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Chapter 15

  Alex woke with a sharp intake of breath. He bolted upright, immediately regretting the quick movement. His head throbbed with every beat of his pulse. Clutching it in both hands, he moaned quietly.

  “You took quite a fall.”

  Winston’s deep voice startled Alex out of his misery. He jumped, turning sharply. He’d thought he was alone. A fresh wave of pain radiated through his skull.

  He was back in his small stone cell. He’d been laying flat on the cold, stone floor. Winston crouched, only a couple of feet away. The big man squatted on his haunches with his back against the wall, his short blade balanced across his knees.

  When Alex didn’t reply, Winston said, “You honor your father. You’ve shown great courage and loyalty—foolishness, to be sure, but courage nonetheless. You could have been killed.”

  Whatever, Alex thought, angry all over again at his predicament. He turned away, glancing toward the exit as he did. Unfortunately, the door was solidly closed.

  Winston followed his gaze. “I will not make the same mistake twice, certainly now that I know the source of your power.”

  Alex gave a start, reflexively clutching at himself.

  Everything was there. He still wore his jean jacket over the suit, and the suit was still plugged into his arm ports.

  “We have taken nothing from you,” Winston said. “We are not your enemy, Alex.”

  Alex frowned. Easy for him to say, Winston wasn’t the one locked up.

  Winston leaned forward, trying to make eye contact. “And I do not believe you are our enemy,” he said earnestly. In the ensuing silence, Alex sneaked a couple of glances but stayed quiet. “Tabitha tells me that you do not know where you are.”

  Alex’s head was still pounding and his body ached all over from lying unconscious on the hard stone floor. He sighed and put his head back in his hands, not answering.

  “If that is true,” Winston continued, “I must conclude your arrival was an accident.”

  Alex shook his head dismally. Shouldn’t that have been obvious from the start? Of course he wasn’t supposed to be here. He’d had every intention of going wherever his father had gone, but never in his wildest dreams would he have conceived that this would be where he’d end up.

  “However,” Winston continued after a pause, “I am a believer in fate, and although you may never have intended to come to this place, perhaps this place intended that you come to it.”

  Alex had no idea how to respond to something so ridiculous. He was just a high school kid who wanted his dad back. Whatever these nut-jobs had going on down here had nothing to do with him.

  “Tell me about the man you came here to find,” Winston asked. “Tell me about your father.”

  Alex pressed his lips together. Winston meant to hold him prisoner, he’d clearly said so. Cooperating with him seemed foolish. If Alex was going to rescue his dad, the less he told Winston, it seemed the better his chances would be. But on the other hand, Winston didn’t seem like he wanted to hurt him. He could have done anything to Alex while he was unconscious, but the big man hadn’t even taken the suit and Alex knew he wanted it. Whatever that thing had been in the tunnels, Winston’s people had saved him from it.

  Maybe if they understood, they would help him.

  Alex sighed and plucked at the sleeve of his suit. “My father invented this,” he said finally. “He called it a PTS, a Personal Transport Suit. He built it in secret, because he believed it would help him find my mom.”

  Alex waited for Winston to ask about his mother, or why his dad would keep something like that a secret, but he just listened attentively, politely.

  “I don’t know how it works, not really,” Alex confessed. “I just know how to use it. I point the laser at something, clench my fist, and it teleports me there.”

  Winston mouthed the words laser and teleport without speaking them, clearly not knowing what they meant.

  “Your father is a smith of some kind?” Winston asked.

  Alex chuckled in spite of himself, but quickly stopped. It just made his headache worse.

  “I don’t think there is such a thing as a smith, not anymore,” Alex replied. Winston’s eyebrows came together in confusion. “My father is an electrical engineer,” Alex explained. “His name is Charles Croatoan. He’s the founder of Electromagnetic Impulse Technologies.”

  Winston shot to his feet, eyes wide, his large frame towering over Alex. “Your father is Croatoan?” he demanded hoarsely.

  Shocked, Alex scuttled away from Winston, his stomach clenched with fear. If anything, he would have expected Winston to recognize the name of his dad’s company, not his last name. “Yes?” Confused, he asked, “I am too. Why? Do you know my father?”

  “Know him?” Winston seethed, “No, I do not know him. But I know his lineage.”

  Winston began pacing the small space, his blade clenched tightly in his hand. “Fate, indeed,” he murmured.

  “What?” Alex was on his feet now too, but he stayed well out of Winston’s reach. “How do you know my name?”

