Lycanthropy Files Box Set: Books 1-3 Plus Novella

by Cecilia Dominic

  “Do you give in?” I asked and bit harder such that a little trickle of his blood came into my mouth.

  He tried to wriggle free, but with each movement, he sank my teeth farther into his throat. Finally, he said, “I surrender.”

  I let him go and backed away. He lay on the ground panting, blood on his ruff. I sat back and looked at Morena, who nodded, but then her eyes widened.

  “Gabriel!” she said and gestured to the floor in front of me.

  A mass of black fur toppled me, and I snapped at the face that tried to maneuver to grab hold of my throat. I heard jaws clamp around something and waited for the suffocating sensation of Bartholomew cutting off my air, but he backed up, shaking his head and wheezing. Finally he coughed up the fluorite sphere Veronica had given me. It rolled across the carpet to land at my feet.

  “Just like a sissy boy to wear a necklace to a fight,” he sneered.

  “That was a dirty play, Bartholomew,” said Morena. “You surrendered. We have no room for that sort of thing on our Council. You are hereby banished from Lycan Castle and Lycan Village as well as a ten kilometer radius from the Castle itself.”

  He flattened his ears but nodded.

  “What about me?” asked Cora. “What if I don’t feel safe being here without him?”

  “You can always abdicate your seat on the Council,” Morena told her. “I’ve half a mind to banish you as well.”

  Cora’s eyes widened. “You can’t do that! This is a hereditary position.”

  “And we have just learned of two people who are related to Dimitri.”

  Cora stood. “You have no idea what you’re doing, Morena,” she said in a low voice, all traces of her helpless female act gone. “The Lycanthrope Council is a relic of the past, and new forces are coming into play.”

  Morena tapped her pen against the table. “Are you threatening me, Cora? Threatening us?”

  “I’m just making a promise of what’s to come.” Cora smiled. “Very well, then. I abdicate my position on the Council. I see no reason to continue to support this hidebound organization, particularly if you’re going to allow a half-blood to become a full member. That’s not what my father would’ve wanted, and it’s surely not what I want.”

  She stalked from the room followed by Bartholomew, still in wolf form. All eyes then turned to me.

  “Welcome to full Council membership, Mister McCord,” Morena said. “I suggest you change back to human form. We have a lot of work to do.”

  “What if I want to challenge him?” Dimitri asked. “Without jewelry, of course. I am still not convinced he is right for full Council membership.”

  “One does not refuse gifts from a witch,” I told him. “As for your challenge, ready when you are.”

  “No,” Morena told him and me. “Mister McCord will be keeping his position. He has already proven his ability to maintain focus on the important aspects of a situation in spite of his animal instincts. Now we need to concentrate on our most pressing problem: another vargamore in our midst.”

  Keith grabbed the remnants of my clothing, and I followed him into my tower office, where I changed back into a human and attended to the scratches I’d gotten from my fight with Bartholomew. Thankfully I had more clothing there, and I slipped the fluorite into my pocket. When I returned to the Council Chamber, I found it empty except for Morena.

  “They’ve taken a break for lunch and scattered to their respective offices,” she said. “I suggest we do so as well.”

  She led the way to her office, where the castle staff had laid out a lunch of chicken, salad, and bread. And steak and potatoes and haggis and an assortment of other things in pots and on platters, even chocolate-dipped shortbread. My stomach growled.

  “Most of this is for you,” Morena said. “Your first alpha change tends to deplete your resources. You likely could have taken on Dimitri, and you may need to eventually as we sort out our new hierarchy, but you need to save yourself for the battle that is yet to come. I wanted to caution you to wait until you’ve achieved your full strength, but I have heard from the Wizard Tribunal—they’re taking Max tomorrow if we don’t solve this mystery.”

  I nodded and chewed the bite I’d just taken. “I don’t think there’s another vargamore,” I said once I swallowed. “I think this is just one form of the one we’ve been dealing with for a while.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You mean Wolfsheim?”

