Close Enemies

by Marc Daniel

  He wasn’t surprised with this development but needed to be cautious. He couldn’t afford to be fighting on two fronts.

  He saw the bear an instant later. It was standing fifty yards from the back of the cabin.

  The bear was raised on its back legs staring at Michael, the edge of the woods a mere thirty feet behind it. It started slowly swaying, shifting its weight from one leg to the other. Michael knew enough about bears to recognize the behavior. This one was spoiling for a fight. No bear in Yellowstone—or on the planet for that matter—would be stupid enough to pick a fight with Michael. This confirmed what Michael already knew. This bear was the skinwalker that had attacked Olivia.

  Michael took the time to strip out of his clothes before morphing into his animal form. He was running out of clothes to wear and wanted to delay the unavoidable visit to a store looming in his near future.

  By the time he reached the other bear, the female stood on four legs and emitted loud threatening grunts. They didn’t intimidate Michael. He had at least 400 pounds on the sow and knew how to use his weight to his advantage.

  The sow retreated slowly, apparently changing her mind about the confrontation. She started turning around to head towards the forest, but it had been a distraction. In a flash she rushed Michael and went for his throat.

  Michael had seen her coming but hadn’t reacted fast enough to stop the attack. As a result, the sow was now thoroughly enjoying her new chew toy. Michael didn’t share her enjoyment.

  He tried to shake her loose to no avail before opting for a different strategy. He raised himself on his back paws, effectively lifting the much shorter sow off the ground. She was still clamped onto his neck however and her fangs, sunk deep in his flesh, started to feel uncomfortable. She was starting to enjoy herself a bit too much. It was time to end this.

  Michael struck the bear with his front paws and the female was projected three feet away, her teeth finally letting go of his neck. He was on her before she had a chance to recover from her surprise, sinking his teeth into the back of her neck. She was no werebear and wouldn’t require beheading. A broken neck would suffice.

  A moment later, Michael stood in his human form over the inanimate body of the skinwalker. A small puddle of her blood was visible at his feet, even under the feeble light of the waning moon. Michael regretted things had to come to this. But it was all for the best. At least, he hoped.

  He grabbed the bear by the back legs and started pulling her body towards the woods. He was interrupted an instant later by the sound of an incoming vehicle. He looked towards the road and saw a car slowing down before turning onto his driveway. What now?

  “It looks like we have company,” he muttered under his breath. “Don’t go anywhere without me,” he added, patting the sow on the shoulder, before quietly sprinting towards his cabin and retrieving his clothes. As the nighttime visitor stepped out of her vehicle, Michael caught a whiff of Helen Fletcher. This was bad timing.

  “Hi, Helen,” he said turning the corner of the house and walking towards her.

  “Good evening, Michael. I’m terribly sorry to bother you this late, but I only heard an hour ago that you were back in town and I have something you need to see.”

  Chapter 78

  Olivia stepped inside her dorm room and carefully locked the door behind her.

  “Did you find some?” asked Lucy, grabbing the large purse Olivia carried on her shoulder and rummaging through it.

  “I did, but I don’t know that it will work. I don’t know anything ab—” Olivia stopped mid-sentence. Lucy had pulled the blood pack out of Olivia’s purse and had quickly torn it open with her teeth. She was presently sucking the crimson liquid out of the bag with the eagerness of a free diver taking his first breath of fresh air after a five-minute dive. Her eyes were rolling up in their orbits, leaving only the white part visible. A disturbing sight on its own, but it got worse when Lucy swallowed the last drop of blood from the pack. The vampire started by tightly rolling the bag in an attempt to extract a few additional drops of the disgusting nectar before tearing the bag open and avidly licking the inside clean. By the time she was done with her meal, not a single trace of the red liquid remained anywhere inside or outside the bag. A dog licking his bowl couldn’t have done a more thorough job.

  “That’s all you could find? They didn’t have more?”

  “That’s all I could steal, Luce. It’s a hospital, not a grocery store.”

  “They must have tons of it. You know, in case of accidents, for transfusions,” argued Lucy. “They wouldn’t miss a few bags.”

  “Maybe not, but they would notice they’re gone.”

  “So what?”

  “So, if the word gets out, Daka and his packmates will get suspicious. They’re already looking for a vampire roaming around Bozeman.”

  “Technically they’re looking for two vampires. Me and the one who killed that student…”

  “But they don’t know that. I’d suggest we let them keep on believing that the other one is responsible for both murders.”

  “Murders, murders…”

  “Sorry, Lucy, but that’s the technical word for what you’ve done.”

  “True. But in your mouth, it sounds patronizing.”

  Olivia didn’t recognize her sister anymore, and not only because she’d dyed her hair a raven shade of black. Over the past ten days, Lucy had gone from borderline catatonic, to dead, to over-exuberant with sociopathic tendencies.

  “Stop acting like it’s no big deal, Lucy. You killed a man! It’s a big deal!”

  “Will you ever shut up!” yelled Lucy, grabbing her head in her hands.

  “Sorry but killing isn’t something to laugh about, Lucy. And stop screaming, someone will hear you.”

