“And terrifying men are usually men you don’t want to mess around with,” I said, nodding. “Cooper knew that if we figured him out, we’d be coming here to confirm it—if he was just gone, what good would that do him? He’d be passing up a chance to scare the pants off us.”
“We might have thought something stole his body to eat, and given him a little more time to get away,” Shelby said.
Charlotte snorted. “Cooper? Nah. If he was going to do something like this, he’d do it as flashy as possible. He liked to come off quiet and then surprise everyone. That’s the sort of fellow he was.” Her face fell. “Is. And now he’s a werewolf. Has he been a werewolf this whole time?”
“He was probably infected before you had any idea there was a risk. Now, he has control over his transformations,” I said. “He’s been a werewolf for at least three months, maybe longer. I’d say that he’s been recruiting people from within the Society to help him out, based on what we’ve seen so far.”
“Oh, my God.” Charlotte put a hand over her mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“I think I’m going to go back to the house and get the mice,” I said. I shook my head. “We have to check everyone for infection. Anyone here could be a werewolf.”
“Anyone except me,” said Helen. “It’s been lovely seeing you all, but I think I’m going to get the fuck out of here before something rips my head off. Please be sure to call if anything else that might kill us all fetches up, all right? A little advance warning would be wonderful.”
“I’ll make sure someone calls you,” I said.
Helen nodded before turning and walking, with admirable briskness, back toward the road. I would have been uncomfortable about letting her go off alone, if not for two things: out of all of us, she had the least to fear from a rogue werewolf, and any werewolf had quite a bit to fear from her. Wadjet venom could rival taipan for strength, and at her age and general level of physical fitness, she was generating more than enough to kill anything that decided to cross her. It wasn’t a solution to everything, as the wadjet of the world learned when the Covenant first entered India with guns in hand, but it would be enough to get her safely to the car.
“Mum, come on.” Shelby took hold of her mother’s arm, tugging gently. “We need to go with Alex. We need to call everyone together and explain what’s going on.”
“And while we’re having meetings, how many of our new enemies will we be telling exactly what we know?” Charlotte shook her head, giving me a plaintive look. “Are you sure Cooper is our werewolf?”
“I don’t think he’s the original, no,” I said. “Something bit him. Something brought the infection here. Maybe it was a game animal smuggled into the country by someone with more money than sense—that’s how you got the manticore problem, isn’t it? Or maybe it was a person, somebody who got bitten and then came here thinking that there was enough open space for them to disappear and never endanger anyone. Lycanthropy is rare enough that even most victims don’t realize they can infect other mammals. They think that as long as they avoid humans, they’re taking the proper precautions.”
The sheep, and how calm they’d been about the Tanners, made me sure that Cooper was behind the ambushes. Looking into either the folklore around lycanthropy or the scant research that had been published (thinly veiled as explorations of a variant strain of rabies) would have made the spillover connection quickly evident to anyone who knew how to ask the right questions. He’d figured out that animals could be infected, and he’d used that knowledge.
“Still a cryptozoologist, even after changing species,” I murmured.
“What’s that?” asked Shelby.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “We need to move. I don’t like us being out here on our own.” Between the three of us, we had the silver bullets in my gun and whatever other weapons we happened to be carrying. I knew Shelby had a pistol and several knives, as did I; while I wasn’t sure what Charlotte carried as a matter of course, Shelby had to have received her training somewhere, and I was willing to bet Riley hadn’t been the one to teach his eldest daughter how to hide a pair of brass knuckles in a bra. And none of that would do any good, if it wasn’t silver. Cooper had already shrugged off severe enough blood loss that he’d been pronounced dead, and one of the werewolves that had attacked us both—me sincerely, Cooper as part of whatever double-blind scheme they were trying to pull—had gotten up and walked away after being shot with almost a dozen lead slugs. Silver was the answer. Without it, we were sitting ducks.
“Agreed,” said Charlotte. She turned and walked back toward the house. Shelby and I followed, not letting the space between us stretch to more than a couple of feet. Sending one scout ahead of the group was just asking to be cut off or separated, and we didn’t need that tonight.
Shelby stuck close to me as we made our way back to the guesthouse, which I appreciated very much. I resisted the urge to take her hand, less because I was afraid of showing affection in front of her mother, and more because I needed to keep both my hands free in case of trouble. I should probably have been taking point, but I didn’t think leaving our rear flank unguarded was a good plan. With no ideal options open to us, I was going to stay where I felt like I could do the most good, and that was next to Shelby.
Gabby and Raina were on the porch when we arrived in the yard, talking intently to Chloe. We were too far away to hear what they were saying, but judging by their posture and the sharp, unceasing motion of their hands, it wasn’t anything they were going to repeat with their mother in range. Jett, who had been pressed against Raina’s leg, pushed away from her new mistress and barked once in our direction, announcing our arrival. Gabby and Raina stopped talking as they turned to look at us. Chloe took advantage of the break in their concentration, first stepping back from the two, and then bolting down the porch steps.
