“Me, either.” Holly pulled her cell phone out of her pocket so she could snap pictures of the barrels. “I’m going to call a guy I know to get more information on this trashfire we’ve tripped over. That phone call will be a trashfire on its own, but I’m willing to dive into that one face first for this.”
“Who are you calling?”
“His name is Alok Vandayar. He’s a virologist. Microbiologist. Curious motherfucker whose curiosity gets him into too much trouble.” Holly’s lips pursed hard, the expression of a professional lemon sucker who’d just had a long day at work.
“How do you know a virologist?” Shane leaned against a wall then jumped back as he found it colder than he wanted.
Holly glanced at him. “Can we just say I do and go on with our lives?”
“No, I think you’ve earned me pushing you on this one.”
She scowled. “You’re a big, hairy asshole when you want to be, you know that.”
“I’m aware of that, yes. Back to the question.”
“We dated. There. You happy? Alok and I dated several years ago.”
Shane smirked. “Mostly happy. Apparently you liked him well enough to stay in contact after the breakup.”
The scowl deepened. “I didn’t delete his number, but we don’t stay in contact. Not more than to say ‘happy Diwali’ and ‘happy birthday’ and occasionally to get updates about his family.”
“Holly, I hate to hit you with bad news, but that sounds like you staying in contact.”
“Shut your piehole, boss,” Holly grumbled as she turned back to the barrels. “Anyway. Alok will know more about these. And he’ll tell me, or I’ll call his mother in Chennai.”
“You’re a cruel woman, Holly.”
“Not as cruel as I should be.” She straightened, movement stiff with offense. “I broke up with Alok because he’d signed onto a new project with a government lab. One with the goal to research, replicate, and tailor lycanthropy and other shapeshifter conditions to suit specific purposes.”
Shane felt himself still as he stared at her. “He worked on the Feral virus.”
“Yes.” Muscles twitched in her jaw. “To be fair about it, he tried to keep the project on the rails. Do the work, but safely, with ethics and proper scientific rigor. When they stopped listening to him, they started running into problems, and then? Ferals. He left shortly before the incident that released the Feral virus into the wild. He couldn’t take it anymore.”
“You didn’t get back with him.”
“Can’t unburn a bridge, boss.” Holly walked past him, out of the refrigerator and toward the back door.
Shane trailed in her wake. “Guess not. Sorry as hell you two parted ways, though. Seems like you cared about him a lot.”
“I did. I’d already started looking into moving to California to be with him. We’d eyeballed Vegas wedding chapels. Now I get triggered by Elvis impersonators.” Holly snorted.
“Don’t we all.” Shane decided to change the subject. “The Ferals aren’t going to appreciate what we did here today. This town is in danger. I don’t know of any packs who could step in and protect it, and honestly, I don’t know that I’d ask one to. The Ferals might take it as a challenge. We’ve fucked up their plan. Let’s hope we put it down permanently.”
“One truck, and a few barrels of contagious goo?” Holly stepped into the summer sun and tilted her face to the sky.
Shane understood. Heat or no heat, the sun banished the chill of the store and burned away part of the tainted feel of what had happened inside. “Yeah. I don’t know I believe this is over, either. Sure be nice if it was, though.”
“The Ferals don’t seem to want to be nice.”
“The Ferals can suck my left nut,” Shane growled. “I’ll talk to the powers-that-be here. They need to evacuate this place. The people need to pack up and head for one of the bigger, safer cities. Vegas. Phoenix. Farther, if they can get there. As much as I hate to say it, it’s starting to look like the small towns are vulnerable.”
Holly held her silence for a span of heartbeats, then asked, “Does that mean we need to start thinking about evacuating Coyote Trail, too?”
“That’s not an answer I have. Not yet. Too much depends on what we can do to put the rest of the Ferals who did this down.” He nodded toward the nearby semi. “We’ll get someone to tow that. Call your ex and learn what you can. Ask him how we need to dispose of the barrels. Then you and Rigo get out there and find the motherfucker who planned this. We need to find out if there’s more of that shit out there and get a sense of their greater plan. I’ll deal with the police and the body disposal.”
