Pack Dynamics

by Julie Frost

  “Your head hurts?” Her brow creased more than it already was.

  “Just enough to let me know it’s there, not a lot. Why?”

  “I don’t know. It might be nothing. Keep me posted?”

  “Yeah, okay.” He gestured toward the ceiling. “I’d better go up and let Janni know I’m all right. She worries a lot.”

  Megan put a hand on his arm. “She’s a keeper, Ben. You know that, right?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He gave her a cheerful grin. “Not letting her go. In fact, there’s a ring with her name on it upstairs.”

  “Ask her sooner rather than later.” She smiled back. “Gotta say, I’m a little jealous of you two.”

  “Don’t know why she puts up with me, but I don’t question it.” He turned and headed toward the stairs. “I’ll let you know if I feel anything else strange.”

  He found Janni puttering around in the kitchen, making herself a cup of coffee. Her shaking hand spilled the sugar on its way into her mug, and he wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed her hair. “Hey,” he said gently.

  She leaned into him. “Hey. Everything okay?”

  “Far as I know. And if it’s not, we’ll deal. Can’t be any worse than what we’ve already been through, right?”

  She turned around and buried her face in his chest. “How can you say that? If there’s one thing this has taught me, it’s that it can always get worse.”

  “We’re on the downhill side now, honey. Ostheim has what he wants, the case is over and done with, and the guy with the biggest brain in the state is working on a cure for what ails me.”

  “Ostheim still wants you dead, though, doesn’t he?” She trembled against him, and he rubbed circles on her tense back. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you looked when you came home the night before last.”

  “I guess telling you that I tangled with a pack of coyotes wouldn’t fly?”

  She snorted. “No.”

  “So, yeah, we probably need to contact him somehow and have a conversation about boundaries and not crossing them. In the meantime …” He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

  Ben bounded upstairs to their room and closed the door behind him, huffing a little. And frowned. First of all, that tiny bit of exertion shouldn’t have winded him, and secondly, he didn’t have to breathe anyway. What the hell?

  He was still getting used to his new physiology, so maybe this was just another oddity. He’d tell Doc Allen about it anyhow, because it paid to be cautious, but right now he had bigger fish to fry. He opened the dresser drawer and pulled out the leather case he kept his Glock in. Unzipping it, he palmed the little black velvet box inside and stuck it in his jeans pocket after checking the simple gold solitaire ring. He’d waited long enough.

  This wasn’t how he’d wanted to do it. He’d wanted to take her someplace with atmosphere, candlelit and intimate, after giving her a bouquet of roses as big as she was. Hell, with his new status, he wasn’t sure that asking her at this particular moment was a good idea at all.

  But he had to ask her, had to know exactly where he stood, because she was the only reason he hadn’t ditched this whole crazy life a long time ago. Even so, he wouldn’t have stayed if she didn’t seem to thrive on putting him together after he came apart. But his tenuous grip on sanity, even before the vampire thing, had been tightening, the nightmares and panic attacks getting less common, fewer events setting them off. Lately notwithstanding.

  Which had been why he’d bought the ring. He didn’t want her to think that he was asking her to marry him to trap her into some sort of codependent vortex—the fact that he needed her less made him want her more.

  Ben plucked a fat red rose out of the vase at the foot of the stairs on his way to the kitchen, and Janni’s eyes widened when he handed it to her without saying a word and gave her a smoldering kiss. She relaxed into him and returned the kiss with interest, eyes wide open. Her eyes had always been open when it came to him. He thanked whatever Providence had led her his way that cold night two years beforehand when he’d been so ready to take his own life but unwilling to give anyone the burden of watching him do it.

  He broke the kiss and rested his forehead on hers. “I love you.”

  There, he’d said it.

  She searched his face and smiled that smile she saved just for him. “I love you, too.”

  And his eyes closed with relief, because he knew it, but hearing her say it meant everything. He dropped to one knee and pulled the box out of his pocket, nearly dropping it before his hand tightened around it. “Marry me, Janni.”

