Cronin's Key III (10 page)

Vampire
blood was not
appealing to other vampires in the way a human’s was, except to
their mate. And Alec could read and feel Cronin’s discomfort—he was
protective and territorial over Alec’s blood, as all mates were,
but fueled with his fear for Alec’s safety. Alec knew Cronin was
close to losing it. “I should wash my arm,” he offered
quietly.

Cronin’s
nostrils flared and he shook his head. “Don’t move. I will do it.”
And with that, he disappeared.

Alec looked up at the others and saw Kole. His father
looked pale and afraid
.
“Alec?” His voice was so unsure, his steps toward him shaky. His
dad sat beside him and put his hand on Alec’s leg. “You okay,
son?”

Alec could see right into his dad’s mind. He could see
himself through his father’s eyes, and it was a humbling sight.
There he was, looking a little pale,
bloodied, and his vampire fangs clearly visible. Yet, Kole
still looked at him like he always had—like a father who simply
loved his son. As much as Alec had changed, Kole’s love for him
remained the same. Alec’s heart flooded with warmth and humility.
Alec squeezed his father’s hand. “I’m okay, Dad.”

Cronin
appeared in front of him again, holding a bowl of warm water and a
cloth. The water swooshed in the bowl from leaping, yet Cronin
remained perfectly still. He knelt before him and gently took
Alec’s hand. And with the dampened cloth, he washed Alec’s arm.
With slow, precise, reverent strokes, Cronin cleaned him. There was
so much love in each movement, it stole Alec’s breath.

Eiji’s eyes were hard and serious.
“Alec, how do you feel?”

Alec thought for a moment. Physically he was fine, a little
shaken up, cut
, but almost
fully healed. But then he remembered everyone’s concern and fear
for him, how Eiji and Jodis moved to defend and protect him, how
his father saw him, how Cronin tended to him. “I feel very humbled,
to be honest.”

Cronin’s
gaze shot to his. “Alec?”

“
Everyone’s fussing over me,” Alec said, embarrassed. “I’m
okay, really.”

“
You’re not okay,” Cronin said, his voice a low growl. “They
hurt you, Alec! You are not okay. This is
not
okay.”

Alec put his
hand to Cronin’s face and stared intently into his eyes. “Cronin,
m’cridhe. I’m okay.”

“
Alec,” Eiji interrupted.
He was rarely so concerned, and his serious manner now had
everyone’s attention. “Did they cut you with a blade or was it a
claw? A tooth? Can you remember what they injured you with? It
looks like a claw….”

“
I can show you if you like?” Alec said. He
scanned the faces looking back at
him. “I can show all of you.”

A show of nods went around the room,
so Alec recalled the moment this latest encounter started and
pushed the memory into the minds of those around him.

One second Alec was
joking and excited about going to Paris, the next his whole
vision changed. Like time stood still, everyone in the room was
frozen except Alec and five Zoan creatures, who now stood in front
of him. Cloaked again in heavy dark robes, they stood in an arrow
formation: the leader, Alec assumed, at the speared front. Alec
could see their grotesque muzzles flickering in and out of view
under their human skins.

“
Your studies of us are
intriguing,” the leader said. Its voice was raspy and deep. “Though
you only need to have asked, Ailig, and we would have told
you.”

Again Alec tried to unleash his powers, sending a rush of
crippling pain toward them. But nothing. He tried to see in their
minds
, to freeze them, set
them on fire, make them explode, change color, anything. And again,
nothing worked.

“
What do you want?”
Alec finally asked.

“
You sent for us,” the
leader said with a sneer. “An equal reaction to your birth to this
life.”

“
Why now?” Alec asked.
“It’s been a year.”

“
Time is of no matter to
us,” the leader said. “A concept made by mankind to gauge no more
than the passing of their unimportant lives.”

“
What do you want?” Alec
repeated.

“
Power absolute,” the
leader said with a menacing smile. Then Alec was bombarded with
mental images of Zoans feeding on the hearts of humans in the
streets of New York. It was a bloodied, horrific carnage. “Your
offense is hypocritical,” the leader said. “We are no different
than you.”

Alec shook his head to clear
the images of the massacre of the human race. “Is that why
I am your enemy?”

“
You are the
key, are
you not?”

“
I am.”

“
The
key with which
our world was locked.”

“
I don’t understand,” Alec said.
“Locked what? How could I do anything when I have no
powers against you?”

The leader
laughed, a spine-chilling sound that morphed from a sinister laugh
to an angry roar. “You are the reason we are here.”

“
Then why am I your
enemy?” Alec asked them. Then answering his own question, he
realized why. To declare one as an enemy means to fear them. And if
it was Alec who opened the portal to their world and they feared
him, then that could only mean one thing. “Because I can close the
portal. I can send you back.”

The leader
gnashed his teeth and stepped in closer to him. “Look around you,
Ailig. You are without power here.”

“
Yet I am still not
alone,” Alec replied. He had no idea why or where those words came
from, but he knew them to be true.

Alec
tried again to
breach their minds but could feel nothing. He tried to find a
weakness in their defenses, searching with the expanses of his
mind, but there was nothing. So, he did the only thing he could
think of.

Alec lunged
at the leader, needing to see if he could physically touch him. If
he held no mental power in this realm, then maybe he had some
physical capabilities.

The leader snarled and raised his hand
—his large claws like razors—and swiped at Alec.
It was just the barest tips of the talons that grazed Alec’s
arm.

Alec felt
everything at once, and the Zoan’s reaction was
immediate.

Collectively
they all gasped, the leader howled in some kind of pain, and they
vanished. The room, the sights, and sounds sucked back into place,
and Alec, still lunging forward, fell into Cronin’s
arms.

