But here, in Rodán’s den, books of all sizes and shapes took up almost every bit of shelf space and there were but a few trinkets. I trailed my fingers along the beautiful polished wood of his huge desk. All wood in the room from the desk to the chairs to the shelves were created from wood the Dryads had provided Rodán.
I ran my fingers along my collar as I wondered what payment the Dryads had required of Rodán or if it had been gifted. I would normally have doubted the latter. Dryads aren’t known for their generosity.
But in Rodán’s case … I suspected he had power far greater than I could imagine. He served the Great Guardian and that in itself was a big deal. That had to be the most frustrating job in the Otherworlds—trying to get a straight answer out of the GG and not just a bunch of riddles. Or trying to decipher her riddles.
No one truly knew that much about Rodán, even me, and I’d been so close to him for over two years now. He was powerful enough that it was possible the Dryads had hoped to gain favor with him.
An inkwell, with an iridescent green Faerie plume tipping an ink pen, was on his spotless desk next to a tray of neatly stacked parchment that I could see beneath a single file folder.
The folder obviously didn’t belong. It was worn and looked like it had been through many hands. Words were on it in red and I moved closer to see what was written across it.
I cocked my head and a squirming sensation started wriggling in my stomach when I saw that the writing was actually red runes like the ones that had been on the file folder I’d seen earlier. These runes were different, but it didn’t matter.
Something was wrong here. I could sense it with everything I had.
“Nyx.” Rodán’s voice from behind me startled me so much that I knocked over the inkwell.
“Bless it.” I felt frantic as I looked over my shoulder at his stern face, then tried to right the well and figure out how to clean the mess.
“Avanna.” Rodán said the word that cleared away the mess.
I felt ridiculous for a moment. I should have thought of that. And since when did I feel frantic or worried because of Rodán? The sensations threw me off and for the first time since those early days after I met him, I wasn’t sure how to act around him.
He offered me a strained smile as he gripped my shoulders in his long-fingered hands and gave me a light kiss on the cheek. He had moved with the litheness and speed of the Light Elves and was seated behind his desk before I had a chance to absorb anything.
I lowered myself into a chair in front of his desk and met his crystal-green eyes.
Hands down he was the most beautiful male specimen I had ever known—not just the Light Elves, but every other race known to human- and paranormkind.
Even now with his stern expression he was gorgeous. White-blond hair fell around his shoulders and his pointed ears peeked through the silken strands that I’d run my fingers through so many times when we were lovers.
Considering the sternness of Rodán’s gaze and the tension in his beautiful body, not to mention the fact that I was dating Adam, I had no business thinking of Rodán in any way but from a professional standpoint.
Sure. See Rodán in only a professional light? As if that was ever going to be easy.
“Tell me everything that happened last night,” he said in a demanding voice. It wasn’t a request.
I couldn’t help a frown. Since when had he talked with me this way? “Excuse me?” I leaned forward. “What happened to ‘hello’ and maybe even ‘please’?”
Rodán closed his eyes, hiding the beautiful crystal green of them. When he opened his eyes his features were still tense but I didn’t feel like it was directed at me any longer.
“My apologies, Nyx.” Rodán gave a deep sigh, something he never did. “The developments in tonight’s events have gone beyond what knowledge you may have.” He indicated with a nod that he wanted me to talk. “Tell me what happened tonight and about anything you learned.”
I leaned forward in my chair. “The Sprites gave the Vampires information regarding all races of paranorm beings. Weaknesses and locations of every known home, hideaway, or lair.” Frustration shot through me when Rodán’s expression remained the same. “Everything, Rodán.”
“You are certain the Vampires obtained this information?” he said.
“Yes.” I pushed my hair out of my face as it swung over my shoulder when I leaned even closer. “We found a dying Sprite who told us,” I said. “Then we discovered a Sprite who’d been hiding in glamour and had watched the whole thing. That Sprite told us they gave it all to the Vampires who double-crossed them.”
Rodán closed his eyes for a moment which threw me off. He looked like he was holding back emotions he wanted to set free.
He opened his eyes and met my gaze. “Then it is worse than you know.”
A cold, clammy feeling crept over my skin. “What can be worse than Vampires being given that kind of intelligence?”
“The council—” Rodán looked like he was fighting off anger as he broke off. Rodán never showed his true emotions. The fact that he was now made my insides ball up and tighten.
Rodán grasped the worn folder from the tray and didn’t even seem to notice the papers that had been beneath it sliding out all over his desk. He handed me the folder. I felt as if it might burn my hands when I took it from him.
“The council deemed it important to keep this.” Rodán gestured for me to open the folder.
My sense that something was wrong was so great that my hands trembled as I looked at the red runes. Slowly, I turned back the much-handled cover of the folder. When I realized what it was, my heart raced and fear made me almost dizzy.
“The Werewolf case we solved.” My whisper was hoarse and I was surprised he had even heard me when he nodded. “It looks like everything on creating the virus is here. All the notes, memos, diagrams, photos, research … everything.”
“Yes,” Rodán said. “Everything.”
