by Sarah Blair
“What if Dimitrius comes with me?”
“No.”
“But what if—”
“DAMMIT SIDNEY.” In a blink he was out of the bed with his hands wrapped around her shoulders. His fingernails dug sharply into her arms and she gasped. He shook her once and bared his teeth; they were longer than before. She shuddered under his grip.
Dimitrius stepped in. Sidney didn’t turn her face to look at him, she couldn’t take her eyes away from Mitch, but she felt him there, a force by her side.
“Mitchell, let her go,” he spoke softly, as someone might try to calm a wild dog.
He loosened his grip from her, one finger at a time until she was free, but she didn’t dare move. She couldn’t even if she wanted to. The shock of what just happened kept her bones melded into place.
He turned his back to them, fists clenched at his sides. “Get out.”
“Mitch,” she whispered.
Dimitrius caught her hand. He gave his head the slightest shake, then eased her out the door. As soon as the latch clicked shut behind them, she fell to her hands and knees in the middle of the hall and wept.
“Why can’t I stop shaking?” Sidney hugged the blanket around her tighter as if it was the only thing left holding her together. Maybe it was.
“You’re in shock.” Banks crouched in front of her, his hands on each arm of Dimitrius’ chair. “The tea will help, if you can drink it.”
“I can’t.” Another tremor ran its way through her body. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms and the blanket around her whole body, curling into a ball.
He put his hand over the blanket where her knee was. His eyes were honey soft, and filled with genuine concern. “I’m going to do everything I can to keep him comfortable. We’ll get him through this, okay?”
“It’s not over yet. There’s still time to change it,” she said. “We can’t give up on him.”
Williams gave her a desolate look from the couch. He hadn’t spoken since she’d left Mitch’s room. It was so unlike him, it sent another shiver through her body.
“Mitchell is right,” Dimitrius said. “These people have proven they’ll go to extensive lengths to get their hands on you. It isn’t safe.”
“But what if I have you? What if your men come? That’s your job isn’t it, to protect me?”
“Our job is to keep you safe, lass. Not lead you directly into the devil’s lair,” Malcolm said.
“It’s our only chance.” Her voice faltered. “Trust me, the last person in the world I want to see is my grandfather, let alone beg him for help. But if there’s even the smallest possibility he can save Mitch, I have to do it.”
The four ancient warriors exchanged grim looks, but none of them spared a glance in her direction.
Sidney sighed. “You’re going to let them get away with this? A werewolf slipped by you once and the wrong person got their hands on it. I’ve killed eight shifters myself, who knows how many more could be out there? This won’t stop with Mitch. Other innocent people could get hurt too. It’s your duty to end this, once and for all.”
“Aye!” Argus said, and gave her a firm nod.
The others looked to Dimitrius. “I’ll take my men and discuss things with Alexander. But you stay here where it’s safe.”
“You can’t go without me,” Sidney insisted.
“I trust Mitchell’s intuition. If he thinks it’s a bad idea, then you’re not leaving the premises,” Dimitrius said.
Sidney shook her head. “You don’t get it. This is Alexander Lake we’re talking about, you can’t just mosey in there and start asking questions.”
Dimitrius squinted as if she’d started speaking a different language. He was so used to getting his way, to having his orders followed, that it seemed foreign for someone to tell him he couldn’t do what he set his mind on.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re King Arthur or the King of the Universe.” She shrugged. “He won’t see you without an appointment.”
Thirty-Six
“I’m here to see Alexander Lake,” Sidney said. Her voice wavered, and she hated herself for it. She was here for Mitch, she had to remember that. Whatever issues she had about seeing her grandfather after all these years were nothing compared to what would happen if she didn’t get the cure in time.
A woman behind the front desk lifted her face. A well-worn line between her eyebrows deepened into a severe crease. She typed on the keyboard, her long manicured fingernails clacking across the keys so fast they almost purred. “It’s late. Mr. Lake doesn’t usually see people at this hour. What time was your appointment?”
It wasn’t too late for her to turn around and leave. She hadn’t thought the idea of being in the same room, under that cold gaze would be so hard. Being around her grandfather reminded her of losing her parents. Whoever said time heals all wounds was a liar. In an instant she was a frightened twelve year old, her parents’ murder as fresh as though they were still being packed into body bags in the other room.
She squared her shoulders and cleared her throat.
“I’m sure Mr. Lake will make time for his own granddaughter.”
The woman looked out from the top of her bifocals. “Sidney Lake?”
She nodded.
The woman craned her neck around Sidney and studied the four men lined up in a row a few feet behind her. “And they are?”
“They’re my—” She turned around and stared at her entourage, her guardians, her new friends, the man who called himself her other half. It was all so ridiculous she couldn’t find the words to describe them, so she shrugged and said, “People.”
Sidney read the nameplate on the desk. Mrs. Wallace touched the tip of her tongue to the top of her teeth and clicked it once. With a small shake of her head, she adjusted the glasses on her nose. Then her lips twisted into a pucker as nails zipped across keys again.
