An Apple for the Creature

by Harris, Charlaine

  Since everybody had been up late for the run and buffet, there were no sessions scheduled until the afternoon of the next day and I’d planned to sleep in. So I was still asleep when someone yelled my name. I jerked awake and sat straight up—luckily I was wearing an oversized Adventure Cove T-shirt that covered all the essentials, because Captain Bob was standing next to the bed.

  “You’re a heavy sleeper,” he commented.

  “You promised to stop haunting me.”

  “This isn’t haunting. The doc sent me to invite you to breakfast.”

  “Are you kidding?” I looked at the clock by the bed. “It’s eight o’clock.”

  “Which is breakfast time.”

  I wanted to blow Angie off, and I really wanted to blow him off, but I knew he wouldn’t leave until I agreed. Besides, breakfast sounded good.

  “Fine. Just go away and I’ll get dressed.”

  “I’ll wait for you outside.” He looked around the room. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “None of your beeswax.”

  “Cranky in the morning, aren’t you?”

  I threw a pillow through him, and climbed out of bed to get showered and dressed.

  When I joined Captain Bob outside, he led me away from the main building and said, “The dining room isn’t open yet, so the doc ordered breakfast in her cabin.” Angie’s cabin was the mirror image of mine, if you subtracted the vampire in the closet and added a boatload of food on the table.

  “Good morning,” she said. “I hope this is enough to eat.”

  “It’s a good start,” I said, my mouth watering from the tantalizing aroma of bacon and eggs.

  “Then, help yourself. I’m not a big morning eater.” She wasn’t kidding. All she had on her plate was a piece of toast. “I hope you don’t mind me waking you so early, but I knew you’d be free. David has to sleep during the day, right?”

  “He’s a real bear if he doesn’t get his full day’s rest.”

  “Then he can get by on less sleep?” she asked eagerly, reaching for a notepad.

  “Just a joke. When the sun comes up, he goes down, and doesn’t wake again until dark.”

  “Fascinating. Another thing . . .”

  I stifled a sigh, and dug into the food. At least it was fresh, even if the questions were stale. Angie asked me the exact same things as she had the day before, and I still didn’t have answers. Did she think I’d quizzed David the night before so as to be ready for her? It was so boring that I was yawning like crazy, and I could barely keep my eyes open wide enough to see the plate in front of me.

  By the time I reached the obvious conclusion that I’d been drugged, it was too late to do anything about it except pass out.

  I woke up in a cage. It wasn’t the first time that had happened, but this instance was considerably more frightening. I smelled death.

  Superior sense of scent is part and parcel of being a werewolf, even when in human form, but it isn’t always a good thing. Somebody had died in that cage, maybe several somebodies. I smelled werewolf, and human, and beings I couldn’t identify. It was all I could do to keep from whimpering.

  Okay, I lied. I whimpered.

  The cage was enough to make any werewolf whimper. It was bare of furniture or comfort and the mesh of which it was built was woven so tightly that no dog on earth would be small enough to escape.

  The room in which it stood was just as bleak. The walls and floor were bare concrete, and there were tables and shelves covered with medical and chemistry equipment, a computer, a bookshelf of serious-looking tomes, and a refrigerator. Add it all together and you got a low-rent animal research facility, but the only lab rat was me.

  A few minutes later, in walked Angie.

  “Oh good, you’re awake. I knew that drug would work on werewolves, of course, but I had to estimate your weight so I wasn’t sure how long you’d be out.”

  “And you drugged me why?”

  “To get you here, of course.” She got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, put it into a contraption on the side of the cage, and pulled a lever that lifted a section of mesh just enough to allow the bottle to roll inside before slamming shut again.

  “You’ve done this before,” I said, reaching for the water. The bottle was sealed, which was thoughtful. I wouldn’t have taken it from her otherwise.

  “Many times. At first we had such a hard time getting people to talk to us, and an even harder time getting them to allow us to examine them. Then I designed the cage, and Carl said he didn’t think even he could get out of it. As it turned out, he was right.”

  “You put your husband in here?”

  “He was going to leave me! After I’d stuck with him through his Change! Do you know how much I cooked for that man? And how hard I worked to become a werewolf, too? I let him bite me over and over again! Then we started hunting witches, but none of the ones we found had any idea of what to do, no matter what we did to convince them.”

  I really didn’t want to know what their persuasion techniques had been.

  “The best we could do was to get one to make me the ghost amulet. That was our next idea, you see. Becoming a ghost sounded like a viable alternative.”

  “I don’t think your definition of viable is the same as mine.”

  “I know, I couldn’t very well sleep with my husband if he couldn’t touch me, but we didn’t know that most ghosts are insubstantial, or even the proper way to make one. We had half a dozen failures before we got it right.”

  “Captain Bob?”

  “That’s right. He wasn’t really killed by a vampire, of course, though Carl did try to make it look as if he had been. At first we thought it had been a waste of time, too, because the form has too many limits. Then I did a routine case study on him and realized that he had a witch in his family—that’s when we began to suspect the existence of the arcane gene.

  “Next I traced Carl’s family tree and found a great-uncle who was a werewolf, but I had nothing. There was no way I could become a werewolf or a ghost or a witch.”

