The Sons of Adam: The sequel of The Immortal Collection (A Saga of the Ancient Family Book 2) (32 page)

He finally reached the domed room. A tall, muscular servant was waiting for his mistress next to the door. Lür paid him another small fortune and the slave left, no doubt thinking that Lür was a wealthy patrician about to indulge his perversions.

He crept into the room, where he could feel the hot hypocaust floor under his feet. His lungs breathed in a strong smell of pine. Through the steam he could make out the silhouette of a woman resting in a marble bath in the centre of the circular room. Next to her, on a small bronze, three-legged table, were all the items needed for her pampering: bottles of oils, a mirror and strigils, the metal scrapers that the Pompeians used to remove excess ointment from their bodies. At the foot of the bath was a copper amphora for the hot water and a large brazier, with its heavy marble lid lying to one side.

He slowly walked over to the bath. The woman was relaxing in it with her eyes closed. Lür stood behind her head, looking at the immense black hair that he already knew so well, and which was now floating in the hot water, covering Adana's naked body.

"What's happening out there, slave?" Adana asked without opening her eyes.

Lür picked up the small ointment jar, rubbed the oil into his hands and began to massage her face.

"The Pompeians believe that they are earth tremors," Lür replied, without trying to cover up his voice. "Just like seventeen years ago."

"So the best thing we can do is to stay here, the walls are strong, we'll be protected."

"There are lizards on the paths..." he whispered in her ear, and poured hot water from the amphora onto the brazier, until they were surrounded by a thick cloud of steam.

"The lizards have come out?" she repeated, starting to become nervous. She opened her eyes, but Lür kept her lying down, holding onto her shoulders so that Adana couldn't see him yet.

"Small black stones are falling, they're not heavy," he continued calmly. "Nobody can explain it. But the Pompeians aren't trying to leave the city."

"It's the mountain," Adana muttered. "Fire will come out of it."

"I know, I've seen it before, but they haven't."

"I must leave, right now," she said, trying to stand up.

"That's not going to happen." Lür held her down, wrapping his arm around Adana's neck, stopping her from getting out of the bath.

"I have many children in Pompeii, I must warn them, it will be too late for them."

"I know.”

I also have children to protect from you.

She finally understood the danger.

"What's the matter, madam, have I scared you?"

"You're not a slave, I can't see you properly. Give me a mirror."

Lür passed her the silver mirror from the table. A small circular disk with a lion skin handle.

"Your face..."

"What's the matter with my face?"

"You look so much like someone I used to know..."

"Maybe someone from my family."

"I don't think that anyone from his family is alive."

Adana went quiet and suddenly understood.

"Are you Lür?" she finally asked.

"Yes, I was once known by that name. But I don't use it anymore, you cursed it."

Adana tried again to sit up, but Lür sat on the edge of the bath, not allowing her any chance to escape.

"It's not possible, I saw your body."

"Maybe I can never die."

They were together again, after so many thousands of years, after so much that they'd been through together, after a shared history full of corpses.

"Have you come back to me? Have you finally repented at having left me?" she asked.

"No, Adana. I'm not here for that."

"Well, you should be! Don't you get it, that me and you should be together?"

"What I do know, unfortunately, is that I can't let you carry on living. A Cataclysm brought me to you, and it seems like it will take another Cataclysm to free me from you."

"Are you going to leave me here?" she asked in amazement.

"We've both seen mountains belching out fire like this before. First come the black pebbles that fall for hours, the roof over your head will collapse from the weight. Then the lava will start to flow, everyone will die immediately, the air will become deadly and maybe not even you will be able to survive without breathing. Then the ash will bury this city, as well as Herculaneum, Stabiae, and all the coastal villages will fall."

"And do you think that you'll be able to escape?"

"I'll be able to escape if I leave right now. I have several boats, they are small and fast. We have to go out to sea, it's the only way out. Every living thing in Pompeii will be dead by this afternoon. For thousands of years I've dreamed that I had enough cowrie shells to bury you alive. One for each child whose life you took. Isn't it ironic that you're going to end up buried here by black shells. Goodbye Adana, your journey ends here."

Lür held the heavy marble lid of the brazier over the bath, covering it, as if it were a gravestone, ignoring Adana's cries. He knew that she couldn't get out of that bath, that she would be buried by the volcano.

He couldn't stop looking over his shoulder as he ran. He ran through the streets, under the rain of black stones that were paving the city. Four of his boats left in time, before the sea retracted hours later. From high sea, he could see how, hour after hour, Pompeii and all its inhabitants, including Adana, were buried under several meters of ash.

41

Daughter of a lesser God

IAGO

We reached the tiny Belle Island by speed boat.  Surrounded by a rosary of small mounds of rock and manicured gardens, the Thousand Islands had been the favorite vacationing place for the local elite since the mid 19th century. I spotted several peculiar castles on the surrounding islets, and wondered if Dana was being held in a similar building.

When we reached the small private jetty that Marion pulled the boat into, I began to note the worrying presence of men with white balaclavas wearing camouflage suites, also white, carrying silver weapons.

"Don't worry, they won't hurt us," Marion said, as if that sentence could calm my nerves.

I was entering the beast's lair and I was very aware of it.

