Synthetic: Dark Beginning (26 page)

“This body just gets better and better,” said Ruby.

Kora screamed and clawed her way through the rubble until she could peer through the hole in the thick wall.  On the beach far below, Vaughn lay motionless.

“Watch out.” Gus hollered and Kora ducked a mere second before Ruby jumped over the edge, fully intending to take Kora with her.

Randall staggered up to Kora, his normally smooth hair sticking out in all directions. “We’re leaving.”

“No—I’m going down to help Vaughn,” said Kora, stumbling back to her feet. “I’m not going anywhere without him.”

Randall drew back his fist and smashed her in the jaw, sending her sprawling back to the ground.  “Alex, grab her,” was the last thing she heard before she blacked out.

Kora regained consciousness in the back of a limo, alone with Randall. He had his eyes fixed on her like a wrinkle that required smoothing.  “I’m meeting with clients when we get back. It’s unfortunate that Ruby won’t be joining us, but I refuse to let that destroy our wedding or the future of our new enterprise.”

“I won't marry you,” said Kora.

“How unfortunate.” Randall smiled coldly and swirled his drink. “When we drove from this miserable castle ten years ago, in much the same manner, I explained that we were the only ones who could save your life.  And we did. We gave you everything you needed to build your new body. You were terrified of dying and told us you could make something that would last forever. We were interested, of course. Who wouldn’t be? And after burning through billions of dollars, there you were: our little blue-haired immortal. But as luck would have it, you suffered brain damage during the surgery that wiped out your memory. And so we’ve waited patiently, all these years, for you to remember your craft.” Randall let out a long sigh. “If only we’d known about the squid.”

Kora stared out the window, too angry to meet Randall's gaze.  “Ishmael won’t work for anyone but me.”

Randall relaxed back into his plush seat. “As demonstrated by Ruby's threats, we can get the squid to do what we want by torturing you. And how convenient that you’re indestructible: Ishmael will labor to the sound of your screams.”

Kora shook her head. “I won’t let that happen. I won’t let you control him.”

“And how will you do that?”

“I’m not afraid to die anymore.”

“It’s a little late for that.” Randall leaned into the sunlight streaming through the window and Kora saw the faint surgical seams lining his face. “Once you defeat death, my dear, it doesn’t come back.  We’ve got you for as long as we want.”

Chapter 30

Vaughn lay in a wide crater made when he impacted with the sand. The ocean seemed to have gone silent, and he wondered if something had happened to his ears. Then he heard a loud thud only a few yards away from his head.

“Are you trying to play dead?” Ruby rubbed her bare toe in his hair.

Vaughn arched his neck up to look at her. “You jumped down after me? How thoughtful.”

“I want blood. I’m starving and since I got rid of the Food, that leaves me very few options.”

Vaughn turned on his side to look up at her. “What do you mean?”

Ruby squatted down, her surgical gown spilling in shreds around her shapely legs. “I packed them off. When was that? Yesterday morning. Sold them for nothing. I thought for sure you’d turn up and make a scene, but I guess you and Kora were busy.”

Vaughn dragged himself up onto his feet and scanned the distant Food compound for signs of life.

“You don’t drink blood anymore so you obviously don’t need them,” continued Ruby. “And I plan to hunt and kill my food. None of your lazy bullshit for me.”

He was barely listening as he stared at the quiet houses. By this time of day, he could always see people milling around on the decks or Ramon up on the roof banging away at something. “What about the children? And Iris?” His voice cracked.

“Gone too. Nothing you can do at this point. I’m sure they’ve been sorted by now and shipped off somewhere.”
Ruby stood up. She tried to slip her hands around his waist, but Vaughn pulled away from her. “Your girlfriend's gone, too. Randall took her back to Mirafield, so that just leaves you and me.”

“Let him go!” Gus ran down the beach but his feet, unaccustomed to quick travel, hit a rock and he collapsed to the sand.

“I spoke too soon.” Ruby burst into giggles and slapped her knee as she watched him floundering on the ground. “What shall I do with the hunchback? Maybe when I’m done with you, I’ll snap his neck if I can find it in that twisted mess of a hump.”

Vaughn lunged at Ruby, but she jumped up and kicked him in the chest, sending him flying backward into the water.

“I had no idea you were this wimpy. Kora has definitely improved her techniques over the years. I wish I could have fought that Alex. Now there’s a little warrior.” She watched, amused, as Vaughn struggled to pull himself out of the waves, coughing as they crashed into his face and filled his mouth with sand. “You’d rather come back up here on land and let me bash you to a pulp than go for a little swim?”

Ruby trailed her foot down Vaughn’s spine as he lay panting after reaching the sand beyond the water’s reach. She kicked him in his side and he curled into a ball. “You know, my dark one, we’ve put it off long enough. I think it’s time you finally learned to swim.”

