Several weeks later, Luke stood by the door to the lab. He had flown in from Brazil that morning. Dwayne was handling the praestige on the home infusion nurse, who thought she was in a medical center, and that Jordan was a perfect match. That Jordan was even a partial match seemed odd, from what Carl said. The best matches were people with the same regional heritage. He looked like a completely different genotype than Carl, more Mediterranean, and much less Anglo-Saxon. Of course, Carl’s genetic matching had changed drastically since he acquired the wolven DNA, but it couldn’t be that. The virus primarily carried that wolven DNA, but there was a small amount of alien DNA as well, since the original gene-splicing research was to determine how the Anunnaki genes reacted to being spliced with other species. It was the alien chromosomes, as far as Luke could tell, that endowed werewolves with the psychic abilities that Luke had learned to control so well. Luke and Carl would likely have been a better match than Jordan and Carl, since Jordan had neither the wolf or alien genes. But Luke avoided giving blood, and had advised his people against it as well. Carl was at a disadvantage in this testing, being only half human himself. The donors should all be entirely human.
Carl’s skin hung loosely over his now skeletal frame. He had shown Luke and Dwayne the instrument readings as they were expected to look. Luke had drilled Dwayne on them last night until the boy was able to visualize them so clearly and transmit that vision to others, that he had even fooled Luke. It was another notch toward Dwayne’s redemption; everything was going according to plan. His biggest concern was the possibility of rejection. If Carl’s body rejected the transplant they were far from the hospital, and it would be his job to keep Carl’s body functioning while Jordan drove them there. Dwayne would be on his own if that happened, and Luke kept watching him for any signs of fatigue. Everything had to go right; it would be a huge mess to clean up if it didn’t all fall into place, in which case Luke was tempted to just scramble the nurse’s mind and walk away rather than do the exhausting work of mental erasure and replacement.
But so far, all was going well. He was counting on the remarkable rate of healing that lupans possessed, but this could go either way, because of Carl’s inferior condition. Either he became fully lupan, and his body assimilated the new bone marrow, making it part of a well-functioning system, or the failed portion of Carl’s condition rejected the cure, and they were back to dealing with him as he transformed, instead, into a vampire, which Luke would never allow. Failure would be a death sentence for Carl.
Carl was watching the IV drip. This would go on for hours. Luke had been shocked when he saw Carl’s body convulse as the marrow depleting drugs entered his system in the previous procedure, but Carl had told him to expect it. Receiving the marrow was a much gentler process.
Luke silently went out to the little room with the barred door where Jordan was recovering from the marrow draw, receiving what his own body needed from his own drip.
“How’s Carl doing?” Jordan asked.
“Everything is going smooth, he is alert and seems to be feeling fine,” Luke answered. “How are you feeling?”
“I just hope I don’t have to do this again. Those damn needles were huge!”
Luke grinned. Jordan clearly hated needles, and the fact that he’d lain down and taken the insult to his body with relative stoicism was a perfect example of his willingness to set aside his fears in countless ways to protect, defend, and sacrifice himself for others. It was glorious. Now, it was time to ensure that Jordan couldn’t back away from the plans Luke had for him, and this was delicate. He also had to remain aware of Carl’s progress while he handled Jordan, but this was his best chance to overcome any objection Jordan might have about becoming part of the culture. And once Jordan was part of it, he would see the sense of being at the top of it.
“Is there codeine in the drip?” Luke asked, conversationally.
“No, dammit. They used to do that when the marrow came out of the hip bones, but the way they do it now they just give me drugs so I feel like shit.” Jordan watched the bag carefully, studiously avoiding looking at the line that went into a vein in his arm.
That wasn’t going to work. Jordan needed to be looking away from the bag. Distraction, as usual, would be the first step.
“Do you want Dwayne to bring the refrigerator and stove down so that you have a kitchen here as well as the bed, so you do not have to go up and down the stairs as much?” Luke inquired.
“NO!” Jordan almost shouted, then lowered his voice, looking straight at Luke. “Tell him to stay out of my kitchen, dammit.”
Luke smiled as he mentally left a trace of his own image where he had stood when Jordan had reacted so adamantly. He slowed Jordan’s mind down so it seemed that the next two minutes occurred in a single instant. He drew the vial of Carl’s blood from his pocket, along with the syringe, and pulled the cap from the syringe, then quickly withdrew as much blood from the vial as he could. He inserted the syringe into the little tube that came out the side of the main line and pressed the plunger down, watching as the blood turned the liquid in the clear tubing pink. He maintained a very strong image of himself standing in front of Jordan’s bed, and the tubing with clear liquid, no Luke anywhere near it, in case the nurse looked in on them. Everything would look normal, no matter how intent her gaze was.