“One moment please.” The woman picked up the phone and waited a few breaths, before she murmured something into the mouthpiece. Then she glanced at Sidney, saw her watching, and turned to the side to say, “But sir, they don’t have an appointment.”
Sidney crossed her arms and raised an I-told-you-so eyebrow at Dimitrius.
Mrs. Wallace stood and came around the desk. “Right this way, Ms. Lake.”
The woman smiled warmly and held the door for her. It was like she was an entirely different person. Sidney stepped through the door and her men moved to follow, but Mrs. Wallace held up a hand. Her face was friendlier than the tone behind her words. “The couch behind you is very comfortable, gentlemen.”
Dimitrius opened his mouth to protest, but Sidney shook her head. “Relax, I’ll be right back.”
Sidney followed Mrs. Wallace into Alexander Lake’s private office. The back wall was floor-to-ceiling glass. To the right hand side of the room stood a sleek black desk with a matching bookshelf behind it that held various books, mixed in with photos of her grandfather shaking hands of important people from around the world. The current President held the most prominent spot. No photo of Sidney or her parents was among them.
“Mr. Lake will be with you momentarily.” The secretary motioned to the black leather couch and matching end chairs placed around a walnut topped coffee table. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”
Sidney made her way over to the huge window. The sun had just dipped below the horizon and the buildings at the lower tip of Manhattan twinkled in the false twilight that always hovered around the city. The water in the bay was choppy, and the Staten Island Ferry chugged past, lined with straggling commuters heading home for the night. The Statue of Liberty watched over it all from next door.
“Lovely, isn’t it? Mr. Lake is very proud of the view.”
There were a few responses that flew through Sidney’s head. None of which would be appropriate to say out loud. “I’m sure he is.”
And then she smelled it; the scent of aged oak, and Scotch, with a hint of tobacco. Her grandfather was near.
“I’m sure.” Sidney’s mouth was dry and she swallowed hard. She hadn’t expected to be this scared. There was no reason for it. It was just her grandfather. He was intimidating and influential, but completely harmless. She’d killed eight shifters singlehandedly, surely she could manage one old man.
“No, thank you.” Alexander Lake’s voice froze the blood in her veins. “Forgive me, Mrs. Wallace, but my granddaughter was never very good about remembering her manners. I see things haven’t changed much.”
Sidney turned from the window and faced her grandfather. He wore a coal black three piece suit paired with a bright red tie. The impeccable fit and the way the cloth seemed to shimmer like the buildings across the way told her it had been custom made especially for him out of the finest material available.
“It’s late, Mrs. Wallace. You should go home.” His eyes remained focused on Sidney as he spoke. There was an intensity there she couldn’t quite place. She squeezed her hands into fists at her side, almost took a step back, but stopped herself. He may have gotten away with intimidating her as a little girl, but she was a grown woman now.
“Yes, sir,” Mrs. Wallace said.
The door shut with a quiet hush and they were alone. Sidney couldn’t find the words to begin. All she could think of was this man telling her that she was ridiculous and speaking nonsense. Except that she’d been right. The wolves she’d seen were very real, or at least one of them had been. The one that killed her parents.
Alexander went to a sideboard next to the sitting area and poured himself a drink. A smug smile sat on his face, as if he was quite pleased with himself about something. “I knew you’d come to me eventually. But I must admit, I didn’t think it would be with such a motley crew.”
Her grandfather sipped his drink, then canted his head to the side and his thin lips curved into a smile. “How are you feeling, Sidney?”
His word choice hit her like a punch from the fist of a stone gargoyle. It wasn’t ‘how are you’ or ‘long time no see,’ but how are you feeling. She eased her head from side to side, swallowing hard, fighting the sensation of being on one of those boats in the rough water outside.
“That’s why you called me the other day?” she whispered. “You already knew?”
“The incident in the morgue was purely a coincidence. A happy accident. If you hadn’t been attacked, I never would have known your capabilities.”
“You sent me to all those shrinks when I was a kid. You insisted what I saw wasn’t real.”
“Sit with me. Have a drink,” Alexander said. “Where is your sense of propriety? I thought I raised you better than that.”
Sidney cursed the tears that burned her eyes. She gritted her teeth to keep them back.
“Did you know then?” Sidney struggled to make her voice loud enough, strong enough, so she wouldn’t reveal that half of her entire life hinged on his answer. “Did you know the truth when you sat there and told me I had a wild imagination?”
“You could have had a very different life, my dear. It wasn’t my first choice to ship you off to boarding school. Unfortunately, you were too much like your mother. Always interested in investigating, and sticking your nose into places it didn’t belong. I was never able to trust you to keep your mouth shut. You and your little stories about the Big Bad Wolf.” He sipped his drink again. “Once you started speaking about sharp teeth and glowing eyes to anyone with ears, you left me little choice but to send you away.”
“For once in my life, tell me the truth. Please.”
“Are you sure you want to know?” Alexander’s thin lips turned up at the edges, but the look in his turquoise eyes made the action into more of a wince than a smile. “The truth of it all is terribly gruesome.”
