Thirst No. 4 (29 page)

WE INVOKE THE POWER THAT DESTROYS.

FOR WE ARE ONE WITH THY POWER.”

The tornado strikes again. I feel myself simultaneously pulled up and struck down. The internal spinning makes me outwardly dizzy and I fear I will vomit. Lark’s voice softens until I suspect his voice is just in my mind.

The weird grip I felt on my shoulders returns. Someone or something stands behind me. I’m not imagining it.
He
watches, he listens. He knows me while I know nothing about him.

Suddenly the tornado stops. My eyes are locked shut.

Yet I
can
see. I know where I am. Geneva.

The Marherrs’ home is a mansion. I see signs they were entertaining earlier in the evening but now it’s late, it’s dark. The Marherrs are alone. Hurley is reclining in a hot tub next to an Olympic-size swimming pool. He must take his laps seriously to have such a large pool. His dark hair is cut short, almost to his scalp, his muscles are perfectly sculpted, probably
from exercise. He floats on his back in the steaming liquid, his thoughts sleepy.

Ruth is in the garage, throwing out a bag of garbage, when she sees a beetle scamper into the corner. In a flash she moves to crush it; the woman obviously hates bugs. This is all the Cradle needs.

Leaving her husband alone, we go after her first. The Cradle crashes through whatever mental barriers she has cultivated in the last few thousand years and brushes them aside. Suddenly the beetle swells in
her
vision to the size of a human being. It backs her into the opposite corner, speaking in Lark’s voice.

“Pour the chlorine in the hot tub filter or I will eat you,” the beetle says to the terrified woman. I feel her trying to convince herself it’s not there but it looks so real.

“Please,” she begs.

“The chlorine!” The beetle hisses. “Pour it into the filter!”

The Marherrs keep a large tank in their garage. It stores warm water generated by solar panels on their roof. A plastic pipe runs from it, and attached to the pipe, on the garage end, is the filter we’re trying to force Ruth to pour the chlorine into.

Ruth continues to try to resist but with the beetle bearing down on her, she cowers. The Cradle has intuitively tapped into her fear of bugs. Feeling frantic, she snaps the lid off the filter and reaches for a gallon of chlorine. Given the size of
their pool, I’m not surprised to see so much of the harsh liquid on hand. Twisting off the top of the bottle, she dumps the chlorine into the gurgling water that will flow back to the hot tub where her husband is bathing.

“More!” the beetle shouts when she has finished draining the first bottle. I am not directing this portion of the Cradle’s attack but I can see that it’s clever. Lark—I assume he’s in charge—has identified that Ruth is the weaker of the two, while Hurley is in the more vulnerable position. By combining her fear of bugs with her husband’s carefree floating in the hot tub, Lark has created a fearsome two-pronged attack.

Ruth is unable to resist the Cradle. She pours bottle after bottle into the filter until she’s used up a supply of over forty bottles. If the water was feeding the entire pool, it wouldn’t have been so dangerous. But the valves are set so that all the chlorine flows straight to the hot tub.

“Now run! Run to your husband!” the beetle cackles.

Ruth flees. Maybe she thinks she can outrun the monster.

In her backyard, she finds her husband writhing in the water. Not only has the concentrated chlorine begun to burn off his skin, but the fumes from the steam are frying his lungs. He thrashes in vain to escape the hot tub, and it is only then that I realize the green-tinged water has blinded him.

“Ruth! Help me! Ruth!” he cries.

“Hurley,” she moans, seeing him in such a pitiful condition. To her credit she tries to pull him free, but Hurley is like
a drowning man grasping at a rope. He grabs her arm and doesn’t let go. Worse, for Ruth, the beetle returns and appears to kick her in the butt.

The blow isn’t real. It’s all in her head. It doesn’t matter. She thinks it’s real and that’s enough. Falling into the hot tub beside her husband, crying, she inhales a lungful of the highly chlorinated water and begins to choke. Now there are two of them thrashing in the hot tub and it’s no wonder when one of them bumps the rubber button that controls the cover.

