Madison's Song

by Christine Amsden

  “No.” She wondered at the bitterness in her voice because back in the light of day, away from those yellow staring eyes, she once again felt as if she’d been judged and found wanting. It was stupid. She didn’t want to be a werewolf. She didn’t want to turn into a monster once a month – if she was lucky. It was far more likely that she’d die before she ever made it to that point.

  This was a good thing! He’d controlled himself. He hadn’t bitten her. He hadn’t wanted her as part of his pack.

  “Maybe some of these cuts are getting infected,” she suggested to explain away her symptoms.

  “The potion I gave you should have taken care of that,” Evan said. “Scott thinks he bit you. I can tell. I can see it in his eyes. And knowing what I do about werewolves, I can’t imagine he didn’t.”

  “Well, he didn’t,” she snapped. “He killed another man right in front of me, but he didn’t bite me. He just licked my wounds clean.”

  Evan cursed softly, and Madison’s eyes went wide. No. Not possible. It couldn’t be.

  “Technically it’s not the bite that does it,” Evan said. “It’s the saliva.”

  * * *

  Scott closed his eyes as he clutched the borrowed phone to his chest. His instincts had been right as usual. He hated it when his instincts were right. Would she ever forgive him for turning her into her worst nightmare? For making her into a monster?

  Scott’s first inclination was to go straight back to Eagle Rock to take care of Madison, as if his presence could somehow ease this for her. As if it would increase her odds of survival. It wouldn’t, and as Evan was quick to point out to him, he needed to help his fragmented pack right now.

  Scott suspected that Evan wanted to keep his sister away from him, but it wouldn’t work. If she lived through this, she was his. If she died... she couldn’t die. Fate couldn’t be so cruel.

  So Scott stayed in Colorado where he was needed, and he called Evan six times a day to make sure Madison still lived. Every time Evan said, “yes,” no matter how cool his voice sounded, Scott let himself feel a modicum of hope.

  It took Scott a week to even begin to clean up the mess in Colorado. The first two nights were the worst, since he and a hundred untrained wolves transformed at night, putting everyone who lived nearby at risk. Scott spent the first day putting the fear of God into the locals and convincing them to spend the night sheltered inside their church. Then he contacted the local alpha – the man who should have known what was happening well within the borders of his Colorado territory – and demanded he help.

  Scott expected the alpha to be weak or old. To his surprise, the man who showed up within an hour of his phone call with a screech of brakes and a snarl on his face was only a few years older than Scott. His body rippled with muscles and he exuded the authority of a true alpha. Probably more so than Scott, but then Scott had always known that his magic gave him an edge that natural charisma did not.

  “What the hell is going on here?” asked the alpha, Chris.

  Scott had little time to explain but he managed, in terse syllables, to relay the bare bones of the operation.

  “How the hell was this happening and I didn’t know about it?” Chris looked as angry as Scott had when he’d discovered that a werewolf had bitten a human in his own territory.

  “Magic,” Scott said. He’d realized the truth the moment he’d seen Chris and taken the measure of the man. If Evan hadn’t found Madison inside that laboratory with a blood sample, then no non-sorcerer werewolf would have known about its existence.

  Chris hesitated. “I always wondered if there were things other than werewolves out there. How do I fight them?”

  How indeed? Scott had an idea but it would have to keep until after the full moon cycle.

  Chris had the wisdom to accept Scott’s help inside his own territory. Most of the wolves in that laboratory had become wolves in captivity and had no idea how to survive in the real world or inside a pack. With both Scott’s and Chris’s packs working together, they managed to get through the next two nights with no further fatalities.

  After that, there was still the lab to deal with. It had been burned to the ground with plenty of people trapped inside. Scott had the satisfaction of knowing that at least any blood samples they’d had on hand would have been destroyed. A few miles up the mountain was a community of support personnel and their families, most of whom had survived the night by staying inside warded homes.

  They found what was left of Dr. Akin among them, where he’d tried to hide. Scott never got the chance to kill the man with his bare hands, as he had wanted to do. Some other wolf had gotten to him first.

