by L. E. Perry
Carl considered. “I’m not sure I trust you,” he answered honestly.
“That is fair,” Luke nodded. “What if I win your trust?”
Jordan shook his head at Carl, but Carl wanted to think about it. He’d been developing an idea of what the next steps were, and he was pretty sure it would take more than himself and Jordan. He had no idea yet how to do it, but an additional assistant could make a huge difference, especially one with the type of skills Luke seemed to have. He was far from ready to call Luke trustworthy, but he wasn’t sure he had a lot of options, with time running out. He needed more information, which Luke clearly had, or could probably get. “Get me samples of blood from all of those werewolf people we saw today.”
Luke snorted. “How about I just sing down the moon for you? I can give you their names if you will guarantee it will be confidential. You seem to have some access to medical information, from what I read on the surface of your mind when I entered.”
Carl thought about that. “It’s a start,” he answered. “I need to review medical data on a large number of werewolves to see if I can find any common threads that will tell me why one-third of them have problems.”
“Okay. I will get you a list tomorrow, and I will see if I can get you a larger number of them so you have more to work with.” Luke swallowed the last of the water, then stood. “Where was the woman staying?” he asked.
Carl and Jordan looked at each other, then Carl asked, “What do you mean ‘was?’”
Luke brushed a hand through his hair. “My apologies. You do not remember. The black-haired woman who was staying with you was here to kill you. She was what is called a cryptoclast – a hunter of mythological creatures, including werewolves. She is gone now, and will not be coming back. She stole something from me, and if it is here, I need it back. What room would her belongings be in?”
Carl looked at Jordan, then at Luke. “I don’t have any reason to believe that…”
“Then go into her belongings. You will find a grimoire for a werewolf hunter. That should help you believe. And while you are among her belongings, find the crystal skull. It is mine.”
They both looked at Luke, clearly suspicious, and finally, he threw up his hands. “Fine.” He said, then placed one hand on Carl’s jawline and forehead. Images of a large gathering of trucks and people flooded through Carl’s head, men stepped out of the trucks and aimed guns at him. Diana came out of the house, then Luke arrived, everyone froze in place, and Diana dropped to the ground, nose bleeding. He heard everything that was said, but he also knew the thoughts in Luke’s mind, and he was aware of Diana’s thoughts as well, and her intention to kill him. Luke pulled his hand away from Carl, then did the same thing to Jordan, who flinched, then allowed it.
Carl was stunned.
“I told you she was saying some scary shit,” Jordan said, dazed, as Luke pulled his hand from Jordan’s head.
“I’ll go check her things,” Carl replied, and disappeared upstairs. Jordan and Luke followed him. He opened Diana’s suitcase and dug through her books. There, at the bottom, was a book in a velvet bag. He pulled it out and tried to read the runes on the cover, but he couldn’t make any sense of them. He opened it and was relieved to find the words inside were in English, but then paled as he read the table of contents, which gave the names and pages of chapters dedicated to locating, identifying, and killing werewolves, among other legendary creatures. He wondered if all of them existed. Mermaids? Centaurs?
“The bag to your right,” Luke said. “Hand it to me.”
Carl saw a second velvet bag, round, and lifted it. Luke stepped forward and grabbed it from him, then slid out a perfectly shaped skull that looked like it was made of clear glass with streaks of cracks running through it like cobwebs. He cupped it lovingly in his left hand, and placed the fingers of his right hand along the jawline, up the cheek and at the temple, the same way he’d placed his hand on Carl’s, then Jordan’s face. His lips opened and his eyelids sagged. He stood unmoving for what had to have been at least thirty seconds, then slipped the skull back in the bag and wrapped his arm around it. “Give me your phone number,” he said to Carl. “I am unable to stay longer. I will connect with you this evening.”
Carl recited the number for his cell phone, and the man let himself out through the front door. He didn’t even look back as he broke into a jog and disappeared down the trail through the trees.
