The Other Side of Life (Book #1, Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy) (25 page)

“
For what?”

“
To see what he knows,” Nin
said, joining Leticia in placing the blame primarily on Julius,
“and what he really has in mind. You’ve done enough, sweet lady.
He’ll be wondering where you are if you don’t join him
soon.”

Leticia nodded. “What do we do?”

Nin shrugged. “See you at the Amazon. We
might beat you to it…15-45, 47-57…”

Leticia stared at Nin.

“
The exact location at the
Amazon,” Nin said with a smile. “Using the latitude and longitude
co-ordinates.”

Leticia hurried out. Nin made sure Anya hid
the wire cutter, as he counted to one hundred—in case Julius came
back down—which Anya felt was like counting to a million. But
having her hands unbound saved Anya a lot of time, as she could get
straight to the rope at her ankles, then proceed to assist the
elves out of their misery.

“
What is that symbol?” Anya
asked, as she started cutting through the rope that bound Nin’s
wrists.

Nin gave her a swift, sweet kiss on the
lips, when she came close enough. Anya barely noticed. She was more
concerned for the elves’ well-being.

Anya continued in one breath, “Are you
okay?” She gazed at his slim, white body, searching for any other
bruises, cuts, or scars she might have missed. “Did he take your
blood? Are they”—she turned her head toward Dresan and
Tavia—“okay?”

Tavia slumped onto the ground right at that
moment, with a soft thud.

Anya froze. A sense of dread surged within
her—had she and Nin delayed for a minute too long?

“
Help Tavia,” Nin said to
Anya, shaking off the remaining rope from his hands. “She’s
weak—Julius took her blood.”

Anya ran over with the wire cutter. The wire
cutter slipped out of her trembling hand once, due to anxiety.
Tavia wasn’t moving, but was still breathing. Anya’s hand was sore
by the time she cut through a third of the rope holding Tavia’s
wrists. Tavia had a few cuts across the surface of her skin, from
the rope.

“
Use the other hand,” Nin
advised Anya. He had already untied a portion of the iron twine
fastened round his ankles.

Anya did as she was told, using both hands
to add more pressure to the wire cutter. She flung aside the pieces
of rope as far as she could, once they were off.

“
I’ve been trying to figure
that Zodiac symbol out,” Nin replied, fatigued but focused. “The
two versions of the parchment—Gilbreth’s and the Elven one—they’re
exactly the same, except for the symbol. I’m sure the Tree of Life
bears the answer we seek.”

“
The VU,” Anya began, “I
mean, The Velvet Underground…is it connected?”

“
It is, indeed.” Nin stood
up once the rope around his ankles were off, and detached the wires
that Julius had hooked him up to, before taking over from Anya with
the wire cutter. “There’s a station near the location. We’ll need
to walk a short distance, but it’d still be way faster than a jet
plane.” He paused, before adding, “I hope.”

Anya went over to the blue box, as Nin
quickly cut through the ropes that held Dresan. Anya saw that the
glass vials were labeled at the top with a black marker. ‘H’ stood
for human blood, while ‘E’ was for Elven. The liquid solution in
one of the vials had a slight shimmer, and no label. The partial
elixir that Julius had tested.

“
I wonder why Julius didn’t
draw my blood,” Nin said, checking his arms, which showed no marks,
apart from where the iron rope had bit into his skin. When Tavia’s
ropes were free, Nin lifted one of her eyelids. Her pupil was
dilated.

“
He found a kindred spirit
in you,” Anya replied over her shoulder. “He liked talking with
you.”

“
Isn’t that disturbing?”
Nin wore a befuddled look on his face. He got that impression from
Julius too. Nin pondered on it, as he continued working the wire
cutter. He had Dresan’s set of ropes left to cut
through.

“
He’s mad,” Anya said,
feeling absolutely powerless against Julius and his
plans.

“
Real love is not equal to
looks.” Nin thought about Julius, youth, and aging. “If a person
loves your looks only, they don’t really love you as a person…how
you look and how you love are two different things—it’s what under
the surface that really counts. A happiness elixir—I’d make that if
I knew how, and give it to everyone for free. What’s the point in
having all the money and all the things in the world, if you’re not
content with what you have? The more you acquire, the more you
desire.”

