Were-

by Seanan McGuire

  He turned and ran, and Lexie pulled me into the nearest cab. She was crying, and it occurred to me that she had known Adam for much longer than I had. As I awkwardly patted her shoulder, my biologist brain went into overdrive. The zombie virus had a forty-eight hour incubation period. Even if Adam had been bitten immediately after he left the bar, he shouldn’t have started decaying that quickly. And I had seen him with his shirt off less than forty-eight hours ago. Besides, while Adam had flaws, somehow I didn’t think coming to a concert after a zombie bite was one of them.

  What was going on?

  After the cab dropped me off, my phone started buzzing with texts from Adam, nonsense that I couldn’t decode no matter how hard I tried. Every time my phone went off, I wanted to throw up. His phone was just going haywire. That had to be it. I turned my phone off, and somehow, I went to sleep.

  * * *

  When I woke up, one more text from Adam was waiting for me. I need to talk to you.

  My hands were shaking so badly that I could barely type out my reply. I thought you were Infected.

  It took a few minutes for him to answer. I am in a relationship with Infection and it’s complicated.

  Let’s meet at Starbucks, I said. But it has to be soon. Lab duty this afternoon. I was freaked out, but I was curious, too.

  I arrived before he did, bought a cup of tea, and snagged the one empty table. Between the music and the conversation around us, whatever he had to tell me, we probably wouldn’t be overheard.

  And then Adam was sitting across from me, a venti coffee in one hand, looking profoundly hungover but otherwise normal. “About last night,” he began.

  I raised an eyebrow. I wasn’t going to help him out.

  “Last year, I was bitten by a werewolf,” Adam said. “But she had the zombie virus, too. So instead of turning into a wolf at the full moon, when I lose control, I turn into…that thing you saw last night.”

  I had to take a minute to process this. “You’re a were-zombie. I’ve never even heard of that.”

  “For all I know, I’m the only one,” he said, talking at a point just over my shoulder. “I haven’t asked around. I’d end up locked in a lab somewhere.” Finally, he met my gaze, and I could tell he was wondering if he would be locked away after all.

  I wasn’t sure yet whether I could reassure him on that point.

  “It’s interesting, though,” I finally said. “If your flesh can regenerate itself, then the effects of the zombie virus might be reversible.” He tilted his head warily, and I took pity on him. “At least give me a sample of your blood.”

  “Won’t your coworkers wonder where it came from?” he said.

  “Let them wonder,” I said quietly. It was stupid, and I knew it. For everyone’s safety, Adam would be better off in quarantine. And if I took his blood secretly, on my own, without so much as making him sign a consent form, I would be breaking about a million rules. But were-zombie or not, he was my friend, and I wasn’t going to force him into becoming a lab specimen.

  Adam stared at me, then shook his head, as though to clear it. “That’s not why I came,” he said. “The thing we talked about before…it would be complicated. Probably not a good idea.”

  I shouldn’t have been disappointed. “Okay.”

  If I had anything approximating good judgment or common sense, the story would have ended there. But it didn’t.

  * * *

  That week, I couldn’t stop thinking about Adam. Partly it was because I was spending every spare moment staring at his blood under a microscope, and partly, I felt terrible for him. But some of it—too much of it—was the way I had felt when I was kissing him, perched on top of that brick wall.

  My brilliant plan was failing in every way possible. The one saving grace was that I still didn’t want to date him.

  I didn’t talk to Adam, even when I saw him online. But when Friday came around, as I was getting ready to go to the Black Cat, I shaved my legs, even though I was planning to wear jeans. That was my first mistake.

  My second mistake was thinking that our other friends would be there. Flux Mortician wasn’t playing, and I guess the rest of our group had other things to do. Adam and I stood around awkwardly until I hit upon the idea of going to buy a drink. But then he came to the bar with me. “Don’t worry,” he said when I stared at him. “I know my limits now.”

  The problem with making yourself feel more comfortable with the power of drink specials is that eventually, you get too comfortable to remember that you need to stop drinking. I tried to be responsible. I really did. I closed out my tab when I felt the alcohol kicking in. Then Adam offered me one more.

  “I can’t,” I said. For someone who occasionally died, he was far too pretty. “If I have another drink, I’m going to hit on you.”

  “If you have another drink,” he said, “I will let you.”

  The next morning, I would know that he shouldn’t have said that, and I shouldn’t have agreed. I would know that I had just been staving off the inevitable feeling that I had no one and would probably die alone. But right then, my princess was at the top of the castle, and I just had to climb the ladder of one more drink. I didn’t see the barrel coming to hit me in the face.

  “Good,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about you all week, you know.”

  His eyes widened, but he bought me the drink anyway.

  I remember asking him if we could leave. I remember waiting for him near the front entrance, clutching my purse in my arms. I remember Lexie bringing me a bottle of water, and I remember being too far gone to wonder when she had shown up. She helped me toward the bathroom and told Adam to get lost. And just after the bathroom door closed behind us, I bent over the sink and retched up that last rum and Coke.

