Green: The Beginning and the End Read online

  “He’s death.”

  25

  QURONG STANK of dead fish, Billy thought. The thick, sulfuric scent was inexplicably appealing, and this realization sickened him slightly. Janae paced like a caged animal, seemingly oblivious to Qurong, who was so far out of his comfort zone that he could do little but stand and sweat.

  Billy leaned against the gurney, running through their options, which were clearly limited. The Raison Strain B virus had been stopped by the blood; this was good. He had finally, after over a decade of wondering, found himself—his inner demons, his purpose, all that made him tick. This was even better.

  But the only way to reconnect with who he really was required the lost books. Right now, he was in the wrong world.

  “There has to be a way out of this prison,” he said.

  Janae whirled, furious. “It’s built to keep people in, you idiot! We’re stuck!”

  Billy stood up. “So now I’m your enemy too?”

  She closed her eyes, drew long breaths through her nostrils, and finally pushed air back out through pursed lips. Sweat matted her long black hair to her cheeks, and her mascara had run, but even so she looked as alluring as she had when she was Jezreal.

  “Okay. Sorry. Sorry, I’m just . . .” Her eyes opened, misty. “This is all happening too quickly. I don’t know who I am anymore, Billy. I don’t know why I feel this way.”

  His ability to read minds hadn’t been affected by the disease, but he didn’t need to look past her face to see that Janae was hopelessly lost. Like a newborn child seeing the light but not understanding where the womb had gone.

  Thomas was lost as well. As were Kara and Monique. His mind-reading powers hadn’t been present while he was in Ba’al’s body, and they’d taken a few minutes to reassert themselves after waking, but in the short time he’d stared into Thomas’s mind, Billy had learned a few things.

  He learned that the Circle was fracturing and might very well shatter with just a little more pressure.

  He learned that Samuel, Thomas’s son, had betrayed him and gone to Eram.

  And he learned the location of the three thousand who waited for the rest of the Circle to join them. All of the Circle in one canyon.

  None of that helped him now, locked in this isolation room. He focused on Janae. She’d gone from a lost but spirited young woman to Jezreal in minutes. There could be no doubt: she was somehow tied to the Shataiki. But exactly how, and why she, of all people, he didn’t know yet.

  Then again, her mother, Monique, had been at the center of Thomas Hunter’s life. Perhaps Janae’s father had approached Monique because of this.

  Billy stepped in front of Janae and brushed her hair off her cheeks. “I know. You’re conflicted and it’s tearing you apart. Trust me, I’ve been there. When we get back, you won’t feel divided. We belong there, Janae. It’ll all be okay when we go home.”

  She lunged forward and kissed him on the lips, drawing desperately on his breath. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, trembling.

  “Don’t leave me behind,” she whispered. “Promise me, Billy. Never leave me.”

  He pulled back, feeling awkward. She was like a woman possessed by a spirit that had awakened from the dead.

  “I won’t leave you.”

  “Swear it!”

  “I swear.”

  Qurong grunted, and Billy saw that he wore a scowl. Looking into his eyes, Billy saw more. Much more. And he felt compelled to set the record straight.

  “Your forehead may bear Ba’al’s three claw marks, old man, but you hate him. On the other hand, you love your daughter, though you deny it. You fear Thomas more than you fear Teeleh. And deep down inside, you suspect that Elyon is real, but the Shataiki larvae have invaded your mind and made you stupid.”

  Which is why I, not you, am the chosen one, he didn’t say. “How do I know? Because I also know you were eating blueberries with sago paste when Thomas burst into your house and tricked you into this journey.”

  Qurong’s gray eyes were round. What if the answer to how they might return somehow rested with this man?

  “Be careful what you think, Qurong.” Let him stew on that for a minute.

  Billy kissed Janae on the hair. “It’ll be okay, we’ll get back. Let’s take a deep breath and think this through. Starting with this beast.”

