Blood Ties (13 page)

“I do, actually,” Oliver replied. He'd heard of Dr. Emerick when learning about the Orani. “He was a doctor of demon bloodlines, wasn't he?”

“Yes.” Myrandah opened a door and Oliver and Phlox followed her into a dark room. There was a spark of fire, and Myrandah appeared in the glow of a match. She lit a candelabra on the wall. “The demosapien lines were his specialty. And Renfeld carried out his experiments at the Asylum Colony.”

Mounted on the wall in front of them was a tall metal rack that held oil paintings, one beside another, like pages of a book. Myrandah started flipping through the large canvases. Each painting was a portrait of one of Oliver's relatives throughout the ages. She stopped at a dour old man with very little hair and even less skin. He was depicted in a tweed suit. This was the same painting of Great-Uncle Renfeld that Phlox had hung in the abandoned upstairs of Oliver's house, except that in this one, his face looked different. Actually, it looked the same at first, but then as Oliver gazed, the face changed. The human face was replaced by a green-skinned, glowing-eyed demon with razor teeth. This was a representation of the demon within the vampire. These demon-revealing paintings could only be made in the Underworld.

“Ahh,” Myrandah said, gazing at the painting. “He was such a careful student. Working night and day.”

“You must have been proud of him,” said Oliver, trying to be polite. He couldn't break his gaze from the demon face.

“We felt pride,” Myrandah began, but then her tone soured. “But how the New World scientists distorted his work.”

“Here we go,” Phlox sighed.

“His studies twisted and corrupted!”

Oliver worried that his chance to learn about the Asylum Colony was slipping away. “I—I thought the Asylum Colony was a prestigious place.”

“Oh, naturally it is. Their research has always been pure, but see how the likes of the Half-Light Consortium have misused it.…”

“Okay, Mother,” grumbled Phlox.

“I'd still like to see the Colony,” said Oliver.

“Bah.” Myrandah waved her hand dismissively. “It's too far a walk for these old legs.”

“And too far for you to go,” said Phlox. “We need you around tonight, Oliver.”

“Um, okay,” Oliver replied with fresh worry. Did they want him around in time for the seventh moon sacrifice? “I was just going to go upstairs to hang out with Dean for a little while.”

“Just make sure you're back for dinner,” said Phlox tersely. She left the room.

Oliver heard Myrandah sigh. He turned to see that she had flipped along in the paintings, and was now looking at a younger woman, in her late teens, standing regally in a white satin dress, her platinum hair falling in splendid curls down her shoulders. Oliver realized that it was Phlox, as a newly sired vampire. She looked about Misère's age. The image was shocking. He'd never imagined his mother so young, her face so lineless, her eyes so big…

Yet as he watched, Phlox's eyes turned into gleaming turquoise slits, more reptilian than human. Her pale face transformed into deep, leathery yellow skin with tiny purple spikes lining her forehead and chin. Her delicate lips dissolved into a mouth of glistening black-glass teeth. This was the demon, the true
vampyr,
inside Oliver's mother.

“Such a lovely girl,” Myrandah said softly.

Oliver just stared. There was nothing like that inside him yet. But someday there would be. Would he change, as Bane had? Become a different person? He wondered if he wanted that, and wasn't sure. And then he wondered: When he opened the Gate, this
vampyr
inside him would be free again, but would that be
Oliver
anymore? Would he still be himself, free in another dimension, or only partly Oliver, or not Oliver at all? Vampires like Phlox weren't bothered by this idea, were they? Probably not. It wasn't like a vampire to think about consequences—to think about
what if,
but Oliver always did. It was almost like everything he thought was different than what the rest of his world was thinking…

“Dear boy…” Oliver was startled by Myrandah's voice. His gaze broke from Phlox's image, and he found his stooped grandmother standing quite close to him, peering into his face, her eyes glowing, not with anger, but with tenderness. “So much that young Oliver never asked for…”

“Huh?” Oliver asked, but he'd heard her, and he agreed.

