Page 31 of The Godhead Complex
“A4?” The shortest of the women nosed her way into an old scientific log. “That test subject of the Maze trials was Chuck if I’m correct.” She looked up with blank, questioning eyes.
Alexandra’s ears rang with anger and she spun around and slapped Mannus as if he was responsible for the buzzing alarms within her head. All the anger that trembled within her needed to go somewhere, and it went out of her palm into Mannus’ cheek. She had slapped him so hard that he spit something onto the floor. “You idiot! You brought the wrong case from the study!” Mannus looked at her with surprise and genuine hurt feelings.
“Apologies my Goddess . . .” he half-heartedly said.
“Nicholas is feeling under the weather . . .” Alexandra closed the red-leather case and latched it shut. “So he must’ve forgotten that he’d already brought them and given Mannus the wrong . . .” She was scrambling for a solution and quickly looked around the small lab. “But while we’re here—”
“Nicholas was supposed to be back here for our report last week.”
“He didn’t show.”
“What illness does he have?”
All three of the scientists spoke at once. Alexandra searched her mind for another lie.What illness did Nicholas have?She had never once in thirty years known Nicholas to be under the weather.
She replied with the utmost confidence. “He has symptoms of dizziness. Vision black-outs. Shaking, a loud buzzing in his ears.” She spelled out her own growing symptoms. “And his thoughts are foggy. Clearly.” She pointed to the vials of Chuck’s blood labeled as Newt’s.
It was the middle-sized woman’s turn to speak. “All mild symptoms of Ascension. Although . . .” She exchanged doubtful glances with the others. “I thought Nicholas was well beyond them. Perhaps the northern lights are affecting his inner brain chemistry the same way a full moon does for those who are sensitive.”
“Yes,” Alexandra said, but what did they mean bysensitive? What was all of this? “I can attest to the full moon causing more disruptions within the village since the full spectrum of the northern lights returned.” She placed her hand on her heart. “The Hollowings have increased, you know?” She waited for the women to react but they didn’t. Of course, they didn’t have fears of being hollowed, they were too far removed from any society. Alexa had to find what theydidfear and play into that. “The Hollowings are a sign of the end of days. Nicholas believed that once the ritual increased in frequency, we would be out of time to change the fates.”
“He did say that there wasn’t much time.” The short one’s turn.
Alexandra latched on to that. “Which is why you must help me share the Cure now.”
Tall spoke next. “We can only release the vials to Nicholas, and dispensing the Cure is still being worked out by Villa One. They’re using the—”
“Shhh . . .” Short elbowed Tall.
“I am the Godhead. Nicholas is not well. I will dispense them.” She said it with a motherly tone but they looked at her as though she were the one with the horns sewed to her head.
Tall replied. “It’s out of no disrespect, Goddess, it’s simply the protocol, we do not answer to you, we answer to Nicholas. You don’t have the clearance here.”
Alexandra smiled her last fake smile of the day. Nicholas had taught her patience, but even this was a stretch of what she was capable of entertaining. She had been tackled, shot at, and drank the worst tea of her life. It was time to get what she came for. She threw all her powers of persuasion and command into her voice.
“Enough of this. You’ll begin answering to me as of right this minute, because Nicholas is dead. He was murdered.” Alexandra waited for the apologies and groveling, for them to correct their course, to serve Alexandra Romanov as their one true Goddess.
But they didn’t.
Alexandra watched in stunned disbelief as each woman scurried to a different part of the lab and began packing instruments.What was going on here? What was it they feared more than her?She tried to command them. “Stop this at once!” But she and Mannus helplessly watched as they poured beakers full of liquids down drains and smashed other glass collections. “What are you doing? You’re destroying it!”
Tall replied. “Yes, matter of safety. We have a plan in place for such a thing, and with your news of the Godhead’s assassination, that plan is now in effect.”
This was absurd, Alexandra thought.What the hell was going on?
Middle spoke up, now. “This is an offset experimental lab, and Villa X was never approved by the greater coalition to be doing any of these tests.”
Alexandra had no choice but to roll with the punches, now. “It’s okay, the Evolutionary Guards can protect you, you’ll be safe.” Her offer didn’t slow down their panic. “You can’t just give up and walk away from thirty years of research.”
Small responded. “We’re not walking away. We’re destroying it. In the event that anything happened to Nicholas, this Villa was to be destroyed. . . . And Goddess . . .” Short walked over to a safe in the wall. After typing in a code, she reached in and, instead of pulling out a vial or a collection of manuals or journals or studies she handed Alexandra a single envelope, “This is for you.”
Alex, stunned into the most unusual silence of her life, looked down at the envelope. Her name had been scribbled across the front in a very familiar handwriting. Nicholas.
Alexandra held the envelope tightly in her hand.
She could already feel the vibration of the letter, someI Told You Sofrom Nicholas about Newt’s vials not being in the case, about switching the labels. Something about how she should have had more patience. But she wouldn’t let his words control her anymore. She folded the envelope into three and put it in her cloak pocket.
The women continued to pack up what was left of “Villa X” and Alexandra looked to Mannus with a desperate plea. His hand inched closer to his knife. She had no more time for games and counted on the fact that he had killed for his Goddess before and that he might do it again. True to her wishes, the horned man grabbed the tallest woman and held his knife against her throat.
