Law of Shadows

“We also have our maniacs.”

- A memory of the Old Ones.

***Carinthia***

***Sely***

Magnus clears his throat. “Sely? Could you please explain what all these instruments are for? I thought that you were going to interrogate him, not dissect him. You said that you've spent a lot of time studying various techniques to influence someone's mind. This looks very different from what I expected.”

“I did.” I turn around to look at Cecilia, Tina and Magnus. They look a little disturbed. “Is there a problem?”

Tina circles her hand in an insecure gesture, pointing at the operating table. “Oh, it's just that we got the impression that you were a little squeamish about the way Magnus is treating his prisoners. I am not sure why this is any different.”

I nod. “Putting someone into a box for days is inhumane! They are alive and aware of themselves! As soon as we have time, we are going to clean up that hellhole down there!”

Cecilia clears her throat. “You are about to cut someone's head open while he is awake. Isn't that a lot more cruel?”

There is no way that they can gain any moral ground in this matter. “He is anaesthetized. That's completely different from being locked up in a dark chest for over a month! Tetrach will feel nothing while I work.”

Tetrach tries to scream, but all he gets out is a muffled moan. I gagged him before the operation. There is no point in listening to his excuses before I am sure that he is telling the truth. I flip the switch on the bone-saw and it activates with a high pitched whirr.

My half-brother's eyes widen and he struggles, but his head is secured by a metal strap and a few screws which are tight enough to hold his skull in place. I can't allow him to move even a fraction of a millimetre while I work on his brain.

Magnus surveys the room. “I am just amazed how you got all the medical equipment in here. I didn't get the impression that you were that adept at medical techniques. From our discussion about Kath's circumstances, I assumed that you don't have any medical background.”

“Oilell helped a lot in setting up this room. And the experiments that led to Kath's transformation require deep knowledge of DNA sequencing and viral research. That's completely different from my studies. I already told you guys that my studies concentrated on the mind and various possibilities to influence it. Of course that requires high amounts of medical knowledge about the brain.”

I wave the bone-saw in front of Tetrach's face. “Hi, Bro! Do you remember me? Don't worry. Your suffering is about to come to an end. I won't even hold it against you that you and your friends tried to rape me when I was seventy-four. Or should I mention all the times you used your influence with Dad to isolate Annia and me from the rest of the clan?”

Carefully, I place the bone-saw on his forehead and start cutting. A little blood and tissue spray to the side, but I spread out several sheets of plastic to make the clean-up easier. Tetrach's eyes roll helplessly in their sockets. I don't care. I have to concentrate. If I cut too deep, it might become a problem.

I speak to Tetrach in order to make him feel at ease, “I am glad that you are an Old One. Doing this with you is so much easier than with humans. I don't even have to waste time with disinfecting everything.”

At last, I finish cutting in a full circle and put the bone-saw aside. The top of his skull comes off easily and I drop it into one of the waiting bowls for biological waste.

Next are the electrodes, which are long, fine needles. “I wonder if I should start with zero point one, or zero point two volts. The Germans stopped their research in this direction much too early.” To have a better understanding of Tetrach's state of health, I undo his gag.

“You bitch! Once father is ready, he'll come and raze this place to the ground! He'll...”

I roll my eyes. “Definitely zero point two volts.” I adjust the voltage source and carefully shove the first needle into his brain. Right were the speech centre should be.

“...will rape you for real! And then I'll find that little bitch whom you treat like a daughter and-”

His whole body starts twitching and trembling and his teeth chatter several times before I pull the needle back by two millimetres. His body immediately relaxes, but his mouth still opens and closes in an attempt to find the right words. It's just that Tetrach fails to pronounce his issues with me.

“I am so sorry. It's been a while since I've done this and if I am not absolutely exact, things like this will happen.” Bastard! Maybe I should shove one needle into his pain centre and stimulate it directly?

No. Moral high ground. I am not like Magnus. I've to show that there is a different way of doing things. After placing two more needles in his frontal lobe and several others in important areas of the brain, he slowly starts looking like a hedgehog. Then I manipulate the various voltages and lower the one which stops him from speaking. “Now that we are set up-”

“I'll kill you...”

Not at all repentant. I sigh and make some adjustments. “What's your name?”

His enraged expression slackens. “Tetrach.”

“Which colour is the sky?”

“Red.”

A little too much. “Try again.”

“Blue.”

We go through a whole series of test questions. At first I try to influence him to tell lies, then I adjust the settings so that he can only tell the truth. After a while of switching back and forth between the two states, I feel confident in getting some useful answers. “What do you think about our father?”

“He is a great man with a vision.”

More like a rapist and a maniac. Combined with immortality, such a combination has never a good ending. “Did you always have that opinion?”

“Ever since he told me about his plans to make the world ours.”

