Footsteps pounded the corridor outside the tower. Gazmuuk and Friedrich rushed in with a crowd of Crovirs and Schwatzs.
‘The rest of your father’s army just arrived!’ Gazmuuk told Gabriel. ‘We’ve secured the island!’
He stopped when he saw the bodies on the floor. A sad light dawned in the Crovir noble’s eyes as he beheld Tomas Godard’s unmoving form.
Gabriel pushed away the helping hands around him and slowly climbed to his feet, his fingers clasped to his abdomen.
‘Make sure we destroy the virus,’ he ordered. ‘Santana still had some with her.’
He joined me when I rose silently from the floor with the body of my grandfather cradled in my arms. We walked out onto the rooftop, Sheila on my other side.
Up ahead, the sun rose on a new day, pale fingers of light flaring across the horizon and turning the sea crimson. A dark spot appeared on the bright orb.
It grew rapidly as a flock of crows descended from the heavens.
Part Three: Resolution
Epilogue
The sound of an engine disturbed the lazy silence of the afternoon. I looked up from the paper in front of me and shaded my eyes with one hand. Barnabas’s ears twitched. The cat raised its head from my lap and followed my gaze.
Sunbeams danced across emerald-green waters, the light almost blinding in its radiance. A breeze rippled over the ocean surface and raised an army of small, foam-tipped waves that crashed onto a white beach.
The roar of the motor grew louder. A black speedboat appeared around the head of the cove and headed for the jetty in the lagoon a few hundred feet to my left.
I lowered the cat to the ground before rising from the wicker chair and strolling to the edge of the veranda that fronted the two-hundred-year-old colonial house I now called my home.
‘Sheila?’ I called out over my shoulder.
Soft steps sounded behind me.
‘Yes?’ Sheila came out through the patio doors. ‘Oh. Our visitors are here.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll make some drinks.’ She kissed me and disappeared inside the house.
‘Did I hear someone mention the word “drinks”?’ someone gasped on my right. Ashely appeared around the corner of the house. ‘Could I have a splash of whisky in mine?’
Sweat poured down his face and he breathed heavily from his run around the island. The golden retriever puppy panting at his side stopped in its tracks and turned toward the approaching boat. The animal’s back visibly stiffened. It let out a series of sharp barks, its tail tracing frantic circles in the air while it jumped back and forth.
Ashely grimaced and shook his head. ‘I don’t know whether that means “Stay off my island or I’ll bite you” or “Please come and play with me”. And who the hell names a dog Peanut?’
‘I heard that!’ Sheila shouted through an open window.
The speedboat glided to a stop behind the hundred-foot luxury yacht already moored at the landing. A man jumped out and secured the vessel to the pier. A second man climbed onto the wooden jetty and looked around with evident interest.
The pair made their way up toward the house.
‘This is a nice place you’ve got here,’ said Shamsky Gazmuuk as he climbed the steps to the veranda.
‘Thanks.’ I shook his hand briskly and turned to the man behind him. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
Gabriel Dvorsky hugged me and smiled. ‘Same here.’ He looked to my left. ‘Hello, Ashely.’
Ashely nodded at the two men. Sheila came out of the house with a tray of drinks.
Gabriel crossed the deck, kissed her on the cheeks, and took the tray off her. ‘My dear, you look as lovely as ever.’
A month had passed since the death of Tomas Godard.
Ironically, Chapman’s demise at Ashely’s hands had also been his final one.
Following the release of the Red Death on the Crovirs’ island fortress, those who had been exposed to the virus were quarantined and successfully treated with an antiserum Sheila made from a sample of my blood.
There were many changes in the immortal world in the weeks after the battle. Roman Dvorsky retired as the head of the Order of Schwatz Hunters and passed the mantle on to his son without any objections from the Councils, though he continued in his role as a senior advisor. Shamsky Gazmuuk was temporarily appointed the leader of the Order of Crovir Hunters until a suitable replacement could be voted in.
