“See? They’re cutting her up, and for what? To make more sick kids? While they keep the cure for themselves. We have to stop them. Which,” he knifed a glare at Price, “would have been a helluva lot easier if someone hadn’t betrayed her and sacrificed her to start with.”
“It was her decision.” Price met his glare effortlessly. “She was going to jump, Ryder. Splash herself all over the steps of the cathedral. That’s how desperate she was. But I made a deal.”
“Oh, great. Like father, like son. Another Kingston wheeling and dealing. How many innocent lives is it going to cost this time?”
“Rossi and Tommaso’s research in exchange for the cure for the children.”
“You know that will never happen. They’ll figure it out without Tommaso’s research, and then they still have Rossi. Or they give us a so-called cure that ends up making the kids better one day and killing them the next. These people cannot be trusted.”
Flynn smiled at that. Her toothy, predator smile that was usually a prelude to bullets flying and blood flowing. “That’s why Devon is planning to go get her. He tracked her as far as Venice.”
“Italy?” It made sense. “I’ve no jurisdiction there, and no way can we get the Feds on board, not in the time frame we have. The State Department will never allow it, and you can bet the Italian authorities will be hopelessly compromised.”
Price rose to his feet. “Guess that’s one of the perks of being a private citizen. I don’t have to worry about rules and regulations.”
Despite his throbbing head and blurry vision, not to mention the weird buzzing rattling through his brain, Ryder pushed himself upright. “No way in hell am I letting you go alone.”
“What about your rules, your chain of command, Detective?”
“Hell with that. Even cops get to take a vacation every once in a while.”
“I’ll take care of the children and their families. You two take care of Angie. And yourselves,” Flynn said from the bed, regret that she couldn’t join them clear in her tone. “Bring her home.”
“We will,” Ryder promised. Price nodded his agreement. Together, they left, for once moving in perfect accord.
FRANCESCA’S SMILE WAS
indulgent. “You were an emergency physician. Saw firsthand the chaos that engulfs this world. Surely you would agree that someone must take charge. Our family has proven itself uniquely qualified, so why not us?”
I didn’t bother to hide my disdain. “Right. Because using children as assassins, stealing secrets and power, and engineering a disease that could wipe out mankind are all unique leadership qualifications.”
She merely shrugged, somehow made even that small movement seem elegant. “Do you want to leave? You’re free to go.”
I gestured at the chair with its thick straps. “All evidence to the contrary.”
“You think that chair is meant for you?” Her laugh was musical, designed to make songbirds jealous. “My dear child. You have so very much to learn. The chair is for me.”
I frowned my confusion. She crossed the room and sat down in the chair I’d abandoned. “You’ve experienced the
almanaccare
, yes? The fugues that are our blessing and our curse?”
It took me a moment to parse her Italian pronunciation. Almanac Care. The name of the fake company Tommaso had used.
“The waking dreams,” she translated as I heard Daniel’s voice simultaneously echo her words. “They take many forms. From your medical records, I see that yours are accompanied by catatonia—so were mine when I was your age. But now, like so many of our brothers and sisters, they inflict me with a wandering, a mindless need to walk, that is quite dangerous. I cannot control where my body takes me, cannot see the dangers. In my mind, I’m living the perfect life, strolling in a garden or dancing with a loved one. So when I feel the onset of a waking dream, an
almanaccare
, I come here and sit.”
She raised one of the straps and flipped it over. Velcro. “No locks or chains. A simple safety measure. That is all.”
That explained the restraints on the bed I’d noticed, as well as the cameras everywhere. Monitoring patients, not preventing prisoners from escaping.
Still, I was leery. Francesca noted my hesitation and stood, her skirt swirling with the motion. “Come, let me show you your legacy. Then you make your choice.”
She was lying. There was no way she’d give up her plans if I chose to leave. But that gave me an edge: She needed me alive.
I followed her as she led the way out of the tower and down into the heart of the monastery, rubbing my palm against the ancient stones of the stairwell, wishing I could magically release the secrets these walls had witnessed.