  “Yes. Tell me everything David found. He showed me some of his materials, but whoever killed him destroyed many of them.” And I will avenge his death.

  As I ate more than I’d ever dreamed of consuming, she related the highlights of David’s research and the investigation the Council had engaged in before he picked it up. As he’d mentioned to me, Wolfsheim had come to Scotland to eliminate the lycanthropes as some twisted way of denying and suppressing the werewolf side of himself. Consequently, he’d jumped in on the side of every war that did not include the endorsement from the Lycanthrope Council, typically losing, but doing much damage to our numbers in the meantime. David had gathered the evidence as part of a case to bring to the Wizard Tribunal in hopes that an alliance could be forged, and together we could bring him down. My father had gone to the Continent looking for him and for evidence of his involvement in the second Great War, for Wolfsheim had been rumored to be in Belgium.

  “We suspect he somehow lured your father to meet him at the edge of the Moerbrugge battlefield,” she said, “and that’s where he used his blood magic to destroy him.”

  “And how am I supposed to combat that?” I asked. “So far, no one has been able to stand up to his magic.”

  “You will have to use your wits, not your brawn, I’m afraid.” Morena poured a cup of tea for each of us. “Unless you have some sort of protection you can bargain for with Reine.”

  “I’ve already given her all the power over me I feel comfortable with.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “How so?”

  “Selene and I encountered Wolfsheim or one of his or her henchmen outside of David’s house last night. He hit us with a hellfire grenade. I shielded Selene and took the brunt of it. Reine saved my life in exchange for the one-time use of my name.”

  “Risky,” said. “Even just once. No telling what she’ll make you do. There are other things you could offer her. Your first-born, for example.”

  “Never. I wouldn’t do that to anyone, especially not a child.”

  “Desperate times, Gabriel. Remember the legend of the Boar King.”

  “Right.” I leaned forward. “Why is that legend so important?”

  “It’s one of our oldest, mostly a cautionary tale to keep our pups out of the woods at night, but I always suspected it was a map of how to deal with a vargamore because another name for them in our old language was torc, or boar, which got confounded with the word for necklace, and of course Latin for twist.”

  I thought about what I had seen. “I can understand that. It seems that having one of those around your neck will make your vessels twist and explode. Why did you not tell me of this before, particularly since my father was destroyed by him?”

  She looked away, and pink came to her cheeks. A blush? “I wanted to, but the rest of the Council, particularly Dimitri and Cora, wanted to wait for you to reach your majority and find your inner alpha. That Wolfsheim lives is not common knowledge among our kind. The others think he died in the Napoleonic wars.”

  “Right. And now he has Selene captive and the Council by the bollocks. He has issued an invitation for me to come plead my case for her this evening.”

  “Nighttime is when he is most powerful,” Morena said. “Are you sure that is wise?”

  “As you said, we have to finish this tonight. We can’t lose Max, and I can’t give up Selene.”

  “And you’re positive she’s to be trusted in this? She’s lied to you before.”

  I nodded. “I would be able to tell if she wasn’t, at least now.”

  “Then
let me give you two things. The first is a piece of advice: don’t try to be a lone wolf in this. I’ve watched you and know you prefer to work alone, but Wolfsheim will be too powerful for you to take on by yourself. Even if it’s the fairy, you need to accept help. She likes you, and you may be surprised how willing she is.”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  “Good. I wish you had more time to adjust to your alpha wolf form and discover what other talents you may have.”

  “Like what?”

  “For example, some of them can aim their wolf-mind speak so their intended target can hear them, but others can’t.”

  “Interesting. What is the second thing you want to give me?”

  “Follow me. We’re going to the storage room.”

