Chapter 5 – Unknown Connections

Her eyes met those of the man chained to the floor in front of her, and she heard him screaming a name, though she couldn't hear the name over the roaring of blood in her ears, and the shrill screams she knew came from her. Her world narrowed to the man's eyes, and the pain that was eating her alive.

She knew those eyes.

Elisa woke with a start, her heart pounding, and her mouth dry. "No," she whispered, shaking her head violently. The dream was already beginning to fade from her mind, but she knew what it had been. "Not again."

She swung her legs over the edge of the cot that occupied one corner of her spacious office, resting her elbows on her knees, and burying her fingers in the hair at her temples. "Just a nightmare. A nightmare, Lis," she murmured to herself, trying to calm herself. "A nightmare caused by too much stress, and a less-than-pleasant encounter with a lycan."

Elisa clenched her hands into fists, pulling on her hair. "And there is nothing special about the source of the stress becoming involved in the dream. Nothing important."

She drew in another shuddering breath, before letting her hands relax, and standing. Even though she wanted to believe the nightmare was nothing, she knew that she wouldn't get back to sleep that night. Those dreams never let me sleep, good or bad.

Padding to her desk, she pulled out a slim journal, and turned on the lamp, curling in her chair to write another entry. After she'd written down what she remembered of the dream, she absently paged back to the last entry. Almost ten years. Not since I left home for university. Started my search for real vampires and werewolves. A search I started because of these dreams.

With a sigh, she placed the journal back into the drawer, her eyes straying to the photograph she'd set up on her desk. A picture that she always kept with her, ever since her mother had died. I was only six, and I insisted I was a vampire to anyone who would listen. Refused to wear any other costume for Halloween for almost seven years. So why does a lycan feature in my dreams? And why was I always so certain it was a lycan?

A shiver ran through her, and she got up again, changing into clean clothes before putting on a pot of coffee, and grabbing an orange out of the small refrigerator behind her desk. Elisa hummed softly as she ate, mentally drawing up a list of things she needed to work on. Check the cell cultures Jacob started yesterday, and see what happens when they are exposed to silver nitrate. Run the analysis on the vampire tissue samples, and see if Natalie left prints from my film in my box.

She flipped the page of her planning book, and grimaced. "Or I can leave the analysis of the vampire and his death until tomorrow, and concentrate on the cell cultures from Lucian's blood."

In red ink, she'd noted that she had to meet with Mr. Corwin, her employer, for lunch. And discussion of the progress in the research into the lyco-vampiric virus, and where the Corvinus strain fits into the whole scheme. A discussion of the foolishness of taking Lucian back to the apartment, and questioning of my reasons. Though perhaps I can deflect that, if I can find something in the cultured samples today.

With a shake of her head, Elisa poured herself a mug of coffee, adding cream and sugar with a generous hand before heading out of her office towards the lab.

"Good morning, Elisa!" Jacob chuckled as he stepped into the lab, stopping at her work bench. "Been here all night again?"

Elisa shrugged, leaning back from the microscope for a moment. "A little bit of trouble, is all. Moving again." She rubbed the back of her neck, yawning. "Is it nine o'clock already?"

"Closer to nine-thirty, actually." Jacob nodded to the microscope. "Find anything interesting?"

"As always, Jacob." Elisa waved him to look at the cell culture she'd been studying. "The cell cultures from Lucian are not normal. All the samples I have looked at since I arrived this morning have been like this. I wish I had a better sample to work with, instead of what we were able to collect from the discarded bandages. These are odd, and so far they have survived, but they clearly show damage from the silver nitrate, and I suspect the culture is not going to last."

"Mm-hmm." Jacob was peering through the microscope as he replied. "Have Zach look at these when he gets in." He pulled back. "I can't make heads or tails of this, but I'm a geneticist, not a virologist or biologist."

Elisa chuckled. "I will, Jacob. Do me a favor, though. Get a genetic print of the culture, if the genetic material is sufficiently intact to do so?"

"I can see what I can do. I'd be happier with a larger sample to work with, and something that wasn't exposed to silver nitrate." He frowned, gesturing at the culture again. "Are you sure that those cells are from a lycan?"

