Renegade

by Donna Boyd

  “The pack has been misled for centuries,” he said. “It rightfully should have belonged to the Fasburgs from the time of Eudora, and so it would have done had it not been, oddly enough, for the intervention of a human.” Again he smiled faintly and without humor. “You have always had such admiration for the Devoncroix, but surely by now you realize that it is the Fasburgs who are, and always have been, the civilized ones. The Devoncroix are savages who, at best, can only attempt to emulate our example. Shall I tell you now the truth about the legendary Eudora and the vow that changed the world? I am surprised your research has not already uncovered it. All the evidence was there. Perhaps if you had been less eager to believe the myth of the Devoncroix you would have seen it.”

  He walked over to the window and stood for a moment, looking out. “What a wretched place,” he murmured. “Yet utterly suitable for a dynasty that was built on greed and excess.”

  He turned back to me. “The story is told that Eudora the queen arose from the bloodied body of her beloved human filled with angst and regret that his life had been so carelessly lost, and in consequence she sent forth the decree that no loup garou should ever again spill the blood of a human. Upon this act of great enlightenment, supposedly, a new era of peace and prosperity was ushered in and the modern world was built. In fact, the decree came later, much later, when Eudora’s scientists discovered that, while the cure for the Scourge that was killing their children was found in the virus with which the priest had infected himself, its actual cause had a much darker origin. The Devoncroix, you see, were an ancient line whose power and fame among our people was a result of their prowess as hunters. And what they hunted, even in Eudora’s time, were humans. Untold centuries of wantonly consuming human flesh had resulted in the genetic characteristic that is now known as the Devoncroix Effect. It was this which was responsible for, among other things, the Scourge. So the good queen Eudora, herself somewhat of a connoisseur of human flesh, issued the decree not to save the human race, but to save her own. An irony that she should have been so desperately misunderstood throughout the centuries, wouldn’t you agree? And an even greater irony that it was the Devoncroix Effect itself which allowed this monster to be created.”

  I remembered the chromosome in the strand of David’s DNA where the Devoncroix Effect should be. I tried to make sense of it. I could not.

  “Suppose it is not a monster at all,” I said, “but only a natural stage of evolution. Or suppose even further that it is an evolutionary correction. What if the hybrid is the original species, and you and I are the mutants?”

  His eyes widened with surprise and delight, as though he were impressed with my cleverness. “Excellent speculation, my boy, however irrelevant. But your reasoning is of course fundamentally flawed. One must guard against romanticism in the scientific mind. ”

  I said, “The Devoncroix hybrid was created by nature. It was not yours to destroy.”

  He said flatly, “It was an abomination. It would have weakened the species, and destroyed the pack. But more importantly, its very existence has done the one thing centuries of plotting, subterfuge and determination have failed to do: it has brought down the dynasty of the Devoncroix.”

  I said, very quietly, “Not yet it hasn’t.”

  He simply smiled. “My dear young fellow, you surely don’t believe that I would have allowed a plan of this magnitude to rest upon the whims of one frail human, do you? The pack has been infiltrated at the highest levels, an undertaking that Alexander made possible—inevitable, really—when he began the attempt to cover up the existence of the hybrid thirty years ago. Within the week both the pack leader and his heir designee will be dead, opening the door to a peaceful take-over by the only person with the power to do so: myself. The hybrid will be recaptured and destroyed before morning. His scent signature is unique in all the world, and impossible to mistake. There is nowhere he can hide we cannot find him.”

  I said, “Your purpose would be better served to bring him before the pack alive, and humiliate the Devoncroix with his existence. The pack would turn to you of its own accord. If you kill him, no one will ever know what is possible because of the Devoncroix Effect. His death will bring you nothing.”

