Bluebook Session 6a – A Touch of Homecoming Sickness

Claremont Academy, outside the Reception Block

The driver was tall, easily seven feet, but extremely slim and gangly, his skin exceptionally pale against his grey chauffeurs’ uniform. He seemed more automaton that man, as he reached down to open the limousine door for him.

“Salut,” he said, continuing in Carpathian, “I am instructed to transport you to the Consulate in London, young sir. I have restocked the drinks cabinet for you and the TV is retuned to British channels or if you’d prefer there are a few DVDs, dubbed, in the cabinet next to the screen. Our journey will take over a couple of hours even at this time of night, so please make yourself comfortable…”

It felt weird after the last few months to hear Carpathian spoken again. “Mulțumesc,” he replied as he hopped in, sat down on the dark leather seats and tried to buckle in. It was clear that the other previous occupants of this compartment rarely used the seatbelts, and he had to scramble between the cushions to find the appropriate clasp.

The driver went round to the driver’s seat, ‘folded’ himself in behind the wheel, and they headed off. Gustav was surprised to discover the vehicle had obviously been converted to electric, it was so quiet. The driver again asked if there was anything he needed and told him if he wanted anything during the journey to press the intercom button before closing the window between the two compartments, leaving Gustav alone, in the back of the car, with only his thoughts.

Gustav breathed in hard then tried to remember his meditation training as he attempted to centre himself by reflecting upon some mindfulness exercises but instead found his mind being distracted by a foggy curiosity of the current situation and a need to unravel the mystery of what was actually going on.

He was pretty sure that all of his paperwork had been completed when he first arrived hadn’t it, and he’d been in Britain now for several months, so the timing of this meeting struck him as peculiar. Why did his father’s lawyer need to see him now, and why was this meeting being held in the Consulate? It was a long way for the lawyer to come, just to have a chat with the son of an old client.

Was it possible that he or Firewall might have ‘accidentally’ brought some unwanted attention on themselves if someone had been meticulous enough to search? What had there been recently? Was it the articles in the school newsletter, perhaps? On the other hand, what about their HCP training/special curriculum reports and results? Who saw them other than their teachers? Could those results be hacked? He was sure that Chris could do it, if given access and enough incentive.

Maybe it had something to do with Naomi’s research on his blood. Could she have betrayed him, or possibly done something unwittingly or accidentally that had brought him to the attention of the Carpathian authorities?

Although Gustav had never grown up under the watchful gaze of the KGB, paranoia about the Government watching your every move had never gone away in Carpathia and every citizen of a former USSR country knew that feeling of being secretly observed, intimately.

He shook the doubts from his head, as they were unhelpful. He needed a sense of perspective and anyway this was supposed to be a visit with his father’s lawyer, nothing more. The fact the meeting was being held in the Consulate still bothered him, though.

He reached into the bag he’d prepared for the journey and his overnight stay and shuffled out a rumpled copy of a well-used Carpathian Phrase and Culture book. Gustav almost knew this book inside and out, and it was usually quite soothing, in a way. For now, he just used it as a tool to remember his proper pronunciation and etiquette. Gustav, when he did eventually sleep and dream peacefully, still dreamt in the Carpathian tongue and his accent still carried the subtle hint of his homeland though he knew his father’s ‘influence’ growing up had coloured his enunciation, which he didn’t think he’d ever really out-grow.

He reached into the drinks cabinet and discovered it had been stocked with several soft drink cans and fruit juices. He settled for the simple refreshment of a refrigerated bottle of sparkling water.

He did not disturb the sullen, yet polite driver. He looked at the blacked out window to the driver’s compartment at his own reflection. After resisting the urge to recoil, he remembered the interview he had with Naomi, and offered a very small smile to himself, before gazing out of the limousine window and glancing at his book.

Carpathian Consulate, Belgravia

As they pulled up outside the Carpathian Consulate, his lanky driver unfolded himself from the driver’s seat and opened the door just as also reached over to open it for himself. He grabbed his backpack and stepped out on to the city pavement and was directed through the gates and up the steps of the old town house. Inside, the Carpathian flag hung behind a long desk staffed by a very pretty young woman. “Salut” he muttered and was surprised when she immediately replied in English, “Hello Gustav I’ve been told to show you into the Janissary’s waiting room. If you would be so kind?” Janissary was an old and honourable title in Carpathia but one rarely used today.

