I nodded.
“He shouldn’t be capable of getting sick, right?”
“Da.”
“So why is this happening, then? How can he be sick if he can’t get sick? And Marlaena—it’s like she’s caught some bug, too. She looks pale and weak, but there’s this fever to her eyes.…”
I looked away from Jessie then, my heart pounding angrily in my chest. “A fever in her eyes? What do you mean?”
“Her eyes go this crazy purple and then flare red when we’re nearby. I mean, I know she hates me, but…”
It was so unfair.
“Maybe there’s something going around…,” she suggested. “Something only alpha werewolves are susceptible to…”
I nodded, but the motion was halfhearted. “Da. Perhaps that is it,” I agreed. “Perhaps there is some new ailment—something brought in by the new pack and only triggered for some reason here and now. There is so much about the oboroten that we do not yet understand.…” I rose and extended a hand, pulling her to her feet.
“Good point. They are relatively new, I guess.… Lots to still understand.…”
“Da,” I muttered. Like imprinting. And how to overcome it.
I held the door open for her, still avoiding her eyes.
“Maybe you should get back in the lab—figure this all out,” she suggested, searching out my eyes.
I nodded again. “Da. I will head back to the lab as soon as I can, but there are other circumstances now.”
“You need to wait on Wondermann.”
“Da.”
“How close were you to the cure? The real, point-of-no-return cure?”
“Closer than ever before, but not quite close enough. I will get it, Jessie. There must be a solution.”
Jessie threw her arms around me, hugging me tightly. “Thank you, Sasha,” she whispered into my neck. “Thank you for helping me fix whatever this is.” Then she released me and disappeared into the house.
I wanted a cigarette. Desperately. How could I possibly fix this, now that I knew what this was? This was designed to not be fixable. To simply be an imperative above all others.
For the good of the species, not for the good of anyone in particular and certainly not for the good of any notion like love. When the oboroten were designed, love was clearly the last thing on anyone’s mind.
Marlaena
There was no point in trying to sneak up on the one guard in the hallway, but there was every reason to surprise him quickly and make sure he couldn’t radio for help.
We sprinted down the hall, Gareth bowling the guard over as he reached for his radio and gun and I played keep away with those two very important items.
I slung the radio down the hall, pocketed the gun, and Gareth shoved a gag in the guard’s mouth as I pulled out my roll of duct tape. “Sorry about this brief intermission in your otherwise dull day, but we need what you’re keeping stashed away and we followed her trail to here.”
He struggled and mumbled into the gag, thrashing against the duct tape I’d just lashed around his ankles and wrists.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I warned, but he struggled a bit more—just enough to lose his balance and fall to the floor, an embarrassed and writhing mess of tangled humanity.
I snagged the keys from his belt and fumbled with the lock.
A little distance down the hall, his radio made a noise and Gareth and I exchanged a startled look.
“Repeat,” the radio called. “Hourly check-in.” I wrenched the door open, cursing our timing. “Repeat,” the radio announced again. “Hourly check-in. You better not have nodded off, Johnson.”
The guard thrashed around, but I didn’t care because we were inside.
“Holy crap!” Terra shouted as she jumped to her feet and threw her arms around Gareth. She nearly hugged me, too, but thought better of it, instead saying a modest, “Thanks.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled. “Let’s get out of here.”
We burst back through the door and hopped over the guard, hearing the promise of the building’s other guards crackle across the discarded radio. “On our way…”
“So are we,” I said as I raced down the hall and shoved open the door. Pausing a moment on the landing, I listened for the incoming guards. “They’re coming up. I want us to avoid contact if we can, got it?”
Terra nodded. “No contact.”
We pounded our way down the stairs until the men were at the base of a flight we were at the top of. Leading the others, I grabbed the metal underpinning of the stairs leading up, holding the metal ribs that made up its gut, and swung myself over the banister and down onto the other staircase and then repeated the sweeping motion, swinging myself onto another lower flight of steps.
Two flights beneath the guards with Terra and Gareth at my back we raced down another flight while our moves registered in the minds of our enemies and they turned to follow us down the stairs they’d just begun coming up. Footsteps pounded on the steps above us as they gathered speed, descending. Radios crackled again and doors popped open below us. “Again,” I urged Terra and Gareth, my hands sore from grabbing the poorly painted metal, but we did it again and this time I switched my handhold, twisting in midair, the soles of my shoes hitting the banister so that I slid down the flight on its railing.
Guards stared at us as we slid by surfing the banisters and then leaping down, snatching at the next staircase’s underbelly and doing it all again until we were nearly at the exit, guards’ mouths gaping as we vaulted for the door.
With a squeal, the door bent back on its hinges and we rushed into the cold air, feeling it snatch our breath from our mouths. We flew out of the building and down the last steps and spun to the right and back down the alley with the blacked-out camera.
The soles of our sneakers slapped the sidewalk in a rapid staccato rhythm, and we turned down two more side streets and then an alley and stopped there, stooping over our shoes to catch our breath, the cold air burning with a crueler intensity down our superheated throats.
I listened to much more than the rapid breaths we took or the way the blood rushed in my ears. I listened for the sounds of men following us or sirens coming—would they call the police to help them find us, or would that be putting them in an awkward spot?