  Her mouth formed a little “o” of surprise; nothing had really led up to this and the timing sucked and for a second fear made his barely-beating heart stutter in his chest because he thought she’d say no.

  But then she was on her knees, too, and hugging him and saying “Of course I will, you silly man, I thought you’d never ask,” and he was putting the ring on her finger and kissing her again and he’d never been this ridiculously happy in his entire life.

  Naturally, Janni’s phone picked that very moment to ring. She broke the kiss, rolled her eyes, and looked at the screen. “Oh. Work. Should probably take this.”

  Ben sat back on his heels while she answered the call.

  “Hey, Renee. Fine, fine … Yeah, I had an emergency, but it’s okay now … Oh, um, I think so.” She covered the phone with one hand. “We don’t have anything this afternoon, do we? Cathy called in sick.”

  “No, we’re good. Go ahead.” Ben hoped he kept the regret out of his voice, because he would have liked to have Janni to himself today, but the money wouldn’t go amiss.

  “Sure,” Janni said into the phone. “Eleven thirty? All right. Sure, see you then.” She snapped it closed and glared at it. “And no, I’m not going to tell you what the emergency was, Renee. Hmph. I may have to make something up.”

  “I had a wreck,” Ben offered. “Or I was a wreck. Not too far off.”

  “Something.” She made a face and checked the time. “I probably ought to get ready to go. The job is way over on the other side of the valley.”

  He stood and started to offer her a hand, but a head rush hit him so hard he had to brace himself on the counter to keep from falling over.

  “Ben?” Janni was up, her hands on either side of his face.

  “Whoa.” He raked his fingers through his hair. The headache had become a definite pounding. “I should’ve had more for breakfast.”

  “Maybe I should call her back and tell her I can’t come …”

  “Nah, honey.” He pulled her to him and nuzzled her ear. “Sooner we figure out what normal is, the better. You going to work like nothing’s wrong is normal. Go. You already missed a day this week because of all this crap.”

  She pulled back a little and examined him. “You sure? Because we’re so far from normal I’m not sure I remember what that was. And something might be wrong.”

  One side of his mouth quirked. “When is there not something wrong with me? This is only sort of new. Seriously, honey, go.”

  That tiny line was back between her eyebrows. “Okay. But you call me if—”

  “I will. Go.”

  O O O

  McFoucher glumly watched the rabbit she’d injected with the nanoretrovirus. “Rabbit” being relative, because its size had tripled, and it had transformed into a wolf and now spun in circles in the cage, snarling.

  “What the hell is that?” Doc Allen asked, coming out of the elevator smoking one of his ever-present cigarettes.

  “That is a failed experiment, I think,” she answered. “But I’ve got four more test tubes to go.” She gestured at the nanotech fabber, which hummed happily away with blinking lights and some digital readout she couldn’t decipher. “Mr. Jarrett ginned some nanotech up for us last night.”

  “Need some help?”

  “I have to put this one down to find out what went wrong. If you could bring me four
lycan-vamp bunnies so we could get it over with all at once, that’d be great.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Doc Allen nodded and left, trailing smoke behind him.

  Alex’s gun sat beside his computer, and she was going to have to use it because they still hadn’t figured out a better way of killing the rabbits. Ugh. Maybe she should sedate the creature first; getting a clean head shot on something whirling around that fast would be iffy at best.

  She found the pole syringe—which Alex had told her he’d ordered in when they’d found the rabbits—and injected the bunny with a massive dose of sedative. However, the anesthetic had little effect, and she had to poke it three more times before it dropped and she could kill it with the gun. And she took two shots to do that because she wasn’t experienced with firearms and flinched hard the first time she fired it.

  She made a mental note to hide the pole syringe when Lockwood was in the room. She had the feeling he’d react violently to it.

  By that time, Doc Allen had brought her four lycan-vamp bunnies. “Want me to necropsy this one?” he asked.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Nope, not at all,” he said cheerfully, opening the cage and grabbing the rabbit, which had resumed bunny form as soon as it had died. “Should be informative.”

