Repercussion: The Clandestine Saga Book 3 (23 page)

              He nodded, and ran off to his lab. Cadence ran through the doors of the office building, waited a few seconds, and then followed him.

She stood outside the open door quietly for a few minutes, observing. "Shit... shit... shit..." he was mumbling as he desperately searched through what appeared to be a wall safe which clearly took a key. He turned and surveyed the rest of the room, knocking a few graduated cylinders and other scientific paraphernalia to the floor in the process.

"What's missing?" she asked stepping inside the room.

              Christian jumped, clearly not expecting her to be there so quickly, or at all. "Oh, uhm, nothing," he said. "I just... I thought..."

              "Christian, cut the bullshit," she warned him, stepping up next to him. "You're hiding something from me, and I need to know what it is right now."

              He hesitated, glancing at her but unable to meet her eyes. Finally, he said, "I promised Aaron I wouldn't talk about it to anyone."

              "Okay--then I'm no one, but I need to know what's missing because wherever he's at, he has it, and that's the only way we are going to figure it out. I have a horrible feeling that he's in trouble, and I need to fix that. I'm not losing anyone else--not today."

              Christian took a deep breath, and pounded his good fist against his lab table. "All right. For the past couple of months I've been working on a re-Transformation serum. For Guardians. I was getting really close with my trials. I just had a couple of things to work out, but it wasn't ready yet."

              "And he took it?" Cadence asked, extremely confused.

              "It looks like it," Christian admitted. "But I have no idea why. He asked me about it last night when he stopped by. He asked me how close I was, and I told him, I thought I had it. But, Cadence, I still had a few tests to do. Without that serum, I'm going to have to start all over again..."

"Without the serum?" she questioned. "Christian, don't worry about your serum right now. We need to figure out why he took it. What's he intending to do with it? And, if he thinks it's going to work--and you're saying it might not--what will happen if it doesn't?"

"Well, I know the answer to that," Christian replied dismally.

              Cadence wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer, but she asked the question. "What will happen if he uses it on... someone... and it doesn't work?"

"Then, that Guardian will die," he said solemnly.

              The lump in her throat formed instantly and was almost too large for her to speak. "And what are the chances that it won't work?" she questioned, bracing herself for the answer.

              He sighed and ran his hand through his blond hair. "Uh, well, there's a good chance it would work... on most Guardians. I mean, in the trials with blood samples that I performed, it bonded and reversed the genetic code about eighty percent of the time."

"Okay," she nodded. "Eighty percent, that's... that's good."

              "Yeah, it would be," he went on, "but every time it failed, it was in blood samples with extremely high concentrations of Guardian encoding on the strands."

              "So...?"

              "So, basically, in layman's terms, the better the Guardian, the harder to change them back to human," he explained, not meeting her eyes.

She nodded in understanding. "And he thinks it works?" she asked, still trying to maintain a sense of calm.

              "I think so," Christian agreed.

"And why does he think it works?" she clarified.

              "Well, when he asked me last night, I didn't tell him the percentages, exactly. He just asked me if it was ready to go, and I said yes. I didn't know he was going to.... I thought I'd have a chance to do some more work before we actually used it. "

              "What else did he say?" she asked, fighting back anger at his deception.

"He asked me if I was certain, and I told him I was pretty sure."             

              "That's what you said?" she questioned, nodding.

              "I think so. I think I said, 'Should be good to go,' or something like that," he confirmed.

              Cadence leaned back against the lab table, crossing her arms. "And he didn't say anything about taking it, or needing it for... anyone? Nothing?"

              "No," Christian insisted. "Nothing at all. I had no idea he was going to take it. None."

Cadence couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her mind began to calculate all of the possibilities, and what she could do about it. She didn't want to believe the most obvious reason why he would take it--it just didn't make sense to her--but then, nothing was making a whole lot of sense right now.

Before she could voice her primary concern, Christian said, "You don't think he'd actually use it on himself, do you?"

              She looked at him for a second before replying. He looked like he was on the verge of a mental breakdown himself. However, that didn't change her answer. "Can you think of any other reason why he might take it?"

"I don't know," Christian admitted, shaking his head. "Maybe someone contacted him, wanted to change back into a man in a hurry, and he didn't waste time letting the rest of us know about it."

"He wouldn't do that," she said dismissively. Suddenly, the weight of Christian's words hit her, and she realized what it was Aaron was trying to tell her the night before. "Shit," she exclaimed. "A man--he said he was going to be the best man he could be for me. Damn it, Christian! He is going to use it on himself. We've got to find a way to stop him."

              "Okay..." Christian said, clearly trying to think of something he could do.

              "There's no way to force his IAC on?" she asked. Christian had designed and installed them, so he would know.

              "No," he said definitively. "What about his cell phone?"

              "Hannah said he left it in his hotel room," she replied. "Maybe if I can figure out where he went and get there before him..."

              "He's got a four hour head start on us," he reminded her.

              "
Mrs. Carminati, were you able to get a hold of air traffic control?"
she asked over the IAC.

"Yes,"
she replied.
"I was just about to tell you. The plane was spotted in New York airspace just a few minutes ago, headed east."

