“Ahhh!” he moaned to my surprise. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this!”
“You knew?” I asked, my throat dry.
“I suspected it. Listen, Dana,” he said in a faltering voice, “I know you never pay any attention to me when I ask you to, but wait until I get there. I know how to put an end to this situation. I’m going to grab a cab and I’ll be at the MAC shortly, but please don’t confront Jairo on your own.”
“You suspected?” I yelled at him, resisting the impulse to throw my cell phone out of the window.
“I’ll tell you everything, I swear. But don’t intervene right n—”
“I have to know before he disappears again if he was the one who killed my mother,” I cut in.
“I know, I know, and you will talk to him, I swear. But wait until I’m there with you.”
“I can’t run the risk that he’ll leave.”
“You have to,” he begged me. “Otherwise, you’re risking your life. Listen, if I don’t get there in time, I promise I’ll find him. I know where he’ll be. I’ve always known how to find him.”
“And if this is one of your lies? You have to understand, Iago, I can’t take that risk. And by the way, you and I have a conversation pending.”
He stopped wasting his time when he realized he wasn’t going to convince me and hung up. The only thing on my mind right then was to get to the MAC before Jairo got away, so I also started running all the red lights I came across. When I reached the MAC parking lot, Jairo’s brilliant red car was clearly visible parked in front of Iago’s lavender bush, like a poisonous insect. A few yards farther on, Kyra had left the door of the 4x4 open, but there was no sign of either of them. The esplanade was deserted, because it was a holiday and the museum was closed to the public.
I ran to the main door of the building, which was ajar, and raced down the stairs to the Restoration Laboratory. I could see Kyra’s inert body lying on the floor at the entrance.
70
ADRIANA
Thursday, November 1, 2012
The Day of the Dead
I bent over and put my ear to her mouth. Thankfully, she was still breathing; she was only unconscious. I pictured the tough battle that had taken place between them minutes before my arrival. More anxious than I was prepared to acknowledge, I pushed open the door to the Restoration Laboratory and ran to the office, ever more anxious, ever more nervous, and scared to death, I have to admit.
Take your time; he could be anywhere.
The second door, the secret door only the family knew about, was open. Everywhere was dark and silent, as if the building itself was striving to hide its owner, protecting him. I’d never felt the air to be as malignant as it was that day. I turned on the lights to get my bearings, and I could see Jairo typing furiously on the computer keyboard. I approached inch by inch as he strove to copy material onto a MAC flashdrive.
“All I want is confirmation,” I yelled at him, without daring to come any closer.
Much to my surprise, I didn’t find a cold, arrogant Jairo, an assassin to reproach for his crime. Instead, I found a grieving man, as affected by the most recent turn of events as I was.
“If only you could understand my motives, all the things I had to do to get Lyra involved. I was desperate to have children, Adriana. Do you think it was easy to kill two children related to me, and my therapist? And now it turns out she was your mother . . .” he said, shaking his head in a gesture of helplessness. “I can honestly swear that until today I didn’t know you were her daughter. It’s a dramatic coincidence. Now, and forever, it’s your mother I killed, and you don’t know how much that pains me. It puts a distance between us for good.”
“Of course it does,” I said. “Stop justifying yourself; you’re just a murderer.”
“But are you listening to what I’m telling you?” he cried desperately. “No . . . You’re determined to make me the villain in this story.”
And I could see pain, pain at being misunderstood. Then, in response to my obstinate silence, he changed. I think he resumed his normal role.
“Fine, so be it,” he whispered. “You want to see the Nagorno your prejudice has fabricated, the barbarian born on the steppes. I thought you’d progressed beyond scratching the surface, but no, how could you? You’re just an efímera.”
“You became capable of killing her when you discovered she was going to warn Lyra?”
If I had ever seen any humanity in him earlier, it had completely disappeared. Now he was himself, Nagorno, with his icy, serpentlike voice.
“We both know that’s a rhetorical question, though you’ve won the right to know the details. You know, this business has made me recall that day when I went up the stairs to her office early and surprised her poking her nose into my business. I assume you were the girl on horseback in the photo on her desk, right?”
I nodded my head, because I didn’t want him to hear the tremble in my voice.
“Well, I have to thank you for making things so easy for me. At first your mother refused to take the pills in the bottle. I knew she kept the bottle in her drawer, because I’d once seen her covertly taking a couple of pills as I arrived for my appointment. I’d have killed her anyway, but the idea of suicide seemed a plausible solution, and a much cleaner one for both of us. I had to threaten her by saying I’d take the photo with me and go after you if she didn’t obey me. She was very dignified, I have to say; she didn’t beg or fall apart. You know I’ve always admired strong women. Your mother, wherever it was I dispatched her to, commands my respect.”
I locked away my rage inside a well-protected spot in my head where I could have access to it once all this was over. Iago hadn’t arrived yet, Kyra was out of action, and Jairo had just stolen the telomere research and was about to make his escape. I think the only thing in my mind was I didn’t want a world that contained his tainted bloodline. I had to take the flashdrive from him without him noticing. But how could I approach the spider if I was the insect?
