Waging War (4 page)

“Or manacles,” said Archer.

I shook my head and shuddered. “Nope. He’d
just turn into a snake and slither out. He wants to go to London to
talk to some possible witnesses in the Descendant disappearances,
and he’s probably the stealthiest of all of us.”

Mr. Shaw was already shaking his head. “He’s
eleven.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So was Harry Potter
when he went to Hogwarts.”

Mr. Shaw glared at me, and Ringo looked
surprised. “Who’s ‘Arry Potter?”

“Dude, you’ve got some reading to catch up
on.” There was no hiding the disgust in my voice. No one who read
as much as Ringo did had an excuse to skip those books.

Ringo winced at Archer. “I got duded.”

Archer shrugged. “It’s required reading. I’d
dude you too if I didn’t sound the idiot doing so.”

I ignored them both and turned back to Mr.
Shaw. “Eleven is young, but you and I both know the Edwards
brothers haven’t really been young since their dad died.”

This time it was Mr. Shaw’s turn to wince.
He sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. “We also both know that
neither Liz nor Connor would ever forgive themselves if something
happened to Logan.”

I sighed because I knew he was right. “I’m
actually not arguing for him to be allowed to go. I just think he’s
the type of kid who’s going to do what he does, regardless of what
other people think.”

“Like someone else I know.” Archer’s voice
was quiet near my ear.

“Maybe,” I whispered back with a smile. I’d
gotten a lot better about thinking first before I jumped, but I
knew how lucky I was every time I landed on my feet.

Mr. Shaw’s shoulders slumped. “If he was the
adventurous child of anyone else, I’d feel exactly as you do. But
you know, perhaps better than most, that loss makes for some oddly
irrational fears, and I’ll tell you, Jeeves moving Liz and the kids
here while you were in France with her son was the thing that saved
her from letting the barely glued bits crumble.”

He seemed to shake off the heavy weight of
those thoughts and suddenly looked around. “Speaking of, where is
my eldest nephew?”

“Getting driving lessons from Jeeves.”

Mr. Shaw looked startled for exactly one
second before his expression turned thoughtful. “That doesn’t
actually horrify me as much as it should. Well, then, I’ll proceed
without him.” He sat back and invited us both to sit on the tall
stools that were arrayed around the table.

“You both know that Connor and I have been
doing extensive research on Archer’s blood for the past several
months.” We nodded mutely. Archer had basically been a human
pincushion for them, and I’d called them the Vampires more than
once. They hadn’t thought that was as funny as I did.

Mr. Shaw continued. “The development in
France of Archer’s injury spectrum has given us a new direction
into which to look.”

I shuddered, still a little shocked at the
memory of how every wound Archer had ever gotten had begun blooming
on his body each time he got hurt. It hadn’t always been that way,
but since I’d known him, each time he’d been wounded it got a
little worse. Mr. Shaw continued.

“We now believe we understand Archer’s
relative immortality. The key is in his debilitation while the old
injuries resurface and the longer healing time afterward.”

That was news, and I held my breath.

Connor’s voice came from behind me as he
entered the lab. “Am I too late? Can I give them the news?”

Mr. Shaw smiled affectionately. “You
discovered it. It’s yours to share.”

Connor stood next to Mr. Shaw, his cheeks
flushed from running, and his eyes bright with excitement. “You
have extra-long telomeres.” He was looking at Archer.

He grinned. “Is that a compliment?”

I giggled, mostly because of nerves. Connor
didn’t even rise to the bait. “It is if you don’t want to age.”

“Okay, what are telomeres?” I asked.

“They’re the caps on the ends of your DNA
chains that protect the chromosomes. Normal aging happens because
the chromosomes don’t regenerate all the way to their ends during
the DNA replication cycle. Telomeres protect the information in
those chromosomes; telomerase is the enzyme that activates the
telomeres to replicate and replace themselves as they fall off. You
have extra-long telomeres protecting your chromosomes, which might
have already been genetic, or it might have come with the porphyria
mutation when you were infected. We think that infection locked
onto your DNA and has super-promoted your telomerase. So even if
your telomeres were inclined to fall off as they normally would – a
process that would allow the chromosomes to alter and change – your
rocket-fuel telomerase makes new telomeres so fast there’s no time
for apoptosis.” We must have looked stupefied because he tried
again. “Apoptosis is cell death. Your cells don’t have a chance to
age.”

