Green: The Beginning and the End (20 page)

“Is there any way out of the room?” Thomas demanded.

“You’re going to keep them locked up?”

“What would you have me do?”

Monique looked at the three, caged like animals. “I guess it’ll hold them until we figure something out.”

Thomas took the books from Kara. “Then let’s be rid of this place. I need space to think without monkeys peering at me. We don’t have much time.”

Kara felt a grin tug at her mouth. Thirty years had changed the way Thomas spoke, but he was the same brother. Thomas Hunter was most definitely back. And to her it was like the second coming.

24

“The same as I am here,” Thomas said, pacing beside the towering shelves of bound books in Monique’s library. “Forty-nine. Amazing.” He rubbed his face with his hand, a habit he’d developed—to check if his skin was turning Horde, Chelise used to joke.

“But it’s been thirty-six years since you left us. You were twenty-four at the time. You should be sixty, like me. Instead, you’re under fifty and you hardly look forty.”

“All I know is that I was twenty-four—or was it twenty-five?—when I first woke in the Black Forest, and nearly twenty-six years have passed since then.” He scanned the ceiling. “Utterly amazing.”

They’d left the laboratory, taken an elevator to the ground level, and retreated to Monique’s library, issuing strict instructions to be left alone.

“A lot’s changed since you left us,” Monique said.

“It’s not the change. It’s being back in civilization. Elyon knows how much I love the desert, but this . . . this is fantastic.”

“So you’re married? In the desert?”

Thomas looked into her bright eyes, recalling what they’d shared. Was that only a dream? The relationship between the two worlds still confused him. What was less confusing was the fact that he was physically here, now. There was only one Thomas Hunter, and he stood in a city called Bangkok, looking at an older woman who, at sixty, was stunning.

“Married? Yes. Happily. No,
happily
is a silly word for it. My wife is the jewel of the desert, the light that guides my heart through the darkness when I grow tired of waiting for the end.”

Monique grinned. “Wow. Sounds like I missed out.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. You’re married?”

“Once.”

“Janae’s father?”

“Yes. It was a torrid affair that lasted a year. His name was Philippe, and he raged into my life like a tornado when I was feeling sorry for my loss. I knew it was bad, but he gave me what I longed for and then disappeared. He knew about you, naturally. You were still quite famous then.”

Philippe. Thomas wondered what connection he had to the other world. They were all connected, it seemed. The only real question was, in what way? Albino, Horde, Eramite half-breed, Shataiki? Roush?

Kara walked up to him with a roll of gauze and some tape she’d grabbed on the way out of the lab. She took his hand and rubbed his skin, studying the cut on his palm. Then she wrapped his hand in the bandage.

Her hair smelled like soap. Perfume. Flowers. He still wore the Horde robe, which carried the faint odor of scabbing disease—to them he likely smelled like a skunk.

“I still can’t believe you’re here,” Kara said, tapping the bandage. She lifted misty eyes. “Really here.”

He slid his hand behind her neck, pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “Trust me, to know that all of this exists . . . it certifies me sane. So many times I believed I might be losing my mind.”

“You’re here to stay?”

Her question took him off guard. He dropped his hand and walked away. “I was told to come, find a way, and return to the Circle. My son is lost without me. I don’t have much time.”

“So, how long?”

“He didn’t say. Quickly, that’s all. You don’t understand . . . there’s trouble brewing. My son has betrayed the Circle and joined Eram.” Saying it renewed his sense of urgency, never mind that it all sounded a bit preposterous. “I fear the worst. War. The unraveling of all good in the land.”

Kara studied him, eyes fixed. “Take me back with you.”

“Back? No, no.”

“Yes,” she said. “Take me back.”

“This world needs you!”

“This world needs Monique. I don’t have anyone left. Mom and Dad are long gone. I’ve been alone for thirty years.”

“You never married?”

“Never.”

He considered the notion.

“You can’t be serious about this,” Monique said, standing from her chair. She crossed to a bar and poured a drink from a bottle of amber liquid. “We don’t even know what the true connection between the worlds is. It’s far too dangerous.”

She was grasping.

“We do know!” Kara snapped. “It’s obvious.”

“Then tell us.”

“Thomas’s world is the future of this world, thousands of years from now, remade, a kind of new earth. The essentials of history are being replayed; everything spiritual here has become physical there. It’s like take two. Isn’t that what you said once, Thomas?”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Monique said.

