The Turn Page 5

  “Stop.” Ulbrine turned from the two women walking the beach to look him up and down. “Our race is dying, but some families, once the most powerful, are dying faster than others. Yours is on a knife’s edge. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Kal thought about the women he had had relations with over the years. None of them had gotten pregnant. Not even for a month or two.

  “Which brings me to the second reason I want you there,” Ulbrine said softly. “If Trisk successfully used a donor virus to introduce new code into an established individual such that it breeds true, I want to know. People are not tomatoes, but technique is technique, and if it can be applied to repair our genome, she has to be moved into a real lab.”

  A job at NASA, perhaps? he thought bitterly. Trisk’s ideas were dangerous, not only because they were inherently flawed, but also because they would suck the funding from his own research, research that wasn’t based on hasty assumptions. Somehow he kept it from his face. Trying to explain it to Ulbrine would only reinforce the old man’s idea that he was being jealously stubborn, not stubbornly pragmatic.

  “She’s done more in that wretched human lab than ten men with access to all our elven advances.” Ulbrine hesitated. “This opportunity is a gift, Kal.” Hunched with his elbows on the wooden railing, the older man eyed Kal, the dappled shade of the palm making his eyes look black. “If you find errors in the immunity of the tactical virus, it will be your task to fix them.”

  “You want me to fix her work?” Kal asked in disbelief, but in his very question he saw the beginnings of an idea.

  “What I want is for you to give us control of something worth having,” Ulbrine said. “It will take stealth and cleverness and test your ability to manipulate to the utmost. These are the traits that define the best of us, Kal, and your father was the epitome of the warrior poet steadfastly doing what needed to be done to keep our people alive. Even the most ugly of deeds.” He hesitated, focus going back to the water. “Perhaps I made a mistake. Sometimes it skips a generation.”

  But Kal hardly heard, his mind racing forward, seeing this for the golden chance that Ulbrine never dreamed it was. He could do what the enclave wanted and bring it to their attention that Trisk’s donor virus was not the savior to their species it looked to be, prove that other avenues of research shouldn’t be shut down in the name of fast results. He could stomach Trisk thinking he was a field manager if it might bring the perils of her flawed research to light.

  Pulse quickening, Kal gripped the worn railing. “I’ll do this,” he said. “But if I have to make repairs to her work, I want my name on it, not hers.” If it bore his name, he could keep her techniques and utilize them on his own organism. And with that, NASA would again be in his reach, his family name restored.

  “That sounds fair, Ulbrine,” a light but resonant voice rumbled, and Kal spun, shocked to realize Colonel Wolfe had come up silently behind them both. Rick and Max remained at the table, the older man slumped in what Kal now recognized as jet lag.

  “I knew he’d do it,” Rick said, jostling Max’s elbow. “Didn’t I say he’d do it?”

  Max waved a listless hand, the cigarette dropping ash into his coffee.

  “I need a few days to wrap up my life here,” Kal said softly. He had no emotional ties, and he’d accumulated only a few belongings in three years. It would be easier to leave everything behind. Except for his orchid collection, of course, carefully developed and tended like the obsessive-compulsive hobby it was.

  “Wonderful.” Standing, Rick took his coat from the adjacent chair and put it on as if getting ready to depart. “I’ll let you three finish up. There’s a flight leaving in an hour, and I want to be on it. I don’t like to be away from my family.” He extended his hand. “Kalamack. Good to have you on board.”

  Max leaned forward to look at Kal over his glasses as Kal and Rick shook hands. His eyes were a dark brown, and bloodshot. A thin hand held back the metal charm hanging around his neck. It was probably the spell that was keeping him cool. “I’ll have my secretary book you a flight for late next week and send you a listing of nearby apartments,” Max said. “Consider it part of your salary.”

  “Thank you,” Kal said softly. “I appreciate the offer for transportation, Mr. Saladan, but I’ll make my own way out there if you don’t mind. I’m not leaving my orchids, and I’ll not risk them on a plane. The pressure shifts are damaging.” Not to mention he wanted to bring his car.

  Rick peered at him in disbelief as he settled his coat about his shoulders. “Are you sure?” he asked loudly. “Eight hours versus three days? A small ear pop, and it’s as comfortable as your living room. Pretty women bring you drinks and food. Max, buy him two tickets so his plants can sit next to him.”