They couldn’t have been holding Terra in any way that would be considered legal.…
No sound came to me beyond the normal noises of the city at night. I sighed and looked at them both, but found my vision swimming with vertigo when I lingered on Gareth, the exertion from our run up and down the stairs causing his scent to deepen and strengthen through his sweat, and I pulled my attention away from him to lock my gaze on Terra.
It was 9:15 at night—I knew it as well as I knew we were werewolves. And that meant we had just thirty minutes to make it back to the train station if we had any hope of catching the last train running back to Junction. But with thirty minutes we could walk swiftly—not break into a frantic run that might be spotted by anyone looking for us—and in that way blend into the crowd that still wandered the streets and sidewalks of the Big Apple at night.
Jessie
They called from the train, Gareth for Alexi. From Alexi’s expression I could tell things had gone better than expected and that they were on their way home again. Pausing, I wondered if that’s how they viewed the Queen Anne—as home.
“I guess I better head to the station,” Max said, pulling on his coat.
“Nyet.” Alexi stopped him, tugging his own coat from the foyer’s coatrack instead. “I will get them. You need rest. You have school and work tomorrow.”
Max growled, but shrugged back out of his coat.
Alexi glanced at me. “I had better take you home before I go to the station.”
“Oh.” I looked at Pietr. He would be here without me when Marlaena returned, high on her success. My stomach rebelled at the thought. She’d already made excuses to be around him.… “Maybe I could…” I fumbled for my p
hone, calling Dad.
“Sorry, Jessie,” he said, his voice oddly low and sounding more tired than it had in a long while. “I think I need you to be here with family tonight.”
I blew out a sigh. “Okay, Dad. I love you.” Hanging up, I reached for Pietr. “I have to go now. Maybe you should turn in early,” I suggested. It was thinly veiled at best.
But he looked at me with his sweetest expression and said, “That sounds like a brilliant idea.” And then he kissed me as only Pietr could, and for a moment I forgot all about Marlaena and our awkward rivalry.
But, pulling away, I saw how his skin had blanched and a strange pain floated behind his eyes.
“Are you—”
“I’ll be fine,” he whispered. “Go now.”
“I love you,” I said, but he stumbled into the kitchen and never replied. I just clutched the bookbag holding my lit assignment’s notebooks even tighter, knowing I’d be filling more pages tonight.
* * *
Back home I was greeted by my dogs, Hunter and Maggie, and was summarily sniffed and licked. Pushing past their curious and probing noses, I closed the door and gave Dad a hug before crossing the kitchen floor to poke Annabelle Lee in the arm as she read at the breakfast nook. She grumbled and raised the book in front of her, but not before I saw her smile and fight to wipe it from her face. My little sister loved me and she was trying to cope with that fact.
“Gonna head to the barn,” I said to Dad.
“I was just out there. Everything’s fine,” he said, worry etching his brow as clearly as if he’d verbally pointed out that bad things happened to people in our barn.
I wanted to change that. A horse barn should be a happy place that smelled of hay, feed, leather, and horses, and I was determined to see it get back to that. “Rio and I could use some time.”
He nodded, oddly unwilling to fight tonight, and I briefly wondered about his eyes being as red as they were. Allergies? But I didn’t dwell on it because if Dad had just been in the barn, odds were good the barn was safe. I raced up to my room and changed into my riding clothes and tugged a case out from under my bed.
By the time I’d gotten back to the front door, most of the lights were out in our house and Dad and Annabelle Lee were in their rooms.
I jogged to the barn, my dogs flanking me, Maggie bouncing as much as running. That was the crazy thing about Labs. One of the crazy things about Labs, I thought, watching how she sprang straight up in the air only to land on all four feet and repeat the move as I struggled to open the barn door. Hunter (the resident what’s it) just whined. Everything about him was crazy.
I flipped on the lights in the barn and sucked in a deep breath. The hay smelled sweet tonight, heavy with the scents of timothy and clover, and closing the door behind me, I could almost imagine spring waited outside.
I set the case on a nearby hay bale and popped its clasps open to look at the gun inside. I wasn’t going to be a victim anymore—not on my parents’ property. I’d thought about this a lot since Gabe’s attack. It was fine—even good—to improvise when attacked by a werewolf, but it was even better to be prepared to remove the threat.
I tucked the gun case behind a stack of hay bales in the barn. Attacked twice here was twice too often. If something or someone came for me again, I’d be prepared.
Rio whickered for my attention.
“Be there in a minute,” I called. I glanced at our tool wall. Rakes, hoes, pitchforks, and shovels lined one wall in the barn and kept the place organized and neat. And, as I knew, some simple tools like those made potent weapons, but you had to get your hands on them first. So I grabbed a couple things and moved them to other walls, making sure none of them was in the way or inconvenient to the barn’s function.
Standing in the wide aisle that ran between the horse stalls, I did a slow spin, observing my handiwork. Yes. This could work.
Rio stomped her hoof, impatient.