  He looked amused and, at the same time, puzzled. “My dear young man, you don’t understand at all. It’s not the possibility that the creature could destroy the pack that concerns me, but that he could control it. Don’t you know I’ve had the best scientists in the world—including yourself by the way, although you contributed to the data unknowingly—examining the possibilities since his birth was confirmed? There has never been another like him. His strength and his intelligence exceeds anything history has known, and that is without even confirming his sensory or transmutation capabilities. The loup garou would be helpless to challenge him, and the human population … well, they would simply be helpless, wouldn’t they? They would call him a miracle, as you have done, they would worship him as a god, they would be completely in his thrall. If this hybrid were allowed to live it would be possible, for the first time in modern history, for a single personality to rule the world, unquestioned and unchallenged. Surely even you can see the danger in that.”

  For the first time my resolve wavered. Unaccountably, my mind flashed back to that moment in the lab, the way he tightened the belt of my raincoat and tossed back his hair. What rough beast, its hour come round at last … A nonsensical image, but it remained.

  And then I focused again. “It is not for you to determine the course of mankind. You took a vow.”

  He laughed. “And what do you imagine we have been doing all these years, my friend, except determining the course of mankind? The balance of nature is all very well and good, as long as the balance is always slightly in our favor. The Devoncroix hybrid changes all that. That is why he cannot be allowed to survive.”

  He finished his drink and set the glass aside. “And so now all that remains is this business between you and me. I’m sorry it has come to this between us, my little man, I truly am. I had such great hopes for you.”

  I realized then the strategy behind his moving across the room from me to stand in front of the window. The distance would be an advantage to him when he chose to Change, and to charge. I used every technique I knew to control my heartbeat, my breath, my temperature. I had had years to practice.

  I said, “You have given me more than I can ever repay, taught me more than I could ever have imagined. I will be in your debt for the rest of my life, and beyond.” I slipped the hypodermic out of the lining of my pocket and popped off the cover with my thumb. I kept my movements subtle and the syringe hidden inside my pocket, but I did not deceive myself into thinking I was being surreptitious. I walked toward him. “But you have interfered with the balance of nature. You ordered the death of a Brother. You know what I must do.”

  He smiled, sadly. “I have told you, my little man, you will never be faster than we, or stronger than we. I don’t know what kind of poison you have brought—I don’t recognize the scent—but you should know that even the deadliest of human drugs are delayed in our metabolism. Four, five, or six seconds—it is enough to snap your neck or crush your skull. You have very little chance of leaving this encounter alive.”

  I said, still moving toward him, “I know that. But neither do you.”

  It was over in an instant. I was six feet away from him when he whipped off his dressing gown and sailed it at me. I pulled the syringe from my pocket but the flash of his Change blinded me. The air was sucked out of the room in an explosion of color that tasted like burnt cloves and bitter almond and then I was knocked to the floor with a powerful force. The hypodermic flew from my hand.

  I grasped his powerful shoulders, fur and sinew and muscle, and twisted my face away from his teeth. Behind me I saw the door burst open, and I saw the swirl of a fur-trimmed cape and elegant sequined shoes, and I heard Lara cry, “Papa, don’t!” and he looked away long enough for me to break away from his weight, to roll
for the syringe on the floor. But then he was upon me again, and I cried out as his teeth tore into my shoulder, raking open flesh and muscle. He grabbed me by the torso in his mouth and flung me against a wall. I felt ribs crack. I heard Lara scream.

  The wolf was upon me again. I threw up an arm to defend myself but it was a pathetic gesture. He slammed me to the floor with both forepaws on my chest and his breath hot upon my face and when I looked into his eyes I think I knew for the first time that he really intended to kill me.

  There was a scream, no, a roar, behind me, and a flash of color and the smell of burned roses. I tried to gasp, “Lara—don’t!” But I am not sure the words were audible. It was a breath, no more, and then the weight was lifted from my chest. The great black wolf lunged to meet the smaller, more delicate one, but too late. She had the element of surprise; he had never imagined she had the courage to do it. The prince collapsed on the floor with a great ragged tear in his jugular spurting blood into the ivory carpet and Lara, her muzzle dripping red, staggered back.