I looked at Mr. Shaw. “I think I get it, but
can you translate what wonder-boy just said?”

Connor smirked and shook his head at me as
Mr. Shaw laughed. “Okay, you know our super-promotor for our rock
star Descendant genes? Well, Immortal Descendant genes are just one
of the bands in the whole music industry that is human DNA. Now
imagine that some garage band fails every day, and the fact that
they fail keeps the whole music scene in a constant state of
change. You don’t want to be the next band to fail, so you’re
always innovating, taking risks, and making new music. What if a
high-powered music producer came along and halted the failures. No
matter what, bands wouldn’t fail. There would be no reason to
change, no reason to take risks, and no reason to innovate. Music
would become a static industry that would have no reason to evolve
to stay alive. That high-powered music producer is the infected
telomerase in Archer’s DNA. It has stopped the death of garage
bands and caused the music to go static.”

I grinned at Mr. Shaw’s analogy. “So, Mr.
Shaw, what instrument did you play?”

He chuckled. “I had a drum kit. And I was
very good.”

Connor scoffed. “Not according to Mum.” He
turned back to Archer. “We also believe your need for blood protein
and your vitamin D intolerance is a product of the need to fuel the
telomerase. Shut down the factory and the fuel requirements
disappear.”

Archer was looking from Connor to Mr. Shaw
intently, and I noticed that Ringo had moved his seat closer.

“Can you shut down the telomerase so that it
returns to normal levels?” Archer asked quietly.

Mr. Shaw’s expression turned serious. “We’re
still working on it, but we think so, yes.”

“How?” I asked.

“We’re looking at a couple of viruses to do
the trick.”

I stared. “An infection to fight an
infection? But won’t the porphyria-lock fight it?”

“Not if it’s busy fighting something
else.”

My heart sank. “You mean like an injury.”
They’d brought up the old wounds that had bloomed the last few
times Archer had been hurt, so that had to be what they meant.

Mr. Shaw sounded grim. “It’s what led us to
telomeres in the first place. If the sheer magnitude of Archer’s
accumulated injuries is resurfacing with each new one, perhaps it’s
like the kick-back on a discharged weapon. When the telomeres get
kicked into re-growth, there’s an instant of pure weakness just
before the shot of telomerase. Perhaps if the virus attacks during
the ‘porphyria-lock’s’ moment of weakness, it might have a chance
to shut the telomerase down.”

I could see a whole host of issues with that
idea, and I opened my mouth to protest, but Archer cut me off.
“What do you need from me?”

Connor answered. “For now, just keep giving
us blood. We’re narrowing it down, but there’s still too much
theoretical and not enough practical information.”

Mr. Shaw gazed steadily at Archer. “We’re
working up a list of risk factors to mitigate the surprises. We’ll
try to be as thorough as possible.”

Archer nodded. “That’s all I can ask for.”
He turned to Ringo as he reached for my hand. “I need to talk to
you both. Can you come running with us?”

“‘Course.” Ringo set down the tiny
screwdriver he’d been using and brushed invisible dust off his
perfectly clean jeans as he stood.

Archer nodded to both Mr. Shaw and Connor.
“Thank you for everything you’re doing.”

Mr. Shaw reached out and clasped Archer’s
shoulder. “It’s not just a research project, you know that.”

“I know.” Archer’s gaze was direct, but
there was something very guarded in his eyes. We left the
greenhouse quietly, and he started running the moment the door
closed behind us.

The old barn two fields over was our
unspoken destination, and the moonlit run was silent except for the
crunch of grass and the sounds of our breath. It wasn’t until we
were all sitting on the roof of the stone structure that I
spoke.

“I don’t like it.”

But Archer was already talking. “I want to
find Tom.”

That wasn’t at all what I thought he was
going to say, and I felt the air whoosh out of my lungs. I had
spent the last few weeks since we returned from France trying very
hard not to think about Tom. The guilt and regret that laced my
memories of him made my soul ache and my conscience itch, and his
name was definitely not a comfortable topic of conversation.

“Ye think a cure can save ‘im from ‘imself?”
Ringo didn’t sound surprised.

