CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Summer gave way to autumn and the mornings became crisp. The trees were ablaze with a riot of color. Michael stopped asking Selene to meet with the team at Ziodex and went alone. He submitted to batteries of tests. He asked as many questions as he answered. The doctors and scientists were at first stunned and then thrilled to have access to a direct descendant of Alexander Corvinus. They were, however, not 'thrilled' when Michael told them he was not interested in using his genetic material to create a weapon. The only research he was interested in was the creation of a serum to either neutralize the vampiric and lycan viruses or eradicate them altogether. He would not participate in further genocide. When one particularly zealous doctor pressed his argument, Michael's eyes darkened and he growled softly. The entire lab fell silent and those nearest him stepped back.

On the morning of his third day there, the bottom dropped out of his already shaky world. When he walked into the lab, everyone was tight-lipped and grim. Michael was handed a newspaper, its lead story spelling the end of his carefully built world with Selene. He read the headlines several times and then looked up. All eyes were on him.

For several moments, no one spoke. Finally, "Dr. Corvin, you need to bring Viktor's heir here. We have the means to keep you safe."

Michael rubbed his jaw and glanced down at the newspaper again. "Did Ziodex know about this?"

"No, not until today. There were rumors…nothing concrete."

"Didn't anyone think I needed to know?" Michael demanded, his voice rising. "I've been here for the past two days and no one I've spoken to has said anything about this!"

A tall woman with beautifully shaped hands stepped from behind a table. "Let me explain something. During the course of one week last winter, authorities were called to crime scenes at the Ferenciek tere Station, at the apartment building of your last known address, the Nyugati railway terminal, an abandoned metro station, at a burned mansion at the foot of the Pilis Hills, and also a destroyed cargo ship docked near the Chain Bridge. At each one of those sites, bodies and remains were found that were beyond the scope of humanity. Autopsies revealed what was long suspected in Hungary: the existence of vampires and werewolves. What had previously been known by only a select few was suddenly a proven fact. What did you think would happen to knowledge like that? War has been declared on your kind, Dr. Corvin. After today, you cannot remain in this city. A purge has begun. You will be hunted down. To survive, you must let us send you out of the country."

"This is if I can convince Selene to leave."

"Frankly, you don't have a choice. Your face was all over the news last winter; you will be one of the first targets of the purge. I suggest you let a security team accompany you."

"I don't think I should draw attention. Let me go alone. I'll be back in an hour." And with that, Michael put his phone to his ear and ran.

Outside, a man was waiting for him. "Dr. Corvin, wait…wait!"

Impatient to be away, Michael stopped at the top of the stairs.

"Wait. I have something to tell you. I understand. I don't think your blood should be used to create warfare either."

The scientist caught up to him. "I do understand." He slowly unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt, pulled up the sleeve. He held out his left forearm. "I've been where you are," he said quietly. Michael looked down at the crudely drawn numbers tattooed into his skin and back up into the man's eyes.

"This purge? I've seen it before…I was fifteen years old the day I last saw my grandparents, saw my mother. My father had already been dead for months. We were standing outside our building and my mother was arguing with my grandmother about a suitcase. Do you believe that? A suitcase. Men with machine guns were everywhere. My grandfather pulled the suitcase out of my mother's hands and set it on the ground. It was full of photographs. My mother was crying and shaking her head the last time I saw her. I was put in the back of a truck; I never saw them again. This number…I got this number in Auschwitz. After the war I got this," he pulled aside his collar to show the scars left by fangs. "I was in a DP camp after the liberation of Dachau."

"I don't know what to say," Michael whispered.

"What is there to say? I was glad to be bitten. Do you hear me? Glad. I begged for it. I was on fire to wipe out the entire German race for what they did to me, to my family. For what they did to my people! I wanted to be immortal so I'd have the time and the strength to make them pay." The man stopped, looked out across the park. Finally, he looked back at Michael. "But would that have made me any better than them?"

Michael shook his head.

"You're right," the scientist softly agreed. "It wouldn't have. Don't let them use your blood to create a weapon against the lycans, Dr. Corvin. Let them use it instead to help humanity. Let them engineer the virus to give the power of regeneration to everyone, not just vampires and lycans. Or use it to cure some disease…but not to perpetuate genocide! The world has already witnessed one Holocaust."