  “Is that so awful?”

  “To see all the possibilities and not want powers of my own? Not to mention the lengthened life span.”

  “It’s not all wine and roses,” I said. “We have weaknesses, too. We have to hide what we are, and we lose more babies than we can carry to term, and—”

  “I never wanted children. I just wanted Carl. But I got older while he stayed young. He started spending more time with the pack and less on our research. I hadn’t given up, but he didn’t care anymore. All he cared about was that bitch!”

  It wasn’t even an insult, really, since she was talking about a werewolf.

  “She was another bitten werewolf,” she said, “and he claimed he was just easing her into the life.” She snorted. “I didn’t need to be a werewolf to smell her on him. Soon he all but abandoned our work. All he cared about was rutting in the woods with his new mate.”

  “So you killed him.”

  “Thanks to our research, I knew exactly how to drug a werewolf. He didn’t taste a thing, any more than you did. Once I had him in the cage, it was easy.” She brushed off her hands as if she’d just wiped a dirty table. “If he’d been patient, we could have been together forever thanks to you.”

  “I’m not sure what you want me to do. I’d be glad to bite you.” I couldn’t quite keep the growl out of my voice when I made the offer.

  “That’s sweet, but no, it’s your boyfriend I want to bite me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “David’s going to make me a vampire. Then I can continue my research forever. I wonder if a vampire can taste the arcane gene in a person’s blood. . . .” She actually pulled a pad out of her pocket to jot a note.

  “You’re keeping me hostage to make David change you?”

  “That’s right. As soon as I rise, I’ll tell him where you are.”

  I saw a flaw in her plan, but unfortunately, she already had it covered.

  Sh
e said, “I know he’ll try to use his vampire glamour on me, but it won’t work. The last witch I trapped claimed to know all about vampires, but what she really knew was how to protect herself from them. I was quite vexed. Still, the potion she made is coming in handy now, isn’t it?”

  “It won’t work. David swore that he’d never offer anybody else the Choice.”

  “I’m sure that was before he met you. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, just like Carl used to look at me. He’ll do anything to get you back.”

  “He’ll find me without your help.” She probably didn’t know about a vampire’s sense of smell—it was as good as a werewolf’s.

  “I don’t think so. This lab is extremely well hidden, thanks to another research subject. I’m still not sure exactly what he was, but the fellow had a gift for hiding things. Carl’s little friend came sniffing around after his ‘car accident’ but she never found a thing.” She frowned. “I’d have gotten rid of her, too, but I was afraid it might look suspicious. At any rate, I doubt any werewolves will even try to find you—you’ve got no pack.”

  “But David will never give up.”

  “Try to be logical, Joyce. There’s no time for that. Remember what you said about werewolf weaknesses? You’re already hungry, aren’t you?”

  As if in response, my stomach rumbled; even with the stench, my stomach growled. I must have slept through a meal or two.

  “If he bites me tonight, I’ll rise in three days. You can certainly go that long without eating as long as you have water, but how much longer than that could you last? A human can survive a month, but research shows a werewolf starves much more quickly. If you’re injured, it’s even faster.” She smiled, and the sight nearly made me wet myself. “You’re not injured now, but if your vampire doesn’t bite me tonight, you will be.”

  She left me another dozen bottles of water, then went through a metal door, and of course locked it behind her. I immediately investigated my cage more thoroughly. It was still secure and I was still hungry.

  Despite Angie’s scheme, I wasn’t overly afraid. David would no more abandon me than he would snack on puppies. He’d bite Angie if that was what it took. It was what came afterward that worried me.

  Would his sense of honor force David to take care of Angie once she became a vampire? As I’d told her, the bond between a creator and creation was close. If David broke that connection to kill her, it would hurt him emotionally, if not physically, and if he didn’t, then presumably the three of us would be living together for the foreseeable future. It would be like rooming with a mother-in-law, if your mother-in-law was a serial killer.

  Considering the logistics of the situation didn’t improve my mood. I didn’t have any idea what time it was, either, which meant I couldn’t even begin to guess how much longer I was going to be in that cage. That naturally made me hungrier and thirstier, and I was trying to decide if I dared risk drinking another bottle of water when somebody arrived.

  To my disappointment it wasn’t David. It was Captain Bob.

  “Where’s the doc?” he demanded. “The vampire is on his way to the meeting site.”

  “How should I know? Why don’t you ask someone who isn’t locked in a cage?”

  “It’s for your own good—once she exterminates the vampire, you’ll be safe from his influence.”

  “There are no words for how stupid you are. She’s not going to kill David. She wants him to bite her.”

  “And when she’s got what she wants, do you think she’ll let him live?”

  “You mean she—” Of course she’d kill David! She wouldn’t want to be under the thumb of a stronger vampire. There were no words for how stupid I was, but I didn’t need them. I howled, like a wolf who’d lost her mate, and I Changed to a wolf without even meaning to. Again and again I threw myself against the bars of the cage.

  It was idiotic, of course, and when I finally calmed down enough to Change back, I was hungrier than ever.

  Captain Bob was watching me.

