Rise of the Mystics Read online

  He heard the guard maneuver the torch into its bracket on the wall.

  “Leave us.”

  “Sire . . .”

  “Now!”

  A beat.

  “As you wish.”

  He didn’t bother turning as the guard’s footfalls retreated down the stone passage. Behind him, David’s breathing was labored under his hood. Before him, the girl’s breath came easy in deep sleep. That would now change.

  “Stay where you are, David.”

  He stepped into the chamber, withdrew the twine and muzzle from his jacket pocket, and lowered himself to one knee beside her head. Here she lay cradled in peace, totally ignorant of the violence coming to both worlds because of her.

  Vlad slipped one end of the twine around her neck, then slowly eased the mouthpiece over her lips. With sudden force he pulled the muzzle tight, swept her arms down behind her back, and cinched the noose at the other end of the twine tight around her wrists.

  She jerked, eyes wide in the torchlight, struggling. He would have relished the opportunity to have a conversation with her, but he couldn’t risk her talking, plying her father with reason.

  The 49th had evidently recognized him and was jerking around in panic, screaming through her muzzle.

  “Now, now, Rachelle. It’s pointless.”

  The father, recognizing his daughter’s cry, began to holler as best he could through his gag. It was all a bit pathetic sounding, daughter and father screaming. She didn’t even know who the hooded man outside her cell was yet.

  Vlad slammed her up against the side wall, fed the rope through the bars behind her, and cinched the bonds tight. Then a second rope, this one binding her neck to the bars.

  He stepped back, satisfied. She calmed, knowing well that there was no escape, but staring at him in raw terror.

  “There we go.” David was still trying to scream. “Shut up, David!” He did not.

  To the 49th: “Did you miss me? You didn’t think this was over, did you? No, no, my little peach cobbler. I promised to blind you again and again, and I’m going to blind you permanently, right here, unless Daddy saves you.”

  Her eyes shifted to her hooded father.

  “Do you like my gift? I’ll give you a better view, yes?”

  Vlad retreated from the cell, hauled the father over to the cell door, and chained him to the bars. “So you don’t do anything stupid.” He jerked off the man’s hood.

  The moment the father laid eyes on the daughter, both disintegrated into a pitiful display of tears and desperate, muted cries.

  “Okay, I think that should do it.”

  Vlad crossed to the 49th and shoved the hood over her head. Nonverbal communication between the pair no longer served him. He pulled the twine around her neck tighter, so she could barely breathe.

  “See how your daughter struggles, David?” He stepped in front of the father and lowered his voice for him alone. “Thing of it is, this is all just a dream. A test of sorts to see how much you love her. That’s why you’ve joined her nightmares. You remember all those nightmares, don’t you, David? This world isn’t even real.”

  The man’s bloodshot eyes strained to see the 49th over Vlad’s shoulder.

  He grabbed the man by his neck, lifted him clear off his feet so that the chain was stretched tight, and shoved him against the wall. “Eyes on me, David. I need your full attention.”

  A quick, desperate nod.

  He set the man back down.

  Leaning in: “Now, there’s only one way she lives more than a few minutes. And if she dies, I’m going to keep you alive with her dead body for a long time, so you can remember what you failed to do.”

  He withdrew the same Book of History David had previously used to return him to this plane. Also, a pen. Only humans could write their history, or Vlad would have used the book himself. And only the 49th or a human who’d traveled through the books before could activate them.

  The 49th would never write Vlad back to Earth.

  But after five days of considerable stress, the father was hanging on to his sanity by a thread.

  “These are the words you will write into this book to save your daughter. I’ve written them on a piece of paper here.” He showed him the slip of paper tucked into the cover. “‘Marsuuv to Earth with his legion in one minute.’ Only that, exactly that, yes? Simple. Write it and I’ll be gone to leave you with your daughter. At least you’ll both be alive and together. And I’ll be forever gone, because there’s no book there to send me back.”

