“So... did you follow me down here to have a philosophical discussion, or is there something you want?”
Prutzmann’s eyebrows shot up. “Impatient, aren’t we?”
Sam shrugged. “I’m cold and I want to go home. What do you want?”
Prutzmann sighed, enjoying the final bit of his cigarette before tossing the butt into the river. “Your little venture into the underground did not go unnoticed. People higher up took... steps... so you would understand there are consequences to your actions.”
“If you mean getting me suspended, yeah, I know.”
“Then, I don’t have to tell you to be careful in your prying.” Prutzmann suddenly stepped closer, leaned closer, before he continued. “If you go too far, if they decide that you’re too much of a threat, it will be open season on you, and no one can protect you... Not Hudson... Not Vincent.”
“I think they’ve underestimated Vincent.”
Prutzmann chuckled. “Vincent is far to busy trying to stay alive to worry about you, sweetheart. They are hunting him like the dog he is, and they’ll get him, too.” His eyes took on a far-away look. “You can’t run forever.”
Sam exhaled, tossing the butt of her own cigarette into the river. “Why share this juiciness with me? It’s not like we’re friends.”
“We could be.”
Sam studied Prutzmann for a long moment... the impassive look on his face, his stance... He was relaxed, and yet... something was off...
“Well, I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be fine. And so will Vincent. I’ll see to that.”
Prutzmann smirked again, his expression of amusement rankling Sam. “Oh really? How is that?”
“Because I killed Diane Weber... I killed the Alpha female...” She saw him flinch momentarily when she spoke Weber’s name, recovering quickly.
“And?” He looked at her, his amusement unmasked. Sam hesitated, unsure for a split second... until it came to her... she knew exactly what to say...
“And when the time is right, and I call for them... the wolves will come to me.”
Prutzmann chuckled softly, but he left moments later, politely bidding her goodnight and hurrying away down the Esplanade. Sam began to make her own way home, her curiosity now piqued... Why would Prutzmann come to warn her off? It was an almost protective gesture, and there was certainly no love lost between them. Even his revealing that Vincent was being hunted, something Sam had secretly suspected as being the root cause of his strange behavior, was, well... helpful. Sam wondered as she walked quickly across Broadway and made a beeline for the subway station... Could Prutzmann have some loyalty to Vincent because of his sister? Is that why they didn’t kill each other in the parking garage six months ago? Or was there something else going on... something inherently “wolfie” that Sam had yet to figure out? When she had spoken of calling the wolves, there had been something in his eyes... amusement, to be sure, but something else as well...
Fear.
John Prutzmann was afraid... of her.
24
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
5th Avenue & 42nd Street
As she sat on the steps next to the lion statue known as “Patience,” Sam knew she was anything but a model of that virtue. After a restless night filled with tears and more of those R-rated dreams featuring a certain tall, dark and deadly werewolf, Sam had awoken with a plan and promptly called Chris Connolly. Luckily, the other woman had the day off and had agreed to meet Sam at the library for some research. Sam was starting early, whizzing through search engines and news sites on her phone, bookmarking here and there as she went so that the addresses were saved. Names and dates, places and organizations had flashed by during this high-speed search, but Sam had picked out enough along the way to give her goose bumps and a sinking feeling in her stomach.
It was bad. Sure, that sounded generic, but right now Sam couldn’t think of a word that was more appropriate, simple as it was. The “Bund Rally” beneath the reservoir had included some noteworthy people, but as she began to see the role these people were playing in city and state politics, business and finance, education and the civil services, Sam’s blood ran cold.
According to the articles and video she was sifting through, Sam was not the only person whose life had been transformed in the past six months. A few weeks after Sam’s accident last September, Brooklyn Councilwoman Donna Strong had found herself pushed into the limelight. The popular community leader had had a relatively low profile other than in her own district, but when the Democratic candidate for the congressional seat died tragically in a car accident on the LIE, Strong was tapped to run in his place. With barely a month to campaign, Strong rose in the polls like mercury in a thermometer (heh) and election night in November found her issuing what had been dubbed by the media as “one of the most moving victory speeches of the 21st century.”
Quickly moving into her new office, Strong had begun implementing many of the policies the previous candidate had campaigned on...as well as a few others that were... interesting... to say the least. There were the obvious things... voting against a very “Liberal” bill in support of transgender bathrooms... lobbying for restrictions on housing refugees in Brooklyn... Then there were the subtle moves, including support for a local group’s bid for a storefront near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a group that was rather loosely associated with the white nationalist movement. The support barely made it into the papers, nothing more than a blip on the community radar, but taken with everything else, a discerning eye could see that Congresswoman Donna Strong of the 7th Congressional District in New York was a well-placed, card-carrying friend of Fenris... Sam chuckled at that... Wonder if they have tee shirts or key chains or something... Friends of Fenris... Nice...
And now Congresswoman Strong was launching her campaign for Mayor of New York. Another convenient accident had befallen the previous mayor and, while the Deputy Mayor was serving his public purpose, the scuttlebutt from City Hall was that Strong and a group of like-minded individuals were already running things. Everything was somehow connected... the politics, the deaths, the drugs... Sam shook her head, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. She sighed, knowing the likelihood of him picking up the phone was slim-to-none... he hadn’t in six months, and despite the lustful clenches they’d recently shared, Sam didn’t anticipate Vincent answering his phone as she dialed the number and listened to it ring.