  Winston abruptly stopped pacing and spun to face Alex, his eyes glowing with fervor. “Four hundred years,” he whispered. “Perhaps you have finally come.”

  Now it was getting weird. As if teleporting somewhere far beneath the earth’s surface hadn’t already been weird enough.

  Alex held up a cautious hand. “I just want to find my dad and go home,” he said carefully.

  “As you have avouched,” Winston acknowledged. He stood straighter and visibly relaxed his shoulders. “But I am afraid that may not be possible.” Alex bristled, but Winston held up a hand. “Please. Allow me to explain. Allow me to share our history, and perhaps you will see that my motives are genuine.”

  “I don’t understand how your history could have anything to do with me,” Alex argued. “Just let me go. I don’t want anything from you. I’m not here to hurt anybody.”

  Winston’s lowered his blade. “I can see that you are frightened.” His eyes softened. “And for that I can empathize.” He stepped forward, saying earnestly, “But Alex, our history has everything to do with you, or rather, with someone from which you are a direct descendant.”

  “What?” Alex answered incredulously. He shook his head and blinked. “Who? What?” The big man was out of his mind. Or maybe Alex was the one going nuts. He squeezed the skin of his forearm between two fingers and winced. He should’ve known it would hurt with the way head was already pounding.

  “I would surmise that he was your grandfather many times removed,” Winston replied. “He was once a good man, a brilliant man, but in the end he was our ruination, and the reason for our self-imposed exile to this place.”

  “My…” Alex shook his head involuntarily. “What are you talking about?”

  “Benjamin Croatoan,” Winston replied darkly, a hard edge to his voice. He settled to the floor again, cross-legged, his blade across his knees. “Long ago, he was just a man like you and I—an amazing man to be sure—but just a mortal man.”

  Alex had never heard of anyone in his family named Benjamin. “This is some kind of mistake,” he objected. “Some kind of strange coincidence. My family… we’re not part of…” Alex made a wide arc with one arm. “Whatever this is.”

  Winston motioned toward the floor. “Please, sit. I am certain you would never have heard of him. No family would lay claim to an ancestor such as he with any measure of pride.” Winston sighed again, and for the first time Alex saw a weariness in the big man’s eyes. “He had a child. A son, to whom the colony showed pity.” He shook his head in remorse. “It was not the child’s fault his father had become a vile, despicable man, and perhaps my people were fools to stay their hand and let the child live. Or perhaps it was destiny…”

  Alex couldn’t stop shaking his head, a reflexive denial to everything Winston was telling him.

  Winston looked up. “You would be descended of that child’s line, arrived here through providence and d
estiny.” He paused, studying Alex. “But is it your destiny to save us, or bring ruination upon us yet again?”

  Alex blinked. Then he blinked again. “You’re out of your frikkin mind, you know that right? You all are.”

  Winston remained unfazed. “Please, Alex,” he beckoned toward the floor again. Hear my tale, and then determine its veracity.’’

  Alex looked back at the closed door again. What choice did he really have? Slowly and overtly reluctant, he sank down and sat across from Winston.

  Winston nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

  Alex grumbled under his breath but made no other attempt to reply.

  “Benjamin Croatoan was a simple blacksmith,” Winston began after an awkward pause. He nodded thoughtfully and leaned back against the wall. “Simple…” he mused. “Perhaps that is an inaccurate depiction. Benjamin, as the legend is written, was anything but simple. He was a genius. A master of innovation, his mind evolved far beyond that of any of his contemporaries. Far beyond anything they could ever hope to comprehend. They were pioneers, his people. Colonists from the mother-land who hoped to settle the Island of Roanoke and establish it as a trading post to the New World.”

  “You mean like, back in colonial times?” Alex asked. “Wait, you mean the colony of Roanoke? The lost colony?”

  Of course Alex had heard the legend of the lost colony in history class. The only remnant of it that had been left behind was a single word scratched on a tree, and that word had been “CROATOAN,” his last name. The story had always held a kind of romantic notion for him. But now…

  “Wait a minute,” Alex sputtered. “There is no way…”

  With a confused look, Winston replied, “I cannot say if we speak of one and the same, I can only tell you the history of my people. Your people, it would seem, as well.”

  Although Alex scoffed at Winston’s last statement, he was beginning to feel the first stirrings of doubt. There was very little of the story other than the coincidence of the same last name to link Alex to these people. But still…

  “It was an accident,” Winston explained, “the first time Benjamin found his way here to the Under. He did it through the use of a by-product of a smithing tool he had created to fuse metals together. He called it his Magnosphere, a round ball of metal no larger than a pumpkin. Somehow, he could use it to transport himself from one place to another in the blink of an eye.”