  The 49th was standing on her toes so she could breathe. Sobbing quietly.

  He shoved the man down to his knees, spread the book open on the ground, and pressed the pen into his trembling fingers.

  “I’m going to count to three, one for each seal on her arm. Nod so I know you’ve understood my instruction.”

  He nodded, frantic.

  “Good.” Vlad palmed his knife, crossed to the 49th, and pressed the blade against her neck. “One . . .”

  The man bowed over the book, writing so furiously that Vlad wondered if he might write the wrong thing.

  “Two . . .”

  But it was the intention behind the writing, not the actual words, that mattered.

  David dropped the pen and shoved the book toward Vlad. The torchlight showed the writing on the page—messy but readable.

  Vlad stepped away from the 49th, surprised by the simplicity of it all. Damage done. Game over. At least for the next minute.

  David knelt, sobbing as his emotions overwhelmed his body.

  “There, there, it’s okay.” He walked to the man. “Simple, right? It’s all over now.”

  David remained on his knees, bowed over, rocking.

  Vlad’s legion was six. And those six could do more than a thousand lesser beings. He withdrew a vial of Shataiki blood from his inner pocket and looked at its contents.

  “Again and again, 49th,” he muttered to himself. “Again and again.”

  He opened the vial, jerked the man’s head back, and shoved the bottle between his lips. Half the contents . . . Enough to kill his body within ten seconds.

  David gasped; his body began to shake.

  Deed done, Vlad straightened and tossed the vial to one side, where it landed and shattered. It would have been easier to just slit the man’s throat, but Vlad needed his death to remain a mystery in that other world. If he cut his throat here, his throat would be cut there.

  David quieted and slumped over like a toy doll switched off. Dead here, dead there.

  The 49th must have figured out what was happening, because she uttered a deep, gut-wrenching sob under her hood. Unfortunately, she wasn’t dreaming in the other world, so she wouldn’t recall any of these details when she awoke there. Pity.

  The book and all those like it in his possession would be left behind when he vanished from this world. Unlike humans, he couldn’t coexist in both places, and the book only traveled with their kind.

  He straightened his coat, took a deep breath, and nodded at the 49th strapped to the cell bars. “See you on the other side, 49th.”

  The world began to fade.

  8

  I WOKE with a start, barely aware of a fleeting memory, like a ghost shifting out of my awareness. Not just any ghost, but a black wraith. As if a darkness had invaded me while I slept and then flown off just as I woke up, leaving me with an ominous dread.

  My first thought was that I’d had a nightmare. We’d talked about them last night and something in my subconscious had been triggered. If so, I couldn’t remember it.

  No, the sensation was probably tied to the MEP that had failed. With all the different drugs they’d tried, whittling the concoctions down to just the right combination for me, I was used to wild emotional swings, especially in the early days.

  But this . . . This felt different.

  I climbed out of bed, trying to shake the darkness. The last time I could even remotely remember feeling something similar was in Ed
en, when they’d played games with our heads. It made me regret having agreed to the MEP. Not that I’d really had any choice.

  Steve would know what to do.

  It took me fifteen minutes to shower and pull on my jeans and shirt. And by then the dread had passed, leaving me in a somber but reasonable state of mind. I didn’t bother drying my hair.

  The doors had automatic locks on them that engaged at midnight and disengaged at 7:00 in the morning. It was now 7:30. Saturday. Dad would be looking for pancakes. Funny how simple his tastes were now. My fuzzy recollection of him in Eden was of a man always looking for a solution to some problem, most often my blindness, which had been caused by a disease that switched off the visual center at the back of my brain.

  The hall was empty when I left my room. My dad’s room was two doors down to the left, and I thought about checking to see if he was up. But knowing him, he was probably already in the cafeteria.

  I headed down the hall to the rec room. No one there. Poked my head into the cafeteria. Mary was behind the counter, pulling syrup and whipping cream from the refrigerator.

  “Morning, sweetheart. You ready for some pancakes?”

