by A. F. Henley
"Liar!"
Gavin shoved Volos away, a flick of Gavin's hand that caused Volos to crash back against the boardroom table and buckle over it. "You kept medical information from me! From me! The goddamn volunteer, your associate, an executive member of this fucking committee! You denied me the right to know my own so-called treatment and you did it for your own gains. One: you had free rein to pursue all the experiments you wanted without corralling any of the vampires that just might end up killing you in the process. Two: it kept me sedated and under control. And three: it kept me here, for God knows I couldn't even walk out of my own wing—"
"If that was the case, we would have never let you out to begin with," Dyball screamed. He pulled himself out of the chair and stumbled toward Volos. His hands shook as he helped Volos up.
A light went off in Matthew's head. "No. No, see, that was the perfect thing. You could control that little venture completely. When Gavin approached you with the idea to send him in to find out what the wolves were up to, there was no reason you could come up with for not letting him go. Not without setting off any alarms. And you could use me in your favor too, couldn't you?"
Although Volos leaned on Dyball, he snapped his body in Matthew's direction. He pulled his lips over his teeth, baring them at Matthew. "It was about the only thing we could have done with you, you insignificant little moron. Gavin was besotted with you. We didn't think he actually wanted to find the wolves. We didn't think he had any motive at all but to find a way to get you alone and get you interested. So we did it. We arranged to give the vampire his pet. We said, let Gavin fascinate him and when they both come back, the pet will keep him occupied. So there." He flung out one arm, fist clenched, as if throwing a punch. "Now you know, Doctor Dietrich. Your involvement in this part of things was to be nothing more than a toy. A distraction. You offer us nothing that we couldn't find from a hundred different graduates in any given year."
"Like I said," Matthew deadpanned. "You could use me in your favor. But you overlooked something. Gavin already knew what you were planning. He might not have known the specifics of how you were doing it, but he knew there was something and he knew what it would lead to." He could feel the sneer growing on his face. "And I don't need you to believe in my significance. I don't need anyone in this building to believe in it. I have faith in who I am and what I do. Yeah, I've been fascinated. But not in the way you think—"
"Like you would know." Dyball rolled his eyes.
Matthew smiled. "Oh, I would know. I do know. Just like I now know what you're doing here is wrong. I won't have any part of it. Neither will Gavin. We're also not going to stand aside and let you get away with it. One of the things I have learned along the way is that there are repercussions for playing dirty. We have your information, and we're going to do what Gavin and I do best: research the information that drive has helped us get, and use it to make sure people know what's going on here."
Volos shook his head. He pushed away from Dyball and at the same moment he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He swiped the display, and nodded at it. "Your confidence—all of yours, really—is impressive. But security has been alerted. Even if you kill both of us, you won't make it out of the building. I suppose there will be some advantages to having both wolves and vampires in our labs. And..." He smirked at Matthew. "We've already established that no one is going to miss you, young man."
He told himself that he should be frightened. Actually, he was angry. He was angry for Gavin and the O'Connells and that these obnoxious, self-important, self-appointed guardians of the normal would dare to know his life.
So he started to laugh. While to his own ears it sounded forced and anxious, Volos and Dyball appeared shocked. Which only served to make him laugh for real. "Kill you. As if we would fall into your dirty practices. We have no intention of killing anyone. That's the whole point.
"And you know something else about me?" He feigned wiping his eyes. He pantomimed checking his laughter with more effort than it took. "I always follow those little nudges that people get even though they don't know where they're coming from. Some call it instinct, some call it God, I just call it having faith. And that faith, you know, it never steers me wrong. That faith made me pick up the phone and call my parents when I figured out that I was in love with this guy. 'Call your mother,' it tells me."
"The idea that you're a mommy's boy would not shock me," Volos sneered.
