59. Miracles, Maybe
Chapter 59
Miracles, Maybe
The Lux Enclave—Minutes later
B y the time Agathe arrived and shut the lab door behind herself, Cerissa had the answer. “Karen’s mortal body is still riddled with cancer, and she’s dying. The longer she remains mortal, the sooner she’ll die. But I can fix this now. She’s Lux.”
Agathe’s lips went through a series of contortions, from a pucker to a thin line. “We won’t know for sure until she takes our true form. But I imagine she won’t have the strength to change unless you remove her cancer.”
Oh Goddess, please and thank you. “Then I have your permission?”
“Yes, my child. Contact me once you finish and she’s awake.” Agathe disappeared.
Cerissa shook Karen’s shoulder. “Wake up, bestie. I need your consent to operate.”
“Whatever,” Karen said groggily. “Operate?”
“To remove the tumors.”
Karen stared at her with a furrowed brow and a lack of comprehension on her face. “I thought you couldn’t.”
“I can now. Agathe agreed. I won’t be able to get everything, but there’s a way to prevent it from growing again. That’ll be up to you. Right now, I have to excise what I can to stop the pain.”
Karen moaned. “I don’t want to go through all that again. The surgery. The chemo.”
“This won’t be like that. You’ll have to trust me. We’re going to teach your body to fight the cancer, now that you can morph.”
“Just stop the pain, please?”
“You got it.” Putting Karen under an anesthesia designed for Lux bodies would keep her vampire side quiet as well. Cerissa readied everything for surgery, then morphed to her angelic, six-fingered Lux form, to make manipulating the surgical tools easier, and donned a pale green sterile sarong, tied at the neck to allow her wings freedom.
The scan’s overlay created a map of the tumors. Following the map, she blasted the damaged cells. The laser-like device skipped past skin and muscle tissue to target and excise the cancer from deep within Karen’s mortal body, regenerating the abnormal cells into healthy ones.
When surgery finished, she ran a second full scan, with heightened sensitivity activated to detect any abnormal cells. Some cancer appeared, but not a lot. While Karen slept off the anesthesia, Cerissa performed a genetic comparison. There were similarities between Cerissa’s third DNA strand and Karen’s third strand. Similar, but not identical.
Shouldn’t they be identical?
Karen woke soon after the genetic comparison concluded, still in her mortal form. Cerissa morphed herself back to mortal as well, to make it easier to communicate. She still wore the green sarong. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” With her lips parted, Karen swept her tongue over her teeth. “No fangs. Did I dream it?”
“No. You’re Lux, with two forms so far. Vampire and mortal. Any pain?”
“No. Just tired.”
“That could be the anesthesia. I don’t want to give you solid food yet.” Cerissa mixed a tablespoon of purple powder into a glass of water. “Sit up and try this. An electrolyte restorative. It’ll help knock out the effects of anesthesia.”
Cerissa elevated the bed’s headrest so it supported Karen as she drank. The surgery left no wounds, no stitches, no additional healing time needed. But even as good as the Lux tech was, Cerissa hadn’t eliminated all the cancer cells. Some small bits remained that could grow back if her plan didn’t work. “To keep the cancer at bay, you’re going to map this body you’re in, and whenever you morph to mortal, it’ll be this version of your body.”
Karen frowned. “That sounds impossible.”
“I know it’s possible because I’ve done it. Remember when we went skiing, and I morphed to mimic your body, took a ski lesson, but then retained your muscle memory when I changed back to my human appearance?”
“Yeah, you did.” Karen wrinkled her nose, the light freckles moving with the motion. “Doesn’t mean I can.”
“Have faith. We know you can change from vampire to mortal. You must have at least some of the same powers inherent to all Lux.” How to explain what comes naturally to me? “Close your eyes. Focus on your feet. Think of it like you have x-ray vision.”
“Like Superman?”
Cerissa laughed. “Yeah, something like that. See all the way inside your feet, and when you have the image firmly planted in your mind, center your mind on the next area—your legs—and repeat the process.”