No one moved, no one spoke for a long moment as they
processed what Alec had just shown them.
Cronin was the first to move. He threw his arms around
Alec and held him so tight. “He could have killed you.”

Jodis
nodded toward
Alec’s almost healed arm. “That was the claws that ripped through
you, Alec.”

“
It’s
what concerned
me, brother,” Eiji said to Alec. “Is there fact in the folklore
that to be cut open by tooth or talon will turn you into what they
are?” Everyone watched Eiji. Alec had never seen him so worried.
“Can a lycan change a human into a lycan if they bite or claw their
victim? As vampires we bite to change, yes? Are they not the same
laws?”

Cronin
growled, low and warning, and his fangs were bared. Not at Eiji but
at what he was implying.

“
This is why I asked how you were feeling, Alec?” Eiji said,
concern etched in his eyes and his mind.
Please tell me you are well, brother.

“
I feel fine. I feel… normal
. All vampire,” Alec said, as calmly and as reassuringly as
he could. He looked down at his arm. The bleeding gashes were gone,
closed over, sealed with angry red lines. “I’m almost fully
healed.”

“
There are no ill-effe
cts?” Jodis asked.

Alec shook his head. “No. None. Maybe the myth is wrong.
Maybe lycan are born
, not
changed? Maybe vampires can’t be changed from their vampire state.
Maybe it’s just me, and I can’t be changed to lycan, the same way I
couldn’t be changed into a vampire, you know, before I changed into
a vampire.”

No one found his attempt at humor
funny. Not even Eiji.

“
Well, there was something about your blood they didn’t
like,” Eleanor said.

“
They didn’t like it,” Jodis said. “Whether they were
alarmed that you touched him, Alec, or because of your blood, I
can’t be certain.”

Alec was pretty sure it wasn’t the physical contact.
“When he cut me, in that moment, I
could feel and hear like I can now. You felt that change? In my
memory?”

Jodis nodded.

“
What did it taste like?” Alec asked them.

“
Metal,” Jacques
answered. “Metallic.”

“
Mercury,” Cronin said.
“They tasted mercury.”

Alec looked at him and smiled. “Can’t
be a coincidence, can it?”

He shook his head slowly. “I wouldn’t
believe so.”

“
But Cronin,” Jodis countered, “you cannot taste it
when you drink from
Alec.”

“
No,” he agreed. “I can’t.
But they did.”

“
What is the significance of mercury?” Kole asked. “From
when Alec was changed?”

Cronin nodded. “Yes.” How Alec was changed, with the silver
rivers of mercury
in the
underground pits of China being a critical component in the
process, was now common knowledge in the vampire communities around
the world. With the four elements—Alec being the fifth—both the sun
and the moon in the sky at the same time and the circle of stones
becoming a circle of light, and how Cronin had used his temporary
powers to transfer the power of life into Alec, it was certainly
not a typical transformation.

Needless to say, word had spread
quickly that the vampire key had been born to save them.

They were
just blissfully ignorant at the time that these events had
triggered a portal opening so Hell itself could slither
through.

Jodis smiled at Alec. “Whatever the reason, I think we’ve
found the Zoan’s Achilles
’
heel.”

“
Their Achilles’ heel maybe,” Cronin countered, “though they
still hold the advantage; we cannot see them. They do not exist in
our world, or time, or whatever or wherever it is. Only Alec can
see them, and without his powers, he cannot fight them.”

Everyone was quiet, and what glimmer of hope might have
sparked
, slowly faded
away.

“
Alec,” Jacques said, breaking the silence. “When you were
talking with them, you realized they’d declared themselves your
enemy because it is you that will defeat them.”

Alec nodded. “Yes, it makes
sense.”

“
Agreed. But they recoiled from your blood
after
that,” Jacques offered. “They feared defeat from you
before
they knew your blood smelled of mercury.”

“
So they know there’s
another way you can kill them,” Eiji finished for him. “We just
need to figure out what that is.”

“
We need answers,” Cronin
said.

“
First, we need to hold that council meeting,” Jodis said,
“with all elders, the world over. The Zoan have made a threat to
all vampires, and the elders should be told, and maybe they know
something that will help us. Lore long disregarded,
anything.”

“
I agree,” Alec said. “They should be prepared. Though I’d
prefer a video conference so we speak to everyone at the same time.
Can we do that?”

Jodis
nodded. “Of course. I’ll start making calls.”

“
Good,” Alec said. “And a coven meeting. Not just for the
elders, but we should hold an East Coast coven meeting as well. The
vision I saw was carnage on the streets of New York City, and they
should know what I saw too.”

“
If we give the Eastern coven
two days to gather,” Eiji said, “that will give us some
time to find out what we can.”

Then Cronin said,
“And if we can’t ask the living Zoan, then we shall see
what the dead ones can tell us. We should go look at some
gargoyles.”

“
Paris?” Alec
asked.

Cronin gave a nod. “And
London.”

Alec gave him a smile. “We better let
Kennard know we’re coming.”

Cronin stared into his eyes.
Alec, forgive my selfishness, but before we go, may I have
a moment alone with you?

“Of course,” he said. Then Alec
announced to the room, “I need a minute or two with Cronin before
we leave. We won’t be long.”

Jodis already had the phone to her ear, and Eiji was making
mental jokes at Cronin for only taking
a minute or two
.
Alec rolled his eyes. He pictured the most perfect place on earth
and leapt Cronin there.

* * * *

The smile Cronin gave Alec when he saw where he was,
was
wide and warm yet tinged
with worry.