"Absolutely." Elisa held up a hand to stall his protest. "Yes, yes, I am aware that the cells are not what we expect from a lycan. I have never seen anything like them."

"I'll see what I can do, but I'd be happier with a larger sample to work with. Not to mention a sample untainted by silver nitrate." Jacob frowned. Not that those cells should be alive in the first place. The genetic structure should be in tatters, and they should be going through apoptosis.

He nodded to the culture under the microscope. "Are you certain those samples were from a lycan?"

"Absolutely. And I'm aware they aren't what we expect. I certainly haven't seen anything like them."

Jacob snorted. "It's just hard to believe that they're from a lycan. They shouldn't be alive. Exposure to silver usually initiates cellular death in tissues infected by the lycan strain of the virus."

"Not in all tissues, though. Not equally."

"Maybe not equally, Elisa, but it has always proven to be the case with red blood cells, and those are the only samples we have from this individual." Jacob shook his head. "This isn't normal at all, Elisa. I really doubt the person these cells are from is a lycan."

Though I have to grant you that it could be from a new strain of the lyco-vampiric virus, I'd much rather Zach propose that idea. He is, after all, our virologist, not me.

Elisa grimaced. "Perhaps he isn't. But I can't know that for certain unless we have a genetic profile. And I doubt there's a way to gather a fresh sample. I'm not likely to find Lucian again."

"I'll try." Jacob picked up the culture, heading for his workbench. "I'll have a report on your desk before I leave on what I find."

If I find anything, he added silently.

Elisa rubbed her temples as she made her way from the lab to her office, silently cursing the speed of the equipment that they had to work with. At least I have a theory to lay out for Mr. Corwin. Though I doubt he will appreciate that it would require going to locate Lucian again in order to confirm it.

"Trouble in the lab, Lis?" Alex was waiting at the door to her office, and watched her with a concerned expression on his face.

"No." Elisa shook her head, unlocking her office, and waving her bodyguard in. "Just frustration with the speed of equipment. It cannot keep up with any of us. We still have to wait until this evening before we even have a preliminary genetic profile for the samples. And that will not be sufficient to prove or disprove the current theory on why Lucian was able to metabolize the silver in his system, instead of the silver nitrate being the lethal toxin it should be." She sighed, pouring herself another mug of coffee. "I wish I had more to present to Mr. Corwin at lunch today, but I will have to be content with what I have."

Alex shrugged, sitting at the small table the coffee pot was on. "At least you have a theory. Gabe is still griping about that last dose of the drug being the cause of Lucian's escape."

Elisa shook her head. "Not likely. From what we have, it is more likely that he is the first example of an evolution of the lycan strain of the lyco-vampiric virus."

He winced. "Great. In other words, lycans are getting immune to silver?"

"I do not know." Elisa shook her head, drumming her fingers against her desk. "It is possible, but I suspect that there is something more. I cannot figure it out, but I feel there is something we are missing."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out, Lis." Alex smiled at her a moment. "But I didn't come to sit and talk. You said you had lunch with Mr. Corwin today, and Gabe is busy with other business, so I got volunteered to drive you over today."

"Other business?" Elisa raised an eyebrow in question as she set her coffee down. "Looking for a new place to live?"

"No. Setting up a post office box, and filing a carefully worded police report to explain the broken window as part of an attempt on your life."

"It was not an attempt on my life!" Elisa let out an exasperated sigh. "Really, Alex, could he not have thought of something else to explain it? Such as an attempted robbery gone wrong?"

Alex gave her a steady look that made it clear he had agreed to the interpretation of events that was being told to police. "Look, Lis, it's our job to protect you. And if that means we get the police involved, than that's what it means. Which is usually what happens when you pull a stunt like dumping us for a night out on your own. If you didn't do that, the police never would get involved, because it stays quiet, and out of the public view."

Elisa took a deep breath. "Fine. Give me a moment to change, would you, Alex? I will not be long."

"Not a problem, Lis. I'll be waiting outside." Alex rose, stepping outside while she changed into the business suit she'd asked Gabe to bring by.