Laughing, I grabbed a brush and stepped inside her stall to spend a little time being kind and gentle with her before we went for our ride.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Alexi
I decided several things that night as Marlaena, Gareth, and Terra rode the train back to Junction. First: Pietr and Marlaena had imprinted regardless of how they actually felt about each other. Second: I could not sit idly by and watch my grandfather’s success with genetic tampering ruin Jessie and Pietr’s relationship. Third: I had no time to wait for Wondermann to summon me back to his lair. Fourth: I was going to need someone else who had experience with Grandfather’s research. And, finally, fifth: I was going to add Rolaids into my daily diet whether I wanted to or not the way my gut burned as I made my mental list.
So, after seeing the werewolves off to school the next morning, I drove over to Golden Oaks and only hesitated for the length of Autumn Fire’s song “Empty Sorrow” before I summoned my courage, locked the convertible’s doors, and walked inside.
The nurse recognized me from my earlier visit and smiled, sliding the sign-in folder to me.
I signed, I dated it, I explained the purpose of my visit in vague and friendly terms, and then I walked the short distance to Hazel Feldman’s room.
Jessie had tried once to get me to refer to Feldman as Mom, but I made sure she knew her attempt should be short-lived if she wished to live any longer herself.
Granted, Hazel was a pleasant enough woman (for someone who had handed over her only child to be raised by werewolves and trained to make his own brothers and sister believe he was truly one of them). She was cordial and welcoming and witty, but she was not the woman I could ever imagine calling my mother.
My mother was Pietr, Max, and Cat’s mother. Her name was Tatiana, and she was dead.
“Good morning, Feldman,” I said, striding in like I—how did Amy say it?—owned the place. I fell into the nearest chair, crossing my legs and folding my hands over my knee with some smattering of Max’s natural drama.
She smiled and opened her mouth to reply, but I continued. She had not taught me manners, she had no right to expect me to use any on her. “Let us cut to the chase. Pietr was pushed past the cure. He has imprinted.”
“Oh.”
“Not with Jessie.”
“Ohhh.” She fumbled with the pleats of her skirt. “But imprinting was designed to—”
“Strengthen the breed—not to allow for choice. Or free will.”
“Or love,” she added as realization dawned. “The one Pietr imprinted with…?”
“The leader of a rival pack. They have traveled quite a distance, slowly gathering wolves and living by their own cultlike standards—embracing every aspect of their oborot nature.”
“Every aspect?”
I nodded. “They are dangerous because they know their lives are short. So they strive to suck out all the marrow of life.”
“Should we not all do the same?”
“Perhaps, but not using the methods they tend to embrace. Theft and violence among them.”
“What would Thoreau have thought of them?” she mused, recognizing part of one of his better known quotes.
“He wouldn’t have been able to doubt that by their deaths they’ve certainly learned whether they lived or not. But the way they sometimes discover living is by getting themselves killed,” I clarified. “They continuously spout ‘the Wolf Is the Way’ and such things.”
“I had not anticipated this, and I doubt your grandfather would have, either.” She plucked at her pleats in satisfaction. “Fascinating.”
“Dangerous and deadly,” I corrected.
“Are they—?”
“The ones from the recent news? The group the police have mistaken as a gang?”
She nodded, and I mimicked the movement in reply.
“How many are there?”
“Thirteen including the female alpha. Though one is”—I coughed—“somewhat less.”
“Twelve led by the one who imprinted with Pietr. And how is Pietr?”
/> “The phrase ‘sick as a dog’ springs to mind. He cannot sleep and barely eats. If I did not know better, I would have thought he was lovesick.” I shook my head. “But love has nothing to do with this. It is cruel, really—letting biology lead. So what do we do?”
She shrugged.
“What can you tell me?”
“Without a lab at my disposal? Nothing. You have the journals. That is all the knowledge I can provide without performing significant experiments of my own. I may have strayed from my father’s lifestyle, but the lessons learned in his lab will stay with me until my death.”
The way her wrinkles deepened and her mouth turned down gave me the distinct impression more lessons than the use of chemicals and equations and periodic charts had been taught in Grandfather’s lab. “What do you need?”
“In a lab?” She sat up straight and looked at me more sharply, once again appraising me with her eyes. “Significant equipment to do things correctly. We’re talking about genetic manipulation at a very specific level. This cannot be accomplished with a child’s chemistry set.”
I looked at my hands, clasped tightly in my lap, my knuckles whitening. “Perhaps my association with you may yet prove to be fortuitous. There is a lab at my disposal. There is an open account for supplies. But there are also significant risks.”
She sat up straighter, her eyes sparkling as she reached for her ever-present deck of tarot cards. “Did I tell you to stop talking?” she asked, a grin slanting on her pale lips. “The only risks around here are that someone might sprain something playing bridge. As I am not yet dead, I have no aversion to doing something that might make me feel more alive.”
“We will need to leave now.”
“Excellent.” She swung her legs over the bed, and putting the cards down, reached for her cane. She clutched it, straightening once it was in her grasp.
She took an unsteady step forward. Then another. I just watched, my arms crossed, while she made her plodding progress forward.
What good was she going to be in a crisis situation? I sighed. Was bringing Hazel Feldman into this an even bigger mistake than blindly proceeding without her help?