Chaos and Moonlight (Order of the Nines Book 1) (25 page)

The fact that Rhiannon had painted them all still boggled her mind.

She and Nick were currently ensconced in her studio, using the ample space and abundance of natural lighting to do what they’d initially been brought here to do. The long metal tables that Judah and Achan brought in housed their entire lab. She wasn’t exactly sure how they’d managed to do it, but from the small dorm fridge they used to protect specimens down to the very last slide and dropper, all of it was present and accounted for.

There was a strange, stark contrast in the decor. The bottom half of the room was clinical and sterile, while the walls displayed the vibrant life of art. She was particularly mesmerized by the portraits. So detailed and real, they seemed more like elaborate photographs than oil on canvas. And Rhiannon had managed to capture each subject perfectly—Achan’s joking smile, Kalin’s sweet soul, Judah’s wisdom and finesse. In particular, the portrait of Zillah intrigued her quite a bit. She was smiling, something Sarah had yet to see her do. There was something different about her, a happiness that she didn’t have now.

And then there was Taris.

The dark backdrop of the painting made him seem fierce and dangerous, while the subtle shading and light that Rhiannon had added to his face gave him a regal, intimidating air. The amber gaze looking down at her from the canvas made her heart beat faster. She wiggled in her seat and couldn’t help but feel like she was losing herself to him all over again. The heat of his mouth, the passion in his touch, that desperately coveted moment when they first joined together, all of it played out in her mind again as she stared into those expertly created eyes.

“You’re mine,” he’d said. Just thinking about his deep voice whispering those words was about to make her come unglued without a single touch. They’d both built up walls against each other, but just as quickly as they’d been put up, they had come crashing down with a violent explosion of desire and the realization that this was something more important than just the chemical reaction between a man and a woman.

“SARAH!”

Her eyes shot down and met Nick’s irritated stare.

“Are we going to work or what?”

She cleared her throat and nodded her head. “Sorry. I was distracted.”

“No shit,” Nick muttered, turning back to the microscope in front of him. “So can we put our working hats on and get this ball rolling? I have most of the components put together. We just need to make sure the compound is stable before we start testing anything.”

Sarah nodded again and grabbed a set of latex gloves from a box nearby. She could daydream about Taris later.

“So,” Nick said, not even looking up from his microscope, “I noticed that Taris didn’t come back last night. Caught him creeping in this morning like a school kid. It was…odd.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat and dug around in the small dorm fridge underneath the table. “How the hell am I supposed to know where he was?”

“Someone sounds guilty. I didn’t ask you where he was. I simply said he came in all sneaky like.” He tilted his head to look at her, a sly smile on his face. “You have something you want to tell me?”

“Not particularly, no,” she said, still rummaging. “Of course, you know everything, so I’m sure you’ve already come to your own conclusions.” She wasn’t about to volunteer that she’d spent the last few hours underneath Taris, having the most passionate sex that had ever been documented in the course of her life’s history.

“Besides, why are you pressing me for details? I should be asking you what could have possibly happened between you and Kalin last night that would have caused her to not only to come with you this morning but bring you coffee and kiss your cheek. You wanna fill me in on that one, sir?” She rose up from the fridge and pulled out a tube of blood that Judah had willingly donated. She placed it in the centrifuge and pushed the button, sending it spinning with a steady
whir
. “Why is it you have bags under your eyes and a smile on your face when just two weeks ago you were drunk in my living room, talking about wanting to die? Bet you didn’t think I heard that, did you? How is it your ear is perfectly healed, hmm?”

Nick’s face flushed. “A gentleman does not kiss and tell.”

Had Sarah been able to read his mind, she would have known about Kalin’s misguided suicide attempt and Nick’s subsequent rescue. She would have also known that she’d tended to his ear and healed it. She would have known the two of them had yet to get any sleep for staying up and talking. Kalin knew about the virus he had and all about his life, the nature of his friendship with Sarah, and his love of all things historical. By the time Nick had to leave to meet Sarah at the lab, he knew all about Kalin, her upbringing, the man she almost married, and that she loved the Discovery Channel and red wine. In the course of just a few hours, they had fallen in love with each other.