  “Sure.” No sign of my dad. “You see my father?”

  “Not yet. You beat him for a change.”

  “’Kay, I’m gonna go get him.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Seventy-three steps, that’s how far it was to my father’s room. I knew how many steps were between all the rooms. In fact, I could walk the whole complex with my eyes shut and pretty much get where I wanted to go.

  My brain had developed echolocation skills in Eden, part of all their programming—that much had been real, Steve said. But I’d lost the ability due to the drugs, he guessed. I sometimes walked with my eyes closed, maybe hoping the echolocation would return just for fun.

  Seventy-three steps, but today it was seventy-four. I was getting sloppy.

  I knocked, and when I got no answer I turned the knob and cracked the door.

  “Dad?”

  No response, so I pushed the door wide. He was still in bed, lying with his back to me. “Dad? It’s time for breakfast. Pancakes.”

  He still didn’t move. That was the first sign something was wrong. Even with drugs on board, my dad was a fairly light sleeper.

  Heart pattering, I hurried to his bed and tapped his shoulder. “Wake up, Dad.” Not a move.

  Now worried, I shook him. His skin was cold.

  Adrenaline crashed through me and I jerked him toward me. “Dad? Wake up!”

  His body rolled over, but his chest wasn’t moving and his lips were purple. I stood still, unable to move. Confused. My mind wasn’t making the connections yet. He’d passed out?

  Then I was on his bed, slapping his face, jerking his body, pounding his chest. “Wake up! Wake up!”

  He wasn’t waking.

  He’s dead, a voice in my head said, and at first I thought it was an auditory hallucination. But it was my voice, telling me what was happening.

  Now in a full-fledged panic, I fled the room, slamming my shoulder on the door frame just as I was calling out for help. The blow sent me to the floor, but I didn’t feel the pain. I was screaming for help as I scrambled to my feet.

  “Help!” Sprinting for the rec room. “Help! My dad’s not breathing! Steve! Mary!”

  “Rachelle?”

  I whirled and saw that Steve had entered from the hall that led to the labs, looking like he’d just woken up.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I ran back the way I’d come. “Hurry! My dad . . .” It was all I said. He was already running, me right behind, begging myself to be wrong about what I thought I’d seen. Praying for it to be a hallucination.

  Steve was already at the bed, bending over my father, ear to his chest, when I spun into the room, breathing hard. I pulled up there, afraid.

  He began to pump my father’s chest with his palms. Then breathe into his mouth, trying to bring him back. I knew then . . . I knew but refused to know.

  I flew for the bed. Slammed into Steve, knocking him out of my way. With hands balled like battering rams, I slammed my fists on my dad’s chest. “Wake up!” I screamed. “Wake up!”

  “Shh, shh, shh . . .”

  Steve was trying to comfort me, but I wasn’t shushing. I was slamming, now with anger as much as desperation. He couldn’t leave me! I didn’t know how to live without him! I was his daughter!

  His body shook a little each time I hit him, but he didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t even know I was hitting him.

  He couldn’t because he was dead.

  “Wake up! You have to wake up!”

  “Rachelle . . .”

  “No! Don’t you dare leave me here like this!”

  A hand was on my shoulder, easing me back. “It’s too late, Rachelle. He’s . . .”

  He’s dead. I knew that. And his body was cold, which meant he’d been dead for a while. But that didn’t stop me.

  “Wake up!” I beat him again.

  “I’m so sorry, honey.” Steve’s voice was weak. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Anguish like I had never known boiled up from my belly and sucked the life out of my mind. I flopped over on my father’s chest and began to sob.

  STEVE PACED OUTSIDE the infirmary, glancing through the window at Rachelle, who was curled up on a chair pulled close to the hospital bed. Her head rested on the white sheet pulled over her father’s body. She hadn’t moved in half an hour. His gut churned.

  Four hours had passed since they found David in his bed. Cause of death: massive internal hemorrhaging. There were no signs of external trauma, no traces of poison in the preliminary toxicology report, no marks on his body, no indication of cause.