  I pushed myself to my feet, dragging in shallow, painful breaths, staring at her. She was fixed upon the corpse on the floor. Her whole body shuddered. I braced my arm across my broken ribs so that I could speak. “Lara,” I managed, but that was all. My heart was breaking, my soul was shattered, everything that had ever made me what I was was nothing but a discordant symphony of jagged pieces. “Lara.”

  She looked at me, and there was a moment, just the briefest of moments, when I thought I saw the dark gaze of the prince reflected in her eyes. But then there was nothing there but anguish, and shame, and regret, and then she turned from me, and ran toward the window. I screamed at her, but it was no use. Glass shattered, curtains billowed, and she was gone.

  _______________________

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The Present

  The hands on the Patek Phillipe read 8:30. The bottle of wine was almost gone, and the remains of fruit and cheese and bread were scattered over the silver platter between them.

  Rolfe commented, “A dramatic tale to be sure, but please don’t tell me Lara Fasburg leapt to her death that night in New York, because that would be too much. Really, I don’t think I could go on listening if it were true.”

  Emory shook his head slowly. His gaze was upon his glass. “No,” he said dully. “She didn’t die. She sacrificed more than her life for me that night. She gave up her humanity.”

  And then he looked up, making an effort to return his voice to neutral. “They can leap and climb great distances with impunity, particularly when in the throes of the kind of adrenaline madness that overtook Lara after her father’s death. I don’t know how she survived that night. I did not see her again for some time.”

  “One has to love the dreadful poetry of it,” Rolfe murmured. “The beautiful Lara, who wanted only to escape her savage nature in the world of humans, was forced in the end to descend into savagery to save the human she loved.” And he looked at Emory alertly. “Of course you lied about your bond with Lara.”

  Emory said nothing.

  “More than once,” Rolfe pointed out. “That was unspeakably foolish. Did you think that denying you were bond-mates would somehow protect her?”

  “Maybe I was trying to protect myself. One can’t be too careful about revealing one’s alliances these days.”

  Rolfe pursed his lips thoughtfully. “True enough. So what became of you that night after Lara deserted you?”

  Emory gazed into his wine glass. “Their bodies, if left unpreserved, deteriorate in a matter of hours, and by the morning nothing remained of the murder but a blood-stained carpet and the shattered window. The mystery of the death of Prince Fasburg was never solved, though of course I was a prime suspect for many years. The princess died of grief within twenty four hours, as is customary when the mating bond is broken. The Dark Brotherhood believed it was I who had killed the prince. I let them think so.”

  “It was,” agreed Rolfe, “the least you could do to protect your lover. And David, the cause of all this mayhem? How was he able to evade the trackers who were sent for him?”

  Emory said, “Later, when I thought about it, I realized that the various appearances he assumed when I saw him were merely a way of disguising his scent signature. There was very little left for anyone to trace. Lara, of course, was adored and protected by humans all over the globe, and if she asked for a favor they did not hesitate. David was on a human’s private jet bound for the Andes within twenty minutes of leaving the lab. He was well away by the time Lara came to confront her father and found me there.”

  Rolfe lifted an eyebrow. “The Andes?”

  Emory coughed a little. He tasted blood in the back of his throat, and swallowed. “The loup garoux have Sanctuaries in remote places around the world—places of safety and secrecy that have never been penetrated. My understanding is that such a place was his destination. Whether or not he actually reached it, I don’t know.” Emory leaned back heavily against the chair. “I’m tired. I need to rest.”

  “In a moment.” There was no impatience whatsoever in Rolfe’s tone. “You’ve done extraordinarily well. Just a few more details, if you please. Did you see Nicholas Devoncroix again?”

  Emory was silent for a moment, as though debating how to answer. He stretched forth one hand, toying with the stem of his wine glass.

