Craving (47 page)

His face twisting cruelly, he gestured to the scientist. “You wanted more samples. Take as many as you like.”

His newest bodyguard approached me almost cautiously, but I was not going to run.

“Where’s William?” he growled.

I bobbed one shoulder prettily. “I’m not his keeper; our relationship was kind of the opposite, actually.”

He reached for my arm, as if to grab me, but ever the clairvoyant, I stepped aside lithely and wandered toward the man in the white coat. Nonplussed, the goon trudged after me.

“Tell me, Doctor,” I said with a smile, “does that conserved DNA mumbo-jumbo explain why my ass looks so fantastic?”

His mouth dropped open and the lips worked futilely. “Hu uhh . . . um, well . . . no, not exactly, that’s all due to copying errors in the tissues that produce collagen and elastin.” In a quick askance, I caught him taking in my amazing behind.

I raised an eyebrow. “Would you like to examine it?”

He cleared his throat; his mouth had gone dry. “No, no it’s fine.”

Karl stared after me, his eyes boring little holes in my spinal column. “Where is William?” he demanded.

“I told you, I have no idea. Maybe your voice isn’t what it used to be.”

At that very moment, the security guard’s hand flew to his earpiece, and he began heatedly whispering into his cuff. He halted beside me and spun on his heel.

“Sir, HQ says the cameras went down almost five minutes ago. They tried to reboot, but they’re locked out. They can’t figure out why.”

I was almost inside the door, one toe on the other side of the threshold when Karl’s hand tangled itself with the hair at the nape of my neck and yanked me backward. My first impulse was to fight back and it was hell to override it. I tipped backward against him, a limp captive. His other arm snaked up around my throat and squeezed, ever so lightly, but just enough to cut off circulation to my brain.

Calm, I relaxed against him.

“What have you done?”

“You’re the lord of the manor aren’t you, assisted by hordes of psychic henchmen?”

“Is this a game to you?” he seethed in my ear through clenched teeth. “Is this funny? Well, for me, it is about survival.” With a sudden thrust, he shoved me away from him. I staggered a few feet and collided with the wall. I lost my balance and toppled to the floor. Without hesitation, he took hold of my hair again and slammed my face into the wall.

I felt the plaster give, felt the concrete beneath it crumble into dust, felt my skin burst and my skull split. Then the world went black.

I came to slowly and found I was sitting in a chair. I made to reach up and touch my scalp, but my hands were restrained with thick metal bands.

“She’s too dangerous,” someone was saying.

“Can she be reasoned with?” a woman answered, and from the tinny quality, I realized that it was a conference call. I tried to open my eyes, but my miraculous healing abilities seemed to have worried about the gaping head wound first and hadn’t yet gotten to my swollen lids.

“She isn’t one of us,” Karl said. “The doctor says she is a completely different species now.”

“Perhaps you could convin—”

Karl growled. “I will not be at her mercy.”

“You say this now, when you cannot go back?” another voice cut in, almost gloating. “You created this Frankenstein monster. It’s your business. You handle it. We will not be a part of it, just as we said we would not from the very beginning, and you will not bargain your way back into the fold by admitting defeat.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” the female voice said. “He did it for all of us, without any help.”

“From the report, it would seem that he didn’t
do
anything. We have a pack of Ananda’s Guardians and a girl to thank, or despise, however you look at it.”

“But if there is a chance that we could be free . . .”

“We both know there is no chance, and I for one would rather be immortal and tormented, than dead.”

Karl took a slow breath that ended in a low growl. “Is this bickering how we are to solve problems? I now remember why I parted company with you before. You disgust me. We have become nothing more than petty women, sniping over vegetables. At least with a cure, we would benefit from our wisdom instead of running from it.”

I could feel it then, the force of his character. While before I had seen him as a villain straight out of a gothic fiction novel, slave to a bloodthirsty and invisible master, I now understood him fully. He was ruthless, without morality, true, but among his own kind, he was the responsible guy. He looked for a cure while the others sat back and waited, causing whatever trouble they were causing. For that, he was condemned as being idealistic, and out-maneuvered when his attempts failed. Yet still he had persisted, stubborn to the end.