  We went through the Council Chamber, which was still empty, and I wondered if Morena had dismissed them all. It concerned me that we wouldn’t be acting as a pack, at least not for now, and it made the Institute’s initial unanimous vote that much more suspicious. Who had been pulling the strings at the time? If—no, when—I made it out of this evening’s encounter with Wolfsheim, I would have to do some investigating of his or her connections to the Council. It would be time for some deep house cleaning since he or she had had centuries to manipulate the course of events.

  “Good, no one’s here,” she said. “Guard the door while I open this.”

  I did as she asked, and she stood in front of the fireplace. She pressed one of the gray bricks and put two fingers in the middle of one of the carved Celtic knots on the lintel. The hearth rumbled, and she stepped back before it opened under her feet to reveal a staircase.

  “Quick, now, follow me.”

  “Great, another dungeon.”

  28

  Of all the dungeons I’d been in, this one was the creepiest by far. The narrow stairwell wound downward, and the trap door above closed with an echoing thunk that sounded like it sealed our doom.

  “You’re sure we’ll be able to get out?” I asked Morena in hushed tones. My whisper bounced off the stone and seemed to tumble into the darkness below. We relied solely on our non-sight senses to lead the way. Morena’s scent was manly with the palate of modern “unscented” personal care products with a little sweat and Scotch thrown in. She’d never had a romantic partner as far as I knew, and I wondered—not for the first time—whether she would choose a man or woman as a lover.

  “Of course I know how to get out,” she said. “If it will make you feel better, there’s a torch at the bottom of the stairs.”

  “I would like to see where we are. This is an aspect of Lycan Castle I’m not familiar with.” The texture of the wall under my fingers changed from rectangular stone with crumbling mortar in the cracks to natural stone with all its imperfections and seemingly random bumps and grooves. Morena stopped, and I hesitated on what I hoped was the bottom step.

  “Ah, here it is,” she said.

  The setting made me expect to hear the hiss of a match and see the bloom of a flame, but all I got was a boring “click” and the beam of an industrial-strength torch that swung over the walls to reveal shades of black and gray.

  “Did the builders of Lycan Castle dig the dungeons out of the natural stone?” I asked.

  “No, there was a network of caves here first. It’s difficult to tell with the twists and turns of the stairs, but we are actually just beyond the edge of the castle walls and under the hill.” She shone the light on a spot to my left, where someone had carved a series of numbers, possibly a date.

  “Do you know what that is?” she asked.

  “No, although it looks like it should be familiar.”

  “You likely learned it at the Council School when you were there decades ago. The first Lycanthrope Council met here on the Summer Solstice of 685. At that point, it was a gathering of clan chieftains who reluctantly recognized their need to ally with each other to preserve their lands and their people from those who didn’t understand us and our abilities. That carving commemorates the date and occasion.”

  “Ah, right.”

  The light swung back and silhouetted her. “Now on to the stores.”

  “Who knows about this place?” I asked and lengthened my stride to keep up with her determined steps.

  “Only the Council Chair and her second-in-command,” she said with a meaningful look.

  Her words caught me off guard. “Thank you,” I finally said. “Although I’m not sure what I owe this honor to. I’m but a newly minted full Council member.”

  “Yes, but you’ve proven your worth as the Investigator, which is a role I’ll ask you to keep for the time being.” She then echoed my thoughts from earlier. “We’re going to have to look very closely at the others. I doubt that the Campbells are the only ones who have been influenced by Wolfsheim and his organization. I know you are trustworthy, but as of now, everyone else on the Council is under suspicion.” Another glance in my direction. “Everyone.”

  What is she telling me?

  Morena stopped at an extra dark place on the wall, and when she turned, the beam from the torch sliced through the darkness inside to illuminate shelves with metal and wooden boxes. Each had a tag, some of them brown and cracked with age. Words sprang into view, but the light passed over them too quickly for my brain to sort the handwritten letters into words.

