by E. A. Copen
I breathed a sigh of relief. “When can I see him?”
The doctor pressed his lips together as if he were thinking hard. “Ms. Black, when was the last time Hunter was swabbed for the presence of any... supernatural genetic mutations?”
I froze. My whole body felt cold. Hunter had undergone the test at the beginning of the school year and every year before that. We’d always lucked out and he came up negative, even though both of us knew he was a werewolf. I had hoped that Hunter was one of the rare two percent of people that the test couldn’t read properly. Maybe the school just wasn’t administering it the right way. If a positive test got back to BSI, they would take my son away from me.
It was standard procedure to rehome a child with a positive test if one or both parents didn’t share the same mutation. The literature said it was so that kids could be placed with mentors, people who knew and understood their condition, and could teach them. I could petition and file objections, but in the end, BSI would win out. They always did.
“Why?” I asked and then quickly added, “He had one done when school started. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
The doctor sighed and folded his hands. “Well, he was lucky. The bullet that struck him passed into his abdominal cavity. The accelerated rate at which he’s healing caused some complications in surgery. By the time we got him on the table, Hunter was already healing. We opened him with normal surgical tools and had a lot of trouble before switching over to the silver-plated tools. Unfortunately, the silver instruments halted all the healing. In fact, we saw a slight reversal.”
I shook my head. “What does that mean?”
“There were other, smaller injuries. By themselves, not fatal, since the bullets first passed through one of the other victims and slowed just enough to keep from doing any serious damage. But the bullets were silver and Hunter’s had a severe reaction. We’ve done what we can to stabilize him, and I’m starting him on a round of intravenous corticosteroids, but there’s a chance we could see some necrosis-”
“What are you saying?” I said sinking into a chair. “Is he okay, or isn’t he?”
The doctor gave a hesitant smile. “I think he’s mostly out of the woods thanks to the man who stepped in to intervene. Given time, he’ll heal most of the damage on his own. However, there’s likely to be some scarring from the silver.”
The automatic glass doors to the waiting area opened and Sal stepped in. The doctor glanced over at him and stood before saying, “He’s in recovery. It might be an hour or more before you can see him. I’ll let you know as soon as you can.”
The doctor wasn’t two feet away before Sal swooped in to give me a hug, practically knocking the doctor aside. I almost suffocated in the tight embrace, but even that was comforting. He almost seemed back to his old self. “Any news?” he said to Nina behind me.
Nina must have shaken her head because Sal nodded and pulled me back. I couldn’t meet his eyes. All I could think about was the mess Chanter’s body had been when I last saw it. I looked down at my clothes and realized they were bloodstained.
“He took one in the back of the head,” Valentino said in a quiet but firm voice from behind Sal. “Doc just said it was silver. We all know what that means.” He raised his voice and turned to address the others.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Sal answered, the muscles of his shoulders growing tense.
Valentino’s face hardened. “We all know he’s not coming back from it, Sal.”
Nina fell forward to sob into her hands at her husband’s words.
“We’re going to have to make some decisions,” Valentino said. “Decisions about what comes next.”
“You’re talking like he’s already dead, Val!”
“Can’t you feel him slipping?” Valentino shook his head.
Nina sobbed louder through her hands. Daphne patted her back and placed her head on her shoulder. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
Valentino looked from Nina to Sal, and I saw something subtle change in his face. “This is because of that shit with the Vanguard, isn’t it?”
I stepped away from Sal, moving between him and Valentino as they closed on each other. “Valentino, don’t.”
He didn’t pay me any mind. I might as well have not been there at all. Shauna jumped up from her place on the other side of the room and let out a low rumbling growl.
“If it weren’t for your stupid club, Chanter and Hunter would be fine,” Valentino said. “It’s always been them first and us second, hasn’t it?”
“Are you calling my loyalty into question?” Sal growled back. “You of all people?”
