Endeca (The Escapism Series) (19 page)

“Corlissa and I with Caleb for the 20
th
century. We’re ternio of Magia,” he explained.

“Ternio’s are by century? But that’d mean…”

“Yes. The other is ternio of Oculos which includes Viola, Sebastian and Castiel of the 18
th
century…you’ve already experienced the likes of them. Edric, Orion and Nicholas of the 19
th
century are the ternio of Delsult.”

“What about me? I’m not of a ternio, now am I?”

“No, you’re the last one. The first and last are linked, just like the rest of us. With every one accounted for, that leaves Daisy,” he raised his brow.

“Cool. That means we’re linked? Daisy and I? I wonder what we share…”

“Only you know that, unfortunately. One can only speculate,” he said, referring to none other than Orion, maybe even Caleb.

The first and the last are linked—interesting. Especially never having met the first of Endeca seeing as how she was displaced and quite possibly in a doll. A theory I was working toward proving.

“Nice scarf. Ou, silk,” he said, assaulting it with his eyes then hands.

“If it weren’t for you finding it, it’d have ripped to shreds,” I whispered, securing the scarf to my neck.

“I found it?”

“Freshman week. We met in central pond. You later met me in the parking lot…you enlightened me so to speak.”

“Yeah, right. And risk having Orion behead me? He was very touchy those days about awakening you. As if there was some fear for the world.”

“If it wasn’t you then…” I spoke aloud but mostly to myself. “Who else would’ve wanted to warn me…awaken me?”
Edric hadn’t risen yet and Orion, like how Kiran put it, wasn’t for awakening me.
That only meant…

“Would you know if
someone
used your source, even for a fleeting moment? Look,” I said, placing my hand on his temple. Flashes of that day poured through me to Kiran.

“Son of a Bitch!”

Kiran stood up, about to take off and I grabbed a hold of his arm. “Wait. Don’t go after him. I need to talk with him first.”

“He used my source—that’s forbidden.”

“I know but desperate times called for desperate measures…he’s a good person, you know that.”

“How can you be so calm about this. He’s been lying to us.”

“Oh, I’m pissed alright. I just want to be the first one to scold him.”

“Can I watch? If there’s anything I like more, it’s a good scolding.”

I giggled, “Sure, I’ll let you know when.”

With the open portal, Kiran’s unshielded thoughts transferred to me during the flash back. Corlissa and her lost fragment consumed him more than he led on.

“Kiran, I have something to tell you. Promise you won’t be mad.”

He sighed deeply, “Fine. Just tell me.”

“I came across Corlissa’s fragment once before…her actual fragment.”

His eye’s widened and his face blanched slightly. “She’s traceable?”

Caleb sat there, adjusting his tie uncomfortably. “Can we get to the part where Xenia consents to becoming an immorta so that we could move on to Corlissa.”

“Caleb, would you be so kind as to get us some drinks? We’re working here.”

He stood up, visibly annoyed as he headed for the kitchen.

“It happened when I somehow summoned Endeca. She came to me but she wasn’t seeking restoration. It was as though she herself didn’t know her state…blinded to it even,” I said, walking over to the bay window. The moon cast a pretty light over the house, and I mused as the light shifted from the top of the house to the side.

I experienced a deja vu. If Caleb casted a hex to blind a Lifter from its source, then that meant someone, of his lot, did just the same. Their ternio dealt with magic and deities. Could Caleb have done this? It didn’t make any sense.  But that only left one other person.

“I’m sorry, Xenia,” Kiran uttered, before he struck the side of my head with what felt like a metal bar, knocking me straight out. It was quick and stung like nothing I’d ever felt before.

~

When I awoke I heard familiar sounds, bound to a very familiar bed, even a familiar metal band secured around my head. Suction tubes stuck to my warm damp skin on my forehead, chest and upper arms. I hesitantly opened my eyes in a panic but this time, I wasn’t alone. In the room stood the white coats and behind them, I could see Corlissa’s limp body. I quickly shut my eyes. My worst nightmare was coming true.

How did I end up back in the dome and why would Kiran bring me back?

Just as the sounds travelled closer, I remained as still as I could. Nurse Maggie, judging by her touch and tone, opened my right eyelid, forcefully pinning it back with a tool. She placed a drop in the center, examining it. Her face was only inches from my own and I was introduced again to the familiar smells, while I was held captive in the dome, even her rotting skin—she was one of
them
with her veiny face and robotic movements. Betsy smelled the same, but she was different. I could feel it in the way she cared for me. Her face was less veiny looking and more human looking; a younger victim of the E-SOM. My only recollection of the E-SOM were the faceless white coats, being as they wore breathing masks afraid to breath the very air we breathed as though we were virulent.

Were we contagious?

Too many of them and just…
me
. Kiran had sent me, but was this even a good plan? The white coats left and I sat up, immediately. Something didn’t look or feel right. Corlissa’s body was frail, her face was gaunt and her vitals were…absent.

I tried travelling back, drawing on the earth’s energy but I couldn’t shift through the energy field here—it was barricaded. I reclined after hearing nearby commotion and just then, Maggie returned examining my unclamped (painful) eye. She released my eyelid, poking it with her cold, scaly forceful finger confused.