“Did you know about the vaccine? Did you know your people were creating these shifters?”
“Shifters?” He raised a neatly groomed gray eyebrow.
“Werewolves.”
“Ah,” Alexander took a slow sip from his crystal tumbler. “Here at the facility, we refer to them as Lycanthropes.”
Sidney wanted to throw up. “So you lied to me. You’ve been lying my whole life.”
“Some falsehoods must be told to protect the greater good. White lies.” The wrinkles in her grandfather’s face deepened as he scowled. “Everything I have done has been for the greater good. Everything.”
“What exactly have you done?” Sidney didn’t make it a habit of asking questions she didn’t want the answers to, but the words tumbled from her lips before she could stop them.
“It began before you were even born. A group of soldiers killed a werewolf in Afghanistan. Some of them were bitten. I run the world’s leading medical research facility, it was natural the army should approach me for help when their own people couldn’t find a cure.”
“You sent those men to my apartment to kidnap me?”
Her grandfather eased his eyes shut. “Sidney, I’ve warned you it’s rude to interrupt people.”
“It’s also rude to send a bunch of monsters to abduct someone.”
“Are you interested in the truth, or not?”
Sidney tucked her arms across her chest and closed her mouth.
“Years later, your mother was called to do a special story for Time on biological warfare in the Middle East,” Alexander explained. “In a twist of fate, the convoy she was riding in was hit with one of the very weapons she was sent to write about. She became very ill.”
Sidney stared at her grandfather. “How come I never heard about this?”
“You were so young. It was your parents’ wish to protect you. I respected that.”
Sidney went over and sank into the chair across from him.
“We had already been working on the lycanthropy vaccine for quite some time, though it was still in the testing stages. While we worked on a cure, we were also developing a separate vaccine.” He leaned back casually in his chair as if they were old friends meeting for drinks to discuss how the stock market had performed that day.
“Our intention was to extract the healing nature of the lycanthropy virus to cure every disease, whether caused by man or nature. Imagine, a world where disease and illness doesn’t exist. The military had a slightly different idea. 4X20 was a drug meant to create a super-soldier with heightened senses, advanced immunity, and the ability to heal rapidly when wounded.”
“Wait.” Sidney squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t understand what this has to do with my mother.”
“Your father came to me for help. All other treatments failed. He knew the drug was still in its testing stages, but he convinced your mother it was her last, best hope. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing her.”
“You gave my mother an experimental drug and turned her . . . .” Sidney pressed her lips together hard, unable to even finish the sentence.
“Our intention was to extract the elements that gave the werewolf supernatural capabilities, while preventing the transformation into wolf form. The idea is to preserve the human genome, but strengthen it. The military doesn’t want a horde of werewolves running around. What kind of story would that make for the evening news?” Alexander chuckled and sipped his scotch again.
“Daddy would never have asked her to do that.” Sidney shook her head, her voice small and frightened. “You didn’t tell him everything. You couldn’t have.”
“Despite what you may think of me, Sidney, I am not a monster. I attempted to talk him out of it. He was beside himself with grief. He said if there was any way for her to be cured, he wanted it. She was already dying.”
Sidney wiped her face with the edge of her sleeve, angry at herself for letting him see her cry. “What happened?”
“It worked well. Extremely well. We saw great improvements. She was getting better. We were optimistic. We sent
her home.”
Sidney blinked and tears spilled onto her cheeks.
“However, the virus had caused her DNA to undergo an extreme change. A change we thought had been engineered out of the vaccine. In this version, it took longer to manifest itself. One night, she lost control,” Alexander said. “She killed your father and she would have killed you too, if you hadn’t shot her first.”
Just like that, a lifetime of nightmares suddenly turned into memories. Now she had no idea what was real and what was imagined.
“No. I killed a shifter that night. I felt the teeth, the fur. I saw the hunger in its eyes. That was not my mother, she would never have looked at me the way that thing did,” Sidney insisted. “I killed a monster.”
“Indeed, you did,” Alexander said.
Sidney’s voice wavered while she choked on hot, angry tears. “You knew this whole time. You’ve lied to me my whole life, and worse, you paid others to lie, to make me think I was crazy. How do I know you’re not lying to me now? How can I possibly trust anything you say?”
A shifter nudged the door open and sauntered over to sit at her grandfather’s heel. He scratched behind its ears and patted its head. Sidney tasted the sour acid that rose from her stomach.
“You weren’t supposed to be involved in this. Ever,” Alexander said. “You wouldn’t have been if that damned Mitchell Harris had left you alone. You would never have been in the morgue that night if it wasn’t for him bringing you into this mess. You never would have been bitten. And I never would have known you were so valuable.”
Alexander leaned in and examined her like one of his test samples under a microscope. The liquor on his breath stung her nose, made her gag. “We captured all sorts of rare creatures, trying to balance out the effects of the lycanthropy virus. None of them worked.”
“The missing chimera, the WIF? That was you?”