  Prior to her kidnapping a year earlier, Lucy had always been full of life. She’d had one of the most vibrant personalities there ever was. She’d also been kind, although that wasn’t the first adjective that came to Olivia’s mind when she thought of her sister. But the new Lucy, the blood-gobbling Lucy, was scary.

  Truth being told, her sister’s personality wasn’t fundamentally different from what it had been when she was alive and well; it had just been amplified five folds. The total lack of empathy was new though. Persuading Lucy to drink blood out of a pouch instead of straight from some poor chump’s neck had taken some serious convincing. How could she care so little about killing innocent bystanders? Although if Olivia was to believe her sister’s story, the trucker hadn’t been all that innocent.

  “I wasn’t yelling at you, Olivia. I was talking to the goddamn voice in my head,” Lucy said after a moment.

  “What is it saying?”

  “The usual crap. ‘Come to me or else…’ Or else what? Fucker!”

  This was something else Olivia didn’t know how to respond to. Hearing voices was never a good sign. And she suspected the rule applied to vampires too.

  Someone knocked on the door and the two sisters stared at each other, frozen in place for a moment. Olivia was the first one to react. She gestured for her sister to hide in the wardrobe standing against the wall. Lucy slipped into the massive piece of furniture without making a sound and Olivia went to answer the door.

  “Hey, Olivia. Am I catching you at a bad time?” said Daka. His eyes were searching hers questioningly.

  “No. I just wasn’t expecting you tonight, that’s all.”

  “These are for you,” he said, handing her the bouquet of yellow roses he’d been hiding behind his back.

  “Thank you, Daka. What’s the occasion?”

  “The one-week anniversary of our first kiss. Our first and only kiss…”

  Olivia gently caressed his cheek with the back of her hand. She cared for the guy, she knew that, but she wasn’t sure the two of them being together was such a good idea, especially given what was currently hiding in her wardrobe.

  “Are you going to invite me in?” he asked with a charming grin.

  “I’m
really tired tonight, Daka. How about a raincheck?”

  His disappointment would have been less obvious if the word had been spelled out on his forehead. The poor guy had driven all the way from Bozeman after a long day of work—he’d even brought her flowers—and she was sending him away without an explanation.

  “Are you with someone? I heard you talking before I knocked on the door.”

  “No. I’m all alone,” she said, opening the door wide open so he could see the inside of her small bedroom. “You probably heard me talking on the phone.”

  Daka was starting to wish Olivia goodnight when his eyes drifted to the torn blood pack Lucy had left on Olivia’s nightstand.

  “What’s that? Is it a blood pack?” he asked, pointing to the bag.

  Olivia just stared at the empty bag, her mind failing to come up with a plausible explanation. “No. It’s an IV bag,” she said, much too late to sound believable.

  Daka pushed her to the side and walked straight to the nightstand where he picked up the bag. “An IV pouch with an O positive plasma label? Really, Olivia, that’s your story? What the hell is going on in here?”

  “Whatever’s going on is none of your business, Daka. Now get out of my room.” She could feel her wolf getting close to the surface. It only took her a moment to understand why. Olivia didn’t want to hurt Daka, but her loyalty was to Lucy and her wolf’s instinct was to protect her sister at all costs.

  She took a deep breath, trying to retain control over her furious alter ego. But this was all the time Daka needed to walk to the wardrobe and open its doors wide open.

  “Boo!” said Lucy as she shoved him violently against the opposite wall. Daka had morphed into his wolf by the time he hit the wall, but Lucy was already gone. She’d jumped out of the bedroom window, the sound of shattering glass echoing through the whole building. She was already a quarter mile down the road by the time Daka reached the window.

  Chapter 79

  The seriousness in Helen’s voice caught Michael’s attention. “Do you want to come in?” he asked.

  “What’s going on, Michael?” said Sheila, stepping out of the cabin and onto the front porch before Helen had a chance to answer.

  “Helen has something she wants to show me.”

  “It must be important to have driven down here this late,” said Sheila coldly.

  “My apologies for barging in but it’s indeed important. What’s on your face, Michael? Is it blood?”

  Michael brought his hand to his cheek.

  “On the other side,” said Helen.

  He found the blood splatter on his right cheek and wiped it off. “Yes, it is blood. I found another dead bear back there. I was taking a look at it when I heard your car.” This wasn’t technically a lie.

  “Can I have a look?” asked Helen.

  “I’m going back in, Michael,” said Sheila in a tone Michael wasn’t accustomed to. She didn’t sound happy. He and Helen were getting close to the spot where he’d defeated the skinwalker by the time he’d convinced himself that the emotion displayed by Sheila was indeed jealousy. Not something Michael had much experience dealing with. Sheila was the first real relationship he’d had in decades, and the first woman he’d truly cared for in centuries.

  “Here it is,” he said, pointing at the grizzly bear’s body.

  Helen looked at it a moment before observing, “It looks like it’s been moved.” Gesturing towards a dark spot on the ground, she added, “You see that blood here. I think that’s where it was killed. It was then dragged to where it is now. How strange.”

  Having done the dragging himself, Michael agreed with her assessment. “Predators do that sometimes,” he said evasively.

