TEN
"What's happening to my business?" Nikola's tone was seemingly light, but carried an undercurrent of irritation. His head of security merely babbled, afraid of incurring his wrath, and Nikola hung up with a curse. He put a call through to Ylena instead. Pale freaks … at least they were capable.
"The main Lighthouse facility has just undergone a security breach. My countermeasures have been tampered with. I don't know what's going on, it seems all the personnel are fine, but I don't like what's just happened."
"We'll make a stop there before returning. New York and Berlin have checked out clean."
Nikola pinched the bridge of his nose. "And bring some wine." He cut the feed on the portable tablet (he hated using phones) and stowed it away in his desk. The wolf mutt had grudgingly given up half of his lab for Nikola to use and it was already a mess.
Well … that just made it harder for Henry or the hairy butler to snoop and inadvertently break one of his machines.
So, London, New York, Berlin and Moscow had all been discounted. While there were still over a dozen sanctuaries in the network, Nikola decided to narrow his search down to facilities that would have the technology to take the elemental. That meant Tokyo, which he was half sure would be clean, Mumbai, Cairo and Beijing. He wondered if he was being too hasty to jump to those four, but they were the primary suspects. If they all ruled out, then he would have to be more methodical.
He growled, working out a phantom itch in his shoulders. They just didn't have the time.
Helen, of course, would have a fit if she knew what he was doing. Espionage, and breaking and entering she might not have a problem with, but possible assassination… she would shoot him. Again. That was Helen, too honourable by half. This was something that needed to be done, and this way he could give her deniability.
He was planning and preparing his next lines of attack when an alarm went out in the Sanctuary. He looked up at the clock and realized he had been lost in thought for a couple hours.
By the time he arrived in the foyer, the entire team was there and Aurelian was carrying Ylerin in his arms. She was bleeding profusely, he couldn't tell from where, and she looked unconscious.
"Prepare the operating table!" The Big Guy ran off to get ready, and John gently took Ylerin into his own arms before teleporting to the infirmary. Aurelian's breathing was ragged, and he sank to his knees, distraught.
"What the hell happened?" Will asked, adamantly.
Nikola went down on one knee and looked sternly at Aurelian. The Sybarite seemed to understand, and discreetly a silver wisp left his mouth. Nikola inhaled sharply, rising to his feet, before Will hauled his friend up and tried to make sense of the sudden scene on their doorstep.
Nikola paced the foyer, Aurelian's most recent recollections flowing through his mind.
They had arrived at Lighthouse to find it sacked. The personnel had all been evacuated without harm. Lights flickering in the hallway. They entered his office … found his files stolen … his hard drives gone as well.
A presence. Aurelian turned, too late, and Ylerin was already on the floor. Men in black uniforms, all non-descript. A blow to the head. "Where is Doctor Tesla?" they demanded.
Aurelian managed to escape, but not steal any of their breath.
They are hunting you too now, blood demon.
Nikola felt his insides grow cold as ice. He paced aimlessly in the foyer until he realized he was entirely alone. Regaining his composure, he made his way down to the infirmary.
Ylerin looked small and frail in the sickbed, bandages wrapped around her head. She had needed over a dozen stitches, and was on a drip of broad-spectrum antibiotics to prevent any infection. Aurelian sat sadly by her bedside, feeding her small wisps of silvery mist every so often.
Kate chewed on her nail as she looked in on them. "Don't they have the same crazy healing voodoo you have?"
Nikola couldn't help a small smile at her colourful choice of words. "We're biological cousins, but they're still a different species. They're not as strong, and they are much more fragile."
"Look, I know you've been sending them out on missions. I can tell they've been working as your agents for a long time. I'm not here to tattle on you … I just hope it was worth it."
Nikola only graced her with an inquisitive eyebrow as if to ask "oh, really?" but spared her his usual vitriolic bite. She said nothing more as Helen entered the room, and quietly excused herself.
"What's going on, Nikola?"
Ah yes. No one could really get much by the esteemed Helen Magnus. "It seems I'm similarly being hunted as dear old Johnny."
Helen looked to Aurelian, he seemed far too preoccupied with feeding and attempting to speed up her recovery to pay much attention to them, but she couldn't underestimate his keen sense of hearing. She gestured for them to retire behind the glass barricade to the small medical lab.
