by E. A. Copen
The night felt cooler underground. I wished I’d worn a jacket, or at least long sleeves. Or maybe earplugs. The noise of idling motorcycles was deafening. Four of them had stopped in front of the black SUV and four behind, just as they had been when they pulled up to Tindall’s place. I wondered if they’d broken formation at all on the ride over. Sal sat at the head of the formation, directly beside the club president, Istaqua. Istaqua shut off his bike, and the rest followed suit as if it were habit. Then, they sat there, still as stone, in the newfound silence, waiting for an order that never came.
Sal turned his head, but thanks to his riding goggles and helmet, I couldn’t read his face. If he was surprised to see Zoe standing there, alive and well, he didn’t show it.
“This way, Judah,” Marcus said from inside the elevator.
I joined him, and he pressed the button that would take us to the fifth floor. The hospital directory on the wall next to me labeled the fifth floor ERMH Behavioral Health. The kid couldn’t be more than sixteen months old now. It had only been that long since I delivered her. What was a toddler doing in the behavioral health unit?
The stainless-steel elevator doors opened with a chime on a hallway of watered down yellow. A blue strip curled along at eye-level, creating the illusion of childhood whimsy. Marcus stepped out and made for a set of electronically locked doors, fiddling with his watch. As he approached, the light on the locking mechanism changed from red to green, and the doors swung open.
The ward beyond was done up in the same colors. Dead ahead in the center, and behind two blocky yellow columns, was a set of comfortable furniture upholstered in more bright colors. A poster tacked to the wall with tape showed a list of initials and a short, simple sentence beside each one. ‘Take my medicine’, ‘Attend therapy’. ‘Listen to the doctors’. ‘Daily Goals’ was written at the top of the poster and a fat, yellow sun with sunglasses grinned back. Half a dozen tables sat unoccupied to the left of that. Bookshelves lined the back wall.
A pale, grim faced teenager in hospital scrubs looked up from her place on the floor where she basked in the blue light of a big screen television. Her gaze was eerily empty, the muscles in her face slack. I knew that look. Defeat.
“Mister Kelley!” a woman’s voice exclaimed in a high-pitched, chipper tone.
It snapped me out of my thoughts, and I realized I’d taken three steps forward. Marcus and Zoe were behind me, standing at a semi-circular nurse’s station. The woman who had spoken wore Tweety bird scrubs and a nametag that read Uhl. She pushed her chubby cheeks up into a smile that made dimples. “I didn’t know you were coming,” she said.
“Here to check in on the special patient.” Marcus finished signing his name on a clipboard.
Zoe took the same clipboard and scrawled her name across it. Or, rather, she used the obvious pseudonym of Jane Smyth. Guess I ought to sign in, too, I thought and stole a glance back at the girl. She had her arms wrapped around skinny knees, rocking back and forth.
“She’s still in quarantine,” the nurse informed Marcus as I walked back over. “We haven’t moved her.” Nurse Uhl hesitated in handing the clipboard to me. “Do you need an escort?”
“No, no. We’re only going in for a peek,” Marcus promised.
We affixed white visitor stickers bearing our names to our clothes. Mine was the only one she misspelled, even though I wrote it clearly on the page. When I took the badge from Nurse Uhl, I applied it to my forehead, turned to the girl and stuck out my tongue. She gave me a weak smile.
Nurse Uhl glared at me, so I peeled it off and affixed it to my chest. “Sorry. My mistake.”
“I have rounds to finish,” she said with a frown and clutched another plastic clipboard to her chest before scurrying off.
Marcus bid me to follow him away from the nurse’s station in the other direction.
The ward was divided into four sections, pods one through four. Calling the sections pods felt like a sick joke. The girl in the lobby was an empty husk, probably medicated out of her mind as if she’d been grown in a pod, an emotionless clone of whoever she was before. Don’t get me wrong. Modern medicine can do a lot of good, but it kills me to see young people so medicated they don’t know what day of the week it is. There comes a point where quality of life ought to be considered over the sanctity of life itself. Too many people get it backwards these days.