“In the other world, words become flesh through the Books of History. And vice versa: reality becomes words recorded in the same books. The spiritual has physical manifestation. When those books came into our reality, they still had the same power to turn words into flesh.” She motioned at the stack of four books on the desk where Thomas had laid them. “The books are the bridge between the worlds. Literally, a bridge.”

She’d put it so simply.

“And the blood?” Thomas asked. “My blood, Teeleh’s blood, Elyon’s blood. Why always blood?”

Kara joined Monique and poured a drink. “I don’t know. In both realities, blood is life. Disease here and evil there are both carried by blood. And they’re wiped out by blood. You’ll have to tell us the rest.”

The connections hadn’t escaped Thomas all these years, but he’d never put it so plainly in his head. “The red lakes,” he said.

“What lakes?”

“They came later. The lakes were turned red by Elyon’s blood. By drowning in them we stay free of the disease.”

“Drowning? Really drowning?”

“Yes, we die. But it’s life, really, because Elyon paid that price so we can escape it.”

“Price for what?”

“The cost of our embracing evil—death. Elyon cannot live with evil; it must die. Or so we say.”

“So it’s like a baptism?”

Thomas nodded. “Perhaps. Only Elyon knows the full extent of these connections.”

“Unfortunately, like you say, Elyon seems to have gone quiet,” Monique said. “In both realities. And you may have brought the worst to us.”

“How so?”

“Qurong.” Monique set down her glass and crossed to the window. “There’s another connection that I’d like to consider.”

“The Raison Strain?” Kara said. “You can’t think the scabbing disease is the same as the Raison Strain.”

Monique turned back. “Would it surprise you?”

The room fell silent, and Thomas began to feel oddly misplaced here in the world of medicine and machines. What if he couldn’t go back? He eyed the books, still bound and smeared with his and Qurong’s blood. What did he really know about the rules that guided these lost books?

“Please, Thomas.” He turned to Kara, who was watching him in earnest. “Take me with you.”

He felt his face slowly offer up a soft smile. “You never were one to capitulate, were you?”

But he couldn’t promise her anything, not without knowing more.

“I could never go,” Monique said in a thin voice cut by sorrow. She was staring out the window again, lost in thought. Thomas understood a small part of what she must be feeling.

She could never enter the world where Chelise lived. They both knew that Thomas had given his heart and soul to another woman who waited now, braving any danger for him.

The memory of Chelise rushing into Qurong’s underground library swallowed him for a moment, and he had to push back the compulsion to rush over to the books and use them again. While he stood in safety, Chelise was . . . was what?

See, that was just it. He wouldn’t put anything past his desert bride. Her spirit more often than not pulled her into the most dangerous path. She could be rushing toward Eram to retrieve Samuel or returning to the Circle to warn them. Assuming she’d escaped Qurongi City.

Meanwhile, he’d stumbled back into a love affair that had never quite died.

Monique turned. “But that’s my cross to bear. And to be honest, it’s not an impossibly heavy one.” She took one deep breath and let a smile toy with her mouth. “Although I must say, you do look like a scrumptious dessert. The desert air must agree with you.”

“It’s the fruit,” he said sheepishly, then realized that he might be coming off as pretentious. “And I’m younger. Honestly I was just thinking how beautiful you look.”

They stared at each other, and the air grew stuffy.

Monique rescued him. “This is rather awkward.” She crossed to him, kissed his cheek, then turned away. “The fact is, however fantastic this turn of events might seem to us, we all know that we’re playing a role on a grand stage that determines the lives of millions. I owe this world my work and my life. And Thomas”—she faced them both—“your world is waiting for you. So, what can we do to help you?”

There was still Kara, Thomas thought. Where did she belong?

He nodded. “I will always remember your graciousness.”

Monique dipped her head.

Thomas sighed. “As I said, what I know is this: One”—he stuck out a finger—“the Circle has been pulled apart by arguments in doctrine. We still hold to the same basic tenets, but now even those are being challenged. What was once sacred is slipping into obscurity. And the greatest of all guiding imperatives—that we love the Horde—has been abandoned by more than even I probably know.”

“Sounds familiar,” Kara said.

“How so?”

“You think this world is any different?”

Thomas hadn’t considered it; his mind was on the desert. He ran his fingers through his long locks of hair and continued.