Her mind was working overtime. "They want the energy elemental, and they also want you."
"It seems I'm popular again. You know, I'm rather insulted they haven't tried to abduct me first."
Helen tapped a finger to her lips, ignoring his less than helpful remark. "Do you think they need you to extract the elemental?"
Nikola shook his head, crossing his arms against his chest. "They've been hunting John since before they discovered I was alive. They must have already been confident they could extract it beforehand."
"Then why do you factor into their plans now? What do they want you to do with the elemental? What do they need you for?"
He could see the look on her face as she reached her conclusion, and his muscles tensed. He already knew what she was thinking and the look on his face dared her to speak of it. She looked mildly affronted at the death glare he was giving her, and pressed anyway. "Total, global hijack. They know you can do it. They want to use it somehow."
"A good magician never reveals his secrets, Helen."
She could only guess at the dark look in his eyes. "What was it about that day…"
"I don't want to speak of it," He snapped. "Helen, your patients need you." With that he turned smartly on his heel and left.
Within the hour he had found a hidden missive in the Sanctuary database addressed to him. Cute, once decrypted it was entirely in Serbian. And the message was short.
We will find you either way.
He merely laughed at it and erased it completely. They had nothing to bargain or threaten him with. Not as long as they still believed Helen was dead.
"Hmm … a total global hijack, and a bloodthirsty elemental."
Henry shrugged his shoulders, looking from Will to Helen. "I'm not an evil genius or anything, but if I had those two things I'd put them together. If you can access every communications channel, every airwave, every commercial and private database … you have access to an entire network of energy. Sounds like the perfect playground for an energy monster."
Will's mind was already racing down that line of thought. "So the total global hijack could be used as a carrier system for the elemental. It … it would put countries in a stranglehold."
Helen felt her pulse race, and grit her teeth. "It would bring countries to their knees. And the UN. No intelligence or home security force would be able to combat something that wreaks havoc on every device we use to keep people safe, let alone speak to one another. They want to use the elemental to blackmail the entire world."
Henry looked stunned, finding it hard to conceive of that amount of power. "But … what do they want?"
"And somehow they needed you out of it." Will pointed to Helen.
Helen shook her head, unable to find the answer. "I don't know … I'm afraid I can't find an insight to a mind so twisted."
Druitt sat on the rooftop. He spent most of his time up there these days. Usually Kate joined him (with a can of beer or two), but tonight he wanted to be alone.
He heard a clink behind him and cursed inwardly. He wasn't fit for any kind of company right now. He turned to look behind him and saw it was one of the Sybarites, the male. He hadn't really bothered to learn their names or get acquainted with them. The male eyed him and then sat down beside him.
"It is a beautiful moon tonight."
"Indeed," John grunted.
Aurelian looked at him, his black eyes piercing. "You know what it's like to do something unsavory because no one else can or has the stomach to."
John laughed mirthlessly. "Has Helen told you to lecture me about nobility?"
Aurelian looked confused and mildly affronted. "I don't take to being told to do something not within my interests. And I'm old enough to know nobility is a rare and often foolish thing."
"Then why are you here?" John's voice was menacing, his patience was wearing thin.
Aurelian passed him his mobile device. John skimmed the contents and saw blueprints and security layouts. "How did you get your hands on these?"
"Mumbai, Beijing, Tokyo and Cairo. I need to be at all of them tonight. I'm doing this with the blood demon, but I'm running out of time. You're the only one who can make this happen."
"This is all of Nikola's design?" John didn't bother hiding the distaste in his voice.
"Do you think asking for your help would be part of his design?"
John smirked at that. Nikola could be dangling from a cliff with no one else around for miles, and he still wouldn't ask for John's help out of sheer spite. He just wished Helen hadn't picked up the habit as well. "And your plans for the other sanctuaries are?"
"Do you know what I am?"
"A species of vampire."
Aurelian 'tsked', shaking his head as if to a child. The abnormal looked so much younger than him, but John was struck with the feeling of age and remembered that Helen had told him they were millennia old. "The doctor calls it halispirus vampirus." His eyes flashed. "Soul-stealer."
John understood. He rose and quietly said, "I'll go fetch my knives."
