Love Immortal (27 page)

“So what, I’m supposed to go out and make my
first kill to complete the change? Or do I just need to drink your
blood?” Collin had calmed down a little, his initial fear replaced
by anger.

Percy sat on the floor, keeping several feet
between him and Collin so he would be less threatening.

“I was born in 1114 in what was then
Normandy. My family name was Kilkenny, and my given name was
Peredur. When I was 16, I joined the Templar Knights.

“While serving, I had an accident where I
should have died, but did not. I served the knights for nearly 200
years. When King Philip accused the Templars of heresy in the early
1300s, I was brought before the accusers as proof that the Templars
had found the Holy Grail and had used it to grant me everlasting
life, thus condemning me a heretic and accusing me of defiling the
Grail. I was imprisoned, awaiting execution when I was rescued by a
group of fleeing Templar Knights who took an oath to protect me,
and those like me. I changed my name to Percival Knighton, after
the knight of King Arthur’s court and escaped to Scotland. Sheriff
Payne, as you may have guessed, is a Templar, as is Dr. Babineaux.
They and their order are duty bound to protect us which is why they
will protect Jewell.

“When I met my wife in 1331, she was mortal,
like Jewell, but chose to live her life with me. We moved often, as
we do now, so as not to raise suspicion. Our flight brought us to
London in 1347.” He looked at Collin. “As a history major, I would
assume you know how I lost my wife.”

Collin stared at his uncle, unable to speak.
He swallowed, hard. “1348, the Black Death swept London, killing
millions,” he whispered.

Percy nodded slowly. “It was December, 1348.
Avelyn was one of its early victims. She was only twenty seven.”
Percy was crying, the pain as fresh as if she had died yesterday
instead of nearly 700 years ago.

“What did you do?” Collin had forgotten his
earlier incredulity.

“Well, I tried to kill myself. I started
working with the priests, visiting plague victims in hopes of
catching the plague myself. I wasn’t so lucky. When that didn’t
work I threw myself from the cliffs, knowing that my Avelyn was
waiting for me on the other side.”

“What happened?” Collin asked.

“It hurt,” Percy answered acerbically. “I was
encouraged as the tide came in and I found myself completely
submerged, but in a wretched twist of fate, the tide receded before
I died of suffocation. I laid there for three days before a local
fisherman found me, and took me back to his home where I stayed
until I had recovered enough to escape his hospitality. Like I
said, we are, for the most part, immortal, as my suicide attempt,
and your most recent escapade has displayed.”

“What do you mean, for the most part?”

“Well, we do age, just more slowly than
everyone else. It’s different for each of us, but on average we age
about one year for every twenty. Eventually, just like everyone
else, we die of old age. We can drown, though as I discovered, it
takes an unreasonably long time; fire will eventually kill us but
as with anyone else, if we don’t die from the burns, the pain is
excruciating. Decapitation is the quickest way to ensure a
premature death. That’s about it.”

Collin’s hand involuntarily rubbed at his
throat as he thought back to his parents. They had been
decapitated, and then the house was burned. Someone hadn’t been
taking any chances. “But, I’m 23 and I look my age, well, maybe a
little young, but I don’t look like I’m only a year old.”

“The Lazarus Gene, the key to this…disease,
lies dormant until after puberty, though there are other signs that
are present before that. The rapid healing, a photographic or near
photographic memory, we tend to be stronger and faster than
everyone else. Not excessively, but enough to make it noticeable.
And some of us have other…” he paused, searching for the right
word, “talents. The aging doesn’t begin to slow until after the
Lazarus Gene becomes active, usually between the ages of sixteen
and twenty-five.”

“What kinds of talents?” Collin asked,
curious.

“Well, telepathy is common, but there are
other unusual traits as well; traits that most people would refer
to as ESP.”

“So, because both of my parents were,
well…were like this, I am too? Why didn’t you tell me before? Why
keep it a secret?” Collin’s anger had been replaced with
curiosity.

“Because most children born to our kind, even
those exhibiting the trait, are considered skips. In other words,
one or more of the factors is missing. In some, the Lazarus Gene is
never triggered, but lies dormant throughout their lives. These
people live abnormally long lives, super centenarians who live to
be over one-hundred years old.” Collin’s uncle paused for a minute.
“Even though both of your parents were carriers of the disease,
there was only a slim chance, perhaps one in ten million that you
would exhibit all of the traits as well, and the Lazarus Gene would
activate. You should have been a skip.”

