragmented.”
Nin took a look, and noticed there was a complete break.
“A little…” Nin echoed what Anya had said.
“It signals a change.” Anya thought he had enough to worry about. “Or simply an event that’s outside your control.”
Nin rubbed his palms together. “Maybe it’s this moment in my life, right now.” It wasn’t going to deter him from doing his best to ensure a positive result.
Anya wouldn’t disagree on what he said. At least he had a strong fate line. Anya’s was very faint, which apparently denoted an unsettled way of life. She was going to make her own destiny anyway, regardless of what a line on the palm of her hand signaled.
Nin led Anya down t
o The Velvet Underground, where Dresan was busy switching between different windows on one of the computer screens. Anya gathered from the visible keywords that Dresan had been searching online for “Julius,” “Varian Gilbreth,” and anything associated with The Gilbreth Institute.
“Julius is associated with Xenith,” Nin told Dresan. “The heir apparent, in fact.” Dresan took a look back, and saw Anya, and that she was alone. Anya’s eyes were a little bit red and puffy. Dresan hesitated, wondering if Anya had reacted to what he’d confided to Nin, on the rooftop of the Gilbreth. He didn’t think so—Nin was tactful—but he could always ask Nin later. Dresan decided to stay focused on his task at the computer, and typed in the word, “Xenith.”
The corporate website’s banner showed a smiling medical professional, with a trademark stethoscope around his neck, tending to a mother and her infant son. A small caption beneath it read: “A Helping Hand—each day, Xenith donates more than $1 million worth of medicine to patients in need around the world.”
“Xenith serves global communities,” Nin read the text aloud, under the About Us section, “by discovering and developing new medicines, and other healthcare products to help people do more, feel better, and live longer.”
“Waxing lyrical with their corporate philosophy,” Dresan muttered sarcastically.
Nin tilted his chin up slightly. “Admirable statements.”
“All empires are evil,” Dresan replied with a frown. “History repeats itself. It’s been this way since the dawn of time.”
“Every empire, Elven or human.”
“Or draconian—it’s the whole power trip. Greed. The seven deadly sins.”
“Some things never change…” Nin said. “Shall we continue with philosophy, or move along?”
Dresan nodded. “Move along.” He continued to read aloud a few more details under the company’s profile page, picking out the important, relevant bits. “Mission is to improve the quality of human life…headquartered in Zouk City, Xenith is one of the industry leaders…estimated ten per cent of the world’s pharmaceutical market. Being a leader brings responsibility…we care about the impact we have on the people and places…a track record of turning research into powerful, marketable drugs…”
There was a list of the products marketed by Xenith:
Xenith’s products are among the market leaders:
• over-the-counter (OTC) medicines including Ally and Percocel
• dental products such as Mintcase and Smile!
• smoking control products Nicolette/Niquiteen
• nutritional healthcare drinks such as Liquizoid, Squish and DrinkUp
• skincare products marketed by Klum Laboratories
“Those are items you could find at any drug store,” said Anya. Xenith had taken over the world, in that sense. It was hard to stop a company or institution, when their products were so much a part of people’s daily lives.
Nin read certain phrases from the last passage on the page. “A portion of Xenith’s profits…go toward community programs that focus on health…humans services, science education, and literacy.”
“Nothing on Julius,” Anya remarked. “I didn’t know all that about Xenith, too.” From what she had heard and read in the media, it was quite a different story. But then again, it was their corporate website, so of course the company would want to appeal to public sentiment.
“Sounds…generous.” Dresan folded his arms, as he leaned back against the chair.
Nin mulled on it for a couple of moments. “Too generous…” Nin commented, with a keen perceptiveness, leaving Anya and Dresan to decipher his meaning.
“That’s Samuel,” Anya pointed out, when Dresan continued clicking through the other pages of the website. “Julius’s father. The guy in the photo in the vault,” she said to Nin.
There was a photo of Samuel Lycata, standing with various Xenith employees, at a range of locations around the world. The first had him standing in front of the Xenith headquarters, a building that seemed to be made entirely out of squares. The building was of that shape, and so were the windows on each level. Even Xenith’s corporate logo had overlapping squares incorporated into the design.
Anya’s cell phone had a message. It was from Leticia:
I’m on my way to Julius’ house @ 89 Hilton Lane.
Tavia is there. K / R.
Anya immediately handed her cell over to Nin, whose face lit up once he had read the message. “Where’s Leticia now?” he asked, already passing Dresan the address to look up.
Anya tried calling Leticia, but could only hear Leticia’s voice message. “She’s shut her phone off. I can’t get through.”
Maybe it’s more than Leticia’s able to handle, Nin thought.
“What’s K slash R?” he asked, as he returned the phone to Anya.