  McFoucher sedated the new rabbits and injected them with the nanotech from the other test tubes. Hopefully she’d get better results than the first one.

  O O O

  Ostheim had been in his study for about an hour when Idna joined him. They’d run on the beach the previous night, which had invigorated him, and he had energy to spare. “How are you feeling, my dear?” he asked.

  “A little … odd.”

  Every muscle in his body went tense, and the smile froze on his face. “How do you mean?”

  “My head hurts, quite a bit. And I’m dizzy and out of breath. Why am I out of breath? I don’t breathe.”

  He felt cold, and he stopped himself from saying “It didn’t work,” because it hadn’t, clearly, but he didn’t want to say it to Idna. And he was short on resources now, without McFoucher or Reed on his team. He hated to admit it, but he’d hit a dead end. He might have to go crawling to Jarrett after all. The thought made his claws extend and the hair sprout on his back.

  “Hans?”

  “It’s fine,” he managed. “It’ll be fine, Idna. Have some breakfast. I’ll see what the doctors say.”

  She left, supporting herself on the wall. He swore under his breath. He would find a way to fix this.

  No matter what it took.

  O O O

  Alex wandered downstairs into the living room, scrubbing his hand through his shower-dampened hair and feeling rested after a few hours of sleep. He stopped short when he saw Ben sprawled on the couch, his arm over his face. “Are you all right, Ben? You look like shit.”

  Ben didn’t move his arm. Every line of his body radiated exhaustion. “Yeah, thanks, that … makes me feel better.”

  “Let me see you, man,” Alex insisted.

  Ben’s arm fell down alongside the sofa, his hand thunking on the floor, and Alex’s mouth dropped open as his heart sank.

  “Whoa. Downstairs, now!” Alex said. Ben’s face was pale, even for a vampire, and the skin around his eyes was smudged with such dark circles he looked as though he’d gone ten rounds in a boxing ring. Alex helped him up and got a shoulder under his armpit. “Where’s Janni?”

  “She got … called in to work,” Ben mumbled.

  “And you let her go?” Alex hit the button for the elevator, because the stairs were out of the question.

  “I didn’t feel this bad … two hours ago.”

  “No? How did you feel two hours ago?” The doors opened, and they stepped in.

  “Little dizzy, headachy, winded. Like I’d run a long way.”

  “You tell anyone?” Alex asked.

  The elevator finished its descent, and they exited into the basement. Alex half-carried Ben to an office chair, where he collapsed, while Megan stared in horror at his condition. Michelle made a precipitous escape, muttering something about rabbits.

  “And be subjected … to more needles? No.”

  Dammit, this almost looked like what Idna had, from what Ostheim had told him. “Hell, Ben, you should have said something.”

  Ben’s head had sunk to his chest, and he looked up at Alex without moving anything but his eyes. “Hey, Alex, I don’t feel so hot.”

  “Yes, very useful,” Doc Allen said, coming over with a stethoscope. He listened for a moment. “Huh.”

  “What does that mean?” Ben asked.

  “Your heart rate is elevated. Also, you’re breathing, and your lungs sound terrible, not to put too fine a point on it.” Allen spun on his heel. “You’re not going to like this, but I need another blood sample.”

  Ben’s eyes slid shut. “Fuck me.”

  “How much of what have you had to eat today?” Allen asked, stripping the packaging off a syringe.

  “Pint of blood at breakfast. That’s it. Wasn’t very hungry.”

  “Little poke.”

  Ben’s claws extended, and he bared and clenched his teeth, which had grown bigger. But not as big as Alex had expected, and he had no idea if this meant that their pet hacker was getting jaded to his needle phobia or if he just didn’t have the energy to react anymore.

  Allen swore. “You should have eaten more this morning. There’s not enough blood in your veins to keep a friggin’ cocker spaniel alive.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ll make do, but you need to have at least another pint, if not two. Three if you can handle it.”