Gavin lurched at him. "Why, you son of a—"
"Wait, please," Matthew said, holding up his hand. "You know what kind of parents end up with kids that trust themselves like that?" He pointed at Vaughn. "These kinds of parents. Parents that make it very clear that they trust their kids. That's where it comes from. The kind of parent that, when their kid calls them up to tell them about New Guy and has a bit of a hitch in his voice, or is a little short on information that he would normally be more than free with, says to that kid, 'Well then, we're coming up to meet him.'
"So you'll forgive me if I dispute your claim, but I'm more than sure my parents are going to miss me when I don't show up at the airport to pick them up. That isn't something I would do, you know what I mean?" He eyed Volos with intent. "Me being the mommy's boy that I am."
He stopped Volos when Volos tried to talk. "I'm not done, sir. Now while one set of parents telling local authorities that I've gone missing might not send up too many flares—I am an adult, after all—I'm pretty sure that when Randy's father makes the same claim about his son, and his son-in-law, and his son-in-law's son, and then tells authorities where all three of them were headed and with whom, those authorities are going to start putting things together. Henry's words will be backed by Rafe, and Rafe's words will be backed by the members of Vaughn's pack that are also at home with Henry and Rafe, and you know? Things are going to start looking very suspicious for the GDBCG. Especially when authorities hear that we had suspicions about the Center going into this. And while you may have some very high authority figures on your side, rest assured, that the people of Wolf are not going to stand aside if they know what's really going on. You don't get to mess with Wolf's wolves. Not the way I understand it, anyway."
Matthew pointed at Gavin. "If you think that thumb drive carries your secrets, you're wrong. That thumb drive was just a way in. One of the boys back home wrote the program and stuck it there. Our little computer genius has already downloaded your files and is, no doubt, already leafing through them on his very own hard drive. Keeping us here isn't going to stop that information from being released."
Vaughn pushed away from the table. He stood. "I think what our boy here is trying to say is get the Sam hell out of the way. We're done here and we're leaving. And do try to keep in mind that I have two shifters here that no longer need the moon to do their thing." He nodded at Gavin. "And a vampire that is going to do everything in his power to keep his... what did you call it? Pet? Toy?... Very safe. Very whole. I believe that Gavin prefers him that way. Don't make me show you what the lot of us can do."
He swung the door of the boardroom open and glared at the four security guards standing there. "Gentlemen." He nodded at the one woman in the group. "Ma'am. If you'll excuse us, we were just leaving."
Matthew saw them give Volos and Dyball questioning glances, but neither of them motioned the security guards to detain anyone.
Matthew thought that he and his friends sounded like an army walking down the hallway: feet clumping, clothes swishing, hearts pounding. There were guards posted at the elevator, though they stepped aside and let their group walk past when the doors opened. There were guards at the main entrance, but none of them made an attempt to stop the men from leaving.
As Matthew reached for the ignition of his car with the key, his hands were shaking more than they'd ever shook in his life. He couldn't stop himself from thinking that the car wouldn't start, or the gates wouldn't open, or the whole kit and caboodle of them would explode when they got free of the parking lot.
None of tha
t happened. As Matthew lifted his eyes and watched the Center grow smaller in his rearview mirror, Gavin rested a hand on his thigh.
"Hey," Gavin said with a good-natured grin. "At least I'm going to get to meet your parents."
The weight of what had just gone down fell off Matthew's shoulders. He had no idea what came next, but at least they were out of there. The GDBCG might come looking for them to finish the job, but it hadn't happened yet.
Matthew sighed. He forced a chuckle. "Gavin, that was a bald-faced lie. My parents have no idea what's going on with you and me. I haven't spoken to either of them in days."
Gavin's eyes widened. "Doctor Matthew Dietrich!" he exclaimed. "I would not have imagined you to be a liar."
"Doctor Gavin Strauss," Matthew said right back. "People change."
The Day the World Changed
The following day, there was an urgency to their investigation that no one really discussed after their initial conversation about it. "They have support at the highest levels of government," Gavin had said, passing around copies of documents with names and seals that would have rivaled the Constitution itself. "Thing is, I'm not sure anyone really knows why they have that kind of support, including the folks that are offering it."