Chapter 23 – The Solution
Carl stared at the spreadsheet on the computer screen, down in the lab. A list of names ran down the left side, and traits were listed in columns across the top. “Dammit!” he cursed.
Jordan walked through the door put the bowl of stew and cup of coffee he’d brought down on the counter. “What is it?
“None of them have my blood type. Every other blood type is represented, except O-positive.”
Jordan walked behind him to peer at the screen. “So maybe it’s not a big enough sample.”
Carl thought for a moment, then shook his head. Jordan had done well in advanced science classes, so his ideas were worth considering. He should have gone to college. “Highly unlikely. It’s the most common blood type; 38 percent of the population has it. Out of nearly 100 names, to not see even one is statistically highly improbable.”
Jordan pulled a stool over from the steel counter in the center of the room and sat down. “Thirty-eight percent… Luke said one in three dies of this. That’s about the right ratio.”
Carl stood up and paced back and forth. “If the problem is that I don’t have the right blood type, none of this helps. It’s not like I can change my blood type.”
Jordan nodded slowly. “I would think we can rule that option out.”
Carl glanced at the screen and continued to pace. “Yeah. The only way to do that is with a bone marrow transplant.”
Jordan slowly stood up. “Excuse me?”
Carl stopped pacing and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Bone marrow transplants can change a recipient’s blood type to the donor’s type.”
Jordan’s eyes were staring into space. “So… what you need is a bone marrow transplant.”
Carl shook his head with frustration. “That’s for people with leukemia, and it’s complicated and sometimes fatal. It also comes with a great deal of testing, monitoring, poking and prodding, possibly a lifetime of anti-rejection drugs that impair the immune system. And there’s no guarantee it would even work. Not an option.”
Jordan turned slowly to look at Carl. “Or the lycanthropy could kill you. What if computer records show that you have leukemia?”
Carl shook his head, exasperated. “I don’t see how that could happen, since I don’t.”
Jordan stared at him. “Records can be hacked.”
The intensity of Jordan’s gaze seemed to take Carl’s breath away for a moment, while his thoughts whirred madly in his head. “No… God no… that’s an insane hack, Jordan! That’s like a foreign country hacking – no, it might be harder than a foreign country hacking a political party’s files. Beyond the basic HIPAA security, false records would have to show I have leukemia to begin with, then I’d have to get my HLA typed, and the HLA typing would have to be inserted while covering the absence of leukemia, and this kind of thing would have to keep happening over and over every time a test is run to maintain the subterfuge. It’s not a single hack, it’s multiple hacks, with removal and insertion of data everywhere, repeatedly, without making anyone suspicious of recurring anomalies that are inevitable when electronic files are hacked. I can’t even imagine knowing anyone who could do that.”
Jordan dropped back down onto the stool. “Neither can I.”
A look of dawning realization came over Carl’s expression. “Maybe I can.”
Jordan raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Like who?”
Carl stared off into space as he answered, “Luke.”
Chapter 24 – Transplant Tactics
Carl collected his thoughts and tried to convince both himself and Jordan. “Remember how Luke took over our minds when he first got here?”
“Technically, it was second, right after he killed Diana and you invited him in for a cup of tea,” Jordan replied, dryly.
“Yes,” Carl said, ignoring the sarcasm. Putting it all together, he asked, “What if he can do something like that in a surgical center?”
Jordan stood looking at him as if he were insane and finally said, “Right. But that’s the problem.”
“He has the ability to control minds, Jordan. How is that a problem?” Carl asked, puzzled at the suggestion of an obscure flaw in his plan.
Jordan gave Carl a disgusted look. “How does it help? Carl, he did some weird shit, but that doesn’t make him God. He can’t just take over someone’s mind and control their body like a puppet, and even if he could, if he takes over someone’s mind, then it’s him in their mind, and he isn’t a surgeon.”