But having failed, he seemed to have nothing left to lose.

I sighed and he heard me. “She’s awake. I’m going and when this is over, you can consider our communication finished.”

“I thought we had already decided that, Karl.”

“We can’t just ignore each other,” the sympathetic voice objected. “We agreed upon the rules at the beginning! We cannot afford division, but must remain . . .”

“We went separate ways years ago.”

The call terminated. There were a few moments of silence as he collected his thoughts and transitioned from one amongst many to a master in his own house.

“What do we do, I wonder?” he said with false lightheartedness.

“About what?”

“I have pushed farther into this than any of them, and you are all we have to show for it: a Trojan horse, a bomb in our midst. For all your utility, you are harmful to us as long as you live.”

“How are your cameras coming along? They figure out how to turn them back on yet?”

He chuckled sardonically. Perhaps he appreciated finally facing a worthy adversary. “Was that your doing?”

“No,” I said honestly.

“Hmm.”

“You don’t believe me?” The skin on my forehead stung as it reknitted into smooth flesh. As the puffiness began to dissipate, I winked innocently from one eye.

“I do, actually, but it makes me wonder who did it for you.”

I sat up and flexed my forearms. “Is this really necessary?” I nodded toward the restraints. “I would have just sat down for you.”

He smiled and turned to his right. My left eye not yet fully functional, I rotated my head to followed his glance. The scientist was standing there, holding a plastic tube. A few others stood behind him, all wearing similar coats and hesitant expressions.

“Do it,” Karl ordered.

Powerless to disobey him, they came toward me slowly. I could see the discomfort in their eyes, but it was stifled by the dulling magic of Karl’s voice. At the end of the plastic tube, a needle was uncapped and pushed into my vein. Without a word to me, they connected the tube to a machine and turned it on.

“What is this? Jonesing for a snack?”

The smile didn’t falter. It almost seemed plastic on his dark face. “An outcome that is completely unintentional, I assure you.”

The tube turned an inky red as my blood was collected in a sterile container. I tried not to be anxious, knowing that my heart rate would only make it easier for him.

“So what’s the deal?”

“Deal? No deal. We’re finished with you. You’re too dangerous to keep around. Dangerous, unpredictable, and completely oblivious to your own nature.” He brought a thumb to his bottom lip. “You should know, I never believed this would come to anything.”

“That’s not true, and we both know it. Now you’re just trying to make failure hurt less.”

He stroked his lip with the pad of his thumb, considering me. “No. I gave up long ago. It was Moksha and his pet witch. They kept sending me subjects, and as long as the project took no effort, we continued. Soon the Guardians were knocking and I knew that if they knew our weakness, they would send an agent. They chose well. Your sister was endearing, truly . . .” He paused, looking fond. “Genuine. I knew what they were up to, but I allowed her the little victory, because they are not strong enough to ever win against us. When they hear of your death, they will appear again and we will snap our trap around their necks. So, you are of more use dead and dissected. To that end, farewell.”

I glanced around the large room. Computer monitors lined one wall and several men in dark suits were standing idly by, as if they had nothing better to do until the security system was rebooted. There were numerous doors, openings for escape, but there was no way I could break the metal bands, at least not without progressing a little farther into the pit of perfection. No wonder he was so amused.

“I happen to know for a fact that they won’t fall for your trap.”

“Oh?”

I shrugged, “Let’s just say that the guy who’s tracking Ananda is a righteous badass. You’re up shit creek, my friend.”

He stared at me skeptically for some time before dropping his hand. “I daresay I won’t miss your foul mouth.”

“In many cultures, visceral is synonymous with truth.”

“Regrettably,” he replied sarcastically. “Your charms may have afforded you some mercy, but you are in every way her inferior.”

