WereHuman - The Witch's Daughter: Consortium Battle book 1 (Wyrdos)

by Gwendolyn Druyor

  “Come on, Doctor, let’s go home and watch a movie.”

  Chapter Four

  Three rays of the afternoon sun shot into the couch room despite the heavy curtains Sher had pulled across the two windows. Laylea’s leg cut through one of the beams as she pawed at the mom’s sleeping face. It startled her and she looked around to see if the boys had come home.

  The beam had hit her paw as she tried to wake Sher. Maybe it was saying that was a good idea. Another beam struck the spine of a leather book on the shelves beside the TV. Did that mean Laylea should read the book? Even if she could read, she could never get that book off the shelves. It was too high. The third beam didn’t help at all. It just pointed at a little Martian guy on the oriental rug. Could a Martian stop Sher’s nightmare? What was a Martian and where could she find one?

  Laylea looked back as the mom flailed again. The puppy had grown accustomed to Woodford flinging legs about in the throes of his dreams. He often kicked her in the head. But she had never seen one of the humans do it. Most nights she slept in a piled up comforter on the floor of Bailey’s bedroom but she’d slept a couple of times with Woodford in the parents’ room so she had enough experience to know this wasn’t normal. Dr. Sher showing any emotion wasn’t normal.

  Her practical haircut was mussed now. Sweat plastering the short blond strands against her face. They didn’t move as she tossed her head from side to side. Laylea surfed precariously on her chest. She pawed at her face again and stood on her chin to lick a drop of salt water rolling down one cheek. Another violent breath sent her tripping backwards. The puppy dropped to her belly to keep from falling. The mom didn’t wake.

  She whimpered quietly, afraid to disturb the doctor but just as scared to let her sleep. She braved the beam of sun to set her cold nose against Sher’s neck. With all her heart, she wished the boys were home.

  But it was Saturday and they’d gone on a big hike to celebrate Bailey’s seventh birthday. All the boys. After the birthday bread pudding was devoured and the dishes washed up, the boys had hiked off the porch, down the street, and between the stone walls to reach the path leading past the rental cottage in the curve of the cul-de-sac.

  Sher had tinkered in the hidden room until the sun came up. Once the dew evaporated, she’d settled Laylea in her bicycle basket and ridden to the clinic for her final vaccination shots.

  They’d picked up pastries from the Cuban bakery near Bailey’s elementary school and then ridden home using the front streets. Laylea knew they were near their street when she saw the two trees that Clark said looked like a couple of drunks. When they turned into their little cul-de-sac Laylea looked up at the thin green sign on top of a pole that told strangers the street name. A small yelp escaped her even though she tried to be stoic when it was just she and the mom. A bright light flashed at her from the sign. It felt like a spike through her eyes into her brain. It was a bad sign. She wouldn’t look at it again.

  “My deterrent works on dogs too?” Sher had asked her. “But you can’t read.”

  Laylea had curled up in the basket, tucking her nose under her tail. She’d stayed there when Sher stopped to chat with the Old Lady Rucker who was out working on her roses. The OLR’s grandsons, Parker and his younger brother Davis, raced to a spigot to wash their hands when the mom gave the neighbor their pastries, saying they were extras.

  The Old Lady Rucker had called the renters from the end house over to share the bounty. Laylea expected Sher would hurry home when they came over. But she stayed and talked with them about shoes. She even pet each of them a little. Laylea had peeked out of her baby blanket, hoping to get some petting herself. Davis spotted her and squealed. He scratched her ears without even offering his hand for a sniff first. It was nice. But it wasn’t pets from the mom.

  After that, they’d gone home. Laylea got to sleep in Woodford’s nighttime bed while the mom showered.

  She got to curl up on the couch with Sher downstairs as they watched a girlie flick. Lots of sexy men and sword fights and a little time travel. Then Sher had tucked Laylea into the curve of her belly, pulled the afghan up over her head, and they’d napped. Laylea had never napped with the mom before. She smelled different when she was asleep. She smelled happy. For a few hours. Now she smelled angry and sad and Laylea didn’t know what to do.