Sarah also would have known that Nick knew all about her and Taris.
Everybody
knew. With the excessive amount of racket and wall banging that had taken place the night before, it would have been impossible for the greater metropolis not to have known. They’d been the talk of the kitchen table that morning. After Nick was formally introduced to everyone, the gossip about the night’s events had commenced. Rather than fill her in on the sewing circle, Nick looked back down into the microscope and jotted down a few notes.

Sarah continued to gather all of the instruments together that were needed to do the slide testing. In their original lab, they had live organs that had been harvested from organ donors to test on, but since it wasn’t organ failure that was the problem, they had to go back to the drawing board. After much debate and a few trials to make sure the transportation process did not damage the compound, they decided blood testing was going to be the best course of action.

“I’ve been looking at their blood, and it’s amazing,” Nick said. “The erythrocytes are twice the normal size.”

“Let me see.” He slid over as Sarah approached the scope. She absently pulled the black band from around her wrist and pulled her hair back before leaning down to look in. The red blood cells on the slide were huge, and despite the fact that they were not being moved by an active circulatory system, they continued to slip and slide past one another as if they did so of their own volition. “This is amazing,” she whispered as she heard the timer go off on the centrifuge. “Let’s see what the readout says.”

Sarah pulled the printout from the centrifuge and stared, wide-eyed. “Nick. Look at this.”

She handed him the paper, and after glancing over it, he had to sit down. “This can’t be real. There has to be an error,” he said, still looking at the paper as if the information on it would change. “Run it again.”

“There’s no error, Nick.” Sarah took the sheet from him and read it again. “I’ll run a few more of them to see if it was a readout fluke, though.” She ran to the fridge and pulled out the rack of blood-filled tubes. Each tube had a label with the patient’s name on it. One by one, she prepared them, placed them in the centrifuge and waited for them to spin out and separate. As the results came out, she labeled each one according to who gave the sample. Once they were all spun out and analyzed, she and Nick sat down and spread the results out on the large table.

“Incredible. Absolutely incredible,” she mumbled as she read over the results. “They have three amino acid chains in the hemoglobin instead of two, their white blood cells comprise almost 5 percent of their blood instead of the typical one percent, and their platelet count is through the roof. In every single test, it’s the same. Incredible.”

The composition explained almost everything. The amped-up immune system, the need for their blood cells to consume other cells, their ability to fight off illness and disease, it all made sense. Granted, there was still so much about them she didn’t know, and no matter how much time she and Nick spent in the lab, they probably would never know everything. What they did know, however, was that they were dealing with something that could have only been created divinely. She’d marveled at the intricacies of the human body in medical school and stood in awe of the wonder that was man. Now she stood face-to-face with something even more astounding.

“Fill two syringes with the serum. Get a needle, a tourniquet, and some sample tubes,” Sarah said. “We need to start testing.”

* * *

Achan sat cross-legged on the floor, his back leaning against the jamb of the door that led down into Rhiannon’s studio. His foot twitched with nervous anticipation. His fingers drummed against his thighs. Every few moments, he would glance over his shoulder, hoping for some sign of movement.

“This is worse than Christmas,” he muttered, gently banging his head against the wood behind him.

For hours, the entire household had been camped out in the hallway outside of the door. Rhiannon suggested, on more than one occasion, that they all find something else to occupy their time, and for a few brief moments, they would do so. But one by one, they slowly filtered their way back to the door, waiting and praying. A cruel tease came every time they heard the whirring of a machine or the tinkle of test-tubes. Eventually, music began to flood from the room, and their momentary glimpse into the scientific world that lay just beyond the threshold was blinded.

“This is taking forever,” Achan moaned. “Why is it taking so long?”

“They have a big job ahead of them,” Kalin said from beside him, taking his hand in hers and gently stroking his arm. “It will probably be a while before we know anything. We just have to have some faith.”

