Chapter XXVII

Abi's Discovery

It was dark and virtually empty in the lab, as the moon was now well and truly up now, and most the scientists had gone turned in for the night. Only Charlie and Herfouck, the dwarf whom she had called to examine Jack after he lost his eye, remained in the lab. Behind them on a computer was a list of every known element, metal and compound, along with whatever else the pair had been able to think of, sorted into a list and crossed off. They had been trying to find out what the bluish substance that had been in the syringe was, but so far, no luck, and they were getting desperate.

“You look tired Charlie.” Herfouck said as they crossed off yet another item of the list, they were getting close to the bottom with no match exceeding ten percent. “How much sleep have you had?” The dwarf asked as Charlie sat down on a chair and mopped the hair out of her eyes.

“Not much, I’ve been coming back here most nights to continue the search.” Charlie said, she knew that it was a stupid idea to do what she had been doing, she was very close to burning herself out, but she didn’t care. Herfouck seemed to share her thoughts on the stupidness of the idea as she walked up to her. Wanting to change the subject Charlie continued. “Do we have anything more on Dmitri’s condition?” Charlie asked, she had submitted a vile of Dmitri’s blood to the lab a few weeks prior, but so far, they had found little that they didn’t already know about. However, that seemed to have changed.

“Yes. His condition is rapidly worsening, I can’t see your friend lasting much longer. The combination of alcohol and the physical endurance that he is putting himself through are accelerating the condition.” Herfouck replied, she had been shocked to hear what a member of the group was carrying. But out of respect for Charlie, and Doraghek, who also had figured it out. She had agreed to keep silent on the matter. “I’m so sorry my dear. You go back, I’ll finish up here.” Herfouck finished and hurried the younger scientist out of the lab and closed the door behind her, although Charlie did at least note that the dwarf hadn’t locked them.

It had been a long few weeks for Charlie, having given herself the task of discovering what was in the syringe that the group had found after the first trip into the forest. This had been a lot harder than she had initially thought, as the damn thing did not match anything on their database. Nothing, not a chemical, metal or compound. Whatever it was, it wasn’t natural, or made up of so many different elements that figuring it out was almost impossible.

She suspected the latter on that count, as it had shown slight matches with a few known elements and metals, but nothing over a ten percent similarity. This was a problem as until they could figure out what the substance did to the targets. They had no way of telling the king whether or not the victims were alive or not.

Charlie sighed as she returned to the quarters after yet another failed day, this was however, compounded by the fact that they were rapidly running out of the mysterious substance to experiment on. Meaning that they would soon be in a situation where they would have to wait for another kidnapping to get more of the stuff, assuming they would be that careless again.

As she strode through the quarters and into her room, she lay down on the bed and was about to go to sleep for the first time in what felt like weeks. She heard a knock at the door and groaned, wondering whether or not she would ever get some sleep.

“Enter.” Charlie said sleepily, expecting Vernon, or perhaps Codsworth, wanting a report on the work. That had been another reason that she had chosen to stay in the lab, as to not see the disappointed looks on their faces when she once again reported no news.

She was therefore surprised to see Abi walk through the door, although that didn’t stop the obvious question that escaped her nieces mouth the instant that she had closed the door behind her.

“Have you made any progress?” Abi asked her aunt, hopeful that she would be able to find the answer eventually, but Charlie shook her head.

“No. I’ve tried every chemical agent known to man, but nothing is coming up.” Charlie replied as she sat herself down on her bed. She was exhausted, having decided to work almost around the clock, only stopping and stepping out of the lab to take small bites of food, before continuing. She looked up at her niece, who had a look on her face like she was hiding something, it was a face that Charlie remembered well, having seen it back when she was a child, both on the face of her niece and her younger brother. “Alright, you look like you’re hiding something, say it, as tomorrow might be too late.” Charlie said as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

“Well, what if it’s not a chemical.” Abi said as she rummaged around in the bag, it had seen a lot since she had left Docksmouth, but she never thought that it would have been used carry what it had. After a few moments she produced the bag of blood that Charlie had managed to avoid burning, back in Bergskort and tossed it at her. “What if it’s something to do with that, maybe it even is that. I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot isn’t it.” Abi finished as she looked at her aunt.

“What news from the searches?” Fierhand said from atop his throne, fortunately it was quiet in here, compared to the noise outside it was practically peaceful. Unfortunately for Doraghek and Barca, who had agreed to come along and was now regretting that decision, they were not alone. As Fomhord stood by the king’s side looking down at them as he always did.

“None so far father but we will continue as long as it takes.” Doraghek said, and that was truthful, even without the king’s approval he would continue the search, but more hands made light work, and his father was the one who was giving him more hands at this moment in time.

