by Kathy Lyons
“No.” He gathered his strength and pushed to his feet. But once there, he didn’t know where to look or what to do. He swallowed and looked at the woman. “Is he going to be okay?”
She shrugged. “He wasn’t okay in the first place, but yeah, I don’t think there’s any permanent damage.”
Hard to believe, given the ground-meat look of his face.
“Experienced shifters can heal most wounds when they come back to human, and Nero’s as experienced as they come.” Her eyes hardened. “And no matter what he said to you, your situation is not his fault. I ordered it, as did everyone else up the chain of command. I’m Captain M and the head of the Wulf combat packs. Your life sucks right now because I ordered it. And because you had a Romani ancestor with special woo-woo. Deal with it. And if you ever lay a hand on any of my people again, I will personally gut you. You got me, Mr. Collier?”
Josh swallowed. “Yeah. I got you.” He resisted adding ma’am. He hadn’t joined the military, and thanks to Nero’s confession, he knew he didn’t have to stick around. But he did need to get a handle on his emotions. If this was what happened when he got pissed off, then he really was a danger out in the world.
It was so hard to wrap his brain around it. He’d never been violent like that in his life. And now another question burned through his brain: What did they do to me?
He looked at the blood on his hands and fought down the need to purge again.
“I need to wash up,” he said to no one in particular. And then he realized exactly what he needed to do. “And then I need to go to your library and start researching.”
“What?” Wiz asked.
Josh trained his eyes on the captain. “I need to understand what has happened to me.” He glanced at the other people in the room—Pretty Boy and Stratos. “What has happened to all of us.” Then he swallowed as he looked down at Nero. “He said you want something to resist magical fire.”
“Can you do it?” He heard hope in her voice, and he took perverse pleasure in squashing it.
“I can’t even define magical fire yet, and it takes decades to develop good tech. You’ve just destroyed all our lives on a pipe dream.”
“Your life was going to explode anyway,” she argued. “It’s in your DNA.” Then she blew out a breath. “But whatever you can give us will help a lot of good people.” She looked at Wiz. “Take him. Bury him in everything we’ve got and don’t let him up until Nero’s whole again.”
Apparently she took perverse pleasure in squashing his dreams of escape. Little did she know that he enjoyed being buried in pages and pages of data. Or so he thought… for about four hours. By that time he was hungry and his eyes were burning.
Wiz didn’t let him stop. He brought down a sandwich and a cup of coffee—for himself. What he said to Josh was “Nero’s still unconscious,” before he tossed Josh a Gatorade.
And with that reminder, Josh went back to the tablet he was reading that had access to a database of mismatched files labeled things like Case File 2549 and Fairy Declaration Magenta with Pink Sparkles. It wasn’t a database so much as an electronic pile of documents with no organization.
He kept reading.
By late afternoon Stratos joined him. She didn’t greet him but just shot him a bitter look as she sat beside him with a tablet of her own. Three minutes later she’d discovered exactly what he had.
“No organization? Like at all?”
“None that I can see.”
She sighed. “No wonder they need techies.” And that was the last thing they said until evening. At least Wiz brought them both food around six. Stratos got another steak. Josh got thin broth that tasted like exactly what he needed. After the first few sips, he slurped it all down before going back to his latest fascinating read: Case File 1079. Inauspicious title, to be sure, but it was about a team of werewolves tasked with destroying a clay golem. They steadily chomped on the creature’s muddy legs until someone took a swipe at its face and got a hold of the scroll in the thing’s mouth. Once they destroyed the scroll, the golem disintegrated. It was the standard way to disable a clay golem, but clearly these werewolves had no idea. And since the scroll was ripped to pieces and then burned, no one could read the thing and find out exactly what it said or how it had been created.
Idiots.
He made notes for his own reference guide and then pulled up another file. It looked like he’d need to read the entire database before he could start forming theories of his own. And that would take a really, really long time. Especially since there seemed to be a pile of arcane books hidden somewhere that no one had bothered to digitize. And no way in hell was Wiz letting him get access to that.
