The Sons of Adam: The sequel of The Immortal Collection (A Saga of the Ancient Family Book 2) (29 page)

"That doesn't resolve the bit about the massacres and the cathedrals," I reminded her,

"That was the easiest bit to work out. The area is actually full of historic religious buildings. The Anglican church of St. Mark, built in 1845, is just one of them. There are many and it would take a long time to list them all. I also found his massacres. In the war of 1812 there was a raid down the St. Lawrence river which ended in a bloody battle, it seems that both sides massacred each other, English and Canadian militants against the American army. There are more massacres that stand out, one that had to do with the Native Indians in the area... but what can I tell you that you don't already know, right Iago?"

"It's more than a ten hour flight to New York," I said, worried. "We're going to take up half the deadline and if we're wrong about the location there won't be time to make up for it."

My father held up his hand, after casting an uneasy glance at the clock.

"Marion's theory seems feasible. After my failed search along the Galician coast, I had focused on
more exotic islands, although I've only found one cave called Massacre in New Zealand. I have to agree that all this fits in much better. But we don't have much time. Marion, can you go and check the flight on the screen at the gate? Iago and I will go and pay the bill.

Marion nodded, not too happy, and my father grabbed my arm and led me into the men's bathroom.

"Iago, I'm not going. I've just had a call from MAC, the Bibat management has just filed a criminal complaint for misappropriation of historical heritage. This is serious, son, I have to sort it out right now, they could shut down the museum and investigate both of us."

"What do you mean you're not coming?"

"As soon as it's sorted, I'll take the next flight to New York. I have to appear in court now, it's for the good of the museum."

"To hell with the museum, we can open a hundred like it tomorrow! We're talking about Adriana's life, father, what's happened to your priorities?"

"Believe me, I never lose sight of them."

"But you're leaving me to face Gunnarr and Nagorno on my own!" I shouted at him.

"Don't shout, son, and act as though you don't know. The walls have ears. And you're not going alone, you've got Marion. You were right, she's helped you and I apologize for my cold behavior, I guess that the millennia have left me as rather distrusting. I really am fond of Adriana and let's be honest, your situation doesn't seem to be right, given the circumstances."

He looked once more at his watch.

"Go now, I should go and take care of my business. Now, I want you to activate the Bluetooth on your cell," he said, taking his from his pocket. "I'm going to send you an audio file. I recorded a message for you that lasts for several hours. I've been preparing it over the last few days, as a contingency in case something like this happened. Listen to it on the plane, but just you. Nobody else must access it's content. It's the only thing I can do to keep protecting you.

So the time had finally come to learn about the secrets.

Finally.

"Protecting me, from what? From who?"

"Just listen to it, you'll understand everything," he insisted.

"How long have you been hiding a greater threat from me, father? I have a right to know."

"10,311 years, since the day your mother gave birth to you in the creak in Arnia. From that day I put you both in danger of death. But there's no time now for explications, I must go right now. Come on."

We held our phones close to each other and I received an audio file named TSOA.

"Lür," I said, "I know that I'm walking into some sort of a battle here. I've known ever since you and Marion met in the lab at my house. But I'm going in blind, you need to guide me, as you have so many times before. I trust your firm pulse. If we never see each other again, father, I want you to know that it was an honor being at your side."

We put our foreheads together, and I prayed that it wouldn't be the last time that we did.

I was a different man when I left that bathroom. More enlightened, more conscious of the danger I was going in to.

Marion came rushing over to us with the tickets in her hand as soon as she saw us. My father said a brief goodbye and I watched him leave, as Marion turned slighter pale.

"Isn't Lür coming?" she asked, frowning.

"Something's come up at the museum, a rather messy subject, Marion. We may be in problems with the law and it's not good for us to be exposed in that way," I said, pretending that it mattered to me. "He'll come as soon as it's resolved. Come on, let's not waste anymore time. We're on our own here."

36

Hundred and fifth massacre

LÜR

Current Japan, 18,000 B.C.

Lür no longer remembered that he had once been called Lür. He had abandoned his Real Name thousands of years ago, considering it to be cursed. He had also abandoned his appearance: he generally dyed his hair using boiled leaves and sometimes even shaved his head and eyebrows. He had become an expert in the art of disguise. The most discreet man on earth, always silent, always alone.

Until he went into that widow's piling hut. Two ghosts fishing for years along the shore of the lake, without seeing a soul for seasons at a time.

He didn't leave her alone very often, she wasn't dealing well with the pregnancy and she fainted every morning, but the river that flowed into the lake was freezing and he had to search for the fish further up stream. He promised her comforting kisses and hugs upon his return, and went off fishing with wicker baskets on his shoulders.

He was only gone for the time that it took the sun to move West, into the highest point of the sky, but when he returned, the Sons of Adam had already killed her and had also made sure that the child she carried in her stomach wouldn't survive either.

The man once known as Lür chopped the hut to the ground with his axe. That time he didn't even cry, he no longer remembered what it was to have emotions and he didn't know how to react to a loss.

Keep going, just keep going
, an inner voice that he always listened to ordered him.

The 21st century archaeologists found the bones of a young woman from the Jomon culture hugging her stomach with two cowrie shells at her feet. They speculated about long distance exchanges, of incongruous objects, separated by too many millennia to be related.