“Damn right I am. You can’t lead, not with your head so far up Istaqua’s ass. Any wolf who bows to that coyote shifter isn’t fit to be my alpha.”
“Valentino,” I snapped and pushed him back. “This isn’t the place or time for that!”
“Gotta do what’s best for the pack,” Valentino said.
Sal showed his teeth and growled, “Name the time and place. We’ll see who’s fit.”
“Chanter’s place. Dusk.” He turned his head. “Ed, you’re my second.”
Ed tucked his head between his shoulders and said in a small voice, “Me?”
“I’ll be his second,” Shauna volunteered, crossing the room to stand beside Sal. She looked up at him. “If you’ll have me?”
“It’s done,” Sal spat. “I’ll see you at dusk.”
“Excuse me.”
Sal turned and shouted, “What?” right into the doctor’s face.
The doctor didn’t so much as flinch. He must have been used to being snapped at by angry werewolves. “My name is Doctor Alvarez. I’m here to see the family of Chanter Silvermoon.”
Valentino shouldered his way forward to stand next to Sal. Nina pushed between them, chewing on her manicured fingernails. Valentino put his arm around her and squeezed. “Everyone in this room is family. You got something to say, you say it to all of us.”
I took in a deep breath, reached for Sal’s hand and squeezed. He didn’t squeeze back.
“I’m very sorry,” the doctor said. “But the damage was extensive, and even with his accelerated healing, the advanced stage cancer meant his body was unable to compensate even with the best care. He passed away a short while ago.”
Nina would have collapsed if Valentino hadn’t grabbed her and buried her head against him. She beat her hands against his chest and screamed into him. Behind us, Daphne sobbed loudly. Judging by the soft sniffling coming from Ed’s corner, he was crying, too.
A wave of cold passed over me and I shook uncontrollably. Even though I hadn’t known Chanter as long as the rest of them, he was my friend. A mentor. The one person I could trust even in the darkest times. I thought I was prepared for him to go, but not like this. He deserved better. I put a hand over my face and choked on my own tears.
The doctor said more, but I didn’t hear anything but snippets over the crying and quiet howling of grief in the room. He spoke of arrangements. Viewing. Offered counseling. Referred us to a priest. Being next of kin, the primary responsibility fell to Nina. She and Valentino went with the surgeon to make arrangements.
The rest of us sat, either crying or in a chilly state of numb disbelief. He was really gone. How could that be true?
Sal threw out a fist and hit the doorframe with a loud bang that left a crack in the wall. “Fuck this,” he growled and then stormed out of the waiting room. When no one else moved, I went after him.
“Wait,” Shauna called to me but I ignored her. I wasn’t about to let him grieve alone. Chanter had been the closest thing he had to a father.
Sal wasn’t running, but he had a long stride, especially when he was angry, so I had to run to catch him. It took me most of the hallway.
“Sal, would you stop and talk to me?”
He turned the corner headed out of the emergency room.
I turned the same corner, planted my feet and shouted, “Dammit, Sal, I
need you. Hunter needs you and they need you. And you need us. You don’t have to do this alone. If you walk away now, you’ll have lost more than just your fight with Valentino.”
The doors slid open, but Sal didn’t go through them. He stood under the flickering fluorescent light in the entry way while the triage nurse and several patients in the waiting room stared. His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath before he turned slowly back around to face me standing on the other side of the entry. “I can’t do anything here.”
“Neither can I,” I held my hand out to him. “But I don’t want to be alone.”
Sal took another deep breath before stepping forward to grip my hand. His face still looked like stone. I wondered if it had even hit him yet. “We should find Istaqua,” he said.
My phone rang. Thinking it might be the doctor calling since I’d left the waiting room, I fumbled to answer and put it to my ear. “Yes?”
“Be in my office in ten minutes, Judah,” Marcus said, his voice sounding irritated, and he hung up.