They slipped into Mumbai, silent as the night. A watchmen on duty rushed towards them and Aurelian seemed to slide through the shadows, unseen.
"You! What are you doing he-" He fell to the ground, silver mist bleeding from his nose and mouth. Aurelian's eyes flickered for a moment before he whispered, "The EM shield's power source is in the main circuitry."
Disabling the shield and security feeds was child's play, and soon they appeared in the Head of House's bedroom with a flash of orange light. Druitt stood nervously by the door as Aurelian coaxed silvery mist from the sleeping woman.
"Are you sure she won't feel anything?"
Silver mist disappeared into Aurelian's mouth. "Just a mild headache upon awakening. Or … she will not wake at all."
Every muscle in John's body was tense as a coiled spring. He felt like there were eyes watching him from every direction. Aurelian stood silently, eyelids flickering, until he finally whispered, "It is not her. We can leave."
Tokyo passed by without incident. They slipped in and out under half an hour like thieves in the darkness.
In Beijing they tripped a motion sensor and had to steal away to another part of the city. Aurelian spat out a curse in a language John didn't understand.
"That was not supposed to be there!"
"So, they've reinforced their security secretly without any records of updating their protocols. Perhaps they're afraid of something…"
Aurelian nodded slowly. "Or hiding something."
"The EM shields will be at full strength."
"Then we find another way."
John knocked out two of the guards on watch and they changed quickly into the uniforms, hiding the bodies in an alleyway. Slipping inside, Aurelian found the security mainframe and with some gentle "persuasion" managed to uncover the override code. The technician lay unconscious by his desk and they arranged it so he looked like he would be sleeping.
It would have taken too long to disable the EM shields at full strength, so they crept to the office of the Head of House instead. He lay sleeping, slumped over his desk. John held a finger to his lips as Aurelian knelt beside the man, coaxing out his breath with a curled finger.
His eyelids flickered as he processed the memories. The man suddenly stirred awake.
John immediately grabbed Aurelian and ran for the window. They crashed through it, hearing startled yells and gunfire behind them. Falling, Aurelian was too shocked to scream and clutched onto John's coat tightly. Before they hit the ground they vanished in a swirl of orange light.
"Damnit," John yelled once they had safely reappeared in Old City. He was tempted to kick over the garbage can beside him when he saw Aurelian was on his knees.
"Is everything all right?"
Aurelian gasped, his eyelids fluttering. "Fear. A secret meeting. Darkness, shadows. A threat. Must cooperate or else Beijing will fall. A vote … of non-confidence in the doctor. All stop once news arrives of her death. Information … forced from them – designs, patents…"
John helped Aurelian to his feet and he suddenly grabbed John's shoulders. "I have seen your prison."
John fought to keep the fear from showing on his face. "They've built me a cage?"
"The corruption runs deeply. Beijing is innocent, but their technology was used to further this plan. They are afraid. There is something large … something very large happening here." Aurelian sighed, suddenly staggering back from the effort.
"But I am not sure what it is. I saw a face, not a memory but a thought. Fear for someone else is being roped into this web."
Aurelian beckoned John closer and a silver wisp left his parted lips. He gestured for John to inhale, and hesitantly John drew in a deep lungful of breath. An image swam into his mind as Aurelian looked at him expectantly. "Who is this woman?"
John felt his insides go cold. "The Chief Secretary of Defense with the UN."
"How do you feel?"
Ylerin's voice was raspy and thin, barely audible despite the blanket of stillness that covered the night. "Weak … slow…"
Nikola checked the medication drip she was hooked up to. He knew this was his fault, but he didn't know how to tell her he was sorry. She seemed too drugged to register much anyway.
"Is the moon out tonight?" She asked quietly.
Nikola rose and went over to the window. He drew back the curtains so she could see the fat, full moon hanging in the sky. Silver light washed the room and Ylerin smiled faintly.
"She is laughing at you, Nikola."
"You mean the Silver Lady?"
"Yes." Ylerin's voice was barely a whisper as she slipped back into sleep. "You and the doctor … it is a sad thing … she laughs at sad things…"
Still looking out the window at the brilliant night sky, Nikola didn't notice Helen quietly step away from the open door and disappear down the corridor.