A Shade of Vampire 26: A World of New (15 page)

T
he time
I had spent with Lawrence had been full of surprises.

But I never would have predicted what happened later that night.

Not because there had been no foreshadowing of it—indeed, there had been, thanks to the hunter’s warning—but because I had pushed the possibility to the back of my mind. I’d forced myself to brush it aside, discard it, forget about it.

But at about 2AM, after Lawrence and I had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, the hunter’s words came back to haunt me, blasting through our peace like a fog horn.

I was awoken by the feeling of Lawrence shaking. When I opened my eyes, he had let go of me and was lying flat on his back, face panned to the ceiling. His expression was contorted in silent pain, his eyes squinting shut. His whole body was shaking, and I had never heard his breathing so erratic. He was in the midst of some kind of fit.

I shot upright and yelled for Shayla. I rushed out of the room and burst into the witch’s, hurtling to her bed. I gripped her shoulders and violently shook her awake.

“Lawrence!” I yelled. “It’s Lawrence!”

“What?” she gasped, half asleep.

I dragged her from her bed and hurried back to the second bedroom. During the few moments that I’d left Lawrence, his shaking had increased tenfold.

“Oh, dear,” Shayla breathed, her jaw dropping, face lighting up in panic.

She performed various spells to try to calm him down, but he wouldn’t stop shaking and now his throat seemed so choked up that it was practically clogged. He was barely even breathing at all.

“Grab our stuff!” Shayla ordered me. “We’ve got to return to the hospital!”

My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t even pack. I just grabbed whatever was nearest me, along with Shayla’s suitcase and the wheelchair. Then the witch gripped hold of the back of my neck and vanished the three of us from the castle.

Even as we spun through the air, countless questions circled around and around in my mind.
What’s going on with him? What happened during the night?
I even found myself wondering whether it was something that I’d done by mistake. What tore up my heart completely was that we were leaving that graveyard. He had been so excited to return there in the morning. And I had no idea what was going to happen now—when, or if, he would be able to return.

Worry was eating away at me as we reappeared outside Lawrence’s hospital room. Shayla bundled him inside.

“Go and fetch whatever witches or jinn are around!”

With that, she slammed the door behind her, locking me out. I wanted nothing more than to stay in the room with her. With Lawrence. But of course, I acquiesced, and raced to the phone in the hallway. I dialed down to the apothecary, which was where the witches and jinn usually were if they were at the hospital. Thankfully, five witches and two jinn were down there, and they came hurrying up. I directed them to Lawrence’s room and they hurried inside, crowding around the bed so much that I couldn’t even see what was going on. But although I couldn’t see, I could hear. And that was enough to cause the hairs on my body to stand on end.

Lawrence’s breathing was becoming more like… rattling.

“What is going on with him?” I stammered. I hated to be a distraction but I simply couldn’t help myself. Nobody answered me as they moved around his bed.

Shayla emerged from the group and came to me. Gripping my hand, she took me to the door and said, “Grace, wait out here, okay? There’s nothing more you can do right now. We are doing all that we can for him.”

She closed the door on me again.
Dammit
. Tears of panic brimmed in my eyes as I gazed desperately at the door, wishing that I had X-ray vision. What on earth did Shayla expect me to do? Where was I supposed to go now? Lawrence had become my life the past few weeks. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t stand. I shuffled up and down just outside the door for God knew how long. I lost all sense of time.

Then a familiar voice called to me from the other end of the corridor.

“Grace?”

I whirled to see my mother striding toward me, my father at her side, my grandparents Derek and Sofia behind them. Micah also accompanied them, carrying what appeared to be a wounded, unconscious Bastien. Micah took the werewolf into one of the spare rooms while my family continued approaching me. They all looked surprised to see me, and their eyes widened even further as they realized the state that I was in.

My mother reached me and clutched my hands. Her turquoise eyes roamed my face, her dark brows knotting. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” she asked.

Oh, God
. My throat choked up just at the thought of explaining it all.
Where do I even begin?
I looked helplessly from my mother to my father, then to my grandparents, who were eyeing me with equal concern.