“Gloves! Where are your gloves?” shouted a white coat. “These undead never learn.”

“We m-m-must stop them,” she stuttered, machine-like. My eyes were shut but I could hear her shuffling about, clanking metal on metal, organizing utensils. I got the feeling that she was just as evil before transforming into whatever undead thing she’d become.

And then something odd happened. Flashes entered my mind but they didn’t belong to me. Through Maggie’s brief touch, I picked up her memories.

She eavesdropped on a discussion between the white coats and another. I saw a file and picked it up—Corlissa’s file. It said she had completed trial three of the immunization study and that progression was where it should be except for one altercation. Her body rejected the live vaccine and formed antibodies. Her source was no longer active…an empty shell of a body used to make antibodies for the ESOM’s production. Humans had failed the first trial and Diplozoe DNA rejected the vaccine. The only group to pass the first trial were prime Diplozoes. However, the end results were abysmal. Those who were prime didn’t turn into Diplozoes. They didn’t even remain human, instead they became…undead.

They found an antidote to the vaccine and had only used it on staff including nurses. Nurse Betsy and Maggie were infected and in turn, undead. The antidote did not change them back to humans; it just sedated them, kept them from eating and killing humans. Kept them from triggering a chaotic mass population exodus—essentially, the antidote dodged an apocalypse.

Diplozoes given the vaccine became ill and their source decayed. If they got the antidote then it’d mean reversal. A chance to live. Another memory flashed in sequence: a diplozoe bartered with the white coats for his sister. It was the antidote so that Corlissa could live. Kiran had discovered his sister’s whereabouts but he knew she wasn’t salvageable in her state while in the dome. She was destined for the white room—a room equipped for the final destination of our kind. So he agreed to the E-SOM’s terms, whereby he used magic and made her invisible (to Endeca) but he was bound to Corlissa, being of the same ternio, in turn they became untraceable to one another. Strategically, it worked to the E-SOM’s advantage. Kiran couldn’t track her, and no one else could either preventing the union of Endeca. The white coats reassured Kiran of Corlissa’s impending release just as soon as the trial antidote had been completed. My meddling only worried Kiran further; he wouldn’t let anyone compromise her safety. Sparkles of light dispersed slowly before I returned to the present.

Ten beds were visible except for one, which was sectioned off by a curtain. I tiptoed over and drew the curtain to find an unknown source. She was blond, around the age of seven and similarly, dead-looking except there was no smell of decay as one would expect. Almost as if her body had been preserved. With closer inspection I realized I knew her.

Under the sheets, and in her embrace was the doll I had first seen in the abandoned mansion.
Daisy
. It was Daisy, the girl who looked just like the doll.

Find the window to her fragment and you’ll see what I mean.

Hesitantly, I reached for the doll. Instead, her arm wouldn’t budge. Rigor mortise had set in. I reached for the intact glass eye, and just as I had seen in my dreams, I pierced it with my thumb, breaking it and drawing blood in the process. What happened next was unlike anything I had imagined. Her mummified arm released and she awoke.

I released her doll and stepped back, terrified. Her black saucer eyes melded into the white, forming a greyish swirl. They shut again, as if nothing had happened.

“Xenia, I got it. We have to go,” Kiran whispered, holding Corlissa’s limp body and a vile in his hands.

“You used me as a diversion?” I scurried over, helping him prop Corlissa over his shoulder.

“One big ass diversion. Come on! We have to go, we have to go,” he panted incessantly.

“What about her?” I asked, confused. I couldn’t leave her there. However messed up she seemed, Endeca would know what to do. With Kiran pressing me for an escape, I quickly reached to touch Daisy’s face, my linking source.

“Xenia! Now,” he demanded.

I sighed heavily and scurried along his side, exiting through the very doors Betsy had sent me through. Once outside, Betsy ushered us to a car.

“Betsy!” I shouted, wrapping my arms around her. She smelled different; decay had set in and her face had become just as veiny as Maggie’s.

“Xenia. G-g-go n-now!” she urged.

Kiran placed Corlissa’s source in the back seat and was half in the driver’s side. “Get in, hurry.”

I looked back at Betsy and even being undead, compassion translated through her cold and otherwise detached face.

Was this the beginning of what the future would be like? A bunch of undead, friendly beings one drop away from mercifully eating the human race into extinction?

“I can’t. I have to get Daisy,” I cried. “Go without me,” I said, backing away.

“Wait, take this,” he shouted, throwing me a vile. “It’s the antidote. You’ve been compromised, but this time with the virus. Take it once you leave.”

“I will,” I stuttered, my watery eyes and endearing smile were the only thanks I could express. Kiran’s reaching eyes rescinded right before he sped off.

Betsy’s stark expression changed into what looked like worry. She motioned with her eyes after Kiran.

“I can’t, Betsy. I have to save her.”

She nodded, turning away facing the dome. Maybe I was mistaken, but she appeared to be strategizing, although nothing in her body language or expression would lead you to the same conclusion.