  “What preys on a grizzly, Michael? Is this another tiger attack?”

  “No. This time it’s nothing out of the ordinary. She’s been killed by another grizzly. She was probably trying to protect her cubs. This does happen unfortunately.” Once again, he wasn’t technically lying, although he felt bad about the way he stretched the truth. At the same time, being truthful wasn’t much of an option in this instance.

  Helen pulled out a vial from her pocket and collected a sample from the small blood puddle.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m sending this in for DNA analysis.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “You’re probably correct, Michael. But I’m not taking chances. That’s what I came to talk to you about. I got the results back from the samples I had sent earlier. You know, the sample I collected on the griz killed by a tiger and the samples I collected after the tiger attacked me a few days ago.”

  Michael didn’t like the turn the conversation was taking. “Should we talk about this inside?” he asked as they headed back towards the cabin but immediately regretted making the offer. Sheila would likely not appreciate having Helen inside the house.

  Fortunately, Helen rejected the proposition. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Michael. I didn’t know your friend was out of the hospital. I don’t think me coming inside would be a good idea. And the things I want to tell you are kind of private anyway. I haven’t told anyone else. I need your advice first.”

  They returned to Helen’s car and she retrieved a manila folder from the passenger seat. She handed it to Michael.

  “What is it?”

  “The lab report. The analyses were conducted by a friend of mine in a university lab, so the results are confidential. But you should have a look at the report, Michael.”

  He opened the folder and started reading. He understood little about the scientific mumbo jumbo but caught enough of the executive summary to raise his blood pressure. “Could you translate that in plain English for me? I’m not sure I’m following everything.”

  “The tiger who killed the grizzly and the tiger who was about to attack me a few days ago are not one and the same. We have two tigers running around in the park.”

  “Yes. I understood that part. But what’s the stuff about non-coding sequences matching humans?”

  “That’s the really weird part, Michael. That’s why I wanted to talk to you as soon as I heard you were back.” She was looking Michael in the eyes with an intensity that made him feel uncomfortable. “Do you know anything about genetics?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “OK. You may want to have a seat then.”

  Michael sat down on the porch’s step and Helen sat next to him.

  “The genetic code of any animal—including humans—is expressed in their DNA. I’m sure you knew that already. But the thing about DNA is that most of it is non-coding. Meaning that the majority of your DNA doesn’t code for any of the genes that make you Michael Biörn. Those non-coding sequences just tag along for the ride, but that’s also what makes genetic material unique. That’s how you can identify without any doubt a tiger from another tiger and how you can be certain two blood samples belong to the same individual.”

  Michael nodded his understanding.

  “But the samples I collected turned out to be very unique. Usually, the non-coding part of DNA is just gibberish. But not in those samples. In those samples the part that’s supposed to be non-coding is actually… well… coding.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “The first sample I collected belongs to a tiger, no doubt about it. Except that some of the non-coding DNA is a perfect match for coding sequences of human DNA.”

  “That makes no sense. It must be a mistake,” said Michael, who knew full well why that was the case.

  “If it had been an isolated instance, my friend would have ruled out the results as a contaminated sample. But this is true of all three samples I submitted.”

  “Three samples?” asked Michael, who’d been under the impression she’d only collected two.

  “Yes. All three. The second tiger’s DNA also appears to include human DNA in the supposedly non-coding sequences. And so does the bear’s DNA.”

  “The bear’s?�
�

  “Yes. Apparently, some of the blood I collected after the bear chased off my wannabe attacker belonged to the grizzly itself. Not to the tiger.”

  “And the bear’s DNA was also showing trace of human DNA? It sounds to me like the whole lot of samples got contaminated,” said Michael dismissively.

  “I suspected you might say that.” Helen’s voice had taken an enigmatic tone.

  “Why is that?”

  “It’s hard to say it without sounding crazy but when that bear saved my life, I thought there was something familiar about him. Something strangely… human about the way he looked at me before taking off.”

  Michael stared at Helen with what he hoped looked like a mixture of amusement and incredulity.

  She took a deep breath before continuing, “Michael, I think that if we were to have your blood analyzed, we would find that it’s a match for the human genes my friend found in the bear’s DNA.”

  Chapter 80

  “What the hell, Olivia?!” said Daka. He was standing naked in front of her broken window.

  The commotion hadn’t gone unnoticed. Outside in the hallway, Olivia could hear other interns opening doors and converging on her room. She moved quickly to close her door, but not before Raj appeared in the frame and whistled at the sight of a naked Daka picking up his clothes scattered across the room.

  “Damn girl! T’was about time you got some,” said the Indian intern. Olivia’s reply was to slam the door shut in his face.

  “You’re hiding vampires in your closet now?” said Daka in an angry whisper. “You have some serious explaining to do, Olivia.”

  “Can you get dressed first?” she asked pleadingly.

  He slipped into his boxers and was putting his pants on when Olivia said, “That was Lucy.”

  Daka gave her a blank look. “I collected Lucy’s ashes from the funeral home myself, Olivia. That wasn’t Lucy. What’s going on with you?”