by Gwynn White
Officially, Christina was dead.
And she should be. She had a vampire in her and that meant the girl was gone, only her body remained. Except that wasn’t the case at all.
Girard sighed and said, “I’m sure. I’m no different from you or any other vampire. We have excellent ears for voices and that was her, but not the Thalia that seemed so in control. This is the voice when she wasn’t confident, when she acted strange. This is Christina and she’s still inside that body.”
Lila put her head down on the desk and said, “So if we yank Thalia out of that body, then we’re killing that little girl who just wanted to stay alive.”
“Yeah, that’s the long and short of it,” Girard answered, rubbing her back.
Doran started pacing, a pen bouncing in one hand against his other palm, clearly thinking hard. “We can’t do that. We need to bring her here.”
“No frigging way,” Marcus said, his voice going hard. “No way. She can set fires and both of them—the girl and Thalia—are unbalanced. It’s sad, but we’ve got to do what needs doing. That girl was supposed to die, so she must die.”
Lila’s head popped up and she glared at Marcus. “Oh, because her life is so much less important than, say, yours?”
“No, because she’s unbalanced and dangerous! Did you somehow miss the part where Thalia is trying to create a world-ending disease because that’s what the girl wants deep in her heart? Is that information going over your head? What if she escapes? What if she goes even crazier?”
Lila jumped up and stabbed a finger into Marcus’s chest. “And what if we get her some frigging help and she grows up and learns how to keep Thalia in check? Or maybe Thalia gets a clue and decides maybe the world isn’t so bad?”
He snorted in derision and pushed her hand away. “Right, because Thalia has always been such a reasonable vampire. No, she never put plague rats on my ship. No, she never started a plague that killed a fifth of an entire continent. No…all of that was just a misunderstanding.”
Borona apparently got tired of them bickering, because he stepped between them and pushed both of them back. It was easy considering that he towered over even Marcus. Sometimes, it was good to be big. “Check your fighting at the door. I’ve got delicate equipment in here. Sit down. Both of you.”
Doran had stopped pacing when tempers flared, but whatever he’d been thinking about was clearly decided. He stood in front of them and held out his hands. “Before anyone gets mad at me, please hear me out.” He waited until he got a few tentative nods, then continued. “I won’t get the DNA back from the…uh…warehouse samples for days, but we’ve got enough information to know that those vampires in the basement are young. We also know they’re already reproducing, despite the fact that they’re still putting out infantile feeding chemicals. We’ve got good reason to think that Thalia didn’t actually wake up ancients, but instead created them. Whether they were born in Egypt during her long stay in that pool under a tomb and then stole bodies to come here or were born a few months ago, we’ve got good reason to believe they are her children.
“What we don’t know is who made those children with her. Does she have a hundred eggs ready to be born? Does she keep material like an octopus and fertilize eggs forever with it? Is every egg she hatches capable of going into any human, regardless of how it was born? Does she have eggs stashed in bodies of water everywhere she’s been, just waiting to hatch and create and entirely new kind of mayhem?”
Lila made a noise and said, “Oh please, not that.”
Doran nodded. “Exactly. What I’m saying is that we don’t know a lot and assuming that we do know is foolhardy. No matter how hazardous it might be, we have to capture her alive and in that body so we can communicate with her. Otherwise, we’ll just have to put her in a new body in order to question her and I’d rather she stay in a body we’re at least familiar with. And yes, the girl being alive is a factor in that decision. While we’ve always assumed that we can’t remove a vampire from a human without killing the body, we don’t actually know that anymore. Thalia might be different. And because the human she lives in is actually alive, we have to consider researching that possibility.”
He paused again, his fingers twisted together as if waiting for someone to throw something at him. To Girard, what he said made sense. His instincts screamed that anything so different from them should die, but that was a bad instinct. It’s the same kind of instinct that kept vampires hidden from humans, knowing that humans would feel exactly the same way about them. He looked at Lila and in her eyes, he read hope. That was enough for him.
“I agree. To every bit of it. If she’s at the point where Christina has enough control to reach out for help, even if only for a few moments, then she’s desperate. Thalia is either retreating in defeat or she’s lost control. Either way, that gives us an opening, an opportunity. We need to find her and we need to take her alive.”
Borona let out a breath, as if he’d been waiting for someone to say precisely what Girard said. His finger hovered over a key on the keyboard and he said, “In that case, I tracked where the phone call came from. I know where she was. She might still be there. The problem is that it won’t take long for the police to track it back via the app she used to make the call. All it will take is a subpoena if they decide to try for one. So, we’re under a time constraint. And you’re not going to like where she is.”
28
Girard jabbed his finger at the End Call button much harder than he needed to, then immediately hit the number to call again. He knew it was useless, given that this was his eighteenth call, but he couldn’t help it. Behind him in the van, Lila was still trying to referee between Marcus and Borona. Meanwhile, Doran was doing his level best to coordinate a helicopter rental, which was never easy when it came to the Council and parting with money for “unnecessary” expenditures. This time, however, Pradish was being more than helpful. It was only the short notice nature of the request that was thwarting them.