“The council kept all of the documents from the case,” I said slowly. It was in black and white yet I had a hard time believing something so incredibly stupid had been done. “Every bit of this information was supposed to be destroyed.”
“You are correct,” he said. “It was to be destroyed, but they believed there was good reason it should not be.”
I glanced back at the file and started flipping through the contents, feeling more and more sick. My stomach churned with the turn of every bit of research that had been done by an insane scientist bent on wiping out Werewolves and then all of the paranorm population.
When I came to a page labeled SERUM at the top, horror rose in my throat like acid.
“The formula for the virus that attacks the mutated gene that all paranorms share.” I jerked my head up and stared at Rodán. “If the Vampires have this and manage to find a way to reproduce the serum, they could infect every single paranorm. All of us could die.”
“Yes.” Rodán’s jaw tightened.
I went on as more thoughts sped through my mind. “It would be possible that they could blackmail us and control the paranorm population.”
“Yes,” Rodán said. “That is possible.”
So many questions continued to race through my head. “The Vampires. Why would they do something that would hurt them, too? They’re paranorms.”
Rodán steepled his fingers. “If you read the detail there, you will see that Vampires would be safe.”
Confusion made me blink. “What are you talking about?”
“Vampires were once human, before they were ‘turned.’ ” Rodán’s gaze didn’t waver from mine. “Due to that fact, Vampires do not share the mutated gene that all true paranorms have in common. Witches, Necromancers, and Zombies were once human and do not carry the gene as well.”
I shuddered at the word “Zombies.”
“The Vampires could hold us hostage to their demands,” I said. “But why would the Sprites be so stupid as to give the Vampires information that could kill
others of their kind?” Nothing was computing.
“I think I just answered my own question,” I said as I glanced back at the folder. “Sprites are stupid to begin with. This is just additional evidence to add to the rest.”
“Do not be so quick to judge an entire race of beings, Nyx.” Rodán spoke to me in the formal tongue of the Light Elves, his statement surprising me into looking from the file to him again.
Before I could respond, Rodán reverted and no longer spoke with formality or in that language. “There is more to this than a formula for the serum.”
I turned my attention from Rodán and started flipping pages of the file. Toward the back I found pages separate from the rest. They were faint, in a messy scrawl that was difficult to read.
Rather than decipher the pages, I held them up and met Rodán’s gaze. “What are these? Why are they separate from the rest of the pages in the folder?”
“That is the reason why this entire disaster is more than a simple formula for a serum,” he said.
My throat felt constricted as I repeated a sentiment I’d had earlier. “What could be worse?” I really should have shut my mouth.
“The council kept a vial of the scientist’s serum,” Rodán said as for a brief moment I was too in shock to move, to say anything. “And we do not know its current location.”
“What?” I stood so fast I dropped the folder and all of its contents spewed out and scattered across the hardwood floor. I was beyond incredulous. “The council kept a vial of the serum?”
Rodán gestured for me to sit but I was so angry I stayed on my feet. “How could you let this happen, Rodán?”
“I was not informed.” Rodán held out his hand, his palm up. The papers that had been spread out all over his floor slid back into the folder. The file rose in the air, then went to him and settled on his palm. “I learned of it last night after the archives had been broken into.”
“How could you not have known?” My knees didn’t want to hold me up and I sat. Hard. “Didn’t the almighty Great Guardian deem to inform you?” I asked, fury in my voice.
Rodán raised his hand. “Nyx.” His tone was a warning not to push it with my comments about the Great Guardian.
I pushed it anyway. I hated the GG’s riddles, her holding back when we needed help. Like when she didn’t give us more Night Trackers when she could have during the time we Trackers were being wiped out by Demons. And now, this?
“We’ve got to get it back,” I said. “Now. Before they use it against us.”
“The council’s cleanup team found additional serum and the antiserum in the scientist’s lab.” He gestured toward what I was holding. “Those pages are the details on the ongoing experiment and effectiveness of the antiserum,” he said. “But no formula for the antiserum was recovered.”
“Antiserum?” Everything we had been talking about was spinning in my mind like crazy. “They made an antiserum?”
“We really don’t know why,” Rodán said. “Perhaps Johnson believed he needed it in case the serum had some effect on humans after all. Unfortunately the small vial in that safe was the only existing antiserum.”
“I can’t believe this.” I was almost too stunned to speak. “I just can’t believe it,” I said again.
“Dr. Warner Burke is one of the most respected scientists in the field of biological warfare.” Rodán tapped the folder with his index finger. “The serum and antiserum, along with all of the notes, were to be given to him tomorrow. From that information, he was to develop the formula for the antiserum so that there would be more than the single vial.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard yet.” I tossed the handwritten pages onto Rodán’s desk. “If the serum was disposed of and every page of that file had been destroyed like they were supposed to be, we wouldn’t need to develop a formula for an antiserum.”
“Agreed in part.” Rodán gathered up the pages I’d tossed on his desk, this time by hand, not by magic. “What the council maintains is that there could be a possibility the serum could show up one day. Had the scientist entrusted someone with the information … they felt they had to try to develop more of the antiserum on the chance that happened.”