First, eliminate the barriers, I told myself.
“Do you know what I’m feeling right now?” I asked him without coming any closer. “Yes, I already know the answer. You’re not the least bit interested, because I’m an efímera. But at least grant me the right to unburden myself.”
“As you please,” he agreed.
“Relief, considerable relief. Don’t get me wrong. I despise you for what you did, but I’ve spent half my life believing my mother committed suicide because of our differences when I was an unbearable teenager. The world seems a lighter burden to me now.”
“I don’t know that feeling,” he admitted with a shrug of his shoulders as he put the flashdrive into the inside pocket of his burgundy jacket.
So now what? I wondered. Jairo had to leave, and I was in his way, blocking his exit. That called for a change in tactics. Look for some connection.
“I know you’re going to go, and that I’ll probably never see you again in my lifetime, so why not be honest with you? You have the right to know certain facts, too.”
“What facts?” he asked, approaching me slowly.
“I hesitated between you and Iago right from the start,” I said.
“I knew it!” he whispered, allowing himself a look of triumph.
“The worst bit was when you took up with Elisa; I felt such jealousy. And you messed it up with your little scene on the rock ledge. If it hadn’t been for that, I would have gone with you.”
“It would have been the right choice. You’ll be bored for the rest of your life with Iago.”
“I know. He continues to be nothing more than a savage.”
I was now so close to him that I whispered that last sentence into his wrinkle-free face. Which then gave rise to a moment during which I glued my body to his, and anything could have happened between us.
Mission accomplished
. The flashdrive was mine.
“He’s always been a wild man,” Jairo continued, unaware of my last move. “And he used to scream like a savage when we raped him during all those nights my mother demanded Héctor’s presence. Your Iago was a great help in gaining me the respect of my people.” He noticed that I’d gone pale. “He hasn’t told you anything about that? What do you think he used his miracle plant for? In the end he needed it more than the oldest horseman in my tribe.”
Mother of God! Ten years old and already ordering the sodomy of his seven-thousand-year-old brother.
“You son of a bitch . . .” I spat at him under my breath.
A second later his hand was encircling my throat like the previous time, except that on this occasion he lifted me up high and threw me against the wall.
“No one—do you hear me?—no one in three thousand years has survived insulting me in that way.”
“That’s true,” said a voice I didn’t recognize behind me. “Until now.”
Someone had finally arrived, but I failed to discover who it was, because my skull ricocheted against the concrete wall and I didn’t hear anything more.
71
IAGO
Jupiter Day, the fifth day of the month of Ngetal
Thursday, November 1, 2012
What you did that day was despicable, even for you,” I said to Jairo as I kept monitoring Dana’s body, which lay slumped on the ground at his feet.
“Tell me, Brother, what would you have said to me if I’d asked you to do the research I needed? I’ve spent twenty-seven centuries watching you and Father creating new families that you ignore. You abandon your children as if they were bastards. I’d never do anything like that. How long do I have to wait to have what you have been given and spurn? The possibility, time and again, of not being alone?”
A tiny expression of surprise registered on my face. “You never said you wanted that.”
“You never asked. Admit it, Urko. You wouldn’t have agreed to undertake the research if I’d ask you to do it as a favor to me. I had to get Lyra involved so that you’d run to rescue her. She’s the only thing you put ahead of your own interests.”
“They were your niece and nephew, Nagorno. How could you do this to your own flesh and blood?”
“Don’t presume to judge me. Syrio and Vega appear before me every night, and I accept responsibility for my punishment. But Lyra will end up forgiving me. A few millennia from now, when her longevo children have spent all that time by her side, she’ll forget the last ones who died.”
“She won’t forget them. You don’t forget any child. And the hole left by your daughter, Olbia, will never be filled either, but you’re still too young to understand that.”
“Don’t come any closer, Urko. Your girlfriend will be safe if you let me escape.”
Nagorno was only a few yards from me, weighing his escape options, but I had no intention of making it too easy for him.
“Escape with what, Nagorno? That’s why you returned now, right? You knew what was going on, because this lab is bugged with microphones.” And I was counting on that to lure you to this spot. “By the way, how did you arrange it so that you could get in? We changed the password.”
“Amateurs,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I wasn’t expecting you to tell me what you’d discovered.”
“For once you’ll have to do your own research.”
“I’ll find a way,” he confirmed, glancing sideways impatiently.
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Shall we begin?”
“So be it.”
I was still finishing the last word when he launched himself at me, one leg outstretched. He hit me on the mouth and cheek and knocked me off balance to the point where I fell backward, but I instinctively grabbed hold of his leg as I was falling, making him hit his face on a stool.
One–all.
For now.
I’d surreptitiously left what I needed on the first workbench when I came in, so my real objective was to work my way back toward the entrance with Nagorno, even if it was at the cost of a few extra broken limbs on my part. I accepted that cost. Nagorno had maintained his expertise in the clean, choreographed way he had of fighting. He shook off the effects before I did and jumped on my ribs. Some of them gave way from the force of his weight, but they didn’t break. Even so, he didn’t allow me to recover my breath before he hit me with the stool. He knew where the blows would hurt the most and be most effective and lethal.