While he listened to the phone ring, he leaned over so that Doran would hear him over the din of the argument going on behind them. “Any word? We’re about fifteen minutes from the executive airport.”
Doran made a face, then turned abruptly and stuck a finger in his ear while he listened to Pradish on the phone. Girard could only hope it was good news. Once again the phone went to messaging, so he ended the call and dropped the phone into his lap. If this van didn’t have lane departure warnings on it, they would have crashed three times in the twenty minutes since they left the compound. He needed to get them either to the airport or to Yadikira’s country house in one piece. Faster was better, but alive was absolutely necessary.
“Can you three shut up back there?” Girard called over his shoulder. They were getting heated, with Borona staunchly defending his delay in sharing Thalia’s possible location because he distrusted Marcus, while Marcus shouted back that he’d done nothing except help.
The truth was, Girard could see it from both of their perspectives. Borona was right in one respect. Marcus tended to parse out information only as it was needed, not before. He’d been helpful, but there was this undercurrent, this feeling that there was more he could share if he wanted to. Likewise, Marcus defended himself by saying he had no way to know what anyone else knew and some things didn’t seem important or only came to mind when the subject came up. After all, he was old and had a lot tucked away in his memories.
Both things were true. Either way, Girard would need to have a talk with Borona, a mentor to mentee chat about duty and withholding information. He would need to have a similar talk with Marcus, only using much greater care. Marcus wasn’t an apprentice to be schooled, but rather an ancient who had lived more than three times as long as Girard.
Doran finally got off the phone and rattled off the location they would go to meet their rented helicopter. Girard wasn’t exactly a huge fan of flying, but he also couldn’t remember the last time a bit of news like this had given him so muc
h relief. It would shave almost two hours off their trip and those two hours might wind up being the difference between life and death.
His news also served to silence the argument in the back seats. Bonus.
Doran jotted things down on a little notepad while he gave them the rest of the news. “Pradish is arranging two cars to meet us at the local airport when we land, so that’s one less thing to worry about. No one wants to call for a car service in a time like this. Anyway, the helicopters aren’t huge. They take rich people around, so it’s more like a limo service in the air. We can’t all fit in one with our gear, so he got two. Here’s our choice. We can either take all of us in one and put the gear on the second, or two of us can go in the second helo and we divide the gear.”
“Does that matter? I mean, we’re all going to the same place, right?” Lila asked, leaning up in her seat to poke her head between the front seats.
“Put your seatbelt back on,” Girard said, nudging her back with an elbow.
Doran smiled at Lila and motioned her back, then continued. “It matters because the second helo isn’t going until forty-five minutes or so after the first one. If we want to sit around the airport and wait, then fine, but I’m not thinking any of us actually wants to do that.”
Girard switched lanes a little too quickly and earned himself a honk from another motorist, then said, “No, I couldn’t wait even if I wanted to. Suggestions?” He knew what he would want, but it was only fair to let the others chime in. Given how personally invested he was in the situation, he also wasn’t sure he’d make the correct decision anyway.
For a moment, no one spoke, but he could sense there was some internal debate and possibly a hesitance to shove any one person out of the mix. It was a bit like not wanting to pick anyone last for the school team or something.
“Just speak up. No one get offended, okay,” he said.
Doran spoke first. “My opinion? Girard, Marcus, and Borona on the first helo with the most important gear. Lila and I will take the second with all the big stuff and get there as fast as we can.” Lila was already gearing up an argument, Girard could tell, but Doran twisted a little in his seat to make eye contact, holding up a hand for patience. “Just hear me out. Girard has the best relationship with those at the house. Marcus is an ancient and stronger. Borona has the most recent military experience and—correct me if I’m wrong—you’ve also got about two hundred years of such experience, right?”
Borona grunted in response, then added, “But the last time I fought was World War II. So, not very recent.”
Doran shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s more recent than anyone else and you’ve kept up on the tech. Plus you have all your little toys.”
“They’re not toys!” Borona exclaimed, clearly offended.
“You know what I mean.”
Girard was listening hard to what Lila would say. Out of all the vampires in the world, he trusted her most. Her instincts were razor sharp and her mind naturally sought all the angles in any problem. He heard her push out a hard breath, the kind that said she didn’t particularly like the conclusion she’d come to.
“I agree,” Lila said. “Listen, I want to be on that first helo so bad it hurts, but he’s right. Borona, you’ve got all those devices you and your nerds are always cooking up, and Marcus is an ancient who knows Thalia. That Girard should go first is a given. What Doran and I offer is backup, more bodies. Neither of us has any specific skillset useful in this situation except the ability to use a firehose or gun. We’ll get there as fast as we can, but if there is anything bad going on, I don’t want to cause delay by not having the right people there in a fight.”