After the unprecedented menace posed by Santana and her army of faithful followers, both immortal First Councils had committed to working closely together in an attempt to subvert any similar future threats. It said a lot for Gabriel’s and Shamsky’s influences that such an unparalleled agreement had been made in so short a time. There were many still among both factions who disapproved of this new alliance between the Schwatzs and the Crovirs. There would undoubtedly be challenges ahead for the two leaders, but so far, the fragile peace was holding.
As for Sheila and I, we left Europe the day after we buried our grandfather’s ashes in Prague. We spent a week in my apartment in Boston while we finalized the purchase of our new home, a private island in the Pacific Ocean.
The location was known to only six people: the Dvorskys, Pierre and Solange Vauquois, Ashely, and now Shamsky Gazmuuk.
Two days ago, Gabriel called to say that the Crovir noble wished to meet with us urgently; Gazmuuk apparently had some important information to impart and he wanted to do it in person.
‘Are you visiting for a while?’ Gabriel asked Ashely presently.
Ashely shook his head. ‘I leave tomorrow, I’m afraid. I have business to take care of in Boston. We’ve just taken on some new employees.’
The Reynolds and Carpenter Agency had grown a fair bit in the last month. There were now three more detectives working full-time with Ashely, two of them old friends from the police force. A larger office had become vacant in our building and we moved premises a week ago. We even had a new secretary; it was Mrs. Houghbey’s daughter, Izzie.
Although I still co-owned the business, I had opted out of working in the field for the time being. Most of my tasks were currently research-based and I performed them more than adequately from the new state-of-the-art study in our home.
We had also started constructing Sheila’s new lab on the other side of the island.
‘I see your scar has almost faded.’ Gabriel indicated the mark under Ashely’s left clavicle.
‘Yes, it has.’
Ashely and I exchanged guarded glances.
Something else had started to become evident since before the final battle with Santana’s army; from the time that he received Sheila’s blood in Prague, Ashely’s wounds had all healed at an alarmingly accelerated rate. Although it was not yet as fast as an immortal’s regenerative abilities, it was still greater than that of a human. Even more astounding was what was happening to the injuries he had sustained before the transfusion: his old scars were also slowly disappearing.
Sheila assured us that such a thing had never happened on the rare occasions when a human had received immortal blood.
We had yet to tell Gabriel and Shamsky of this intriguing phenomenon.
I turned a questioning gaze on Gazmuuk. ‘Gabriel said you had something you wanted to tell us?’
‘Indeed, I did, although I’m not quite sure where to start,’ Gazmuuk admitted with a grimace. He looked to the clear waters beyond the veranda and the puppy playing on the beach before turning to me. ‘How much do you know of the history of the immortals?’
The question surprised me.
‘Not a lot,’ I said with a shrug. ‘As far as I recall, our races appeared in Europe some time around the mid-tenth century BC. They seem to have been at war pretty much since.’
Gazmuuk leaned back in his chair and watched me with narrowed eyes. ‘What if I were to tell you that this was not always the case? And that we’ve been around since well before that time?’
‘What do you
mean?’ I said after a short silence.
Gazmuuk did not answer the question directly. ‘What do you know about the Book of Genesis?’
I glanced at Sheila. She appeared as puzzled as I felt.
‘It’s the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament,’ I replied.
The Crovir nodded. ‘Good. Do you have any knowledge of the specifics of the third and fourth chapters?’ His eyes gleamed with a mysterious light.
‘You mean the accounts of how Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden and the subsequent stories of their descendants?’ said Sheila with a faint frown.
Gazmuuk smiled his approval. ‘Correct again. Of course, there’s more to it than that.’
Sheila raised an eyebrow. ‘There is?’
‘Yes. You’re aware that most of the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept in the Shrine of the Book, in Jerusalem?’ said Gazmuuk.
Sheila nodded, green eyes shining with intellectual curiosity.
‘As far as mortals are concerned, they’re the oldest scriptures ever discovered that reflect the actual wordings of the Old Testament and the Bible,’ added the Crovir noble.
A stunned hush fell across the veranda. The puppy yipped in the distance.
