For the Dead Travel Fast
—-xxx—-
Kate had struggled with the lock on the door, but Castle must have grown impatient, because he took over and basically just busted it. There was no getting around the obvious fact of its brokenness—the face of the lock itself was popped off—but she didn't mention their losing the element of surprise because she could tell by his face that he was astonished by having done it at all.
She knew it was difficult for Castle to reconcile his newfound strengths with the actuality of their lives. He was going to be strong now. And no, she didn't have the medical terminology to explain why or how these chemical processes worked, probably it was something to do with the algae's ability to repair cells, (yes, she had been listening), but the point was, her lived experience was also valuable to them.
Her experience said get the hell out.
With the door lock busted, they crept out of the negative pressure room and into the fishbowl of the nurses' station, a weird sensation of air dragging at them as they crossed he threshold.
"Um, I just had a thought," Castle whispered, half-hunched as if he ought to make himself a narrower profile. "The negative pressure was keeping my spores from circulating. Now what happens when it gets out there."
"Ee're on the clock," she said. "She'll smell us eventually and come running to tell us to get back inside, so get moving, Castle. I want to see what's in her lab."
"I haven't actually seen a lab." He didn't seem to mind her irritation, which she was grateful for, because her irritation wasn't aimed at him.
It was aimed at herself. That thought—that she was releasing his spores back into the world, so to speak, a beacon for stronger and faster and crazy vampires to come for—hadn't even crossed her mind.
Thus, her mind was not as reliable as she'd assumed.
She shook that conclusion and crept forward. "It has to be close. The times she went off to run lab tests on our blood, she wasn't gone long. What's through here?" She was careful to walk precisely down the tile floor, no sudden movements, no swiftness, to prove she could be trusted with her own damaged body. He was watching her like that, like she might do something dumb.
She had been known to push too far, when her obsessions overwhelmed her common sense, so she wasn't surprised by his watchfulness. She was mostly just sad. Sad that she hadn't proved herself, sad that she had the reputation for treating carelessly the thing he loved—her.
When they got home (if?), she was going to spend some time on this thought. She was going to bring it to her therapist and work through it, and she was going to figure out how to process his innate distrust of her with her own body, but most importantly, she was also going to find ways to gain that trust back.
Had she ever had it?
Maybe before the roof. No. That couldn't be true because he'd kept secrets from her about Bracken's identity before that. To keep her safe. Not just from the conspiracy, but also from herself.
This was too much to unpack right now. Keep moving—but carefully.
"Hey, what is this?" Castle muttered.
Kate, who had been making a slow but sure beeline for the far door—the only room without transparent glass for walls—now paused and glanced back at Castle, who had stopped at the nurses' station. "What is what."
Castle sat down in the chair at the main desk, bent over. "Some kind of… literature in here."
"Okay, Rick, I know you love snooping through people's bookshelves—"
"Ha. Medical literature, Kate. Pamphlets. Like the kind in doctors' offices."
"Oh?" She turned back for the door, laid her hand on the knob to test. Locked. "Hey, can you come shove this open with your phase-induced strength?"
"Huh? Yeah, one sec. There's good stuff about the lichen balance in here. How much garlic to how many parts onion. What properties induce red blood cells to carry iron. The best kinds of heme iron to find in the natural world. Wow. These are cool."
"Castle—"
"Ha. Listen to this: Restoring Your Natural Balance. Coming to balance in upir—it says upir, like the archaic Slavic, I think? for vampire—"
"How do you know archaic Slavic for vampire?"
"Research for the Wiccan-murder book. Not the point, listen: upir perfection requires steadfastness and diligence, and is one of the most important things we can ever do as we walk this long path. Through our transition, we learn, grow, serve, and become more Lichen with the ultimate goal of True Life when our Creator calls."
"When our Creator calls?" she croaked. "What the hell is that?"
"It's some kind of tract," he said. His face had grown rubbery, still. "Lichen growth doesn't always happen as it should. If we stop reading the Lore, stop attending the Horde, and break contact with other upir, we may end up falling out of balance and doubting our calling."
"Castle," she gasped. "That is insane."
"Or it's very… helpful."
She began limping back for him, trying not to run and pull open the still-tender but healing wound. "It is not helpful. It is not—"
"No, I meant, helpful for controlling the masses. The Horde. It's a gospel tract explaining the Way of Balance which leads to True Life, but it's all stuff she's been telling us about: the need for the algae to work in concert with the fungus to create the necessary environment for the VL to thrive. And, okay, there is a lot of religious language, but Chicago is close to the Bible belt—"
"In no way."
"—this could have some appeal. Or at least some sway with those who already think in these terms."
She peered over the edge of the nurses' station and he handed up one of the trifold pamphlets. It even had the same flat cartoons as gospel tracts she'd seen in the park or stuffed into the handle of her cruiser. There were quotes in red, as if from Scripture, but they must be references to the 'lore' the tract talked about. If one of you should wander from the Horde and someone should bring that Blood-brother back, remember this: Whoever returns a Lost One from their Imbalance will save them from death and cover a multitude of derangements.
And a lot more. This 'Creator' stuff seemed to indicate there was One who had begun the transition in a select handful (maybe that was in this lore she'd never read) who had then demanded some kind of obedience and following, and in turn, other creators did as well.
Creators were Progenitors, weren't they?
"You're right," Castle said softly. "This is scary." He cleared his throat. "Actually, this is giving me chills. The hair is standing up on my arms, look at this."
"They talk like it's a religion, all of this balance stuff. Like the Lichen is some great good. I'm not worshipping Royce, my creator, just to keep in balance."
"No. Definitely not," he murmured. "It's not so much what it's advocating that scares me. It's the power of the written word they're using here. This religious language is brainwashing. This is how a cult prompts obedience to the hive mind. It's purposeful." He looked up, his face grim, and flipped the tract over in her hands. Tapped the top. "See who publishes it?"
Published by Dr Harris, Hematologist, General Surgeon, Medical Lab Technician, and First Consult.
"What the fuck," she croaked.
"Dave said, ask her about balance."
Kate spread the pamphlet out over the counter, her eyes skipping over the words, her hands jittery. "Yes. And?"
"He's a Peacemaker for the Vampire Horde, right?" Castle bent down and rifled through a box in a drawer, came up with another tract. This one about Peacemakers, a friendly cartoon, how they were here to help. "This says Peacemakers have been specially altered to be immune to the 'First Transition.' Ergo, Dave has been altered. He could smell me, but he never got the urge to bite."
Maybe she was more affected by the blood-taking than she'd thought, because she was not following him. "Okay?"
"What did they do to him, Kate? This Horde the tract espouses, come back to the Horde, achieve balance. What did they do to him?"
Probably nothing, but she wanted Castle on her side about leaving this place, so she merely shrugged.
He glanced down at the literature in his lap, tracts with matte cartoons about vampire lore and staying in the horde to achieve balance. She didn't want the Horde; she didn't need the damn Horde. The Horde had fucked her up.
"Castle," she called, drawing his attention. With difficulty, he took his eyes off the tracts and peered up at her. She tore the pamphlet in half and half again, then scattered it over the nurses' station. "I want to find the First Consult's lab, see what she has planned for us. Help me unlock this door. Can you do that?"
He nodded and slowly stood, pushing himself off the desk and moving around the open drawer as if suddenly an old old man.
Her throat closed up. She hadn't wanted to completely blow up his illusions about vampirism. But he had to face the facts.
The folk lore about vampires was never kind. Vampires didn't save people.
They tore open throats and went for the vulnerable.
—-xxx—-