  The worst part was that without Adam, I couldn’t go home until sunrise. And the last thing I wanted was to go back into the bar. But Lexie didn’t make me leave the bathroom. She just sat with me, one arm around my shoulders, while I cried my eyes out. And slowly, as my vision cleared, I began to think that maybe I wasn’t so alone after all.

  * * *

  By sunrise, I also felt really fucking embarrassed.

  I had tried to go home with a part-time zombie. I had made questionable relationship decisions before, but even for me, that was a new low. I had been more intoxicated than at any previous point in my life, and I had no idea how many people had seen me. I had even less idea how many people had seen me with Adam. If Lexie had figured out what was about to happen, other people might have, too.

  Also: “I’ve been thinking about you all week”? Really? Did I have to say that?

  Adam had apparently also done some reflecting. After I got home, he texted me to say, again, that he didn’t want a casual thing with me. Okay, I replied. I should have taken no for an answer the first time around.

  I left his blood sample outside a principal investigator’s office with an anonymous note. Maybe someone could help Adam with his occasional rotting and lurching problem, but that someone wasn’t me.

  The principal investigator discovered that she could use the data from Adam’s blood to synthesize an experimental antiviral drug that could cure him, and maybe others. She also found out that I had brought the sample in. Her gratitude wasn’t enough to save me from getting kicked out of my program. Since I had violated most of the protocols for collecting human blood, I knew better than to try to fight it.

  Three weeks later, on my last night at the Black Cat, I told my friends I had quit from burnout. I was leaving DC—trying to live on a tiny stipend had been bad enough, so there was no way I could afford the rent now—and I had to tell them something. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Lexie said.

  Adam was standing a short distance away, close enough to hear but far enough away that no one watching would think he was part of the group. He had told everyone he was cured now, but our friends were still pissed, and I couldn’t blame them. “It’s complicated,” I said. “There’s been a lot
going on.”

  I went up to the bar, like I was about to order a drink, and if that put me right next to Adam, I wasn’t complaining. He glanced over at me, not quite making eye contact. “You didn’t burn out.”

  I shook my head.

  “Thank you,” he said, a little clipped, still not looking at me.

  “Of course,” I said. “We’re friends, okay? Some things are more important than a job.”

  Finally, he smiled. “Friends. Yeah.”

  For just a moment, I wondered if maybe I had wanted to date Adam all along. But even cured, he wasn’t right for me, and wanting something doesn’t make it a good idea. And I was leaving town anyway.

  Still. “We’ve got a few hours before sunrise,” I said. “Want to dance?”

  THE WHALE

  Anneliese Belmond

  Mara could still hear the elephant’s screams as she stared at his human body. The weight of eyes hung on her, perhaps comparing her negative weight to his positive. Both extremes. Wondering if she would break too, if the weight would be too much. They didn’t need to worry about her changing; she would be too small for harm, and lightweights had more control than heavyweights. Than the big heavyweights, at least.

  Mara knelt and smoothed Caleb’s hair. He looked peaceful in death. Light. She swallowed the lump in her throat and apologized for not being enough.

  * * *

  “How much weight do you carry?” Mara asked. The customary introduction felt heavy in her mouth. The purpose was transparency, but she dreaded the exchange.

  “Twenty,” Overseer Gemma said. “And you?”

  “Negative one-hundred.”

  Mara hated the widening of the woman’s eyes, like she was staring at a bomb. At positive twenty, the Weight Agency Overseer’s burden must be a minor blip in her day. Mara focused on the tight pull of her bound hair, and found her voice remained steady. “What’s this about, ma’am?”

  “One of our own has gone missing off the coast of California. A child. She and her family were sailing when they were overtaken by another boat. The parents sustained minor injuries and their daughter was taken. The FBI is investigating but we need to send one of our own in. We can’t risk the possibility that she was taken by politicals.”

  Mara nodded and glanced toward the rest of the police station, where the humans worked at desks behind the windows of her captain’s office. She caught a few eyes before they were directed away. Having no idea about the existence of the Weight community and Mara’s other work, they probably thought she was being reprimanded by their captain and deputy chief. She wished it didn’t bother her. There was only one other Weight in the department, other than Captain Rye. “I’ll contact Hardy about joining—”

  “No,” Gemma said. Her mouth pulled down, adding lines to her face and betraying her age. “It’s dangerous enough sending one person. The town is crawling with suits, we can’t risk drawing attention. You won’t be able to get anywhere near the parents, or their lawyer.”

  Mara glanced at her captain, but if he had concerns, he was keeping them to himself. “I appreciate your confidence in me, but I’m not sure there’s much I can do on my own.”

  “There’s one of ours in the town. He’s met the girl. He’ll assist you.” There was something off about the way Gemma said “assist.”

  “A civilian?”

  “A fisherman,” Captain Rye added. He smiled at what wasn’t being said, amused where Gemma was stiff.

  There could be only one reason for that. “How much weight does he carry?” Mara asked. It came out like a demand.

  Gemma swallowed. “100 tons.”

  “What?”

  “He’s a Whale,” Rye said. “He’s the Whale.”

