by Peter Moore
“I think so. You don’t mind if I have your mother come in for a moment?”
I told him it was fine, and he brings her in from the waiting room. “Is everything all right?” she asks.
“Yes, I think so. Danny mentioned a toothache, so I took some X-rays and found something a bit unusual.”
“Unusual is usually bad,” I say.
“Not necessarily.” He turns to Mom. “His genetic treatments were discontinued before completion, is that right?”
“Yes. He had seven rounds, but the doctors couldn’t finish the last three. Why do you ask?”
“I’ll show you.” He moves the monitor so I can look, too. I see the whitish teeth and light gray gums. Looks fine to me.
Dr. Loeb uses a sharp instrument from his tray to point things out on the image. “These are your permanent teeth, all of which look perfectly fine. I’m not sure why your fang-teeth don’t need filing, but that’s another matter. Now take a look here.” He points at white shadows beneath my regular teeth. “See these? Because you’re bi-specian, you were born with a set of wulf teeth deep in your jaws, underneath your vamp teeth. When genetic treatments are successful, the wulf teeth shrink down to tiny, calcified nubs that stay dormant. But something else is going on here.”
I’m not sure I like that sound of that, and I get this bad feeling he’s about to start talking about pulling a bunch of teeth. “What is going on?” I ask.
“The wulf teeth didn’t shrink. They’re almost full size.”
Looking at the X-rays, I have to agree. And the wulf teeth are kind of nasty looking, some with a bunch of sharp little peaks. “What does that mean?” I ask.
“Well, right here, you can see what caused that toothache you mentioned. This wulf tooth is a little higher—that is, closer to the surface—than the others. Which means it’s closer to the root of the vamp tooth above it. The other wulf teeth I assume are stable, but a good deal bigger than I had expected them to be.”
“Why do I have them?”
“My best guess is because the treatments were discontinued. The last of the treatments would have essentially killed the wulf-teeth structures and roots. But instead, they developed.”
He looked at the screen, obviously fascinated.
“What can we do about it?” Mom asks.
Here it comes, the part about me having to get thirty teeth pulled.
Dr. Loeb shakes his head. “As long as they don’t erupt or push against the other teeth, I think we should leave them as they are.”
“Do you think they’ll become a problem?” I ask.
“There’s really no way to tell.” He turns off the monitor. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
I don’t know. In the bathroom mirror, I look exactly the same as I always have. But there are too many things happening with my body—too many things to be coincidence. I don’t think I can ignore it anymore.
I put on my shirt and go back to my room. It’s almost noon, and the house is totally quiet. Everyone’s asleep.
The piece of paper is in the back of my desk drawer. I take it out and look at it. I had to write it down, because I used it so rarely that I couldn’t remember it.
I open my phone and dial the number.
The phone rings, and then I hear his voice. “Hello?”
“Hi. It’s Danny. I know this is out of the blue, but if you can, I need to see you. Dad.”
It’s been a while since I took the train into the city. The 7:34 p.m. train—the first one after sunset—is almost empty, which makes sense, because people who work in the city but live in the suburbs will be going home, in the opposite direction. Before going to bed I told Mom I’d be leaving for school early because I had to work on a social studies project with some kids from my class.
It’s only a twenty-seven-minute ride downtown. The train leaves the suburbs and enters an industrial area, then a neighborhood of run-down tenements at the city’s edge, where the poorer wulves and humans live. I’ll be getting off at the next stop.
I’m nervous. I haven’t seen him since I was twelve. I was in a play at Murnau Night Middle School, a shortened version of Our Town. I was Howie the milkman. Mom was there with Troy, who she was dating at the time. I invited Dad, but he told me he couldn’t make it because of a house that needed emergency roofing work.
My hair was still dirty blond then. At that point, my skin was just slightly darker than the average vamp’s. I could still pass.