‘What d’you mean, as far as “mortals” are concerned?’ said Ashely.
‘It’s exactly as it sounds.’
Sheila inhaled sharply. ‘Are you saying that immortals possess documents older than the Dead Sea Scrolls?’
Gazmuuk did not reply immediately. Instead, he fixed me with a shrewd stare. ‘Do you recall where I was at the time Gabriel called me, after the compound in Virginia was attacked?’
I frowned. ‘Yes. You were in Egypt.’
Gazmuuk stared blindly into his glass. ‘The origin of our immortal races is a subject that has always fascinated me, even as a child.’ A wry grimace flashed across his face. ‘Although I’ve been the Head of our Immortal Culture and History Section for several centuries, I’ve spent a considerable amount of my own fortune before and during those years trying to satisfy my personal obsession with discovering where we truly came from.’ He sighed. ‘Ironically, the breakthrough I had been yearning for took place just after I discovered the whole unpleasant affair with Santana and her scheme of true immortality. My team of archaeologists found a cave in Egypt, in the mountains of the Eastern Desert. It was deep underground, which explains why the contents we discovered within were so well preserved. What with recent events and the need to reorganize the Crovir Councils, you can appreciate that I’ve been otherwise occupied of late. It’s only been in the last couple of weeks that I was able to start analyzing the materials we found.’
He met our gazes steadily. ‘The discovery is broadly made of two parts. The first is a series of scriptures that narrate the origins of the immortal races. They have been dated to approximately three thousand years BC.’
My eyes widened at his words. I felt my pulse start to race.
Gazmuuk looked from Sheila to me. ‘The second, and by far the most extraordinary finding, are the biological remains we found with the scriptures.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Sheila stated flatly in the silence that followed.
Gazmuuk shrugged. ‘The evidence doesn’t lie. Gabriel has seen the relics and can confirm my findings. We have of course moved the scriptures to a more secure location.’
The Schwatz leader nodded at our questioning gazes.
‘What are these…“remains” you’ve alluded to?’ I said after a while.
Gazmuuk’s eyes darkened. ‘Before I tell you about those, I must add that there were in fact two caves. The first one had unfortunately been ransacked when we discovered it. The second cave was located in a different rock formation.’
Lines creased Sheila’s brow. ‘Have you found out who looted the first cave?’
Gazmuuk shook his head. ‘No. But I’ve got my best agent on it.’
He gazed at us with a guarded expression. ‘The remains were a pair of hearts, embalmed in individual clay pots. I believe they belonged to the original Crovir and Schwatz, although this is difficult to ascertain without the rest of their bodies. Crovir and Schwatz were not just the names of our races. They were men born in the thirty-eighth century BC.’
He paused at our stares. ‘I know. I found it hard to believe myself at first. The genetic analysis we’ve carried out on the hearts shows that they were most likely brothers, a fact which is also supported by the translations of the scriptures. The texts tell most of their story and that of their father before them, a man named Romerus.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Now, this is where we all have to take a leap of faith.’
‘Really? I thought we did that a while ago,’ said Ashely dully.
‘This one requires a lot more of it, I’m afraid,’ said Gazmuuk. ‘According to the scriptures, Romerus was probably a descendant of Adam and Eve. We cannot confirm this, as part of the texts are missing.’ He frowned. ‘I suspect they were stolen from the first cave.’
The crash of the surf on the shoreline and the puppy’s playful barks were the only sounds that interrupted the heavy silence that followed.
An eerie premonition started to take shape at the back of my mind.
‘Adam’s descendants are said to have lived hundreds of years,’ said Sheila. ‘Is that where the concept of immortality arose?’
‘Possibly,’ said Gazmuuk. ‘But I believe that Crovir and Schwatz were truly special beings, born with abilities that even their forefathers had not possessed. The clues, although we have yet to fully analyze the information, are in their genes.’ He shared a cautious glance with Gabriel before turning to Sheila and me. ‘This is where the two of you come in.’
Sheila’s eyes widened.