  “No, thank you,” Kal said. “I’d appreciate the drive time to change my focus.”

  Colonel Wolfe leaned in, whispering, “I don’t like my feet off the ground, either.”

  “Suit yourself,” the vampire said, clearly not caring. “Ulbrine,” he said, shaking the man’s hand before giving Max Saladan and Colonel Wolfe a nod and walking away. Kal watched the waiter he passed shudder, the human clearly not knowing why.

  Mood expansive, Ulbrine sat back down in the shade, his satisfaction obvious as he beamed at Max’s listless expression. “Gentlemen, shall we order, now that the predator has left?”

  “I could do with a mimosa,” Max said as the waiter hustled forward. “And the breakfast special with the shrimp and scrambled eggs.”

  “Meat tray,” Colonel Wolfe said as he found his place. “And no fish on it. I want meat.” He hesitated. “And a bowl of chowder.”

  Kal slowly sat down. He was going west to work as a field manager to infiltrate a human-run lab headed by a vampire CEO. His loss of his own work would be temporary, and once he’d gained Trisk’s techniques, it wouldn’t matter. From there, he could fix the elves’ failing genome so that no one, not his child or anyone else’s, would have to go through the hell that he had endured.

  “I’ll have the roast duck,” he said absently as the server hovered expectantly at his elbow. “With honey drizzle,” he added as he took the pollen-laced flower from the centerpiece and replaced it with his own faded orchid bloom from his hat.

  Ulbrine was wrong. The elven savagery to survive hadn’t skipped a generation. He would do anything and everything to bring his name back to greatness and save what was important to him. Just the idea that Trisk’s theories were better than his burned holes in him. They were faster, maybe, but not safe. He’d find fault with Trisk’s work—even if he had to invent it.

  4

  Kal’s steps were silent as he walked up the stone-paved path to the large ranch home snuggled between rugged palms and dunes held down by long grasses. Cocoa Beach was a ten-minute drive, the Atlantic an easy five-minute walk. The house afforded him a large private yard that kept his neighbors at arm’s length. It had been remodeled only a few years ago and had all the bells and whistles, not that he used the modern kitchen much. It was the walled garden that had attracted him. With mature fruit trees and a shallow koi pond, it had spoken to a part of him he hadn’t known he possessed. Turned out he wasn’t the only one it spoke to.

  His parents thought he’d been crazy for wanting the solitary living space over the condo with a communal pool and private beach, even as they’d bought it for him as a graduation present, a consolation, he’d always thought, for having to work at a secondary lab in the hopes of someday transferring to the nearby NASA facility.

  A tiny lizard skittered from his front door, and Kal juggled his keys with a doggie bag sporting the Sandbar’s logo. He hadn’t gone back to his office after lunch. He was debating if it was worth the hit his pride would take to go back at all. His colleagues had likely known before he left what he was walking into, and if they hadn’t, they soon would. It was obvious he had been given this task so they could shut down his research, send him to learn at the elbow of a classmate. But the chance to reclaim
his family’s status kept his mouth shut and his resolve firm.

  Dr. Trisk Cambri. Enclave security and their own private genetic engineer, he thought, grimacing as the key smoothly turned and he entered, shoes scuffing on the stone entryway. Her dark complexion and ebony hair made it easier for her to move freely in the human world than the fair, almost white hair that most elves were born with. Some said dark elves were the originals, and that the light hair and green eyes their race now almost exclusively possessed was a result of generations of captive, selective breeding by the demons. That dark elves usually had a stronger genome supported the theory. Kal didn’t care, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Trisk’s thick hair would be coarse or fine in his fingers.

  He shut the door behind him, tossing his keys into the empty flowerpot on the table beside the door. “Orchid? You around?”

  The clatter of dragonfly wings pulled his head up, and he smiled as a glimmer of light barely visible through the expansive, open floor plan flew from the distant living room and adjoining patio to him in the entryway.