He followed her in to a glitzy reception area; she bowed, stepped back and shut the double doors after her. In front of him was a face he immediately recognised and his heart momentarily skipped a beat as he realised that the beautiful woman in the scarlet dress, standing with a glass of blood-red wine in her hand, was none other than the hereditary ruler of Carpathia, Baroness Natasha Sylvestri von Ruthenia.

Whaa? Gustav was physically and visibly stunned in surprise. She smiled and that smile, whilst beautiful, betrayed a spoilt and wilful personality. Behind her stood the Ambassador, a slim, hard faced, military-looking man that he’d met before, though admittedly only once when his father’s lawyer had arranged for his transfer to the UK. Ambassador Mihnea Tepes, also apparently a Janissary of Carpathia, had virtually ignored him then as he’d signed and notarised the lawyers’ papers and documents acknowledging his dual nationality and right to remain in Britain.

Gustav couldn’t tell at the time if this was a sign that he begrudged doing it or merely of indifference. In Gustav’s own defence, he hadn’t been in a good place at the time and hadn’t cared either way.

He had expected to see his father’s lawyer, not them. Gustav sort of bowed awkwardly, hesitantly and stopped himself immediately. It had been an act of desperation at not knowing quite what to do in such illustrious company, and in part his cutting the gesture short was due to his rebellious streak. This woman was the person most responsible for Carpathia’s current state as a backward, crime-ridden country limping into the modern day, and not someone he felt was worthy of his respect.

She spoke, her voice like honey, “Ah, Jaeger’s boy. Would you prefer we speak in the mother tongue, or do you now find English easier to follow?”

”The mother-tongue will be fine; we are on Carpathian soil, are we not? I have not forgotten, yet,” he bravely stated. Admittedly, his English was more fluent in practice than his Carpathian currently, thanks to his previous and current education. He had only spoken Carpathian in his first sixteen years informally around the facility, never when with his father.

She continued after taking a sip of her wine, “Your father’s lawyer is here to talk to you about property, money and your inheritance, but I have demanded the right to address you first as your ruler.” She paused for a couple of seconds, “You have a great destiny, young Jaeger, or at least the potential for one. I believe in time you could also become a great warrior, possibly even be acknowledged as a Janissary, just like our noble Ambassador here.” Her fingers gestured towards the Ambassador standing behind her and as his eyes instinctively followed the gesture, he saw for the first time the traces of several healed scars on the Ambassador’s face.

He felt the invisible scars on his legs from the breakthrough instinctively itch in sympathy.

Perhaps this man had gone through a similar experience to his? No matter the similarities, Gustav and this man were years and many miles apart. Being a Janissary would be a great honour, though, the height of a very particular Carpathian career ladder. He briefly indulged in the imaginary spectacle of rubbing shoulders with the rich, famous and powerful in glamorous, high-culture settings, a beautiful woman on one arm and a glass of champagne in the other, discussing Shakespeare; a dream, but was it one devoutly to be wished?

But, being a Janissary was like being a big fish in a shrinking, corrupted, polluted pond, or so Gustav Jaeger rightly or wrongly thought. He was being trained as a Hero, what would be the right thing to do? What would the Claremont teachers do? What would The Balance do? The last thought subconsciously made Gustav frown.

The Baroness continued, “There is a special school in the home country; we call it a ‘Seminarium’ where you would be trained as a soldier and as a leader. Now, I cannot demand you come back with us, but I do want you to consider this offer very carefully.”

Gustav found himself thinking instead about what he knew of the Sylvestri von Ruthenia lineage – for most of the country’s modern history, her ancestors had ruled it in various forms. It had always been the female side of the family who had governed, he could never remember any Baron or male lineage in charge, yet the family name had always remained the same. For the last three centuries, a succession of Sylvestri von Ruthenia females had controlled Carpathia’s reins —had ruled from the shadows, often cruelly and without mercy. During the Great War (he corrected himself, in the West they referred to it as World War II) they had supported the fascists and had been responsible for the almost total extinction of the Romany people from the region. After the Soviet Army had ‘liberated’ the country and amalgamated it into the USSR, a Sylvestri von Ruthenia had still managed to become the People’s Commissar over the region.