Vaughn groaned and dug his fingers into the wet sand.

“Consider this your first and final lesson.” Ruby picked Vaughn up, held him high over her head, and threw him with all of her strength. He rocketed out to sea, the water passing below him in a white blur. He landed with a deafening splash and sank like a stone to the rocky bottom where he settled into a bed of seaweed between an old kitchen stove and a rusty shopping cart. He closed his eyes and waited, doing his best not to move while his body slowly healed. He hoped it would take Ruby a long time to find him among all the barnacle-encrusted junk, and did his best to blend into the murky floor. Only the fish seemed to know he didn’t belong there, and gathered in curious groups to stare at him.

An hour later, Vaughn was fully recovered and wondered if he’d lost Ruby for good. He felt a stab of panic when he remembered Gus was alone onshore, but then a pale object sliced through the water directly overhead. It dove with such agility that at first he thought it was a dolphin swimming toward him, but as it drew closer he saw Ruby’s pale, slender limbs. She hovered before him, her long hair fanned out around her head. Vaughn stared ahead with unmoving eyes. He could see her face cinch up with anger that radiated through the water like electricity: Ruby thought he was either unconscious or dead. She grabbed his arms and tried to hoist him to the surface, but he flopped lifelessly against her. Then, with the laziness of a lover, he wrapped his arms around her hips. Ruby seemed unalarmed by this move and probably thought his actions the involuntary spasms of a drowned man. It was only when she was unable to pry his clamped hands apart that Vaughn raised his head to smile at her.

Ruby stiffened in his arms and opened her jaws wide. Vaughn braced himself as she tore into the flesh on his neck. He felt her pull his blood into her mouth and knew he had only a matter of seconds before she tapped a major artery and drained him dry. Then she reeled back and blood clouded the water between them. Ruby coughed and gasped in agony as she vomited up all of Vaughn's blood. Something had gone wrong and this was his chance. Unlike him, Ruby needed air and if he could hold her under long enough, she would pass out. But in her desperation to get free, she delivered a blow that propelled him into a pile of rocks. Vaughn watched, helplessly locked to the bottom, as she jetted up to freedom and air. 

She’d nearly reached the glimmering surface, when a shadow shot through the water at a blinding speed. It tackled Ruby with such power that Vaughn could feel the water vibrate as if a bomb had gone off. Ruby threw out her arms like a lost soul as the figure dragged her deeper and deeper, until Vaughn recognized a pair of bright, globular eyes above flapping jowls. Humphrey streaked over Vaughn's head and switched on a light attached to his leather tool belt.

Vaughn howled with joy and ran to catch up with his brother, hacking a path through a vast, swaying kelp forests that stroked the surface like delicate fingers. He paid no attention as his bare feet cut against the sharp rocks, never taking his eyes from the light still visible through the murky water. He paused when he reached a large, encrusted sailboat with an octopus stuck to the side in a spiral of legs. The boat tipped into nothingness and Vaughn spotted Humphrey’s light circling far below as he waited for him to catch up.

He loped down the steep wall and a cloud of silt billowed into the water around him. Vaughn found Humphrey beside the hull of a sunken freighter that stretched several stories above their heads. Ruby lay completely unconscious in Humphrey’s flipperish arms, her head tipped back and breasts thrust up like the heroine on a vintage movie poster.

Humphrey gestured for Vaughn to follow as he swam around to the back. The ship had broken in half when it hit bottom, and the huge chunks of steel stabbing out from the massive gash now looked almost as much a part of the seafloor as the rocks surrounding it. Humphrey slipped through an opening and Vaughn walked in after him, wishing he could attain some form of buoyancy to keep up with his aquatic brother.

They wound deep into the heart of the ship through what, at one time, must have been the narrow corridors of the engine rooms. Crowds of fish swam in and out of the broken windows like tourists and scattered when they passed. At the bottom, Humphrey pointed to an ancient hatch and Vaughn yanked until it yawned open on corroded hinges. They entered a tight compartment with a ladder leading down into a chamber stacked with chains.

Vaughn dragged the massive links over to where Humphrey held Ruby down with his foot and piled them on top of her. They both spent the next hour scouring the ship for anything heavy and hauled it down into Ruby’s watery tomb. When the room was nearly full, Vaughn stood before the mountain of corroded metal and bowed his head. He prayed to whatever powers ruled the deep that nothing would wake this siren from her long and troubled sleep.

Chapter 31

Vaughn and Humphrey staggered onshore early the next morning. Humphrey swiveled his heavy torso from side to side and grunted with satisfaction. “Ruby was strong, but I seemed to have escaped any permanent damage. We're lucky Kora constructed her so she needed to breathe.  Did you see me tossing those chains about like ribbons? My back hasn’t felt this good in years.”