When the play was over and we were taking our curtain calls, there was plenty of polite applause from the audience. Then came shouting from the back of the auditorium: “Yeah, Danny! Nice job, kid! That’s my son, there!”
I never found out if he was loaded or just really proud of me. But everyone in the auditorium looked back at the wulf, who was cheering and whistling. I could see Mom and Jess turn to face forward, their features like stone. They made sure to steer clear of him on the way out.
But he was really whooping it up at that curtain call. There was no ignoring him. “Is that your dad?” Tiffany Welsh asked.
A vocabulary word we had learned earlier in the week came to mind. I was mortified.
“I don’t know who that is,” I lied.
Word got out after that night: Danny Gray’s father is a wulf.
I never said anything to him about being embarrassed. But I resented him for letting the cub out of the bag, and I started to be busy on the weekends. Then, for some reason, I kept forgetting to return his phone calls.
It would have happened soon enough anyway, even without the play incident. That summer, my hair darkened and my growth slowed down, while all the other vamp kids got taller. Nobody, even people meeting me for the first time, could mistake me for a full vamp anymore. By then, things had already settled with my friends: the ones who were going to drop me because of my background had dropped me. The ones who could tolerate it were still around. But by that point, I wasn’t seeing Dad anymore.
Jessica dumped him suddenly and completely, though. I thought it was horrible, but I had no right to judge her: not too much later, I abandoned Dad, too. Only I’d been a lot closer with him than she had, so my betrayal was worse.
A lot of vamps would be nervous walking in this neighborhood. The buildings are run-down, and it’s not clean and sparkly like the North Side, but surprisingly, there’s not a lot of crime.
Looking around really brings back memories. I’d totally forgotten the huge ad painted on the side of the building next to the vacant lot. It’s a picture of a very serious-looking woman—whether it was human or wulf was left ambiguous—whose eyes seemed to follow you when you walked by. Even though the paint is faded now, I can still make out the words:
If You Know About a Wulf
Who Hasn’t Registered—Make a Report.
It’s the Right Thing to Do…And It’s the Law!
I have to stop to get my bearings at the corner. I haven’t been here in a while, and I’m not sure whether to go left here or the block after.
Across the street are two men wearing dark jackets with LPCB PATROL printed on the backs and down the sleeves, just in case anyone couldn’t tell from all their gear that they’re with the Lycanthrope Protection & Control Bureau. They have helmets and bulletproof vests, holstered pistols on their belts, and assault rifles slung over their shoulders. The shorter one keeps checking a small handheld computer in his palm. The taller guy is watching the pedestrians. Obviously, they’re looking for a moonrunner. If they find him, they’ll lock him up in the armored LPCB truck parked down the block. That is, if he doesn’t try to escape. If he tries and fails, he’ll leave in the coroner’s truck.
The Last Chance Diner has good food and is open twenty-four hours, so you get a mix of humans, wulves, and even a few vamps. A wulf in a raincoat is sitting at the counter, hunched over a mug of coffee. His white hair is short, and his head is knotted with the worst cranial ridges and scars I’ve ever seen. I have to turn away.
Dad is sitting in
a booth across from the counter. He stands up when I get there.
Awkward: handshake or hug? I put out my hand, and he does the same, then we both take a half step toward each other. It’s like a dance as we try to figure out what we’re going to do. I move closer, and we end up hugging with our clasped hands pressed between us. I remember that aftershave. Sandalwood. He pats me on the back, and we take seats across from each other.
He looks me over, smiling. There are little crinkles at the corners of his eyes that I don’t remember him having. “You grew some,” he says.
“Yeah. A lot of people think I’m gruesome.”
He laughs at the lame pun, then combs his fingers through his still-thick hair. There’s gray in there that I haven’t seen before.
“Well, you look good,” I say. “You hitting the gym or what?”
“Me? Are you kidding?” He pats his belly. “No gym for me. I’ve been trying to eat better, though. Cut out the steak and the beer. And I’m doing more work on the jobs, instead of playing foreman. Hard work; keeps me in some kind of shape.”