  Alex stiffened. Confusion muddled his reasoning and his head began to pound harder. If this history were the truth, if it were even partly the truth, there were way too many parallels. But how could it possibly be? Someone with the same last name as him had created teleport technology hundreds of years ago? “But you said he was my great, great, great… my grandfather from a long way back,” he protested.

  “I believe that to be so,” Winston confirmed.

  “That’s impossible! Did they even know what electricity was back then?”

  Winston mouthed the word electricity. “I do not pretend to know what you speak of, but I can tell you that our lore is accurate. Benjamin Croatoan did create a device that ultimately led him to this place. He found it, and was gone for many months,” Winston spoke as if reciting a text. “He returned, only to leave again and again. This behavior went on for a number of years until one day when he returned, it was clear to everyone in the colony that he was no longer himself.” Winston gave Alex a hard look. “He had become Nocuous.”

  There it was again—that word. “What does that mean?” Alex was nearly whispering by now.

  “It means he was granted long life, possibly everlasting.” The Marshall of Domus’s tone didn’t falter, his eyes never wavered. Alex could see that he truly believed every word he had spoken. “And,” Winston continued, his voice low and ominous, “he was strong, stronger than any mortal man.”

  By now, Alex was hanging on every word. “But how? How did he get that way?”

  “Benjamin told the colony of a place far beneath the surface of the world that only he could reach. He called it The Under and spoke of a power there. ‘The Core of the Earth,’ he said. He claimed that it had gifted him with boundless strength and a clarity of purpose.”

  “This?” Alex asked, looking up through the holes in the ceiling of the small space they shared. “This place is the Under?”

  “This is Benjamin’s Under,” Winston confirmed. “At first he made many journeys here, to the source of his power. The colony would gather to watch in awe as he used his Magnosphere. Most hailed him as a genius. Others believed him a heretic. Regardless, no one interfered. There was no way for anyone to know then that something about being in the presence of the Core soothes those who are Nocuous, that its red glow made them ever stronger. It is believed Benjamin grew to need it, yearn for it any time he was on the surface, which is why he spent so much time in this terrible place instead of on the surface.”

  “Wait—red glow?” Alex interrupted. “The Core—is that where I was when I first came here? The cavern with the red glow?” Despite the preposterousness of the story, Alex was caught up.

  “The Antechamber to the Core,” Winston confirmed. “It is the reason we came upon you so readily. We guard the Core at all times against any who would approach it. You see, the Core does not discriminate against who it awards power. Benjamin is not special in that regard. The Core calls to any and all, a siren song that tugs at the ambition of every man.”

  “So the Core,” Alex reasoned, “made Benjamin strong and… he couldn’t die? How is that a bad thing?”

  “Because he was also cursed with an unquenchable thirst for power and dominance. Benjamin Croatoan believed he could create a new, better world, with himself as master over all—and left unchecked, he very well could have.” Winston leaned forward, his gaze burning with intensity. “Benjamin learned that with a simple touch he could bring others to the Under with him, and the first person he took was his wife. While they were gone, he learned a new facet of his power. Upon their return it was apparent that she had also been changed, but not like him.”

  “What was she like, then?” Alex shivered involuntarily.

  “She was in thrall to him,” Winston told him grimly. “She may have been his in name before they left, but after they returned she was his in soul as well. Mute, subservient, pale, and inhumanly strong, she would do anything he asked—including dying.”

  “What did he do to her? How did he make her that way?”

  “He bit her, and drank of her blood.”

  Alex did a double take and pulled away, the spell of the story finally broken. “Come on,” he said disbelievingly. He looked toward the exit, half-expecting to see the guards smirking back at him. Everything about Domus had been unbelievable and amazing thus far, but this—this story was absurd.

  But Winston’s eyes remained clear and serious, his gaze steady.

  “You’re telling me,” Alex scoffed, “that the Core made my great-great-who-knows-how-many-times-great grandpa a vampire?”

  Winston squinted. “I do not know that word.”

  “A blood-sucker. Like, ‘blah-blah!’” Alex imitated a B-movie vampire character from a nineteen-thirties movie. “You know—fangs, black hair? Cape? Turns into a bat?”

  “The Nocuous do not have the power to turn into a bat,” Winston replied seriously.

  Alex hesitated. Winston really believed what he was saying.

