by Jen Haeger
“What?” Kim said, taken aback.
“It’s a long story, and maybe it would be better for Evie to tell it, but for now let’s just say other packs finding out about the lab would be a bad thing.”
Kim frowned and shifted her position on the couch.
“Then why are you doing it? Why research a cure when it’s so dangerous? You said that I could learn to live with being a were-…being infected. What aren’t you telling me, David?”
Though he greatly admired Kim’s intellect, at the moment David wished that she wasn’t so astute. He struggled to come up with a way to tell Kim about the grim realities of being a Wolfkin. David took a deep breath and let it out again, then looked into Kim’s accusing eyes.
“There is a downside to being werewolf other than turning furry close to the full moon. It’s a foreign virus and it damages the body…and the mind.”
Kim swallowed hard. “The mind?”
“Evie and I both think that the virus is related to the rabies virus. It would explain why you have to learn how to control the rage that comes with the change and why those infected all eventually suffer from dementia.”
“Eventually?”
David looked away. “I think around age fifty, but it’s earlier in some.”
“In who?” Kim’s voice broke.
“It’s difficult to predict, but we know it comes more quickly in those who were younger when they were turned. Especially…especially children.”
Kim’s eyes widened in horror. “Children?” she mouthed.
David continued on so Kim didn’t dwell too long on whatever images of insane little werewolves she now had in her mind.
“The packs all handle this dementia in different ways. Some put down Wolfkin who are no longer in control of their mental facilities, and others, well, others don’t.”
Kim had closed her eyes and was shaking her head. Way to go, thought David. Why do I have such a knack for telling women horrible things in just the wrong way? He sighed.
“That’s why we’re searching for a cure.”
Kim opened her eyes again. They were liquid with tears. She opened her mouth, but didn’t speak right away.
“How did you become infected?”
David really didn’t want to relive those memories right then, but he felt that he owed it to Kim after the ghastly things he just revealed to her, so he told her about his younger Goth days and the foolishness that had gotten him into the situation he was now in. Kim let him tell the whole story without interrupting. When David finished telling her about escaping from the Vulke he fell silent.
“I had a phase like that, too, in High School. I quit the swim team and started hanging out with a bad crowd. I’d just lost a couple of big competitions in a row and was feeling like I was training so hard at swimming for nothing. I just wanted to hang out for a while and enjoy myself. I drank a lot, did some drugs, and even got arrested once for shoplifting,” Kim smiled.
David managed a grin. “What got you back onto the straight and narrow?”
Kim’s smile faded and she swallowed.
“My father died. He had a heart attack. It just kind of woke me up to the fact that we might not have as much time as we think, and that I was wasting my life. That’s when I started really training in my swimming. It helped me cope, and it’s kind of been the one thing that I can depend on, if that makes any sense.”
David nodded. “Of course it makes sense.”
Kim was quiet a moment then caught David’s eye. “What helps you cope?”
“Well, for a long time it was the drive to find out what had happened to me and how I might be able to find a way to cure it…then-“
At that moment Evelyn came into the room, “Sorry Kim, can I borrow David for a minute?”
“Sure, no problem, I was feeling a bit tired anyway,” Kim said, smiling.
David followed Evelyn into the bedroom where two printouts were laid out on the bed.
“I was right,” Evelyn said quietly. “Right there, see? Kim and Katie’s viral signatures are different than ours.” She looked up at David. “Here, let me show you.” She retrieved a binder as David went over to get a closer look at the printouts. She pointed to the peaks on the graphs of one printout, and then to the peaks on the other. David didn’t completely understand, but he did see a difference.
“So what does it mean?” asked David.
“It means a mutation. Now, I’m not sure what function this sequence encodes as far as the virus is concerned, but I bet it has something to do with transmission of the virus, especially since it isn’t clear how either of them contracted Languorem luporum.”
“But how or why would it have mutated after hundreds of years?”
“I don’t know, but I have to contact our benefactor within the Council. This could change everything. If the virus is easier to transmit now, and lots of people are becoming infected that don’t want to be, then the packs have to change their minds about finding a cure.” Evelyn turned to go back into the lab.
“Evie wait. I just wanted to tell you that Kim asked what you were doing in here.”
Evelyn stopped abruptly and turned. “You didn’t tell her, did you?!”
“I had to. When I tried to lie she called me out, and I don’t think that we should lie to her about it.”
“But David, what if she tells someone about the lab? We don’t know if we can trust her.”
“I think that we can trust her. Not only that, I think that we should make her part of our pack,” David said resolutely.
“What?! Why?!”
“Because she already knows about the lab and its location for one, and also, if her virus is mutated, what if another pack decides that she’s dangerous to have around? Evie, what if they decided to put her down? Could you live with that?” he finished softly.
“But they wouldn’t know that she had a mutated strain.”
“They could figure it out based on the mystery of how she contracted the virus, or it might come out like you said if the Council and the packs decide to sanction finding a cure.”
“Fine. Alright. You’re right. I’m going to go e-mail our Councilman and then just finish up a few things before we get ready for tonight.”