We went into pod four, which broke further down into eight rooms, each with a cold, stainless steel door and an electronic lock. A double layer square of safety glass, reinforced with crisscrossed wire between the layers, was the only window inside the locked doors. Even those were covered with strips of black construction paper.
“Jesus,” I whispered. “I’ve seen prisons less secure.”
“The facility meets or exceeds all the statutes handed down by BSI for the mental health treatment of children and adolescent supernaturals,” Marcus assured me.
“They’re kids, not criminals, and if they’ve got something wrong, what’s locking them behind a reinforced door and doping them out of their minds going to do?”
Marcus stopped in front of Room F. “I don’t pretend to be a mental health expert. I don’t make the rules, and I didn’t design the facility.”
“You just fund it.” I frowned.
“BSI funds forty percent of it.”
Zoe pressed up against the door and stood on her tiptoes to lift the black square and peer inside. Marcus put a hand on her back, fiddled with his watch some more and the door buzzed open.
It looked just like any patient’s room might: sterile, threadbare, devoid of all but the most essential equipment. There was only one monitor tracking her condition and no furniture other than the plain crib and a camera with a blinking, red light. The crib itself was white, egg-shaped, and made of shatter-resistant plastic.
Zoe pushed past me and went to the crib. She tucked her arms gently under a small child and lifted her, careful not to bump the IV. Zoe’s little girl was big for a toddler. The last time I had seen her, she was a newborn. Almost fifteen months had passed since then, and she’d grown into a toddler with curly, dark hair and a cute, wide nose. A thin, white, liquid filled tube ran out of her nose and to a machine on wheels. She looked like she was asleep, except that her eyes were open and fixed on the ceiling.
“She’s beautiful,” I said.
Zoe tucked her child’s head against her chest and turned her back to me, rocking the girl gently.
I looked to Marcus. “What’s wrong with her? Why is she here?”
“She’s torporic.” I turned around to regard a bespectacled man, small of stature with thinning, grayish hair. He shuffled in wearing a white coat, gave a stiff bow, and spoke in such a soft voice that I had to strain to hear him even though I was only feet away. “Welcome, Agent Black.”
I hesitated, not sure how to respond. In the end, I decided on, “Uh... hi.”
“Judah, this is Doctor Han,” Marcus said from behind me.
“Doctor Han?” The name was familiar to me, and it took me longer than it should have to remember where I had heard that name before.
Doctor Han lifted his head but did not straighten his back. The light caught on his glasses and he pushed his age-spotted cheeks up into a tight smile. “I see you’ve heard of me,” he said quietly.
“You’re a geneticist. You worked with Andre LeDuc. Didn’t he wreck your lab?”
Han finally stood and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Indeed. He destroyed over a decade’s worth of research in his jealous fit and in pursuit of his selfish goal. But that is in the past. Holding onto that will not help Mia.”
“Mia?”
He gestured to the little girl. “Mia Matthias.”
“You said she was torporic?”
“A non-responsive state characterized by low body temperature and a slower metabolism for the preservation of energy.” Han stepped closer. “Similar to hibernation.”
“Like the old vampire legends,” Zoe added in a grave tone. �
��They were supposed to look dead during the daytime. Dead but aware, unable to call out for help.”
“Indeed,” Han added. “Unresponsive to outside stimuli. Yet her EEG and MRI scans suggest they vary between periods of complete awareness and a dream-like state.” He lifted a stethoscope to his ears and pressed the other end against Mia’s chest.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “If she’s practically comatose, wouldn’t a coma ward be a better fit? And how long’s she been like this? What’s it got to do with me?”
Marcus put a hand on my shoulder and gestured back to the door. “One question at a time.” We stepped out into the hall, and he slid the door mostly shut before he continued, “It started last week.”
I crossed my arms. “Last week? How long has the girl been in your care?”
“Do you want your answers, or do you want to make accusations and dredge up the past?” Marcus snapped. “Because one course will help that child, and the other will not be good for your health, Judah.”