The monastery was a long and narrow building, three stories tall, with all the arches, gargoyles, and other embellishments you’d expect. The watchtower that housed Francesca’s office anchored the end closest to the dock. At the opposite end, the linear construction gave way to a gorgeous domed basilica. Francesca led me down the main corridor, her pace slow enough that I could look inside the rooms on each side—it seemed that other than my suite, no one here kept doors closed.
“We protect each other,” she told me as we passed a room where a man and woman, barely out of their teens and both with shaven heads and wearing EEG caps, were helping another man in an EEG cap, maybe my age, into a wheelchair. “Those still healthy watch over the ones who are unable to care for themselves. This is not a prison but rather a sanctuary where our suffering is eased.”
I stared at her. “You mean euthanasia?”
“I mean whatever a person requests. Many of the ones stricken at a young age request to have their suffering ended quickly. Interestingly, the older ones—myself included—have learned to embrace both the blessings and the pain the Scourge brings us.”
“Blessings? Like stealing memories?”
“For those with that gift. But even those of us who aren’t Vessels receive special guidance from our fugues. Yours take the form of hypersensory awareness, yes?”
I nodded, reluctant to let her know about my enhanced memory and knowledge processing that also came during a fugue.
“Your uncle’s included a heightened insight about patterns forming in the economy and geopolitics. He used them to foresee coming trends, counseling my father, the family leader, to position us to take advantage of them. Mine allow me to process complex genetic sequences and DNA patterns. They formed the basis of my research and allowed me to define the mutations that will allow us to turn our Scourge into a weapon to protect the family.”
“A weapon that has already left dozens of innocents dead,” I reminded her. She shrugged as if growing weary of my idealistic arguments. “So you control your fugues? I mean, after all this time—”
“No. I can stimulate what my mind works on during a fugue by immersing myself in a topic, using various medications and the sensory-deprivation chamber, but I can’t force them. I must wait for that master stroke of inspiration.” She turned to me, her expression eager, a hawk pouncing on a young rabbit. “Have you learned how to control yours?”
“I wish.” I met her gaze, hoping she couldn’t sense my lie. Last thing I needed was to give her more reason to want to use me as part of her scheme. “I’m just starting to be able to sense when they’ll strike. I get an aura, like patients with epilepsy or migraines sometimes do.”
“I’ll have our neurologists start you on a regimen of pharmaceuticals that should stimulate more fugues so that we can record your EEG patterns. You’ll spend tonight in the isolation tank—it will help you regain your strength as well as give us a baseline. We want to predict and measure your physiological responses before we attempt to activate your gift as a Vessel.”
Her tone was nonchalant, as if we weren’t talking about events that had nearly killed me or about stealing another person’s memory and leaving them dead. It hit me: It wasn’t just my DNA that Francesca would use as a weapon against innocents. It was my mind.
No. I would not let that happen.
She sensed my agitation and rested her hand on my arm as if we truly were family. We arrived at the end of the hallway at a large room with windows on three sides. The amazing views over the water weren’t what caught my eye. It was the room’s occupants. Children. Running, playing, studying, laughing, smiling. At least two dozen of them.
I watched them without smiling. Because each of them, like me, had been shaven bald and wore an EEG cap. “They all have fatal insomnia?”
She nodded. “You spoke of saving children. What about saving your own family? With your help, these could be the last to die from the Scourge.”
“Why haven’t you developed a gene therapy for the family?”
“We tried. Too many spontaneous mutations. Like the ones that gave us you.” She frowned, her gaze distant, as if she remembered something from long ago. “I made a mistake with you. I see that now. Your mutation is more stable than I had anticipated.”
“You mean we can cure my fatal insomnia? And the children infected with it?”
“In time. Yes.”
A blessing and a curse. A weapon that could destroy the world or save a family. My family. I glanced at her, working hard to mask my emotions. She was mad, of course, quite insane. And yet, in her own way, brilliant.
