Dark Light of Mine (24 page)

"Oh, I'll bet she loved that," I said with a laugh.  "Those two are like oil and water."

"I think he gets off annoying her.  Stacey was making fun of his haircut on the way out."

"And nothing more from Vallaena?"

Elyssa shook her head.  "No.  But I really don't like the way she gave you a time limit."

I rubbed the back of my neck and sighed.  "Seems everyone is giving me deadlines these days."  My conversation with Felicia popped to mind, so I pulled Elyssa across the room and toward the tiny kitchen.  "I had a discussion about vamplings with our favorite vampire girl."

"Felicia?"

"Yeah.  She told me vamplings can infect vampires with their virus and actually turn them into one of those zombie things."

"And you're wondering why I haven't tried to eat your brains?" Elyssa said with a grin.

Some of the panic sparking through my system eased when I saw her grin.  "Yeah."

"Templars have immunity to most supernatural viruses.  The Divinity gives us a few useful perks."

"The Divinity?"

"Yeah.  Nobody knows exactly who or what it is, but it's the power source and central core that makes Templars what they are.  It can make noms immortal, give them preternatural abilities, and all that, so long as they can pass the Cho'kai."

"The show what?"

"It's a trial all recruits have to pass before becoming a full Templar.  If they fail, the Divinity strips them of their gifts and they have to wait a year before they can reapply as a recruit."

"A trial—like doing a hundred pushups and low-crawling through electrified mud?"

She laughed.  "Nobody knows.  The trial takes place in the chapel and nobody ever remembers a thing about it.  That's pretty much the way any interaction with the Divinity is."

"Even your father doesn't know?"

She shook her head.  "Not even the Templar Synod, our ruling council, knows, and some of them have been around since before the Roman Empire."

"That's freaky."  All sorts of possibilities drifted through my head, most of them having to do with Star Trek and glowing balls of light that killed people or gave Captain Kirk an inexhaustible libido.  "Is this thing sentient?"

She nodded.  "Yeah, but on a level that makes us look like monkeys."

"We're barely smarter than monkeys without a super being to make us all look dumb."  I thought about Nathan and bullies like him and shuddered.  The human race was chock full of dummies.

"Speaking of dumb things," Elyssa said with a sideways look and a wistful smile, "Meghan told me what you did for Stacey."  Her smile faltered and she looked down.  "You scare me to death sometimes, Justin."

I squeezed her to me.  "I scare myself.  Look, she's my friend.  I had to do something to help her."

"Just like when you leapt into the back seat of the truck to protect Katie?"

"She would have died."

"Do you have some kind of a superhero complex?  Do you want to get killed?"

"Yes, I do have a complex, and no, I don't want to die.  At least not until I've had my way with you, and then I'll die happy."

She blushed.  "Don't talk that way.  We're going to have a lot of fun before I let anything bad happen to you."

"I could kick Felicia out of the bedroom."

Elyssa laughed.  "There is no way we're engaging in hanky panky with your dad, Shelton, and everyone else right outside the door."

"Yeah, that would be kind of icky."

"And Shelton's probably got cameras in his rooms."

"Nasty!"

After our laughter died down, I looked at Smith as he worked away on his tablet computer.  The urge to pepper him and Shelton with questions was strong, but I didn't want to interrupt their work.  At the same time, I wondered if keeping Dad on lockdown might not be a better idea than letting him loose again.  He was just as good at getting into messes as I was.

A knot of worry rolled around in my stomach, followed by sharp stabs of anxiety.  Dad was going to die unless I somehow convinced Underborn to call off the hit.  That meant I had to find the guy.  Which meant I had to ask Smith how to contact him.  I already knew what my most precious treasure was and I'd rather die than let Underborn take Elyssa from me.

"You've got that look on your face," Elyssa said.

"What look?"

"The one meaning you've recovered from your last near-death encounter and are about to head out for the next round."

"I need to talk to Underborn."

Meghan, who had walked to the kitchen for more tea, gasped.  "Are you crazy?  Smith's story was bad enough, but I've heard more and worse about that scum."  She took a seat on the brown leather couch against the nearby wall.

"I'm not going to sit around here waiting for that jackass to kill my dad."