I was surprised that they were back so soon—I had expected them to be gone longer, given that they had also planned to visit the ogres’ realm while they were in the supernatural dimension. Perhaps the journey had been cut short for some reason. In my anxiety, I couldn’t even bring myself to ask what had been going on with them. My mind was too rooted to the present. To this hospital. To Lawrence’s room.

“What’s been happening?” my father pressed, kissing the side of my head.

“Lawrence,” I managed.

“Who’s Lawrence?” my grandfather asked.

“The boy we rescued… E-Everything’s gone wrong with him!”

At this, I could no longer hold back the tears. My mom gathered me in her arms and took me to sit down on a bench in the hallway.

Please be okay, Lawrence. Please be okay.

I managed to compose myself enough to speak. I filled my family in briefly on what had happened since Shayla and I had parted ways with them, even as question after question continued to assault me.
What is so different about Lawrence that the jinn and witches are finding so hard to treat?
They’d had so little luck in treating him until this point, would they even be able to treat him now?

I didn’t miss how taken aback my parents looked at how strongly I was reacting to Lawrence’s plight—the plight of a man who, only a short while ago, had been a complete and utter stranger to me.

In truth, I was confused myself. But everything was confusing to me in that moment. Everything was a mystery. Everything was…

My heart jolted as the door to Lawrence’s room opened. Shayla emerged, her hair disheveled, her face ashen. I ran to her as she approached us.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

“We’ve managed to stabilize him,” she replied. “He’s breathing somewhat normally again. He’s stopped shaking but…”

I held my breath.

“He’s become completely paralyzed. He can no longer even move his arms. He came to briefly, and all motion in the upper portion of his body has gone.”

It felt like somebody had just punched me in the gut.

Complete paralysis.

His arms.

Oh, no. No.

“Let me see him,” I breathed.

Shayla allowed me into the room, where the jinn and witches were still hovering around his bed. I squeezed in next to them, and stood by his head. His eyes were closed. He was apparently unconscious again.

“Those hunters were apparently not lying after all,” Safi muttered.

“What is happening?” I looked to each of their faces desperately. “
Why
did this happen? What is it in his system that’s causing this?”

Safi shook her head. “There are lots of strange, artificial substances circulating in his body. It could be any one of them.”

“I can’t help but feel that removing that tracker had something to do with it,” Shayla added in a low voice, eyeing the unconscious Lawrence.

I turned on her. “What? How?”

“I destroyed it, so I cannot check it now. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it served two purposes. Not only to trace his location, but also as some kind of regulator. There was an immediate difference in him after I took it out, wasn’t there, Grace?”

I nodded slowly, realization dawning on me.

“He looked much more ill the next day,” she went on, “and his appetite, which had been building up slowly, vanished. And it never recovered. Perhaps, in time, he would have gotten this way even with the tracker still in him, but whatever that thing was, removing it seems to have hastened his degeneration.”

“So what now?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.
Is he actually dying?

When nobody replied, my knees felt weak. I gripped my mother’s arm. She stood beside me for support. We all fell into silence, staring down at Lawrence. If Shayla’s speculations were true, he was a ticking time bomb. He had already lost the use of his limbs, how much longer before the rest of him gave way? Would whatever was breaking his system down attack his vital organs?

There came a sharp knock at the door. We turned around to find Corrine entering, Ibrahim at her side.

“Derek,” she said, looking straight at my grandfather.

“What is it?” my grandfather asked.

“We have a visitor. A human requesting entrance to The Shade.”

“Human?” Derek asked.

“Yes,” Ibrahim responded, exchanging a weary glance with his wife. “A gentleman in his mid to late forties… A Mr. Atticus Conway.”

M
y jaw dropped
.

Mr.
Atticus Conway.

Corrine went on, “He claims his son is here. The boy we took from The Woodlands. He claims he urgently needs to see him. That the boy’s life is at stake. Lawrence, he called him,” she added. “He’s waiting outside the boundary, near the Port.”