A motor whirls to life and a mechanical device begins to drag a thick plastic sheet over the water. Ordinarily, the cover shouldn’t be able to knock down a ten-year-old, but their skin is falling off in agonizing red strips and they’re both vomiting blood. They’re helpless.

Like a lid on a coffin, the hot tub cover seals them in the water.

The Cradle releases its grip so it can savor this moment of greatest fear and pain. Or perhaps it’s the Familiars that take over at this point, I’m not sure. But once more I sense their gluttony.

My eyes are still shut, nevertheless I see them standing behind each of the kids. Like before, I’m unable to turn and see the Familiar that grips me. Yet I feel something akin to talons digging into my shoulders and I realize that each time we feed the creature, it gets stronger. At the very least, its hold on me gets strengthened.

The crystal vase at the center of the room fills with blood.
A series of loud slurping sounds follows and the blood begins to drain away. When it is all gone, the candle spontaneously flickers out and the pressure on the back of my head eases up.

I discover I can open my eyes. Like before, I sag forward and only keep from falling due to Jolie squeezing my hand and bringing me back to the physical dimension. I’m surprised to see blood trickling from her right nostril. I have a handkerchief and reach up to wipe it away.

“What is this?” I ask.

“Sometimes it hurts,” the little girl replies.

I turn to Lark, who is not jumping for joy like last time. He, too, appears drained. “We got them,” I say as a form of congratulation.

He nods. “They made for interesting prey.”

I stand and address the group.

“The Telar will soon hear of this attack. They’ll band together and fight to protect themselves. The faster we can destroy them, the better our chances. For that reason, I want you all to rest now. We’re going to strike again in three hours.”

Lark grabs at my leg as I go to leave.

“You’re not in charge here,” he snaps.

“But I am. Did someone forget to tell you?”

Lark goes to stand but thinks better of it. He’s exhausted.

“We should wait at least a day before our next attack,” he says.

“You heard what I said. The longer we wait, the more they will band together and the harder they will be to kill. But you
don’t have to lead the next attack. I’m getting a feel for how the Cradle works. I’ll take over.”

Lark forces a smile. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

Charlie’s waiting outside my room as I get off the elevator on the top floor. He has brought four large suitcases. He is being guarded by some of the men that burst into Brutran’s office the day I released the virus into the compound. I dismiss them and invite Charlie into my room. I lock the door behind us.

“Are you tired from your travels or can you work?” I ask.

Charlie saw me before I left Santa Cruz but he still struggles with the fact that I have come back from the grave. He has trouble looking me in the eye, and his facial twitch seems to act up in my presence. I hope he doesn’t scare away the IIC’s doctors.

“I’m fine,” he says. “What do you want me to do first?”

“Hand over all your data on the vaccine to Dr. Hayes. He’s one of the world’s foremost experts on viruses.”

“I’ve heard of him. I didn’t know he worked for the IIC.”

“He didn’t. They bought him yesterday for ten million euros. Teach him and his people any tricks you know to speed up the manufacture of the vaccine. Then I want you to inoculate all the people in this compound except for the children. Don’t give anyone under the age of eighteen a shot.”

“May I ask why?”

“I’ll explain later. Don’t broadcast the fact that you’re not taking care of the kids. They’ll catch on eventually but it will take time.”

“But you are going to vaccinate them, aren’t you?”

“Of course. Matt will take care of it when he arrives.”

“I didn’t know he was coming.”

“I’m going to call him in a minute. Charlie, it’s important while you’re here that you avoid the kids. They’re not what they appear to be.”

Charlie rubs his hands nervously. “You’re scaring me.”

“That’s not my intention. I want to thank you for all the hard work you put in on this new vaccine. I know you haven’t gotten much sleep lately.”

“Well, it’s not every day you get to save the world.”

“You should get the Nobel Prize. Unfortunately, if everything goes according to plan, no one will know about your work.”