  “I do not know the extent of their power,” Winton continued. “I only know that they are strong, fast, and do not age. I know that by ingesting the blood of another, they are able to put that individual in thrall to them.”

  Alex hesitated, remembering the strange men who had attacked the Domus warriors the first time he had come to the Under. They had been silent, fast, and strong. He swallowed a lump that he hadn’t known was in his throat.

  “If this were all true,” Alex grudgingly allowed, “and I’m not saying I believe it.”

  Winston raised an eyebrow.

  “Not yet anyway,
” Alex said quickly. “But if this were all true, then how did all of you get here? Benjamin Croatoan doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who’d give up very easily. What happened to him? What about all the everlasting-life stuff you just told me about?”

  “Our descendants captured and imprisoned him, and then beheaded every man, woman, and child that he had put in thrall to him.” Winston said this without any trace of remorse. Alex’s eyes widened in shock. “And then they burned their corpses.”

  “They…? Are you serious?”

  “Benjamin had created a small army by the time the people of the colony truly began to realize his intentions,” Winston explained it as if it were an everyday occurrence.

  Maybe it was, Alex realized. For the people of Domus, in the Under, maybe it was.

  “This was an army that had become fanatically loyal to him and had lost any trace of humanity,” Winston explained. “His plan was to place the entire colony of Roanoke in thrall to him and use it as the base from which to conquer the world. From there, he would spread his will, creating thralls like a plague, one small area at a time. He was in no hurry, after all—he had an eternity to make his plan a reality.”

  “Why didn’t they kill him too?”

  “Because Benjamin wasn’t the true cause—it was the Core. If not for the Core, he would still have been just a man. Benjamin needed to die and his Magnosphere needed to die with him. Nothing like it had ever been created, and—so people of the colony believed—nothing like it could ever be created again. It had to be brought here and destroyed, so that no one would ever be corrupted again.”

  “And that is why the rest of the colony came here,” Alex realized, suddenly understanding the sacrifice Winston’s ancestors had made. “To guard and protect the rest of the world from becoming like Benjamin Croatoan, my great-grandpa.” He blinked. When had he decided he was buying into Winston’s story?

  “To be certain, that was their goal,” Winston confirmed, “and it is still our goal today. Unfortunately, the power of the Core was grossly underestimated and many of the citizens of Domus have fallen victim to its allure over the years.”

  “You mean there are more?” With absolute clarity, Alex again remembered the snarling, pale men in the Antechamber. Now it was clear the people of Domus weren’t guarding Core—they were keeping people from reaching it.

  “Many more,” Winston answered sadly. “It is rare for us to lose anyone to the Core, but four hundred years have passed since we first settled in these caverns—plenty of time for there to have been losses.”

  Alex suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He had run blindly into the tunnels trying to escape.

  “We hunt them constantly,” Winston continued. “Our warriors guard the Core because we know the Nocuous are drawn to it. Unfortunately, almost every Nocuous has burrowed deep and built dens where they surround themselves with Domus citizens they’ve snatched and have turned into thralls.”

  “If you know they’re hiding in dens, why don’t you just go in and kill them?”

  “We do not go near the dens,” Winston spoke sharply. “The population of Domus is a finite number, every life is precious. We would never risk the lives of our citizens so foolishly.”

  Alex blanched at being chastised so harshly.

  “Most of the dens are close to the Core,” Winston’s tone calmed. “Its vile power is a draw to both Nocuous and thralls alike. But a few, the oldest ones, have dens on the fringe, many miles from the Core, in tunnels we have never charted. They are the strongest ones. They are not only feared by the people of Domus, but by their fellow Nocuous as well.”

  Winston fixed Alex with a direct stare.

  “Your father is being held by the strongest of these fringe-dwellers. His name is Rasmus.”

  Icy dread gripped Alex’s heart. “But how do you know that?” he whispered.

  “Because every one of Rasmus’ thralls is marked with twin scars, a type of brand if you will, along their jaw lines, both as a mark of pride and a clear threat that the wrath of Rasmus would befall any who harm his property. It was one of these thralls that abducted your father from the Core Guard the day of his Arrival.”

  Alex took a deep, shaking breath. Had he come all this way for nothing?

  “I can’t leave him there,” Alex said in a small voice. “I can’t go home without him.”

  Winston hesitated, and then rose to his feet. “Then perhaps it is for the best that Rasmus has him,” he said sadly, looking down on Alex with pity, “because as guardians of the world, we can never allow you to leave, with or without him.”