“Take us to him,” my grandfather said.

Corrine and Ibrahim grabbed me, my parents and grandparents, and we vanished along with the rest of the witches and jinn. We reappeared at the end of the jetty. It had started to rain.

Corrine pointed into the distance, beyond the boundary. Squinting, I could just about make out the shape of a small boat and a tall figure standing in it, facing our island.

“Well, that’s him,” Corrine said, looking from my grandmother to my grandfather. They and my parents would be able to see the man in detail from this distance, though I couldn’t.

“More than likely an imposter,” my grandfather muttered.

“He could be a hunter pretending to be his father,” Shayla said.

“Whatever the case, now you’ve had a look at him,” Corrine said, “do you want to go and speak to him? Or should I just tell him to get lost?”

“We should speak to him,” Shayla answered before anyone else. “We should be able to detect within a matter of minutes whether he is genuine or not.”

The witches moved us closer with the jinn until we had shot out from the boundary. We hovered in the air above the man’s boat.

Now I could see him clearly. My stomach dropped. It was impossible to miss the resemblance. The man shared the same chin as Lawrence, the same slightly triangular jawline, the same dusty blond hair. Though this man’s irises were icy blue, rather than tawny brown.

He gazed up at us, his eyes shining with anxiety.

“My name is Atticus Conway,” he introduced himself in a nasally voice. But… it was not a British voice. This man had an American accent. Despite his likeness, this sent alarm bells ringing. “I have come for my son, Lawrence Conway. You must let me take him, or he will die. It might even already be too late.”

I narrowed my eyes on him even as his words flamed my angst. My gaze roamed his boat. A speedboat. I half expected to see the letters IBSI painted on the side of the vessel. But I did not.

“Why do you say that he will die?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. “What is wrong with your son, exactly? What did the IBSI do to him?”
And who are you?

The man’s face tilted to me, his expression earnest. “The IBSI is in the process of developing a formula that, if realized, will enhance a human’s prowess to levels never reached before. Its purpose is to enhance abilities in combat, but also self defense…”

“Levels never reached before?” Derek interrupted. “I have seen for myself heightened abilities in IBSI members. Have they not already developed such a formula?”

The man shook his head. “It sounds like what you have witnessed is just the early stages. They are developing something much more powerful—though,” he added quickly, “I have not been privy to any further details about it.”

“What was your son doing with them in the first place?” Corrine asked.

“He was a test subject,” Atticus replied. “A willing test subject, I should add.”

Willing?

“W-Was—Is—he an IBSI member?” I choked.

“He was, and is, not,” Atticus replied. “And neither am I. We are citizens of Chicago… or what’s left of it.”

“He doesn’t sound like he’s from Chicago,” Corrine countered.

“No, he does not,” the man agreed. “His mother was British.”

The fact that Atticus used the past tense while describing Lawrence’s mother barely registered in my brain. I was still in shock.

“Why would he be willing to undergo something like that?” I asked.

Atticus’ expression darkened. “He did it for his mother.”

My face scrunched in confusion. “Huh?”

“IBSI’s pay was high. My wife was dying of lung cancer. We needed money to treat her… The cruel irony is, she passed away last week, before Lawrence could have ever made it back.” He paused, his voice catching in his throat. “But I had no idea about any of his plans. If I’d known that Lawrence had been planning to apply for the position, of course I never would’ve let him do it. He left without my consent. I only found out where he’d disappeared to, and that he’d been selected, when I was contacted by the IBSI less than twenty-four hours ago… explaining to me that the procedure had been sabotaged and if I did not manage to reclaim him from you, the consequences of the half-completed procedure would kill him within a matter of days. I need to return him to IBSI Chicago headquarters. They’re the only ones who know how to fix him.”

“B-But why would they select Lawrence for such a test in the first place?” I stammered. “Isn’t the point to enhance humans’ capabilities? He’s not even a human. He is a half-blood, right?”