“It’s as if another kind of disease, this forgetfulness, has been eating away at their hearts for years like a cancer. Now it’s too late to reverse it. We never used to live for the desert, because we knew that it was just a transition. A better world was just around the corner. We endured terrible persecution and death, driven by hope. But now that hope of a better world is losing its appeal. Forgotten.”

“Again, familiar.”

“That doesn’t help me.”

“So you need what, Thomas?” Monique asked.

“A way for the Circle to fulfill its hope.”

They just looked at him.

“Maybe a few guns would do the trick.” Still those empty stares. “But I couldn’t, of course. I didn’t come for a way to kill.”

“And what else?” Monique pressed.

“Qurong. I brought the supreme commander of our greatest enemy in the hope of helping him put to rest the impossible stubbornness that’s badgered him all these years.”

“You shouldn’t have brought him,” she said.

“Why not?”

“He’s death.”

25

Billy leaned against the gurney, running through their options, which were clearly limited. The Raison Strain B virus had been stopped by the blood; this was good. He had finally, after over a decade of wondering, found himself—his inner demons, his purpose, all that made him tick. This was even better.

But the only way to reconnect with who he really was required the lost books. Right now, he was in the wrong world.

“There has to be a way out of this prison,” he said.

Janae whirled, furious. “It’s built to keep people in, you idiot! We’re stuck!”

Billy stood up. “So now I’m your enemy too?”

She closed her eyes, drew long breaths through her nostrils, and finally pushed air back out through pursed lips. Sweat matted her long black hair to her cheeks, and her mascara had run, but even so she looked as alluring as she had when she was Jezreal.

“Okay. Sorry. Sorry, I’m just . . .” Her eyes opened, misty. “This is all happening too quickly. I don’t know who I am anymore, Billy. I don’t know why I feel this way.”

His ability to read minds hadn’t been affected by the disease, but he didn’t need to look past her face to see that Janae was hopelessly lost. Like a newborn child seeing the light but not understanding where the womb had gone.

Thomas was lost as well. As were Kara and Monique. His mind-reading powers hadn’t been present while he was in Ba’al’s body, and they’d taken a few minutes to reassert themselves after waking, but in the short time he’d stared into Thomas’s mind, Billy had learned a few things.

He learned that the Circle was fracturing and might very well shatter with just a little more pressure.

He learned that Samuel, Thomas’s son, had betrayed him and gone to Eram.

And he learned the location of the three thousand who waited for the rest of the Circle to join them. All of the Circle in one canyon.

None of that helped him now, locked in this isolation room. He focused on Janae. She’d gone from a lost but spirited young woman to Jezreal in minutes. There could be no doubt: she was somehow tied to the Shataiki. But exactly how, and why
she
, of all people, he didn’t know yet.

Then again, her mother, Monique, had been at the center of Thomas Hunter’s life. Perhaps Janae’s father had approached Monique because of this.

Billy stepped in front of Janae and brushed her hair off her cheeks. “I know. You’re conflicted and it’s tearing you apart. Trust me, I’ve been there. When we get back, you won’t feel divided. We belong there, Janae. It’ll all be okay when we go home.”

She lunged forward and kissed him on the lips, drawing desperately on his breath. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, trembling.

“Don’t leave me behind,” she whispered. “Promise me, Billy. Never leave me.”

He pulled back, feeling awkward. She was like a woman possessed by a spirit that had awakened from the dead.

“I won’t leave you.”

“Swear it!”

“I swear.”

Qurong grunted, and Billy saw that he wore a scowl. Looking into his eyes, Billy saw more. Much more. And he felt compelled to set the record straight.

“Your forehead may bear Ba’al’s three claw marks, old man, but you hate him. On the other hand, you love your daughter, though you deny it. You fear Thomas more than you fear Teeleh. And deep down inside, you suspect that Elyon is real, but the Shataiki larvae have invaded your mind and made you stupid.”

Which is why I, not you, am the chosen one
, he didn’t say. “How do I know? Because I also know you were eating blueberries with sago paste when Thomas burst into your house and tricked you into this journey.”

Qurong’s gray eyes were round. What if the answer to how they might return somehow rested with this man?

“Be careful what you think, Qurong.” Let him stew on that for a minute.

Billy kissed Janae on the hair. “It’ll be okay, we’ll get back. Let’s take a deep breath and think this through. Starting with this beast.”