Then had come the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent restoration of Carpathia as a free state. Who should appear from abroad but the current Baroness Natasha Sylvestri von Ruthenia? She had been immediately ‘asked’ by the interim Government to again take up the mantle as the long-lost, but now restored monarch and friend of the people of a re-established independent Carpathia.

His father had not had a single good thing to say about Baroness Natasha Sylvestri von Ruthenia. He claimed that Baroness Natasha had been born into privilege and believed it was her right to rule for as long as she is able. She had been the absolute ruler of the country now for over 25 years, yet she didn’t appear to have aged a bit. His father had said that was likely the result of expensive modern and field-leading cosmetics, diet and surgery. Attractiveness and presentation was a reasonable government-expense for a head of state, of course.

According to his father, she cared little if at all about the common people of Carpathia – their purpose was only to fulfil her every wish while she lived the high life as a rich international socialite. It had been a frequent topic of conversation of his father, often in response to stories about her in the national news. Gustav couldn’t tell if he had been frustrated or if he had been secretly a fan of hers, though possibly one in denial. Gustav never had the opportunity to ask. Most Carpathians seemed to think she was just a national figurehead doing a decent job representing the country abroad, but his father had said that in reality she was an absolute ruler, governing the land through a system of puppet rulers that she manipulated.

Her voice broke his thought processes, “Come now, surely the choice should be fairly easy. Stay here and remain a simpering little would-be English schoolboy or return home and attend the Seminarium where you will become both a great man and an inspiration to all of Carpathia…”

Before anyone could say anything further, there was the sound of a couple of gunshots, immediately followed by what sounded like a table or desk breaking coming from the hallway. Ambassador Tepes reached towards a drawer on his desk, but was stopped with a subtle gesture from the Baroness.

The door was flung open with enough force to crack the frame, and a woman Gustav immediately recognised strode in.

The Baroness mocked a wave of greeting at the new arrival, “Ah Anastasia Báthory, welcome. I thought you were still in the home country. How is your mother, my beloved sister, by the way?”

In Carpathian, the woman responded, “Have you not done enough? You cannot have him, I forbid it.”

Gustav stood open-mouthed as he again looked upon his mother for only the second time in living memory. Standing beside her, to his even greater astonishment, stood another familiar face – Naomi Van Helsing.

The Baroness spoke up even as she gestured with her fingers and made intricate and abstract patterns in the air, “Seems time has run out boy, time for you to choose. Do you pick fame, greatness and glory in your home country or do you elect to drift into virtual obscurity here…”

“I need to sit down” should have been the words he said if he had the mental acuity to say something, anything, but instead he just stood there mouth agape. He exchanged bewildered looks between the two parties. What an unexpected series of events had just occurred. He concentrated momentarily, furrowing his eyebrows, memorising a deliberate, peculiar turn of phrase spoken by the Baroness. “How is your Mother, my beloved Sister?”

So, did that mean that Gustav was related to Carpathian royalty? If so, it was no wonder they were making offers and lawyers were involved. But how does this all relate to his Mother and Naomi or his abilities? His head spun and he felt dizzied by the latest revelation. The Baroness was compelling and insistent, who knew how long this fanciful offer would be on the table for? Gustav hadn’t been in control of the decisions and directions of his life any time before. What to do, what to do?

He opted to wait for the current situation to cool slightly; between the gunshots and intricate patterns of behaviour, he knew the situation could turn violent at any moment, and instinctively raised his hands in surrender, but otherwise did not move. He was hoping for the parties to resolve their conversation peacefully, as no doubt the police would be on their way soon. If only there was some way to delay everything to give him a moment or three to think!

He turned to stare at Naomi. She seemed to be muttering something under her breath. His ‘mother’ turned towards him. “I have no rights over you child, I was only ever your mother biologically and even that decision was made by that woman” pointing towards the Baroness, “against my will. Your father did grow to love and care for you, though, and he was always opposed to you attending that hellhole of an establishment. He wanted a different fate for you and arranged on his death for you to leave the Country before she could add you to her collection. I believe had he lived that he may have planned to flee with you.”

