Nexus [COMPLETE]

10. Mordekai

Author's Note: Edited lightly 2/20/19

June 1938

My room in Covington house was at the far corner of the mansion on the ground floor. Unlike the other unfortunates that had been drafted for the mysterious Covington-family cause, I actually had a room to myself. My counterparts lived in the basement. I had Lewis to thank for my good fortune in that respect. He was far too kind-hearted for the youngest son of a family so driven by greed. I was keen to learn the truth of their ventures, to learn why fury burned in their eyes when they spoke of the mysterious Greysons, to know why sadness lurked in the lines of their faces.

Many conversations had passed the dinner table, where I was invited each evening by Lewis himself. The finery he dressed me in was undeserved, but I could never refuse such selfless gifts. I suspected that his family didn't know the truth about me, about where he found me, about what I was. They were civil and polite on every occasion.

Just as one evening, when I sat at their table, eating pork sausages and asparagus off of a fine dinner plate, Mary Anne spoke to me like an old friend, and Gentry's manner was irrefutably kind. However, Lewis' uncle also sat at the table, and he brought curious news.

"Anna is pregnant again."

As if a switch had been flipped, the kind-hearted Covingtons became merciless and cruel. Even Lewis went dark in the face of the Greyson name.

"Can we sabotage the birth?" Maryanne asked.

I started at her, shocked. My mouth fell open. Fortunately, there wasn't any food in it, or I might've made quite a scene.

"We succeeded once. Has the elder resurfaced?" Gentry asked.

"No one has seen her, but we suspect that she is still in residence at their estate," Maryanne replied, eating primly as she spoke.

"She is not the one we need to be worrying about right now," Gentry said. "Cyprian is the issue. That family cannot be allowed to extend their line with Anna's blood. My God, what they could create." She shook her head.

"A true monster," Lewis' uncle agreed.

"We need Ned's formula," Lewis said, waving his fork around. "We have nearly forty volunteers now. We should use it as soon as possible."

"It's not ready yet," his mother said. Maryanne smiled warmly at her son. "I'd sooner not put them at risk."

"Not the innocent ones," Lewis growled, "but the criminals? They live under our roof--thieves, rapists, and murderers. We need not wait for them."

"How many?" Gentry asked.

"Fourteen," Lewis replied.

His father nodded. "I'll speak to Ned."

"Thank you, Father."

The room fell silent, filled only by the clanking of silver against the fine china. The significance of the conversation was lost on me, but their words that night were never far from my mind.