“And get Erin home,” Holly said. “She’s the reason we know about any of this. That deserves a hot dinner and a safe place to sleep tonight. I’m really impressed with her, you know. She’s funny, she fixes bikes, and she’s damn brave.”
“I’m impressed with her, too.” Shane made the understatement of the year.
“I sort of thought you might be. Keep her close, boss. Don’t let that one go.” Holly clapped his shoulder. Her nose wrinkled as she pulled her hand away. “You’re disgusting. Clean up before you go see her. Though… What that Feral said…”
“Shit talk to upset me,” Shane said, and wished he believed it. “Go find a landline that works. Preferably one with international service. Just in case you have to put in a call to Chennai.”
Holly chuckled wryly. “I’m only half kidding about that, you know. Alok’s mother loves me. She called me after I broke up with him to tell me he was an idiot.”
“Maybe we should introduce her to Mama Hernandez.”
“Oh, God. I’d say the world really would end, then, but between the two of them? They might just manage to save it.”
11
We Measure Not Eternity Against Our Given Moonrises
Shane had hoped to ride home with Erin, so he’d know she arrived safely, but too many people wanted too much of his time for that.
First the police wanted to talk about protection from the Ferals. Shane had no answers, and no promises to make. “The Bully Boys can’t keep Levalle safe,” he said, over and over again until either they’d heard him at last or they’d just stopped asking. “You’re too far away. Either find a pack that’s willing to live here or get your people to a safe city. Go to Phoenix. We can’t protect you here, and there are few enough people here to evacuate. I’m sorry. This town is lost.”
And he was sorry. Sorry because he wanted people to keep their homes, sorry because it meant the Ferals had won another battle and taken more territory besides. Sorry Levalle had paid a price perhaps meant for Shane and his pack.
Then the coroners and funeral home employees wanted to talk about disposal of Feral bodies, or the bodies of those people who’d died while the Ferals sieged the town. This talk led to an hour of pitching dead creatures into a bonfire outside town. Werewolves couldn’t catch the Feral virus. The people shouldn’t have to expose themselves to it. While he and the pack worked on this, the coroner crews removed the bodies from the firehouse so Shane and the rest could use the showers there. Ironically, the leaders of the town seemed bent on burning the place down after. Just in case.
Then the hostages wanted time to thank the pack for risking their lives. Then the townspeople wanted answers about protection and safety, at least for the night. He nearly stayed himself, but a couple of Bullies meant to have the night off volunteered their time and wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. Then he had to check in with Holly, who hadn’t managed to contact her ex-boyfriend but would keep trying, then…then…
Distractions piled up to keep him from the one thing he wanted to do most. Erin, wisely, went home before the sun sank too low in the sky, with the promise of a dinner on the table for him when he got back. He couldn’t argue. After today, hot food and her company sounded like a piece of Heaven he didn’t often see.
Except the shadow in the back of his mind that whispered its sharp, painful worri
es about the wound on her arm, and its concerns about how she would hold up to all this. Its doubts, insidious and too plausible for comfort, about why she would stay with a man whose attentions were always elsewhere. That refused to quiet itself, especially as he rode back home with the sun falling and night closing in.
Warm light spilled out of the windows of his home as he pulled into the driveway. He could smell dinner before he even opened the door. Rich, meaty, utterly mouth-watering scents of what he thought might be stroganoff of some kind. His stomach rumbled its impatience. It matched the impatience in his heart to see her again.
She had just dumped a pot of pasta into a colander to strain when he stepped into the kitchen. When she heard him, she turned, pot still in her hands, and smiled with such joy that his chest ached. Three quick strides took him across the floor. The pot clanged as she dropped it onto the counter.