“Why are we wasting time and resources on this matter, surely there are better things that we could be putting these troops to.” Fomhord said, luckily, he was out of arms reach of both Doraghek and Barca as the dwarf would have strangled the man at this point, and Barca would have done far worse than that. “I mean, these men are practically running around on a fool’s errand.” Fomhord finished bowing to the king as he did so and smiling down at the two below him.

“I’m sure that the children that have been kidnapped don’t think that this is a waste of time and resources.” Barca said, it was all he could do, to not run up those steps and gut this advisor, right here and now.

“And how many children have these searches recovered. If they were doing that. Then it would be worth both the time and the expense.” Fomhord asked, keeping his tone polite, but with an obvious touch of malice in it.

“None. But that doesn’t matter Fomhord, as you very well know.” Doraghek replied, he would have said that this was a surprise, he would have liked to say that about his kinsman very much so. but that was not the case, Fomhord was nothing more than a glorified paper pusher who had somehow wormed his way to the top.

Fierhand had so far remained silent since starting the conversation, wanting to see how it would play out, he knew that his son disliked his closest advisor, and that the group of southerners no doubt supported that opinion. But he couldn’t doubt the dwarf’s effectiveness of ruling.

“You will have one more month to find any sign of these poor souls. After that I cannot continue sending out my men, it will be volunteers only. Understand.” Fierhand said sternly, hoping to have struck, not a good deal, but at least a truce. Barca was nothing short of livid at this, as Fomhord, neither felt they had gotten anything out of this. Doraghek however quickly responded.

“Deal.” Doraghek said quickly and herded Barca out of the throne room and into the mountain proper. He knew that the group weren’t going to be happy about this, in truth he wasn’t happy about this, but it was perhaps the best deal that they were likely to get right now. What with Fomhord on the warpath against them because they had outwitted him when the group first arrived.

“What is that?” Herfouck asked as Charlie handed her the clear bag of blood. The dwarven medic was th only one she trusted outside of the group with this information, even Doraghek. The prince, although having proved himself an ally of theirs was still too close to the advisors that his father employed to be told of this.

“We extracted it from a reanimated corpse whilst we were at Bergskort.” Charlie said, now that she had brought Herfouck in on this, there was no point in holding anything back from her now.

“This is dark stuff. Very dark stuff indeed.” Herfouck said, more to herself than to Charlie and Abi, who had agreed to come along on this matter. The dwarf continued to tip the sealed bag around, which did on occasion make Charlie clench internally, the thought of her dropping it rising to her head every time. But nothing like that happened. After a moment the dwarf took out the last remaining contents of the syringe and emptied it into a bowl, there wasn’t much there at all. Just a slither on the very bottom.

Herfouck then carefully extracted the same amount of the blood and put it into a separate bowl, then looked up at the aunt and niece.

“If your theory proves to be false, then we’ll have just wasted the last of this weird substance on a wild goose chase.” Herfouck said looking sternly up at Abi, who she guessed was the one who had come up with this hair brained scheme.

“I know.” Abi said and the dwarf nodded and placed it into a nearby machine that had seen more than its fair use on this matter.

The machine was a simple design, comprising of two heating chambers with readers that detected what was inside to a molecular level. They had tested what little of the substance they had on every known, element, metal and compound known to them, and nothing had come up more than a ten percent match. This was now their last option and, as the machine began to heat the two substances up to the point that they were nothing but gasses, the readings started to fire up.

Ten percent.

Twenty percent.

Thirty percent. And up and up it went until it levelled out at seventy-eight percent, not a complete match by any stretch of the imagination, but much higher than what they had been expecting.

Herfouck took a step back as the final number came out, she had been working with Charlie on this for the past month and they had had virtually nothing to show for it. But now that all seemed to have changed.

Charlie too was excited at the sudden progress that had been made, but there was something else too. A feeling of absolute horror. Whatever this stuff was, it had been injected into Martin and the gods only knew how many others. These kids were in her option lucky to be alive, if they were at all, with the blood of the dead in their systems.

“There is now another matter. Do we inform the king?” Herfouck asked, and Charlie pondered this question thoroughly.

If they did, questions would arise, not least of all as to why the group had had the blood of the dead stashed away in their quarters all this time. it was also likely to cause panic that the victims were being injected with the blood of the dead.

On the other hand, it may give people hope, that at least one area was producing some results. Since the searches were coming up empty and many were asking the king as to why he was continuing with what they saw as a fool’s errand, it may give him the ammunition he needed to dispel those thoughts.

“No.” Charlie said to the shock of both Abi and Herfouck. “Not yet at least. We don’t have any more of the drug or whatever it is after all.” Charlie continued thinking on her feet right about now. “We’ll tell him that we will continue to work through this however and try and locate a substitute from what we have discovered so far.” Charlie finished, but even as she spoke, she knew that it wouldn’t work. That the king was by his own nature a curious dwarf and would ask about how they intended to find a substitute with so little data. Whilst the other two women nodded, only time would tell if this decision would go well for them.