"Excellent. When your training is completed, you will surrender your office of priest and join our ranks to become a soldier in the service of God." The cardinal leaned forward, his small dark eyes intent. "Be sure this is what you wish, for there will be no letters of resignation, no last-minute changes of heart. When you join the Brethren, no one outside the order can ever know what you do. This includes any ordained member of the Catholic church who is not Brethren."
The dramatic quality of the warning seemed a bit theatrical, but John was beginning to suspect these men thrived on drama. They had certainly set the stage for it. "You're saying that once I start, I can't quit, and I can't tell anyone, or I'll be punished."
Stoss watched him closely. "If you abandon or betray the order, you will be executed."
John stared back at the cardinal for a long, silent moment. "You are serious."
"The Darkyn are desperate, and will use anyone they can to destroy us. We cannot risk even one brother being captured alive by these monsters." His eyes turned shrewd. "You do not strike me as a fearful man, John Patrick. You are a pragmatist, and a survivor. I tell you now, we need men like you to enlist in our cause. For centuries the Darkyn have been gathering and organizing their kind, and someday very soon they will move against the church." When John started to protest, he shook his head. "I know you do not believe, but let us say for the sake of argument that these demons exist. Will you help us send them back to hell?"
"If they are real, then yes. I will defend the church and the living."
"That is all we ask of you." The cardinal rose. "I will escort you to your novitiate master, who will start your training."
Before she went off to work for her cousin the Korean podiatrist, Grace took care of removing Alex from the hospital call list and referring her last patient to another surgeon. Alex did her part by finishing up the notes on her open cases and sending her records to the hospital, where they could be stored and accessed when needed.
She didn't close her office until she had finished running the last series of tests on herself: full blood screen, toxicologies, and an upper and lower GI. Doing it by herself took some finesse—administering the barium required for the GI series to herself made her sick—but she managed. Her intestines and stomach had shrunk so much that on the films she had taken, they appeared atrophied.
Alex hit the books and discovered via symptomatic analysis that she was no longer absorbing vitamins or producing the acid needed to digest food in her stomach. The books and blood screens helped her to rule out pernicious anemia and every other disorder that would shut down her digestive system in such a radical fashion.
She knew what wasn't responsible for making her puke up everything she forced herself to eat, but the disease Cyprien had infected her with remained totally elusive.
Her blood analysis was equally disturbing. Her white blood count had rocketed up and off the scale while her red blood count continued to plummet. Except for increasing exhaustion and continued weight loss, she had manifested no signs or symptoms of acute lymphocytic leukemia, AIDS, or any other disorder known to medical science.
Whatever it was, however, it was killing her. Slowly but definitely.
Alex took most of Michael Cyprien's money to the bank and opened a trust account to be used to pay for Luisa Lopez's treatment, and then went to see Sophia Lopez to explain how to get to and use the money. She also gave Sophia the name of a good attorney who would help her manage her new millions and find her a decent place to live closer to the hospital.
Alex felt bad enough, bailing on Luisa, but the echo of her mother's sobbed thanks behind her as she walked out of the housing project apartment made her cringe.
The only thing that kept her going was the card she had found tucked away in Cyprien's case. On it, he had written his name and a phone number with a New Orleans area code.
Alex couldn't check herself into a hospital, and her weight was dropping steadily. She rented a laboratory, ordered the supplies she needed, and locked herself in.
Three weeks later, Alex finally stabilized her condition enough to take the risk of traveling. She made two phone calls: one to book a red-eye flight to New Orleans, and then one to the phone number on the card.
The man who had answered Cyprien's number was terse and to the point. "Where are you, Dr. Keller?"
"I'll be in New Orleans in two hours. United out of Chicago. Have someone pick me up at the airport." She slammed down the phone.
"That's a lovely perfume," the travel agent said when Alex stopped by to pick up her ticket. "Lavender, isn't it?"
She nodded. It was light and faint, so faint only she could smell it most of the time, but it wasn't perfume. She had never been able to wear perfume without getting a rash. No, the fragrance was coming from her body. Like Cyprien's roses and Phillipe's honeysuckle. Le Bitch hadn't smelled of anything, but Alex was betting that she wasn't infected.
They would need humans to do some of their dirty work.