  Only the note he’d found in David’s drawer.

  Dream: Another world. Desert. Vlad. Mystic. Captive.

  He’d ripped out the page and crammed the note into his pocket, fearing the worst. The Kinazeran. He’d given David a dose of the drug last night with his other medication. It had killed him.

  Between doing his best to console Rachelle, ordering blood panels, and making the calls to the project leader and the director, he checked and double-checked the literature on Kinazeran. There was no way. At most, Kinazeran could put a smile on your face. It was often prescribed with the same mild psychotropic meds they were giving David, if only to ease the brain fog that often presented with those meds.

  It wasn’t the Kinazeran that had killed David.

  It was his dream.

  Dream: Another world. Desert. Vlad. Mystic. Captive. David had woken up having dreamed, made the note to remind himself, then gone back to sleep. Back into that same nightmare.

  The nightmare of Vlad in a desert.

  For the last two hours, Steve had scanned the recordings made in Eden during that last week. Vlad had disabled the digital video feed, but they’d retrieved some local audio from the rubble, including some made in the courthouse and Rachelle’s home. It was the recordings from her home that contained what little information they had of her dreams.

  Yes, the sky had been vaporized; yes, she could read minds; yes, she was no longer blind. But he’d never really believed that whatever was happening in her dreams had actually manifested in a tangible way.

  Steve had convinced himself that Vlad was more likely than Rachelle to be responsible for the sky coming down. Rapid epigenetic mutations explained how a blind person could be cured. Her mind reading had something to do with her ability to access quantum consciousness beyond space and time. It was all plausible.

  But this? Dreams of another reality where Vlad Smith had taken David captive? Not so much. They’d all agreed the dreams were mental projections.

  Regardless, the effects of whatever had happened in David’s and Rachelle’s minds could not be denied. All dreams aside, Rachelle did have her gifts. And David was dead.

  According to Rachelle, she was the only one who could have saved Project Eden.
Without her, all would’ve died. She was the one fighting for the survival of her father and the others in Eden. Fighting what, or whom?

  Vlad Smith.

  Which once again raised the question, who was Vlad Smith? Could he really have come from another reality, however absurd that sounded? And was he there now, as David’s note seemed to suggest?

  They’d convinced Rachelle that Vlad had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination, but they all knew that wasn’t true. Vlad had forced their technicians out, set the perimeter explosives, and brought the cliffs down—that much was documented. And Vlad was still out there somewhere.

  David’s dream wasn’t the cause of his death. Vlad was. Vlad, who evidently wasn’t done. Vlad, who’d been stopped by Rachelle in Eden.

  Rachelle was the key. Maybe the key to far more than just saving Eden.

  A chill snaked down Steve’s spine as the thought slithered home. What if?

  Steve quietly opened the door and stepped into the infirmary. Rachelle kept her eyes closed, cheek on the mattress. He walked up to her and set his hand on her arm.

  “You okay?”

  Stupid question.

  No response.

  Hiding the truth from her felt cruel in the wake of David’s sudden death. The bubble they’d fabricated to “protect” her from herself was as suspect as the drugs they’d been feeding her.

  His phone buzzed. The director. He stepped out, closed the door, and tapped the green answer button.

  “Theresa.”

  “Steve.”

  Gentle voice. “How is she?”

  “Out of it. I’ve upped her meds, that’s part of it. Her father just died, for crying out loud.”

  “I know.” A pause. “We’ve made a decision. I know you’ll object, but I think it’s our best course at this point.” Another pause. “The engineers have made some adjustments to the MEP that we think will give us—”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Anger washed over him. “Again, now?”

  “We have to get the memory of David’s death out of her. She’s in a tailspin, Steve, you know that. We’ve successfully taken her this far. The last thing we can afford now is for her to begin questioning the program. Any risk the MEP might present pales in comparison to her well-being, wouldn’t you agree?”