“I need to find Kora and Iris,” said Vaughn.
He swept his eyes from the castle to the Food's silent compound. “What the hell am I supposed to do first?”

Humphrey reached over and rubbed Vaughn’s shoulder. “We'll figure it out together.”

“Why didn’t Kora make me stronger? She could have made me powerful enough to protect her and everyone, but instead she gave me perfect ears.”
Vaughn kicked at the sand. He was exhausted but there was no time for rest.

Humphrey raised his bristly brows as he studied Vaughn’s ears. “I never noticed. They are a very nice shape.”

“If she’d made me strong, none of this could have happened,” he said, frustration pounding through him.

“Kora knows what it’s like to be around a man with incredible strength who protects you all the time. Who locks you away like a precious jewel. She didn’t want to risk going through that again when she made you as her lover.”

Vaughn stopped and stared at Humphrey. He could taste blood in his mouth from a cut lip. “She made me for Ruby.”

Humphrey shook his head. “Caleb told me that Kora made you for herself, as a form of revenge on him, though I'm sure she had other reasons as well. When Ruby finally saw you, she forced Kora to turn you into a vampire, then sold her off to Mirafield.”

Vaughn waded back into the surf up to his knees. “Why didn't she tell me?” He thought of all the bitter remarks and blame he'd heaped on Kora because of his condition as a vampire. Maybe she still didn't remember. “And why the hell was Caleb so cruel to her?”

Humphrey waded out to stand next to him. “Our brother has many demons in his past. I tried to warn him not to get close to Ruby, but he wanted too many things that only she could give him.”

“Like what?”

“A wife.  A child.  A family and a life of his own.”

Vaughn stared at the line where the sea meets the sky. “And Kora was his wife?”

“You already knew.”

“I could sense there was history between them.” Vaughn knew he was wasting time, but he felt as helpless onshore as he had at the bottom of the ocean while he watched Ruby swim to the surface.
“All I want is to save Kora, Iris, and the others.”
A flurry of terrifying images filled Vaughn’s mind. “Kora is probably married to that bastard, and Iris has been sold to some sweatshop by now.”

“The Food is made up of resourceful people.  Who knows?  Maybe they saved themselves.”

Vaughn stared at Humphrey, shocked that he would dangle such a false hope before him, but then he noticed a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
“Why are you saying that?”

“Amazing that after forty years of power saws with no earplugs, I still hear as well as I do.” Humphrey cupped a flipper to his head and pointed it away from the crashing waves.

Three huge trucks groaned up the highway. Vaughn jumped to his feet and swept up the beach that was already hot in the early morning sun. He saw Berta behind the wheel of the first truck and when she climbed down from the cab, he threw his arms around her. People poured out of the trailer, hugging and kissing. Berta disappeared to the other side of the cab while Vaughn caught Iris who jumped into his arms. He held her until she sprinted away to join the children who were storming down the beach in a howling pack as if reclaiming their rightful territory.

Vaughn rounded the truck in search of Berta. He found her bent over Joshua who lay in a pool of blood in the passenger’s seat, barefoot and dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts.
“I haven’t told anyone yet, there’s been no time, but he saved us. I saw it happen. I wanted to help but there was nothing I could do. He walked out and acted like the big asshole that he is and—” Berta’s face twisted with anguish. “They beat him to death.” She wiped her eyes with a dirty sleeve.

“Sounds like something he’d do.” Vaughn lifted Joshua off the seat. He felt heavier than he should for such a thin build, as if part of him had turned to stone.

“I know he’s dead,” said Berta in a raspy voice.

Vaughn pressed his fingers deep into Joshua’s swollen neck. “He’s still barely alive.”

Berta’s face brightened and she reached out to touch Joshua’s hand. “Can we take him to a hospital?”

“He’s a prisoner. They won’t take him unless Ruby’s with us. Besides, I don’t think a hospital could do much. Only Kora and Ishmael can save him.”

“Are they still back at the castle?”

“Randall took them away last night.”

Berta collapsed against the truck. “The last thing I said to him was that he was worthless. I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.”

Vaughn felt a strange lightness wash over him as he stared at Joshua’s destroyed face. An eye dangled by a thin strand and the flesh was so bloody and swollen he was almost unrecognizable. “We’ll take Joshua to her.”

“Are you crazy? You want to take him to Mirafield? They’ll never let us in.”

“Do you have your truck?”

“I left it behind.”

“Then we’ll have to take one of these rigs.”

Vaughn carried Joshua around to the trailer. The celebrating crowd fell silent when they saw him and cleared a path. People reached out to touch Joshua’s hand and Nellie crossed herself and mumbled a prayer.