“See him wonder about his purpose. Purpose he never chose…” Oliver felt relief at hearing this, though he tried not to show it. “He craves only a normal vampire's existence…”

Oliver shrugged. He wasn't sure if that was really true, but he tried not to show that, either. He had very little clue at the moment what to show, or not show, or even to think.

Now Myrandah's wiry hand touched his. Oliver felt something soft between her talon-like fingernails. He looked down to see her pressing a small scrap of parchment into his hand. Oliver held it up and saw that it was a hand-drawn map … to the Asylum Colony.

“This may be of use,” said Myrandah.

“But what…” Oliver began.

“You have to see for yourself,” she said, turning back to the painting. “Now go,” she said over her shoulder, “before it's too late.”

Oliver took a last glance at Phlox's
vampyr
face, and hurried out.

Reaching the roof, he found a pack of zombies chasing after an old leather soccer ball, tackling one another violently in pursuit. At each end, instead of goals, there seemed to be other zombies tied to tall posts.

“Hey, Oliver!” In fact, Dean was currently playing the position of being tied to a post. Now a male player broke free from the pack, dribbling the ball toward Dean. Howling zombies closed in behind him.

“Shoot!” a woman screamed. The zombie man scooped the ball up in his hand, planted his feet, and hurled it with incredible force right at Dean. Dean winced and the soccer ball slammed him in the shoulder.

“Shoulder only!” a referee shouted. “Three points!”

There were howls of disappointment and joy from the players. Dean seemed relieved.

Oliver sat on the edge of the roof until the game ended. He looked out over the smoking warmth of Morosia. With the torchlight throughout the city and the large cauldron fire atop Tartarus, the city always looked as if it had just been sacked and left ablaze. There was something soothing about that. Oliver could see the smoke and heat gathering near the roof of the enormous cavern and slipping up a giant hole in the ceiling—a lava tube that vented on the side of the volcano, Mt. Morta, high above.

“Phew. Rough game.” Dean dropped down beside him, rubbing his shoulder. With a crack, he pushed the dislocated arm bone back into its socket. “Being goalie is tough, but we won!” he said brightly. “It's funny 'cause goalie is what I played in human soccer, and I was terrible. It's kinda nice to be good at something.”

“How are you
good
at being tied to a pole?” Oliver asked.

“Well, I didn't get hit in the head,” Dean explained. “A head shot is worth ten points. Some say it's all luck, but it also takes the right amount of shifting, you know, ever so slightly this way and that, and psyching out your opponent with your eyes.” Dean's brow wrinkled and his eyes darted back and forth. It made Oliver almost laugh. “Anyway … did you get the goods?”

“Yeah.” Oliver held out the map. “Ready to go?”

“Ooh, yeah, just a sec.” Dean headed over to the food piles, grabbed a sheep-sized leg bone, and rejoined Oliver. “Let's do it.”

They followed the same path as the day before, leaving Morosia, Dean slowly grinding down the bone on the way. As they started up the spiral staircase to the surface, Oliver got out the television charm. He had barely finished twisting it when Emalie spoke in his head:

Hey, Oliver
.

Hey, where are you?

“Right here, actually.” Oliver and Dean looked up to find Emalie coming down the steps. “I got an early start and figured you'd want to meet down here.” She was wearing her black sweater and hat, two braids falling from it.

Oliver looked at her strangely. “Did anyone see you?” Instinctively, he looked around for Jenette's black shadow.

“Trust me,” said Emalie, blowing up at her forehead as if there was hair in her eyes, even though there wasn't, “I didn't call Jenette. Whenever I passed vampires on the stairs, I just concentrated on not being noticed.”

“That worked?” Oliver asked.

“Pretty well, actually.” Emalie sounded proud of herself.

“Well, cool…” Oliver remembered the straw charm that Emalie thought had been protecting her in the Yomi, when really it had been Jenette. Now she didn't need anyone's help? Here was another sign that Emalie's powers were growing.

They proceeded a few revolutions up the stairs, then turned down a narrow hall that twisted through a rock fissure, its uneven walls bowing in and out. There was no ceiling above, only darkness. They reached a staircase that descended deeper into the fissure. Every now and then they had to duck beneath outcroppings of rock. The stairs became damp, and Oliver heard a gentle rushing sound like water.