“Few geniuses are appreciated in their lifetime.”

“No one knows that better than me.” I pause. “Charlie, you’ve never described to me the end result of the X6X6 virus in human beings. I know it’s fatal but exactly how does it kill?”

“The virus causes a multitude of preliminary symptoms. The blisters are followed by dizziness and general weakness. But the virus was designed to destroy the central nervous system. It migrates to the spinal cord and the brain stem, where it causes severe hemorrhaging,”

I think of the Hydra myth. “It sounds as if it causes people’s heads to explode.”

“Internally, yes. It’s not a pleasant way to go.”

“How long does the virus take to kill?”

“Between six and twelve hours.”

“Then get to work. Make sure it’s stopped.”

When Charlie is gone, I call Matt, who happens to be with Seymour. They’re both playing CII—Cosmic Intuitive Intuition. Or rather they say they’re studying it, and that they’ve discovered some strange quirks. For one thing, Seymour says it’s making him feel odd.

“Why didn’t it make you feel odd before?” I ask.

“I never played it for any length of time,” he says. “But now, I don’t know, I feel depressed.”

“How do you feel, Matt?” I ask.

“Fine so far. But we’ve discovered that when it comes to this game, what you see and hear isn’t what you get. Listen closely to this battle scene. Watch the screen on your cell. Tell me what you see
and
hear.”

He downloads a segment of the game to my phone. At first glance it looks like a hundred other video battle scenes. The hero is armed with an assortment of weapons. He’s trying to fight his way to a spaceship that waits at the edge of a desolate city. A variety of alien creatures fight to stop him. He shoots and kills dozens of them but some don’t die so easily.

As I’ve mentioned, my hearing is my most acute sense and
I notice something weird with the soundtrack. I hear voices, in the background, but the words are either greatly accelerated or extremely slowed down. Even with my ears, I can’t tell what’s being said. I tell Matt and Seymour about what I hear.

“I had the same difficulty,” Matt replies. “That’s why I recorded it onto my computer. There I could speed it up or slow it down. Let me play what’s being said in the middle of the battle, at high speed.”

“
ALL WHO GATHER TODAY

ARE SERVANTS OF THE ONE

WE CALL UPON THE POWERS THAT BE

AS WIELDERS OF THE ANCIENT FLAME

WE PRAY TO THE DARKNESS OF OLD

WE ARE THY SERVANTS . . .”

Lark’s invocation is recited in an endless loop, but someone else is talking. Matt switches from high speed to slow speed and the words get even more disturbing. They sound like a dirge written for a demon.

“POWER FLOWS FROM PAIN

CONTROL IS ACHIEVED THROUGH FEAR

INFLICT PAIN AND BECOME FREE INVOKE FEAR AND BECOME THE MASTER

CONTROL BOTH AND MERGE INTO THE ONE.”

“It’s called masking,” Seymour says. “The principle is actually old. It’s a subliminal feed. The people who invented masking say the conscious mind doesn’t recognize it but the subconscious does. It was used in theaters in the fifties to try to get people to buy more popcorn.”

“At first we were surprised they’d use such a primitive technique to try to influence people,” Matt says. “But this game is designed to play with headphones. You can’t play it without them because many of the clues are given in your right ear, while actual instructions are fed into the left ear. The game forces you to listen in stereo. That made me suspicious.”

“Why do they want you to listen in stereo?” I ask.

“So you can pick up the binaural beats,” Seymour says. “The human ear can hear between twenty and twenty thousand hertz. But say you play three hundred hertz in the right ear and three hundred ten hertz in the left. If the sounds are carefully synchronized, they cancel each other out and all that’s left is the difference between the two—ten hertz.”

“But you just said the human ear can’t hear that low,” I say.

“True,” Matt says. “But the brain recognizes the sound and at some level absorbs what’s being said. Furthermore, it’s well known that binaural beats cause the waves in the two hemispheres of the brain to synchronize.”