“You alright, Sam?” He’d answered. Sam was mute for a few seconds, the shock that he’d actually picked up the phone overwhelming her thought processes. That and the fact that his voice was making her panties melt off and putting her skinny jeans in grave danger of following. “Sam!!!”
“Vincent! Yeah, sorry... um, yeah...” Sam took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m fine. Listen... Those people at that little shindig the other night...”
“The Bund Rally?”
“Yeah, that. How much do you know about them?” Vincent hesitated briefly on the other end. Sam could hear some muttering, then suddenly a voice raised babbling something in Cantonese.
“Sam?” Vincent cleared his throat before continuing. “I know a bit. Why?”
“We need a plan. And to get a plan, we need to know what we’re dealing with here. Can you bring whatever you have and come to my place tonight? I’ll make Ben call in and will get...food.”
“Eight o’clock?”
Sam exhaled with a whoosh. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until then. “Eight works fine. I’ll see you then.”
“See ya, darlin’.” As soon as that call ended, Sam felt her phone start to vibrate, the programmed signal for a text message. It was Connolly. She’d just left the subway station and was on her way. Sam took a final puff on her cigarette, tossing it toward the street as she saw Connolly rounding the corner.
Sam turned a couple of pages in the large medical book in front of her before she glanced up at Connolly, who was approaching with an armful of large books. The librarian upstairs
seemed to be expecting them when they approached the desk, and quickly motioned for she and Connolly to follow her through the Reading Room and down into “the stacks.” Sam stifled her amusement as they entered the oldest part of the book depository, half expecting to see a ghost or two as they walked past bookshelf after bookshelf heading for the deepest part that extended out underneath Bryant Park.
“Ordinarily, we do not let people down here.” The librarian had been a bit fidgety, but her knowledge of the underground area was vast indeed. Connolly gave her a list of books and the woman immediately began having the books ferried up from the more than 80 miles of subterranean shelving that they called home. Soon, the little carts were arriving with the books pulled from the second underground floor. The fidgeting had increased when Sam expressed her desire to stay downstairs to look at the books. Even though her argument was rational – that it was better than hauling all of them upstairs to the Reading Room, blah blah blah – and Connolly had agreed with her, the truth was Sam really didn’t want to go back up to the Reading Room because of what she had smelled when they walked through. There were several groups of werewolves scattered throughout the room, most seemingly engrossed in their research materials. For a moment, Sam felt a flash of fear... How could there be so many already? Even though the infection had obviously been spreading in the city over the past six months or so, it seemed unfathomable it could have spread so far so quickly without anyone noticing. College students, middle-aged professor types... Perhaps the drugs being spread were more important than she thought...
Sam turned another page. “So, basically, this new drug...is an old drug... Correct?”
Connolly set the books in her arms on the table and hopped up to sit beside them. “Basically. Pharmaceutical company in Berlin... Temmler, I think? They developed and marketed it in 1938. It got really popular among civilians first, and then somebody brought it to the attention of the Academy of Military Medicine.” She grabbed one of the books, opening it and flipping through the pages as she continued. “I guess those all-nighter Blitzkriegs take their toll, you know?”
Sam chuckled. “True that. It’s really just speed, though, right?”
Connolly nodded. “Yep. Mimics adrenaline like most methamphetamines. Wakes you up, helps you concentrate, reduces the need for sleep. But the other effects were just as important to the military. Soldiers who started taking it were more confident, more willing to take risks, better able to withstand high degrees of pain.”
“So, is this PERV-E different in some way from the old Pervitin?”
“In some way?” Connolly worked her neck back and forth, reaching up to massage the stiffness out. “In a major way.” She grabbed one of the other books in the stack, flipping through before stopping on a page one third of the way in. “For most of the war, they used the straight Pervitin. But towards the end, troops were developing tolerance to the medication, and some even died from taking too much, trying to achieve the original feeling. That’s when they developed a pill that they code named D-10. In addition to three milligrams of Pervitin, the drug contained five milligrams of cocaine and five milligrams of a morphine-based painkiller called Eukodal.” She closed the book and set it back down. “The stuff out on the street now, this PERV-E shit. Same thing.”
Sam opened her mouth to speak but closed it quickly. Someone was coming, and judging the brisk pace and small stride, it was a woman. Seconds later, the librarian entered, her expression a mixture of annoyance and anxiety. “There’s a phone call for you, Ms. Connolly. They said it was quite urgent.” She stepped back, motioning slightly for Connolly to follow her.
Connolly jumped down off the table. “I’d better run then.” She turned to Sam. “You’ll be alright here?”
The librarian’s expression became even more anxious if that was possible. “Really, it would be better if—”
“Yep, I’ll be just fine.” Sam glanced at the clock on her phone. “If you need to run, go ahead. I’ll wait for fifteen, and if I don’t see you, I’ll send this mess back and head home.”