The staircase ended and they emerged on a walkway along the edge of the black river Acheron. Oliver looked downstream and saw the bobbing light of the ferry in the distance.

“What is this?” Emalie asked quietly, leaning toward the water.

“Energy … forces running between worlds,” said Oliver.

“Weird, huh?” said Dean.

Oliver consulted Myrandah's map, then led the way upstream. The strange whispering gurgle of the river kept them oddly silent. Torches dotted the wall, casting no reflection on the water. A thin wire stretched along the river's edge, between iron posts, as a guide. Normally, Oliver's balance was excellent, but he found that, because of the strange presence of the river, he needed to hold the wire for balance.

Soon they reached a wall. Beside them, the river emerged from a curved tunnel. A staircase led up into another fissure. At the top of the stairs, they entered another narrow passageway, which led them to another vast, open space.

“Whoa,” breathed Emalie, looking up.

They stood on a ring-shaped stone platform surrounding a cylindrical chasm that climbed into darkness both above and below. Oliver had never been here before, but he'd heard about it. The whisper of the river echoed, unseen, from below.

Pale white light shimmered faintly on their faces, but the trio looked up, down, and to either side, avoiding looking at what was right in front of them, until finally there was nowhere else to gaze.

“So…” Dean said, his attempt at sounding casual betrayed by the shaking of his voice.

“This is what the Underground back in Seattle is made to look like,” Oliver explained. “They built a chasm, and then put in a waterfall to represent this.…” He nodded toward what was in front of them. “They call it Hades' Well.”

“What
are
they?” Emalie asked quietly.

“They're spirits,” Oliver replied, “of the dead.”

Before them, a silent flow of pale, greenish light dropped down the chasm. Within the iridescent current were impressions of hundreds of faces, stretched like ghosts. The glow reminded Oliver of firefly light.

Dean reached curiously across the railing, but the moment his outstretched fingers touched the falling light, there was a dazzling shock of electrified energy. “Ow!” He pulled his hand back, wincing. “What's with that?”

Oliver shook his head. “You can't touch them.” As a zombie, Dean couldn't feel, as Oliver could, the overwhelming sense that you wouldn't
want
to touch them. “They're dead. They're not part of this world anymore.”

“Shouldn't I be confused by that?” asked Dean, flexing his hand. “I mean,
we're
dead, right?”

Oliver nodded. It was something a vampire just knew, but how to explain it.… “It's the difference between the
un
dead, like us, and the truly dead. We're still connected to this world. These people are fully dead, and so their spirits are free to leave.”

“Where are they going?” Emalie asked, her eyes wide, reflecting the green.

“Out into the larger universe,” Oliver mused. “They'll go wherever they're drawn … like maybe to another world, or back into this world as part of a new life.” Oliver watched the pale forms passing by. Their blank faces might have looked sad to a human, but to him, they looked at peace. He was surprised to find that he felt a bit of envy. And he remembered that this feeling of envy was the entire reason for his destiny. “This is the freedom that Half-Light is after,” he said, putting the thoughts together. “They want me to open the Gate so that we can be free to leave these bodies behind and travel into the larger universe. Kind of like this, only as demons we could choose where we go.”

“Sounds kind of scary,” Dean commented, still rubbing his hand.

“Don't you ever wonder what it would be like?” Oliver asked quietly.

“What, being all the way dead? Probably less skin mold,” Dean mused.

“Seriously,” said Oliver quietly. “You know, to be at peace and free.”

Emalie turned to him. “That's weird that you would describe it like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that's what humans are always trying to get, you know? I mean, they're not trying to be dead, but they're always trying to achieve peace and freedom. They never do, though.”

“They do when they die,” said Oliver.

Emalie shook her head. “But we don't know that for sure.”

“Come on, Oliver,” added Dean, “you don't really want to be
dead
dead, do you?”

Oliver thought about it. “I guess not. I feel like I want
something
different, though.”

“But vampires have all the freedom in the world,” Dean continued. “You practically live forever—you've got no conscience—you can do whatever. You don't even have a master.”