I frowned at the phone and thought about calling him back and telling him to go stake himself. The vampire wouldn’t be sympathetic to what I was going through. I didn’t think he had a caring bone in his body and wouldn’t fake it unless it drew him a profit.
“Mind if I come with?” Sal offered. “I could really use the walk.”
I wanted someone to be there when Hunter woke up, but I wasn’t sure that should be Sal. And I didn’t want to leave Sal alone, not in the state that he was in. Eventually, it would hit him, and I didn’t want him to be alone when that happened.
Chanter. Gone. God, what would the world be like without him? There was an icy pang in my heart. I brushed away more tears, and was hoping Marcus had some work for me. I needed something to keep me busy or I might fall apart, too.
“And I could use the company,” I said with a sigh. Sal took my hand again and gave it a weak squeeze. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.
Chapter Nineteen
Fitz Pharmaceuticals, Marcus’ company, was connected to the hospital via an underground walkway. Convenient, if you think about it. Probably borderline scary, too. Fitz was a drug lab that specialized in supernatural testing, supplies, and adaptive equipment. The fact that it was connected to the world’s premier supernatural hospital, and that Fitz’s CEO was one of the private hospital’s largest donors, that wasn’t shady at all.
Sal put an arm around me and walked with me like that all the way to and through the tunnel over to Fitz. It slowed the walk, making it take fifteen minutes instead of ten, but we both needed to hold each other up. After all the crying I’d done, I didn’t think I could have walked a straight line.
Cynthia looked up from her desk when we entered, eyes settling on Sal with a deeper than normal frown. “He’s waiting for you,” she said and then answered the ringing phone.
I pushed through the door and paused when I realized Marcus wasn’t alone. Istaqua was sitting in the chair in front of Marcus’ desk. He twisted to take Sal and me in before turning back around. Marcus waved us in. “You try my patience, Judah,” he said in an irritated tone. “In light of the circumstances, I’ll overlook your lateness, but don’t make it a habit. Come in and shut the door.”
I did as asked, but remained near the exit with Sal, crossing my arms. “What’s this about? I’d like to get back to my son.”
“This is about your son,” Istaqua said. “And Chanter. And if you’ve got half a brain in that thick head of yours, you’ll sit down and listen.”
“Do not speak the names of the dead,” Sal said, his growl vibrating the pens on Marcus’ desk.
Istaqua lowered his head. “So, he’s gone then.”
Marcus put a hand on Istaqua’s shoulder as he passed on his way to stand in front of me. “You have my sympathies, but there are things we must deal with. First, let’s deal with the small issue. I know your son isn’t registered with BSI. I also know how the tests came back earlier, and I know you don’t want those going further up the chain.”
“Are you going to blackmail me with that now? On top of everything else? God, you are an asshole.”
Marcus smirked. “Not if I don’t have to. Instead, know that I can stop those reports from making their way to your superiors. I can also choose not to stop them. Right now, it’s in my best interest to keep things the way they are and to intercept those reports myself rather than let them go to BSI.”
I couldn’t help it. I breathed a sigh of relief and closed my eyes. Hunter was safe from BSI for now.
“But,” Marcus continued, “the very fact that you don’t want him registered says much about you. I had thought you merely sympathetic to our cause and not so much of a rebel, Judah.”
I leered at him but Sal spoke for me. “If you’ve got a point, make it. Otherwise, we’ll be going.”
Marcus turned and paced back to his desk as if he hadn’t heard Sal. He pulled out his leather chair and sank gracefully into it, folding his arms over the surface of his desk. “Mr. Branaslav wasn’t able to track the van closely without drawing fire himself,” he said. “In the interest of the safety of bystanders, he withdrew, followed at a distance, and managed to record a license plate.”
“Give me the plate,” I said, stepping forward.
“It’s no use,” Istaqua growled. “They’ll have used an unregistered van or a stolen one. These assholes aren’t stupid. You’ll never get them that way, girl.”