  “It’s in here,” she said and marched straight to a shelf in the back of the roughly rectangular room. “Hold this.” After handing me the torch, she reached up and pulled down a metal money box with a dented lid and covered in rust spots. The tag was so faded as to only show spots where the letters had been. By all outer appearances, it looked like it probably held nothing of value—or was disguised to look like it did. The fluorite in my pocket let off a little jolt of static when she opened the container and I had to grit my teeth to keep from squirming at the sensation so close to my sensitive bits. Damn these spells, I thought, but all other grumblings disappeared when I saw what lay inside.

  A Celtic chieftain’s torc, or necklace, lay inside on a bed of black velvet cloth. In contrast to the appearance of its box, it shone dark gold like ripe wheat nodding in the late afternoon sunlight and glowed even when Morena placed the torch on the shelf and directed its beam toward the ceiling. The ends of the torc were wolf heads, and the one on the left held a dark stone in its mouth. The one on the right was empty.

  “Do you have your fluorite on you?” she asked.

  “Yes.” I handed it to her. She gently fitted it into the empty mouth of the wolf, and it stuck. She then placed the torc around my neck under my collar. It warmed more quickly than it should have, and the stones pressed into my collarbone, but only in a “so you know we’re here” way.

  “Whose torc is it?” I asked in a hushed tone. Part of me felt like I had a sleeping golden snake coiled under my shirt—exciting and powerful, but also potentially deadly.

  “In the legend of the Boar King, the boy who defeated the demon was a chieftain’s son who later grew up to assume the leadership of his clan. The Fey, happy to have the evil influence out of their lands—not because of their innate good intentions, but because they didn’t like the competition—made that and gave it to him.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “Those who tried to wield it in the past have failed, for legend has it that its power can only be harnessed by a direct descendent of that chieftain, but due to the loss of oral tradition and the many battles, the gnarled roots of the family tree have twisted and turned into the thick soil of obscurity.”

  “And you think I am that descendant.”

  “The only thing we know with certainty about the chieftain is that his nickname was the Gray Wolf. You know how rare it is for one of us to change into a gray before our human hair turns, and you did today.”

  “What happens if I try to harness the power of the torc, and it’s not meant for me?”

  “Then may whatever god you believe in have mercy on your soul.”

  Before I could attempt to rescue Selene, I
had one more stop to make in an attempt to gather more information. Laura said ghosts like to talk. Maybe they’d been gossiping with a certain little clairvoyant.

  Alexander’s father Paul opened the door and looked at me with surprise.

  “Investigator McCord,” he said, his tone cool but not unwelcoming. The sound of a football game came from the room behind him.

  “Mister Taylor,” I said, “I apologize for bothering you and your family on a Sunday afternoon, but I would like to speak with Alexander.”

  He nodded, and his mouth worked before spitting out the words, “He said you’d be coming by.”

  It was blatantly apparent he wasn’t happy to see me, even more so that his son had predicted my appearance, but he stepped aside and let me enter. I followed the noise through the small house to the living room in back. Alexander sat up and hid the book he’d been reading between the sofa cushions, his young face a tight mask of pretend concentration on what was on the television.

  “Hello,” I said. “I heard you were expecting me.”

  He looked up with a broad smile and stood. “Investigator McCord, the soldier said you would come.”

  “Alexander,” his father said, his tone tired. He rubbed his eyes. “Why not take Investigator McCord out back?”

  Their narrow yard was littered with toys, mostly balls of various sports. Alexander nudged a football out of his way and wrinkled his nose.

  “Is everything all right?” I asked him. He looked up, and his face shone hopefully before it settled into its usual neutral expression.

  “It’s fine,” he said, but it was apparent that “fine” was a four-letter word for him.

  “Is that what your Da says to tell people?”

  He ducked his head so his blond bangs hid his eyes. “Yes.”

  I knelt in front of him and put a hand on his thin shoulder. “But it’s not, is it? Does your Da hit you?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “No, he mostly ignores me, but I have friends.”