  “I can tell you, there’s no way I would allow you to enter my world,” Qurong said, spitting on the clean floor. “You’re witches. Albinos who have an alliance with Ba’al. If you think you belong anywhere but hell, you’re mistaken.”

  “This coming from an overgrown lizard who smells like hell,” Billy said.

  Janae wiped her eyes and breathed out again. “Blood,” she said.

  Billy frowned. “Blood?”

  “Yes. I was drawn to the blood. When I was in Jezreal and you let me taste your blood . . . there was something about the blood that captivated me.”

  “The blood books.” Having been with Ba’al even for an hour, Billy still had many of his memories, and he dipped into them now. “Thomas’s blood. Marsuuv gave Ba’al her blood when Ba’al was Billos. Ba’al became part of the Shataiki. How does that help us now?”

  Janae studied Qurong. “Well . . .” She hurried to a closet, pulled the door wide, and withdrew a microscope. She tossed Billy a small, clear plastic box.

  “Take a blood and skin sample from him. Apply them both to the slides.”

  Billy looked at Qurong. “From him?”

  “From him, yes. Hurry, we don’t have all day.”

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Qurong demanded.

  “It means that you’re going to let us look at your blood under this machine.” Billy walked up and handed him a glass slide. “Smear some of the blood from your wound on this piece of glass.”

  Qurong looked at the slide as if it might be a weapon of great significance.

  “Hurry!”

  “This means nothing to me.”

  “Do you want to go home before Ba’al takes your throne?”

  The man grunted and plucked the slide from his hand. He awkwardly rubbed some of the blood from his finger onto the glass, then handed it back.

  “And his skin,” Janae said, handing Billy a small scalpel.

  “Now your skin.” Billy handed him another slide and the knife.

  “You expect me to cut my skin off?”

  “Just scrape some off.” Janae looked over from the eyepiece. “The thinner the better.”

  “You heard her,” Billy snapped.

  “Whatever for? This is preposterous!”

  Janae spoke as she focused the microscope. “Call it grasping at straws, I don’t know, just do it. Has anyone ever studied your blood before? I doubt it. I’m a scientist, it’s what I do.”

  Qurong scraped some skin off his forearm, then dragged the blade across the slide, depositing a layer of morst and dead flesh on the clear glass. “Albino fools.”

  Billy set the slide on the counter next to Janae. “Anything?”

  “This is . . . I think . . .” But she didn’t elaborate.

  “What?”

  Janae quickly pulled out the slide with blood and slipped in the sample of Qurong’s skin.

  “What?” Billy demanded again.

  “I . . . if I’m not mistaken, he has what looks to me—although I can’t be sure without more tests, this microscope isn’t the most powerful—”

  “Just say it.”

  She adjusted the focus. “He has something similar to the Raison Strain in his blood. Looks like a slightly different strain, but . . .” She adjusted her view of the skin sample.

  Made sense. In a twisted kind of way.

  Janae gasped and left her mouth agape.

  “What?”

  She straightened, eyes on Qurong.

  “What?”

  “That’s it,” she said, approaching the man. She reached for him. “Can I have a closer look?”

  He hesitantly held out his
arm. Janae took his wrist in one hand and rubbed her thumb on his skin. “Horde are a little stronger than albino. Isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes,” Qurong and Billy said in unison.

  “But albino are much quicker,” she said. “They don’t have the same pain and their joints are free to move with ease.”

  “So some claim.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Janae, just—”

  “I know why they’re stronger,” she said, looking at Billy with some wonder. “It’s the Shataiki.”

  “They have Shataiki blood?”

  “No. Maybe, I don’t know. But their skin is infested with millions of microscopic larvae.”

  “Shataiki larvae,” Billy said, mind overflowing with Ba’al’s knowledge. “The twelve queens spawned by Teeleh reproduce by laying eggs that form unfertilized larvae. They can live for centuries in this state until another Shataiki fertilizes them with blood.”

  “How?”

  “They bite. Pass blood through their fangs.”

  “Vampires.”

  “No, Shataiki,” Billy said, then shrugged. “Same difference.”