"You're asking me to behave, aren't you?" I replied.

"Please."

I looked at my watch. I'd soon find out if Dana was really there, because I was ready to make an agreement, to negotiate, to fight. Whatever I had to do.

Marion led me through the grounds to an impressive 19th century mansion. Before going inside I saw several elegant towers on the corners and hundreds of windows. It must be huge on the inside. It took several minutes to cross the garden and reach the entrance steps.

"This is the unofficial headquarters of the Kronon Corporation, isn't it, Marion? The real one, the secret one."

"Bingo”, she mused, also nervous, also on edge.

At the entrance of the building, in front of the roll bar, Marion indicated that I had to leave my cell phone if I wanted to continue.

"I hope you know what you're about to do, Marion. After this there will be no going back for us," I whispered, as she guided me through the marble halls. Everything looked sterile and cold, like in a frozen Hell.

"We both know that I haven't been totally upfront, like you haven't been with me."

"Obviously."

We waited a second before opening the white door. She looked into my eyes with an infinite sorrow, as if I was a small child about to be exposed.

"One last piece of advice, Iago: you have to be prepared for anything. Think fast, because she will think faster, and don't be fooled by her appearance.

"I'm ready, let's get this over with. Time's running out."

He swallowed hard and pushed the door open.

They walked into an oval library. All the walls were covered with ancient books with transparent spines. A fur rug made from a whole pack of albino animals covered the floor under our feet. There were several large couches, it was a room that Dana could have lost herself in for hours, buried between the old volumes.

I counted eight white hooded people distributed around the room. Their silver weapons were pointing to the floor, but the effect was the same, intimidating.

In the middle of the room, a young woman had her back to us, concentrating on filling three glasses with a transparent liquor.

She was wearing a long white dress, it was almost a tunic. She could have walked through the Athens of Pericles or a 19th century theatre without sticking out, everything about her was timeless. A long face, dark eyes and a very long, dark braid that fell across her shoulder. She looked like the daughter of a lesser God. She seemed fragile, but the look in her eyes didn't correspond to that body. They were eyes that had seen everything. I felt like a newborn, and I was sure that next to her, I was.

"This is my mother, Urko," Marion said, without going near her, as if she was afraid of being close to her. "Not directly, I'm actually an eighth generation descendant."

"You haven't brought me Lür," whispered an almost inaudible voice, without raising her eyes from the glasses. What a strange accent, so sweet, so indeterminate.

"I know, Mother. But I think I've brought you something that's more important for all of us, I think that we can come to an arrangement that will suit us all."

"You haven't brought me Lür and you had him within your reach!" she shouted.

Then she looked at me for the first time, as if up until then I hadn't been in the room. It seemed as though events occurred differently in her head, not one after the other, but all at once, like communicating vessels.

"So, you're a descendant of Lür."

"I'm actually his oldest living son," I said, challenging her. Did it hurt her? Did it hurt her to remember the children she had had with my father that had died?

She gave a tight smile. I felt shivers run down my spine.

She went to the ice bucket, picked up some ice cubes with her hand and dropped them into the glasses.

"Here," she said, holding out a glass of liquor. "Let's celebrate the fact that you're alive."

"I won't toast."

"Yes, you will."

She placed the glass on the arm of a nearby sofa.

"I won't toast until you tell me something about my wife."

"Your wife? Who's your wife?" she asked, distracted, without taking her eyes of the glass I had refused.

"We know that you've found out something more than you let on about the longevo gene," Marion put in, with caution in her voice. "I know that you injected your brother with something that had nothing to do with the solution I proposed. You wouldn't have risked your wife dying, we know that there's something else. In exchange, we have located her, isn't that right, Mother?"

"Located, isn't she here?" I asked, nervously.

"No, but Mother knows what island she's on and we'll rescue her. Isn't that right, Mother?"

Mother didn't reply, she was no longer interested in the conversation.

"Isn't that right?" Marion insisted.

Mother's silence made my blood run cold.

"You promised me," Marion insisted. "You said that you'd take care of it, that nothing was impossible for you when it came to finding someone."

"You're a Daughter of Adam. Since when do you question me?"

Marion took a step forward and stood between Mother and I, as if that gesture would protect me.

The white soldiers raised their weapons in unison, almost unconsciously and mechanically.

"I've had enough, Mother. I wasn't born to be submissive."

"I've exiled people for much less, Maia. This is more important, Lür has not only managed to surround himself with a family of immortal children, but one of them has found the reason for our immortality. Don't I deserve to be the one that holds that secret, the most Ancient living person, doesn't it belong to me?"

"And what would you do if I gave it to you?" I wanted to know.

"I won't have any more weak children that grow old, just children like you."

"That, Adana, is not something that I'm going to share with you," I told her.

"We'll see," she whispered.

The last thing I remember was a blow from a gun to my temple.

42

A red sunrise

IAGO

I woke with a headache on a soft bed in a white, spacious bedroom. I got up and looked out of the barred window and saw that we were on the third floor of the mansion. It was starting to get light.

The sunrise was painting the sky with a worrying red color.

But I was not alone, Marion was waiting patiently, sitting on one of the armchairs in front of me. She had probably spent all night there watching over me in the same position. The dark circles under her eyes showed an infinite tiredness.