It was really too bad for her that Shelby did the bulk of her work with large carnivores, and was accustomed to thinking like a predator. By the time Chloe’s foot hit the pavement Shelby was there, a gun in her hand and a smile on her face. She shoved the muzzle of the former into Chloe’s chest, digging it in with enough force that I knew the thinner woman was going to have a bruise.
“Going somewhere?” asked Shelby.
Raina hopped down the porch steps, coming to a stop behind Chloe. “She wanted us to shoot Dad,” she reported, in a low, dangerous tone. “She came in here to say that if we didn’t do the right thing on our own, she’d go to the Society and get them to order us to do the right thing.”
Shelby looked horrified. “What about the quarantine period?” she demanded. “We’ve had people locked up in there for days!”
“He proves that you don’t think the rules apply to you and your family,” said Chloe, stabbing a finger at me to punctuate her statement. “Your little American boytoy should be shut away like the rest, but he’s running free, because the rules don’t apply to the high and mighty Tanner family. You really think anyone’s going to believe that you’ll keep Riley caged? He’ll be free by morning, and then we’re all doomed!”
“Shelby, can you keep her here?” My words seemed entirely out of place, given the situation. I needed to say them anyway.
Thankfully for me, Shelby understood the way my mind worked at least well enough not to question me. “Yeah,” she said. “Go take care of whatever you need to do.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and ran for the porch.
Even if the guesthouse hadn’t been small and mostly comprised of closed doors, I would have had no trouble finding my room: all I had to do was follow the sound of high-pitched rodent voices chanting liturgies. I swung myself through the open door and found the entire congregation standing in a circle on the floor, some of them holding brightly colored feathers from unidentified local birds, others holding small candles of the sort commonly found on birthday cakes. Shelby’s garrinna, Flo
ra, was curled up on the bed with her forepaws crossed in the classic feline manner and her head cocked hard to the side in a perfect expression of avian fascination. All the mice stopped chanting as they turned to look at me. Flora raised her head and mantled her wings, giving a screech of welcome.
I was, for once, speechless. It seemed the mice were, too. Then, as one, they began waving their feathers and candles and shouting, “HAIL! HAIL THE GOD OF SCALES AND SILENCES, CONQUEROR OF WEREWOLVES!”
“That is not going to become a part of my official title,” I said sternly. I crouched, putting myself more on a level with them. “I need three mice to come with me. The mission will be a dangerous one. I cannot guarantee the safety of any who choose to volunteer. I can promise you that I will do my very best to keep you from harm, and that should I fail, I will carry the weight of my failure for the rest of my living days.”
Aeslin mice never forget anything. They don’t hold the rest of the world to the same lofty standard, which is a good thing, or we would be forever breaking their tiny, fragile hearts. For them, an offer of memory by one of their gods was the greatest of all possible honors. I just hoped I wouldn’t have reason to make good on my promise. “What do you need us to do?” squeaked the priest, lowering its feather. “We are at your Service.”
“The werewolf we came here to find is cleverer than we suspected, and has done more damage than we feared,” I said. “We need to check people for signs of infection. We suspect that it’s been biting them and then coaching them through their first change, bringing them back only when they can control their tempers.” It occurred to me that there might be some sort of master schedule I could consult, something that would tell me who had taken sick or vacation days, and when. Back home, it would have been virtually impossible for one of us to be bitten by a werewolf and disappear for a week without someone taking notice. Maybe I’d get lucky, and it would work the same way here.
I hadn’t been getting lucky very often.
“No bitten thing can control their temper,” said the priest, sounding dubious. “It may Seem So, but that will be Mere Illusion. Given time enough, they will slip. The bonds they construct around themselves will break, and the Beast will be Freed.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said. “Will you help me?”
“A moment,” squeaked the mouse gravely, before turning back to the congregation. The circle constricted, becoming something more closely akin to a huddle, and they began murmuring, squeaking, and otherwise talking amongst themselves. I resisted the urge to lean closer and try to listen in. They deserved to make this decision without feeling like I was judging them.
Finally, all six mice turned to look at me expectantly. “We will Come,” squeaked the priest. “But you must Choose.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I cannot claim this Honor as my own, for I am responsible for the Lives under my Care,” said the priest. “But you are responsible for the Heavens and the Earth, and the lives of mice and men must be as tools to you. So you will Choose the three who will accompany you, whose lives will be risked for this Sacred Task. Thus will we know that the correct souls have been selected for such a Holy Undertaking.”
My mouth went dry. I had known when I asked the mice if they would be willing to do this for me that I would be risking their lives—and while Aeslin mice are superheroes compared to their more mundane cousins, they’re still mice. They can be killed by cats, or poorly placed human feet . . . or werewolves. I had been hoping, on some level, that they would choose their own best and brightest, and save me from the responsibility.
They were all still watching me with bright beady eyes, clearly excited by the idea of going on a holy mission, even as the thought of initiating that same mission made me feel slightly sick. “You, you, and you,” I said, stabbing my finger almost at random into the congregation. “You’re the ones I choose.”
The three mice who had been selected for this great honor—and this incredible risk—squeaked with startled delight, throwing their feathers (and in one case, lit candle) aside. The candle was quickly retrieved by another mouse, I noted, before it could set the carpet aflame. That was a small mercy, as the three chosen mice swarmed onto my palm and then raced upward to my shoulder, their squeaks and chitters of joy completely unintelligible to my human ears.