I glared at him, not out of jealousy, but because he would dare to mention how well he liked the girl he drove off a ledge. “We also both know that’s a lie. I’m better because of her sacrifice, but because I am better, you cannot tolerate me. You see the light at the end of the tunnel, the possibility to evolve out of what you are, but you are terrified of it. You’re scared shitless.”

To my surprise, he slowly smiled in acquiescence. “All too true, but regrettably, I am the one with my hand on the button, as it were, which means my flaws are yours too.”

“Only if I let you control me, which you never will. It’s your
trishna,
and there’s no way I’m going to be your enabler,” I said bravely.

The smile grew. “Did you know that human blood keeps for several years on ice? I intend to enjoy your company for at least that long.”

My humor failed me. I stared back at him unmoved.

“How did you say it . . .” he murmured, “sick?”

“Aren’t we all.” I sighed. My thoughts were beginning to feel fuzzy, and my heart skipped a beat. My vascular system would soon shut down, and unable to compensate fast enough, my body would die. Would they bury me, I wondered, or would they just dump the meat in a ditch like they had Ursula’s victims?

He came close enough to stand over me in triumph, the smug look almost flattering on the smooth, regal face. “You should know something.”

“Oh?”

He tilted forward and put his lips to my ear. “It may be that you are as ten of us put together, but we work as a group. I already have men tracking down your friend, the cyclist, and dealing with him.”

I closed my eyes.

“Where did you find that freak?”

Even though my skin had begun to go cold and numb, I frowned. It took some effort, but the question warranted it. Could it be that they had no idea whatsoever that Arthur existed and that it was he who found Jinx?

“He found me.”

He leaned back to take in my expression hungrily. “You didn’t think we were oblivious, did you? He is talented, just as you are. Dare I say it,
super
talented, but there is one surefire way of undoing the damage he has caused.”

“He’ll see you coming, you know.”

Karl tilted his head. “I’ll be sure to remember that.”

My muscles began to slacken. I could feel myself slumping, my pulse skipping like a perpetual motion stone in a never-ending pond. The room was suddenly chilly and shivers wracked me.

I felt as if I were pulling out of such mundane concerns as living. He was the only tangible thing for me then, because I could
feel,
as Moksha had learned to, his desperation, the disgust and self-loathing within him. He was grinning, but deep down, I knew another little piece of him was starving to death. How I knew, I couldn’t say, but it was as real as noting the expression on a face, or recognizing a color.  He was weak, and I knew exactly how.

“Karl,” I whispered. His hair brushed my temple as he came close again. “I could have loved you. You and I share a sense of humor and . . . you seem like . . . you used to be a nice person. I don’t think I . . . would mind being your cure.”

I don’t know if he responded. The room seemed to fade from me, and I floated in the blackest of places. I was clinging to life, fighting as Nature intended, but why should I bother? At the end, was it really necessary? There was such beauty in stillness. It was like the womb again, insulated and peaceful. The struggle took all of that away.

“A stage beyond death.”

The darkness began to pulse until the strength of that rhythm shattered into pinpoints of light. The lights grew and danced until, at last, I was somewhere real.

She was facing me, standing on the ledge, but it wasn’t really me she saw. It was her fate that brought her such happiness.

My soul ached and I wanted so badly to touch her, to reach out and take her hand. Why, at the end, was I forced to relive this, to see her final moments all over again?

I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Eva.

“But you
are
, Lily.”

For an instant, I was overwhelmed.

You can hear me?

“We are sharing this moment,” she said softly. “Time is only a perception. When the mind no longer holds onto it, all events are simultaneous.”

So we do see our lives before we die?

“Only the event most important to us.”

She glanced down and slid her bare feet to the very edge, curling her cute little toes over the brink. When she was born, I had played with her tiny feet, dictating which piggy received roast beef over and over, never thinking those moments would be my most prized possessions.

Eva . . . please don’t jump. You don’t have to help me.

Her eyes swam with tears.

“I’m sorry, Lily. But I’m not doing this for you. This is the way it has to be for all of us.”

If I could have, I would have screamed. I would have wrapped my arms around her ankles and begged, but I was a spirit, about to join her on the other side of nothing.