“Key under rug. Leticia stole the house key and made an extra copy.”
“Nearest landing spot for the train,” Dresan circled an area on the screen to Nin. “Near the sewer.” Anya looked at the map system—they’d still have to cover some distance, to get to Julius’s place, tucked away in a private, affluent district of Zouk City.
“Isn’t that where we hijacked the bikes?” Nin said with a reminiscent grin, as he folded his arms across his chest.
“I believe you’re right,” Dresan replied, in a well-articulated British accent. He enjoyed doing that—he’d always loved the city of London.
Anya remembered the story, when Nin and Dresan raced each other on two bikes, across a glistening road one night. She wondered if anyone had seen them.
“Is that how you learned to ride?” Anya looked at Nin, a little quizzically, then at Dresan. “On stolen bikes?”
Nin shrugged, feigning innocence. “For the greater good.” In emergency cases such as this, the elves had no qualms “borrowing” whatever they needed.
Nin, Anya, and Dresan took the train carriage to the landing spot. Anya grinned when she saw where they were. The neon signboard of a nightclub opposite the road spelled out: The Velvet Underground. For a fleeting moment, Anya wondered how the club—and the elves’ underground network—got the name.
It didn’t take Nin and Dresan a long time to locate two expensively-dressed but unkempt young men passed out on the roadside. A blonde and redhead were half-sitting, half-stretched out beside the men—the guys’ girlfriends or dates, presumably—smoking and talking to themselves in a semi-intoxicated state. Two sport bikes were parked a few steps away from the group of four.
“Just what we need.” Nin blithely stepped over one of the men, and picked up the a set of keys from his and the other man’s jeans pocket.
“Hey…” the redhead drawled, swiping a hand at Nin. Neither Anya, Nin, nor Dresan could tell if the redhead was trying to swat Nin’s hand away, or if she wanted something else.
“Where’re you goin’?” One’s of the blonde’s hands was grasping an empty beer bottle, and she swung that hand high up into the air. “Those bikes are ours!”
“We’re off to save the world.” Nin thought it was funny how easily he could get away with the truth, sometimes.
“Drink responsibly!” Dresan gave his two cents, as the redhead blew him a kiss.
Dresan hopped onto the orange bike. Nin went over to the red one, and tossed one set of keys to Dresan. Anya stood around, trying to make sense of what the blonde was muttering, as the woman raved about Nin being “her superman,” before Anya saw Nin bob his head at the passenger’s seat behind him.
“Hold on tight,” Nin said to Anya, once she had settled on the seat behind him. Anya much preferred being the rider, but this time she didn’t complain.
The bikes tore down the empty streets of three-thirty a.m. Anya held onto Nin’s waist, enjoying his body’s warmth and security. She was afraid he’d turned against her, hated her even, when he shot her a look that said not to touch him, when he shot her that look that said not to touch him, after they had left the Gilbreth without finding Tavia. She to
ok it as a good sign that the elves were still on talking terms with her.
In turn, Nin sought comfort in her soothing touch. He had spent some time thinking about what Dresan had mentioned on the rooftop. He thought Dresan might be right about Julius. The girls didn’t seem to be malicious. Nin didn’t want to be proven wrong about his sixth sense.
Nin’s mind was a cacophonic swirl. He hoped Tavia was still alive, hoped Leticia was telling the truth, and hoped they weren’t all riding straight into a death trap.
Chapter 15:
The first house on the street was like the gateway to the “rich” area homes—a sleek single family home which featured clean lines and a U-shaped design, built right into the side of a naturally sloping hillside. All the abodes were luxurious dream homes which blended into the environment, literally and beautifully.
Julius’s house was more like a mansion, hidden away on a long, winding street that seemed hidden away from the rest of the outside world. Nin, Anya, and Dresan got off the bikes and made their stealthy approach to 89 Hilton Lane, a meticulously maintained, black and chrome three-storey home at the end of the street. It was a waterfront house, with a bold and attractive structural appeal, and a private jetty and boat parking quarter. Anya lifted a corner of the rug and found the key Leticia had left to the main door.
Nin and Dresan stepped in without a sound, drawing their laser guns. Their senses were on full alert—there had to be greater security to such a rich home.
Anya had to refrain from giving a low whistle—Julius’s home was filled with beautiful pieces of artwork, which included abstract items like whale bone sculptures. Perhaps he shares the same hobby as Gilbreth, Anya thought to herself. For all she knew, they could be standing above a hexagonal (or square) vault right now, without even knowing it.
“Where’s Leticia?” Nin seemed to ask, when he met Anya’s eyes for a brief second.
There was a panel of square grids on one side of the wall. Anya placed a hand on one of the square pieces in the corner, nearest to her, curious with the material of the panel.