Karen’s brow wrinkled, her expression one of intense concentration. A few minutes later, she said, “I’m not sure it worked.”
“We’ll find out in a moment. The sun has set here, so I want you to morph to vampire.”
Karen huffed and rolled her eyes. “You want me to do ten impossible things?”
“No, just a few.” Cerissa squeezed Karen’s shoulder, offering encouragement. “Picture in your mind what makes a vampire different from a mortal.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Sure you can. Fangs. Serum gland. Fingernail striations. Hang onto that image. Reach for it. Want it. Push power into becoming vampire.”
Karen closed her eyes, squishing them shut, and shook, tremors racking her body. Then, with a final shudder, she morphed back to vampire.
“Way to go! High five!” Cerissa held up her hand.
Karen slapped her palm. “May I have some blood, please?”
Cerissa rushed to the cabinet above the lab table and brought back a case she had stored there. “Whatever you need.”
Once Karen fed, she looked alert enough for the next step.
Cerissa gripped her hand. “Now, you’re going to morph back to mortal. But not the way you were when you first became vampire. You’re going to change into the body you mapped, the one almost free of cancer cells. Got it?”
The transformation this time went easier—not as much scrunching and grunting.
“Let me run one more scan,” Cerissa said. “Make sure you’re in the right body.”
Karen held still, and moments later, Cerissa had her answer. “Congratulations!”
“I’m cancer free?”
“Almost. But what matters is that each time you change forms, you’ll come back to this body, and the cancer won’t progress. So not cancer-free, but we’ve stopped it. No more surgeries, no chemo, no nothing. Yours is the only power needed to prevent the progression.”
Karen released a long sigh. “Finally. Something I have control over other than dying.”
“But there’s more.” Cerissa felt like one of those late-night commercials when she said that. Like she was about to offer a free set of steak knives to go with her news. “We need Agathe back, because you have one more transformation to make.”
Karen downed another glass of electrolytes while Cerissa texted Agathe to join them. This next part would be tricky.
Agathe strode in wearing a navy-blue sarong over her Lux form and sang, “What do you have to report?”
“Surgery is done, and she’s been able to morph to vampire and back to human.”
Agathe would understand Cerissa’s spoken reply. The Lux mouth couldn’t make the sounds of English, but Agathe’s mind would translate the language easily.
Cerissa motioned for her to remain where she stood. “Stay there, where you are, please. I want Karen to have a visual to lock on to.”
“Very well.” Agathe folded her arms and raised her wings at the shoulders, spreading them slightly. “I’m ready for your demonstration.”
Cerissa squeezed her bestie’s hand, nervous energy flooding through her. “Karen, can you stand?”
Karen slid her legs off the bed and sat on the edge. “I think so.”
Cerissa braced her arm and helped her up. “We need you to change to your Lux form.”
Karen’s head whipped to the side. “My what?”
“You have a third DNA strand that is very similar to the Lux strand. We have to see if my fang serum and vampire blood turned you into a full-blooded Lux.”
Karen’s eyes widened, and the monitor showed her pulse rate rising.
Cerissa stroked her arm. “Don’t be afraid. Please. Look at Agathe. Hold her image in your mind. Ecru wings. Blue skin. White, straight hair. Push energy into that image.”
Karen closed her eyes tightly and strained her muscles until they shook, then stopped, panting to catch her breath. “Nothing is happening.”
Agathe sang out a note.
“Just be patient. She can do this.” Cerissa locked gazes with Karen. “Don’t stress. Picture the energy as the blood that flows within you. Gather those streams and focus on changing forms.”
Karen nodded and closed her eyes. Her body shuddered, morphing into a blur, then resolved itself into her vampire form. “I’m starving.” She extended her hand and opened her palm. “Do you have any more blood?”
Cerissa swiped a pouch from the open box and offered it to her. “You may have to start as vampire to complete the transition.”
After Karen sucked down the pouch, she tried again.
Nothing.
Agathe whistled, sang a few notes, then transformed into her mortal guise. “Your friend appears to be a hybrid. Not quite mortal, and not quite vampire.”