She took me by the arm once more. “Let me show you our laboratory facilities. I think you’ll be excited to see how far ahead of the rest of the world we are.”
Right. Cutting-edge research designed to kill millions rather than save lives. As if that would get me excited enough to cooperate with her.
I drew upon what little reserves of patience and acting skills I had left and nodded. She led me across the courtyard to the smaller modern building that lay in the monastery’s shadow. Here, the cameras were definitely designed for security rather than patient monitoring, swiveling to follow our every step as we approached the entrance.
A guard stood beside the door. He wasn’t bald and didn’t have an EEG cap, although he appeared extremely uncomfortable, fidgeting with the weapon strapped across his chest and not looking me in the face. I seemed to have that effect on most of the islanders once they realized who I was.
Standing beside the guard was Tyrone, favoring me with his usual glower. “Mother, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Nonsense,” she said, sweeping me through the entrance, leaving Tyrone behind. The research building was steel and glass within a sweeping diagonal steel framework, giving it a futuristic appearance, a distinct contrast to the well-loved, well-worn stone monastery across the courtyard.
“You need to understand that we take our mission to protect the world seriously,” she said as we strolled past a variety of labs with a dozen or more scientists working, all with EEG monitors. The family resemblance was clear—and during the short walk, I saw two of them glance at their watches as if getting an alarm then slump into the nearest chair before freezing with the unmistakable vacant visage of a fugue state. Not only studying fatal insomnia, living with it.
We circled past the outer labs to an inner glass-walled space that boasted additional security. Inside it were more glass-walled cubicles: self-contained isolation laboratories designed to handle high-risk contaminants like prions. The Lazarettos may have been immune to the mutant prions they worked with, but I was glad to see they still took precautions against releasing the disease into the environment.
Of course they were. Best way to protect their profit. There were only two workers here, cataloging specimens before placing them into special freezers. The door nearest us boasted state-of-the-art biometric security—the kind I’d seen before only in movies.
Francesca nodded to the security console. “No one gains access without proper authorization. Every sample is accounted for and secured.” The workers finished sealing the freezer and left the isolation area. Then they vanished through a door on the far side of the lab. “Even though our family is immune, we use every precaution.”
She seemed disappointed when I didn’t immediately voice my approval. She took my arm in hers and bent her head to mine as if imparting essential maternal knowledge. “The prions are our weapons, but they are also our defense. Just as in the past century when ensuring peace required the threat of a world-ending nuclear holocaust, we now have the means to save the future.”
The family’s future, a future controlled by Lazarettos like Francesca, Tommaso, and Tyrone. A future I wanted no part of.
Francesca sensed my horror at her vision. “I understand this is overwhelming. But we’re running out of time. You see, my brother, Marco, he has only given us until the New Year.”
I frowned, her words surprising me. “I don’t understand.”
“Marco has decided that the family no longer requires the Scourge to prosper. That the best way to end it is to end us.” She gestured with her hands. “Everyone on this island. In three days, he’ll send his men to take the prions and do with them as he likes.”
“Is he a scientist as well?” Maybe the prions would be better off with this Marco. Maybe he’d destroy them once and for all, protect the world.
“Marco? No, my dear. He’s not a scientist. He’s a businessman. Profit rules his world. And we, everyone here, we are no longer profitable. He’ll sell the prions to the highest bidder, let them loose on the world without regard to the consequences, secure in the fact that he is immune.”
“And exactly how is that different than what you plan?” I challenged her, irritated by being played as a pawn in their quest for dominance.
“I’ll protect not only our people but the world from the prions because I won’t make a move until I have a cure. That is why I was forced to sacrifice the first cohorts—as well as my own children who carried those mutations. But it’s all come down to us. You and I, Angela. Together we can save the world.” She paused, her lips pursing in a frown. “Or together we can fail and let Marco destroy it.”
PRICE DROVE THEM
to Ryder’s house first. Ryder grabbed his go-bag and added a few extras, including clothing for Rossi. “Weapons?” he asked. “Can we take them on the plane? I’m not sure about the laws in Italy.”