He was testing me. He was testing my immortality. He wanted to know if I was a mere longevo, or someone like him who was unaffected by mortal blows. But I remained focused on a single thought—reaching that first bench together with Nagorno. I allowed him to keep hitting me, dragging myself along the ground despite the death rattle in my throat. It had always been like this with me: when the pain was so intense, my body and mind switched off and I began to think on another level of reality. I waited patiently until that moment would arrive, blow upon blow.
And it did arrive.
And I stopped feeling the pain.
I’d seen Nagorno kill many times before. He was silent and efficient, and most of the bodies hadn’t put up with as much as mine. That frustrated him, but my effort was gaining me inches, until I finally reached my objective. Luckily, the bones in my hand weren’t broken. I succeeded in grabbing hold of the stool to help me haul myself up, and my fingers closed around its legs in response to the orders sent by my brain, which was no mean feat in itself.
Nagorno, that damned Scythian whom my father had conceived three thousand years ago, gave me a chance to catch my breath as he prepared himself for the final blow. Something conclusive and theatrical, I imagined. He let me stand up, but he didn’t notice the small syringe I’d left on the workbench when I’d come into the laboratory. I called on all my reserves and, with a quicker movement than his own, grabbed the little syringe and plunged it into his heart. The force of my body knocked him over, and we both fell to the floor. I drained the entire contents into him until there was none left.
“What have you done to me?” he shouted in horror in the language of his birth.
“Don’t rush to find out; you’ll discover eventually,” I was tempted to tell him. But I didn’t say a word. I kept silent because part of his torment, and of my revenge, depended on his not knowing what I had just done.
Just as I had once affirmed, I was the better strategist. It had been necessary to deceive Lyra and make her believe she’d found my clandestine lab when what I had done was broadcast it to the busiest street in all of Santander. I had succeeded in bringing my discoveries to the beast’s den, where it was to be expected that Nagorno would continue to spy on us. All done to bring him back here again to confirm what I had believed since the day Dana had opened her particular Pandora’s box: that my brother was the patient who killed Dana’s mother and Lyra’s family; that in this way, he implicated Lyra in his goal to have longevo children; that in a single stroke of genius, he implicated all of us. That day I decided to be done with his immortality, or his extreme longevity, once and for all. It remained to be seen if the price was going to end up being too high and was going to take with it the only genuine relationship I’d ever had in my entire life, the one with Dana.
In the meantime, Jairo, fear distorting his face, pulled out the syringe and fled from the laboratory. That was when I became aware of Dana hugging me and coughing and looking at me anxiously as if I were about to die. I had to lie to her in order to calm her down.
“Don’t worry, I’ve had worse beatings many times. I’ll be better by tomorrow. Let Nagorno go. We’ve already done what we had to do.”
She got up with difficulty, stumbling as she made her way to the door of the lab, and then shouted, her voice off-key, “Kyra’s body has gone!”
“Come on, give me a hand. Let’s go outside
to call for help.”
Luckily, my father had just arrived. I had brought him up-to-date while I was in the cab heading for the museum. He, accustomed to everything as only a man of his age could be, put my arm across his shoulder and helped me out of the building. We thought we were over the worst, but the real hell was about to unfold in front of our eyes.
When the three of us reached the MAC’s parking lot, we saw Lyra in my 4x4 charging Nagorno’s convertible as he was putting it into reverse and trying to escape. Lyra attacked with such force that the small red Porsche performed an elegant leap into space, sailing through the air as if it were a human cannonball in a circus and diving into the sea some fifty feet from the edge of the rock face. But that wasn’t the worst. The worst was that my car, with Lyra inside it, was left dangling at the edge of the cliff, fighting against the force of gravity while Lür ran toward her in an attempt to get her out of the vehicle before it plunged down the face of the cliff.
Too late.
My father didn’t get there in time. The car fell, and Lyra with it, turning a somersault or two before it crashed onto the edge of our rock ledge. Dana and my father lowered themselves down, shouting that I should stay up top and call an ambulance. I made the call, but then I followed them down, although with great difficulty. In fact, my body wasn’t causing me pain, because it was numb from all the blows. But my limbs weren’t obeying me fully, or if they were, they were doing so awkwardly. As I was climbing down I could see my father and Dana working desperately to help Lyra. Her small body had smashed through the front windshield and her head had remained submerged in the water for too long. I looked briefly at the concentric circles forming in the sea at the spot where Nagorno’s car had hit the water, but for me, Nagorno was already dead, and he was never again going to be of concern to me.
But he was for Lür. I could see in his eyes that silent plea that I take charge of Lyra so he could throw himself into the sea and try to rescue his son. I refused to give him an answer; I left it to him to make the decision, and that’s what he did. He dove in headfirst and disappeared beneath the surface of the cold Cantabrian waters.