“The scientist and all of the junior scientists were either wiped out or imprisoned,” I said.
“Were they?” Rodán didn’t look like he was judging me, more like he wanted me to think through the situation.
“We thought so—”
“Important words, Nyx,” Rodán said. “You thought. Not that you knew, but thought.”
“You’re right.” I rubbed my palms on my slacks. “We assumed and that was a stupid thing to do.”
But then my anger resurfaced. “It was insane to not have guarded the serum better. The archives? Are they out of their minds? The archives are no place for serums that could wipe out the entire paranorm world.”
“Apparently it had been guarded in a different place all of this time,” Rodán said. “As I said, the council maintains that it all was to be transferred tomorrow.”
“Then why was it in the archives?” I would really have liked to have a few words with those responsible. Better yet, a little sparring with me against the entire bunch of brainless idiots at once.
“The serum had only been at the archives for twelve hours.” Rodán kept his expression calm. “The records having been stolen was a ‘freak of timing’ as the council members say.”
“I’ll freak-of-timing them,” I said and clenched my teeth.
Rodán continued. “The Sprite break-in for the paranorm weaknesses was coincidental to the information on the serum and vial of serum being there. A horrible coincidence, and now we believe it is all in the hands of the Vampires.”
“Idiots.” I ground my teeth. “And why on earth was the weakness of every paranorm in such an accessible location?” I continued. “It’s pure lunacy, stupidity … bunch of idiots. It’s all beyond reason.” I shook my head as I spewed the words.
“What is done is done,” Rodán said. “Now we must fix it.”
“Fix it?” I pushed both hands through my hair, shoving it out of my face. “We have to assume the Vampires have the entire file of paranorm weaknesses, a serum which can destroy the paranorm world, and they have the only known antiserum to exist.” I shook my head. “As Olivia would put it, we are so screwed.”
Rodán used his calm, soothing voice on me. “I need your entire focus now.”
“The Sprites.” A thought occurred to me. “They said they held something back from the Vampires.” I frowned and said, more to myself than to Rodán, “Could it have been the serum and the antiserum?”
Rodán said, “It is a possibility.”
“And that would mean the Sprites have the serum,” I said. “We have to find out.”
I didn’t realize I’d been sitting on the edge of my seat, my hands clenching the armrests in a death grip. I forced myself to settle back in my chair. My fingers ached from grasping the chair’s arms so tightly.
“What if the Sprites make some kind of deal and give the serum and antiserum to the Vampires?” Heat balled up inside me—anger, concern, fear. Emotions were attacking me all at once. “Or what if the Sprites try to use it themselves?”
“It takes a minuscule amount of the serum.” Rodán’s words had me sitting straight up in my chair again. “According to further research performed by paranorm scientists, the virus incubates for forty eight hours once it is injected into a paranorm being.”
He paused as I held my breath for his next words. “Then it can spread throughout the rest of the species like a windstorm.”
The enormity of his words had my head spinning but I grasped onto the first thought that came to mind. “What about the antiserum?”
“It takes an even smaller amount,” he said, “to cure the virus as long as the person injected with the virus is the one receiving the antiserum.”
“The antiserum needs to be administered before the incubation period is
up, or about forty-eight hours after exposure, according to the scientists’ recovered documents,” I said as I spoke my thoughts aloud, putting together pieces of what was said and what had been left unsaid. “And then it’s completely unstoppable.”
Rodán moved the folder from in front of him and placed it back with the papers that had slipped out of the tray on his desk.
“The Sprite we captured at the scene was taken to my office for questioning,” I said.
“Excellent.” Rodán stood and I knew it was time for me to go. “We can’t afford to waste any time.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I think I know where to start.”
TEN
“I can’t believe you brought a Sprite here.” Olivia had her hands on her hips and glared at me when I walked into the office.
I’d known I was in trouble when I saw what was on her bright orange T-shirt.
IF YOU CAN READ THIS YOU’RE WITHIN ROUNDHOUSE KICK RANGE
“Technically, I brought him in,” Angel said from behind Olivia.
I hoped Olivia couldn’t tell Angel was trying to hide a smile or the Doppler might get to experience a roundhouse from a former NYPD SWAT team officer who had a third degree black belt in karate. Olivia might not be a paranorm but she could kick major ass.
Angel didn’t get to experience Olivia’s roundhouse kick, but she did get Olivia’s glare. “When I want to hear something from you, Perky, then I’ll dial your number,” Olivia said. “Otherwise shut up.”
The Doppler Tracker bit her lower lip and I knew she was about to burst into a fit of laughter. Angel apparently valued her life, though, and managed to hold back.
Olivia clenched her jaw as she looked at Negel who was cuffed to one of the chairs in front of my desk. He was either asleep or knocked out. I had a feeling it was the latter.
I tilted my head. I’d never seen a Sprite in the daylight. It didn’t do anything for his complexion.
Vampires Not Invited: A Night Tracker Novel Page 9