After a long moment of staring him down, I let out a breath, turned my head, and muttered, “Fine. Just tell me about Mia’s condition and how you think I can help.”
“Her condition began with nightmares,” Marcus answered.
That got my attention. Nightmares were usually benign, the brain’s way of working through fears or problems. Whenever they were listed as a first symptom, there was always the chance that there was more to it. Curses, damage to the aura, or even demonic possession all manifested as nightmares in the beginning, but it didn’t mean Mia had any of those conditions. Plenty of other mental health problems manifested as nightmares first, too.
Marcus paced away from the door and sat on a wooden bench against the wall. “Nightmares became hallucinations and then fits.”
“When you say fits, are we talking about tantrums or seizures?”
“Seizures. The first ones were small. Thankfully, none have left lasting damage, at least not that Doctor Han can ascertain. But shortly after the nightmares began, she became ravenous. She would eat until vomiting and then weep, begging for more. I thought at first she’d taken after her mother, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Less than twenty-four hours after the hunger struck, she weakened and became unable to eat or drink. The downhill trend was fast and violent, Judah. I did my best to place her somewhere she could receive the best around the clock care with discretion.”
“Anonymity,” I realized out loud. “She’s here because mental health records are the only ones I don’t have access to without authorization from a parent or guardian.”
He folded his hands. “And you wouldn’t get authorization without opening a formal case against me. The girl is here because, like the priest who brought her to me, I don’t want BSI to know she exists.”
I uncrossed my arms and put my hands on my hips as I took up pacing. “And yet I’m here.”
“Here and sworn to secrecy.”
“This isn’t something I can help with.” I shook my head. “Your doctors—”
“Doctor Han is the top medical mind in his field. His team was handpicked from a pool of thousands, and they have access to the best, most accurate testing that money can buy. They all conclude the same thing. There’s no medical cause for Mia’s current state, not physical or mental. Therefore, the natural next step is to assume it must be something metaphysical, something spiritual in nature.”
I stopped pacing and glanced over to the door, behind which a little girl was dying for no reason. As much as I wanted to disagree with Marcus, his argument was sound. I couldn’t walk away, not without first offering to do what I could.
“I want you to save her,” Marcus said.
“And if I can’t?”
His eyes narrowed and he showed me fangs. “Then I will get irritable. And I’ve already told you what happens then. I will not start with you.”
“Yeah, I got that the first time.”
“I dislike the use of threats.” He adjusted his jeweled cufflinks. “Please, don’t give me cause to make good on them.” He nodded to me and exited the pod.
Chapter Two
The door to Mia’s room creaked as I pushed it open. Han’s lips straightened to a thin line but didn’t look up from injecting a clear fluid into Mia’s IV port. Zoe held her daughter’s limp hand. Dark streaks painted Zoe’s cheeks and swept aside in ashen lines below her ear, tell-tale signs that she had cried through her mascara. When I entered, her face was as unmoving and resolute as stone.
“So,” I said, tucking my hands into my jeans pockets. “Marcus seems to think whatever’s wrong with her is metaphysical in nature. What do you think, Doctor Han?”
Han discarded the plastic syringe in the biohazard bin. “Traditional medical science has not improved her condition. The best I can do is keep her comfortable and her organs functional.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He frowned at me. “My professional opinion is that there is nothing physically wrong with her. However, there are variables I can’t account for that may be genetic in nature, as Ms. Matthias is fully aware.” He turned to nod at Zoe.
“You finished in here, doc?” I asked
Han took a clipboard from the end of the crib and clicked his pen before he marked his initials. “I’ll check back in an hour.” He offered us both a formal farewell with a fake grin and another bow before exiting.
I strode over to stand on the other side of the crib across from Zoe. “Zoe, if you want my help, if you want her to have the best chance, I need to know everything you and Doctor Han know.”
Another tear trailed down over her angular cheek. She stood in silence, the muscles of her jaw flexing as she fought the tightness and worry in her throat. I knew that look all too well. Stubborn anger. She knew she needed my help, but she didn’t want to think about it, let alone discuss it out loud.