  “No way,” Mara said, a grin inadvertently appearing. “What breed?”

  “Blue.”

  “That’s impossible,” she said, voice flat. “He would be catatonic.”

  “He’s quite functional,” Gemma said. “And safe. He’s the only one ever to make it to adulthood. He’d be in the Guinness World Records, if we were out. He prefers anonymity among our own kind and very few know he exists. He’ll help you with anything you need.”

  Mara stared at her, trying to imagine what carrying that much weight would be like. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I’ll leave today.”

  * * *

  From the backseat of a taxi, Mara read over Herman Henley’s file. He’d been in and out of psychiatric and rehabilitation facilities for most of his life. His medication history was long and ever-changing, with his last prescription being filled over two years ago. Surprisingly, he had a steady income and didn’t need the support that the Weight government gave to those carrying a truly terrible weight. He sounded more stable than many lighter people Mara had met.

  More stable than her.

  Mara deleted the file from her laptop and looked away, her exhale restrained. The cab had been an opportunity to read and thus avoid looking at the coastline. She had delayed the anxiety for as long as possible.

  The town could have been pleasant, even sweet, were it not for recent events. Seagulls called from the docks at the end of town, and while the ocean was silent, the winds carried its scent. Salty and fresh. It made Mara breathe deep even as the familiar longing built pressure in her chest.

  She left her bags in the room of a quiet inn before having the cabbie take her to the cliffs. The road became steep and troublesome enough for the man to grumble under his breath. Mara was busy fighting the perverse urge to watch the water get farther and farther away. Heights. Not watching was almost as bad.

  The road leveled out and Mara directed the cabbie onto a driveway, more a path than a road. It led to a little house that sat nestled between two hills of green, unseen from the main road. They gave the place a secluded look, and there was a simple beauty to the grass around it.

  “You sure?” the cabbie said when Mara passed him his pay. His eyes were on the house and, while maintained, it did have a “cabin in the woods” feel.

  “Yeah,” Mara said. “Quite sure.”

  She changed her mind as she approached the door and the cab’s engine faded. She felt like she was walking into silence. There was the breeze on the grass and the distant crash of the ocean, but for a moment she was utterly alone. The only one on earth. It wasn’t until she reached the house that she realized how close it sat to the cliff. There were maybe fifty feet from the door to the drop off. She forced her legs to keep moving, even though they felt like they were walking on thin ice.

  The door opened as she climbed the porch steps. She paused on the last one, knowing better than to get too close without permission.

  Herman Henley smiled at her, a thin-lipped expression that only lifted one side of his mouth. A natural tan covered his pale skin, proving he wasn’t a recluse. He was tall, but despite his youth, his back had already started to curve forward, making him look perpetually hunched. If it weren’t for the tremble in his hands and the twitch in his left eye, Mara would have thought this was the wrong man. Most people carrying more weight than their human form tried to wear some of it as fat, but this man had the body of a cocaine addict. Thin and wiry. When he leaned into the door frame and extended his hand to her, there was strength in his shoulders, but the door supported too much weight for the movement to be anything but necessary.

  “Mr. Henley,” Mara said, taking the last step so she could reach his hand. “I’m Detective Mara Kendell.”

  His grip was firm despite the perpetual tremble. To Mara’s relief, the frantic patter of her heart ceased under the man’s calm.

  “Herman, please,” he said. “The irony’s good for me.” His smile widened, and his left eye fluttered shut and then open again. “How much weight do you carry?”

  It was harder than usual to say. “Negative one-hundred.”

  “I hear that can be hard,” he said. Mara couldn’t tell if that was sarcasm or not. She kept her head high. Her human weight was perfectly average, heavier than
many whose animal side was small. Not an easy feat.

  “I’m here about the kidnapping of Katherine Young. I was told you’d be willing to assist.”

  “Any way I can.” He straightened and went into the house, motioning for Mara to follow. “What do you need?”

  “How well did you know her?”

  Herman waved a hand to the living room and headed toward the small kitchen to the right. Mara settled on the edge of the closest chair and shook her head when Herman held up a glass of water.

  “We met a few times,” he said as he took the chair across from her. “They’ve been vacationing here for two years now. Her parents are carriers of the gene only. She’d wanted to meet another of her kind so the agency put us in touch. She would have had more in common with another lightweight, but...” He took a sip of water to hide the emotion that had made him stop, and placed the glass on the table between them before his shakes could make it spill. “Does the agency think she was targeted by politicals?”

  “That’s what I’m here to determine. The agency doesn’t want to risk drawing attention until we know for certain.”

  “Not many people knew about her,” he said. “Her parents made sure she didn’t tell anyone, and she knew better than to show herself to an outsider. She’s a smart girl. And this town is ignorant, as far as I know.”

  “If she was targeted, it could have been someone who followed them here.”

  “They would have needed to know how to make a boat disappear.”

  “So it wasn’t spur of the moment.” Mara caught herself staring at him and forced the frown off her face. What a sharp mind for someone so heavy.

  His mouth quirked. “Say it,” he said. “You’ve held out longer than most, but I’m tired of that look.”