“I can tell you, there’s no way I would allow you to enter my world,” Qurong said, spitting on the clean floor. “You’re witches. Albinos who have an alliance with Ba’al. If you think you belong anywhere but hell, you’re mistaken.”

“This coming from an overgrown lizard who smells like hell,” Billy said.

Janae wiped her eyes and breathed out again. “Blood,” she said.

Billy frowned. “Blood?”

“Yes. I was drawn to the blood. When I was in Jezreal and you let me taste your blood . . . there was something about the blood that captivated me.”

“The blood books.” Having been with Ba’al even for an hour, Billy still had many of his memories, and he dipped into them now. “Thomas’s blood. Marsuuv gave Ba’al her blood when Ba’al was Billos. Ba’al became part of the Shataiki. How does that help us now?”

Janae studied Qurong. “Well . . .” She hurried to a closet, pulled the door wide, and withdrew a microscope. She tossed Billy a small, clear plastic box.

“Take a blood and skin sample from him. Apply them both to the slides.”

Billy looked at Qurong. “From him?”

“From him, yes. Hurry, we don’t have all day.”

“What’s the meaning of this?” Qurong demanded.

“It means that you’re going to let us look at your blood under this machine.” Billy walked up and handed him a glass slide. “Smear some of the blood from your wound on this piece of glass.”

Qurong looked at the slide as if it might be a weapon of great significance.

“Hurry!”

“This means nothing to me.”

“Do you want to go home before Ba’al takes your throne?”

The man grunted and plucked the slide from his hand. He awkwardly rubbed some of the blood from his finger onto the glass, then handed it back.

“And his skin,” Janae said, handing Billy a small scalpel.

“Now your skin.” Billy handed him another slide and the knife.

“You expect me to cut my skin off?”

“Just scrape some off.” Janae looked over from the eyepiece. “The thinner the better.”

“You heard her,” Billy snapped.

“Whatever for? This is preposterous!”

Janae spoke as she focused the microscope. “Call it grasping at straws, I don’t know, just do it. Has anyone ever studied your blood before? I doubt it. I’m a scientist, it’s what I do.”

Qurong scraped some skin off his forearm, then dragged the blade across the slide, depositing a layer of morst and dead flesh on the clear glass. “Albino fools.”

Billy set the slide on the counter next to Janae. “Anything?”

“This is . . . I think . . .” But she didn’t elaborate.

“What?”

Janae quickly pulled out the slide with blood and slipped in the sample of Qurong’s skin.

“What?” Billy demanded again.

“I . . . if I’m not mistaken, he has what looks to me—although I can’t be sure without more tests, this microscope isn’t the most powerful—”

“Just say it.”

She adjusted the focus. “He has something similar to the Raison Strain in his blood. Looks like a slightly different strain, but . . .” She adjusted her view of the skin sample.

Made sense. In a twisted kind of way.

Janae gasped and left her mouth agape.

“What?”

She straightened, eyes on Qurong.

“What?”

“That’s it,” she said, approaching the man. She reached for him. “Can I have a closer look?”

He hesitantly held out his arm. Janae took his wrist in one hand and rubbed her thumb on his skin. “Horde are a little stronger than albino. Isn’t that correct?”

“Yes,” Qurong and Billy said in unison.

“But albino are much quicker,” she said. “They don’t have the same pain and their joints are free to move with ease.”

“So some claim.”

“For heaven’s sake, Janae, just—”

“I know why they’re stronger,” she said, looking at Billy with some wonder. “It’s the Shataiki.”

“They have Shataiki blood?”

“No. Maybe, I don’t know. But their skin is infested with millions of microscopic larvae.”

“Shataiki larvae,” Billy said, mind overflowing with Ba’al’s knowledge. “The twelve queens spawned by Teeleh reproduce by laying eggs that form unfertilized larvae. They can live for centuries in this state until another Shataiki fertilizes them with blood.”

“How?”

“They bite. Pass blood through their fangs.”

“Vampires.”

“No, Shataiki,” Billy said, then shrugged. “Same difference.”

Qurong was staring at his arm. “Worms?”

“Tiny larvae,” Janae said, hurrying back to the microscope and peering in. “In this world we have scabies, a skin disease caused by a tiny mite called
Sarcoptes scabiei
, invisible to the naked eye. They burrow into the skin and lay eggs that produce larvae and more mites. The rash on the skin is a reaction to the mites. Similar to what we have here.”