Berta climbed into the truck and squatted down beside Joshua while Vaughn turned on a lantern that hung by a wire. “I’ll ride back here with him,” she said.

“But you’re a better driver than I am,” said Vaughn.

“He needs me right now. I’m the best one to take care of him.”

Vaughn turned the truck around when he reached a clearing along the highway and Iris lined up the children to wave at him. He grinned and waved back, thankful that none of the horrible visions that streamed through his head that morning had come true.

The truck was difficult to drive, even for someone skilled behind the wheel, and as he approached Dume Drive, he saw the Rolls parked across the road with Ivan standing in front of it.  He squinted up at Vaughn through the open window. “My Superbird looks like it’s been struck by a meteor.”

“I’m sorry, Ivan,” said Vaughn. “I swear, I’ll never ask to borrow another car ever again. I realize now that I’m hopeless.”

“It’s worse than that, Vaughn. You’re cursed. I’m scared to see you behind the wheel of this monster—move over.”

“I can’t. I have to go.  Joshua is dying in the back and I’m taking him to Kora.”

“He hasn’t got a chance in hell with you driving.”

“There’s no other way.”

“I’ll drive, but first we need something better than this barge. Follow me down to the garage.”

Gus was waiting with his left foot wrapped in a bandage from when he’d fallen on the beach. Ivan pulled the Winnebago out of the garage and parked it in the driveway. Vaughn and Berta carried Joshua inside and placed him on the spacious bed in the back. With everyone on board, Ivan gunned the RV up the hill to the highway.

“What if I get carsick again?” asked Gus, who was sitting on the couch.

“Doesn’t matter in this car,” said Ivan. “You can puke all you want as long as it’s away from me.”

“I like this thing,” said Vaughn, running his hand over the smooth leather seat. “There’s a sink in the kitchen. Puke there.”

When they reached Sunset Boulevard, Ivan effortlessly wove through traffic at a breakneck speed. He ignored the lights and only stopped once when he had to push through a crowd spilling into the street from an outdoor market.

“The city grows more hideous every time I see it,” he said, waving his fist at a pack of tattered children who were throwing rocks at the side of the Winnebago.

“What made you decide to help us, Ivan?” asked Vaughn. “Not that I'm surprised.  I know what an enormous heart you have deep in that gristly little chest.”

Ivan scowled at Vaughn. “The hell I do.  Caleb talked to me last night.  Gus set up a sign language translator on an old laptop and so we had a conversation for the first time in forever.”  A fond expression relaxed his tense face.  “He told me not to hang around caring for him.  That he'd be fine.  He wanted me to go help Kora.”

When they reached the towers of Mirafield, Ivan brought the Winnebago to an abrupt stop.  Guard towers stood on either side of a broad gate, dividing the twenty-foot walls.  “Why does it look like Mirafield takes up all of Santa Monica?” said Vaughn.

“Because it does,” said Ivan. 
“They live like kings inside those walls while the rest of the city rots.”

“Who are you here to see?” asked a guard, stepping out of the tower to get a closer look at Ivan.

“We’re here to see Kora Lazar,” said Ivan.

The guard stared but Ivan didn't flinch. “Are you from a company?”

“We’re from Randall's fabulous, private Malibu prison.”

“Could you step out of the vehicle please?” asked the guard, his hand on his weapon. “I’m going to have to discuss this with my superiors.”

Ivan’s face cinched up like an angry pug. “Are you a cop? Who are you to demand I leave my vehicle?”

“If you want entry, you’ll have to exit the bus while I run this by my supervisor.”

“Look,” said Ivan, standing on the seat so he could lean out the window. “There’s a guy in the back who’s dying. Kora is irritating as hell, but the best doctor in the world and we need her.”

“Then you need to turn around and take that man to a hospital.”

Ivan batted away Vaughn who struggled to drag him from the window. “Listen you poorly-dressed freak,” said Ivan. “Lift the damn gate or I’m going to get crazy on your face with this.” He drew a large kitchen knife from under the cuff of his velvet pants.

Vaughn finally managed to tear Ivan from the window and stuff him onto the floor. He opened his mouth to speak to the furious guard, who was already calling for backup, when the Winnebago roared forward and busted through the gate. Vaughn latched onto the steering wheel and glanced down to see Ivan sitting on the gas pedal. The RV shot over the manicured lawns and Vaughn managed to kick Ivan off the accelerator before they crashed into the base of a tree.  An army of security marched toward them with Alex in the lead, her face grim when she recognized Vaughn through the bus window.

“At least we didn’t crash,” said Ivan, climbing up off the floor.

“Only because I hit the brakes,” said Vaughn.

Ivan smiled and gave Vaughn an affectionate punch on the shoulder. “You know what, vampire?  You’re finally starting to learn.”