Better Off Undead: The Bloodhound Files

by DD Barant

  But it worked. We have the congressman, Tair, and the Don. Everything after this is a matter of figuring out who to charge with what—and what deals can be struck.

  “I’m sorry,” Atticus says. “I really don’t get why I’m here.”

  He’s wearing a track suit of pale yellow today, giving his rounded bulk the somewhat unsettling suggestion of a giant baby chick. He gives me a puzzled smile and spreads his hands, as if to say, What? I’m just sitting here waiting for the Easter Bunny.

  “Well, that’s the thing, Atticus. I’m not exactly sure, either. Why don’t we try to figure it out together?”

  His oily pompadour gleams under the interview room lights. He shrugs affably. “Sure, no problem.”

  “First off—I want to apologize for any disrespect I showed you when I was your, ah, guest. I had no idea you were actually consigliere, not Dino. My bad.”

  “No sweat. People make that mistake all the time, you know? I like to hang back, not be too confrontational.”

  “Sure. Anyway, our intel analyst set me straight. In fact, she was the one who insisted on this meeting.”

  “Yeah? And who is she exactly—”

  The door opens. Charlie shoves two more wise guys inside: Louie and Dino. They’re both in cuffs, hands behind their backs.

  “And here are our other two guests,” I say. Charlie steps back into the hall, shutting the door behind him. “All four of us together again, just like old times. Louie, how’s your gut? All healed up, or do you still leak when you eat soup?”

  “The hell is this?” Louie growls. “I want a lawyer, now.”

  “And I want a double cappuccino, no foam, with just a dash of vanilla. But we’re both gonna have to wait, y’know?”

  Dino just stares at me impassively. He knows what’s going on, and figures his only option is just to endure it. He’s right—mostly.

  “To answer your question,” I say, “the woman who arranged this little reunion is the mother of the one person who’s missing. You know, the really short one?”

  I can see them get it. They all react differently. Dino gets even more stolid, withdrawing completely, while Louie gets aggressive and Atticus tries to be conciliatory.

  “Hey,” Atticus says. “No harm done, right?”

  “I said I want my goddamn lawyer!”

  “I mean, she’s fine, okay?”

  “You fucks can’t get away with this.”

  “Louie, please. Come on, we never planned that part of it, you know? It was an accident, pure and simple.”

  The door opens again. Cassius and Gretchen walk in, Gretch closing the door quietly behind her.

  “Who are you?” Atticus asks. “You her?”

  “Yes,” Gretch says.

  Louie glares at both of them. “And who the fuck are you? The daddy?”

  “No,” Cassius says. His voice is very calm. “I’m David Cassius, director of the National Security Agency.”

  Atticus nods, looking a little relieved. “The boss. Okay. I understand my boss is also enjoying your hospitality right now?”

  “He’s in our custody, yes,” Cassius says. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

  “No? Then why—”

  “Moral support,” Cassius says.

  Gretch steps behind Atticus. A thin loop of silver wire slides out of her sleeve. It goes around his throat and disappears into the fat of his neck so quickly I barely see it at all.

  This is not what I expected.

  I thought we were just going to throw a scare into them. Hurt them a little, terrify them a lot. But as it happens, right in front of me, I’d be lying if I said I was all that surprised. Part of me knew exactly what was going to happen—and just didn’t want to admit it.

  You know that scene in The Godfather when the fat guy gets strangled? This is just like that, except it goes on a lot longer. The only expression on Gretch’s face is a slight smile. I think about her recent odd behavior and realize I was way off base.

  Gretch isn’t crazy. She’s just really, really angry, and the strain of hiding that has made her seem a little distracted. Not anymore, though. At the moment, she is completely, totally focused on the bastards responsible for threatening her child’s life.

  Dino tries not to react to what he’s seeing, but his face keeps getting paler. Louie tries to shift form and howls in pain when the silver in the cuffs stops him. He backs away into the corner, eyes wide and horrified, watching Atticus choke to death.