“Faith he has,” Judah chimed in. “It’s patience he holds in short supply.”

“Yeah, well, not everyone is the rock of fucking Gibraltar, pal,” he shot back.

Rhiannon lifted a finger to her lips and shushed them both. “Either of you idiots notice the music stopped?”

Silence fell over all of them, and they listened intently as there was a rush of tinkling test-tubes and a sudden burst of laughter coming from behind the door. Taris stepped over Judah’s outstretched legs and pressed an ear to the panel.

“Hear anything?” Zillah asked.

Taris shook his head. “Just mumbling.”

“Hmm.” Achan leaned over just enough to riffle around in his pocket. He pulled out a quarter and tossed it to Kalin.

“What is this for?” she whispered loudly.

“To flip and see who is going to rib him about doing the walk of shame this morning,” he smiled.

“No need,” Judah smiled at Taris, who was still pressing an ear to the door. “I took the liberty of playing twenty questions with him earlier.” Judah put a hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t want details, really, but I did want to know why I have to repair sheetrock in the other room.”

“I think a wee bit of sex did you good,” Rhiannon said. “She put a fire back in you, boy.”

“Would you can it, please?” Taris barked, but in spite of himself, he bit back a smile. “What happened with me and Sarah is none of your business.”

“We know you, brother,” Achan snorted. “Deny it all you want to. She’s got you in the grip.” Achan lifted a hand, palm up, curling his fingers and squeezing the air.

“We’ve had our fun,” Judah said. “Now can we all shut the hell up and get back to eavesdropping?” He glanced at Taris. “You catching anything yet?”

“Can’t really hear much of anything except some shuffling and th—”

The door flew open, and Taris let out a quick yell as he sprawled out onto the cold tile just inside the doorway. He was staring at large feet covered in sterile blue booties. Flipping over onto his back, he looked up at Nick, who was trying his hardest not to laugh.

“I was going to invite you all in to see the progress we’ve made, but since you’re all being pushy…”

“Shut up, Nick.” Sarah came up behind him, the smile on her face stretching from ear to ear. “Hurry up and get in here, all of you. You have to see this!”

Huddled around a small projector screen, Sarah began to explain and dissect every nuance of their process. From the stabilizing of the compound serum to the test-tube trials, she spoke so fast and with so much enthusiasm that she had to slow down and repeat herself a few times. Nick was no help whatsoever. He was content to let her take the reins on this one, since Kalin was in the room. Every so often, he would catch her glancing up at him with puppy-dog eyes. It was cute, and at any other moment in history, she would’ve leapt for joy over his happiness, but right now she was more focused on what they’d found.

“Your blood is so fascinating, I could literally study it forever,” she said to the collective group. “But the most interesting thing is the reaction it had when we introduced human blood.”

She walked over to the microscope connected to the projector and placed a slide on the platform. It was deep burgundy, but the individual elements were clear and discernible. The large, round cells danced around on the screen in front of the room. They watched, mesmerized as the cells twisted and turned around one another, coexisting in a strange symbiosis. Sarah suppressed a confident snicker as she dipped a long dropper into a tube of bright red blood.

“This is what happens when we introduce the untreated human blood into your blood’s natural environment.”

A drop of the human blood was placed on the slide, and instantly the two species began to swirl rapidly. They slipped and slid around one another, as if sizing up competition before the larger cells engulfed the smaller cells. Within moments, the larger cells began to shake violently, and, one by one, they began to burst apart.

Sarah stood in front of the projector with a look of pure anticipation. “See, the larger, more dominant cells are preprogrammed, you might say, to eat the smaller cells. When they do, like you guys have said, the advanced immune system of the human being rejects it and sees it as a cancer or some sort of virus. When you guys feed or eat or whatever you call it, your systems are designed to take it, so that kind of hemolysis doesn’t happen. It only happens in the system of the person who ingests it, and obviously, hemolysis occurs, which typically means painful death, which, of course, we want to avoid. Now, check this out.”