  Laylea looked at each bright beam again. The bookcase. The carpet. Her paw. No answer revealed itself. Holding her breath, she nipped at the mom’s nose.

  Sher shook her off.

  The doctor shook off her grief, wiped the tears from her cheeks and the vomit from her lips. She set aside the silver emesis basin and escorted the soldier known to her as Gamma Subject out of her exam room, through the halls of the lab, to the front entrance. Gamma Subject’s deep black skin and dark green coveralls stood out against the white walls. But he stood quiet, as good as invisible when they encountered other Consortium personnel. Sher greeted every one. She touched them; their arms, hands, chest, shoulder and said “sometimes you need fresh air.” Each nodded and let them pass.

  To get out the front door of the laboratory building they had to stop for a moment in an airlock. While they waited for the standard security interrogation that was protocol before being buzzed through, the soldier quietly dropped a knife from his sleeve into his hand.

  The doctor hid her mouth from the guards on the other side of the window by looking at her feet and rubbing at her eyes. She spoke in an unnaturally low voice. “No.”

  Gamma Subject bent and let the knife slip into his boot, responding automatically. “I will not kill another soul today.”

  Static sounded in the small room. “You’ve forgotten to take off your lab coat, Doctor Coogan.”

  The doctor leaned in to push the button on her side of the protective glass. She spoke quietly. “Beer o’clock, David. Sometimes you need fresh air.”

  The desk guard stood and gestured for the door guard to open the airlock. As the doctor stepped through, she put a hand on the second guard’s chest and leaned in to catch his eyes. “Sometimes you need fresh air.”

  “Would you like me to pull the fire alarm, Doc?” David held the door for the other guard to go outside.

  Coogan smiled at the man. “Yes, please, David.”

  David turned back to break the glass on the emergency alert box as the doctor continued out the door propelling the soldier ahead of her. Gamma Subject led the doctor away from the building toward the distant parking lot. He noticed a trickle of people leaving the building from all exits. The doctor took no notice, walking as quickly as she could away from the building. Moments after they heard the alarm, the trickle grew to a swarm.

  The soldier wondered at it. He turned to the doctor, amazed. “You conditioned them.”

  “Yes.” She kept walking swiftly away from the lab.

  Hundreds of people exited the building in a calm unhurried manner. “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  As they reached the parking lot, the soldier pulled the doctor behind a large white cargo van. Two rugged mountain bicycles leaned against the vehicle.

  Coogan was underwhelmed by her subject's preparations. “You’re kidding.”

  “Trust me, Doc.”

  They got on the bicycles and had almost reached the back of the parking lot when the muffled first explosion reached their ears. It was far inside the building, hopefully driving any remaining employees outside. The doctor had timed the explosions for least loss of life. But as she glanced back a part of her hoped that Trask remained trapped inside.

  Hundreds of long white coats continued to stroll away from the explosions. They walked into the trees, folded into the lines of cars in the parking lot, and steadily made their ways across the open field between the research building and the highway. Everyone walking away. So it was easy to pick out the one figure running. The one figure heading toward the building. The woman’s black bouffant hairdo stood out against the white building as Trask ran back to the exit nearest her of
fices. Coogan watched that hair catch fire as the bomb disguised as a fire extinguisher just outside Trask's office went off and sent the bitch flying violently through the air. The doctor’s smile didn’t have time to hit her lips before she had to help Gamma Subject who knelt, vomiting into the grass at the edge of the woods.

  “I will not kill another soul today.”

  “Not today,” she agreed and got him back on his bike and into the woods before they were seen.

  A few miles away the soldier stopped by a rushing creek. He rifled through his backpack and pockets, taking out cell phone, GPS, SmartPad, camera. He took off his watch and his heart monitor. “Dump all your tech. They can track everything.”

  The doctor dumped her phone and her watch. But she held on to a small scanner and pulled an alcohol swab from her lab coat pocket. “I need to borrow your knife.”