  I don’t do a damn thing.

  When Gretch is done, the wire disappears up her sleeve again. She meets Louie’s eyes, then Dino’s. “Any questions?” she asks.

  “No,” Louie croaks.

  “No,” Dino whispers.

  Gretch turns and leaves without another word.

  “I think we should move these two to another interview room,” I say to Cassius. My voice is a lot firmer than I feel. “This one needs to be cleaned.”

  “Good idea,” Cassius says. “I’ll take care of it.”

  I study Tair through the one-way mirror. He’s back in an orange prison jumpsuit, manacled to the table in front of him. Even though I should be invisible behind the glass, he’s looking right at me with a slight smile on his face. Letting me know he’s aware of me, that our link is still strong.

  Tonight’s the full moon.

  The door opens and Cassius walks in. It’s only the second time we’ve been in a room alone together since I found out that he lied to me about my treatment, since I learned that in order to save me he’s going to have to die. I have no idea what to say to him, either; the events of the last day are still catching up with me.

  “Good work,” he says. “We’ve recaptured Tair, we have the Don behind bars, and we broke the spine of a major Gray Wolves operation.”

  “We also piled up a lot of dead thropes.”

  “All on their side. Anyway, I’ve come to expect a certain amount of collateral damage where you’re involved. It seems to be the price of admission to the Jace Valchek Experience.”

  I know what’s coming; that undertone of regret in his voice broadcasts his intentions as loudly as a stack of Marshall amps. He’s going to admit it.

  “There’s something you need to know,” he says. “I wasn’t completely honest with you concerning your treatment.”

  I resist the urge to say I know. I don’t want to get Damon into trouble. “When are you ever?”

  “One last treatment, and I can guarantee you won’t become a thrope. But—”

  “But what?” Here it comes.

  “But Tair has to die.”

  “Excuse me?” I manage.

  Cassius looks carefully neutral. “His assistance in your treatment is still necessary, but it doesn’t have to be voluntary. Human beings are protected under federal law; infecting one against his or her will carries a heavy penalty. That includes mandatory participation in any rehabilitation process.”

  “Wait—you want to force him to help? Even if it kills him?”

  He looks away, through the window at his prisoner. “I don’t want to, Jace. But it’s the only safe option.”

  “For me, you mean. What about him?”

  Cassius studies Tair, his eyes cold. “The law was written with social and emotional integration into thropehood for the victim in mind. But I have the authority to interpret it as I see fit—and though it’s never been done before, curing your lycanthropy meets my definition of rehabilitation.”

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it. You can’t just execute him!”

  “I’m not. I’m saving your life.”

  My life, which once again has gone off the rails with someone else driving the locomotive. “Yeah? What about your life? Or unlife, or whatever the hell you call it?”

  He frowns. “I’m not—”

  “Don’t even try. I already know the treatment is going to be fatal for someone—you. Is that why you wanted Tair alive? So you could put him up as a sacrifice and save yourself?”


  “I don’t know why you care. He’s the one who violated you, remember? The one who almost killed you?” Cassius tries to keep his voice as cold as his eyes, but I can hear the anger creeping in. “He’s the one who tried to make you into a beast.”

  He almost spits out the last word, and I finally see something so big, so obvious, that it never even occurred to me. “Oh, my—this isn’t even about me, is it? This is a thrope/pire thing. Dracula versus the Wolfman. Who does that make me, Abbott or Costello?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. I’m a lot of things—reckless, sarcastic, mouthy—but stupid isn’t on the list. Neither is likes to be manipulated or willing to let others make important decisions for her. And especially not willing to let other people die in her place.”

  “It’s not that cut-and-dried. There’s a possibility that either Tair or I might survive—but you definitely will.”