He wrapped his arms around her, and for the first time since the wake-up that felt so very long ago, he felt whole. With her pressed against him, he could relax at last, and let the world fall away. Just for a moment. Just long enough to breathe.
“You made it back safely,” she murmured.
He pulled away enough to look down into her eyes. “I will always come back to you. I mean that. You won’t get rid of me so easily.”
“Can I not get rid of you at all?” Her tone held enough lightness for a joke, if he chose to take it that way, but he heard the sincerity beneath it.
In answer, he pressed his lips against hers. She leaned into him, and for a span of heartbeats, there was nothing but the kiss. They needed no other reply.
Once the kiss broke, she stepped back to eye him. “That fire district shirt looks really good, the way it’s all tight over your chest, but it can’t be comfortable.”
“It’s about two sizes too small,” he admitted. “They didn’t have bigger ones. My other shirt was done for.”
“A little peroxide, a few runs through the laundry, and it might survive.”
“I burned it.”
“Yeah, peroxide won’t fix that. Go put on another shirt. I’ll serve dinner.”
“Erin, about your—”
“Eat first.” She skewered him with a look. “Dinner. We can talk about it while you shovel food into your face hole.”
He wanted to argue. So did his stomach, which growled loud enough for her to hear. Outnumbered, he nodded. “I’ll go change clothes.”
“Thank you. My food is probably even edible.”
“Right now, I’d eat the ass end of a dead rhino.”
“I’ll just go ahead and take that as a compliment to my food preparation techniques.”
He laughed and ducked into the bedroom for fresh clothes.
She’d set out bowls of creamy stroganoff over the pasta she made when he emerged. A clever detective, she’d likely decided he drank the only cola in the fridge and poured that into a glass with ice for him. Paper towels had been folded into the most misshapen swans he’d ever seen and set next to each place at the table. It was a perfect dinner setting. Except…
“Ah. Is there a fork?” he asked as he settled in the chair.
“Shit, I knew I forgot something,” she said as she turned to go back into the kitchen.
The food tasted far better than an unlucky, deceased rhinoceros. He ate half the bowl before he realized he’d done so, and that he hadn’t said a word since he asked for a fork. “Sorry. I was hungrier than I realized. They gave us a snack around lunchtime, but I haven’t eaten since then.”
A smile played at the corners of Erin’s lips. “Nothing to be sorry for. It’s nice to take care of you.”
“You like taking care of people.”
“It’s what I do.”
“Who takes care of you?” He met her gaze.
The corners of her eyes crinkled. “I do that, too.”
“So the position of Caretaker of Erin is open.”
“Sure seems to be.”
“I’d like to apply.”
“Would you. Do you think you’re qualified?” She grinned.
“No one’s better qualified than I am. Want a demonstration?” He grinned his most wolfish grin back at her.
She awarded him with a blush. “I would, actually. But consider yourself hired pending an extensive probationary period for performance evaluation.”
“Challenge accepted.”
He tucked into his food again and let the silence lapse over them. By the way she prodded her food before she took a bite, he knew she had to feel the hot breath of the elephant in the room as keenly as he did. When she spoke, he hadn’t figured out how to approach the topic without killing the fragile moment of rapport they’d just created.
“When the Ferals attacked me on the way into town, I got a scratch somewhere. Not even a big scratch, or a deep one. Just a little scrape,” she said, gaze still on her food. “Then I had to deal with the Ferals who showed up. I had my hand halfway in one’s mouth when I pulled the trigger. Blood, or snot, or spit might have gotten on the wound. I didn’t notice until the scratch looked infected when I went to bed later.”
“But you didn’t see a doctor.”
“For a scrape? I get those all the time. Smoosh a little antibiotic ointment on it, cover it with a bandage, go on with my life.” She shook her head. “I never developed much of a habit for going to doctors. My parents didn’t encourage it. Too expensive. Then I couldn’t afford health coverage. Then I had it, but I got this idea that nothing was ever ‘bad enough’ to go ‘bother someone’ about it. I could just tough through it. Then Meg got sick, and I never wanted to see a doctor again.”