  She had the tall soldier turn around and kneel as she wiped the knife with alcohol. Then she pulled up his shirt and scanned between his shoulder blades. When the device whined, she swabbed the area and dug the knife’s tip into his flesh, extracting an electrical device smaller than a thumbnail. She dropped it in the water and almost dropped the scanner as well until a thought stopped her. She handed the scanner to the soldier and turned her back on him. Taking off her lab coat she unbuttoned her shirt. When the scanner whined, she pulled more swabs from her pocket and sterilized the knife.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, handing the soldier his weapon.

  His voice went distant as he focused on his task. He wasn’t as familiar with delicate knife work as the doctor. “We’re going to the Consortium’s testing grounds. For our final exam they drop us in a mountain range. If we get back to the lab, we pass. Perhaps I can catch you some more Conditioned Force soldiers to fix.”

  “You can help me," she replied. "I’ll teach you how to recondition.”

  “Can you get my memories back? My name?”

  The doctor winced as he pulled the transmitter from her skin and wiped more alcohol into the cut. “I don’t know. I’ll—” Coogan fell to her knees. “No.” She shook her head violently. “No, I’m lying again. I’m sorry. I don’t think I . . . we used drugs. We changed you. I don’t think I can do this.”

  The soldier tried to lift her up. “You have to.”

  “They killed my brother.” She caught his eyes and she knew that they’d made him kill people’s brothers. She looked away, fell to the grass before she could wonder if he had been the one to kill her brother. She lay there, frozen, her life blown up.

  Gamma Subject knelt beside her. Then he lay down in the wet grass and reached one dark arm up to weave his fingers into her pale ones. They clutched at the grass together.

  He whispered into her long black ponytail, “I don’t need a name, Doc. I’ve seen lots of toe tags labeled J. Doe and I’ve wondered who he was.”

  She snorted. He laughed.

  Another moment passed with the wet seeping into their clothes and the distant fire smoking the air over their heads. The doctor sat up. She could hear voices starting to question each other. The fire and strangeness of the day was breaking down her conditioning. They had to run.

  J. Doe took her hand and brushed himself off. He looked back at the flames licking the air on the high horizon. Together they listened to the crackling flames and the intermittent explosions as the fire reached new labs in the building.

  “Doc, they’ve changed you too.”

  Coogan inhaled sharply in an almost laugh. “I blew up the lab.”

  “Yes you did.” He smiled encouragingly. “They’ll know better than to mess with your family again.”

  She looked in his eyes. A smile came to her lips now. “I blew up their building.”

  J. Doe nodded. “Look out, Consortium. There’s a new sheriff in town.”

  It was the push she needed. They climbed back on their bikes and rode away.

  “Mom!”

  Laylea tumbled from the couch as Sher sat up. The doctor’s hand shot out and grabbed the puppy just before she hit the carpet. Laylea stared into her eyes, wanting to see that she was okay. That the dream was over. But the mom just set Laylea on the floor.

  “Our wandering champions are home,” she called. “The girls are in here.”

  Woodford continued through the swinging door into the kitchen. But Bailey flipped around, bounced off the dining room wall, and barreled into the family room. Laylea found herself scooped off the floor as Bailey told them both all about the birds and the bugs they’d seen and how you could answer a question any old way you wanted to even if your answer didn’t answer the person’s question.

  Sher folded the blanket in her lap, inviting the bouncing kid to sit with her. “You learned how to keep a secret?”

  “Secrets aren’t always a bad thing. Like if you don’t want to hurt a friend’s feelings, you can tell them you like their new haircut even if it looks like they fell into a box fan.”

  “Really?” Sher glanced up at Clark leaning in the archway. She asked again, “Did you learn how to keep a secret?”

  Bailey stayed on the couch. He pet Laylea and bounced. But he also looked his mother directly in the eyes. “I learned that there are so many different species of bugs that we don’t have names for them all and that’s okay because not everything needs a label.”

  Sher took a breath to ask again. Bailey cut her off. He lifted a small bag from his hip, making her look away from his eyes. “We collected lots of sage. Sage belongs in the kitchen, doesn’t it?”