Marcus nodded. “On the off chance, I did have a friend at the DMV run the plates. Unfortunately, they only confirmed what Istaqua is saying. The van was registered to a plumbing company and reported stolen late last night.”
“They’ll ditch it anyway,” Istaqua added. “And even if your ballistics matches bullets or traces serial numbers, you’re not going to get anything useful. Witnesses are giving conflicting descriptions. Everyone thinks they saw someone or something and nobody knows what the hell they actually did see.”
“There’s got to be some lead.” I shook my head. “Maybe if we find the van—”
“You’re missing the point,” Sal cut in. I turned and saw his eyes fixed on the side of Istaqua’s face. “By the time the legal system can do anything about them, they’ll be long gone, hiding behind someone or something.”
I put my hands on Marcus’ desk and leaned forward. “There has to be something we can do to find out who’s behind this.”
“We already know who’s behind it.” Marcus steepled his fingers. “At least, which group of people. The specific individuals have eluded us temporarily, but it’s only a matter of time before they’re found. I have every person I can spare on it.”
“Who?” Sal’s one-word reply was almost lost in a growl.
“And how do you know?” I added.
Marcus lifted a remote from the corner of his desk and pressed a button. The crackling fire on the screen to his right changed over to a news broadcast where a blonde, middle-aged reporter spoke into a microphone. She stood in front of the Dairy Queen where police were mulling behind yellow tape.
“...where a group of gunmen allegedly opened fire on the gathering of the local motorcycle group, the Tomahawk Kings, during a charity event. A source not wishing to be named, but claiming to be close to the Kings, states that the event was part of an effort to improve their image in the local community. That appears to have backfired. As you can see behind me, a crowd of protesters has gathered on the opposite corner, intending to march from here to Paint Rock in an effort to call attention to the rising supernatural-related violence in Concho County.”
The reporter turned and the camera panned back slightly to reveal a face that made me cringe. “I’m here with Don Phillips, businessman, volunteer firefighter, and head of the neighborhood watch covering this area. Mr. Phillips, has there really been that much of an uptick in local crime?”
“Absolutely,” said Don, leaning into the microphone. “I was born and raised here. Used to be you could walk down th
e street and grab an ice cream cone. Kids could stay out past dark and nobody locked their doors. Ever since they put that reservation down the road and that hospital in here, those people been coming by the dozens. Ain’t enough room for them all in the rez, so they live on the street here. They’re bringing crime. They’re on drugs. They’re rapists. As much as I hate to say it, this was bound to happen when you have so many monsters in one place.”
“I know that asshole,” I said through clenched teeth. “He was outside the Vanguard headquarters handing out pamphlets when I stopped by yesterday.”
“He’s a dues-paying member of the organization,” Marcus said after switching the screen off. “And so are more than half of the police who responded to the emergency call. As are the two detectives I hear have been assigned to the case.”
“That’s too much coincidence not to be a set-up,” Istaqua added. “The Vanguard are behind this, and they’ll try to cover it up, pin it on us. You can bet on it.”
“This is my case if it’s anybody’s.” I gestured to the blank television. “Nobody’s going to argue that this isn’t a supernatural crime.”
“But they are going to argue that, since your son was a victim, you can’t be impartial,” Marcus said with a frown.
“Best you can hope for is that they send someone else in to handle it,” Istaqua said grunting. “And you can bet that the Vanguard wouldn’t have made this move if they didn’t already have it set up for one of their own to come in.”
“But... BSI regulations prohibit membership in human or supernatural exclusive organizations,” I stammered.
“Agents also aren’t supposed to hide their werewolf kids from the government, Judah,” Sal said.
I lowered my head and stared at my hands pressed against the surface of Marcus’ desk, the fingers white and splotchy. My face probably was, too.
Marcus reached out and put his hand over mine. He was still wearing a wedding ring. “The Vanguard have people as high as congress, Judah,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. “They’re less open about their hatred and run a good PR campaign, making them look more like a charity and non-profit than a hate group.”