  Finally he looked at Rolfe. His face, and his tone, was expressionless. “Yes,” he said. “I saw him.”

  _________________________

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I did my best to rid the prince’s suite of any evidence of Lara’s and my presence. I tied back the curtains to keep them from billowing through the broken window and I turned off the lights in hopes of delaying the inevitable moment when someone from the street would glance up and notice, if they had not already. I hid the wolf-formed body of the prince in the bathroom. I did this all in a state of shock; my mind numb, my body in agony. Occasionally there would be a flash of memory: the click of high heel on marble floor, a waft of perfume, the way the princess had smiled when she first embraced me. The spark of amusement in the prince’s black eyes: So, little man, will you come and live among us, and be one of us? Lara, gripping my hand as we sailed from the church portico into the canal, laughing with triumph and clinging to each other when we surfaced. The smell of burned roses. I hardened myself, I batted the memories away before they could take hold. I knew if I didn’t, they would suck the last of the life’s blood from me, and I had much to do before I could die.

  I stole one of the prince’s overcoats to hide my bleeding wounds, and a pair of his shoes. I left via the freight elevator and exited opposite the door I had entered. I was becoming light headed from pain and blood loss and I knew my shoulder wound needed stitches, but I didn’t dare go to the Emergency Room. I knew a human doctor in New York; we had gotten drunk together once or twice at scientific conferences and I had kept just enough of his secrets to persuade him to open his office for me at one o’clock in the morning. I told him I’d been stabbed, and let him think it was in the process of trying to buy drugs. He looked disgusted and made it clear this was his last favor, but he wrapped my ribs and stitched my shoulder and injected me with penicillin, then sent me off with a handful of Percocet and a prescription for antibiotics. He turned me in the next day, of course, but by then it didn’t matter.

  I didn’t dare go back to the Plaza. I spent the night on the streets, freezing and coughing and dozing intermittently under the influence of the painkillers. In the morning I went to the public library, and began the process of trying to find Alexander Devoncroix.

  In the end he found me.

  Alexander Devoncroix had offices all over the world, of course, and it did not take a great deal of technological savvy to finesse the Internet into giving up his Park Avenue address. By this time I was a fugitive from the police, and I could not guess how many of the prince’s operatives had been ordered to kill me. My time was limited, and I did not
dare risk wasting it. I waited until dark, and I made my way on foot toward Park Avenue.

  The black limousine slid to a stop at the curb before I had gone a block. When the back door opened, I heard Vivaldi.

  I got inside, guarding my stiff ribs and my throbbing shoulder. Alexander Devoncroix was in shadows, and I could not see his eyes. I heard the crisp snap of a newspaper and, as we passed slowly under a streetlight, he set the paper aside and looked at me.

  I said, “All you ever wanted was to have the prince out of the way. Whether I disposed of him, or whether he killed me—and was subsequently executed for murdering a human—didn’t matter. What happened to David didn’t matter. The threat to the pack was never the hybrid. It was Prince Fasburg.”

  Alexander inclined his head. “My first loyalty is now, and has always been, to the pack. I think you understand that.”

  The painkillers had taken some of the edge off my rage, but had not dulled it entirely. My one fist tightened against my ribcage, and sweat popped out on my brow. “You have no idea what you’ve done. You don’t even care.”

  “On the contrary. I know exactly what I’ve done, and I care a good deal. This is why I’m offering you the use of this car, young man, and suggesting very strongly that you put as much distance between yourself and this city as possible. I mean you no harm and it may comfort you to know I share your ideals. But you will be dead before dawn if you do not heed me.”

  I said coldly, “I am your last witness.”

  I thought I saw him smile in the flicker of streetlight. “I am the leader of the pack. You pose no threat to me. The only one who did is dead, and the hybrid is safe and well away. We will deal with him when we must. You have done us a service. But my tolerance extends only so far. If you need a passport or funds, I can provide them. Otherwise, I suggest you find the first international flight you can and be on it.”