Industrial Magic

Quest for Immortality

Next stop: Cincinnati, Ohio. Using Edward and Natasha's known aliases, as provided by Aaron, Lucas had found two Cincinnati area addresses for the vampires. There, we hoped to find either more evidence or some clue as to their current whereabouts. Aaron offered to come along, and Cassandra was in for the long haul, so all four of us were going, which seemed an expensive proposition… until Lucas led us to the private airstrip at the Lakefront Airport.

"I wondered how you two got to New Orleans so fast," I said as we approached the Cortez jet.

Lucas's gaze slid away and he shifted our bags to his other shoulder. "Yes, well, after I spoke to you, my father called and when I told him we were pursuing a lead, he offered the use of the jet. It seemed a wise idea, allowing us to bypass the schedules and restrictions of commercial flight." He shifted the bags again. "Perhaps I should have-"

"You did the right thing," I said. "The faster we can move, the better."

"I don't see what all the fuss is about," Cassandra said as the flight crew scrambled to lower the boarding ramp. "This business about refusing to join your own Cabal makes absolutely no sense. If you want my opinion-"

"I'm pretty sure he doesn't, Cass," Aaron said.

"Well, I was just going to say-"

With impeccable timing, the pilot hailed Lucas to discuss last-minute flight details. A crew member took our overnight bags, then the attendant showed us to our seats. By the time Lucas returned, the plane was taxiing down the runway. The attendant followed him in and took beverage orders, then chatted with Lucas for a moment as the plane lifted off. And if you think this sidetracked Cassandra from voicing her opinion about Lucas's situation, then you don't know Cassandra.

"As I was saying," Cassandra said after the attendant delivered our drinks. "I really fail to understand this whole rebellion of yours-"

"Cass, please," Aaron said.

"No, that's fine," Lucas said. "Go ahead, Cassandra."

"One would think, if you are serious about this Cabal reformation business, then the best position from which to effect change is within the organization itself."

"Ah, the Michael Corleone strategy," I said.

Aaron grinned. "Hey, I hadn't thought of that one."

The light flashed, telling us we could remove our seat belts. After taking his off, Aaron stood and shucked his jacket. Underneath, he wore a T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Now, not every guy can pull off the sleeveless T-shirt look, but Aaron… well, Aaron could. And the sight temporarily diverted Cassandra from her course. As Aaron reached around the corner to hang his jacket, her gaze slid down his well-muscled arms, and came to rest on his backside. A look flitted through her eyes, more wistful than lustful. Then she jerked her gaze away with a sharp shake of her head.

"Michael Corleone," she said, honing in on her target again. "Do I know him?"

"From the Godfather movies," Aaron said as he lowered himself into his seat. "His father was a Mafia don. He didn't want any part of the family business, but finally decided to take over and mold it into a legitimate business. In the end, he became exactly what he'd rebelled against."

"Is that what you're afraid of?" Cassandra asked Lucas.

"No, but the basic premise holds. One man cannot reform an institution, not when everyone working for him is happy with the status quo. I'd face such serious opposition that my authority would be completely undermined and, if I continued, the board of directors would have me assassinated."

"So you pursue individual acts of injustice from outside the organization." Cassandra sipped her coffee, then nodded. "Yes, I suppose that makes sense."

"And I'm sure he's thrilled to hear that his life meets with your approval," Aaron said.

She glared at him. "I was simply clarifying matters for my own understanding."

"Okay, but why do you always have to be so damned antagonistic about it? You never just ask questions, Cass. You lob them like grenades."

"Aaron," I cut in. "You said you have two addresses. One in the city and one outside it. Is that an old one and a current one?"

"I'm not sure," Aaron said. "They're under separate aliases, an old one and a current one. According to Josie-"

"Josie?" Cassandra cut in. "Your source is Josie? Oh, Aaron. Really. The woman has porridge for brains. She-"

"I'm not sleeping with her."

"That's not-" Cassandra shot a glare around the cabin. "Where is that girl? What, she serves coffee and disappears until the flight's over? Paige's cup is almost empty."

"Uh, that's okay, Cassandra," I said. "But thanks for thinking of me."

"If you need anything, just press the buzzer by your elbow," Lucas said. "Otherwise, I've asked Annette to stay up front so we can speak freely. Now, about these two addresses. The rural one is under an older alias, but we should check out both. It won't take long."

"It'd be even faster if we split up," Aaron said. "Lucas and I take one, you ladies take the other. That way, we each have a spell-caster for breaking in and a vampire for sneaking around."

"Good idea," I said. "We'll take the rural address, and leave the city one for Lucas, in case he needs to do more than peer in the windows. He's the break-in pro, not me."

Cassandra's brows arched. "And you admit it? That's a first. You really are growing up, aren't you?"

"Cassandra?" Aaron said. "Shut up."

"What? I was praising her-"

"Don't. Please." Aaron looked at me. "I wish I could say she hasn't always been like this, but she has. After a few decades, you get used to it."

"Get used to what?" Cassandra said.

"So," Aaron said. "How do you guys like living in Portland?"

Cassandra and I stood on the side of a country road, our rental car parked behind us. Through the thick brush and gnarled skeletons of dead trees, we could make out a tiny cabin that looked like it predated indoor plumbing. "Uh, rustic getaway cottage?" I said, double-checking the address Aaron had scribbled into my notepad. "Maybe they preferred life before electricity."

"This is ridiculous," Cassandra said. "I warned you, Paige. Aaron is far too trusting. He hates to believe anything negative about anyone, but that Josie is, bar none, the stupidest vampire ever to walk the earth. Probably gave him the names of her ex-boyfriends instead of Edward's aliases. She-"

My cell phone rang. Thankfully.

