Lydia lined her enormous eyes with heavy make-up like a pharaoh. This Egyptian gaze fixed on Volya before letting it slide above his head. Maybe she peered into the Beyond, maybe—into the abyss. At any rate, her eyelids opened wider and wider in response to whatever wonders she was gleaning in there. He wouldn't be surprised if a banner saying Priestess of a Mysterious Cult would have floated over her head like in a video game.
Volya scratched his ear with the hand that wasn't linked to Liam's. Were it up to him, he'd never let go of Liam's hand... and he'd eventually self-immolate. Or, more likely, won't be able to dress himself, bathe and the like.
"To answer the questions you harbor," Lydia said with a dream-like smile, "we must look through the veil of time into the ancient past."
It was frigging surreal, that's what it was.
"Before Genghis Khan's Horde ravaged Eurasia, and before the nomadic Huns knocked on the gates of the Roman Empire, way before that, millennia ago, from the same steppes rode out the very first nomads on the very first tamed horses."
Volya stifled a sigh. This family had an affinity to starting their stories from the events that had happened long ago. He didn't share this conclusion with the room. Nobody likes a smartass.
"Today's name for those horse-lords is the Yamnaya," Lydia said.
Would there be a test later? Because Volya couldn't spell that.
"I saw them in my dreams, terrible, but spellbinding in their savagery. The impact of their conquest was devastating," Lydia kept spinning her tale.
A hush fell over the gathering, despite everyone being familiar with the narrative.
Even Marina's icy eyes softened, her chin resting on the intertwined fingers, elbows propped indecorously on the tabletop.
Though with her, it might not have been Lydia's tale. It could have been because Damir, in his efforts to distance himself from her, ended up sitting right across the table. His gaze changed too, despite very obviously looking to the side. Damir-ship notwithstanding, Marina's translation echoed Lydia's yarn in a breathy, whispered stream without fail.
"Culturally and genetically, they whipped out every human culture in their path by slaughtering every man they came across."
Honestly, these Yamnaya sounded just like a horde of Bruisers.
"Linguistically, their language still echoes down the generations as the ancestor of the Indo-European language family. We call it Proto-Indo-European, or PIE."
Volya jerked his head at Marina, and she nodded, confirming that the dead language he had somehow spoken with Liam, was, in fact, PIE. He has a perfect recall of the PIE, his memory supplied Liam's earlier words. Why couldn't he have an ancestral recall of something useful? Maybe one day...
Meanwhile, Lydia pointed to Young. "Despite this genocide on the unprecedented scale, Vincent's team made an unprecedented discovery."
"Absolutely, absolutely!" Young exclaimed. "For some time we found relic populations within the Pontic-Caspian region that had these distinctive mitochondrial markers..."
DaSilva coughed, and Dr. Young gestured for him to take over the explanation with an audible sigh of regret.
"Without going into excruciating details," daSilva said, "it's the DNA that is passed down matrilineally. Despite some new evidence, we generally assume that the mitochondrial DNA is not conferred on the offspring by men. An unbreakable line forms since the dawn of time from a maternal ancestor, inheriting the same mitochondrial set—as long as they give birth to daughters."
A movie reel unrolled in Volya's head, like the one with an amoeba changing to a dinosaur, then to a Neanderthal, then to a medieval knight, finishing with a modern guy marching along with a briefcase. Only, in this case, it was with mother to daughter to grand-daughter and so far from the beginning of time. He shivered.
Dr. Young added a few more pertinent details on modern updates to mitochondrial DNA, X and Y chromosomes and genetic tracing going back centuries. Then they waited for Marina to render it all in Russian.
As far as Volya was concerned, it could have remained in English. All he got out of the lecture was that there were some girl-genes and boy-genes, and well, they went forth and multiplied.
The next bit of mumbo-jumbo came at the speed that challenged even Marina's fluidity. A couple of times Marina had to lift her finger in the air, begging for a slowdown, but fruitlessly.
Dr. Young's eyes glowed like the headlights of a bullet train that was his speech. "...so, while studying this peculiar relic ethnic group—we came to call it the Alpha group, or Alpha for short—it became apparent that we only saw these markers in orphaned males."
"The pack's rejects," Volya piped up and reddened. The words just popped out of his mouth when he felt in his bones that this was the bitter truth. This was what he was.