Connolly nodded her understanding and left, with the librarian reluctantly following behind. Sam could see she obviously wanted to stay, or at least wanted Sam to leave with them. Sam wanted to stay on though... The book in her lap was proving to be very interesting and she wanted to finish photographing the pages with her phone before she left.
The section was about the experimentation in Auschwitz, and that done by Mengele specifically. While the werewolves weren’t mentioned directly, there was a great deal of information about his scientific process. It seemed ridiculous to call the things this monster did “science,” but the truth was he was a decent scientist... His methods were cruel, but some of his genetic research was spot-on. Sam shook her head slowly as she snapped another photo of a page. She recalled being horrified the first time her grandfather had said that to her... “How can you say that, Grampy? All the horrible things he did!” And Ivan had simply smiled and said, “Yes, this is true, but a man is due what he is due. I never saw a man who took more joy in selecting people for death, and yet... he went above and beyond to save others... Life is not black and white, Nepoata... Sometimes the bad do good things, and sometimes the good do...very bad things.”
Sam heard a clattering sound above and snapped the last picture quickly. She closed the book and started pulling together the other books in piles. The new filing system was automated, and rather than using the old Dewey decimal system it relied on the size of the book to determine where it went. She put them into piles, little pyramids of seven or eight books stacked together, hoping her efforts for the librarian would not be taken poorly. When she finished, Sam turned toward the doorway, expecting Connolly or the librarian to enter.
No such luck. Two men stopped in the entryway, their eyes scanning the room quickly before settling on Sam and the pile of books on the table. Sam scented as subtly as she could, but the smell that had wafted in upon their arrival was clear. She remembered their faces and their scent... They had followed she and Lenny six months ago, tracking them downtown as they raced to Trinity Church to meet Vincent and Ben. “Euro-wolves,” she’d dubbed them at the time, as much because of their manner as it was because of their stylishly suited appearance. Shit, they looked like members of a Spandau Ballet tribute group, all trimmed hair and straight ties and topcoats. They were wearing sunglasses as well, perhaps some poor attempt at not being noticed or recognized, like Sam couldn’t smell the Paco Rabanne and silk and fine wool from a mile away. In any case, there they were, and they stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. Sam knew she had to make the first move and it had to be a good one. Long-term goal get out of Library...short-goal, disable Euro-wolves so that long-term goal can be accomplished. No time to call Vincent, so...
“Hey, you guys see the librarian on your travels down here?” Sam decided the best route was to just play it cool and snarky and see if the exit window opened naturally. Maybe their manners were as good as their suits and they wouldn’t attack without provocation. “See the thing is, these books have to go back to their individual places on the shelves back there.” She jerked her head to indicate the direction of the stacks behind her. She picked up a stack, gauging the distance between herself and the Euro-wolves. “So... you guys wanna help put things away?”
The response was more cooperative than she expected, with both Euros lunging for her in tandem. Sam threw the books and turned quickly, sprinting back into the book stacks. She heard the books hitting them and, while it slowed them a bit, it did nothing to stop them. Not that she’d expected they would, she just needed time to get a head start. She ran past the old-fashioned card catalogue. The shelves turned inward after that and Sam took a hard right into the space between two of them, pausing to look back and see where her pursuers were. They weren’t long in arriving, but unlike her they slowed by the card catalogue and seemed to be scenting. She wasn’t going to be able to hide from them, even with the superior ventilation sys
tem down here. This was going to take some effort...
Sam crept back away from them, tiptoeing quickly down the aisle and around the corner. Still out of sight, she grabbed a couple of small books from the shelves as she passed and kept going past shelf after shelf. She could see the entrance to the underground stacks ahead... She didn’t want to get trapped back there... She reached into her pocket, pulling out a tissue that was stuffed in there and tucking it inside the book. Ordinarily, she would have felt bad about doing this, but right now book preservation was not high on the life-saving priority list. She scented the air quickly... they were close, probably near the card catalogue right now... Sam pulled her arm back and fired the book toward the stacks entrance. The book, and its precious tissue cargo containing her scent, flew through the air in a lovely arc, then banged against the ceiling and slammed to the ground with a large thwack about five feet from the entrance to the underground stacks. Sam stayed very still. She heard the scramble as two sets of feet ran toward the stacks’ entrance. As soon as their feet slowed, Sam moved quickly, her feet barely making a sound as she hurriedly retraced her steps.
When she got to the edge of the shelf near the card catalogue, she peeked carefully around the corner. Both Euro-wolves were still near the entrance, and one was craning to look beyond into the stacks, perhaps hoping that she had run in there and he would spot her. The other Euro was looking back toward the old stacks. Sam knew in order to get to the exit and get out, she needed to distract him. She quickly prepped another book, this time without tissue cargo, and threw it up and over the shelves toward the corner she had just come from. It cleared two of the shelves, thwacking to the ground like the other did. She watched as the Euros both turned and made a beeline toward the sound... Out of sight.
Sam counted to three, long enough for them to reach the book, then she took off. She ran down the aisle and through the exit, climbing the stairs two at a time.
The Bloodline Series Box Set Page 36