An Hour of Need (5 page)

“
T
o a place
I have fought for decades to forget.”

I had no idea what Mona meant by her cryptic response. After she clarified what she was talking about, I realized that we were about to embark on a journey to somewhere that had played a big part in her former, darker life, as well as her and Kiev’s history. An island in the supernatural dimension that had once been central to the black witches’ activities.

It was an island that used to be known colloquially as The Shade—a small version of our own island—because the witches had cast upon it a spell of darkness. Mona was sure that now, however, the island would look just like any other, that the sun would be touching it again. She suspected that the landscape would have become wild and overgrown, and the castle that had stood there derelict. But there was one part of the island that she believed would still be intact—the spell room, which was situated in an underground bunker. It was here that she guessed the bulk of the rituals involving the Mortclaws would’ve been conceived.

Mona said that she would go alone, but staying here on the island was my worst nightmare. The wait would drive me insane. At least if I went with her, I’d feel like I was moving. Like I was doing something. And I would not be left alone with my agonizing thoughts.

Aisha was also curious, but she said that she was feeling drained after the encounter with that giant she-wolf and thought she ought to rest. If Aisha hadn’t been pregnant, that encounter wouldn’t have tired her out so much. I thanked the jinni profusely for her help before she headed back to her apartment, leaving me with Mona.

After Mona agreed to bring me along, we traveled via the gate in the ogres’ realm again, since it was convenient. Here she grabbed my hands and vanished us again. When we reappeared this second time, we were standing on a rocky beach, a hard, blustering wind blowing against our backs. We had reached the shore of an island which was, as Mona had predicted, exposed to the sun and overgrown. She suspected that it had been left uninhabited all these years except by wild animals. It certainly looked like it as we ventured toward its center. The landscape was largely forested, and we found ourselves traipsing through dense undergrowth.

As the trees began to thin, I caught sight of a clearing which held a stone courtyard, behind which stood an old, towering castle with several shattered window panes. The crevices of its walls were stained with green—filled with moss and other weeds that had sprouted—and the roof was in thorough disrepair, with row upon row of broken tiles.

The castle possessed a creepy aura—my mind was already imagining what might be lurking within its dark, dusty halls—but at the same time, I couldn’t help but admire its haunting beauty.

Mona’s deep blue eyes lingered on the construction, a galaxy of memories behind her irises. She stood in silence for several minutes, just staring, until she drew in a deep breath and led me around to the back. We moved through a jungle of grass and weeds, close to the castle’s anterior wall, until she stopped abruptly and knelt to the ground. She buried her hands into the growth of weeds and fumbled around. Her face scrunched in concentration. “The door is somewhere around here…” she muttered. “Aha. I’ve got it. Looks like it’s open, too.”

She gripped what I could now see was a metal handle and pulled upward. Hinges groaned and creaked as she pulled open an ancient trapdoor. Beneath it was a dark hole with a flight of blackened steps. She descended first and I followed closely, cautiously behind her. The sunlight trickled into the bunker in shafts, illuminating the cloud of dust particles we had unsettled during our entry. Through the gloom, I realized that this room was not all that different from Corrine’s spell room in the Sanctuary, if more medieval. Countless rickety shelves were filled with bottles and liquids, and a rough wooden counter was dotted with cauldrons and stoves.

Mona stopped in the center of the room and gazed at the wall opposite us. Then her eyes lowered to a spot on the floor. She shook her head, grimacing. “So many memories,” she murmured. “Kiev almost got killed in this room, you know. If I hadn’t reached him in time, there would have been no Brock Novalic.”

She lost herself in memories for a while longer, then snapped herself back to the present. “Right,” she said, clasping her hands together. “Let me see what I can find in here…”

She began tackling cabinet after cabinet of potions, scanning every single shelf, before moving on to piles of wooden storage crates stacked up in one corner.

“Uh, what exactly are you looking for?” I couldn’t help but ask. “I could help you.”

“I honestly think it’s best if you don’t touch anything in here,” she said, ignoring my first question.

Okay
… I moved to the bottom of the staircase and planted my butt down on the lowest step. If I couldn’t be of any assistance to her, at least I could stay out of her way.

I didn’t say a word the whole time, not wanting to disturb her concentration. Finally, she broke the silence and rose to her feet, clutching a large, bulbous-shaped vial in her hands, filled with thick, pale green liquid, tinged with brown. She moved toward a shaft of sunlight and held the vial aloft, twisting it back and forth and examining it. She nodded. “Yup. This seems to be it,” she announced. “I guessed they would have stored it in here, if they decided to keep it at all. It’s where they kept most of their experimental concoctions.”