"Good afternoon, Doctor Maloryn." Mr. Corwin stood to pull out the chair for Elisa as she came into the private dining room. "I trust you are doing well?"

Elisa smiled, letting him seat her before she replied. "As well as can be expected, Mr. Corwin." She looked up at the waiter who almost materialized at her side. "If I might have a cup of green tea?"

"Of course, madame."

Mr. Corwin waited for the man to leave before speaking again. "I hear you had an incident a few nights ago with a lycan. You were not harmed?" He gave her a concerned look, and Elisa shook her head.

"Other than a few bruises to my ego after being lectured like an errant child, I am fine, Mr. Corwin. And I must admit, I did act rather foolishly in bringing Lucian to the apartment."

"Indeed," Mr. Corwin replied dryly. "Though perhaps better than if you had brought him back to the lab."

Elisa winced. That thought had run through her mind in the last couple of days as she tried to think of what she might have done better the night she met Lucian. "If I had brought him back to the lab, we might not be at the impasse we currently are."

"Impasse?" Mr. Corwin raised an eyebrow, curious.

Elisa slid the folder over to him, a tight smile on her face. "When I found Lucian, he was suffering from acute silver poisoning which appeared to have been caused by silver nitrate. He demonstrated not only a capacity to survive it, but to recover at a rate even greater than what one would expect. Even when we take into account that lycans have an enhanced metabolism, and that Lucian had received two doses of the silver-binder, he recovered from the poisoning faster than I might expect."

"Could the abnormal results be from a period of time spent in the catacombs prior to your arrival there?" Mr. Corwin was leafing through the folder, his eyes rapidly scanning the information it contained.

"Zach suggested that possibility yesterday, but observations made this morning make it more likely that there is a new strain of the lyco-vampiric virus evolving. Jacob is preparing a genetic profile from the samples we have, though the degradation due to silver nitrate make them ill-suited to the task."

Mr. Corwin looked up sharply. "You would prefer fresh samples, properly collected, I expect?"

Elisa nodded. "They would prove easier for Jacob to work with, and there is less likelihood of contamination from other sources in a properly retrieved sample. Not to mention, a properly retrieved tissue sample may contain an intact sample of the virus itself, which Zach would appreciate. He never has had the chance to study the mechanism the virus uses to infect a cell, and if it uses different mechanisms to infect different tissue types."

And if I am able to talk with Lucian again, I can chase away this silly notion that I knew him before I even met him. That he managed to worm his way into my teenage dreams and nightmares. I could not have known him, and he could not be in my dreams if I did not know him.

Closing the folder, Mr. Corwin took a deep breath, his expression neutral. "I cannot send you out to encounter this lycan again without a full team, Elisa. And I have deep reservations about attempting to contact the lycan again in the first place."

"Mr. Corwin, I know it is a dangerous task. But I have expected this entire career to be dangerous, with the high probability that I will be killed while doing my job rather than having a chance to retire." Elisa paused as the door opened, resuming the conversation only after the waiter had poured her tea and left again.

"This is the chance of a lifetime, Mr. Corwin. And no opportunity of this magnitude comes without risk. Jacob and Zach know as much about the research as I do, and a good forensic technician can be hired to do my field work if I am unable to do so. But neither Jacob or Zach, or even some technician down the road will have the chance I might have. To speak with a living lycan, and learn about their culture, as well as their physiology. To truly understand them, in a way no one ever has outside of their own species."

Elisa gave Mr. Corwin an almost pleading look. "This is the chance I have been hoping would come along, that will push my research years ahead." She paused. "He might even be able to give us an answer to why you were attacked by lycans, and why so many people in the Corvinus line have vanished over the years."

Author's Notes: Thank you to my reviewers for this chapter - DarkKyoko, Sea Fire, Shadow Girl63, and ShadowFiction. I'm glad you enjoyedit, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story!

Chapter six is titled Playing By the Rules, and I'll have it uploaded in about a month or so, give or take a week.

"Well? Now what?"

Lucian shrugged. "We let them find me."

-Chapter Six, Playing By the Rules