Vulcan's Kittens (Children of Myth Book 1) (18 page)

“Would you like to try your hand at being my research assistant?” Hypatia offered. Linn had no idea that she would be taking the place of Peter, who was caught on the High Plane and badly missed by his lover.

“Sure! I love to read and look stuff up. What do you need help with?”

“Your grandfather said you would probably be helpful. And then Sekhmet and Coyote both told me the same thing.”

“Wow.” Linn was stunned at the references. “They said that?”

“Yes, dear, they all think highly of your intelligence, and your maturity. Your grandfather said you understand Operational Security, correct?”

Linn sobered. “Yes, ma’am. I know I wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone about what we are doing.”

Hypatia nodded. “Good girl. Now, as for what we are looking into, I will explain all in my office later. Now, please enjoy your breakfast.”

Linn looked up to see a Coblyn with a serving tray approaching.

“Hello, Linn!” the young woman said cheerfully. “I have your breakfast. When you’re done, if you could bring your dishes to the pass through...” she pointed toward a set of double doors Linn guessed led to the kitchen. “Let me know if you need anything else! I’m Deirdre. I’m your guide here at the Sanctuary.”

“Hi, Deirdre. How do I reach you?” the girl asked curiously.

“Oh, just speak my name and what you need. We have a system, sort of an intercom.”

Linn remembered her manners. “Thank you. It looks delicious.”

“You’re welcome. I have to run....” Deirdre bounced away.

Linn applied herself to her breakfast and Hypatia sipped her juice in silence for a while. Gareth and Blackie both strolled in, looking smug. She guessed they had been well-fed when they declined a taste of her ham. They sat with her for a minute, and then slipped away again.

Finished, Linn gathered her dishes and Hypatia showed her the pass through, where she handed them to another smiling Coblyn.

“How many of them are there?” she asked the scholar.

“Oh, hundreds at least. It’s like a small Coblyn town here in the Sanctuary. In exchange for their living, they work various jobs to keep it running smoothly.” Hypatia led her into another tunnel.

“I’m having trouble telling some of them apart.” Linn admitted ruefully, following her.

“Oh, I’m fairly sure they do that on purpose.”

Linn laughed. “Well, OK, I guess that just keeps guests guessing, then. I mean, I’d know Deirdre or Daffyd on sight, but most of them don’t introduce themselves.”

“Names are important to the Coblyns. They rarely gift them to others, and never to a stranger.”

Hypatia led Linn out into an unfamiliar tunnel, and then briskly down it to a door with the word “Scholar” engraved on it. Hypatia touched the carving. “Flattering, this, it was in place and ready for me when I arrived. I didn’t even know I was coming, but your grandparents prepared.”

Linn chuckled. “That’s Grampa Heff, the oldest boy scout.”

“Hmmm.... I wonder how well he knew Baden-Powell.” Linn boggled at that thought and Hypatia smiled, and pushed the door open. “Welcome to the Scholar’s lair, dear.”

Linn stepped in gingerly. There was paper everywhere. Books, towers of them, regular printer paper, and what looked an awful lot like ancient papyrus scrolls. Hypatia bustled through it and lifted a stack off a wing chair.

“Here you are... Let me see.” She turned to the large desk, obscured with teetering stacks of books and paper. Lifting a pile and setting it on top of another, which made Linn want to jump forward to prevent certain collapse, she exclaimed, “Aha, here it is.”

Miraculously, the tower of papers she had just made stayed still while Hypatia lifted out a sleek laptop and handed it to Linn. “This is for you, Linn.”

“Mine?”

“Yes, your grandmother said you should have a good one.”

Linn blinked, looking down at the pretty machine. “Cool...”

Hypatia sat down behind the desk, opening drawers. “And here are the cords. I hope you know how to use them, I certainly don’t.”

Linn took the bag of cords and looked in it. “I think I can figure it out. I’m not a geek, really, but I usually make it work.”

“Good, good. I’m afraid I’m rather old school. The internet just annoys me, but I’m told it’s a good research tool.”

“It can be... but there’s a lot of junk on it, too.”

“You are now in charge of it,” Hypatia assured her solemnly.

Linn laughed at the idea of being in charge of the World Wide Web. “All right.”

“Before we start, I know you want to understand what we are doing here.”

“As much as I’m allowed, yes.” Linn looked for an outlet and plugged the power cord in. The laptop had no charge on it.

Hypatia got up and closed the door.

“According to me, you are allowed to know all of it. But you will have to figure some of it out on your own.”

Chapter 25

Linn felt rather like a junior spy about to get her first briefing. She steadied the closed laptop on her knees and prepared to listen.

“What do you know about immortals, my dear?”

“Um...” Linn was taken off guard. She had not expected a question. “I know they aren’t from Earth, originally. I don’t think they have a form, per se. I’m trying to figure out if they are maybe...” she waved her hands in the air, searching for the right words. “Maybe pure energy, or nanite people, or something. Coyote gave me some books and that was a theme in all of them. I think it was a clue. You aren’t magical, just something really... alien. And I think maybe immortals brought humans to life. Or something like that.”

She paused, thinking. Hypatia clapped, startling her.

“Oh, bravo, Linnaea! You are quite clever!”

The old woman beamed at her, and Linn felt her cheeks warm. “I’ve been given a lot of hints,” the girl demurred.

“You've listened to them, and strung them together. Not many could do that.”

“I know you aren’t omniscient, or omnipotent,” Linn kept thinking out loud, now.

“No, we neither see and know everything, nor are we all powerful. Which is a good thing.” Hypatia’s voice was dry.

“Yes, I’m learning that.” Linn sighed. “Tia, I know Grampa said immortals can’t die, but why aren’t there more of them?”