“It shows.”
“How you boys doing?” the waitress asks, appearing out of nowhere. She puts menus on the table. Her nose is flattened like a boxer’s. Wulf.
“You know what you want?” Dad asks.
“Um. Do you?”
“I’ll have a turkey club,” he says. “No fries, mashed if you got ’em. Thanks.”
“And you?” she says. She smiles at me and I notice a finger-wide scar running from the edge of her mouth all the way down her neck.
“Oh. I’ll have the same as him. Thanks.”
“SynHeme?” she asks. It sounds like there’s a little bit of extra politeness in there, but I could be imagining it.
“Sure. Thanks.”
“Ted?” the waitress asks.
“Just water for me. Thanks, Jeannie,” he says.
I nod a few times for no reason and take a look around the diner, mainly so I don’t have to look Dad in the eye. “Place looks exactly the same,” I say.
“Probably hasn’t changed in fifty years.”
“Huh. That’s good, I guess.”
“So…” he says.
“So.”
He drums his fingers on the top of the table. “How’s Jessica?”
“She’s fine. Thinks she’s the greatest thing since SynHemesicles.”
He laughs and cracks his knuckles. I forgot about those thick strong hands and his wide, square fingernails. “And your mother? Everyone else?”
“Mom is fine. And Paige, I think you met her once, she’s good. And you know, everyone else. Everyone is fine.”
“How about Troy? He treating you all right?”
“Troy’s just fine.” That might be hurtful to him, I realize too late. “I mean, we’re not close or anything. He’s just…kind of there. But he’s not a problem.”
“Good. Good.”
The rest of the conversation doesn’t get any less awkward. We talk about how I’m doing in school and about his business. Then we do the talk about sports and movies. The food arrives, and I think we’re both relieved to have something to do other than work so hard to make conversation.
“Was that enough for you?” he asks when he puts his fork down on his empty plate.
“Oh, yeah. Plenty. And very good.”
The waitress comes to the table to get our plates. “How about dessert?”
Dad looks at me, the hint of a smile showing at the corner of his mouth. “You up for it?”
This is from back when we spent time together. It should feel familiar and warm, but I still feel awkward. Maybe we just need to get back into it. “Of course.”
“Jeannie, do you have two nice big wedges of the banana cream for us?” he asks.
“Good choice.” She smiles at him as she takes our plates away.
He moves his napkin to the right, then back to the left. “Okay, let’s just get to it. Why did you need to see me?”
I feel like a little kid who’s been rude to his parent all day, then asks for a present the same night. “Well. There’s something I need to talk to you about, if it’s okay.”
“You can’t possibly be asking for money. I mean, if you are, I’ll do what I can, but I thought that Troy guy was loaded.”
“It’s not money.” I look around. The place is mostly full, and the tables are close together. That old wulf at the counter hasn’t moved an inch since I came in. “But the thing is, it’s kind of personal. Maybe we could go somewhere else, so we can talk in private?”
He nods and looks out the window. “We can go around the corner to my place, if you want.”
“Sure. After the pie?”
“Hell, yeah, after the pie. It’s already got our names on it.”
Of course I know his apartment, but it looks a lot darker and more run-down than I remember. Books and magazines on all the surfaces, including the floor. He still has the couch he’s had since the divorce. And it looked worn out back then. The only nice thing in the place is the big-screen TV.
“Have a seat,” he says. “Just push that crap over, or dump it on the floor.”
He goes into the kitchen. I clear a spot on the couch and sit. I’m feeling all jangly and nervous. I don’t even know how I’m going to say it to him.
He comes back in with some glasses and plastic bottles of Coke. “I was going to get you some SynHeme, but then I figured we wouldn’t end up coming here. Sorry.”
“That’s okay. I don’t need any right now anyhow.”
“Twenty bucks for a sixteen-ounce bottle. Unbelievable.”
