“Is that any way to greet your headmaster?” David asked, in a voice more smooth than severe. “And your friend?”
Ciaran took a deep breath, knowing that he had to choose his words wisely. “I’m sorry, it’s just that, um, you startled me,” Ciaran replied. “I was reviewing my work.”
David’s mouth smiled and he forced his piercing blue eyes to join in. “Then what an opportune time for a visit.”
Straddling the lab stool, David sat across from Ciaran. He folded his hands, and Ciaran couldn’t help noticing how strong they were, how thick and blunt his fingers looked, as if they could punch their way through concrete without tearing the skin, strangle a wild horse without effort. Bravely, Ciaran met David’s gaze and thought his features had changed a bit since the last time he had seen him. His brow seemed wider, his jaw, still square, still decorated in a thin layer of red bristle, seemed stronger somehow, more powerful than before.
His entire look was softened, however, by his suit. Seersucker, white with delicate blue stripes, slightly crinkled. Underneath he wore a white cotton shirt, the top button undone, but adorned with a tie crocheted from silk yarn a shade of pink that reminded Ciaran of peppermint cream. The color should have clashed with David’s red hair, but instead it complemented it beautifully. His overall appearance had been calculated to appear more casual than intimidating, and it was having its desired effect on Ciaran. Even when David spoke.
“I’m delighted to see that you haven’t forgotten about our agreement,” David said.
“Of course not,” Ciaran replied. How could he forget? It’s all he ever thought about, it’s why he spent so much time in his lab. He had promised David that he would work with him to try to unlock the key to the water vamp’s DNA, and in exhange he would be rewarded with prestige, honor, admiration, all the things he never received from his own family. But Ciaran hadn’t expected it to be so difficult to hold up his end of the bargain. For months he had been conducting experiments on Michael’s blood from samples David had given him. Ciaran never questioned how the specimens were obtained; he was merely a scientist conducting research. He didn’t know that the embroidered handkerchief dotted with drops of Michael’s blood was Nurse Radcliff’s and had been soiled during a vicious attack. He also had no idea that the bloodstained T-shirt had once belonged to Amir Bhattarcharjee and had been used to clean up Michael’s blood from the gym floor after Michael had a minor accident during swim practice. But even with Nurse Radcliff and Amir, now both destroyed, acting as unwitting assistants in Ciaran’s experiments, he was still very far from a breakthrough.
Ciaran had been certain that within those cells, the cells that had only recently been transformed from human into water vampire, he would find the key to their unnatural makeup and quite possibly a kind of physiological roadmap that would lead him to The Well. That had not been the case, not yet. “I think I
“Smashing!” David cried, tapping Ciaran’s hand with his fingers. “Tell me, what did you find?”
“I’ve isolated a gene in Michael’s blood that I’ve never found in Ronan’s. It isn’t human or one that’s found in traditional vampire blood,” Ciaran reported. “But I need to conduct further tests to find out exactly what it means.”
The news wasn’t entirely satisfying to David, but it was progress. And David had learned from years of manipulating the lower classes that progress deserved praise. “That’s amazing,” David declared. “Professor Chow was right, you really are brilliant when it comes to this scientific ... stuff.”
Ciaran felt the heat rise in his cheeks. Professor Chow and David were talking about him? Relaxing, he loosened his grip on his notebook, but kept his arm draped over the page. He was excited, but he still understood the need to keep his notes concealed from David’s prying eyes. However, he hadn’t yet learned to keep his thoughts from David’s prying mind. “So what’s this Atlantium?”
Shocked, Ciaran involuntarily glanced at his notebook. The word he had written down was being blocked by his arm, there was no way David could see it, unless he had some crazy X-ray vision.
Maybe he did; Ciaran had no idea the extent of their powers. The only other alternative was that David was reading his mind. If that was true, David must have also discovered that Ciaran didn’t think anyone other than a water vampire would ever be able to locate The Well.
“Oh that, it’s just the ... um, name I gave to the gene I found,” Ciaran explained.
Folding his arms in front of his massive chest, David nodded. “I like the sound of it.” He knew that was all the recognition Ciaran needed to make him offer a more detailed explanation. And he was right.
“It’s really an anomaly, not even natural as far as I can tell,” Ciaran said, fully aware that he was rambling, but fully unable to stop himself. “Like I said I’m doing some tests on it, but it’s not like I can create a gene on my own. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
“Oh I wouldn’t say that at all,” David interrupted. “I wish I had a brain like yours. Genes, elements
... Atlantium, it’s all Greek to me.”
Laughing along with David, Ciaran just couldn’t keep quiet. “Plus I don’t really have the resources for an experiment that advanced and unless I can do that I don’t think I’ll be able to find The Well.”
The second the words tumbled out of his mouth, he knew they were not the words David wanted to hear. Perhaps he had said them deliberately. Ciaran knew after the incidents that had taken place during The Carnival for the Black Sun that David’s main desire was to locate The Well in order to destroy it, and if he succeeded, what would that mean for his family? Could Ciaran really help David in this endeavor that had the potential to destroy an entire race? For the longest time he had tried not to think about it, he had tried to convince himself that there could be other outcomes, but the more he thought about it the more he knew there could be only one devastating consequence. Regardless of how abandoned he sometimes felt, he couldn’t betray Ronan, his mother, and everyone else. Could he?
Staring into David’s powerful face, feeling the hypnotic pull of his eyes, he wasn’t sure. The only thing he was sure of was that being in David’s company felt right and he didn’t want to be tossed aside and ignored yet again. “There’s always Saoirse.”
“Your sister?” David asked. “What exactly do you mean?”
Like Pandora after she lifted the lid, Ciaran realized there was no turning back. “Saoirse is an untapped resource,” Ciaran began. “You know she’s the child of two water vamps and still human.”
“Yes, of course, doesn’t everyone?”
Swallowing hard, Ciaran continued. “Then you must also know that she possesses incredible strength and unrealized abilities.” Ciaran paused to keep his voice from shaking, but David nodded for him to carry on. “She might be human, but her blood isn’t, it’s scientifically impossible. Something must be preventing her from evolving into the creature she was born to be.”
Resting his chin on his clenched hands, David absorbed Ciaran’s information. “Yes, Chow was right, you’re a regular Einstein,” David commented. “Even if I could think like you can, I wouldn’t know what to do with all that knowledge.”
Luckily, Ciaran did.
“Let me compare Michael’s blood to Saoirse’s, let me conduct experiments on her as well,” Ciaran suggested. “She has got to be linked to The Well even if she isn’t aware of it.”
“Do you think she’ll go along with it?”
Ciaran didn’t blink. “If I can’t convince her, I’ll do it without her consent.”
“It looks like you have a lot of work to do.” Without another word, David rose and walked to the door, turning back to face Ciaran only when he reached the archway. “Thank you,” David said humbly.
“I only wish I could count on everyone the way I can count on you.”
Only after David was gone did Ciaran feel the sweat on his brow and his heart thump so wildly in his chest that he thought it might rip open his skin and burst through his shirt. He had no idea why he had offered his sister as a sacrifice, he had no idea why he was allowing his partnership with David to persist, but he knew it, ultimately, made him feel good. It was refreshing to have a purpose and be treated like an adult, like someone with worth and expertise. He didn’t know where any of this might lead, but he knew that now his only choice was to forge ahead.
Hiding behind an expansive oak tree a few hundred yards away, Ronan felt the same way. As he watched David leave St. Albert’s, one thought entered his mind: he had to confront his brother. Had Ciaran learned nothing from the recent events that plagued Double A? Why in the world would he be meeting secretly with David? What