Anya didn’t interrupt, quietly inspired by
Nin’s perspectives. Nin matched Julius in terms of intensity and
passion in his own beliefs.

“
Hey…” Dresan slurred,
opening his eyes. “Guess I woke up at the right time?”

“
Yes,” Nin said. He checked
Tavia’s pulse once Dresan was free from the metallic ropes, and
noticed an injection mark he had missed earlier. “I think she got a
heavier dose of the drug. Anya’s got something for you.”

“
Yeah,” Dresan told him,
shaking his wrists to get the blood circulating. “She said
something he didn’t like. You know Tavia.”

Anya handed the thumbdrive to Dresan, and
pointed at the laptop, and looked up at the corners of the room,
even though she couldn’t tell where any of the cameras were
located. Dresan got the message, and went over to the laptop right
away. Nin’s shirt was near the laptop—he grabbed it and put it on,
once Dresan had tossed it over.

Dresan retrieved the laptop’s password in a
snap, and set to work tweaking the security devices. “Just a couple
of minutes…” he muttered to himself, relieved it was a standard
security system he was familiar with. He could alter the images so
that Julius would not see what had just happened, if he checked in
on them from one of his devices en route to the Amazon.

Nin lifted Tavia’s limp body in his arms.
Nin knew Tavia was a tough femme. But right now, he wasn’t entirely
sure whether they had managed to rescue her in time. They weren’t
accustomed to the severe circumstances they’d recently run
into.

He turned to Anya, who was staring at
Tavia’s hand. Even the ink marks on her tattoo seemed pallid. “Does
Julius have more than one car?” Riding back on the motorbikes was
out of the question, with Tavia in her present condition.

Anya nodded. “Three in the garage.”

“
Good,” Nin said. He looked
around the room. The charts and graphs could be left behind. What
they needed were the vials, and what they had brought along with
them.

“
I’ll get our stuff,”
Dresan said, pointing to a black duffel bag chucked in one corner.
He went over and lifted Nin’s N-Gage device from the bag to make
his point. Julius had stuffed the elves’ items into one of his gym
bags.

“
I’ll get the keys to the
car.” Anya dashed up the stairs.
Keys,
keys, keys,
the refrain chanted in her
mind, keeping in time with each step that she took. In the past few
hours, keys—simple objects with the sole, simple, singular purpose
of unlocking security devices—had played such a significant role in
her life.

“
What did I miss?” Dresan
asked.

Nin pointed to the box of vials, and the
packet of crystal pendants lying next to it, gesturing to Dresan to
get the items. Anya had left the all-important vials and diamond
dust behind, in her excitement to get the car keys.

Anya came rushing back in, and took the
materials when Dresan held it out to her. She turned to Nin. “Glass
door. I don’t have the password.” She left out that she had almost
tripped on her step when she was thinking of the keys.

“
All right,” said Nin. For
a moment, he glanced at the packet in Anya’s hand, which held the
three pendants.

Anya understood what Nin wanted when she
looked into his eyes. The pendants were a sign of the elves’
kinship. She held the three crystals out—Dresan stepped up to take
two. One for himself, and the other for Tavia, who was being
carried by Nin.

“
Hold on to mine,” Nin said
to Anya.

The elves followed Anya up a flight of
stairs, then down a walkway to a glass door. Anya felt like she was
in an experience of déjà vu—the glass door reminded her of the one
at the Gilbreth Institute.

“
Stand back,” Dresan let
the rest know, as he drew one of his guns from the duffel bag. A
few shots positively melted the glass panel. Anya watched as the
glass melted from the center outward, charring some of the edges of
the door’s frame. There was a slightly sizzling sound coming from
the singed edges, like invisible sparks were still leaping off from
the metal. The melted glass gave off a rank odor, but at least it
didn’t irritate the lungs, like the plumes from the
black-and-silver tube had. Nin stepped through after Dresan and
Anya.

“
Emergency case,” he let
Anya know, when she turned back to survey the damage.