Dr. Young gave him a warning stare to not interrupt the grown-ups.
"Sorry," Volya mumbled.
"Ah, yes... where was I?" Dr. Young said after acknowledging his apology with a nod. "That it was observed only in orphaned males, was highly unusual. Plus, all of them had some form of celiac disorder. "
Great, he was just told in front of ten people that his mother had ditched him because he had sensitive gut. His fingers trembled, and Liam's fell between them, pressing and relaxing, weaving through.
Plump Dr. Sangha lit up with an indulging smile. For a second, Volya thought she come to hug him, but she just projected maternal warmth across the room. "The extreme form of carb intolerance like yours, Volya, is the first we have seen. Your survival is a bit of a miracle."
"That miracle is called Baba Masha," Volya said sulkily. This time, however, they didn't shush him with offended looks. The data was missing from their charts, so they jumped on the chance to fill in the gaps.
Heat spread under his collar from speaking in front of so many people at once, about a pretty private experience.
"You were fed lots of offal?" Sangha asked once he'd explained the orphanage's cook's determination to keep him alive.
"That's all she had!" He pointed at the shred of meat left on his plate. "This was too rich for us."
"You might need supplementation then. Offal has lots of nutrients that you could be missing now," Sangha explained her interest warmly. "I'll run your bloodwork tonight to make sure you're not low on anything."
So, she only had his best interest at heart, not mocking him. The flush of embarrassment flooded his cheeks, impossible to hide, but it was worth it, because Liam's fingers moved again.
A thumb caressed his wrist, slow, purposeful motions. Liam's head leaned so close to him, ostensibly for listening, that the chewing-gum scented breath touched his hair. Blood drained from his head to the nether parts, cancelling the blush, so that was good.
Good and insane at the same time.
Liam was worlds apart from him. From him and Toshka. He was in love with Toshka, he had promised Toshka to come back. When he did come back, there was the future for them. The real, solid future, not a fairy tale involving the foreign pop-star. He'd read some on-line and this rubbish wasn't for him. Let Liam's fans dream about being accidently in a car crash or snowed under with him; or Liam's needing a fake date for an evening; then Liam falling madly in love... fathering children... losing his memory... none of it was meant for him.
"...and so, finally, Damir was able to locate an Alpha-female."
Oops. While he was wrapped up in his romantic dilemma, Young must have moved on with his account.
"This female was born in the 1930's. She recounted a strange tale."
Oh, really? And here Volya was holding his breath, hoping desperately that she had shared her shopping list.
"Her bloodline was ancient, she'd said, a tribe surviving in hiding from our civilization for millenia. Nowadays, we'd call it going off the grid," Young said.
Volya's breath caught for real. His gut told him that this was where his mother came from.
"Mostly, it was a loosely-bound tribe of women. If they gave birth to boys, they gave them up for adoption. The only reason this female herself lived with the others—meaning our contemporary society—was that she'd lost her mother during the second world war."
At least she knew her mother. The discarded boys like him didn't get as much, if Young's tale was true. But for all its outlandishness, the explanation filled the empty place in Volya's mind, if not his heart. It was as if he had come upon a handprint, put his hand to it and saw an exact match. This insane reality was his. The hidden tribe were his people, and he was the pack's reject.
Now you know, the inner voice said.
If you knew all along, why didn't you tell me? Volya snapped.
The voice remained silent, but Volya got a distinctive impression that it—whatever it was—shrugged its shoulders at him, like wanting to say, you can't hurry stuff like this.
"Her mother was wounded and used what was left of her strength to bring her daughter where she'd find help, then died. The female seemed heart-broken to live her life away from her true heritage and the Alpha bloodline's abilities."
"Abilities," Volya repeated dully after Marina's interpretation.
Anabelle's hints about magic buzzed in his mind with a mosquito's persistence. Of all people, Volya, you should believe in magic.
Should he, really?
He was in a room full of scientists. Okay, maybe they were the crack-pot theories loving scientists, a mad genius club, but they were scientists nonetheless. They were sober. They all had PhDs! And they've talked about secret bloodlines and special abilities with the professional interest of X-men.
"Abilities?" He swept the gathering with a feverish gaze. His pulse kicked up to supersonic speed. "What frigging abilities?"
Liam's arm landed on his shoulders, pressing down, to keep Volya seated. "Easy, Volya, easy."