It took a few seconds, but everyone agreed and Girard was glad of it. That’s exactly the configuration he would have chosen, which meant he was still thinking properly…thinking like a Guardian. He took the exit toward the airport a little too quickly, then slowed over the curve.
“Before we get there, we should get our plan together. We certainly can’t do it in the air with a human pilot listening. Right now, we don’t know for sure what’s happened. It’s possible that Josette simply can’t get to her phone or it’s turned off or whatever. We can’t discount that—”
Lila interrupted him with, “Not likely. Not given Yadikira’s condition.”
“Agreed,” he said, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. “But it’s possible. Borona’s position put Thalia at a gas station about three miles from the house, so we don’t know that she’s at Yadikira’s at the moment. She might be in the woods. If Thalia is losing control to Christina, it would make sense that she’d try to get somewhere she knows she’ll be protected. A daughter who’s already proven she’ll shelter Thalia is a safe bet. We have zero reason to think she’s in the area to do damage. She’s probably hiding, laying low, trying to figure out her next move. The only thing that gives me pause is that Josette found those egg cases in the pool by the house. If Thalia’s not waiting there for more to hatch, then she might move on to someplace else she had eggs…if she has any. Also, where did those vampires that hatched go? They could be in the woods too, with bodies we don’t know about.”
Marcus gave Girard’s seat a tug and said, “Or those could have been the ones in the warehouse. If so, we’ve got them or they’re dead.”
“True,” Doran nodded. “We don’t know. What we do know is that Thalia is still in Christina’s body, which might mean she’s having an issue coming out of it. But if she knows we’re there, might she manage to take a new one? We have to be careful.”
Girard pulled onto the little road leading to the executive airport. Everything from biplanes used by flying clubs to sleek little propeller numbers meant for the rich were housed there. And luckily for them, a heliport facility that catered to those leaving New York City for their country houses up north or their luxurious beach houses along the coast. As they approached the parking lot, he said, “We have to be ready for anything. If Josette isn’t answering the phone, then something is wrong. We just don’t know what it is.”
29
I still see three signatures, but the third hasn’t moved at all and my heat register shows a decrease of point-five degrees,” Borona whispered, lowering his high-tech version of binoculars yet again.
They were planted on the roof of a very large house a little distance from Yadikira’s, but well within line of sight. The house was unoccupied save for the staff, and the maid had left while they hid in the woods nearby, muttering angrily as if speaking her mind to an invisible someone walking next to her. A quick look through Borona’s glasses showed no other occupants, so the opportunity was too good to pass up and they’d clambered onto the roof via the balconies in the rear.
Girard just hoped no one came home before they climbed back down.
Marcus was polishing off the last of his snacks, which was almost absurd when Girard thought about it. There was no help for it though. The hunger wasn’t something Marcus could control and his body was filling out fast. The sugary scent of cream filling wafted over when he spoke. “And you still can’t tell who is who?”
Borona carefully avoided Girard’s gaze—Girard could read him like a book—when he said, “They’re all about the same size, at least when I look through these. If one was really big I might see that difference, but otherwise…”
There was no point in going over it yet again. Right now, it was time to act. There were three bodies in that house, but only two of them were alive. Who was the cooling form on the floor? They had no way to know, but there were options aplenty. It could be Yadikira, her old body finally giving up the fight. That wouldn’t have been a surprise.
But the rest of it threw the picture into confusion. As far as Girard had known, there were two people in the house…well, two vampires, which amounted to the same thing as far as he was concerned. Josette and Yadikira should have been the only ones there. So, who did that third human body belong to? Was it a case of Yadikira finally deciding to switch forms an
d Josette bringing some unauthorized human victim in to be taken? Girard had already checked and there had been no request for a host body from her, not even an emergency one.
Still, it was possible that Josette had done something unwise in an effort to save her friend. It happened sometimes. And if that’s what happened, it would explain why the second form on the floor was alive and warm, but not moving. A newly transferred vampire could sometimes take hours before becoming mobile. It varied a great deal from individual to individual.
On the other hand, it could be Thalia who was walking around in that house, almost pacing it. And the two on the floor could be Yadikira and Josette, one dead and one immobile due to injury. In that case, the one on the floor probably needed an assist urgently. How was he supposed to decide which scenario was the one playing out in there?
“How much longer till Lila and Doran arrive? Any updates?” he asked.
Borona looked regretful about his answer and glanced at his watch. “Still in the air, so it won’t be for a while. Maybe forty-five minutes if they drive like they mean it. They had some kind of red light and failed pre-flight, but at least they’re in the air. That’s something.”
“Any update on the security team?” he asked Marcus, who was at least focused enough to handle that.
“Yeah, another hour and a half. I mean, you called for them with rush hour on the way.”