"Instead, you're going to rush off and let him kill you too," Elyssa said.  She shoved me away.  I still didn't have all my strength back and toppled backward onto the couch.  Wide-eyed, Meghan scooted away from me without spilling a drop of her tea.

"If it was someone you loved, wouldn't you do the same?" I asked, pushing myself into a less-awkward position.

"What if it was me running off to see him?" she asked.  "How would you feel?"

"Angry and scared as hell of losing you.  But I'd also know stopping you would be impossible, so I'd go with you and beat the crap out of anyone who tried to hurt you."

A rueful chuckle burst through her frown.  "This is by far your worst idea
ever
."  She face-palmed and shook her head.  "When do we leave?"

"Soon as I figure out how to contact the guy."

"Are you going to tell your dad?"

"Oh, hell no."  I watched as Dad patiently endured the attentions of the two sorcerers while they poked and prodded the tattoo on his neck.  "But I need to ask Smith how he contacted Underborn."  My stomach growled.

Meghan shuddered.  "I think you need to feed, Justin."  She pulled out her wand.  "May I run a test?"

I nodded.

"It might hurt just a bit," she said, focusing her gaze on my arm and speaking a word.

A needle-like sensation pricked my arm, but it was nothing compared to what I'd felt during Stacey's procedure.   A globule of blood emerged from a pore in my skin, forming a half-inch crimson sphere which drifted toward Meghan.  A shimmering shield materialized around the sphere, glowing golden and warm.  The sphere spun faster and faster until it was a gold and red blur in the air.  When it stopped, the red in the blood was separate from a bluish substance with a glow of its own.

"Spawn blood plasma," Meghan said, her eyes full of wonder.  "It radiates energy.  Very few arcane healers have the chance to study spawn physiology because your kind are so secretive."

"Is it really that much different than humans'?"

"The blood plasma certainly is.  I noticed it when making the transfer to Stacey.  I'm almost certain this is where your body stores the psychic essence you take from others."

I noticed she didn't shudder that time, maybe because the scientific part of her mind was overriding the part nurturing her hatred for spawn.

"What are you looking for?"

She said a word and a spark of amber light pierced the sphere.  After a moment, tiny numbers and symbols appeared in the air next to it, hovering for a moment before Meghan waved a dismissive hand.  The entire thing flashed bright, leaving only a tiny spray of mist where it had been.

"Your blood levels are very close to nominal," Meghan said.  "But the energy level in your blood plasma is running low, no doubt due to the recovery effort.  You should replenish it."

"You don't seem grossed out by it right now."

"Oh, I am, but I'm becoming better at forcing back the urge to vomit.  At least spawn feeding isn't as repulsive as drinking blood."

"Gee, thanks," Elyssa said.  "Wish I didn't have to but it's not like I have a choice."

"I'm sorry, Templar Borathen.  I didn't mean to imply—"

Elyssa held up a hand.  "It's fine, Meghan.  And please don't get all formal on me.  I know how my dad is, but I am most definitely not him."

"I imagine he must be very upset about your connection to Justin."

I laughed.  "Upset is hardly the word I'd use."  I gave Elyssa a puzzled look.  "That reminds me; I thought you were in big trouble.  Your parents didn't ground you for life?"

"Oh, I just had a mother-daughter chat and then went looking for you."

"That easy?"

She smiled.  "Of course."

Meghan gave her a dubious look.  "Is there something going on I should be aware of?"

"Justin met my parents."  Elyssa's lips trembled as she tried to smile.  "Things didn't go so well."

"I can imagine," Meghan said.  "After the Thunder Rock disaster, your father probably hates spawn as much as I do—present company excluded, of course, Justin."

Elyssa's gaze sharpened.  "You know something about Thunder Rock?  As far as I know, he's never told anyone what really happened there, aside from the Synod.  And he's the only one who survived."

"I don't know the details," Meghan said, "but your father and I once had a discussion about spawn when I joined the Templars."

"Was this after your own father's death?" I asked.

She nodded.  "It was one of the reasons I joined.  To fight evil."

"What did he tell you?" Elyssa asked, curiosity blazing in her features.