  Sher let a smile grow on her lips. When she looked up, Laylea could still see a little fear deep in her eyes, but the smile was starting to replace it. “Pharmacologically, sage can be used to enhance your short term memory recall.”

  Bailey doubled up in giggles. “Which is why Dad puts it in everything!”

  “Hey Bailiff,” Sher let him catch his breath, but only just. “Did you learn how to keep a secret?”

  His giggles renewed. “I’ll never tell.”

  Laylea licked at his face, missing as he kept bouncing.

  “Did you learn—” the mom didn’t even get to finish her question.

  The boy popped up and headed out the door. “I’ll go lay the sage out to dry.”

  Woodford came trotting out of the kitchen, water dripping from his muzzle. Bailey stopped in the dining room to scratch the dog and Laylea nearly tumbled out of his arms onto the big hound.

  She heard Sher sigh, “Oh, Clark, what have you done? We aren’t gonna get a straight answer from that kid for weeks.”

  The dad called out, “Hey Bailey.”

  He rescued Laylea from the kid’s arms as Bailey flipped around and stumbled back into the family room. Woodford followed at a leisurely pace.

  “Mom! You can pick any word out of the question and free associalize on that word, like you did with sage. Or you can change the subject. Or you can make a joke. Or you can just walk away like you didn’t even hear the question. But within the family we don’t keep secrets. Like I should be honest about how much I miss you when we hike without you. Even though I know it makes you sad because it reminds you that you can’t ever see your mom again or your dad or your sister or your aunts and uncle or your cousins.”

  Laylea felt the temperature dip. She tucked her tail tight in her belly, remembering the smell of her mother and her brothers wiggling all around her.

  The mom stiffened.

  Bailey stiffened too. “Are you sad, Mom?” He added, in a tiny voice, “no secrets.”

  “You’re sad when I’m not around?” Sher asked.

  Clark mumbled into Laylea’s fur, “Deflection.”

  Sher’s eyes darted up to his. Then she looked at her kid and joined him in nodding.

  “Can I hug you, Mom?”

  Laylea flipped over to see Sher. The cold fled from her eyes.

  “You can always hug me. My mom said I didn’t know when I needed a good hugging.”

  “Your mom hugged you?” Bailey aske
d, his eyes glued to hers.

  A smile tugged at Sher’s lips and then disappeared again. “My mom hugged us every single day. Said hugs renewed her magic.”

  “I like that,” Bailey declared. “I’m gonna hug you for your mom every day.”

  He bounded over. After an instant, he backed away and kissed her on the cheek. Then he climbed into her lap and wrapped himself around her neck, holding tight.

  Laylea wiggled when he hopped off. Sher’s eyes glowed bright and warm.

  “Two hugs, Kiddo?” Clark asked.

  “Have to keep her magic strong so she can keep us safe!” Bailey hollered back as he ran off to the kitchen.

  “A hug every single day,” Clark said. “Are you gonna be able to handle it?”

  Sher dragged herself off the couch. She set the folded afghan on the arm and then knelt on the poofy bolster of Woodford’s bed. The mom gave Woodford a full massage, working from his ears all the way down to his tail. When she was done, Woodford rolled on his side and let her examine his belly. She finished by picking gunk out of the corners of his eyes.

  She stood. She wiped at the corners of her own eyes.

  “You didn’t have to use your rope bracelet.”

  Clark threw his head back and laughed so hard he frightened Laylea. “Deflection!”

  “No, sir,” Sher corrected with a laugh. “That was free assocializing.”

  Even though he laughed with her, Clark didn’t let her off the hook.

  “That was deflection.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “And I’ve gotten you to change the subject for me.”

  “Hugs.” Clark changed the subject back.

  Sher picked a little green book up off the TV table. She sighed again. “I'm not gonna be able to handle a hug every single day.” She crossed over and wiped Laylea’s eyes. “I’d rather go back to fighting the Consortium.”

  Clark scoffed, “You never fought them. You just blew up their building and stole their experiments.”