“This woman,” This time she pointed at Naomi, “has reached out to me despite everything she believes, knowing what I am, something she has spent her life opposing, because she knew the Baroness could not actively oppose me and mine so I formally, here and now claim you as kin, as a Báthory born with all the rights and privileges that name brings. So the question before you is do you want to be a warrior, a weapon for the Baroness rewarded by Mammon alone, or do you want to carve your own path? The choice must be yours, chylde. Choose wisely but one last comment I will make – enquire of yourself this, why has this woman elected to ask you to choose before you had the opportunity to find out what your father, through his lawyer, had to say to you from the grave, as they say.”

Naomi gestured and in English said, “We need to go before the rest of her bodyguards arrive. You need to decide now. Your father’s lawyer will catch up with you, wherever you are.”

Through the door, he could see two of the Baroness’s bodyguards lying on the ground, moaning. Their handguns had been bent, so they were unable to fire.

As much as he just wanted the decision to be made for him, he knew he had to choose, and the only thing he could think about was why had the Baroness wanted to talk to him before his father’s lawyer? He turned to his mother, “If I leave, I’ll never hear what my father’s lawyer had to say…” To his surprise, it was Naomi who replied, “He’s already left for somewhere safe and has claimed political asylum here. Why do you think we made such a noisy entrance through the front? So he could escape out the back.” She paused, “If you’re coming, it has to be now.”

He took one last look at the Baroness and her Janissary and began to run towards the front door. Naomi joined him, with his mother leaving last. The Baroness, to Gustav’s surprise, made no attempt to stop them or follow.

They ran past the previously armed guards lying peacefully unconscious on the ground and the receptionist cowering behind the shattered reception desk. Considering the amount of presumed power his two ‘rescuers’ wielded between him, he did not question the success of their escape. Instead, he merely glided alongside his saviours with a glazed and somewhat shell-shocked look on his face.

Outside, the woman he had been told was his mother looked at him with sorrow in her eyes and in broken, halting English told Naomi to get him away and she would ensure ‘they’ didn’t follow.

“Wait!” Gustav called out, reaching towards her instinctively, but to no avail. She stood like a Valkyrie at the bottom of the steps, ready to deal with anyone insane enough to confront her.

Naomi grabbed his arm and with strength well beyond her size she pulled him along as she ran down the street away from the Consulate. Once more he was being swept along by the forces of fate, against his will.

The last thing he saw was several armed guards come out of the Consulate, only to collapse immediately in front of his mother as though knocked unconscious. Then a glowing portal appeared on the street, she stepped through and both she and it vanished.

Naomi was stronger than she looked. She almost carried him round the corner and down several wide streets before stopping and entering a brightly lit public park and sitting down on a bench. She practically forced him to sit as well.

Belgrave Square, London

“We’ll be safe here. I’ve a friend coming in about 15 minutes to collect you from here and take you back to the school. Meantime, we’ve a lot to talk about.” He wrapped his arms around himself. “Right.” he replied, feeling cold.

What was that English saying? When push came to shove? When – anyway, he’d just frozen, unable to act. What did that mean for him if he was going to become a hero? He couldn’t just freeze when he had a life or death situation to resolve.

Naomi also seemed extremely tense. She swore gently under her breath before shrugging then pulling out a cigarette, lighting it, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs. “I’ll stop tomorrow,” she muttered. ”Can I try one?” He asked bluntly, shrugging. A smoke or a drink seemed appropriate, granted the situation. He had to understand. He asked “What was all that about?”

She sighed, then stubbed out her own cigarette in response and took a deep breath before turning to face him.

“Are you sure you want to discuss this here and now? It might be better to wait until you’re back at school and Dr Lockheart is present. What I learnt will be quite traumatic..?” He nodded slowly, his eyes glazed, affixed on a distant fountain in the park. ”Sure?”

When you were at that place with your father, did you ever see any of the other – ah, children?”

He didn’t reply, but he did remember a few acquaintances he was allowed to play ball with when they were younger, though there were none when he got a bit older. Of course there were the sealed laboratories and research facilities, he’d never been allowed in there. The one time he’d tried to sneak in and see what they did there, his father had caught him and almost burst a blood vessel he had been so upset.