I lowered my voice an octave. “Zoe, is Mia a wendigo?”
Another tear fell when she laughed in response. She wiped it away and looked up. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Kill us both, wipe us away like we’re some kind of dirty secret.”
“I’d never hurt a child. Never. But if she is, then I need to know.”
Zoe reached down and brushed a curl away from Mia’s eyes. “Mia is a werewolf, like her father.”
The skin on my arms and neck prickled. My brain went to work, trying to process what she’d just said, weighing it against the facts I thought I knew. Sal and Zoe had trouble conceiving and had turned to science to make it happen. After she miscarried, the two of them had grown distant. In hopes of fixing things, Sal sent her on a trip to Canada where she supposedly hooked up with LeDuc. Sal had said it was LeDuc’s baby, that Zoe only came back long enough to get her things and finalize their divorce. He had been so sure the child couldn’t be his because of the affair.
Andre LeDuc had worked closely with Doctor Han and even shared a lab with him. That’s why I’d been so surprised to find him there in the behavioral health unit. Why was he tending to Mia and not a psychiatrist? The rapid-fire question and answer in my rational brain was slower than the answer that came out of my mouth.
“Is she...”
“A genetically engineered masterpiece.” Zoe wiped away another tear. “The result of a decade of research. A werewolf child immune to all the negative effects of silver. One step removed from the perfect predator Andre sought to create.”
That explained why Marcus was so interested in Mia’s survival. He and his pet geneticist, Han, might still be able to salvage some of the research LeDuc had stolen or destroyed by studying Mia. It was why he was so careful to keep her out of BSI reach.
“But that means—”
“Yes. Mia is Saloso’s daughter.” She squeezed Mia’s hand. “That was the deal we struck. I would bring the genetic samples to him, and he would give us a child. I didn’t tell Sal. He was so broken after the first loss, I couldn’t let him dare to hope. It was supposed to be a surprise. But when I got there,
the treatments changed me. I was a monster. And like seeks like. I knew I couldn’t go back to my husband. Instead, I set all my efforts to making her... perfect in every way. She’s the future for all of us, my Mia.”
I touched a hand to my head as if that would steady the dizziness and leaned against the wall. That was big news, bigger than I could process all at once. Sal had a daughter. He had a daughter that I had let get kidnapped and remain lost for over a year. A year! And how much of that time had she spent with Marcus Kelley and Zoe Matthias? How long had she been among monsters?
“Does Sal know?” I stammered.
“If he did, do you think he would be out in the parking garage instead of in here?” I pushed away from the wall using my hip and took a step toward the door only to stop when Zoe snapped, “And where do you think you’re going?”
“He deserves to know.”
Zoe’s growl vibrated through the room, loud, low, and inhuman. In a blur of motion and rustle of fabric, she rushed me and drove a fist into my gut. My vision shrank to a pinpoint as the air went out of me. I sank to my knees and then fell over, my head bouncing off the laminated floor. Zoe’s face hung in my vision behind a wall of sparking pain, her hand drawn back and fingers grown into claws, ripping through the human skin.
“Let’s get one thing straight. Mia is my daughter. Mine! And the only thing I have in this world. If he knew, he would take her away from me. I won’t let that happen, not so long as I live. Breathe one word of this to Sal and I will rip your beating heart out of your chest and eat it in front of you!”
“If you kill me then who will help Mia?”
Zoe’s answer was an angry hiss. Her eyes lit up with the yellow light of rage, and she swept her hand down, flinging me against the wall as if I were nothing. I landed on my face and didn’t bounce off so much as slide down. My chest, nose, and arms were screaming in blind, burning pain, so I just lay there and curled up, trying to will it away.
“Maybe I would do better to take out my frustrations on your son,” Zoe’s voice dripped venom.
I blinked away tears and rolled over. Twice, I tried to push myself up on wobbly arms and fell back down. “Do you really think I’d let you go anywhere with a kid, bitch?” I sat back on my knees and wobbled. “You don’t get to keep her. Not you, not Marcus. Not for your sick, twisted experiments and research!”