“Ah. The question that lies at the core of our research. Immortals might not die... but they may not choose to live, or remain sane, either. That many years... all those memories...” Her eyes clouded and she looked off into the distance for a long time, silent.

“I know,” Linn began quietly after a time, “that the forms they use can die. The girls went through that. I think... that the forms you use age. Or you choose to age. I’m honestly not sure which.”

“Death and aging, the most wanted answers humanity has today.” Tia looked at Linn. “You understand why you could not be told before.”

“Yes, I think so. If there had been a way...” her voice faltered, and she thought of Cora, the night before, giving her father’s love to her. “To keep my father with me.”

“Your mother would have done it. She is not an Old One, she gave no vows. In some ways, she is one of the sparks that lit the fire we must now walk through.”

“I thought so.” Linn sighed. “So it’s not that easy.”

“No, it isn’t. Immortals can’t cease to exist. We can, however, choose to sleep. We can be imprisoned. We can, in a sense, imprison ourselves.”

“Is that what happened with Loki?”

Hypatia looked startled. “How did you know about that?”

“Coyote and Bes both talk about him like he’s their friend, but only ever in the past tense, like he’s dead. Only he can’t be.”

The Scholar sighed. “The entire Norse family is... asleep.”

“Fimbulwinter?”

“You are a child after my own heart.” Hypatia clucked her approval at Linn’s deductions. “Most of the Old Ones lacked a certain mental flexibility. Loki could have survived, but his heart wasn’t in it. He chose to follow them into the winter.” Hypatia looked sad.

“I don’t think that helps us, though,” Linn said thoughtfully. They couldn’t discourage all the mad gods into giving up.

“No, I think you are right. We need an actual weapon.”

“A weapon could hurt us... well, Mom and my grandparents, and you... as well.” Linn sighed.

Hypatia smiled at her sadly. “Yes, it could. You carry a sword.”

Linn put her hand on Lambent’s pommel. She had gotten so used to carrying it over the last couple of months, she didn’t even think about buckling her on in the morning. She supposed it made her feel closer to Grampa Heff.

“Yes.”

“And she has two edges. One cuts toward you, the other away from you.”

Linn nodded. She could see what Tia was saying.

“So what are we doing?” She let go of Lambent and pressed the power button on the laptop.

“We are trying to find a way to kill immortals,” Hypatia informed her calmly, her scarred old face not even changing expression.

Linn felt the words hit her with a physical force behind them. She looked down at the smooth surface of the laptop she was holding, seeing a dim reflection of herself in it. She was so serious...

They didn’t talk for a while. Hypatia picked up a scroll, letting Linn think. Linn was grateful. She wasn’t sure she wanted to find a way to kill anyone. Much less something that could take the people she loved most from her. Finally she looked up.

“I don’t know why we need to do this.”

Hypatia put the scroll down and smiled sadly. “There are hundreds of immortals living amongst humans. Thousands more sleep... death in a dream state. Any one of us has the power to destroy humanity.”

“But... how?”

“You don’t ask why.”

“I think I’ve figure out why. Most of the Old Ones think of humans as cattle, or at best, pets. Now there are too many of us, and we are gaining a knowledge of technology that could actually harm them.”

Hypatia nodded. “The how is a little more complicated. Simplest, of course, would be to unleash a plague. The Black Death, the Spanish flu... many others. They were tools of certain immortals for their own ends and means.”

“You can manipulate yourself on a genetic level,” Linn mused, thinking that was how Bes had kept looking younger and younger during their time together.

“Smaller even than that. You know we use something we call the High Path?”

“Yes, it’s a way to travel. I can’t do it, so it must be something only an immortal can do.”

“Well you might be able to when you come into your full power and learn to use it. But have you ever heard of Quantum Tunneling?”

“Um... maybe in a science fiction story?” Linn wrinkled her nose, thinking.

“Ah, then, your first assignment. Look it up, dear.” Hypatia picked up the scroll again and Linn knew she wasn’t going to get any more from her for a while.

Looking down at her laptop, she opened a new browser window.

Chapter 26

Sekhmet sighed. There were times she was really glad humans were so easy to make look-don’t-see. This was one of them. The Atlantic Ocean was a huge body of water. You could travel over it for days and never see anyone, most of the time. Today was not one of them. The area they were in was swarming with rescue craft. There wasn’t anything to rescue.

The plane had hit the water hard, and almost five hundred people had perished instantly. Pieces of wreckage was scattered for literally miles now, some floating, others somewhere below them. She, Steve, and Pele were sitting cross-legged just over the surface of the water. A bubble of power surrounded them, keeping them warm and dry. They were waiting.

Helicopters buzzed overhead. Steve looked up. “Those look like fun, you know?”

“You’re such a little boy at heart.” Sekhmet chuckled.

“Yeah, it’s what you love about me,” he flashed back.

Pele laughed. “The child in all of us keeps us sane. I hate to remind you of why we are here... But the Naiads are coming now.”

Sekhmet looked down between her paws. The tawny pads hovered about a foot above the waves. The water was opaque today, dark and sullen.

“It’s a good thing we aren’t human,” the big cat said quietly.

“So much death, and yet we walk unscathed through all of it,” Pele commented softly in agreement with the unspoken thoughts.

“Here they are.” Steve was looking down to one side.

Sekhmet saw a flicker of white as the water dwelling immortals came close to the surface. She could see their faces, then they emerged directly below the immortals, lifting a glowing orb toward them. High, whispering voices spoke in unison.

“We have found them. Take them, please, before we all cry...”

Sekhmet could see that the four Naiads all had tears streaming from their eyes. They referred to the untold numbers of other Naiads who lived in the Atlantic Ocean. Each body of water was occupied with a family who were all connected closely.

Pele reached down and took the artifact. Tears pooled in her eyes.