Cyprien's driver, another dark-suited Frenchman who spoke no English, met Alex at her gate in New Orleans and delivered her by private limo to a lovely old Victorian mansion in a secluded section of the Garden District. Although she had never seen the outside, and it was still dark, Alex didn't have to be told it was La Fontaine. It was a little on the small side, compared with other mansions in the hood, but there were white roses and a whopper of a marble fountain in the front yard.
Éliane met her at the door. For a moment, Alex thought she might slam it in her face.
"Don't even think about it." With some effort, Alex pushed past her. She was so weak she could have happily dropped to the floor, curled up, and died. Only pride and a need to know kept her shuffling forward. Phillipe appeared and, after a worried look at Éliane, helped her down the stairs to Cyprien's private chamber.
"Miss me?" she asked the seneschal.
"Yes." He smiled down at her. "I learn the English."
"Teach me how to say 'Fuck off' in French, will you?" she asked him. "It'll come in handy in a minute."
"Hello, Alexandra." Michael stood in front of an easel. He had been painting something soft and shimmery on the canvas, and set aside his palette and dropped his brush in a jar of cloudy liquid. "I expected you to come to me long before now."
"Did you." She lowered herself into the nearest comfortable chair. Her body weight had dropped all the way to seventy-five pounds before she had found a way to stabilize her symptoms. She was on the plus side of ninety pounds now, but she still strongly resembled a refugee from a concentration camp.
"Why did you not call me before?"
Call him before. Like he was on consult, the bastard. "I was pretty sick for a while. I had to gain back some weight, and then burn all my notes and lab samples."
Cyprien wiped his hands on a rag. "I thought you had closed your practice."
"I did. I've been doing research on myself and, by extension, you." She finally looked at him, saw the astonishment appear over the perfection of her own work. "You and Phillipe and I are not the only ones, are we?"
"Non. There are many of us." He wiped his hands with a paint-stained cloth before coming over to sit across from her. He was barefoot, she noticed, absently admiring his long, narrow feet. "You did this research for what reason? So you would know how it will be? Had you come to me before, I would have told you."
"You gave it to me." She gave him an ironic look. "Besides, I already know how it will be."
"Do you?" He gestured, inviting her to tell him.
"Basically. My human blood cells are being replaced by some very unique aberrant cells. They look a little like cancer, but they're a hundred times more invasive and destructive. They in turn are altering my bone, tissue, and nerve cells, probably to better accept my gonzo metabolism. My stomach is the size of a peach pit. I can't eat solid food anymore. I nearly starved to death before I tried fresh blood." She thought for a minute. "Yeah, I think those are most of the high points."
Cyprien got to his feet and walked around the room, muttering in French.
"When you're done having a tantrum, I have some questions." Alex curled her fingers around the copper-coated scalpel in her jacket pocket. She'd get some answers, too.
"You think this is some sickness?" Cyprien sounded highly offended. "Some disease that you can cure with your drugs and your surgery?"
"If I could, I wouldn't be here." Now he was probably going to tell her something moronic like she was damned or a servant of Satan, and she'd have to stab him in the heart a couple of times.
He disappointed her. "You have not yet surrendered to the curse. You will die a human death, and rise again on the second day."
"I'd better make some preneed funeral arrangements, then." Alex wasn't joking entirely. If she couldn't turn this thing around, she'd need help for that part. Just not his.
"When you rise, you will be Darkyn," Cyprien continued, still sounding testy. "Like us, you will spontaneously heal and cease aging. You will not die again unless you are burned or decapitated."
"Immortality, right?" He nodded, and she cocked her head. "And when's your birthday?"
"I was born on November 14, 1294."
Everything inside Alex screamed liar, but she had seen him heal. There was a remote possibility that he was telling the truth. "You look good, for a seven-hundred-and-ten-year-old man." She shifted her weight and ignored the subsequent pain that dragged through her limbs. "What other bonuses should I expect?"
"Bonuses?"
She tapped her head. "You made me forget what happened, temporarily. That kind of bonus."
"Darkyn develop powerful minds, but ability—talent—is individual," he told her. "I cannot say what yours will be. I can expunge memory. My seneschal, Phillipe, can control another's physical will."