So he read. A lot. Thankfully he was a speed reader. And he tried to stay pissed off while he was working. It was the only way to avoid the crushing guilt he had for going psycho on Nero’s face. But the more he read, the more he came to respect what Wulf, Inc. was doing. The case files went back to the beginning, when the wolves had first organized. Case number one involved fighting a demon in Salem, Massachusetts, and it made him wonder if there had been something behind the witch trials other than human greed and religious zealotry. Either way, the wolves had taken out a really nasty demon and decided to organize.
Somewhere along the way, they’d run afoul of fairies and ghosts until an intrepid Englishman with mysterious powers decided to forge an accord in the late 1800s. That document was like the first Bill of Rights for magical creatures, or maybe the Constitution, because it set out three branches of weird and their governing bodies. All the case files were built on top of that as each branch policed its own and took out any magical creature that violated the Accord’s principles.
And what was first and foremost under the Accord’s rules? Don’t freak out normal people. Don’t eat them, don’t hurt them, don’t scare them into insanity. A little mumbo jumbo was forgivable, but anything that brought the population to real awareness of the woo-woo was punishable by death, dissolution, or reversion to “before the primordial goo.”
Reading the case files was like reading scripts from X-Files or Dresden. He didn’t get the full cinematic glory, but his imagination had no problem filling in all sorts of exciting details of heroic combat. And this was real life. Better yet, he was part of it now!
Or he could be. If he chose.
And God, he wanted to say yes. So what if his life had been turned upside down? How else was he going to keep a harpy having a really bad day from destroying a Swiss ski resort? Or barter for some luck from a real leprechaun? It was like stepping into the pages of his favorite books, and the little boy inside his heart was leaping with joy at every new case, every mysterious new adventure.
He managed to hold firm to his indecision until he started reading the most recent case files. All of a sudden the monsters were getting bigger and badder. Casualties started mounting because claws and fangs weren’t enough to defeat bad guys with special abilities. And if they hadn’t known ahead of time about the scroll inside a clay golem’s mouth, then they sure as hell didn’t count on vampiric pumpkins.
Worse were the files featuring Nero and his previous team. They’d been the stars of Wulf, Inc., dispatching demons and banshees with apparent ease. Until ten days ago. And that case file had been the hardest of all to read.
It was after midnight when he finally turned off the tablet. Stratos was still reading, her body posture as intense as when she competed in CS: GO for a $20,000 prize. Wiz was still here too, his posture relaxed as he turned the pages of something written on vellum that smelled like dead rats.
Josh’s head was swimming, and that was nothing compared to the riot of emotions in his head. Tired of fighting it, he leaned back and closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep rather than face the guilt, panic, and desire that tumbled about his brain.
He let it all ping-pong through his mind, eventually quieting enough for three words to steadily grow to block letters in his brain.
CALL TO ADVENTUR
E
Normally he’d leap up and say yes, yes, yes to something like that. But that was in a video game or a novel. It was a thousand times different—and scarier—in real life. He could really die, in really excruciating ways.
His reading had revealed a secret network of werewolf packs who lived normal lives. In fact, this estate was perched right next to one. He didn’t have to stay under the auspices of Wulf, Inc. to thrive as a werewolf. Hell, he could finish his PhD and teach at nearby Hope College if he wanted a nice, sane normal life. Or he could join the fight against dragons, demons, and the random bitter shapeshifter.
He let that question bounce around his brain for a while. He fell asleep before he had an answer, and his dreams took up the quest. Nightmare after nightmare had him dying by some monster’s acid-throwing power or morphing into a putrefied goo that ate Savannah.
It sucked, and it terrified him. And by morning, it solidified exactly what he was going to do.
JOSH’S NOSE twitched. He smelled food, and his stomach grumbled in need. He was still in the library, and the smell came from a thick, fluffy omelet currently being consumed by Wiz with refined zeal. Josh watched the man’s long fingers cut precise bites, and Wiz grinned as he read the hunger off of Josh’s face.
