Chapter 11
Miaka’s P.O.V
“Kaleb Takeshi; height six feet two, grey eyes with central heterochromia; age : twenty years.” Kathy turned her laptop towards me with an image of Kaleb on the screen. “This him?”
“Yes.” I nodded, frowning. “So…nothing fishy about him?”
“Oh, absolutely everything about him seems fishy. Shady even.” Albert Hemsworth, the man in charge of security for the healer facility and the person who helped me find the location of the warehouse, spoke with a sly smirk. “All these records…they didn’t exist until two years ago.”
“What?” Kathy and I exchanged glances. “How?”
“Someone hacked into the system two years ago and made a bunch of non-existent people profiles that didn’t exist before then. If you hadn’t gotten me the DNA sample, I don’t think any of us would’ve guessed either.”
“So we have a traitor in the system?”
“Or a good hacker.” Albert cracked his knuckles. “There can be countless possibilities, so no need to rule out all the others.”
“Get to the point, Al.” Kathy rolled her eyes at her cousin. “Can we trust this guy or not?”
“Do the two of you trust anyone?” Albert gave us an incredulous look. “I mean…even I have eyes on me!” He motioned to the cameras on the ceiling.
“Those are for your protection…” I gave him a smile at his glare. “Partly…for your protection.”
“So you already know my answer.” Albert shrugged, running a hand through his black hair that he had dyed white right at the middle. “Not until you have solid proof that the guy is legit.”
“Alright. I-”
A sudden beeping of another monitor at the back threw us off-guard for a second before Kathy was rushing to the screen and collecting her medical equipments.
“Kathy?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Come on,” she pointed to a room down the hallway urgently. “The kid’s awake. I’ll need your help.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I was already running after her as we burst into the room and found the child sitting up in bed, trying desperately to remove the tubes stuck to his body.
He looked horrified and so, so tiny compared to everything around him. Poor thing!
“Hey!” Kathy and I rushed to his side at once. “It’s okay, you’re safe now.”
I tried to calm him down while Kathy hurriedly removed the tubes and needles that seemed to be the things causing him to panic.
“It’s alright, you’re fine. You’re safe.” I assure him once we had successfully unhooked him from everything. “See? No wires. You’re safe.”
The child’s gaze turned to me and for a moment I was surprised at how beautiful his eyes looked. They were a very light shade of amethyst, almost grey but the violet tint was still there. No, it wasn’t the same as Kaleb’s eyes, but his eyes were unique too.
Now that he was a bit calmer and a bit healthier than the time I brought him in, he looked beautiful. A small heart shaped face, an olive skin tone and silvery hair that I haven’t seen on anyone before. The fact that he was a vampire added to his beauty.
“Are you alright now, child?” I asked him, cautiously touching his face.
A sigh of relief left my lips as he leaned into my touch and I exchanged a glance with Kathy, who was ready with a shot of her vampire cocktail in a syringe to render him unconscious if needed. But I had a feeling it wouldn’t be needed.
“Do you have a name?” I asked him, as soothingly as possible.
He looked at me with big, beautiful eyes again and nodded his head, before motioning to his throat. He was thirsty.
“Kathy...” I motioned for her to give him a blood bag.
It would make him stronger but he was still in the presence of a powerful mage and the Demon King. I didn’t think we would have any problems controlling him.
Kathy opened up a drawer with her lock and then poured the blood into a cup before giving it to the child. He instantly started chugging it down, nearly choking on it.
“Calm down.” I told him while patting his back. “It’s all yours, nobody’s going to take it.”
He slowed down a bit and finished the entire glass. Then he looked at me once again and gave me a small smile.
If possible, my heart just melted then and there. He was such an adorable child. Who on earth was cruel enough to torture him like this?
“Z...o…”
“What?” I leaned closer to his face so I could hear him better. “What did you say?”
“Zero…”
“Zero?” I asked with a frown, trying to decipher the almost inaudible voice. “Is that your name?”
The boy nodded, looking unsure.
“Zero?” Kathy frowned. “Why would anyone name their kid Zero?”
“Yeah…that’s strange…I mean-” suddenly, something that Kaleb told me came to my mind.
The research they are doing, it all comes down to immortality and power. They want to become immortals, a race of beings far superior to the demons.
“Zero…” Shit!
“Kathy, I need to talk to you outside.” I motioned for her to put the child to sleep.
“Hey there, honey.” Kathy said in a pleasing voice, her hand going to his head, patting him gently. “Why don’t you rest for a bit? You must be very tired.”
With every motion of Kathy’s hand, the boy grew drowsier until his head fell back. I caught him and carefully laid him down on the pillows before pulling the covers over him. He was in a magically induced sleep and would stay so for a few hours until we had everything else sorted.
Once we had settled him in and hooked him back up to the heart monitor, Kathy and I went straight to her office so we could talk in privacy.
“So?” Kathy asked as soon as she shut the doors to her office. “What’s this about? You seemed like you had a kind of realization back at the room.”
“I think I did. I think I may have a theory.” I told Kathy, taking a seat on top of her table while she stood in front of me. “Kaleb told me that these people are abducting demons and other species to experiment on them and to make themselves stronger. Genetic manipulation would be my first theory.”
“So they’re making some kind of super-human hybrid with supernatural DNA harvesting?” Kathy raised an eyebrow, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “So they must have learned to extract the specific proteins from our DNA and artificially synthesize it to for an-”
“Yeah, well…all the techy-terms aside.” I rolled my eyes at her, cutting her off mid-sentence. “Pretty much develop…whatever you just told me.”
“So? It’s not like anyone has ever been successful with these stuff before.” Kathy shook her head. “It requires a hell lot of funds and a lot of advanced tech, if you’re a human. Even we haven’t been able to perfect the science.”
“Well…hate to break it to you, but I guess they did; perfect that science, that it.”
“What?” Kathy frowned. “No, that’s impossible! How…oh...”
“You mean, oh no?” I offered.
“Oh shit!”
“Yup.” I nodded. “Zero.”
“Subject Zero.”