They'd made lists of facts and functions, and they'd argued about what they were going to do with it. If the information was made public it could cause worldwide panic, Randy had told them; worse, he'd been worried that militant groups could conspire to gather and recruit the kinds of people that would make them invincible. If they went to the top guns, they could find themselves silenced in all the ways that they could now prove others had been: secure prisons, testing facilities, sudden and suspicious deaths. If they didn't go high enough, their claims could easily be regarded as fantastical, manufactured, and ridiculous.
Throughout the day family members were collected and brought back to the O'Connell home. The house was full of way too many people for productive thought. Windows were watched; eyebrows were lifted at every leaf that dropped onto the property and every shake in every bush that the wind brought along. The anxiety levels were so high that a simple plate being dropped to the floor could make everyone in the house shriek and freeze.
Matthew called his parents. And called again. And then again. Each time the phone rang its obligatory three short bursts and then switched to voicemail. He'd get through, though, he told himself; if he had to call a hundred times, he'd get through and tell them everything. He'd ask them to come to Wolf. To be safe, just in case.
And Matthew did something he'd never believed he would do: he let Gavin feed off of him again, and decided he probably wouldn't stop Gavin if it was something Gavin wanted to do regularly. It's not like Gavin drank a lot of blood, and it was an intensely erotic experience—as intense as it had been the first time he'd let Gavin do it, and nothing at all like the time Arius had done it.
Besides, he loved Gavin, and Gavin had already proven that the feeling was mutual. Even if Gavin didn't whisper the words every time they lay down together, which Gavin did, Gavin spoke them in every gesture or gaze that Gavin sent his way. It was nice. It felt all kinds of right.
Matthew and Randy were seated at the kitchen table debating over a list of contacts that Randy had back in D.C. when the world changed forever.
Hannah was helping Vaughn chop vegetables for a stew and they were singing a lullaby that Matthew had never heard before, something about following animal tracks to search for a lost love. Their voices accompanied the faint buzz of the fluorescent light above their workplace and the chop, chop, clunk of their knives perfectly. It was a lulling, soothing background noise that was threatening to draw Matthew's already tired eyes closed.
So when Abe burst into the kitchen, skidded to a stop, and said, "Y'all better come see this," Matthew just about startled himself out of his chair. "Now."
"What—"
Vaughn's question was immediately cut short. "No. I can't even come up with words for it. You have to come see."
They filed into the already full living room, following Abe's hurried footsteps, and saw everyone staring at the television.
"Give it a minute," one of the wives whose name Matthew had yet to remember said. She was pointing the converter at the TV set as if it were a sword she was wielding against it. "They switched over to a commercial after they made the announcement."
They watched an animated roll of toilet paper extol its own virtue and a woman pantomime orgasmic lust over a dribbling can of soda. When Matthew got tired of advertisements, he turned his attention back to the people in the room. They looked stunned.
"What is this?" he managed to ask before he was waved into silence and the volume was turned up.
"Well, I can't really say what to make of the next feature," the newscaster was saying. She looked perky, professional, and completely amused. "The last time I heard about vampires, I was reading a novel. So I'll just pass this on to our onsite correspondent, Ivan Freeman. Ivan?"
Suddenly there was a brick in Matthew's guts that was pressing on some very important organs.
The tiny screen-inside-a-screen that had been resting in the top right hand corner above the newscaster went to full view, but the shining, almost greedy eyes of Ivan Freeman weren't what made the people in the living room gasp. It was the man who stood beside him. It was Arius.
"I'm about to change everything you know about the world," Freeman said with a smile. "Ladies, gentlemen," he appeared to be directing his statement to the camera, but the layout of the area—long table, microphones set in front of those who sat at it—made it clear that Freeman was at some kind of press conference and that he was speaking to those in attendance. Then Freeman looked directly into the camera itself. "Viewers at home... I'd like you to meet Arius. He's a vampire."