She looked up again. “The Horde are covered by Teeleh’s larvae. They evidently infect Horde blood with something similar to the first Raison Strain. But rather than kill them, the virus passes on some Shataiki properties, like strength.”

“Walking breeding grounds.”

“This is complete and utter foolishness,” Qurong said, dismissing them with a wave of his arm.

Billy suddenly knew how they might get out. “Janae, if we could get out of this isolation room, could you get us out of the laboratory?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at the main door, where two guards were normally posted.

“Surely there’s another way out of here. Ventilation, a passage, something.”

“Ventilation?” She blinked. “We’re underground, the vents are huge.” She brushed past him. “I was a kid when they built this place, and I crawled through some of them then. The main return shaft runs over the rooms down the hall, opening to each one.” She was staring at the two-foot- by-two-foot grille near the top of the wall, five feet to the left of the main door. “That would get us out. Maybe.”

“Maybe? Why wouldn’t it?”

“For starters, we’re boxed behind reinforced glass. And even if we followed the ventilation to the end of the hall without getting the guard’s attention, the shaft turns straight up, twenty feet. There’s no way—”

“We don’t need to go up,” Billy said. He tore the sheet off the nearest gurney and tossed it to Qurong. “Wrap this around your fists. The glass is made to withstand human force, but they didn’t have Horde in mind. You can break it.”

Qurong looked at the glass, the sheet in his hands, and then back at Billy. He tossed the sheet back. “I’ll take my chances here.”

“Whatever for? You heard Thomas! He has no intention of letting you jump back now that he has you under his thumb. He knew that kidnapping you would immobilize the Horde, perhaps giving the Eramites and Samuel the advantage they need to mount a crushing blow.”

The thought had just presented itself to Billy, and it made sense, maybe more than they knew. “But Thomas doesn’t know Ba’al the way you and I do. There’s no telling what the dark priest will do in your absence. We have to get back. Now!”

“Not like this. I go back with no advantage. I would just as soon trust Thomas as you.” Qurong was settling into his normative, crafty self.

“I can give you an advantage,” Janae said. She looked at Billy, gave him her thoughts, and then addressed Qurong when Billy nodded.

“I could give you a weapon. One that you could use to wipe out all of the Eramites, the albinos—any army that came against you.”

Qurong’s face twitched. “That’s not possible.”

“You know nothing of this world! What I have is small enough to take through the books, and believe me, it could end life in your world.”

“What is it?”

“A virus. A disease that will only affect those you want it to.”

“You’re bluffing. Whoever heard of such a thing?”

“You’re saying that a lot these days, I’ll bet,” she snapped, then motioned to their surroundings. “Whoever heard of
this
? Whoever heard of the reading of thoughts and the unlocking of time and space with a
book
? In reality the whole world is one big whoever-heard-of-it!”

“She’s got a point, you buffoon,” Billy said. It occurred to him that he was talking to the most powerful man in a world where he might soon need allies. He would have to curb the insults.

“You’re an intelligent man, Qurong. I saw this when I shared Ba’al’s mind, and frankly it scared me. You’re also the most powerful man on the planet. Your subjects tremble when you walk by. But we both know that everyone at the top is a target. What we’re offering you will ensure your survival. And we can be your greatest allies.”

The Horde was sweating again, but he wasn’t arguing.

“Every minute we stand here doubting puts distance between us and the lost books,” Janae scolded. “We have to move.”

“How will you get out?” Qurong asked. “Where is this weapon?”

“Not in here.” She shoved her finger at the reinforced glass. “Break it! At least try, for heaven’s sake.”

Qurong grunted and began to wrap the sheet around his elbow. “I don’t like this. You put me at your mercy. I have no reason to believe you’ll take me with you.”

“You have no choice but to trust us.”

The man kept his eyes on them as he stood by the large window, roughly eight by five. Qurong nodded, gripped his fist with his left hand, and slammed his elbow back against the glass without removing his eyes from Billy.

The room shook as the window fractured into a hundred thousand hairline cracks. Qurong pushed the broken glass, and it fell to the ground like rain.

Janae uttered something that made no sense, then scrambled over the sill into the main laboratory. She spun, motioning silence with a finger to her lips, and ran to the same electronically operated storage cabinet from which she’d withdrawn the Raison Strain B.

Working like a mouse over a crumb, she began punching in access numbers. She motioned to a closet and issued whispered orders. “A ladder and tools; remove the grate; wait for me. Just get it off.”