I rose to my feet and stared at it alongside her. “So…” I ventured again. “What exactly is this?” I still had not the slightest clue.

Mona glanced up at the trapdoor. With a flick of her wrist, it snapped shut, making me jump. I was expecting us to be plunged into complete darkness. But we weren’t. The liquid in the vial… it was luminescent. It cast a pale green light around the room.

“This serum is still glowing,” she said in a hushed tone, “which means that it is still potent… Now, for your question.” She glanced up at me. “I believe that this serum is what is sustaining the powers that Rhys and his people imparted to the Mortclaws.”

“Could you… explain how?”

She heaved a sigh. “Well, there is only so far that I can explain something as complex and twisted as a black witch’s ritual. But I can say that the black witches had a kind of obsession with bonds and such—in case you couldn’t tell from your family’s history—since it was the ultimate exercise of control. All you really need to understand is that this serum is connected to the Mortclaws in a way I doubt even they are aware of. It would have been the potion they were forced to drink to seal their transformation, or in other words, the origin of their unnatural powers.”

I was still feeling in the dark as to how this all worked. I knew that Mona was cagey about going into details of the black witches’ heinous practices, because she had once taken part in them. Her past plagued her, even to this day. So I wasn’t insensitive enough to press for more details, even though I was burning with curiosity. Mona had said she’d told me what I needed to know.

“So,” I began, “what if we just… smashed this vial? If the Mortclaws’ powers are connected to it, would those wolves be stripped of them?”

I might not have any idea where that she-wolf had taken Bastien, or what state he might possibly be in now, but the thought of that monster being stripped of her crazy powers while around him offered at least a bit of comfort. It would only help him in his situation, and he would be on more even ground if his own mother really did intend to harm him.

Mona hesitated. “You’re right that it would strip them of their powers… just as it bestowed them. But it could also do quite a bit more than that.”

“What?”

“You see,” she said, lowering herself to a step and sitting down. She placed the vial on her lap and cradled it. “In order for their powers to have lasted for such a long time, they would have become practically part of their very being. Completely ingrained in their systems. They must have morphed to the point of no return. Anything less, and their powers should have faded by now. If we destroyed this potent serum, there’s no saying exactly how it would affect them. It would be like ripping them apart… I suspect it might actually kill them.”

I was wondering why Mona was talking as though that would be such a bad thing, when I realized… Bastien. He too had been affected at least in a small way by the black witches, in order for him to possess the power to shift at will. Might he be harmed, too?

“You’re thinking that it could affect Bastien, even if he was touched only a little bit by the ritual?” I asked.

Mona shrugged. “It’s possible. I was not there to witness the actual ritual, of course, so I don’t know exactly how things came to pass. But I would advise that it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Safe than sorry.
And what was
safe
exactly? We weren’t
safe
as things stood. Bastien had been abducted by a crazy wolf giant and was likely still in her clutches as we spoke. And yet… if we smashed this vial, and somehow, it did harm him…

No.
I already knew that I didn’t have it in me to take such a risk.

“Then what can I do?” I asked, swallowing back my disappointment. I’d really hoped that it would have been as simple as smashing this fragile glass of liquid.

Mona hesitated. She parted her lips, clearly about to say something, but then clapped her mouth shut again.

“What?” I pressed.

She shook her head firmly. “It’s not an option,” she replied, clipped. “No idea why I even thought of it.”

Clutching the vial, she rose to her feet. I gripped her arm.

“Please,” I urged. “I’m open to any suggestion, no matter how stupid you think it is.”

She drew away from me and headed to the stairs. “No, this was more than stupid. It was downright insane. And your parents would have my head for it.” She flicked open the trap door, allowing the sun to spill through into the bunker again. “We should probably leave. I’m honestly not sure what can be done, unless you’re willing to risk smashing the vial.” She began moving up the staircase.

The reason for Mona’s flightiness was clear. This room held uncomfortable memories. Still, I stood rooted to my spot. “I can’t risk it… Would you have risked it, for Kiev?”

She stopped on the stairs. Her shoulders sagged. She shook her head. “No. Of course I wouldn’t.”

“Then won’t you just tell me your other idea? Please.” I was begging now.

She clenched her jaw, her eyes falling to the vial clasped in her hands. Her grip tightened nervously around its sleek, glass neck. Then she returned her eyes to me.

“Victoria… How much do you really wish to be with Bastien?”

A
fter drinking
some water and waiting a while longer to orient myself, I felt steady enough to let go of Orlando’s arm and stand without anybody’s help.

Our group traveled away from the beach and further toward the Spanish seaside town we’d arrived at. Europe wasn’t plagued with quite as many supernatural problems as other parts of the world—though they were increasing day by day. There were still fairly large pockets of land where people were able to live normally. Looking around this quiet, sleepy town, it was clearly one of the lucky ones.