“But I wasn’t.” Collin replied
succinctly.

“No.” His uncle’s response was short,
poignant.

Collin’s uncle slowly stood. His face was
weary and filled with pain. He walked slowly to where Collin sat,
still huddled in the corner, and reached his hand down to his
nephew. Collin took his uncle’s hand and allowed his uncle to help
him stand. His uncle put his arm around Collin’s waist to support
him as they walked slowly to the bed.

“You still need some rest, and I haven’t
slept in…” Collin’s uncle thought for a moment, “nearly forty-eight
hours.” He looked at the rest of the people still standing in the
room, watching the exchange between uncle and nephew. “Gladys, you
need some sleep too. Dot, can you bring him some breakfast? Nothing
heavy. Some fruit and toast. Maybe some scrambled eggs.” Dot nodded
and hurried from the room, followed by the others. “I’ll let that
sink in a little. You’ll have questions I’m sure. We’ll talk more
later.” He leaned over and gently kissed Collin on the forehead
before walking slowly from the room, his head hung dejectedly, a
beaten man.

Collin lay in bed thinking about what his
uncle had told him. It couldn’t be true. There was no such thing as
immortality; well, not physical immortality. Of course there was
religious immortality, the idea of life after death, and
hypothetical immortality, living on through one’s fame, but humans
had been yearning for immortality since the dawn of man. There were
stories of immortality in every culture. The Iliad, Gilgamesh,
Ponce de Leon, the Holy Grail; maybe these weren’t just stories;
maybe they had some basis in fact.

What else had his uncle said? Other traits?
He had always been better at sports than all of his friends. And
telepathy; he thought that having telepathic powers would be really
cool. It just seemed so unbelievable. Everyone knew that physical
immortality was not achievable, at least not yet. He remembered the
movie Highlander. “There can be only one,” he said to himself with
a small laugh. Then he thought about what Ramirez had told McLeod
about McLeod’s mortal wife, “You must leave her, brother... When
Shakiko died I was shattered. I would save you that pain. Please,
let Heather go.” Wasn’t that exactly what his uncle had been trying
to tell him? Collin jumped when Dot opened the door, bringing him
his breakfast.

“How are you feeling honey?” Dot asked,
carefully placing the bed tray over his legs. Collin hadn’t
realized how hungry he was. Well, he thought irritably, of course
he was hungry; he hadn’t eaten in over twenty four hours thanks to
his uncle.

“A little better, I guess. A little hungry,
actually.” Dot smiled and started to leave. “Wait. Can you sit with
me while I eat?”

“Sure.” She pulled up the chair that Percy
had been sitting in earlier and placed it next to the bed. She sat
quietly, watching Collin pick at his food. “Did you want to talk
about something, or did you just want the company?” She smiled
warmly.

Collin ate a strawberry and then took a bite
of scrambled eggs before answering. “I think…I want to talk.” Dot
waited patiently while Collin ate a few more bites of his
breakfast. “Is my uncle crazy? Is that what’s really going on here?
You all wanted me to know that Uncle Percy is delusional?”

Dot looked into Collin’s eyes as she laid her
hand gently on his leg. “No, honey. Your Uncle isn’t crazy. We’ve
all wanted to tell you for years, but your uncle was just so sure
that you would be a skip. He wanted so badly for it to be true. You
don’t know how hard it was for him to admit that you were
afflicted.”

Collin nodded. “You? Are you immortal, or
whatever, too?”

Dot nodded. “We all are. Everyone in the
Family.”

“So then, if this is genetic, are we all
really related?”

“No. It’s like any other genetic disease.
Many people can have it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that
they’re related.”

Collin sat quietly for a moment, thinking
about what Dot had told him. “Why…why do you all talk about it like
it’s a disease? I mean, isn’t immortality what everyone wants?
Isn’t it humanity’s ultimate desire; to achieve immortality in some
form or another? Isn’t that why we have religion?”

“Maybe some people want it. The grass is
always greener…” Dot shrugged. “But that’s what it is Collin. It’s
a genetic mutation, like a cancer. It’s not normal. And it’s not…”
Dot trailed off.