  “That almost sounds like the truth. I say almost because I’m really not sure what the truth would sound like coming from your mouth—I’m not sure I’ve ever even heard it. Maybe it comes out all squeaky, like someone who’s just inhaled helium. Maybe it has a ridiculous accent. Or maybe it’s in a language you don’t even fucking speak.”

  “I’m not lying—”

  “How the hell do I know that?” I yell.

  Tair’s gaze had drifted away from the window, but now it snaps back, looking right at us. He grins. Even if he couldn’t feel that through our link, I’m sure he heard it. And right now, I don’t care.

  “Tell you what,” I say, forcing myself to calm down. “Why don’t we go ask the condemned man how he feels about this? Doesn’t that seem fair?”

  I push past him and into the hall, then into the interview room.

  Tair’s grin is still there. “Hi, honey—glad you’re home. How was your day?”

  “Better than yours,” I say. “Let me ask you something, Tair: How would you feel about dying so someone else could live?”

  He laughs. “Is this about poor, poor Dr. Pete? That ship has left the dock, Jace. Didn’t even get out of the harbor before it went down, either.”

  Behind me, I hear Cassius walk in and close the door behind him.

  “This isn’t about that,” I say. “This is about me, and what you did to me.”

  His smile turns rueful. “Ah. Time for a little retribution, huh? Well, I guess I have it coming. Do your worst.”

  “How brave,” Cassius says. “Considering your link means she can’t physically hurt you.” He’s suddenly between Tair and me, having moved so fast I could barely track him. Leaning right into his captive’s face, deadly serious. “But I can.”

  “Sure,” I say. “In fact, he can kill you. See, my boss here has done the impossible—he’s come up with a way to reverse the effects of lycanthropic infection.”

  “Right,” Tair says. “With a little help from the Tooth Fairy? Or did he go straight to the top and ask Santa?”

  “No. He bit me.”

  “If he had, you’d be dead.”

  Cassius is still staring into Tair’s face from around eight inches away. When he speaks, his voice is controlled and flat. “No. I used a biothaumaturgic feedback loop. Carefully controlled viral release, directly into the original site.”

  Tair frowns. “How’d you monitor?”

  “Zanzibar cellular enchantment, modified with a Tetsuo aura harness.”

  Tair’s frown turns thoughtful. “Direct control? For that kind of viral load? Take one helluva lot of focus … Spengler was working on something like that four years ago, but it was purely theoretical.”

  “Now it’s not.”

  “No,” I interject, “it’s not. It’s in my bloodstream. My own three-sided biochemical war, with four possible outcomes.”

  Tair’s a trained biothaumaturge; he doesn’t need any more of an explanation. “You’ll wind up either human, pire, thrope, or corpse.” He nods. “That’s with a level playing field. But now you have me, don’t you?” He looks up at Cassius, gives him a hard smile. “Much easier to win a war when you’ve got one of the generals hostage, isn’t it? Run that same spell through me, get control of my forces, make them do whatever you want. Of course, you’ll need to override my own nervous system.”

  “Of course,” Cassius says.

  “Which will be like routing lightning through the wiring of a house. Destroying everything it surges through. Unless you’ve found a way around that?”

  “No. I can barely shield myself.”

  “Not a bad plan; if I were in your position, I’d do the same thing. No, wait—I’d just kill me. Nice easy way to break the link and cure Jace. Except you can’t now, can you? That happens and the pire virus wins too easily. Jace says good-bye to tan lines and solid food. She’d never forgive you for that, would she?”

  “I might,” I say. “At least he asked before he bit me.”

  “I apologize for my atrocious table manners,” Tair says, and deliberately looks away from Cassius and at me. “However, I may be able to make it up to you. Your boss may be clever, but he’s still not a medical expert. I am. There are two factors he’s failed to consider, and they change the situation quite radically.”

  He lifts one manacled hand, holding up a finger. “First of all, the fact that you’re not native to this reality. You’ve adapted, but on a very basic level you’re subtly different. It’s why you developed Reality Dislocation Trauma when you first got here. That’s interfered with our link, made it unreliable. You wouldn’t know that, though, since you have nothing to compare it with.”