We stopped outside a residential block of apartments, four stories high. Not the most elegant of buildings, for sure. The exterior was shabby, with peeling paint and its lower walls plastered with graffiti.

We approached the intercom system. My father pressed the button for Roderick’s door number, according to Atticus’ note.

A woman answered, the crying of a baby blaring in the background. My father, who spoke fluent Spanish, told her that we had come to inquire about Roderick—whether he still lived here, or whether she knew anything about him at all. From what I could understand from her response, she informed us that she’d never known the man personally, but that he had died thirteen years ago from an overdose.

Thirteen years ago, just like Georgina. Now what a coincidence that is…

I wondered what kind of grisly death Deirdre had met with in her farmhouse. Of course, her death had probably also been covered up as either an accident or suicide. These hunters apparently would stop at nothing to conceal FOEBA.

“So,” my great-grandfather Aiden said, as we moved away from the block. “Next is Bermuda.”

Next and last…

“We’re getting through the list quickly,” Lucas remarked grimly.

Bermuda. We’ve got to find some answers in Bermuda.
It frightened me to think that Bermuda might be another hopeless dead-end like Sweden and Spain. This list of names was all we had. We would be right back to square one if we didn’t find anything at Frans’ place.

Since there was a food stand on the other side of the road, my mother suggested that we stop for a bit and have me eat something solid. Orlando was probably hungry, too. Most of our party were vampires, but those who weren’t, like my father, didn’t eat anything. I didn’t have any appetite, but I could only think that food would do me good, so I forced down a fresh sandwich, even though it tasted like cardboard. As Orlando ate his, I realized that I had forgotten to thank him for catching me.

“Thanks for earlier,” I said.

He shrugged, not looking up. “I wasn’t going to let you fall, was I?” he said, swallowing.

“I guess not…”

I continued watching him while he finished his sandwich. There was something confusing… contrary about Orlando’s character. Especially regarding his behavior toward me.
Every man for himself
had been his and Maura’s mantra while they had been living in Bloodless Chicago—it was how they’d survived for so long in those dire conditions. But one way or another, with me, he always seemed to find excuses to make an exception to the rule, from the moment the siblings had found me in the tunnel and he had persuaded Maura to let me tag along, to persuading her not to rat me out to the IBSI after she had spied one of their “wanted” signs.

I thought back to the hour before my father had arrived to save me from the city. Just before Orlando had been sedated by a hunter, he had been on the verge of making a bargain with the IBSI. I’d never gotten a chance to hear what he had been planning to negotiate in exchange for his sister. But somehow, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he had
not
been about to hand me over… Even though that would have made no logical sense at that time, since he’d had nothing left to lose.

I couldn’t hold back the question now. “Orlando, what were you planning to offer the IBSI in exchange for your sister?”

Orlando swallowed his last mouthful of sandwich. His deep-set eyes flickered to mine, then away again. His hesitation gave me reason to think that perhaps I had assumed wrong after all. But then he replied, “Myself.”

I scrutinized his thin, tired face.
Why would he do that when I was just around the corner?
And he had known for a fact that I was someone that the IBSI wanted—in exchange for me he could have even been offered treatment and release. He had been pushed past the brink of desperation at that point, I had seen it in his eyes. And yet still he had found an excuse for me.

“That makes no sense,” I said.

He rolled up his plastic sandwich wrapping into a ball. Then he stood up, his tall, narrow form hovering over me. “It did to me,” he replied simply.

With that, he turned his back on me and moved away to find a trashcan.

* * *

I
didn’t press
Orlando further. I was left to my own speculations—not that I had long to mull them over. After the short breather we had taken for a snack, it was time to get a move on again to our next destination, Bermuda.

We gathered in a circle once again and prepared ourselves to hurtle through the air. We were traveling for just a few seconds before we once again felt sand beneath our feet. Only here, the atmosphere was much warmer and more humid. Still, I felt stuck in a refrigerator.

I opened my eyes. A crystal turquoise ocean licked the edges of a pure white sand beach. Before I could fully take in the beauty of our surroundings, however, my father led us across the sand—away from the water—and toward a line of drooping palm trees toward a road. We reached a pebble path which wound toward an old bungalow. Its painted green exterior was chipped, with missing slates on its roof. Stained red-checkered curtains concealed our view through the clouded glass windows. A large hive of bees had made their home right above the molded wooden porch.