My presentiment grew stronger at his words. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I obtained a small sample of your blood before the research materials at the Crovir labs were destroyed,’ Gazmuuk told Sheila. His gaze shifted to me. ‘I asked Gabriel to do the same with yours. Don’t worry,’ he added hastily at our expressions, ‘there isn’t enough for anyone to attempt anything like what Santana had planned. All I wanted was to study your genetic material.’
‘Why?’ I asked stiffly, although I had a suspicion what his answer was going to be.
‘To compare them with the samples we found in the cave,’ said Gazmuuk. ‘Gabriel and I have both personally researched the extensive genealogy of the noble families of our two immortal societies. As far as we can establish, the Godards and the Thornes were true purebloods in every sense of the word—Schwatzs and Crovirs descended from pureblood Schwatzs and Crovirs all the way back as far as our scrolls go. As you’re probably aware, Schwatzs and Crovirs have successfully mated in the past, but—’
‘Never a pureblood with a pureblood,’ Sheila said breathlessly, her eyes glazed with shock.
Gazmuuk nodded. ‘And not just any purebloods. Your parents were direct descendants of Crovir and Schwatz,’ he said solemnly. ‘The molecular studies we carried out on your samples and the tissues we found in the cave confirm that you both possess the same distinctive genetic variations as the two original immortals.’ He stared at me. ‘We also found the alpha and omega designs that make up your birthmark in the scriptures from the cave in Egypt.’
His words confirmed my gut feeling. I suddenly felt light-headed.
‘That’s—’ Sheila started after a while.
‘The kind of news that requires several stiff drinks?’ Ashely interrupted, his face pale.
Gazmuuk’s expression grew inscrutable. ‘The two of you are unique,’ he said quietly. ‘As far as I’m aware, there are no other direct pureblood descendants of Crovir and Schwatz alive today. Christie Santana, Amos Thorne, and Tomas Godard were the last ones left.’ He hesitated. ‘I suspect that Sheila would also survive her seventeenth death. And I believe she shares your other ability.’
Sheila and I gazed at each other for long secon
ds. Her hand moved under the table. My eyes followed her fingers to the folds of her dress while my heart thudded dully inside my chest.
The other incredible secret we had kept from Gabriel Dvorsky and Shamsky Gazmuuk was that Sheila was pregnant. It had only been a couple of days since we found out ourselves. Ashely was the only other person who knew.
Both Sheila and I found it a miracle that she had conceived so easily, after our very first night together. As the implications of the Crovir noble’s revelations sank in, I saw my own unease reflected in her green gaze; if we were this gifted because of our possible blood links with the fathers of our races, then what would our unborn child be capable of?
I frowned at Gazmuuk. ‘What do you—’
‘Want from the two of you?’ the Crovir noble interjected. He smiled and shook his head. ‘Nothing, really. I thought you deserved to know about this discovery as it concerned you directly. Gabriel agreed with me on this matter.’
‘No one but the two of us know the details of what Gazmuuk has told you today,’ said Gabriel. ‘The scientists working on the project had access to only part of the materials at any one time.’ He observed us from hooded eyes. ‘However, we did wonder what impact it would have on the immortal societies if we let the truth be known.’
‘About us?’ Sheila’s fingers clenched convulsively on her lap. I grasped her hand and squeezed it gently.
Gabriel shook his head. ‘About the origin of our races.’ He hesitated. ‘And possibly about you.’ He shared another glance with Gazmuuk. ‘Both of us think the Schwatz and Crovir First Councils would benefit from having the two of you as members.’
I stared at Gabriel for a long time before rising from the table and stepping to the edge of the veranda. As I gazed out over the rippling surface of the ocean, a strange and unexpected feeling of calmness stole over me.
It was as if I could see everything clearly for the first time in my long and unnatural life.
I looked over my shoulder. ‘And if we were to say no?’
‘Then both Gabriel and I would respect your wishes unconditionally,’ Gazmuuk replied. ‘Think it over. We’re not expecting you to give us an answer straight away.’