I remained in my crouch, briefly meeting the eyes of the young priest. It looked more tired than it had when we left America, and I realized with a pang that I didn’t know its name, or whether it was male or female, or whether it was mated. It was a cypher to me, and I was a god to it, and that suddenly didn’t seem fair.
“Do you want to come along?” I asked the priest. I couldn’t figure out how to broach the bigger questions. I had never been as good at talking to the mice as my sisters were, and maybe that went both ways: Verity and Antimony were priestesses, not gods, and that made them objects of less reverence to the colony. There was room for conversation there, and maybe that same room didn’t exist for me.
The priest flattened its whiskers, looking pleased by the offer. At least I’d gotten that much right. “No, but thank You,” it said. “I will stay here, with the congregation, and Pray for the Success of Your endeavors.”
“All right,” I said, and straightened. The mice on my shoulder gave another brief cheer. “You are hereby free to go wherever you need to go in order to keep yourselves safe. If danger comes into this house, go to the walls, and keep yourselves safe.”
“We Shall,” squeaked the mouse priest, and the two remaining members of the congregation cheered as loudly as their tiny lungs allowed, sealing the compact.
Still feeling as if I were somehow betraying their trust in me, but with no other evident solutions, I turned and left the room as the mice atop my shoulder cheered.
The hall was empty. The other doors were closed—including one that had been open until very recently, where Riley Tanner was being quarantined. I hesitated as I passed it, unable to fight the idea that I should stop and knock and tell him what was going on; that Cooper was a traitor, or at least was no longer on the side of his former allies. That we were going to check the Society for other turncoats, and find a way to track Cooper down before he could spread his sickness through the whole continent. I would have wanted to know, in Riley’s place.
I would also have wanted to help. And the only way Riley had left to help was to stay locked in that room with the virus in his veins, waiting for my makeshift treatment to either cure him or fail him. He couldn’t come out. He couldn’t protect his family. Telling him what was really going on wouldn’t just be futile, it would be cruel, and much as I didn’t like the man, I didn’t want to torture him.
Sometimes there are no easy answers in our line of work. Sometimes there’s no way to prevent people from getting hurt. I sighed, looking away from the door, and kept on walking.
It was the only thing I had left to do.
Fourteen
“Family matters more than anything else in this world. Family doesn’t have to love you. Family doesn’t even have to like you. But when you need them, family has to have your back.”
—Kevin Price
Once again on the front porch of a secluded guesthouse in Queensland, Australia, really wishing there were some excuse to make all parties involved take a nap
CHARLOTTE HAD LIT WHATEVER version of the Bat Signal the Thirty-Six Society used because when I stepped back onto the porch, I was greeted by yet another sea of Australian cryptozoologists. It was becoming a common enough occurrence that their sheer numbers didn’t throw me—I was more amazed by the fact that she’d managed to rouse this many people at two o’clock in the morning.
It helped that most of the Thirty-Sixers were standing very still, casting nervous glances at their neighbors and looking like they didn’t know whether they should be declaring their own uninfected status or avoiding contact with
everyone they couldn’t be sure of. I scanned the front lines, looking for familiar faces. I hadn’t been in Australia long enough to learn everyone’s names, but I had been there long enough that at least a few people had started standing out to me.
I found about half of them. The rest were either farther back in the crowd, protected from casual observation by the surrounding bodies . . . or they weren’t here. And if they weren’t here, there was every chance they were with Cooper.
This was going to be harder than I’d thought.
Charlotte turned when she heard me step onto the porch, a spark of animation coming into her otherwise empty eyes. “There you are,” she said. “Good. You can explain the plan from here.” And then she stepped to the side. Charlotte Tanner—who already looked like she’d been widowed, even though her husband was alive upstairs, waiting to see what the end of his incubation period would bring—stepped to the side, indicating that I should move forward. Raina put a hand on her mother’s shoulder, bolstering her up.
In case that wasn’t clear enough, Shelby made a small beckoning gesture. Her gun had been holstered, and Chloe was gone. I swallowed the urge to turn and bolt for the safety of the upstairs as I squared my shoulders and walked to stand between them. The eerily silent crowd turned its many eyes on me. The urge to run rose again. I swallowed it back down.
“Where’s Chloe?” I murmured, as I stepped into position.
“Mum wanted us to form a line, so I asked Gabby to take Chloe inside and lock her in one of the quarantine rooms,” said Shelby. “We can question her when this is done, yeah?”
“Yeah.” I kissed her on the temple before turning my attention to the crowd. “This is what we know,” I began.
It took about fifteen minutes to explain the situation, from what we had found (or hadn’t found) in the tin shed that was not a suitable substitute for a morgue to all the reasons that the werewolf in the basement’s behavior was abnormal. Gabby returned somewhere in the middle of my explanation. I stressed, several times, how important Helen Jalali was going to be to the Society’s recovery, since she was the only doctor we knew of who didn’t have to worry about potential infection, and who could thus treat anyone who had been exposed. And then I stopped talking, and I waited for the inevitable questions.