Carl sighed, resigned to pessimism briefly. After a moment, he exclaimed, “But! But . . . what if Luke could modify the coerce thing he used on us to allow the surgical staff to use their own skills, while still maintaining control over the hacking?”
Jordan leaned back against the counter, folded his arms, and wondered about the limitations of his now supernormal world. This was certainly something to consider. “Yeahhhh.” He drawled, reluctantly, “Maybe we don’t know that it’ll work, but we also don’t know that it won’t. We need to talk to him. But Dammit, Carl, can we trust him?” Jordan replied incredulously. “Should we trust the guy who walked right in to murder you? Are you really that stupid?”
Carl looked straight into Jordan’s eyes. “No, Jordan, I’m that desperate. And at this point, Luke seems to be working on the life side of the equation, and all I’m saying is I want to find out if there’s an option that he has resources for. We have no idea what he can do, who he knows, and we’re a little short on alternatives.”
Jordan turned away and stared at the wall. “Huh. I really don’t like this, but there’s a least a trace of sense in it… I don’t know. I don’t like him. I don’t trust him. I don’t want him here again unless we have a guarantee he’s not going to attack either. But he does seem to have answers.”
They both stood in silence, the gravity of Carl’s failing health becoming more real with each passing moment.
* * *
Several hours later, Carl found Jordan in the kitchen, steaming chicken with a fragrant broth, and chewing on a thumbnail. He had spotted Carl through the evening workout, as always, and neither of them had said a word about the earlier conversation. They couldn’t afford to drop a single moment of the workout routine, no matter what else was going on. And maybe they wouldn’t need the transplant. But, even as it arose, Carl knew that was a ridiculous thought. Every indication was that Carl’s weight loss would resume, and pick up the pace, even if they were able to make some progress against it, even briefly. Maybe it would cure itself, but most likely not.
Carl paced back and forth for several minutes, then spoke, finally breaking the tension. "A bone marrow transplant could work, but there’s no guarantee, and death is a possibility. I’ll also be taking a graft that might be needed by someone else. On the upside, apparently, I would just need to be within an hour of the transplant center, not in a hospital for months."
"Okay. But doesn’t bone marrow replenish in the donor?" Jordan asked.
"Well, yes, but it takes time. More so even than blood, and the donor must take a lot of medications that are extremely exhausting, and then their immune system is depleted on top of that. It’s not a simple process.” Carl kept pacing.
“But people do it, and they survive,” Jordan said.
Carl frowned. “I suppose.”
“And people do sign up to be donors,” Jordan continued.
“For people with cancer,” Carl said, with consternation.
“For people who are going to die if they don’t get the transfusion,” Jordan said, with patience.
Carl shook his head again. “It’s not that simple—”
Jordan responded with frustration, “Then explain it to me.”
Carl paced back and forth several times before apparently realizing that really, it was that simple, when it came down to it and once the hacking was solved. “Okay, let’s say I manage to accept this. Where would we do it?”
It was Jordan’s turn to shake his head. Carl went on. “This takes a number of physicians and nurses, though it’s nothing as complicated as a liver transplant. Still, there will be tests, procedures, all that, and what if they test for the cancer while I’m under and realize I don’t have it, but I have something else they’ve never seen and they decide they want to look into it?”
Jordan closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the ceiling for a moment, then opened his eyes and looked at Carl. “I still think we can manage it. Luke had control of over ten people in the driveway when he took care of Diana.”
Carl felt his heart jump. It all depended on how the mind control worked. He tried to remember how much of his own thought had remained when Luke employed what he’d called the “prestige.” He paced back and forth, thinking. He certainly remembered that he was Carl, so he hadn’t been taken over completely. He felt alarmed, so he obviously still had his own emotional awareness.
“And how well do you trust Luke?” Carl stopped pacing and looked at him.
Jordan paced the small section of the floor Carl wasn’t already pacing. “I don’t, but I’m not going to watch you die without a fight. We have to do something!”