Naomi continued, ”You see, I think that laboratory facility you called home was part of the Baroness’ Seminarium Sinister where so many of her child ‘warriors’ were amped up, willingly or unwillingly and if I’m right then I, I am so sorry Gustav.”

He had begun to suspect his father might have been involved in some form of unorthodox or unethical research, just not what, and of course he never knew for certain. His father had just treated him like a son who didn’t need to know what his father’s work consisted of, just like everyone else there, like nothing was different and everything was fine.

She went quiet as if trying to decide what to say next. When she did finally speak, her voice was quieter with a touch of uncertainty to her voice.

“I believe it was also the same place that the Balance and I accidentally helped destroy when we tried to rescue the students you call the Amazons, as well as a sentient storm-meta-human hybrid. I believe the factory explosion that injured you and you believe killed your father may have been caused when we tried to rescue the captured metas that the Baroness intended to permanently merge with enslaved mystical creatures. I really am so very sorry.

Are you sure you want me to go on? I fully understand if you never want to see or hear from me again, but I think it’s’ important for you to know what that bitch did to make you who and what you are.”

He turned to look into Naomi’s eyes. He anticipated flaring up with anger, making some bold escape and subsequently returning on his own to Claremont, but the sincerity of her emotive apology took him by surprise. Furthermore, he’d always expected to hear someone admit they had been responsible, possibly one of the Balance; justifying it with the remorseless, righteous stoicism of a ‘hero’ who ‘had no other option’. He’d even anticipated the cold reality of the mass-media when the story finally broke. The Balance possibly hiring some Idiot PR lizard to weave the story and cover up the truth… But instead, here he was, sat on a park bench with someone outpouring her soul.

He squeezed her hand very slightly, and nodded for her to continue. No-one had ever apologised to him before, not about this kind of thing anyway.

“You’ve done a lot for me, Naomi. More than what you can know. If you say killing my father and hurting me was an accident, I believe you.” He wanted to say he forgave her, but his speech became clamped, choked and voiceless. He couldn’t say it out loud, not at the moment.

Naomi sighed in relief. “Okay, so what I discovered in your DNA is that you were born of three parents, not two. I’ve been unable to identify your third parent, but the procedure they used to birth you is still extremely rare and unusual. Apparently an egg from this third donor had most of its DNA strands removed and these were then replaced by DNA they stole from that vampire, that woman, Anastasia.”

He nodded to show that he was listening carefully, taking particular note of keywords, phrases and names – just as he had been trained.

As I mentioned to you before, most vampires cannot conceive or give birth. Your mother ‘died’ in the 16th century, by the way, so would never have been able to conceive or carry you to term. I’ll tell you more about her at another time.”

“Please, if you would.” he interrupted briefly, politely.

She murmured, “In fairness she’s not totally evil, unlike her mother, your gran’mama.

Anyway, her DNA strands were now encoded into a viable human egg, which given the experimental nature of the conception apparently still had some residual DNA from the host – hence the three biological parents. This egg was then fertilised with your father’s sperm – he used his own because I think this was their first attempt at a DNA transplant and I think they never expected it to succeed on the first attempt, otherwise it’s likely your genetic father would have been a chosen Janissary of the Baroness.

This now fertilised egg, to everyone’s surprise, proved viable and they planted it into a surrogate mother – I have no details on her or what happened to her but she was apparently not involved with you after the first year.”

He raised his finger intending to ask more questions, but saw that Naomi was mid-flow and he didn’t want to interrupt her complex thought process or the presentation of information. She’d learnt a great deal in a remarkably short amount of time. He thought.

“I believe your father went on to try and create more human-vampire hybrids, but never succeeded. It seems what made the slicing work wasn’t just a merging of a human and Vampire’s DNA, it seems your third parent – the egg donor – also brought something unique to the mix and without her particular contribution they couldn’t repeat their success.”

“Maybe that was for the best.” he offered with a grim smile. She nodded in agreement before continuing.

“Your father was, I believe, coerced into undertaking other genetic experiments that eventually led to the bonding of mystical and meta-humans into a single entity. Calypso, the sentient storm and meta-human merger, was one of his more successful accomplishments for the Baroness. Another was the creation of Sam, from the Balance.