"What about the purge going on right now? Today?" Michael asked. "Isn't that a Holocaust of its own?"

"Yes," the scientist nodded. "But you have the power to stop it. When you get to the States, call this man." He handed Michael a card. "He can help you."

Less than four hours later, surrounded by heavy security, Michael accompanied Selene out of the city. They crossed into Slovakia and spent the night at a small Ziodex facility in Bystrička. The following morning, they were driven into the Mala Fatra Mountains and there boarded a chartered plane from a private airstrip. Selene, who in six hundred years, had never ventured far from her Hungarian roots, seemed agitated and lost. She had very little to say and tightly closed her eyes as the plane lifted into the early morning sky.

It wasn't until they were out of Europe that Selene spoke. Without opening her eyes she said softly, "I just have one question."

Michael, who had been dozing, turned to her. "What is it?"

"Why did you tell the lab in Bystrička that I'd already given blood samples in Budapest? You know I didn't."

"They have enough of my blood to run all the tests they want."

"No, really, I want to know. Why?"

"You know as well as I do 'why', Selene."

She opened her eyes and raised her chin. "No, I don't." There was challenge in her expression, but also something else. Something furtive, something afraid.

Michael sighed heavily. "The level of hCG in your blood is elevated. If Ziodex is raided at some point and their files made public, I'm not going to have vampire hunters in body armor tracking us down, looking for a baby."

"That isn't going to happen," Selene said flatly. "You're a doctor."

"And that means what?"

"You're a doctor. Help me get rid of it."

For the first time since he had laid eyes on Selene in the subway terminal nearly a year before, Michael felt a stab of hatred. He stared at her, unable to bring any words to mind. She continued to look him in the eye, unwavering in her resolve. She held within her hands the power to hurt him more than he had ever been hurt before.

Michael sighed again. "Shit. Why do you always…always value life so little?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she demanded, "How did you know I was pregnant?"

He couldn't say it aloud, knowing how absurd it sounded. He wasn't sure how he could tell her of the silent conversations he'd already had with his baby, knowing it existed even before Selene did.

"Michael, I asked a simple question. How did you know?"

"I can hear it," Michael whispered.

"Hear it? What does that even mean? What are you saying?"

"I've been able to hear your heart beating and sense when you are close to me since I was bitten. A couple of days ago, something changed. I could hear something new. It took me a minute to figure out what it was and then I realized I was hearing another heartbeat."

Selene made a dismissive sound.

"Don't make me beg. I can hear the baby; don't ask me to kill it. I can't do that. You know I can't." Michael's words began to run together. "You look different to me; you smell different, sound different. I don't know how to explain it. Maybe it's something animals sense about their mates and it's a lycan trait. I don't know. But you know what? You know something else? I can feel it, here." He placed his palm over his heart. His voice faltered and he cleared his throat. "I'm telling you that I can hear the baby. I know that sounds crazy, but I am telling you it's true. I can hear it."

"OK, that is emotional blackmail," she snapped. "You are not going to talk me into becoming something I'm not. I have no interest in being the mother of a monster."

"And I am not going to murder my own child," Michael snapped back.

"A creature that feeds upon the blood of others is no one's definition of a child. That is an abomination."

"Selene, Viktor's ideas about what constitutes an abomination started a war that went on for centuries."

"Vampire children are forbidden."

"Really? By whom? What great coven exists at this point to make that decision?" Michael was becoming angrier by the minute. "Look, Lucian's men injected me with an enzyme the night they captured me. It delayed the transformation. Why can't the enzyme be perfected? Who's to say this baby has to be vampire or lycan?"

Abruptly, he stopped. Selene's hands were covering her ears. She leaned forward until her forehead touched her knees. She slowly began to rock back and forth. After a very long while, she leaned back again and closed her eyes. She did not utter another word. She did not speak again until nearly seventeen hours later, when at last their journey ended at a small lakefront airport.

Selene walked into the miniscule terminal through pouring rain. She silently waited with Michael while transportation arrangements were confirmed. When he came to stand beside her, he noticed she was trembling. He tried to take her hand and she slowly pulled away from him.

"Don't," was the only word she said.