Atticus nodded. “He suffered the misfortune of stumbling across a vampire last year near the city’s outskirts… The bastard got it into his head to turn my son, though I managed to stake him while he’d been injecting his venom. At least it was just a vampire, and not a Bloodless,” he added darkly. “As for your other question, I don’t know why IBSI accepted him. As I said, I only found out less than twenty-four hours ago that my son is in mortal danger. The IBSI hasn’t disclosed details to me.” He swallowed hard, desperation in his gaze as he looked from one of us to the other. “Now p-please. Return my son to me.”

His words hung in the air as a chill silence engulfed us. I locked eyes with Shayla. Her expression was shrouded with doubt. “First, we must test whether or not you are an imposter,” she said. Not waiting for Atticus’ agreement, she moved over to him and gripped his shoulders. In the face of the magic she was performing on him, if Atticus was indeed an imposter, disguised as Mr. Conway by some form of trickery, he would be forced to reveal his true form. He didn’t change. He remained standing, the same blond-haired, ashen-faced man.

As my gut clenched, I realized that a part of me had been hoping that he was a fraud. A hunter in disguise—perhaps the same one who had shouted down that fateful warning about Lawrence. I didn’t want to believe that this was true. I didn’t want to believe that we were about to willingly hand Lawrence back over to those people. Those monsters.

I still struggled to believe that Lawrence had been a volunteer, in spite of the conviction in his father’s eyes. I recalled the fear in Lawrence’s expression—how he had practically begged me to not return him to the IBSI—when they had come to bomb our island and demand that we hand him over. I never would have gotten the impression in a million years that he had willingly handed himself over to them, no matter how faded his memory was.

No, Lawrence’s wish had been for us to keep him. His wish had been to risk dying rather than be returned to the hunters.

My throat dried out.

As I sensed that one of the adults was on the verge of answering—probably my grandfather, suggesting that Corrine or Shayla fetch Lawrence—I looked Atticus straight in the eye and said, “Your son did not want to be returned to the IBSI. It was practically his last wish that we keep him here, even if he risked his life by staying.”

Atticus stared at me, disbelieving. “I can’t imagine him saying that.”

“He did,” I replied. “I can assure you, I would never lie about something like this.”

He frowned, looking disturbed. “Then… Then he must have been delirious, or something.”

“He wasn’t deliri—”

“It doesn’t matter.” Atticus knelt and was begging now, his voice ragged with desperation and grief. “Whatever my son may have said, I don’t care! He is
my son
! I c-cannot let him die!”

I swallowed hard, glancing once again at Shayla. She was still looking torn, but I was sure that we both knew that there wasn’t an option here anymore.

And as much as the idea of handing Lawrence back to those aberrations of humanity made me sick to my stomach, I realized… I wanted what Atticus wanted, even if it was against Lawrence’s wishes. I wanted him to be cured, no matter what the price.

Shayla drew in a long, slow breath. She looked to Corrine, my grandparents and then back to Lawrence’s father.

“All right,” she said heavily. “We will bring your son.”

* * *

I
f I had ever thought
about Lawrence and I parting, it would never have been like this. Shayla scooped him up from the hospital bed and planted him in his wheelchair while he was still unconscious. I gazed down at his sweaty, pallid face, barely even having a chance to kiss his cheek before the witch vanished us back to Atticus.

And then Lawrence was lowered into the boat, before being hidden from my view completely in the front compartment.

It felt like it was all happening in slow motion. Almost like I was watching the events rather than participating in them.

Shayla asked whether she ought to transport them back to Chicago to hasten the journey, but Atticus refused, saying that an IBSI helicopter was waiting nearby for him to return. They had decided not to come any closer after their previous fracas with The Shade, and just sent him instead.

Then Atticus locked himself out of view, too. The vessel began to move. It quickly ramped up its pace, speeding away and leaving behind trails of white foam in the water.

My eyes were wide, barely blinking as I stared. I wasn’t quite sure what I was feeling in that moment. I guessed I felt… numb. Caught in time.

Shayla returned us to the jetty and I stood at its end, staring at what had now become a white dot in the distance.

And I remained standing, long after it had disappeared.