"East,"
Cadence repeated aloud.
"Okay. Thank you!"
Then to Christian, she said, "If he's headed east, where's he going?" she thought for a second, but it didn't take her too long to realize. "He's going home!"

              She immediately got Hannah on the IAC and forced Jamie on as well, even though he had just woken up and was extremely groggy.
"Hannah, where would he be going in Ireland? Do you have any idea?"

             
"He bought some property there a few years ago,"
she remembered.
"It was in Killarney, near Torc Mountain, I think he said."

              Cadence nodded.
“Of course it was. That's where he was born. All right. I'll get over there as quickly as I can and see if I can catch him,”
she decided, resolved that she would get there in time. "Christian, if he's already taken it, what can I do to reverse it?"

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head. "Once it's administered, there's nothing you can do."

             
"That's not necessarily true,"
Jamie chimed in.

Cadence had added him for just such purpose. "
All right, friend, what are my options?"

             
"Well, it is a long shot,"
Jamie admitted, his voice still fragile sounding,
"but if you administer a double dose of Transformation serum it might counter-act whatever this serum is doing--if you get it in him in time. I don't know for sure that it will work--at all--but I do know that we were able to save some Hunters once who were having negative reactions to re-Transformation serum. But it's very rare that it actually works. Remember I told you, Hunters with negative reactions almost always die, Cadence. It's not a sure shot at all. But it's worth a try."

             
"Okay, I'll take it with me.
Do you know where it is Christian?" Looking over at him, she could see tears streaming down his face, but he nodded the affirmative. He silently walked out the door, crossing the hallway to Jamie's lab.
"What else? Anything else? Anyone?"

"Don't give him the pain medication,"
Jamie warned.

             
"What?"
Cadence exclaimed.
"Why not?"

"It's too risky,"
Jamie explained
"We don't want anything else to potentially interfere with the juice."

"But... that will be excruciating,"
she reminded him, thinking of the severe pain she had been in when she had gone through the Transformation process herself.

              "I know,"
Jamie confirmed
. "But hopefully, he'll pass out quickly."

             
"Now that we know where he's going, can we get someone on the ground all ready in Ireland to attempt to intercept him?"
Cadence asked.

             
"We can try,"
Hannah admitted.
"But there aren't a lot of us left over there. There's not even a headquarters closer than London. I'll get on it,"
she assured Cadence.

Somehow, Cadence knew that wasn't going to work.
"Would they have the serum?"
she asked Jamie.

             
"No,"
he replied.
"We don't let very many people administer that stuff. It's too dangerous. That's why we insist everyone come to KC to Transform."

             
"Shit,"
she mumbled.
"All right, I'm going to get on an airplane, and then I'll check back in with you guys,"
she said, physically rushing to the door.

              Christian met her in the hallway with the requested items placed discretely in a bag marked "Insulin." He asked, "What do you want us to do in the meantime?" as she grabbed them and headed towards the exit.

              "Pray!"

***

Cadence had been forced to take the airlines, since there was not another airplane at the Kansas City headquarters that could have made the journey any faster. She'd had to switch planes in New York to board her Aer Lingus flight to Kerry Airport. All-in-all, it had taken her significantly longer to make the trip, which included getting through customs and a layover in New York City. Considering Aaron had been able to fly there directly in less than half of the time, she was fairly certain that his lengthy head start would be problematic.

              But she wasn't willing to give up.

Hannah had arranged for a motorcycle rental, which would be enough, considering all she had with her was the serum, her passport, wallet, and phone, all in a small backpack. She hadn't taken the time to pack even a change of clothes.

As she raced along, Hannah gave her directions to Killarney, but she didn't know for sure where his property was, nor was she able to find the information even with a thorough search of public records. He had hidden his purchase well. This also hindered any members of the Ireland LIGHTS team from helping. A few had volunteered to help, but so far, they had turned up nothing.

              Cadence felt like she initially knew where she was going, despite the lack of navigational information. The closer she got to him, the more aware of his location she became.

              The sun was cresting over the horizon as Torc Mountain came into view. The landscape was breathtaking, or it would have been if she had taken even a moment to observe it. The rolling hills broke in to bens, or mountains, from time to time, with lush green fields full of grazing sheep, and quaint little cottages all around.

              She made the turns and followed the winding paths closer to the mountain, as if she knew precisely where she was going, as if she had been there before. Finally, she reached the base of the mountain, and glanced up. At the crest, the altitude was a good 1700 feet. A pristine lake glistened in the morning light to her right. She looked around for a moment. Despite the feeling in her gut that she was close, this was an enormous mountain, and he could be anywhere. She saw a cottage in the distance and contemplated asking the residents. There was a much larger house beyond it, which was also a possibility. However, as she stood considering her options, she happened to look up, and realized she knew exactly where he was. Parking the bike, she hopped off and began to climb.

              It didn't take her long at all to reach the overhang. One of the skills Aaron had pushed during her training was climbing. Completing her assent up the rocky terrain, she was relieved when she finally saw him. Confirming he was alive, she exhaled a breath she must have been holding for hours. He was sitting on the edge of the cliff in the distance, legs dangling over, staring at the rippling water far below, his countenance much the way it had been as he contemplated the Reno skyline a couple of nights ago--forever ago.