“Will you help me?”

“Of c-c-ourse,” she muttered, craning her creaky neck.  Her blood shot eyes examined me thoroughly. “I’m h-h-hun-g-gry.”

“This isn’t the place or the time for a quick…bite…” I snapped before the realization hit me. “W-what do you eat?” Thanks to every horror movie I had ever seen, I had a feeling I was the daily special.

“H…hum…ans,” she grunted. Her jaw remained open and her vocal cords emitted a growl that vibrated through into a disquieting hum.

Fan-frigging-tastic.

“Why aren’t you attacking me then?” The longer I spent with her, the harder it was becoming for her to articulate.
Maybe her blood-human levels were getting low…

“You’re w-warm…a…alive,” she pointed at me. She had a conscious?
The antidote worked but what would happen once the supply ran out?

I followed her through the dome. Her pace wasn’t any slower, but it seemed a little more rigid than the average human.

Someone turned the corner and I hid behind a trolley.

“M-my shift. G-go,” she ordered a subservient, but he was human. He seemed confused and carried on. Betsy growled and stabbed him in the center of the head with a syringe from her pocket. Once his body collapsed, I rushed to her side.

“What was that?” I asked, motioning to her hand.

“V-vaccine t-trial for h-humans.” She stared down at the person in observance; the body changed quickly from pale white to bluish, and veiny looking.

“It failed trial I see.”

“N-no. It’s a-available in the m-market. M-mass production.”

Oh God.

She inhaled deeply and rumbled, falling to her knees, feasting uncontrollably. I looked away, horrified by what I had witnessed—looked like she found a loop hole in the menu.

Betsy stood up, wiping her bloodied mouth and carried on as though nothing had happened. I followed her down the corridor where Daisy’s body rested.

“Daisy, can you hear me? I’m here to help.” I reached into my pocket pulling out the vile. “You and I…we’re bonded.  I can’t leave you to die.”

I poured the contents of the vile down her throat and just as I was about to take the rest, a white coat appeared. He activated an alarm and white coats appeared left, right and center.

Alarms blared and sirens activated.

Just as the end neared, I shut my eyes and pressed my eyelids tightly, wishing for a quick end to my life. The dome vibrated from the bottom up and Daisy remained motionless, helpless. There was nothing else I could do to wake her. The earth shook and I realized it wasn’t by the hands of the E-SOM—it was otherworldly. The scent that flooded my olfactory pathways revived my fragments from the innards of my source.

Before I could count to ten, Nicholas appeared as did the rest of Endeca. The white coats ran away but, one by one, they were slaughtered by an invisible presence. I scanned the room to find the presence hovering by the far end. Her red eyes emitted energy that eradicated the white coats and undead left behind.

Nurse Maggie appeared, lunging herself at Kiran. He had returned and with Corlissa’s body resting by his feet. “Y-you’re an abominat-tion.”

Just as soon as Nyxta’s cutting gaze fell upon Maggie, a gust of wind past us all and Daisy grasped Maggie by the throat.

It worked!
A shattered glass eye, my blood, and a touch riddled by Corlissa’s essence.

“Hello mommy, it’s been too long,” she said, before she snapped her neck, decapitating her. “You’re the abomination.”

Maggie looked old, but I’d have never imagined her to be over three centuries old. How did she manage to live that long? The E-SOM was more advanced than I gave them credit for.

All twenty two eyes rested on another undead individual—Betsy. She burped having gone for seconds. With a look of apathy, she seemed ready to face her demise or quite possibly, in need of a nap.

Nyxta flashed by her, and just before she unleashed her wrath, I shouted in protest.

“Nooo! Not her. She helped me…us…escape from the dome. Look,” I offered, connecting with Nyxta, eye to eye, allowing her to sear what she needed. In a second, she turned to face Betsy, she pressed her hand against the center of her chest and the Betsy that stood before us changed, for the better. Her youth was restored to her in the most magical of ways. A powerful white light filled her body first and then her hair came to life, like garden snakes, each stand curled into its own spiral assault. The rosy hue returned to her cheeks and her red lips filled out in contrast to her alabaster skin. She sighed deeply and opened her beautiful eyes. She stood before us, revived and by Nyxta. She stared down at her hands and then her arms and touched her face.

“I’m alive,” she uttered. The color in her eyes swirled green and black. She was more than alive—she was like
us
.

“You have done us a great honor and for exhibiting such bravery, I have given you life in the only way possible,” she said, nodding in my direction.

Betsy looked aghast but nodded in understanding. There was no other way to go around it. Her alternative was bleak as it stood…

Kiran rested Corlissa’s source on the cot next to him. Daisy slowly approached her, examining her frail body. She rested her hand onto Corlissa’s abdomen and closed her eyes.

“Come back to me sister.” Her touch was the key to reverse the hex casted long ago. The magic that displaced Corlissa’s fragments from her source and Daisy’s fragment into a Doll.

“The chant, you must say it in reverse,” said the Corlissa I had come to know but it was an illusion, never her actual source. I knew it predated Nyxta but I wasn’t entirely sure.