  “Go away,” I said, my throat raw.

  “You really love him.”

  “Damned right I do, and now he’s going to die because of me.”

  “It’s his own hellish actions—”

  “Blow it out your ass, ghost boy! If it weren’t for my wanting to go on a play date, David would never have come to the damned seminar and Angie would never have gotten near him. That makes it my fault. I suppose you’ll be right there, cheering her on. Maybe she’ll let you watch when she kills me, too.”

  “She won’t kill you. As soon as the vampire is dead, she’ll let you go so you can be with your own kind.”

  “What makes them my kind? It was a werewolf who nearly killed me, not a vampire. Speaking of werewolf bites, you might want to check out the ones on your neck.”

  “It was a vampire—”

  “I’ve seen plenty of vampire bites, and they don’t look like that. Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Maybe your friend Carl tried to make it look like a vampire bite, but I bet even you can tell the difference between wolf teeth and vampire fangs.”

  “Carl was my friend.”

  “He was Dead Bob’s friend—he didn’t give two cents for Live Bob.” I threw up my hands in disgust. “Believe what you want. It’s not like I’ll be around to care. Angie won’t leave a witness.”

  “Witness to what? Killing a vampire is no crime.”

  “How about the other murders she’s committed?” I took a deep breath. “I can smell at least three humans who were kept in this cage, plus two of what I think were witches. Werewolves, too. What happened to them? Carl was in here, too, and you know he’s dead.”

  “He was in a car accident!”

  “Don’t tell me. I bet his body was completely destroyed.”

  “So?”

  I didn’t have the energy to argue with him, not with the scents of so many deaths seeping into my pores. I just turned my back on him, and when he came into the cage, shut my eyes and put my fingers in my ears. Eventually he got tired of talking to somebody who wasn’t in a receptive frame of mind. I waited until I was sure he was gone to cry.

  Another interminable period of time passed while I tried to figure out some way I could get at Angie before she killed me, but when the lab door opened, I had nothing. I didn’t even want to look at her. I only opened my eyes when I smelled David. At first I honestly thought I was dreaming, but no dream I’ve ever had got that scent right.

  I leapt up. “Is Angie . . . ? Did you . . . ?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “What happened?”

  He didn’t answer because he was busy ripping the cage open, and after that, we were both busy for several minutes. Just having him still alive—well, as alive as I’d ever known him to be—should have been enough, but my stomach was growling constantly by that point.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  He just smiled and picked me up to carry me outside. Breathing the untainted nighttime air was intoxicating. In fact, the air was better than untainted. I smelled werewolves. And chicken soup!

  Somebody pushed a cardboard container of hot soup into my hand, and I inhaled it. Only when I was wiping my lips with the back of my hand did I realize that it was Shannon who’d handed it to me.

  Other werewolves I recognized were going into and out of Angie’s lab, which was apparently under an old barn out in the middle of nowhere. Whatever spell she’d used to hide the place had been broken.

  Shannon gave me another container of soup, saying, “Remember, you’re not human. You don’t have to go slow.”

  I took her at her word, and slurped down that and the next two portions without hesitating. Only then did I say, “David, I think you can put me down.”

  “Must I?” he said, but did so and promptly wrapped his coat around me. I wasn’t cold, but I did appreciate having his aroma to inhale. I wasn’t sure I would ever get the stench of that cage out of my nose.

  “What happened?” I asked agai
n. “Captain Bob said you’d gone to meet Angie.”

  “I did, but Angie was in no hurry. She said she just wanted to ask more questions before letting me feed from her, but I don’t believe that she ever intended for me to bite her. She thought that if she drained my blood herself and drank it, the effect would be the same.”

  “Would that have worked?”

  He shrugged. “The wolves found us before she could try. She shot one with a dart gun, possibly what she’d intended to use on me, and they killed her before she could fire again.”

  “Then how did you find me?”

  “A friend helped.”

  To my complete shock, Captain Bob floated into view.

  “Since when are you a friend?” I asked.

  “Since I helped save your life!”

  “You helped Angie drug me in the first place.”

  “I helped save your boyfriend, too.”

  “You also helped lure him into Angie’s trap—still no points.”

  He thought for a minute. “I told the wolves to bring you food.”

  “Really?” Maybe we were friends after all.

  The rest of the wolves stayed at Angie’s lair to explore it and decide what part of her research was worth saving. In a surprisingly short time, they dismantled the place and destroyed any evidence of supernatural beings. Of course, that meant destroying evidence of the murders, too, but Angie and Carl were both dead, so it seemed like the best choice.

  While all that was going on, David drove me back to the Cahill Resort—it was too close to dawn for us to be sure of getting home. Captain Bob came along, cheerfully criticizing David’s driving. At least he had enough manners to leave us alone when we got back to my cabin.

  There was only half an hour left of darkness by then—enough for me to either eat again or thank David properly for rescuing me. I think I made the right choice.

  With David in the closet for the day, I took an obscenely long shower and then went down to the main building to see if the breakfast buffet was open. It wasn’t, but when the staff saw me, they started bringing me food. I don’t think French toast had ever tasted so good, and luckily for me, it was just the appetizer.