“We still haven’t attempted the other vampire forms—bat and wolf.”
“Even if she could transform into them, it proves nothing. We can’t create Lux via the mechanism vampires use to turn mortals. Look at her. She can’t take on our true form. Our hope of extending our race by turning mortals won’t work. While your experiment was worthwhile, the theory looks like a dead end.”
“With only one test subject? That’s not scientifically sound.”
Agathe arched a brow. “Do you have more subjects volunteering?”
“Uh, no. But given time, Karen may grow in strength and come into the ability.”
“We’ll watch for that. In the meantime, take her back to the Hill. I have to report your findings to the Assembly.”
“What? You can’t—”
“Child, don’t tell me what I can’t do. This is an important discovery.” Agathe frowned at her. “We can make life—or at least extend mortal life. I will reflect on this, but we also need more minds involved to see all the ramifications.”
“But this isn’t a full picture of all the possibilities.” Cerissa didn’t want Agathe to report her one trial as only a semi-failure or a semi-success. It was too early. “Karen might someday morph into Lux, yes, but there are other methods of research and experimentation I plan to follow. Keep in mind, she was dying from cancer. Who knows how that interfered with the process? We should try with a healthy mortal. And I have ideas for more…traditional methods of breeding, but I need time to investigate them.”
“Time,” Agathe said. “We have less than we’d like of that.”
“Seriously? You still haven’t told me how much we have.”
“Nor will I, yet.” Agathe glanced at Karen, then Cerissa. “Especially when I have suspicions that the research aspect of this particular experiment was not at the forefront of your decision to make her vampire, though it was a useful by-product.”
Cerissa clasped her hands together, pleading. “At least read me in on the plan. It’ll affect how I approach the research you’ve asked me to do.”
Agathe stared at her for a moment, then gave a quick nod. “I will tell Ari to share what he knows. He can explain the situation as your supervisor. I don’t have the time. Now, I’ve got issues to handle.”
With a quick pivot, Agathe exited the lab.
Cerissa groaned. Fine. She’d have to wait to hear from Ari. And just like Agathe, she could only juggle one problem at a time. Her most important one had to be put to bed right now. Without warning her bestie, she slipped a jet injector into the back pocket of her sarong and flashed them to Rolf’s crypt. The sun had yet to set on the Hill.
Karen’s knees gave out as soon as they materialized inside. “You’re not leaving me down here?”
“You need to sleep.” Cerissa caught her before she fell. The pitch-black room wasn’t an issue—Cerissa enhanced her vision and guided Karen onto the cot parallel to Rolf’s. “I don’t know if it’s safe for you to go out in sunlight in your mortal form. So we’ll take this one step at a time, okay?”
“I don’t want to go back to living as a vampire.”
A sharp pain lanced Cerissa’s heart. Karen had been through so much already, and now this. “I need you to trust me. A vampire’s sleep will be the best thing to refresh you.”
“What if I wake up mortal again?”
“I can make sure you don’t. Okay?”
“Okay.”
After helping Karen to stretch out on the cot, Cerissa subtly removed the jet injector she’d stashed in her sarong’s pocket and dialed the code for the Lux stabilization fluid. She pressed the tip against Karen’s thigh, the device making a light hiss. It would keep her in vampire form for a while.
“There. We’ll talk more tonight.”
Karen’s eyes fluttered shut. The stuffed beaver and otter were pushed to the side of the pillow, and Cerissa wrapped Karen’s arms around each of them. Her bestie would wake to something familiar, and the comforting stuffies might help her adjust.
Rolf hadn’t stirred. Cerissa looked down at him in the dark. To see him helpless was a strange feeling. She turned back to make sure Karen was all right. The two would be safe until the sun set.
Flashing back to her bedroom at Rancho Bautista, she phoned Ari to demand an explanation of the Lux’s plan to combat the impending climate catastrophe. Except he didn’t answer her call. She recorded a message, urging him to stop by tonight. She had to get a sense of the bigger picture, and fast.