Secrets [5] Echoes: Part One (23 page)

“So, mine’s not just for killing?”

“Nope. It turns their flesh—human.” Jase finished with a shrug.

“But … how can that be?”

“Your venom coats each cell, attaching like—”

“No. How can my venom turn them to human again, but … kill them?”

“Because I believe it’s only one part of a greater puzzle. See—” He walked over and opened the freezer. “Exhibit A died and rigor mortis set in to his greater extremities roughly four hours later, as you’d expect. But when I performed the autopsy,” he said from inside the steel box, popping out a second later with a sheet-covered lump on a gurney, “I determined the cause of death to be…” He wheeled the bed to the middle of the room and went back to close the door.

“Are you waiting for a drumroll before you tell me?”

He laughed, securing the freezer, then came back and drummed the head of the gurney, flipping the sheet back so the naked and very dead body revealed all its insides under a horrid Y of an opening across its chest and down its middle.

I balked.

“Wanna take a guess what killed him?”

“Having his chest torn open?”

“Nope. This was done
after
death.” He leaned an elbow on the table and rested comfortably there as though the man was alive. “The real cause of death was … heart failure.”

“What?” I focused on Jason to ignore the thing on the table.

“We have no heartbeat, Ara.” He tapped the man’s chest above the open cavity. “As you know, with the life force of immortal blood, our hearts don’t
need
to beat. What if that’s it? What if the venom turns the flesh, and all we need is…” He looked at my hand.

“Something to start the heart again.”

“Right.”

We both grinned at each other across the dead body.

“Wait. Won’t a defibrillator do the trick?” I asked, looking at the machine across the room, realising then as I saw it that’d he probably already thought of that.

“Right again. Already tried it.” He jerked his head to the bulky-looking thing. “To no avail, pretty girl. And I think that’s because your energy isn’t just energy
—it’s a certain kind of energy.”

“A certain kind?” I asked, one brow arching, awaiting his brilliant explanation.

“Yup. It’s Nature’s Energy, like I told you when your head nearly exploded that day. But that doesn't just mean you get it from the ground. You inherited it and the ability to draw it from the ground.”

“Huh?”

He grabbed the tablet off the dead man’s gurney and fingered through a few things, turning the screen at last so I could see it. “I’ve taken notes out of one of the encyclopaedias in the library.”

I leaned closer, not too close so as to touch the dead man, and took a little look at the li
st. “A Cerulean Entity?”

“Yup.” He flipped it back around and his face lit with the gentle glow of the screen. “Not all born Lilithians are goddesses of the earth, and those that are inherit certain abilities
—always different. A Cerulean Entity is an Auress with the power to influence the life force, like you’re a pore in the earth with direct access to Nature’s Energy. You know how, for example, rose quartz gives off an electrical charge?”

“No, I didn’t know that, but I do now.”

He smiled and continued. “Well, all things, stones, minerals, etcetera, give off energy. Beings with your abilities can harness that energy and use it in almost any form. It’s not as simple as saying it’s either static or whatever energy. It’s something different almost every time—depending on its purpose. A defibrillator doesn’t work to start a vampire’s heart, because it’s not just a simple jolt they need. I think it’s almost like permission from the goddess—a very different kind of energy you use when you attempt it.”

I stood there with my gob open, a little dumbfounded.

“I thought perhaps before we even try this I should measure your amps so you have a general idea how much strength to apply, but I really think it’ll come down to instinct—something you’ll just have to get a ‘feel’ for.”

“Isn’t that a bit risky?”

He shrugged. “All in the name of science.”

“Great. We’re pioneers,” I said, unenthusiastically.

“Well, no sense in worrying about it before we’ve even tried,” he said, laying the tablet down again. “Wanna give it a go on a live subject?”

“Not really, but
… oh my God. Yes!”

Jase laughed.

I pushed my sleeves up my arms, but the excitement and hope raced through me so fast it brought a memory to the surface; the haunted face of my husband appearing like he was in the room. He’d fought longer and harder for those Damned than anyone. If there was a hope in Hell we could truly free them… “Hang on,” I said. “If we do this, David really should be here.”

“Yeah, of course.” Jason nodded, looking up only for a second from his clipboard. “Go grab him. I’ll get a test subject ready.”

“Okay. Be back in five.”

“Hang on,” he called, and I stopped. “Falcon’s still out there, right?”

“Mm-hm.” I nodded.

“Just making sure.”

“Why?”

“It’s dark out there,” he stated.

“I
can
walk up to the manor in the dark by myself, you know.”

He shrugged. “I’m sure you can. But it would be very ungentlemanly of me if I let you.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll see ya in a minute.”

***

Falcon followed me up toward David’s room, staying behind at a polite distance. I didn’t really want him any closer than a regular guard would come tonight, though, in case he settled himself somewhere within earshot of what I came to tell David. Part of me thought that Jason might want his theories kept under lock and key until we’d tested them.

“Falcon?” I said from the top of the stairs.

“Hm?”

“I need to talk to David about something private. Can you—”

“Say no more.” He stopped walking, showing both palms. “I’ll wait here.”

“Thanks.” I smiled back and then continued on, stopping at the end of the corridor to face the long line of closed doors leading to David’s. It still felt strange that he had his own room—a room that used to be Mike’s. I know Mike hated that room for the stained glass dome above the bed that depicted Lilith’s end, but I was pretty sure David would fall asleep every night with a smile on his face just imagining that story was mine. Probably imagining he was the one to inflict all those tortures on me. Not that any of those things ever happened to Lilith. They were all lies—passed down from one generation to the next to instil fear and keep Drake’s true motive surrounded by eternal confusion.

