Inhuman Heritage (6 page)

“Are you alright?”

“Just keep talking. Twenty-five pairs.” But my voice was thready as I spoke barely above a whisper. My world was crashing to pieces around me.

“Yes,” she said and she brought up a 3D mock-up of a double helix. “These two pairs.” She circled them with the end of the pen so I could see what she was talking about. “Now this one, I’ve seen before, it’s most common in shape-shifters. It indicates that you might be able to change to another form. Have you ever?” I shook my head. I had to keep my mouth shut for fear that I would start wailing like a baby. The doctor paused again to ask me if I was alright and I nodded just so that she would keep explaining it to me. I wanted to know as much as I didn’t want to believe it was true.

“The last pair is unknown. It something I’ve not seen before. There is part of it that is similar to vampires but it’s much more than that.”

“Like a vampire?” I reached out grabbing her arm, I know I was digging my fingers into her flesh but to her credit she didn’t cry out, she stroked the back of my knuckles trying to sooth me into letting go. I released her when I felt it, that I could crush the radius in her arm if I wanted. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please finish.”

“It’s similar to vampires not in the need to consume blood or anything but more in the not aging immortal way. But both these two genes are in flux from what I can tell. They don’t appear to be stable. If they stabilized I would imagine it would put you as far beyond most preternatural beings as they are beyond humans.”

My powers had been in flux. They seemed to be growing but my control over it came and went. I flashed back to last night and what Virginia had said.
She is reaching the end of her twenty first year and has not come into her full power; she is only two weeks away from it never happening
. The chromosomes were in flux. If I waited two weeks and something didn’t happen, I might be normal. It might all go away. That gave me a little more hope. All I had to do was turn twenty two without incident. I looked at the floor and started scrubbing at my eyes, I was afraid they were going to be all red and puffy no matter what I did.

“You really didn’t know any of this?” asked Doctor Armitage.

“No. Mom started to talk about a little of it, about the magic but she died and my father died when I was a baby. I hardly even remember him.”

“Died? Are you sure?” She seemed shocked.

“My father was humanoid, didn’t you say that?”

“No, the humanoid part was in the matrilineage—that’s genes passed down from your mother. She was a humanoid preternatural; it’s your father that we have no idea what he was.” I stared at her. No, I knew the man in my mother’s photographs was a human. He had died in a car crash; anything more than human to the degree that she was suggesting would have walked away from such a thing with barely a scratch. I told the doctor this. She scratched her chin and didn’t look like she was going to agree with me.

“What does that look mean? What is it?”

“If what I can see from the tests is true, then the man you think is your father, isn’t.”

* * * *

I slammed the door behind me as I entered my flat carrying the last of the boxes that were labeled as my mother’s and my father’s belongings. I’d cleared my lock up after taking off the locket so I could shift back to my normal reality. I laughed bitterly like there was anything normal about my life now. I started tearing through the boxes looking for something, a diary, a letter, something that would tell me the truth. I wanted to scream at my mother. Tell her how unfair it was for her to leave me not only alone but without knowing anything. It hadn’t been too long ago I had been thinking about how taking each day as it comes and enjoying it to the fullest was a wise philosophy considering how short life was.

Now I might have a lot more days to come, I might not ever look older than I was now. The horror of being stuck like this forever. I’d always pitied the vampires, they were eternal and most were beautiful, true, but they could never change, so if you were turned before you could grow out of that fat face or to do something about that boil. You were frozen in time. I didn’t even know if a vampire could get a haircut without it all growing back to the way it was over night, I certainly didn’t notice if their hair grew at all. I really couldn’t imagine always being this way. Immortality would thrill most humans but for some reason it really frightened me. All that time. What the hell was I supposed to do with it?

I started to remember my dreams. The giant red bird that had been chasing me, searching for me. It had glittered red and gold and now I wondered if that was some subconscious image of my awakening power. I had a friend who had told me that my aura was changing color. She told me at first it had been sort of grey but now seeing me again she could see it flaking away and a new color shining through. A gold color. It was like I had been bound by something, like it was keeping the power tamped down. That would explain why I had grown up normal. Grown up believing I was human. My mother had never told me I was special, she always said that I was just like everyone else, equal to them. Why did she tell me that when she knew it wasn’t true? When she knew that I would be so different?

I abruptly crashed to my butt on the floor and buried my face against my knees. I kicked the piles of boxes in a futile effort to make myself feel better but it was a very small satisfaction. I started to cry all over again. I wanted my mother more than anything. I wanted her to sit next to me, put her arm around me and tell me not to cry. I’d rest my head on her shoulder and she would explain everything, then it would be alright, because she would be here with me. I didn’t want to face this alone. I picked up the phone that was lying on the coffee table from where I’d called the doctor last night. When I had left her office she was making noise about more tests, measuring my increased strength, she even wanted to cut me to see how quickly my body healed it. I had been mad at her for turning my pain into some opportunity for herself, making me feel like some kind of freak show. I stared at the phone and wondered who I could call.

I couldn’t call Incarra. Although she was my best friend and I wanted to talk to her about this I couldn’t. It was too big to edit for someone who wasn’t in the know about the other world. How would I explain to my friend that I wasn’t human? She wouldn’t believe me. She’d call someone to lock me up because I needed help or she might run screaming. It would scare her if I started talking about all this with her. Anton was the same. He was even less involved in my life since I had quit college.