“It’s not as wonderful as you thought it
would be?” Collin finished for her.

Dot shook her head and started to get up.

“Wait.” Dot paused as Collin called her back.
“How many are there? How many of you…of us?”

“In the Family there are not quite two
hundred. We tend to stick together. That’s enough for now. Finish
up.” She walked quietly from the room, closing the door behind
her.

Collin carefully set the tray on the other
side of the bed and got up. He didn’t feel too bad. He walked to
the window and pulled the curtains back. The view was breathtaking.
He stared across a desert landscape, beautiful in its bareness,
against a backdrop of majestic mountain peaks. He turned when he
heard the door open.

“Do you feel well enough to come downstairs?”
His uncle was standing in the doorway.

“Yeah, sure. I guess.” Collin walked into a
hallway painted in light earth tones. He followed his uncle through
a large kitchen and into a sitting room with a large fireplace on
the far end. The window shades were open displaying a yard with a
pool, landscaped to look as if it was a natural oasis in the desert
surrounding it. Everyone was waiting, an impromptu meeting. He sat
down in an overstuffed suede chair and looked around the room.

“Well, what do you want to know?” Kendryck
started the conversation.

“Where are we?”

“Just outside of Tucson.” Carl answered.
Collin nodded, surveying the group surrounding him.

“And you all feel the same? That coming here
was necessary?” Everyone nodded. “When can I leave?”

“What?” His uncle was clearly surprised by
this question.

“When can I leave? I need to get back to
Jewell.”

His uncle was momentarily speechless. “Didn’t
you listen to anything we told you? You can’t go back. You need to
forget about Jewell.”

“I don’t see how that’s your decision.”

“It’s not yours either Collin! If I hadn’t
been selfish, Avelyn wouldn’t have died. You have no right to do to
Jewell what I did to Avelyn. If you truly love her, you’ll let her
go now, before it’s too late.”

“That’s between me and her Uncle Percy. I
think she has a right to know the truth and make her decision based
on that.”

“That’s not all. You’re putting her in danger
by being with her. We think the man stalking her is one of the
Obsidian Knights, the same group that killed your parents.”

“Excuse me? The who?” Collin was getting
exasperated. He needed to get back to Jewell.

“The Obsidian Knights. They were formed in
the 1300’s by order of King Phillip IV with the specific task of
obtaining evidence to prove the accusations of heresy brought by
the King and supported by the Catholic Church. The Obsidian Knights
continue to look for people like us. We…” he gestured around the
room, “are summarily executed for drinking from the Holy Grail to
obtain everlasting life.”

“Great. So you’re saying that my girlfriend,
because of me, is being stalked by some religious fanatics that
think I drank from a mythical cup? How do they know I didn’t just
go swimming in the Fountain of Youth?” The more Collin heard, the
more he knew that he had to get back to Jewell, at least to warn
her. “So what about these Templar Knights? Where are they?”

“Sheriff Payne is overseeing Jewell’s
protection. The Obsidian Knights will probably lose interest in a
week or two when they don’t find you.”

“Probably?” Collin looked at his uncle
unconvinced.

His uncle shrugged. “The point is we need to
think of the Family first.”

Collin had had enough. He got up from the
chair and started walking around the house looking for his keys. He
was in an unfamiliar place so he quickly became frustrated. Gladys
found Collin sitting in the dining room with his head in his hands.
She walked up to him and put her hand on his back. He looked up at
her, his eyes glistening with tears. She placed a set of car keys
on the table in front of him and walked away.

Collin slipped the keys into his pocket and
went back into the bedroom where he had been when he first regained
consciousness. He looked in the drawers of the bureau and found his
clothes, neatly arranged. He pulled out a clean set of clothes, and
wandered down the hall looking for a bathroom. After he had
showered, he felt a little better. He pulled the keys out of the
jeans he had been wearing and slipped them into his pocket. He
looked around the room and found a small suitcase in the closet. He
placed it on the bed and packed it with as many clothes as he could
fit in the bag. He set the bag inside the closet, and walked back
into the living room where his family was watching television. The
TV was on the far wall, facing away from the doorway, but the
living room was adjacent to the front door. He wandered around the
house until he found a side door, leading into a huge garage on the
opposite side of the house.