Hector del Castillo stole the remains and gave them a decent burial.

37

If I'm going to die tomorrow

ADRIANA

They were the worst days. Slow days, frozen days, days of silence.

I didn't hear anything else about Nagorno. Gunnarr didn't come to my cell at nights.

They'd forgotten about me or they were already punishing me, perhaps for the death of Nagorno. Maybe Gunnarr preferred to kill me like this, leaving me in a cell where I'd never be found, dying from thirst and starvation. A bad death, in any case, but what would have been a good way to die at his hands?

It was night when I heard the metallic sound of the lock.

Gunnarr came in with a harsh look on his face. He tried to hold my gaze, but I looked away, feeling uncomfortable.

"What's happened to Nagorno?"

"He's good,
stedmor
, he's really good. In fact right now he's like he was before, he's got his strength back and he feels young and strong again, but his heart's unstable. He could die at any moment. The doctors don't dare to treat him and my father doesn't know what to do."

"There's a new deadline for me, isn't there?"

"Less than twenty-four hours."

He sat down next to me on the bed. We sat there in silence for a long time.

"Nagorno told me that he taught you to look for a beautiful moment in every day, a hedonistic moment," I said, trying to think of something else to say.

"He did, I see that my uncle has told you a lot about himself."

"Well, you have been my moment, every night, with your stories."

"And I have to admit that you have been mine," he said, almost smiling. "My uncle hasn't been the best of company these last few days, and there's really not much to do around here. The nights are very long and monotonous."

"I should never have got mixed up with you lot, with the longevos. Even if I do survive this, this will happen again. Maybe you're right and you're not just people, maybe you're forces of nature, elements, or as Nagorno's always thought, demigods."

He nodded, but he was somewhere else.

"
Stedmor
, there's a code for these kinds of situations, a threat to fulfill."

"No, be clear: a sentence to execute."

"I can't let my father think that he can get away with killing his brother, that he inject him with a failed cure, and then think that Uncle Nagorno will hand you back over anyway. Do you understand?"

"Don't ask me to alleviate your guilt for my murder, you'll have to deal with that yourself. You don't have my forgiveness, I'm not going to indulge you. You have a choice and you're choice is to execute me. You're just a plain murderer, Gunnarr. Get over it and stop expecting me to understand. I'm not going to make this easy for you. That's why have you haven't been back the last few nights, while you were making a decision, not even you're heartless enough to kill someone you know."

"Did you do it on purpose?" he said, with a hoarse voice, as if he was finding it difficult to swallow. "Was it a survival strategy?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"This, that you and I connected like this,
stedmor
."

"Stop calling me
stedmor
." I shouted, tired of everything, and standing up.

"At least call me Adriana."

"No,
stedmor
.

"Why not, Gunnarr? Why not?"

"Because I'm better than my father!" he burst out, jumping up and standing in front of me, red with rage. "Because I constantly need to remind myself that you're my
stedmor
? I can't think of you as Adriana, because otherwise..."

"Otherwise what, Gunnarr? Otherwise what?"

He didn't say anything and left without saying goodbye, focusing on something that wasn't in that damn cell.

I stood looking at the door for quite some time, with a lost look. I had a lot to take in that night.

Gunnarr suddenly returned, agitated. He marched back into the cell and locked the door behind him.

"If I'm going to die, at least tell me what happened at Kinsale," I said. "You owe me that much."

He ignored me, like he always did when I asked him to talk about Kinsale. Like Iago, they both refused to share that memory with me.

"Do you really still believe that I'm going to kill you?" he asked me, and this time he held my gaze.

"Admit it Gunnarr, this isn't looking too good."

"Perhaps there are now other plans for you," he muttered.

We looked at each other again and I could tell that he was making snap decisions.

"Come upstairs and have dinner," he said in the end. "You don't deserve to be in this cell."

I never deserved it.

We dined in silence, the three of us, quiet and lost in the herb soup we each had in front of us. Nagorno greeted me with a cold nod of his head, young again and beautiful, but back to being glacier-like.

"Tell our guest that she should eat," he ordered Gunnarr, after I had spent too long pushing my soup around the bone china bowl with the silver spoon.

"Don't treat her like that, she saved your life."

"You heard me," was all Gunnarr said in reply.

"Don't treat her like that!" Gunnarr suddenly shouted. A hoarse sound escaped from Gunnarr's throat. It sounded like a roar, not like a human scream.

"My host is right," I calmly put in. "I should eat something. This dinner is important, I want you to remember it, I want you to remember it for a long time. Gunnarr, bring me some of that wine from my birth year. I could never toast with Iago."

Gunnarr went off to the wine cellar and came back after a while with a bottle.

He was about to come over and serve me the wine when he lifted his head, saw something behind Nagorno, and the bottle fell to the floor, smashing against the flagstone. His face was expressionless, empty.

Nagorno and I turned around in alarm. Standing in front of the chimney, Lür was watching us in silence.

38

Ilur

IAGO

We had an almost eleven hour flight ahead of us. We walked down the plane until we reached our first-class seats and Marion sat in the aisle and I sat next to the window.