I thought about calling Aram, except he wasn’t awake and he wasn’t my boyfriend anymore. He’d dumped me because I was a boring old human. Hah! If only he knew what I knew now. I might be able to survive a stake through the heart and he couldn’t. It didn’t make me feel any better, I just missed him. I missed the safety of his arms and the way he would kiss me before we’d climb into his bed. I shook my head; there was no use in torturing myself with what I was going to miss about Aram. I started to dial Virginia’s number but stopped. She had lied to me. She had known all about me and not told me. I had wondered for ages how much she really knew, she had always seemed to shut up or change the topic quickly when I started asking questions about what it was I could do. What I could do seemed to be the least of my problems. What was I, was more important? I didn’t know if I would have felt better if the doctor had been able to identify my
species
and I seethed as I thought the word. Who else did I have I could call? I dialed a number knowing it was a long shot.

“Hello,” said the sweet female voice.

“Bethany, it’s Cassandra.” There was silence on the other end. Bethany Silvas was half elf. She was Magnus’s younger half-sister. She and Magnus had different fathers; she lived with her father-Aziel Silvas-in the same commune that Magnus lived in. I’d saved her life and we’d been friends while I and her brother were dating. She was the only person I thought might be able to understand my situation. I was hoping her gratitude towards me for my timely rescue of her and the fact that she had liked me would be enough for her to talk to me despite the fact that I had apparently broken her big brother’s heart.

“I shouldn’t talk to you,” she said, “it would hurt him if he found out.”

“Please. I wouldn’t have called but I have to talk to someone.”

“Cassandra, I can’t, it’d be like betraying him, I can’t.”

“Please, I have no one else to talk to.”

It was too late, she’d hung up.

Chapter Five

I woke Wraith by slapping him several times which was the usual way anyone woke him when he was passed out in the far corner of his club. Wraith was red more than he was tanned like he was perpetually sun burnt. He had ratty, dirty blonde dreads and favored wearing a vest and long shorts all year round. When he opened his eyes and spoke he had a distinct Irish accent but I’d never known if it was real or if he was extremely good at putting it on. He knocked an empty bottle of whiskey from the pillows on which he was resting as he raised his hand to block out the glare of the overhead lights.

“I’m not open.” He closed his eyes and let his body go limp like he was planning on going back to sleep. I held him up by the vest and slapped him again putting a little more of that new strength I was getting into it. He woke up fully. “I’m open, I’m open.” I dropped him back onto the cushions and sat back against the railing. He sat up slowly rubbing his cheek that was beginning to swell a little with red finger marks from my hand. He gave me a rueful smile. Wraith’s club, the Dark Portal was only open whenever he felt like it. Wraith was a warlock; he specialized in potions, specifically pharma-psychological cocktails. Booze that warped your mind. He sold regular booze as well and managed to clear enough on the nights he was open not only to keep the club but restock his supplies, although I had always suspected there was something a little dodgy in the works there too.

“Cassa babe,” he said extending his arms out to encompass his club, “
mi casa is su casa
. Make yourself at home.”

“After that article in the Conjurer it’s the least you can do.” He gave me a grin that was somewhat sheepish. He got himself an article in what amounted to the magical
Hello Magazine
describing the events of last September. He’d been there-if you can call hiding like a little girl in the bushes outside being there and had made several remarks to the reporter about my talent and my boob size.

“Forgive me, I knew not what I did. That was on one of my less sober days.”

“Bullshit, you’re the most functioning alcoholic I have ever met. You’d make everyone in AA look like they just weren’t trying hard enough.”

“AA is for quitters. I’m not a quitter!” he announced proudly.

“No, just a coward.”

“Exactly.” He pulled himself up to his feet and picked up the empty bottle to swig from it and was disappointed when nothing came out. He wobbled a little looking at me. “What can I do for you anyway?”

“What you do for your regular customers. You can pour me a drink.”

* * * *

Alcohol is supposed to have this wonderful effect, it lowers inhibition, it creates a feeling of euphoria and the best bit of all was it made you forget shit. I needed to forget. I’d spent my entire life thinking I was something only to discover that it wasn’t true, that the human race did not include me. No wonder I wasn’t a freakin’ witch. I knocked back a shot of Jim Bean and smacked my glass down for another. Wraith poured it eyeing me skeptically. I’d never tried one on before and not in his bar. It was pretty much the only bar I knew of, though I never usually came there to entertain myself. Other people were filing in. Wraith had officially set off some kind of signal to let people know he was open, like the commissioner calling his Batman. I snickered at that and downed the new shot. The other patrons were beginning to call for Wraith’s attention. He tried to leave but I grabbed his arm.

“Cassa, it may not seem like it to you but this is my job and I got to serve them too.”

“Fine,” I said and snatched the bottle, “but Jimmy stays with me and if Jack wants to come along later, the more the merrier.” I discovered that I was not a happy drunk. Drink didn’t improve my mood; it just made me less coordinated while I was having a bad day already. Didn’t stop me from pouring another shot and downing it. Maybe it took a while for it to kick in especially as I was other. I had to tick that little box on the form for when they don’t cover your option. I didn’t even need to worry about doing myself any damage; my liver would probably just heal itself. I had done with the glass placing the neck of the bottle to my lips-maybe I just needed a greater and quicker infusion. I started to down the bottle. The guy two stools down from me watched this with apparent fascination. I flipped him the bird which was a clear signal that he needed to mind his own damn business.

The drunk feeling started a few minutes later in my belly, a warm sensation that spread out through my insides to my fingertips, out through my toes and finally into my head. The world became a hazy Monet painting and everything was beautiful. That had really done the trick. Wraith came back over to survey the empty bottle in my right hand and the lazy grin that had crept across my face.

“Cassa, you feeling okay?”

“Mmm, very good.” He took the empty bottle from me and looked at it forlornly.

“Jesus, Cassa, you drank the whole thing. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to get laid or something?” I smiled at Wraith and let my eyelids flutter at him.