  Alex took the hint and called Chambliss, who appeared a few minutes later with a huge mug of warmed blood and handed it to Ben. Ben cupped his hands around it and sipped slowly, and his color came back after a few minutes.

  “Better?” Alex asked.

  “Little bit, yeah.” He took a longer swallow. “Maybe I was just hungry. And tired. Haven’t gotten much sleep this week.”

  Alex didn’t believe that for a second. He didn’t know from vampires, but Ben looked far from healthy, although he was better now that he’d had more nourishment. “You should rest.”

  “Mmm. Would rather have something to do.”

  “Haven’t got anything right now, unless you want to be poked and prodded some more.”

  “Will it help?”

  Alex glanced over at Doc Allen, who was frowning over a microscope with a cigarette dangling, forgotten, from his mouth. “Doc?”

  “Bone marrow sample would be handy,” Allen said.

  Ben’s renewed color drained from his face. “I know what that entails, and I’d rather not.”

  “Just not sure what we’re dealing with here, and the more information I have the better. Wouldn’t mind doing a lumbar puncture either.”

  “I’d mind.” Ben emptied the mug and set it on the desk.

  “I know. Get some rest; I’ll work with what I’ve got for now,” the Doc said.

  The hospital bed had been pushed over to one side of the room, and someone had changed the bloody linens since Ben had wrecked it. He got up carefully from the chair and made it over without assistance, although Alex stood ready to help if he needed to.

  Ben sank onto the mattress with a sigh that sounded like relief. “Someone should call Janni …”

  “She’s not answering her phone,” Megan said. Of course she was on top of this. She always was. “I’ll keep trying.”

  “Yeah, she turns it off when she’s working …” And Ben was out.

  “You’re gonna want to see this,” Doc Allen said to Alex, gesturing at the computer screen, where Ben’s DNA sequence was up.

  “Gaps. Shit. Dr. McFoucher!” Alex hollered.

  Michelle poked her head into the room, noted where Ben was, and walked over to the work station. “That’s not good.”

  “Tell me it’s not the same thing Idna had.”

  “If I said that, I’d
be lying and you’d fire me.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “It must have been transmitted to him when we—” She stopped awkwardly, not wanting to finish the sentence.

  “You think? I thought that procedure was supposed to cure it,” Alex said, with some heat.

  “It did, in the rabbits, but you know as well as I do that results aren’t necessarily the same across species.” She rocked back and forth on the heels of her sensible shoes. “And Ostheim didn’t let us wait to see the long-term effect. For all I know, those rabbits we thought we cured are dead now. I wonder how Idna’s doing.”

  Alex didn’t care how Idna was doing. “But whatever this is doesn’t affect werewolves or humans, right? Strictly a vampire thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then if we get rid of the vampirism, werewolf healing and nanotech will take care of it, logically.” Alex cracked his knuckles. “Let’s get to work. Quickly, people.”

  O O O

  “Ugh, not that,” McFoucher said to the room at large a couple of hours after a working lunch. “Cross cryonics off the list. Might have cured it, but I couldn’t save the eyes, and the toes and ears fell off. None of these nanoretroviruses worked either.”

  Two of them had killed the rabbits outright, just boom, dead—which might come in handy sometime, she thought. The other two had induced the same rage state that the first one had, although at differing levels of intensity. One, in fact, had caused the wolfy rabbit’s heart to literally erupt out of its chest in a messy and spectacular explosion.

  “Any luck with starfish regeneration?” she asked Jarrett.

  “Not so much.” He sipped from his fifth cup of coffee, which he’d dolloped a generous measure of scotch into, and she wondered where he was putting it all. “Still don’t know what the mechanism is.”

  Janni burst into the room. “Where is he? Damn traffic.” She caught sight of Lockwood sleeping across the room, and was over there so fast McFoucher wondered if she’d levitated. “Ben?”

  His eyes blinked open. “Job done with, honey? How’d it go?”