I raise both eyebrows. “Tell me everything you know.”

He struggles for a few moments, but doesn't talk. I suppose he can still choose not to talk at all. His indoctrination must be rooted very deeply. Or one of the needles isn't exactly in the right spot. Maybe the one that I placed in his cerebellum? It's always hard to reach the exact depth. I lightly tap on it with my index finger, allowing it to sink in a little deeper. Just a fraction of a millimetre.

I try to sound cheerful. As if we are playmates. “Come on. This isn't real. It's just a dream. We can talk about everything here. After all we are good friends. Don't you think so too?” I raise the voltage that controls his sense of well-being. People who feel good are less suspicious.

Tetrach smiles. “Yes. I always wondered why we don't get along. You were always the strong one among his children. The only one who dared to defy father and made him mad. Why couldn't you be like us? He always vent his anger on us when he got mad.”

Now he is rambling like a drunkard, but that's good. “We were talking about his plans. His grand vision. Do you remember?”

Tetrach licks over his lips. “Yes, yes. He'll be our saviour. Gavin will free us from all the other supernaturals. Earth will belong to us Old Ones alone. But a planet without a society which can be controlled isn't worth conquering. So we have to change the Old Ones first. We are much too individualistic as a race. We have to become more fertile and less aggressive towards our own kind. It took Gavin a lot of time and effort to tackle the first problem. But we had a big breakthrough when we started working together with the fae!”

I try not to allow any emotion into my voice. “The fae?”

“Yes! Gavin already devised a way to control our new society by influencing key individuals with his mind control spell. But we were at a total loss on how to increase our numbers to uphold the current level of technology. It was already tried with humans in the past, so we abolished that idea.

“Then Gavin managed to negotiate for help from the fae. He supplied them with materials from time to time and, in exchange, they shared their knowledge on how to force a female Old One to become fertile. When he has everything he needs, he’ll surely retreat to our second base in order to build up his forces.

“He knows that the fae are following their own agenda, so we have to allow them and the other Old Ones to weaken each other. There are also plans to use the humans in order to cause a nuclear winter. The fae and many other supernatural races aren't as resistant to radiation as us. Once the world is clean of the weaklings, we can take it for ourselves.”

I draw in a sharp breath. “So he is collaborating with the fae. Tell me, what are those materials with which he is paying them.”

“Over the years, we've given them body parts, and also some women from our servant clan. The fae are quite happy with everything that's related to Old Ones. In return, we got the drugs that make Old Ones fertile. How do you think he got Cecilia pregnant twice within two hundred years? That's a record for our species, always keeping in mind that we are immortal. We don't suffer losses from diseases or old age. With that birthrate, we can repopulate the world in a few generations.”

I pat his shoulder. “I understand. What a grand plan. The others would never tolerate such ideas. They would destroy everything you have worked for. We have to flee. Where is his second base? We have to join his forces.”

Tetrach starts grinning. “He surely retreated to ground zero to make sure that the backup plan works. Just in case that the humans won't use nuclear force.”

I bite my lower lip. Tetrach doesn't know that the fae already went on the offensive. He was inside a chest for the last month. Gavin could have adjusted his plans. But the knowledge of what's going on in his brain will be helpful in any case. “Yes. Gavin surely went to ground zero. Where is it?”

“In America. The Yellowstone National Park. The base is exactly a hundred miles south of the expected epicentre. Gavin is setting up a ritual to blow up the volcano beneath the park. The eruption will be so massive that it causes another ice age. The best thing is that the catastrophe will look like a natural event. Everyone will struggle to survive and while the human population shrinks, Gavin can take over all the other clans with his superior numbers. It's even better than the plan with the nuclear war. Once he has control over our species, he can take out all the others.”

I adjust one of the needles to render Tetrach unconscious. Then I turn to Magnus and the others. “I stand corrected. Your chest might indeed be the correct place for someone like Tetrach and Gavin. That doesn't mean that the others down there deserve such a fate.”

Cecilia is outraged after this gruesome reminder of her enslavement. Her hands are balled to fists and shaking. “I'll kill him! I'll kill Gavin!”

Tina is also angry. “We may have to annoy the elders with a third gathering. This is too big for us alone. One false step and this madness blows up in all our faces.”

“Ahem.” Magnus points at Tetrach's opened skull. “You might want to close him up? We will need proof to claim something so outrageous in front of the elders. And I am not so sure if the chest isn't a better fate after all.”

I snort. “You call me squeamish, but you can't take an opened skull? He feels nothing. But let's stop arguing. We have to stop Gavin at all costs.”

Tina points at Tetrach’s loins where the bedsheets formed a small tent. “You might want to stop that first. It’s gross.”

I inspect the tent. “Ah, yeah. Definitely too much stimulation. And he is smaller than Magnus.”