My deep thoughts about evil plots made the journey to David’s door feel like four steps, and as I reached the end of the corridor, about to knock, I quietly wondered what he’d be doing—where my eyes would find him when he called me to enter. His room hadn’t changed since Mike was in it. I knew that much. It was still laid out as an exact opposite to mine—the bed on the right not the left, the sitting room on the left not the right, and his feet, when he laid down to sleep, if you drew a direct line between both our beds, would be facing mine.

If it were me in there at this hour, I’d be sitting by my fire reading a book. But I wondered if David even lit a fire anymore—if he needed the warmth to make himself feel a little more human. He’d been so cold lately both to touch and to engage that I really had no idea now what he did when he was alone. The old David would have read some twisted, sadistic novel while sitting with his feet propped up on a footstool or table in front of him, probably still wearing socks but no shoes, his long toes curling every few minutes. He’d slowly sip a coffee, smirking every now and then when something really gross or horrid would happen, turning the pages faster and faster until the scene ended. The new David, though, well—I raised my hand to rap on the door—he was probably sitting in the dark, torturing small puppies or something.

At the sound of my knock, David granted me entry with a “Yo”, the excitement building up in my chest as I bounced inside, taking a giant breath and readying myself to expel the good news in one conjoined sentence.

But when my eyes searched the sitting room and the settee by the roaring fire, they found nothing but a humble glow and the romantic air of billowing organza curtains, lightly dancing in the autumn breeze. The room was warm despite the cold coming in freely, but in the seconds it took my eyes to find David, a white hot chill thinned my blood, syphoning it out through my fingertips and toes until all that pulsed in my limbs was a narrow creek of ice. My mouth stayed open, stuck on the breath I held. He didn’t even notice me standing here in the open doorway, his attentions clearly lost on the mop of blonde hair between his parted knees, his tangled fingers guiding the attached face gently along the length of his manhood.

He intimately whispered an unfamiliar name, finally giving my throat cause to swallow, chunking down the giant gulp of bile, and only as my eyes shifted from the Devil of Lust did I notice two more girls in wait: one by the bed, her arms bound behind her back, round, full breasts silky in the candlelight; and another in the throws of pillows beside David—her voluptuous legs parted, revealing a thin strip of thick black hair. The bed curtains waved me a greeting as I looked on, gently encasing the scene like drapes framing a theatre stage.

The seconds hand ticked to the third line on the clock above the fireplace, and as it jerked to the fourth since I entered the room, David finally looked up, our eyes meeting and locking in a mutual exchange of horror.

I plastered a hand to my eyes, twisting my chin toward my shoulder.

“Ara.” He grabbed both my arms and spun me away from the scene. And I didn’t mean to look, but my eyes instantly went to his nakedness, seeing a sheet there now. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“I…” I backed away from him. “I’m sorry. I just came to tell you—”

“I thought you were someone else. If I’d known that was you, I would never have...” He stood there in front of me with his head lowered, his eyes closing. “I’m sorry.”

I wiped the shock down my face with a gentle hand from my brow to my lips, looking involuntarily back at the girls. A chain hung in a taut line down from the canopy of the bed, connecting with a collar on the neck of the girl on the floor. She trembled slightly—something I could see even from here, but when I looked into her eyes, saw nothing of fear. They sat patiently, obediently on David, darkened with what I knew only too well was a pool of lust. The blond girl laid relaxed and baring all on her side, her head propped up with the ball of her palm, watching us intently, while the girl whose landing strip I’d already seen pushed up on her elbows to find David, revealing a rather nasty-looking gag around her mouth.

“What are you
doing
to those girls, David?” I nearly cried, about to run over and untie them.

“It’s just sex, Ara,” he said flatly.

My shaking hand rose and, with a dead-straight arm, aimed accusation at the scene. “That does not look like sex!”

“It’s
… look, everyone’s different, okay.”

“But
…” I tore my eyes away from an almost perfect pair of nipples.

“What? You don’t approve of the way I do things?”

“No, I just…” I swallowed hard to keep the emotion from my voice. “I didn’t know you were having sex with other…” What were they? Vampire? Human? I sniffed the air. “People.”

He laughed. “But it’s okay for
you
to do it?”

“Me?” My eyes opened in horror.

“I saw you and my brother … at the falls.”

“The falls! When?”

“A few weeks ago.”

I thought about that for a second. David wasn't even home a few weeks ago, and I’d only been out to the falls with Jason
once
. And we certainly didn’t have sex! “Did you…?” It clicked then. “You saw a memory?”

He nodded.

“Well, that’s almost as bad as eavesdropping, David. You don’t get the full story.” I pointed to my head and replayed it all for him.

He closed his eyes, taking a slow breath inward. “Oh.”

I threw my hands up. “You are unbelievable!”

“Ara, I’m sorry. I didn't know, okay. I thought you were still sleeping with him.”

“Still?” I stepped forward. “Still? I did it once.
Once
. And it was—” I almost said
a mistake
, but stopped myself, throwing my hands up again. “Whatever. Look, I just came to—”

“David?” one of the girls moaned, and a steel rod wedged itself in my spine, setting my teeth in a cage.

“You speak when you’re spoken to,” he said harshly, shooting a pointed finger at her.

The growing life inside me wriggled then, sending the bile I was clamping down in my gut up my throat, the cloud of shock and hurt so thick now it bubbled into anger. “You know, you’re not supposed to eat
those
in here.”