"Only that he felt he and I were kindred spirits since we had both suffered evil at the hands of spawn.  Beyond those few words, he didn't go into specifics.  If he had, I'd tell you.  He did say he'd detailed everything in his journal and wanted me to write down my own story in great detail so he could present a case against the spawn at some point in the future."

Elyssa snorted.  "As if the Conclave could do anything about them."

"Typical," I said, my chin tight.  "Spawn I don't even know tick off your dad and now he hates all of us."

Meghan's lips flatlined.  "I'm afraid my story is just one of many.  Believe me, after my father's death I looked for other stories like mine, and there are a lot of them."

My stomach growled again and I suddenly didn't feel like discussing the shortcomings of my relatives.  "I think it's time to feed."  I looked at Smith.  "I'm going to talk to him and find out how to contact Underborn.  Then we can go."

I strolled to the room with the metallic circle embedded in the floor and watched for a moment as Smith ran a program on his tablet.  Red words flashed on the screen and I figured it didn't mean anything good.

"Part of the tracker is blocked," Smith said, "but not all of it.  I think it's using a backup frequency."

Shelton grunted.  "Makes sense.  I'll run the scanner again since we have the first one locked down.  Maybe we can identify it."

"Hanging in there?" I asked Dad.

A bored expression weighed down his face.  "Barely."  He looked back at Elyssa as she shoved stuff into a knapsack.  "You two going somewhere?"

"I need to top off the old tank, if you know what I mean."

"You and me both."  His eyes settled longingly on the exit.

I glanced at Smith.  "I need to ask you something."

"Fire away."

"Umm, it's kinda personal, about your sister."

His forehead scrunched with confusion.  "Why don't we step outside, then?"

Dad and Shelton had confused looks as well.

"It's not what you're thinking," I said.

"Hey, I don't blame you, man," Shelton said.  "She's kinda hot.  I'd be all over that."

"Hey now, that's my sis—ah dammit," Smith said.  "Why do I get so protective?  Not like there's anything left to be protective of."

Shelton barked out a laugh.  "She's still your sister.  Guess you'd be even worse of a brother if you didn't stick up for her."

"Yeah, yeah, TP."  Smith shook his head.

He led me to the exit, uttering a word or two, and waiting for the stairs to form.  Then we walked up to the ground floor where the resident mattress greeted us with its moldy aroma and a cheerful array of colorful stains.  Elyssa came up a second later.

"What do you really want?" Smith said.  "Obviously, you have no interest in my sister."

"I think she may be coming around," I said, then cleared my throat nervously.  "We, uh, had a little conversation after I woke up.  She apologized about her bad behavior—the kidnapping and attempted murder stuff."

He looked unimpressed.  "She's come back before with the contrite apologies, tears, all that jazz, only to circle right back around into a worse situation.  I don't think this time will be any different."

"Not with that attitude," Elyssa said.  "Act like a big brother and maybe things will work out.  Drop the conspiracy obsessions."

"I can't," he said.  "I have to find out what happened."

"You're hooked on solving a mystery, and she's hooked on whatever fills the void where your attention should be," Elyssa said.

Smith grinned.  "You must be related to Dr. Phil."

I laughed.

Elyssa glared at the two of us and we shut up.

"By the way," Smith said, pulling out his tablet.  "I found out some even worse stuff about those killing spells you gave me to analyze."

I had almost forgotten about the wretched things.  Almost forgotten my mom apparently wanted to murder a lot of people.  "How can mass murder be worse?"

"I wrote spell analyzing routines that deciphered several runes.  My tablet isn't very fast so I uploaded some of the spells to my server.  It has a more robust version of Arc OS running on it."

"Is that like the magic version of Windows?"

"Exactly.  It's just a computer operating system which uses science and arcane elements together."

"I can't believe you guys created your own operating system.  Can you play video games on it?"

"All right, geeks," Elyssa said in a weary tone.  "Enough with the nerd talk.  What's up with the spell?"

"Ah, yeah," Smith said, the smile vanishing from his face.  "What you have is a group of spells, each one dedicated to a particular use.  You remember how I told you these spells are made for killing en masse?"

I nodded.

He pulled up a spell on his table.  "This one could wipe out every vampire in a hundred-mile radius."