Jordan’s mind was strong enough to resist this praestige, but he had to suspect something was up to try, and once Luke invoked Jordan’s intense need to control his environment, Jordan’s mind was too full of outrage to even think that something else was going on. It was a technique also used in any sport or magic trick; feint, then do the damage. In time he would teach Jordan ways to avoid falling prey to such tactics, but for now, he simply used Jordan’s lack of guile to achieve his own ends.
He withdrew the syringe, clipped the cap back on, and put it and the vial back in his pocket, to dispose of later. The fewer clues there were about something strange happening, the less likely anyone would recall an anomaly, and it would be easier for Luke to get away clean. He considered tucking Jordan’s IV line under the sheet, so that he didn’t have to maintain the illusion that the fluid was clear, but he knew that Jordan would look much closer at it if something changed unexpectedly, so he simply maintained the illusion. It took very little of his attention to do so. He’d have to remain nearby to keep it up until Carl’s blood had fully entered Jordan’s veins. He knew there would be no clotting; the virus seemed to prevent that. He shook his head in wonder. The loss of one in three strays had weighed on his heart ever since he first learned of it. If this worked, he would celebrate in ways mere mortals couldn’t even imagine. He knew where there were bottles of wine that had been in storage for hundreds of years. Even Dwayne had partially redeemed himself, working hard to master the skills he needed to assure the transplant went smoothly.
“I am sorry, I just thought it might be easier for you. You know better than I do how you want your space set up.” Luke dropped right back into the discussion as if there’d never been a pause, which, to Jordan, there hadn’t. This was an essential part of the praestige as well; all the real elements needed to match the suggested elements, so that the entire illusion was seamless. Luke had been doing this for so long, he hardly had to think about it. “I need to get back to Carl. I just wanted to make sure you were okay, as well,” Luke said, and exited. He silently re-entered Carl’s room and took his place by the door again. He wasn’t invisible, as Dwayne was, but he was unnoticeable. It was a simpler illusion, and simple was good. His life was complicated enough, so he took every opportunity for simplicity that he could find.
“How’s Jordan?” Carl asked.
Luke’s mind snapped back to the current moment. The problem with unnoticeable was that anyone who expected him to be there would notice him. He rid the irritation from his voice as he replied, “Jordan is doing well. He is complaining about needles, though.”
Carl laughed, and Luke grinned with him. Laughter was a good tool when using a praestige. A laughing mind was an unsuspecting mind. But he had no need to fool Carl. The truth would suffice for him. Of course, he didn’t know that Luke had just ensured that Jordan just went from Homo sapiens to Homo lupanthrus. When it became obvious, Carl might well take the blame, the assumption being that Carl had been careless at some point. Luke felt a slight twinge of guilt at that, but he immediately set the feeling aside. The overlords were coming, there was no time for ambivalence. They would weigh the truth with complete impunity, and as things stood, Homo lupanthrus would be found wanting. The only possible outcome, if Luke couldn’t achieve drastic change, was that the entire lupanthrus species would face complete genocide, another casualty of the perfection that the alien masters insisted on. It would be hard enough even if he could train Jordan quickly to be even half as good at this as Luke was; without an apprentice, the species didn’t stand a chance.
Carl was nodding off. The transplant was an exhausting process. Luke watched as Carl slipped into a gentle sleep, unaware of the incredible fight they would all soon be embroiled in. Luke had known better than to mention it before this transplant process began. If it worked as any other bone marrow transplant did, it could be months before Carl was safely on the other side, and they all knew whether it had worked. Luke sincerely hoped the powerful healing abilities of lupans sped up the recovery; he wasn’t sure they had that much time. The overlords came approximately once every 500 years, and they were already slightly overdue. With the dismantling of the obelisks throughout the world, Luke wasn’t sure they would receive any transmissions the aliens sent, so he had no way of knowing when they would arrive. He’d ensured the new obelisk built in the U.S. capital would operate as a transmitter and receiver, but he didn’t know if it would work.
He watched the IV fluid drip into the chamber above Carl’s chest as it slowly seeped into Carl’s blood. It looked like the sand in an hourglass, and every drop was like the tick of a clock. Time was running out. He had things to do. But right now, the most important thing was in this room. If he could show the overlords that he had found a way to save the lives of lupans that were currently executed because they weren’t viable, he believed he could buy them some time, and with that time, he might be able to save them all.