  Qurong was staring at his arm. “Worms?”

  “Tiny larvae,” Janae said, hurrying back to the microscope and peering in. “In this world we have scabies, a skin disease caused by a tiny mite called Sarcoptes scabiei, invisible to the naked eye. They burrow into the skin and lay eggs that produce larvae and more mites. The rash on the skin is a reaction to the mites. Similar to what we have here.”

  She looked up again. “The Horde are covered by Teeleh’s larvae. They evidently infect Horde blood with something similar to the first Raison Strain. But rather than kill them, the virus passes on some Shataiki properties, like strength.”

  “Walking breeding grounds.”

  “This is complete and utter foolishness,” Qurong said, dismissing them with a wave of his arm.

  Billy suddenly knew how they might get out. “Janae, if we could get out of this isolation room, could you get us out of the laboratory?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked at the main door, where two guards were normally posted.

  “Surely there’s another way out of here. Ventilation, a passage, something.”

  “Ventilation?” She blinked. “We’re underground, the vents are huge.” She brushed past him. “I was a kid when they built this place, and I crawled through some of them then. The main return shaft runs over the rooms down the hall, opening to each one.” She was staring at the two-foot- by-two-foot grille near the top of the wall, five feet to the left of the main door. “That would get us out. Maybe.”

  “Maybe? Why wouldn’t it?”

  “For starters, we’re boxed behind reinforced glass. And even if we followed the ventilation to the end of the hall without getting the guard’s attention, the shaft turns straight up, twenty feet. There’s no way—”

  “We don’t need to go up,” Billy said. He tore the sheet off the nearest gurney and tossed it to Qurong. “Wrap this around your fists. The glass is made to withstand human force, but they didn’t have Horde in mind. You can break it.”

  Qurong looked at the glass, the sheet in his hands, and then back at Billy. He tossed the sheet back. “I’ll take my chances here.”

  “Whatever for? You heard Thomas! He has no intention of letting you jump back now that he has you under his thumb. He knew that kidnapping you would immobilize the Horde, perhaps giving the Eramites and Samuel the advantage they need to mount a crushing blow.”

  The thought had just presented itself to Billy, and it made sense, maybe more than they knew. “But Thomas doesn’t know Ba’al the way you and I do. There’s no telling what the dark priest will do in your absence. We have to get back. Now!”

  “Not like this. I go back with no advantage. I would just as soon trust Thomas as you.” Qurong was settling into his normative, crafty self.

  “I can give you an advantage,” Janae said. She looked at Billy, gave him her thoughts, and then addressed Qurong when Billy nodded.

  “I could give you a weapon. One that you could use to wipe out all of the Eramites, the albinos—any army that came against you.”

  Qurong’s face twitched. “That’s not possible.”

  “You know nothing of this world! What I have is small enough to take through the books, and believe me, it could end life in your world.”

  “What is it?”

  “A virus. A disease that will only affect those you want it to.”

  “You’re bluffing. Whoever heard of such a thing?”

  “You’re saying that a lot these days, I’ll bet,” she snapped, then motioned to their surroundings. “Whoever heard of this? Whoever heard of the reading of thoughts and the unlocking of time and space with a book ? In reality the whole world is one big whoever-heard-of-it!”

  “She’s got a point, you buffoon,” Billy said. It occurred to him that he was talking to the most powerful man in a world where he might soon need allies. He would have to curb the insults.

  “You’re an intelligent man, Qurong. I saw this when I shared Ba’al’s mind, and frankly it scared me. You’re also the most powerful man on the planet. Your subjects tremble when you walk by. But we both know that everyone at the top is a target. What we’re offering you will ensure your survival. And we can be your greatest allies.”

  The Horde was sweating again, but he wasn’t arguing.

  “Every minute we stand here doubting puts distance between us and the lost books,” Janae scolded. “We have to move.”

  “How will you get out?” Qurong asked. “Where is this weapon?”

  “Not in here.” She shoved her finger at the reinforced glass. “Break it! At least try, for heaven’s sake.”