*
David went back out into the living room and Evelyn went back into the lab. She wanted to do so much more, but the day was growing short, so she composed the e-mail to the Councilman and attached the data files showing the differences in the viral strain. She encrypted the file and then sent it off into cyberspace. Evelyn was torn between starting some new experiments in the lab and getting back to civilization to hear if there was any word on Clem and ask Marcus if he had heard of any more strays. She was scheduled to work on Saturday morning so they had to be back by Friday night anyway. Also, they had to get Kim well enough to hike out and also make sure that she wasn’t a missing person.
Something was bothering Evelyn, though. A nagging thought in the back of her brain. Why had the virus suddenly mutated, and how could two very different individuals from two different states become infected at roughly the same time? It just didn’t make sense. Evelyn was also terrified that if Languorem luporum was mutating, it might mean that she would never be able to create a cure.
26
Clem’s scent was unmistakable. Where there had been only traces of it for a month, suddenly it was heavy in the air. The Wahya members charged with Clem’s recovery immediately notified Caroline and Marcus, even before they found a clump of fur and some tattered clothing. They had been widening their search and now had tracked Clem all the way to the Detroit River. In a sorely neglected and dingy outskirt of the city, was a wharf, of sorts, where several freighters were docked. One of them, the Amurskaya, a worn hulk of rusted metal, appeared all but abandoned with no crew moving about and scarcely a light glowing anywhere on the vessel. Marcus knew it was a trap. There could be no other explanation for their sudden luck in tracking Clem. He forbade the Wahya who had found it from go
ing anywhere near the ship until a full rescue team could be assembled.
The only good news was that Clem’s scent was fairly fresh, so he had to still be alive. Unfortunately the scent was also tainted by the sharp, metallic odor of blood. It was as whoever had taken Clem wanted it: the Wahya knew Clem was there, but they knew also that he had little time left. The abductors wanted them to come charging in without thinking, panicked that they would be too late to save Clem. It had taken Marcus a lot of self-control and discipline to not do just that, especially after the change, but he had managed to control himself and the twelve other Wahya of the team. They were going to be slow and cautious. The funny thing was that Marcus had been sure Clem’s disappearance had been the work of the Vulke, especially when he had learned that the ship was of Russian origin, yet there wasn’t a hint of Vulke scent anywhere near the wharf. This was some other threat and they had to be ready for anything.
There was only one apparent way onto the ship, a gangplank spanning the twenty feet from the ship to the concrete pier, but Marcus was far from comfortable with that. He did not like the exposed position that would put them in, but there was no other way. At least I was able to secure Kevlar vests, he thought, as he and the alpha team sprinted forward towards the entrance to the gangplank. The gunfire started immediately, although it was likely only recognizable as such by the Wolfkin present. The shots sounded more like loud pops then the bangs of the miniature explosions that they were. The shots were also too precise for the amount of ambient light unless being fired by a Wolfkin or a human with night vision goggles. Marcus heard a bullet whip past his head, and the team member in front of him went down as a slug took him square in the chest. Marcus fervently hoped that they weren’t armor-piercing rounds as he grabbed his fallen comrade’s arm and gave the howl for the team to retreat.
Three Wolfkin had taken bullets in the assault, one to the chest, another in the leg, and one unlucky team member had his ear blown clean off. Fully half of the six alpha team members were out of commission. Marcus would have been upset with this outcome if it had not accomplished exactly what it was supposed to: distracting the shooters while the beta team boarded the ship from the water. The beta team had quietly swum to a position below the gangplank and then climbed the old, decaying wooden posts lining the seawall that once were used to moor the ships. The sights of the gunners were trained on the area in front of the gangplank and not on the actual gangplank, so the beta team’s movement went completely unnoticed as they worked their way along the underside of it and then climbed aboard the ship. They easily traced the acrid smell of discharged gunpowder to the gunner’s positions. Marcus rallied the three upright members of the alpha team and listened intently. They moved towards the gangplank again when the screaming started.
This time there was no gunfire to slow their progress and they made the ship’s deck easily. The smell of fresh blood and gun smoke was thick in the air, but Marcus could still catch Clem’s scent beneath it. Beta team would secure the deck, so the alpha team began looking for a way down into the bowels of the vessel. Marcus suspected that most of the easy and obvious routes would be locked, blocked, watched, or trapped, so he looked for an alternate way to get below. He spotted the opening he was looking for and fervently hoped that whoever had Clem didn’t watch too many American action films.
He and the alpha team carefully approached the large, hornlike projection from the floor of the deck above the engines. All of them put a nose to the opening and took a deep sniff. There was no scent of human or Wolfkin coming from the opening, just the heavy odor of grease, oil, and fuel. Marcus nodded once and one of the other team members quickly removed a coil of thick nylon rope from his waist and affixed it to a loop of metal near the base of the structure with a carabineer. The process was slowed by his ungainly Wolfkin claws, but he managed to secure the rope within a few minutes as Marcus wound the rope expertly around his large, hairy frame. As soon as the rope was secure, Marcus climbed into the structure, the dorade box, he recalled, and crawled under the partition that kept rain and sea wash out of the engine room but let air in. He then began lowering himself into the darkness. He listened intently for any sounds of danger from below, but heard nothing save the whir of a small machine, possibly a generator.