  “Hi. What’s up? You’re home early,” a high-pitched feminine voice called as Orchid came to a silver-dusted halt before him. The pixy was a dangerous secret, his friend and confidante, an attentive ear at the end of a difficult day, a way to feel special when the darkest hours of the night insisted he wasn’t. The entire species was on the brink of extinction, and he was honored that she trusted him. Most pixies lived in the deepest wilds, where predation kept their numbers low but their existence a continued secret. He’d risk everything for her, and he didn’t know why. She was like a piece of him he hadn’t known was missing.

  “I brought you a flower,” he said, but she’d already spotted it, her tiny angular face lighting up with avarice.

  “For me?” she said, wings blurring to nothing as she darted to his hat, now in Kal’s hand. A bright silver dust spilled from her, vanishing before it hit the polished floor. “Oh my God, look at the stamens on that thing. Thank you, Kal! I’ve not had hothouse lily pollen since Easter.”

  “Then I’ll steal you another tomorrow.” Pleased at her excitement, Kal strode into the gold-and-yellow kitchen, half a wall knocked out so as to look out over the sunken living room and the walled garden beyond. It was made for entertaining, but he’d never had more than one person over at a time. The greenery was red with the low sun, and he liked to pretend that the insects rising silver in the glancing light were pixies. He knew Orchid did as well, though neither of them would say it.

  “Ooooh, perfect!” Orchid exclaimed, following the hat down as Kal set it on the stark white counter. “Lemon pollen is tasty, but I love the rich tones of a good lily.” Her hands turned brown as she packed a handful into a ball and began nibbling at it. “Where did you get it?”

  Kal smiled at the tiny woman, her dress of gossamer and spider silk and her little feet bare to the world. She was not his pet, being as independent and fierce as his people had once been: a garden warrior. “It was on the table at lunch. I brought you something else, too.” A rare, mischievous mood on him, he opened the doggie bag. “If you want it.”

  Orchid dusted her hands together, the last of the pollen falling from her. “What?” she said, rising up on a clattering of wings. “Honey?” she guessed, breathing deep. “Good God! Do I smell honey? Did you find me honey?”

  Kal beamed as she hovered at the opening of the bag, her dust an excited red. Her pride wouldn’t allow him to buy her anything at the store, but he’d found that if he gathered it from fortuitous sources, as a courting pixy buck would do, she would accept the odd gift. “I did,” he said as he reached in for the duck and threw it in the trash before going back in for the small container of honey drizzle it had come with. “For you,” he said as he set it on the counter.

  “Outta sight!” Orchid used the tiny but potentially deadly knife at her hip to break into the container. Experience told him she would’ve taken offense if he had opened it for her. “Thanks, Kal,” she added as she used a pair of pixy-size chopsticks to eat it, her head thrown back to make her long blond hair cascade almost to the laminated countertop as she dribbled it in. The fair strands mixed with silver dust to make her almost glow.

  “Orange blossom honey is the boss,” she said as he got himself a bottled beer from the fridge. There wasn’t much else in there. It would make moving easier. “The wild hive across the street. You know the one? I’m thinking I might smoke ’em out the next cold morning. Grab me some bee spit. I have enough to make it through the winter, such as it is down here, but some variety would be nice.” She spooned more honey into herself, a tiny, appreciative moan rising. “I like not having to hibernate, but it is a drag stockpiling enough until the flowers bloom. It would almost be easier to sleep through it.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Kal exclaimed as she almost toppled over backward, wings a blur as she giggled. “Take it easy. You know, you can save it. Honey never goes bad.” Beer in hand, Kal went into the living room, long legs going everywhere as he collapsed in his favorite chair. It was set perfectly to see his new color TV and the garden equally well. He’d never used the fireplace. Orchid did, thinking it made a grand door. He’d been thinking about putting in wall-to-wall carpet this fall, maybe a shag. But that wasn’t going to happen now.

  Distracted, he leaned to flick on the record player, staring at nothing as the preloaded album dropped and silence filled the room until the arm swung across and settled into place. He chuckled ruefully as “Monday, Monday” spilled out of the speaker. The Mamas and the Papas always seemed appropriate to whatever mood he was in.