“Want some?” he drawled.
“Yeah.”
“Too bad. This is mine.”
Dickhead.
“Good news is Nero woke up a couple hours ago. His face is fixed, and he said all is forgiven. So you’re off my leash and can make your own food. Just try to puke into a toilet this time.”
Josh flashed the guy his middle finger as he shoved himself upright. Half his muscles ached from the lousy position he’d been in. The other half were nonresponsive because of lack of blood flow. He growled low and deep in his throat as he moved, his annoyance put to sound. And then he froze as he realized what he’d done.
Shit. He sounded like Savannah’s dog when facing off with the neighbor’s Chihuahua. Wiz chuckled, clearly unimpressed, and Josh had to agree. The truth was, he sounded more like the Chihuahua than Savannah’s bulldog. So rather than try a different insult, Josh headed upstairs for a bathroom and food.
He found both as well as just about everyone else. Stratos sat hunched over a mug of coffee. Happy, aka Laddin, was humming as he buttered toast. Pretty Boy chewed methodically on a carrot stick. The captain was enjoying her own omelet, and Wiz wandered up the stairs as Josh grabbed a bagel and threw the pieces in the toaster.
Except for Nero, everyone was here, which made this the best time to say his piece.
He cleared his throat. “I’ve spent the last day researching,” he said. “I read fast, and there were things I wanted to know.”
Everyone looked up at him—for a moment—then returned to their food.
“The thing is,” he continued, “they can’t keep us here. Not after we master our ability to shift. And there are lots of werewolf packs throughout the world.”
“Bad idea,” said the captain. “We’re like the police. They’re like cults. Nutjob, drink-the-Kool-Aid, David Koresh-like psychos.”
“Not all of them,” Wiz added. “Some of them just require absolute adherence to the alpha’s demands. Whatever they may be.”
Laddin frowned. “All of them?”
Stratos spoke up, though she never looked up from her coffee. “From what I read last night? Yes. It doesn’t matter how they start. Eventually a nutjob alpha takes over and Wulf, Inc. has to take them down.”
Josh agreed. It’s what he’d read last night too. Which brought him to his next point. “They’re not lying that they need help. Their numbers have never been huge, and their ranks have been thinning fast. They’ve only got two doctors, and both died thanks to a pestilence demon a month ago.”
The captain straightened up as she glared at Wiz. “Just how much of our library did you let him read?”
“The case files,” Josh answered. Then he looked at the new recruits, catching the eyes of each one in turn. “I was pissed about getting recruited or activated or whatever without my consent, but it doesn’t change the facts. They need support, and what they’ve been doing is good stuff, as far as I can see.” He took a deep breath and really committed out loud. “I’m a chemist, and I’ve decided to help. My guess is all of you have special skills too.”
Stratos’s lips curved, and this time she did look up from her mug. He saw the dark circles under her eyes, but also a flash of excitement. She’d been reading right along beside him, probably lots of the same files. “I’m a programmer,” she said. “And yeah, I’m in too.”
He glanced at Happy. The guy was grinning. “I’m organized,” he said. Then he shrugged. “And I can blow up anything. I grew up doing demolitions.”
Really? That was not at all what he’d expected. “Someone needs to organize their database. Their library—”
“I’m already on that,” Stratos interrupted. When he looked at her, she shrugged. “I looked at your notes while you were asleep. Already started a basic sorting program.”
Cool. That would be massively helpful. Meanwhile Happy gestured to the captain. “And I’m already helping her. If you think the library is a mess, you should see her office.” His shudder looked like it came from the bottom of his feet and went all the way up his body.
That left Pretty Boy. But when Josh looked at him, the actor didn’t answer. He just rolled the remains of his carrot forward and back between his fingers. Fine. He could keep his secrets, but Josh already knew about the guy’s hypnotic stare.
“Okay, we’re invested.” At least three of them were. He looked at the captain. “And fair warning, I’m planning on changing your recruitment methods.”