“It’s a little cheaper when you have it delivered by the case. That’s what we do.”
“Right. Of course.” He puts the Cokes and glasses on the table and sits across from me in his easy chair. How am I going to do this?
“Okay,” he says. “What’s the big personal thing you want to talk about? I’m figuring it’s about a girl.”
“Oh, no. It’s not that.”
“No girlfriend?”
“Kind of. There’s a girl I like. I’m pretty sure she likes me.”
“Vampyre girl?”
“Actually, no. She’s human, but she goes to my school.”
He nods. I wonder if he’s secretly happy that it’s not a vamp girl. “Must be smart.”
“She’s very smart. Nice. Funny. Good-looking.”
“Sounds like the whole package.” My dad was always cool that way. That’s probably one of the reasons he and my mom split up. That, and her parents, who more or less disowned her when she married him, then ten years later offered her a big house and a ton of money if she would leave him. I guess she and my father were already fighting a lot, so they decided to call it quits. We moved into the big house in the Hills. And that was that.
Anyway, I don’t believe my father was interested in Mom just because she was beautiful and a vampyre and it was sort of moving up socially for him. He never cared about any of that. From what he’s told me, she was a lot of fun back then, and there weren’t any species issues between them. Not for him, anyhow.
“Okay, so it’s not girl trouble,” he says. “Let’s hear it.”
“I was just wondering.” Keep that voice steady and casual. “And you don’t have to answer if you don’t want, but how old were you when you had your first Change?”
“The first full one? I guess eleven, almost twelve. On schedule. Why?”
I don’t say anything for a couple of seconds. “What was it like?”
“You came to ask me what primitis is like? When you can find out all the details you want from a book or the Internet? Come on, now. What’s this really about?”
I haven’t said it out loud to anybody yet. “I think something’s happening to me.”
He takes a Coke and pours some into one of the glasses, then sits back and watches the foam dissolve. “You had treatments. Almost all of them.”
“I know.”
“So why would you think
it has anything to do with the Change?”
“Because. I know it sounds impossible, but what’s happening sure seems to me like primitis-Lycan-whatever.”
“Primitis Lycan–metamorphosis. No. You’re howling up the wrong tree. It’s got to be something else.”
I don’t say anything. He drinks.
But the subject is open now, so I can’t let it stop there. “They had to stop the treatments, though. Because I got sick.”
“Yeah, but you were almost done. Except for your hair and skin tone, you’re practically all vamp. You have the blue eyes, you got the smarts, and you have the Thirst. Oh, sorry. I don’t know what the politically correct expression is now. What makes you think you’re having a primitis?”
“One thing is that SynHeme is making me kind of sick. I sometimes feel like puking when I drink it.”
“That’s how I always felt when I tried it.”
“But you’re not a vampyre. That’s normal for you. I still have the Thirst, so it shouldn’t make me sick.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know what would cause that, but having a stomach ache doesn’t mean you’re going to Change.”
“I’ve been getting headaches,” I tell him. “I have aches in my muscles and bones. And joints.”
“Big deal. Flu.” I give him a look. “Oh. Right. Okay, so it’s not a flu. But it could be a thousand other things.”
“My teeth haven’t needed to be filed down for over eight months. Yesterday the dentist said that my wulf teeth never shrank. He said it was probably because the genetic treatments weren’t complete.”
He shakes his head and brushes his hair back with his fingers. There’s one small ridge on his temple. Other than that, his facial plates are perfectly aligned. “Okay, so the teeth business is strange. And the dentist could be right about the reason.”
“I’m stronger than I used to be.”
“Well, sure. You’re getting older and bigger.”
“No, I mean way stronger. Like weird strong.”
He nods, and I can see his jaw muscles working. He rolls his flannel sleeves down, then rolls them back up. After a minute, he gets up and turns on the table lamp next to the couch. He looks at my face. “Your eyes are still vampyre blue. When you look at the moon, do you notice anything…different?”