Again, it was obvious that nobody lived here, not for a long time. We all crammed inside and began to look around. The bungalow—which was really nothing more than a glorified beach hut—contained only four rooms in total: a single bedroom, a small sitting-cum-dining room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Furniture was scarce, and what there was of it appeared eroded by time and dampness. A glass bookcase stood tall behind a rocking chair, by far the most interesting item in the hut. I estimated over fifty books sat on its shelves. Reaching it first, I creaked open the doors. As my eyes began running over each of the spines, my parents and Orlando joined me.

Clearly, Frans had been some sort of scientist—or at least taken a great interest in science. The topics of his books ranged from chemistry to physics to botany. The rest of my family joined us in taking a book each and paging through them, scouring them for anything that might indicate what the man had been doing while staying here.

The problem was, there were just
so many
books on so many different subjects that he really could have been researching anything at all. We found nothing to help guide us or draw any conclusions. Likely, there must’ve been some clues here at some point—like a pad of notes—but whatever pertinent information that might have once existed must have been removed by the IBSI. I wondered what excuse the hunters had fabricated for Frans’ death.
Drowning in the ocean, perhaps.

We exited the hut and descended the porch stairs before swiveling and gazing back up at it.

That was it.

Our last stop.

And, as I had feared all along, we had found nothing to help us. It clearly came as a heavy blow to my father. He was staring at the bungalow’s door as if willing it to give up its secrets.

“Maybe I need to return to Chicago and just… wait for Atticus to return,” my father murmured. “I mean, he’s got to return there at some point…”

A mighty crash cut my father short. It had come from the direction of the beach, piercing the quiet atmosphere. It sounded oddly like the collision of wood. A lot of wood.

We all exchanged glances.

“What on earth was that?” Derek muttered.

Another crash. Then the groan of machinery.

Momentarily forgetting my father’s suggestion, we all headed toward the noise. It called us away from the cluster of palm trees surrounding Frans’ old hut and back to the beach. We followed the curve of the shoreline around a mound of rocks. On turning the corner, we came face to face with the source of the noise.

Three intimidatingly large black tractors were unloading piles of giant logs along an empty stretch of beach. The logs looked to be as much as ten feet in diameter. Behind the wood was more machinery—black towering cranes, which were gathering the logs and lifting them toward a pier, where a monstrous cargo ship floated.

“Does anybody else have the suspicion that the IBSI is somehow linked to this?” my father whispered.

The thought had crossed my mind, due to the black machinery. Everything about the IBSI was black, from their machines to their uniforms. Black to match their hearts.

We watched the tractors finish offloading their weight before they trundled away over the sand toward a road.

“I’m going to follow them,” my father said, already thinning himself and hurrying after them.

Ibrahim considered casting an invisibility spell over us while we waited, but that would make it more difficult for my father to find us. Instead we huddled closer to the rocks so that we were less visible to the suspected IBSI members further up the shore.

Thankfully, my father didn’t keep us waiting long. He returned in less than two minutes.

“There’s an IBSI base just nearby,” he said. “It’s just on the other side of the road.”

“Hm.” Grandpa Derek furrowed his brows. “I suspect this means Frans was definitely a member of the IBSI, for him to have lived so close. Maybe he was a scientist they had commissioned, or perhaps an advisor… or some kind of research assistant.”

Ben shrugged. “Sounds likely… I didn’t take the time to look around the base. I want to do that now. I suggest we all move a bit closer first.”

My father led us away from the rocks, across the stretch of sand and into another gathering of trees until we arrived outside a gated compound. Surrounding it was a high fence, most definitely electrical. An off-puttingly sweet, nutty scent pervaded the area, quite unlike anything I’d smelt before.

We moved closer to the fence to peer through the small gaps, careful not to get too close. The usual brown tinted glass, oblong buildings were present, but there didn’t seem to be many of them. In fact, this compound did not appear to be very large at all—at least not compared to Chicago. Clearly this wasn’t one of their main bases but a small sub-branch.

The roaring of tractors sounded to our right, where the main entrance was located. They were coming out again. This time, however, they weren’t filled up with logs but… leaves? Shockingly large, wide leaves with a strange peachy color. Their texture reminded me of aloe vera plants—the leaves looked smooth, bloated and squishy, like they were filled with some kind of liquid.

The tractors carted them back toward the beach, no doubt to be loaded onto that cargo ship, too, along with the logs.

“That’s smoke in the distance,” Orlando commented, drawing everyone’s attention away from the disappearing tractors. He was pointing to our far left. Indeed, a cloud of black smoke swirled overhead, somewhere behind the compound.

“Maybe another one of their laboratories,” I said darkly.

“I’m going to take a proper look around now,” my father said.

“I’m coming,” Lucas said.

The two of them thinned and left the rest of us to wait again.

When they returned, about ten minutes later, I never would have predicted the first words that spilled from my father’s mouth:

“They’ve got another portal here.”