  He pauses. Whatever the second thing is, he doesn’t want to talk about it. But he forces himself. “The other factor is that the Shinto spell I interrupted when I escaped has also had an effect. A lingering one.”

  “You’re lying,” Cassius says. “Like you said, that ship has sailed.”

  “Yeah, well, it got a lot farther than I expected. In fact, it’s still out there, somewhere on the horizon …” His voice trails off. “I’m not entirely myself anymore. I find myself thinking about things from the past a lot, and sometimes it’s not my past. It’s his.” The look on his face is—well, haunted. Haunted by a ghost of himself.

  “Really messed with my brain at first. Felt like an invasion, like losing control. But the thing is—most of those memories are pretty good. Happier. Better than what I’ve got, anyway …” He shakes his head, as if to clear it. His voice and face harden. “What I’m saying is, your precious Dr. Pete isn’t entirely gone. And he—I think it’s causing enough additional mystical interference that I can consciously weaken the link between us.”

  I’m not sure I believe him, or what difference it makes if I do. “What effect would that have?”

  “Well, if the link were severed completely before the first full moon—by, let’s say, my death—then the thrope virus in your bloodstream would die as well. Instantly. Would have been a good solution before your boss chomped you—now, not so much. But weakening the link, that’ll confuse the virus. It’ll slow down, stop multiplying. Leave itself vulnerable to attack. In other words, it’ll have much the same effect your boss wants to achieve—without flash-frying my neural net.”

  Cassius’s response is to turn around and leave the room.

  It’s the last thing I expected, confusing enough that I chase after him, catching him halfway down the hall. “What the hell? Where are you going?”

  “My office.” He’s still moving, heading for the elevator. “We need to talk, and that can’t happen with him in the same room.”

  “Why? Because you can’t plan someone’s murder while looking him in the eye?”

  “No, I have no problem with that. At all.”

  The two lems and two thropes in the elevator take one look at Cassius’s face and all decide they’d rather take the stairs; we have the car to ourselves as we continue our argument.

  “You heard him,” I say. “What do you think?”

  “I
think he’s lying. He’s using your affection for Dr. Pete to manipulate your emotions and the mystic link to affect your judgment. You need some time and distance to think this through.”

  “I’m a little short on time this week. Could I maybe get an advance?”

  “Just—just give it some consideration, all right? Look at all the angles.”

  It’s hard to argue with advice like that, so I clam up and do some hard thinking for the rest of the elevator ride. I’m still thinking as we walk through the office and up to his door.

  And then, as we step inside, I’ve got it.

  “He’s telling the truth about at least one thing,” I say. “His memory.”

  “Oh? And how do you know that?”

  “Because he mentioned my RDT. And Tair never knew about that.”

  Cassius shakes his head. “It doesn’t make any difference. We can’t kill him and we can’t trust him. The surest way to handle this—”

  “No,” I say flatly. “I won’t have the cost of saving my life be someone else’s, especially not like this. If part of Dr. Pete is still alive inside Tair, it would be like killing two people to save one. I won’t allow it.”

  “Then that leaves only one option.”

  “You sacrificing yourself? You destroy enough of the thrope virus to eliminate it as a threat, and burn yourself out in the process? No. I can’t accept that, either. The general is not going down with his troops.”

  “It’s not ideal, I know. I can’t guarantee you’ll survive it, but your chances are good. I’m sorry.”

  I frown. “You’re sorry my chances are good?”

  “No. I’m sorry for this.”

  And then his fangs are in my throat.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I should have known.

  Cassius is an extremely old vampire. He’s clever, he’s experienced—his middle name may as well be cunning. Combine that with a job that’s made him a master of the double cross and you get someone both willing and able to betray me if he thinks it’s the right move.