  Qurong grunted and began to wrap the sheet around his elbow. “I don’t like this. You put me at your mercy. I have no reason to believe you’ll take me with you.”

  “You have no choice but to trust us.”

  The man kept his eyes on them as he stood by the large window, roughly eight by five. Qurong nodded, gripped his fist with his left hand, and slammed his elbow back against the glass without removing his eyes from Billy.

  The room shook as the window fractured into a hundred thousand hairline cracks. Qurong pushed the broken glass, and it fell to the ground like rain.

  Janae uttered something that made no sense, then scrambled over the sill into the main laboratory. She spun, motioning silence with a finger to her lips, and ran to the same electronically operated storage cabinet from which she’d withdrawn the Raison Strain B.

  Working like a mouse over a crumb, she began punching in access numbers. She motioned to a closet and issued whispered orders. “A ladder and tools; remove the grate; wait for me. Just get it off.”

  “You’re getting the virus?”

  “Hurry!”

  Billy paused. What if the Raison Strain didn’t have the same effects in the other world?

  “You have other viruses, right? Ebola?”

  She caught his eye and glanced at Qurong. “Please, trust me. I need a moment. Alone.”

  Billy understood immediately. She didn’t want Qurong to know what she was up to. Perhaps where on her body she hid the viruses.

  He pulled the door to the closet open, grabbed the ladder and a small tool kit. Hurrying to the wall under the return air grate, he shoved the ladder at Qurong. “Keep it quiet.” The main door was sealed tight and would offer a good sound barrier, but there was no telling what other security measures had been put in place.

  Qurong tried to unfold the ladder as Billy pulled out a Phillips-head screwdriver. “Here, back off.” Billy grabbed the ladder, set it on the floor in proper position, and hurried to the top. Four screws secured the grate, and they all came out without a hitch. He hung the panel on a hook that protruded from the ladder, then peered into the return duct.

  Large enough for both Janae and him, but the Horde oaf would never make it.

  “Get down.”

  He
twisted back and saw that Janae stood beside Qurong, looking up at him.

  “Hurry! Get down here.”

  Billy dropped down beside them. “We can’t all—”

  “Wait with him by the door,” she interrupted, mounting the ladder.

  “Me? Wait a minute, I’m coming with you!”

  Janae glared back at him. “Shut up, Billy.” Then, noting his shock, “I didn’t mean it like that. But I’m the only one who can do this. I know where I’m going. Two doors down into a large storage room that has survival equipment and fresh lab coats. Flare guns.”

  “That’s how you’re going to get the books, with a lab coat and a flare gun?”

  “No, that’s how I’m going to walk up to the guards before I disable them and open this door.”

  “They’ll kill you!”

  “They know me! I’ve been giving them orders for years. Trust me, they won’t shoot, not before sorting through their confusion. By then it’ll be too late for them.”

  “You’re going to overpower them with a flare gun?”

  Her jaw muscles bunched with impatience; he was struck by her beauty, standing up on the ladder in her short black dress, dark hair twisted around her face, eyes fired with passion.

  “This is Bangkok, the home of kickboxing. Little girls like me learn to take care of themselves at an early age. Stay here.”

  Then she scurried up the ladder, slipped into the return air duct like a cat, and was gone.

  26

  THEY SPENT nearly an hour bouncing between their own shared history and the fantastical nature of Thomas’s appearance in Bangkok. Although more than ten years had passed since he’d made the last trip in his dreams, the feeling of being here with Kara and Monique was familiar. It wasn’t what he’d imagined a ten-year class reunion might be like.

  Then again, these women were not mere classmates.

  For them, his appearance was more staggering. In the past, his reality jumping had occurred in his mind while his body remained, making it no less real to him, but far less real to those who watched him sleep.

  The four lost books still sat on the lamp table by the door. The cut on his palm was wrapped.

  He wondered briefly if they would return him to the future. But he thought so—they seemed to follow a path consistent with the traveler’s heart.