You need to know your father loved you very much.” Gustav began to visibly shake, he was so tense, but Naomi failed to see it. “When you failed to show any powers but did exhibit many of the weaknesses of a vampire, your father protected you and kept you safe. I think it’s likely that your continued survival was the leverage they used to force your father to continue working for them on their unethical experiments. I don’t know for sure, but it’s possible your father’s lawyer does.”

Gustav suddenly experienced flashbacks of tired, wrinkled, shadowy frowns on his father whenever he was due to return to work after his downtime. “Be good.” he’d always say, as the facility door of their home would shut slowly behind him. He realised whatever his father did at work, it wasn’t something he looked forward to. He was sure though that his father would never have tried to force someone to undergo breakthrough or hurt them in any way. His father had been a kindly man, of that he was sure.

Naomi, unaware of his thoughts continued, “He raised you as his child, loved you and his last gift to you was to ensure that in the chaos following the explosion that you were introduced to one of your mothers, the most powerful one – it was Anastasia who arranged to have you smuggled out of Carpathia against the Baroness’ wishes. By the time she’d realised you hadn’t died in the explosion and had tracked you down, your joint nationality had been established and confirmed. Your father had officially registered you as his son at the British Embassy a few days after your birth, you know.

Regardless of your origins, Gustav, he loved and cared for you and called you his son.

The last thing you need to know is that he didn’t die in the explosion as you thought. You need to talk to his lawyer, but I understand he apparently spoke to him whilst you were still trapped in the rubble. I’m afraid he really is dead, but I don’t know how he died.

I hope in time you can forgive me, but I will understand if you can’t.”

Father would have forgiven Naomi. Father would have thanked her for everything she’d done for them so far, for picking sides and offering guidance freely. Gustav still didn’t entirely know (or trust) her true motives, but actions speak louder than words. If she did regret what occurred in Carpathia, she is certainly doing everything she could now.

“I… I forgive you, Naomi. I’m sure my father would too, not for his death – but for the assault… You know what I mean.” He hugged her. “I’m sorry to let you know this, but I’m probably going to need your help more than ever.” he chuckled softly.

She reached over and quietly cuddled him until the speeder dropped from the sky.

Soon after, he was bundled into the anonymous grav-car piloted by a well-meaning, but silent driver. The cabin was only lit by the regular passing of the orange-glow street-lamps below. His father had loved him, he needed to know that his fath…, his Dad had cared for him, regardless of the difficulties Gustav must have imposed on his life. Nothing else mattered… Except, of course, it did.

He had been a pale, sickly sprite who’d asked too many questions and succeeded too seldom. How could some brilliant mind such as his father’s even tolerated a being such as himself? He didn’t deserve this love, yet he had known its presence, it’s warmth. So much pain and suffering and imprisonment could have been avoided if he just hadn’t been born at all! Dad could have still been alive! He didn’t ask for this!

He raised his foot to stamp the floor in frustration and anger with himself, but only just refrained at the last moment, instead sighing very deeply.

He feigned indifference on his steely face, but turned away when he caught his own reflection in the shadowed car window. It’s no use. What’s done is done now… Maybe the most important things in life are to do with love, after all.

Claremont Academy, Saturday morning

He didn’t sleep, and of course Chris didn’t know he was back, he didn’t want him to know. He needed some time to himself and anyway he’d received a note that his father’s lawyer would meet him, here, in a couple of hours. Meanwhile, he headed over and put in a couple of hours Down Below, punching himself into a near state of exhaustion.

His father’s lawyer met with him and Dr Lockheart in the school itself. The man was elderly, but held himself upright and apologised profusely for not having the English.

Gustav offered a seat in the traditional manner, replying in Carpathian that until recently he didn’t also have the English fully. It was a lie, but a small one to put an old man at ease. In English, he asked Dr Lockheart, “Is it a problem if we speak in his native tongue?” He had said his he realised, not ours.

Dr Lockheart smiled and sat back in her chair, her fingers pressed together to form a steeple. She was there for him, to care for his emotional needs – not to hear what the old lawyer had to say, he realised.