The captain shrugged. “If you can find a way without breaking the accord, then I’m all for it.”
Great. He added “Read the Paranormal Accord” to his To-Do list. “What’s the next step?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but Happy was there before her, practically leaping over the counter to tell them the news. “Today is one more rest day; then tomorrow we try to change into wolves. They’ve got exercises to bring out our doggie side. And then we change back. That’s it! As often as possible until we get comfortable with it. Comfortable and in control. Those are her words.” Then he spun around, looking at everyone in turn. “Afterwards, she’ll tell us about our jobs, our pay, and benefits and the like.” He did a little hop. “They have full dental!”
“Yeah, but do they have a dentist?” Josh asked.
Wiz snorted. “We have a dentist, but he’s doubling as our medic right now. And believe me, you don’t want him in your mouth or in a wound.”
“Really?” the captain snapped. “How are those healing spells coming along, Wizard?”
“Pretty slow, considering I’ve been babysitting new recruits. And I’m not a cleric.” He paused and Josh took a moment to realize he was referring to traditional D&D structure. Wizards had magic spells; clerics had healing spells. Then Wiz flashed a truly creepy smile. “But the necromancy text has been really enlightening.”
At those words, everyone stared at Wiz. Necromancy? The idea gave him the chills. Meanwhile, Happy was busy being cheerful.
“Anyway, in a few weeks to a month, we should be all sorted out. Full werewolves with jobs and—”
“Dental,” Josh finished for him. “We heard.”
Then Pretty Boy chose to finally say something. To his credit, his tone wasn’t accusing but was more like the flat, calculating tone of Red Wolf. “And what happens to our lives while we are training? When the police come looking or our families have our funerals?”
The captain spun in her seat to look at Pretty Boy. “I told you, Bing. We’re doing everything we can to minimize the damage. We didn’t mean to activate you.” Then her voice took on a more formal tone as she addressed everyone. “There’s no police, no one has reported any of you missing, and we’ve dealt with those who would most likely be worried.”
; “How?” the actor pressed. “How did you deal with them?”
Happy stepped forward. “She texted your agent, Bing. He’s handling things.”
Pretty Boy’s eyes widened in surprise. He glared at Happy for a long, uncomfortable moment, and then he abruptly got up from his stool and walked away. He headed down the hall and into what must be his bedroom. He didn’t slam the door, but the heavy click was statement enough. Pretty Boy was pissed off.
Join the club. At least Bing had an agent who handled all the details. How sad was it that Josh didn’t have any details to handle? Beyond Savannah, who’d had her memory erased, Josh didn’t have anyone who would care if he disappeared for a month. His thesis advisor would be pissed, not to mention the faculty head of his lab, but that wasn’t any different from usual.
And on that thoroughly depressing thought, Josh grabbed his bagel and headed out as well.
“What are you going to do?” Happy asked. In his defense, the guy just sounded curious, not like a paranoid mother.
“Research magical fire.” He looked hard at the captain. “That’s what you want, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s what we want. And the sooner, the better.”
“Roger that,” he said, though he doubted she heard the sarcasm in his voice. He made sure he was out of earshot before he said the rest. “Right after Nero and I discuss a few things.”
But he must have misjudged how good werewolf hearing was. He swore he muttered the words under his breath, but behind him, Wiz burst out laughing. And just before he made it to Nero’s door, he heard the man’s mocking words.
“Good luck with that!”
Chapter 12
NERO WAS sitting in his bedroom, thinking of all the times he’d been desperate to escape into the silence of his own room. Back when he was a kid, he and his sister had huddled together in the one bed while their mother screamed obscenities at her boyfriend, his grandparents, or worst of all, their landlord as he threw them out. Later, he’d longed for a moment’s peace after he’d been infected with lycanthropy and was trying to sort through the new demands of a body gone insane. And then there were the more recent times, when his team had plagued him with their petty arguments, boredom, or simple need for attention.