Marcus moved through the tube quickly and could soon just make out the opening in the virtual blackness under him. The rope dangled down to about a foot above the steel floor of the engine room, but it was about a 12 foot drop from the end of the pipe to the floor. Just to be safe, Marcus got as close to the opening as he dared, then released his grip on the rope and dropped down onto the mesh metal flooring, landing in a controlled roll and deftly regaining his feet. He stayed low and crouched, alert for any signs of attack, but none came. He rapidly eyed the rest of the area for danger before tugging sharply three times on the end of the rope. In short order, the other two alpha team members descended and joined him.
Marcus had only had time to briefly go over a generic freighter schematic gleaned from the internet, but he really hoped that they were pretty much all the same. The three of them sought the lower level of the engine room and Marcus hurried to the wall that was shared with the cargo hold. At first he didn’t find what he was looking for and let out a snarl of frustration, but then he spotted it, a utility hatch partially obscured by a pile of equipment. Included in the pile of more or less random tools was a length of pipe and an oversized wrench that likely would not have been found in many other places than the engine room of a freighter. Marcus pointed at the materials and then at the far side of the engine room wall. His companions took up the pipe and wrench and then hurried away from Marcus who squatted next to the hatch and gripped its wheel-like handle in his wolf hands. Fortunately, they had discussed this part of the plan before they had shifted, because it would have been difficult to now relay what Marcus wanted the others to do. As it was, it took them only a few moments to get to the far end of the room and to begin banging on the wall and howling loudly.
Marcus only hoped that the captors, humans judging by the earlier screams, continued to underestimate them as he began turning the hatch handle. The handle proved difficult to twist and made a loud, metallic screech, but Marcus could hardly hear it over the cacophony his two companions were making. By the time Marcus felt the bolt of the utility door unlatch his fur was slick with sweat. He wretched the door wide to allow himself to squeeze into the tunnel on the other side, and began crawling along the cramped passage. It took less than ten seconds to reach the far door, but then Marcus had to contort to get a good grip and purchase to rotate the wheel of the new hatch. The other alpha team members were still making a fair racket, but it was muffled on this side of the wall and Marcus was more cautious with this door. He had to rotate the handle more slowly to prevent a noise that would give him away. When the latch began to give, he tensed his muscles so that it slid out of position as gently and soundlessly as possible. He then began to ease the door open. If the door’s wired, he thought, it’s all over, I’m dead. Marcus swallowed hard and inched the door open a fraction more.
*
Zachary and the beta team had secured the deck of the ship without taking any casualties. There had been four pairs of gunners with plenty of ammo and night vision goggles. Unfortunately for them, they had been concentrating on the dock and had been completely unaware of the beta team’s entrance onto the ship. If the gunners thought that their concealed positions would make it difficult to pinpoint their locations on the deck, they were mistaken. While it would have been difficult for a human to locate them, the stink of gun smoke made it all too easy for the beta team to track them and take them down. Zachary didn’t even think that they had had time to radio below for assistance or to warn anyone. After making sure all the humans on the deck were dead, Zachary positioned the other beta team members out of sight, but with a view of all of the hatches and cabin doors to deal with any captors who might be flushed out by the alpha team. He then made for the same
horn-looking vent that Marcus and the alpha team had gone down.
*
Marcus peeked through the miniscule slit he had made in the open hatch and peered out into the cargo hold. He was luckier than he could have hoped in that not only was the hatch not wired to explode in his face, but it was presently unguarded and partially blocked from view by a crate. Marcus couldn’t see much of the cargo hold from his position, so he wasted no time in slinking out of the hatch and leaving it slightly ajar behind him. Crouching behind the crate, he held his breath and listened. There were four distinct voices and they were arguing, but in a foreign language, Russian by the sound of it. Clearly two of the voices were frightened, one voice was angry, and the other was calm and commanding. The smell of Clem was very strong here, as was the sickening stench of old blood.
Marcus had to suppress a growl as he edged around the corner of the crate to get a better view of the hold. This room was dimly lit by a few bare bulbs and an electric lantern on a battered wooden table about ten feet away. There were five men in total. One pale, dark-haired man seated at the table was busy at a radio, probably trying to raise those on deck. He was one of the frightened voices. The second frightened voice belonged to a younger-looking man, almost still in his youth, with sandy hair and bright green eyes brandishing a semi-automatic weapon and pointing it at the wall in the direction of the alpha team’s distraction. The angry voice belonged to a bear of a man with ugly grey-brown hair whose hands were so large they made his semi-automatic appear toy-like. He was shouting at the youth, while another tall man with salt and pepper hair was trying to calm them with his relaxed voice and air of authority. The final, silent man was guarding the door of a cage and smoking a cigarette. He was of medium build and had a hat pulled down low hiding most of his features. Someone else might have considered this final man the least threatening, but Marcus saw a practiced tension in his limbs and could recognize the hidden alertness. While the others were distracted and talking, the smoking man was completely focused on his purpose.