Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred (26 page)
Read Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred Online
Authors: Lynn Viehl
Tags: #Romance, #Paranormal, #Fiction
Marlow scanned the report. “Looks like she disappeared on her way home from work.”
Genaro tapped an address on the screen. “Display this on a map.”
The tech brought up a satellite image of the city with one small red balloon.
Marlow glanced at Genaro. “Her mother was working at Energúmeno’s compound when she disappeared.”
Genaro thought of the old women he had seen in the gardens. “Or she never left.”
Charlie silently followed Samuel back to the villa, but as soon as they were inside she stopped and focused. The islanders had spread out in all different directions, their emotions muted, their thoughts intense. “Everything is working now. I can feel all of them out there.”
“I think we need a cup of tea.” He led her into the kitchen. “Can you hear what they’re thinking?”
“Loud and clear, now that Colotl has dispensed with his shields.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “Only problem is, they’re all thinking in that odd language. I can’t understand a word of it.”
“I’m not a linguist, but what I heard sounded almost archaic,” he said as he took out a pan and filled it with water. “If it is an obscure or dead language, this master Tlemi spoke of probably used it as a control measure.”
“How would it control them?” She joined him at the stove.
“If any of them escaped his custody, speaking an uncommon language assured they wouldn’t be able to easily communicate with outsiders.” He glanced at her. “How old were you when you were adopted?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “The Marenas thought I was about five or six.”
“I meant your first family.”
“No idea. Probably a baby.” Charlie went over to the fridge. “Do you want some fruit?”
“No, thank you.” He took out two cups and a tin, opening the lid to sniff the contents before spooning some into the cups. “When my parents adopted me, I was about a year old, but I had already learned to speak a few words.”
She could imagine what a beautiful baby boy he must have been, and felt a pang of longing. “‘Mama’ and ‘Dada’?”
“My mother told me later that they had no idea what I was saying, but she wrote down in my baby book the words I spoke by how they sounded.” He watched her arrange some pineapple slices on a plate. “A few years ago I had the sounds analyzed. It turned out that my cradle language was Chinese.”
“Some of the other Takyn mentioned that they spoke odd languages as kids.” She sealed the plastic container before returning it to the fridge. “I couldn’t speak Spanish when I met the Marenas, and they didn’t speak any English, but I understood their thoughts perfectly. I also don’t have a problem with any other non–English speaker’s thoughts. So why can’t I understand the castaways?”
“Perhaps because you’ve never before been exposed to this particular language.” He added hot water from the pan to the cups before he picked them up from the counter. “Why don’t we go and talk in the living room?”
“You mean the pit of decadence and depravity?” She grimaced. “All that red makes me nervous.”
He seemed surprised. “I thought most women find it romantic.”
“Maybe women who don’t work in the medical field,” she said. “All it reminds me of are severe injuries, bio-hazardous material, and blood.”
“We should still make use of the room occasionally.” He turned his back on the kitchen camera. “If we are going to plan a successful escape, we’ll have to keep up appearances.” He shifted his eyes up.
That reminded her. “I don’t like the idea of your going by yourself to this cave tomorrow night,” she said as she followed him to the living room. “We don’t know how Segundo is getting his information; they could have an informer among them. And even with Colotl’s shields, eventually he will find out about whatever you and the men have planned.”
“There will be risks,” he agreed. “But, Charlotte, consider the alternative. As much as I would enjoy having a child with you, I will not allow either of us to be bred like animals.”
He always came up with something she couldn’t argue with, and while he was right, she still felt annoyed. Even the way he remained standing, politely waiting for her to sit down first, got on her nerves.
Deliberately she set the fruit on a table and moved around the room. “Why does someone buy twelve American children of mixed blood, raise them to speak a language no one understands, and then strand them on an island to fend for themselves?”
“He could be attempting to create a gene pool,” Samuel said as he sipped his tea. “Or he purchased one that had already been created. Aside from the placement of their tattoos and the racial diversity, the way they interacted with each other gave me the impression they were a unit.”
“All but Pici,” Charlie pointed out. “She isn’t tattooed on the forearm like the other women. She’s also younger than the others by at least five years.” She idly picked up a red satin pillow and plucked at the corner tassels. “If that’s his goal, he’s going to need more livestock.”
“Seven couples aren’t a viable gene pool?” When she nodded, Samuel asked, “What if every man impregnates every woman and each of their unrelated female offspring?”
“Still not enough. Even if you could convince the couples to play musical beds and breed with the next generation to produce a superhuman population, you have to allow for infertility, stillbirths, genetic anomalies, and diseases,” she told him. “Even under ideal circumstances with near-perfect reproduction, you’d have to start with at least two hundred unrelated couples. Otherwise inbreeding is inevitable within a few generations.”
Samuel grew thoughtful. “What if he doesn’t intend to create a superhuman subspecies?”
She eyed him. “Then what’s he going to do with the offspring? Sell them the same way their parents were? Who would want . . .” She stopped as she realized the obvious answer to her own question, and the pillow fell from her hands. “Not GenHance.”
“They could be a potential buyer, but to me this operation has all the hallmarks of a long-term investment. Consider our accommodations and our duties.” He made a sweeping gesture. “One does not keep livestock pampered in a mansion in order to supply a slaughterhouse.”
Samuel was choosing his words too carefully again. “You’ve figured out why they’re here, and you’re keeping it from me.”
His expression never changed, but a guarded look came into his eyes. “I haven’t yet obtained enough facts to make a reasonable hypothesis, Charlotte.”
“My ass, you haven’t.” She came over to him. “I want to know. Now, you can tell me yourself, or I can climb inside your head and stay there until you forget
not
to think about it.”
not
to think about it.”
