A Shade of Vampire 79 A Game of Death - Bella Forrest Page 0,61

of beaches, then,” he murmured, blinking slowly.

“Oh, yes. Everywhere you turn, there’s a beach. The sand is almost white, but in some places it’s gold. There are islands around underwater volcanoes that have red and black sand, brought in by the ocean in lazy waves. The beaches there look striped. Red. Black. Red. Black. And then the jungle rises, green and filled with all kinds of interesting creatures.”

“I would love to go there someday,” he replied, seconds away from falling asleep.

“Maybe you will. I’ll be more than happy to show you around,” I said, though I knew it was a lie. If we didn’t find a cure within a fortnight, I doubted he’d survive. The disease had a rapid and vicious progression after its incubation period, from what I could tell.

If I couldn’t save him, I could at least try to save the millions of other Aeternae who were also at risk. It took me another twenty minutes and a little bit of chitchat with the patients during their brief moments of consciousness, but I managed to collect blood samples from all five.

The nurses returned with the blood they’d gathered from the Rimians and the Naloreans who shared workspaces with these Aeternae, neatly tucked into a small wooden tray, with a soft layer of linen underneath. I slipped my vials into my bag, along with the catheter, and discarded the needles in a trash box in the corner.

I followed Petra out of the infirmary and into another room of the quarantine, where she’d had some of the medical equipment brought in from upstairs. “You can test the samples here,” she said, pointing at a microscope. “Our servants found another one of these in the fifth study room, so I thought you could use it.”

“You want me to study the blood down here, and not in my lab?” I asked, slightly surprised, feeling as though she was keen to keep me in the quarantine area, for some reason.

“Is that a problem?” Petra replied, one eyebrow arched.

Shaking my head, I put the bag on the edge of the table, along with the servant samples, and took the Aeternae vials out again. I wasn’t sure why, but there was something about this room that made me feel uneasy. Maybe it had something to do with the absence of natural light, since we were way deep in the basement.

“No,” I said. “I just thought I’d be allowed to go back up and do my tests there.”

“You told me what equipment you needed, so I had it delivered to you in this room,” Petra insisted. “The thing is… Amal, if you identify someone as the carrier, I need the gold guards to act as discreetly as possible to bring them down here. The fewer people who see you doing your work on this, the better.”

It made sense, but it didn’t soothe my bubbling anxiety. I doubted anything could, at least until my sister came here. She was already preparing her own kits and equipment, and I wanted to have as much data for her as possible upon her arrival. I missed Amane, now more than ever. We’d been here for less than a week, but our sibling synergy had always given me a healthier state of mind.

I didn’t like the fact that Ridan wasn’t allowed to join her. I would’ve felt a lot more comfortable knowing we had a dragon handy, but hey… their planet, their rules. Besides, what was there for me to worry about so much as to need a dragon? Ridan’s fire could do nothing to heal the Black Fever. As for the Darklings, our crew was more than capable of taking them out, once they learned more about them… once they identified the ringleader.

“Do you need any help?” Petra asked, watching as I dripped a bit of blood on several glass squares, marking them with specific numbers so I wouldn’t lose track of whom they belonged to.

“No, thank you. Perhaps just the company. This room feels so empty and cold.”

I slipped the first glass under the microscope lens, my notebook and pen ready for conclusions. My hand moved quickly, jotting down first impressions, as the molecules struggled in blackness before my very eyes. On a microscopic level, the Aeternae blood looked even worse. No wonder their brains were so poorly oxygenated. It was as thick and as cluttered as black oil pumped straight out of the bowels of the earth.

“It has always been imbued with death,” Petra replied, settling into a