  Orchid flew an erratic path from the kitchen, her dust intermittent as she skidded to a halt on the table beside him. Kal figured it was the honey inside her more than the honey she was carrying that ruined her flight. “What’s got your panties in a twist?” she asked, beginning to slur as the honey took a grip on her. “Your aura is all mixed up, Kallie-Wallie. Did they fire you?” she said, laughing merrily as she fell backward on her butt, wings bent awkwardly behind her.

  Six months, he thought, his grip tightening on the bottle. “As a matter of fact, they did.”

  Orchid stopped laughing. “They can’t fire you,” she said indignantly, struggling to get up, but she was still sitting on her wing. “You have a five-year contract. You’re a friggin’ genetic engineer! In the top of your class. Dr. Trenton Kalamack.”

  The sight of a six-inch warrior in tie-dyed silk and gossamer defending him made him smile. He knew the slurring would vanish as quickly as it had come, leaving her with no headache. She wasn’t drunk as much as in overload. Pixies had a high caloric need when active. Combine that with a need to remain out of sight and undetected, and it was a wonder any of them survived.

  “I had lunch with a member of the enclave, an alpha Were in the military, the owner of Saladan Industries and Farms, and the CEO of Global Genetics,” Kal said, and Orchid reluctantly looked at the remaining honey and tucked her chopsticks away. “The enclave is sending me to the West Coast to check on a colleague’s work. They want me to make sure it won’t kill humans and that elves are immune before it goes to live trials.” He took a sip, lips curling at the bitter hops.

  Orchid made a wobbly flight to his hand. The dust spilling from her created a warm spot against his beer-chilled fingers. But it was her fierce expression that touched him the most. “How is sending you to check a colleague’s work firing you?”

  Kal shrugged, his eyes on her garden. He might own the land, but she tended it, lived like a true homesteader in a broken flowerpot under the prickly pear that kept cats and big lizards away. He always felt like a guest when he went out to feed the koi. “Trisk’s theories to embed DNA into somatic and germ cells is moving faster than mine. By the time I get back, my research will be six months further in arrears. It’s a no-conflict way to pull the plug on my work as the enclave puts all their resources into her donor virus.” He grimaced, feeling a sense of urgency rising. “It’s flawed, Orc
hid. You can’t control a virus as you can a bacterium. I don’t care how clean you get it by stripping out the redundant DNA.”

  “They’re killing your research? On purpose? That’s so not cool,” she said indignantly, and then her wings drooped. “Six months?”

  He forced his face to remain still, not wanting to show how much he was going to miss her. Size aside, she was the closest thing to a friend he had amid his rival colleagues. “They think if I work with Dr. Cambri that I’ll change my focus. Carry her work further,” he said, vowing that he’d show them just how dangerous her theory really was. Her techniques, though . . . those might be useful.

  Eyes wide, Orchid sat down, right there on his hand. “They want you to work under someone? That’s not going to happen.” She snorted, reaching up for a drop of condensation from the bottle with which to clean the pollen from her hands. “Not Dr. Trenton Kalamack.”

  “I have to do this,” he said, and Orchid’s wings hummed, making a cool breeze on his hand. “Showing them how dangerous her research is might be the only way to keep mine alive.”

  “So you’re going out there to shut her down?” the small woman asked.

  Kal smiled at her glum expression. “Officially?” he said, and she took to the air so he could sip his beer. “Officially, I’m going out there to find the holes in her patch job on a human-created tactical virus she’s been monitoring. She tweaked it to supposedly have no effect on Inderlanders, and since it can’t replicate out of a lab and has no host to carry it out of the intended range, it should be relatively harmless to humans apart from the initial reaction. If I fix the holes she left in it, the enclave agreed to put me in charge of it.”

  “The better engineer,” Orchid said, saluting him with her drop of condensation. “She’s going to freak out.”

  He shrugged and sipped his beer, turning introspective. Perhaps this was the enclave’s way of keeping the world spinning the way they liked it. Trisk was talented, true, but she was a woman, and a dark elf to boot. “It’s rare that the person who invents something is the one who’s remembered,” he said softly. “It’s usually the person who makes it marketable or safe. That minor in business my father made me get has got to be good for something.” Kal’s focus blurred. It was easy to make money with the right product at the right time. Hand-over-fist easy. If nothing else, he could use the funds appropriated to her research to jump-start his own.