“What does Tom have to do with anything?” I
said.

“I don’t trust the Monger in him.”

I turned to Archer. “You think now that he’s
a Vampire he’ll suddenly turn into a bad guy?”

Archer gazed back at me without blinking.
“He’s full of Wilder’s blood, Saira. He’s everything that Wilder
was, and more. I think he’s angry, and I think he could be stronger
than Wilder was too. He started as a mixed-blood and that makes him
a wild card.”

“Tom’s not a power-hungry maniac bent on
ruling the Immortal Descendant world.” I refused to accept that he
could ever be anything other than the lonely and misunderstood boy
who had been my friend.

“Saira, Tom put ‘imself on the path to ‘is
own destruction when ‘e sent Léon back to kill ‘is ‘uman self. And
‘e’s a ball of self-loathin’ for ‘avin’ murdered the one person ‘e
loved, which means ‘e’s either curled up in a corner somewhere
waitin’ to die, or ‘e’s engineerin’ that death.” Ringo’s voice was
quiet and confident, as if he’d figured all of this out long
ago.

Archer spoke calmly. “He tried to commit
suicide in France and failed. I’m afraid the only people strong
enough to end him permanently are other Mongers or Vampires, which
means he’d have to go looking for that kind of trouble - or causing
trouble to come to their notice.” His voice held such certainty it
made me flush with anger.

“Why don’t you believe he could have found
some peaceful place in time to live out a life of books and art and
whatever else doesn’t involve heights?” I believed that was
possible. I had to.

“Because
he
doesn’t believe he
deserves happiness.” Archer’s simple words were like a punch in the
gut.

“So, you want to find Tom and get him
whatever cure Mr. Shaw and Connor have cooked up?”

“Yes.” Archer’s gaze didn’t waver from
mine.

“And if the cure doesn’t work, or he doesn’t
want it?”

Archer said nothing, but his eyes said
everything I didn’t want to hear. I turned to Ringo. “Have you
already been looking for him? Is that why you don’t seem to be
surprised by all this?”

Ringo shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve been lookin’.
I’m startin’ to think ‘e could ‘ave made ‘is way to World War
II.”

I stared at Ringo. “Why?”

“Every war ‘as its legends. A couple of the
ones in Russia and Germany might fit a self-‘atin’ Vampire.”

“That could be any Vampire,” I said angrily.
Then my eyes shot to Archer’s face as I realized what I’d said.
“Not you.” My heart clenched. It was too much all at once, and I
was handling it badly.

Archer reached out a hand to my face.
“Wherever Tom is, he’s only half Monger. We know there’s good in
him too.”

I shifted backward, away from Archer’s hand.
“There are Mongers here, now, who are taking Descendants. That
should be our priority.”

But Archer wouldn’t let me out of range of
his touch, and he twined his fingers through mine with a wry smile.
“Because we’re the only ones who can find them and save the
day?”

I huffed dramatically. “You know what I
mean.”

Archer’s expression became serious again.
“Yes, I do. Your self-sufficiency has become a finely-tuned sense
of responsibility, which I share.”

“I don’t,” Ringo smirked, “but I’m not
lettin’ either of ye do yer rescuin’ without me.”

I shot him a perfect twelve-year-old sneer,
and he crossed his eyes back at me. Because sometimes adolescent
behavior is a necessary part of one’s repertoire, and at least it
lightened the mood.

Archer gave me a pointed look. “But we have
allies in the search for the missing Descendants – people to help
share the burden and responsibility of it.”

I finished the part of his sentence that he
didn’t say. “And if we locate Tom, we’re the only ones who can go
back for him.” Archer didn’t even need to agree. I saw the
certainty of it in his eyes. I sighed. “Okay, fine. But I’m going
to London tomorrow to find the brother and sister who witnessed
Tam’s kidnapping. They must have seen something that could help us
out. The Armans are back from Paris and they’ve invited Mom and I
to tea, so we can detour to the address Olivia gave us before
that.”

Archer gave me a sharp look. “Jeeves will
drive you?”

I barely held back an eye-roll. “As if he’d
let anyone else drive Lady Elian anywhere.”

Archer schooled the concern out of his
expression and stood to help me up. “Be careful, Saira.”