Carl stood for a moment, watching Jordan pacing back and forth. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Jordan pace. “Maybe so, but I think we should gather more information, see what other options might exist before we do something we might regret.” He watched Jordan continue to pace. “Jordan…”
Jordan stopped and looked up at Carl, but didn’t speak.
“You were very clear that you refused to have anything in the contract that said you’d protect me, but you protected me when Luke was here, and now you’re willing to go to extremes to ensure that I live. What are you doing?”
Feeling trapped, Jordan snapped back angrily, “It’s a choice, dammit! I’m not gonna let you die on my watch, not if I can help it. I can’t let you die! But it’s a choice. I watch your back because I choose to, not because I have to. And if you really piss me off, I can choose not to.”
Carl couldn’t think of anything to say. Jordan’s outburst covered a lot of ground, and Carl wasn’t sure how he felt about it, especially the last part.
Jordan mumbled, “I’m… I need to clear my head so we can maybe… think about some alternatives, like you said.” He headed toward the door. “I’m going to thaw some more… chicken?”
Carl just nodded, and watched Jordan walk through the doorway, listening to his feet hit the stairs as he went down to the basement, where there was a larger pantry. He walked into the hall, where he found himself pacing again. The rhythm of his own feet made contact with the floor in a one-two pattern, creating a rocking sensation in his body as his weight transferred back and forth, from one foot to the other, and it became a meditation of sorts, as always.
Jordan was, by nature, extreme in nearly everything he did. Extreme discipline, extreme privation, extremes of emotion, extreme privacy, so an extreme loyalty shouldn’t be so remarkable. Was it loyalty? Was he just taking his job seriously? Did he protect everyone? Would he protect a complete stranger? Yes, he was almost positive Jordan would protect a complete stranger.
He barely remembered when he first met Jordan, when they were freshmen, because Jordan was not at all remarkable then, really. He was swarthy with a dark complexion; olive skin and black hair and brows, and clearly poor, by the way he dressed, but so were many other kids at their high school, and many were darker. But as Jordan bulked up over the years, he became a staunch defender of the weak, and had no
tolerance for bullying. Carl had often seen him with a black eye or bruises barely visible at the edges of his T-shirts. He'd been fighting, but not for himself; no one was foolish enough to take him on after he had developed a thick layer of muscles. But, every time he came upon a bully attacking a smaller kid, Jordan leaped in and crushed the bully. Luke was probably right; Jordan was, by nature, a loyal defender.
* * *
The following morning, Jordan stood close as Carl answered a knock at the door and Luke stepped through the doorway, in a normal fashion this time.
"Thanks for coming over," Carl said.
Luke looked at Jordan, who was standing in the hallway, as he stepped into the parlor. "There are things I will not say over a phone. I had several long talks with Mr. Tesla about freely communicating over a medium that is accessible by anyone, and he had far more faith in humanity than I have come to find. He admitted that surveillance could be performed, though, and I have been wary ever since.” Luke sat down on the sofa. “As usual, I don't have much time, but again, this seems important. Talk to me."
Carl shook his head. "Nikola Tesla?"
Luke crossed his ankles as he looked around at the ornate wall casings and oil paintings. "Of course. 2800 years of life affords one the option of meeting many people. He was doing some astounding things that were so far ahead of what others seemed capable of, I had to find out if he was a hybrid, or perhaps an alien." His eyes locked onto a silver Grecian statuette of a water nymph that sat on the end table next to him.
"Have you had conversations with every famous person that existed over the last two millennia?" Carl asked with astonishment.
Luke picked up the statuette and appraised it as he answered. "No, just the ones who were important to me. And a few I bumped into while talking to those people." He put the nymph down and looked up at Carl.
Jordan shook his head as he sat down in the wingback chair and scowled at Luke. "I think you're full of shit, and we can’t verify either way. I think there's a different explanation for this apparent mind control crap you pulled."