"It's Aaron," he said when I answered. "We have the house here. Lucas is scouting it out now, but I talked to the lady next door and she gave me a spot-on description of Edward and Natasha. Says they've been away a lot lately, and she hasn't seen Natasha in a few months, but Edward stops by now and then."

"Want us to come and help search?"

"If you could. Four pairs of eyes are better than two. If Cassandra squawks, tell her she can wait at a coffee shop instead. That'll make her pipe down. She hates to miss anything."

I signed off and relayed Aaron's message to Cassandra.

"So this isn't the right house?" she said. "What a surprise."

She headed for the car. I stayed where I was, peering through the trees at the cabin.

"Wait there," I called back to Cassandra. "I want to check this out first."

I headed for the cabin. Cassandra's sigh was loud enough to be heard from the roadway but, a moment later, without so much as a whisper of long grass, she was beside me.

"The only thing you're going to find here is Lyme disease," she said. "That's not a vampire's house, Paige. It never has been. It's too small, too far from the city-"

"Maybe that's the point," I said. "Immortality questers are notoriously paranoid about security. They need a place to conduct their experiments. Why not here?"

"Because it's a dump. And it's certainly not secure."

"Does it hurt to look?" I said. "It's probably five hundred square feet tops."

Cassandra sighed, then swung in front of me and marched to the cabin.

Ask people what they fear most in life and, if they answer honestly, they'll say "the end of it." Death. The great question mark. Is it surprising then, that people have pursued immortality with a relentlessness that surpasses the pursuit of wealth, sex, fame, or the satisfaction of any other worldly desire?

You might think that supernaturals wouldn't fall into this trap. After all, we know what comes next. Well, okay, we don't know exactly. Ghosts never tell us what's on the other side. One of the first lessons apprentice necromancers learn is "Don't ask about the afterlife." If they persist, eventually they'll be unable to contact the dead at all, as if they've been put on a ghost-world blacklist. So we don't know exactly what happens next, but we know this much: We go somewhere, and it's not such a bad place to be.

Yet even if we know that a decent afterlife awaits, that doesn't mean we're in any hurry to get there. The world we know, the people we know, the life we know, is here on earth. Faced with death, we kick and scream as hard as anyone else. Maybe harder. The supernatural world is rife with immortality questers. Why? Perhaps because we know, by our very existence, that magical things are possible. If a person can transform into a wolf, why can't a person live forever? Vampires live for centuries, which seems proof that semi-immortality is not a pipe dream. Then why not just become a vampire? Well, without getting too deeply into the nature of vampirism, let's just say it's extremely difficult, even harder than becoming a werewolf. For most supernaturals, finding the holy grail of immortality seems more feasible than becoming a vampire. And a quester needs only to look around to know that being a vampire doesn't cure the thirst for eternal life. If anything, it sharpens it.

I always assumed that vampires were such ardent immortality questers because, having enjoyed a taste of it, they can't help wanting the whole deal. Now, after Jaime told me she'd never heard of a necro contacting a dead vamp, I began to wonder how many vampires knew there was no proof of a vampire afterlife. I've never thought immortality sounded all that great, but if it was a choice between that and total annihilation, I'd take eternal life any day.

"Well," Cassandra said, standing in the cabin doorway. "I think we can safely say there's no secret lab in here."

I squeezed past her. Inside, the cabin was even smaller than it had appeared, a single room no more than three hundred square feet. The door had been secured with a lock good enough to require my strongest unlock spell and there were no windows, which had raised my hopes that something of interest was hidden within. From what I saw, though, the lock was only to keep out teens looking for a party place. There was nothing here worth stealing.

The cabin did appear to be in use, maybe as a retreat for an artist or a writer, someone who needed a distraction-free place to work. Distraction-free it certainly was. The only furnishings were a wooden desk, a pullout sofa, a bookcase, and a coffee table. The desk was empty, and the bookshelf held only cheap reference texts.

I surveyed the bookshelf's contents, then peered behind the unit.

"Please don't tell me you're looking for a secret passageway," Cassandra said.

I turned to the sofa, grabbed one end and pushed, but it was as heavy as most sofa beds.

"Could you-?" I said, gesturing at the far end. "Please."

"You can't be serious."

"Cassandra, please. Humor me. You know I'm not leaving until I move this sofa, so unless you want to be here a while-"

She grabbed the end and hoisted. We moved it forward just far enough for me to roll up the area rug and look underneath.

"I've always said you were practical, Paige. Whenever someone in the council questioned your ideas, I said 'Paige is a practical girl. She's not given to flights of fancy.'"

"Huh," I said, heaving up the carpet. "Don't remember hearing that."

"Well, you must not have been around. The point is that I have always given you credit for common sense. And now, here you are, searching for a secret room…"

The floor under the carpet was a checkerboard of wood panels, each roughly three feet square. The gap between most of the panels was less than a quarter inch, but one groove looked a shade wider. I ran my fingers along it.

Cassandra continued. "If Edward and Natasha were into alchemy, which I doubt, they would have rented storage space in the city for their experiments. They would not be digging secret rooms under a run-down cabin in-"

My fingertips struck a catch, and the door sprang open.

I peered into the darkness below. "Strange place for a root cellar, don't you think?"

I cast a light spell, then tossed the ball into the hole. Along one side was a ladder. As I shifted to step onto the first rung, Cassandra grasped my shoulder.

"You're not invulnerable, Paige. I am. It might be trapped. I'll go first."

I suspected this offer had more to do with curiosity than concern, but I stepped back and let her go through.