“While you keep your secrets safe from me?” he countered. “Doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?”
“What secrets? You know about my job, my ability, my parents forging my records. When we were chatting online I confided in you about everything. God, I even told you about the men I’ve dated.” Charlie threw up her hands. “What more do you want to know?”
“What happened to you before the Marenas took you in? Who was your first family?” As she began to reply he shook his head. “You’ve already said that you can’t remember, and I know it’s not the truth.”
All the fight went out of her, and she turned away. “Don’t make me go there, Sam. It’s not a nice place. I just want to forget about it.”
“But you haven’t.” He came up behind her and put his arms around her. “It’s because you’ve never told anyone.”
“I thought about it. The way Aphrodite talked, it sounded like she’d been kicked quite a bit. I thought she might understand. But every time I tried . . .” She hesitated and leaned back against him. “It’s always been like a nightmare that I could wake up from and forget for a while. Telling someone else makes it real again.”
“Facing it is the only way to get past it,” he suggested as he guided her over to the sofa and sat down with her. “It helps to have a friend there when you do.”
She rested her forearms on her thighs as she hunched forward. “I was adopted by a couple in California. They were young, beautiful, knew all the right people—like an eighties version of Brad and Angelina—and they had money. Lots of money.” She gave him a sideways glance. “Your kind of money.”
“It isn’t everything, Charlotte,” he said gently.
“It was to my parents. You and I probably had very similar childhoods. The big, fancy room filled with toys. The private nanny, the catered birthday parties, the designer clothes, the carefully selected friends.” She smiled a little. “For me, it was like being part of a fairy tale. King and queen for parents, me their little princess, all of us living in a castle high up on the hill. It was almost like what they tell us heaven is. Of course, I knew we’d live happily ever after, because that’s how my nanny said all fairy tales end.”
“Yours didn’t,” he guessed.
“No.” Charlie swallowed against the tightness in her throat and turned toward Samuel. “I didn’t understand why my mother was so angry that night; I didn’t know what investment scams and fraud were. I didn’t even realize my father had strangled her and my nanny that night, just before we left the house. I was six years old, and my daddy was taking me on an adventure. My first.” Tears spilled over her lashes. “His last.”
Samuel pulled her closer. “That’s enough, Charlotte. You don’t have to say another word.”
“I do. Let me, before I change my mind.” Quickly she wiped her eyes and forced herself to go on. “My father drove up to the Golden Gate Bridge and took me on the walkway. When he picked me up and climbed over the railing, I thought he wanted me to see the water. Then he kissed me, and he told me we’d be together forever.” She stared at nothing. “He jumped off the bridge with me, Sam.”
Samuel muttered something and pulled her onto his lap. She linked her hands behind his neck and pressed her hot face against his cool skin.
“I really don’t remember hitting the water, which I know was a blessing. The next thing I knew I was clutching my father’s shirt as we floated away in the dark. I couldn’t wake him up, and I couldn’t swim, so I just held on and cried.” She shivered, remembering. “The water was like ice. When we reached the shore my arms and legs were so numb I could barely crawl. Once, I looked back, but my father was gone. The current had taken him away.”
He stroked her cheek. “You must have been terrified.”
“Enough to hide in the bushes for a day and a half, until I was too hungry to sleep. That’s when I heard the first voice in my head, and saw an old woman out walking her poodle. She was tired and annoyed with the dog for peeing on her carpet. I followed her to her house, and when she went inside, I stole some oranges from a tree in her backyard. I crawled behind the lawn mower in her shed to eat them.”
“You weren’t injured?”
“My back and my head hurt, but after two days I was fine.” She sighed. “Just cold. Always cold and hungry.”
“How long did you live like that?”
“Probably a couple of weeks. People in that part of the city liked to garden, so I found plenty of fruit and vegetables to steal, and sheds and crawl spaces where I could hide and sleep.” She realized that the nausea she normally felt when she thought about her father and the bridge wasn’t affecting her now. Samuel had been right; it did feel better to talk about it. “I ran away from everyone who saw me, of course. I didn’t understand their thoughts, and I was afraid. I thought they’d know I let my daddy drown, and they’d put me in jail, or take me back to the bridge and throw me off again. Crazy stuff.”
“You suffered the unthinkable, honey, and you survived it. That’s not crazy at all.” He kissed her brow. “What made you decide to stay with your second family?”
“Mama Marena.” As always, simply saying her name made a sweet warmth spread through Charlie. “I heard her thoughts as soon as she saw me from the kitchen window. All this love and longing; she thought I was a little lost angel that God had sent to her. When she came out of the house, she had an old quilt in her hands. She sat on the steps and smiled while she waited for me to come to her. When I did, she wrapped me up and carried me inside. She made me warm milk and honey, and sat with me in her rocking chair, singing to me until I fell asleep. I was hers from that day on.”
He took her hand in his. “Is she the one who named you Charlotte?”
She smiled. “At first she called me Charlatana, probably out of wishful thinking. When it came time to fill out my papers she got a baby book from the library and looked for an American name that was close to that. Charlotte was the result.”
“What does Charlatana mean?”
“Talkative.” Her lips twisted. “After Mama found me, I didn’t speak or make a sound for months. She assumed I was mute, not that it made a difference to her.”
“She sounds like a wonderful woman.”
“Mama would say she was nothing special.” She looked up at him. “She wasn’t beautiful or young, and she’d never gone to school. To make a few bucks every week she sold cookies and cakes to the local bodegas. But she saved my life and my soul, Sam. She took care of me, and cherished me, and protected me until the day she died. I’ll never know love like that again.”
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