The television continued to buzz with speech, but Matthew didn't hear any more of it. His legs gave out and he sat down hard on the floor. "He... he..."
A hand fell on his shoulder, gripping him. Gavin's voice said, "Are you okay? Matthew?"
Matthew tried again. "They..." He looked at Gavin, then at Vaughn. "Public. They... they went public."
Then reasonable words stopped coming. "Holy..." The next word came out without Matthew even questioning it. "Fuck."
Vaughn startled. Gavin snorted a laugh.
"Guys?" Chuckles interrupted. "We got more here." He was staring at his laptop, his fingers furiously clicking and clacking over the keys. "The BBC in the U.K., Tagesschau in Germany, CTV in Canada, ABC in Australia, even fucking India News TV. They're all running with it. How the fuck...? I mean, it's fucking everywhere. Does anyone know who these guys are? I don't recognize any of them. How the fuck did they pull all these people together?" He looked up, frowning. "They all got fangs, Vaughn. They're all claiming to be vampires."
For a minute nobody said anything. Then, from the other side of the room, Rafe spoke. "I just had the strangest dream."
He stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, his arms wrapped around himself. "I—"
"No doubt," Vaughn said. He pointed at the television. "No freaking doubt you did."
"Is that..." Rafe frowned, peering at the screen. "Is that Arius?"
"You don't know?" Lyle asked, putting an arm around him. "I thought that's what you were going to say?"
Rafe shook his head. "No. No, I..." He looked around the room until he saw Hannah. "It was about Hannah. Well... Hannah's baby."
"Baby?" Vaughn all but shouted. "What do you mean, Hannah's baby?"
Isaac slid off the couch and patted the stop he had vacated. "Sit down, Rafe. Before you fall over like Matthew did."
Lyle led Rafe to the couch and Rafe sat. He looked up at Vaughn, as if unsure of whether or not to continue. Vaughn gave him an exaggerated circle-wave and sigh of annoyance.
"Okay." Rafe took a breath. He closed his eyes. "There was a baby. A little boy. He was Hannah's, and don't ask me how I know that but I do, which means he was. He was a wolf
, but not a wolf, somehow." He opened his eyes and shot Vaughn a glance of defiance. "I don't know what that means either, I just know it's true, so don't bother. He was sitting on Hannah's lap and she was teaching him with a set of six cards. Like... playing cards with drawings on them, you know? Like kings and queens and jacks, except they were more like Tarot cards or something. They didn't have numbers. But they did have words on them, over the pictures."
Lyle waved at the person beside Rafe, who immediately scooched out of the way to let him side beside his boyfriend. "What did they say, Rafe? Do you know?"
"Yep." Rafe nodded. I just... well... I think I even know what they meant."
"Just tell us what they said, Rafe," Vaughn prompted. His voice was gentle, but it seemed like he was doing everything he could to keep himself from snapping the command.
"The Lover," Rafe said, looking at Vaughn directly. "The first one said The Lover." He turned his head and looked at Lyle. "The next one read Instinct." He nodded at Gavin. "Knowledge." He smiled at Matthew. "And Faith."
Randy leaned forward, frowning. "Well, now. I'm seeing a pattern," he said. There was a mocking quality to his voice. "And the last two?"
"The Cynic," Rafe answered dryly, staring at Randy while Randy's eyebrow shot up his forehead. "And..." He wrung his hands, seemingly embarrassed. He didn't continue until Vaughn spoke his name, sharp and forced. Then he shrugged, "And the last one said Sight."
"It was us, wasn't it?" Matthew asked. "Rafe, the pictures? The ones on the cards? Were they us?"
Again Rafe shrugged. "They were drawn. You know, like cards are? Cartoons, kind of?" He gave Matthew a quick glance and then looked down at his feet. "But I guess there were similarities. I didn't pay that much attention to them. I was—"