A lift brought them up to the basement of
the house, before Anya finally got a set of keys and headed to the
garage. Nin pulled out of the driveway in a deep red Lexus, with
Anya beside him, and Dresan at the back, with Tavia stretched
out.

Nin paused for a brief instant, to wear the
crystal pendant Anya returned to him.

“
We should get her back to
Velvet,” Nin said, glancing back at Tavia, before facing forward
again to keep his eyes on the road.

Dresan tried to make sure Tavia was in a
comfortable position. He lifted one of Tavia’s limp arms, then held
his breath. He thought he saw one of Tavia’s hands give a slight
twitch.

“
Where am I…” Tavia
mumbled, in a semi-articulate low groan.

“
She’s awake!” Anya
would’ve hugged Tavia if she wasn’t on the passenger seat. She
grabbed the steering wheel when Nin swerved off the road for a
moment, as he heard the good news.

Tavia thrust a hand into the duffel bag, and
took her gun back, the one with the matching embellishment to her
tattoo.

“
Julius…” Tavia spat his
name out. “Said I didn’t even put up a fight, when he crept up on
me at the Gilbreth.”

“
He drugged you?” Anya
meant to ask if that’s what he had done at the Gilbreth. Tavia
would surely have defended herself, otherwise.

“
Yeah, he must have.” Tavia
raised one of her arms, observing a small red mark. It was the
injection mark Nin had seen. “This second one wasn’t too bad
though…”

“
What was that one?” Nin
asked, glancing at Tavia by taking a quick look in the rear
mirror.

“
Don’t know,” Tavia
mumbled. “The second one was…mind-altering. You’ll see bursts of
color in your mind. They make the colors of a rainbow look
weak.”

“
You were half-dead five
minutes ago…” Dresan said, in a tone that indicated he wasn’t
surprised at all, “and now you’re ready to roll...”

Tavia waved her hand up. “Totally.”

Chapter 17:

Nin sped all the way to The Velvet
Underground club.

“
This is one of the number
one cars in the world,” Anya couldn’t help but mention, as she
studied the dashboard.

“
I can see why,” Nin
replied. The Lexus Roadster was fashioned from lightweight carbon
aluminum fiber, powered by a high-revving V12 engine, and featured
a speed adaptive rear wing.

Nin swerved at one point, narrowly missing a
group of junkies passed out on the side of the road. The Lexus
screeched to a halt when he slammed down the brakes. Dresan carried
Tavia in his arms when she got groggy, as she was making her way
down the stairs. Anya held onto the blue box tightly, as she
followed the Elven trio down the passageway to the train
carriage.

Tavia and Dresan reached out for a couple of
silver cases that were located under of the carriage’s seats. They
set to work assembling pieces of a gun, from the compact cases that
they could carry about which contained the individual parts.

Tavia’s tattoo had taken on
a stronger glow, as she thought back over the day’s events. “I just
feel like it’s my fault. I’m the one who said we had to break into
the GI, like…now.”
We have to act
now,
she remembered saying to Anya, when
Anya and Leticia had first visited their underground abode.
Or it might be too late.
Tavia had just been following her gut, that Bloodstar and all
of life were in imminent danger. “Maybe we should have waited a bit
more.”

“
And let nobody stop that
psycho?” Dresan gave Tavia a simple pat on the back of her
shoulder. “We’re safe and alive—that’s all that
matters.”

“
For now,” Tavia replied
with an all-knowing sarcasm.

“
Julius’s parchment,” Nin
said to Dresan, once they had stepped into the train, “had a Zodiac
symbol, of twelve segments, each representing one of the Zodiac
signs, framed by a golden circle.”

“
Albrecht’s
Sky Map of the Northern
Hemisphere
?” Dresan asked, as he called up
a database of Elven and medieval emblems, on his laptop.

“
That’s what I thought
too.” Nin scanned the rows and columns of the pictures on the
screen. Several were a close match, though none were an exact
match.

Tavia set the train’s destination, before
slumping onto the seat next to Nin and Anya. Anya carefully opened
the box and lifted the partial elixir.