“You know she’d yell at you for that.”
“She would. And she’d be right.” Erin gave a rueful chuckle.
Shane managed a smile. “I’ll consider that my job from here on out. What about now? That looked like more than a cut earlier.”
“No. It’s worse, now. Over the last couple days, it’s gotten redder. Not enough to snap me out of the whole ‘it isn’t that bad’ denial loop, but redder. Then today happened.”
“What happened today?”
“I’m not sure. When I got close to that grocery store, it started to really hurt. Before I went inside, even. Getting close was enough. You saw it earlier. It’s gotten worse.” She held out her arm.
Much of her forearm had streaked with redness. Shane frowned. “Erin, someone needs to see that.”
“Who? The doctors here?” Her tone was gentle. “They’ll ask me how I got it. If I tell them, they’ll quarantine me, run tests, and I’ll never leave the hospital unless it’s in a box.”
Standard operating procedure. Knock the infected person out. Run tests. Dispatch them so they can’t spread the virus. Shane knew that too well, after Greg.
“I’ve seen Feral bites. That’s not what it looks like,” he said, but heard the voice of a far younger Shane pleading with his brother instead.
“No. It isn’t. I’ve clearly still got full cognitive function, too,” Erin answered, with the phrasing and tone of a frequent visitor to hospitals. “Maybe I could tell them I didn’t know where the infection had come from. Maybe I’d luck out and get a doctor who didn’t want to get to the bottom of it and would just give me some broad-spectrum antibiotics. But…”
“But.”
“But I’ve been having dreams.” He could hear the reluctance in her voice. “Twice now I’ve dreamed about a Feral doing something. I can see through his eyes, get a sense of his thoughts. Usually, he’s talking to a Feral who I think is the boss of all Ferals. They’re talking about some kind of plan, though I’m not sure what it is. But each time, I’ve ended up at the place the Feral was, and it’s just like I dreamed it. First it was the truck stop. Today, it was the grocery store. That’s how I knew about the barrels. I didn’t go into the refrigeration section. I saw them in my dreams. The Feral seems aware of me, too, because he talks about me. Calls me the Fixer.”
Ask the Fixer. She will tell you. T
he Feral’s voice hissed in Shane’s memory. A cold dread crept through his veins. They know her. And they’re waiting for her.
“Shane? Are you all right?” Erin asked.
He took a deep breath to steady himself. “I’m fine,” he lied. “One of the Ferals spoke to me today, before I lost my patience with our talk. He mentioned the Fixer. So I’m pretty sure that little scrape you got exposed you to the virus.”
Her face fell. The fork clinked against her bowl as she set it down. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“But.” He reached across the corner of table between them to take her hand. “The virus isn’t doing what I would expect it to. After two days, you should be hairy and trying to kill everyone around you. You aren’t. That could mean you have some natural resistance to it. Or you didn’t get enough in you to do more than give you some odd dreams and a sore arm.”
“Is that even possible?”
“I don’t know, but since that’s what’s happening, let’s assume it is.” Shane grabbed the tenuous hope to hold for both of them. “We don’t know everything about the Beast Plague. Shit, we don’t know hardly anything. Who’s to say you won’t beat it and come up with antibodies to help fix others?”
She bit at her lower lip. “I’d like for that to be the case. Do you think it could be?”
“I think you are the strongest person I have ever known. This won’t beat you. You won’t let it.” He squeezed her hand. “We won’t let it. I told you I’d take care of you, and I meant it. You don’t die on my watch, Erin Calloway. I love you too much to let you go.”
The words fell out of his mouth and into the tense hush of held breaths. Erin stared at him from the other chair, eyes wide and glistening, lips gently parted in surprise. Shane drew in a breath to stammer an apology or try to brush the admission away into a joke to laugh at. Looking into her eyes, however, he found he couldn’t do anything but speak the truth.
Brave the Night: A Bully Boys Novel Page 14