Unaware of this, the old man began to talk. He explained in Carpathian that the Baroness had insisted that all the paperwork he had with him for Gustav be examined and copied before he was allowed to leave the Consulate and that he regretted complying but… He never finished the sentence.

He handed over a leather-bound journal of his father’s, which had most of the pages torn out. Gustav took it and realised that there was a card in the lining with two words written on it in English, “golden blood”.

His lawyer explained that he’d last seen his father a few days after the explosion and that he wanted to make arrangements for your body, once retrieved, to be flown to England. He had assumed that Gustav had died and he was sure that he would die soon himself, but didn’t explain how he knew.

Gustav reckoned that his death was a good assumption of his Father’s, and he would have been right if it wasn’t for his timely meta-breakthrough. Sure enough, the following day the newspapers had carried the story that the factory complex where he’d lived and worked had in fact been an orphanage and that a group of foreign meta-terrorists had attacked and destroyed it and listed both of them as having died in the original explosion.

That’s when he knew that he had to seek the protection of Anastasia Báthory for himself and when they later discovered Gustav still alive, he arranged for it to be covered up and planned with her ladyship to smuggle Gustav out of the Country.

It also explained how Gustav’s transfer to Claremont was so speedily done and of his non-typical enrolment, without Carpathian involvement, until now at least.

He smiled, “I fear I am not long for this world. No, not advancing years, though I am old and have outlived my own family. I fear I will die because I have committed the cardinal sin of failing to comply.”

“Sir, you are smiling, do you not fear death? I fear I am also failing to comply, should I too be wearing this fearless smile?”

A weary look crossed his face, “No, your mother has claimed you. Even the Baroness would not risk the wrath of that family. Now, your father has left you everything in his will, young sir. You have a flat in London which is currently rented out but brings in a reasonable income, as well as your Grandfathers’ property in Germany. Ah, that would have been your fathers, father. There is also about a hundred thousand pounds in a bank account to be paid to you when you turn twenty-one – that includes his life insurance payment, and here are your birth documents naming both him and Anastasia Báthory as your parents.

I believe the journal was the most important legacy and I am sorry but I failed in my guardianship of that. I do know from our rare talks over the chessboard that he loved you very much and was oh so very proud of you and the young man you were becoming. No matter what, young sir, do not doubt that.”

”Thank you, honourable sir, you have been most kind to me and my father. I hope by his memory that I can do you both proud. Thank you for the risk you have taken to present this to me today. I won’t forget it.”

He took his leave and departed with a final handshake, leaving Gustav and Dr Lockheart alone to try and unravel his feelings and emotions.

He then told Dr Lockheart the basics of what he and the lawyer just discussed, including his plan to leave the property and funds as is. He politely requested a further, urgent appointment with the headmaster and Naomi (providing that she was available) but didn’t offer the full details of what had occurred over the weekend, or the new details of his background that had now come to light.

Dr Lockheart explained that it would be Monday now before that could be arranged.

He knew he looked pale and tired, sleepless and in turmoil, but still he offered a warm smile in response, a small reassurance that everything was “fine”. It had only been a day but he had enough time to think about what to do, going forward.

He wanted to catch up with Chris and just hang out, but he’d already left for Wessex. He considered joining Young Chris and watching some films but – he knew Ashley, of the Amazons would also be attending and whether he wanted to admit it or not he didn’t to meet any of them, not just now because if he did, he knew he would need to ask them about their imprisonment in Carpathia and he wasn’t ready to find out if they had ever met his father and whether he’d ever experimented on any of them.

Normally Gus’ was perfectly content to perform his often interesting and pleasing homework, listen to some classical and catch up on reading. But right now? He simply didn’t want to be alone. He still had a pass and there was Shakespeare in the Park on in St. Mary Mede. Perhaps he could lose himself in the crowd? He grabbed a packed lunch and headed out.

He came back at eight and went to bed early, so it was the following morning before he met up with an excited Chris and his tales of things that go bump in the night. In a way Gus’ was glad he hadn’t been around for the events of the previous evening, he would have found it problematic and troubling and possibly traumatic! Not that his current situation was any less so!

—o0o—

It was a week later that he was informed by a letter from Naomi that the old man had died, the victim of a hit-and-run on the streets of London.