  Scott spent the first day of the waning moon on the phone getting every alpha in the country to Colorado to discuss what had happened. But that wasn’t the only phone call he made. This wasn’t just a werewolf problem.

  Isolation. Scott had lived his life that way and led his pack that way. Most wolf packs lived in isolation, and that was why men had been able to do this to them.

  Matthew Blair, leader of the fledgling movement called the White Guard, showed up far too quickly to have been in Eagle Rock when Scott called. The powerful mind mage confessed that he had already been on his way based on things he had learned from Evan. He had only waited this long because he’d been too smart to get caught up in the full moon fever.

  “Have you seen Madison?” Scott found himself asking before anything else.

  “No, I only spoke with Evan.”

  “Oh.” Scott felt unaccountably disappointed, even though he’d probably called Evan twice since the last time Matthew might have seen her.

  “Do you have proof that Alexander DuPris is behind this?” Matthew asked in a rapid change of subject that Scott found suspicious.

  Scott didn’t trust Matthew. He never had and never would trust someone who could mess with his head. That was part of the reason that he had not become a bigger supporter of the White Guard even though Evan had embraced the idea. Scott had felt that Evan was reacting in part to Alexander’s betrayal, and in part to some kind of mental whammy Matthew had placed on him. Now he wasn’t sure what to think, but he needed to find some way to organize the wolves. If anyone would know how to do that, Matthew would.

  “Madison was captured because she saw one of Alexander’s people,” Scott said. “The main doctor at that facility said he worked for Alexander. He was using Alexander’s magical scale to test me.”

  “That’s all extremely circumstantial.”

  “I know. Unfortunately, the wolves got to Dr. Akin before I could capture and question him. I know you want to pin Alexander with something that can actually stick, but I’m afraid anything of the kind might have burned the other night.”

  Matthew looked in the direction of the destroyed laboratory, though it wasn’t visible from town. “To be honest with you, even if I could pin this on him it wouldn’t be enough. Sorcerers don’t like werewolves.”

  Scott nodded. Another wolf might have taken offense, but Scott understood the simple truth behind the statement. “They weren’t just experimenting on werewolves. There were human experiments. Not to mention vampires.”

  “They like vampires less than werewolves,” Matthew said. “But if I had proof I could try to sell them on the human experimentation. If I had proof.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t give you your proof, but I might be able to get you something else if you’re willing to help me out.”

  “An army of werewolves?” Matthew asked. He was absolutely serious.

  Just as serious as Scott when he replied, “Yes.”

  * * *

  Scott returned to Eagle Rock two weeks later, exhausted. But he’d done what he’d had to do. Alphas from across the country had gathered in response to what had happened in Colorado and they had actually listened and considered. They had seen the danger. The question that remained now was whether they would see the solution.

  Matthew thought so. Scott wondered if that meant Matthew
had influenced them to think that way, but he didn’t ask. Sometimes a mind mage was a necessary evil, such as in helping a town full of frightened humans to forget three nights of terror.

  Scott wasn’t going home alone. The alphas had agreed to each take on a few of the new werewolves – at least, the stable ones. Twenty-one werewolves had needed to be put down. The rest would have their chance just like any other new wolf. Scott had charge of two of them.

  Some had escaped. Since they hadn’t taken a head count Scott only knew this because he had not seen Clinton. Madison’s brother was out there somewhere, lost, damaged, and alone. Sooner or later someone would find him and put him down. And Scott would have to tell Madison. He only prayed the pup was smart enough to stay away from his own territory so he didn’t have to be the one to do it.

  Chapter 32

  EVAN DIDN’T WANT SCOTT TO SEE Madison when he returned to town, but she was starting to pull through her illness and she had insisted.

  “You and I need to talk first,” Evan said when Scott arrived at his friend’s three-story lakefront mansion. He followed Evan into the den where scattered baby blankets and a colorful Boppy made the room look much less like a bachelor pad than it had this time last year.

  Evan closed the door, creating a soundproof seal that surprised Scott at first. The last time he’d been in this room, it hadn’t been magically soundproofed. Obviously, Evan had prepared for this meeting and didn’t want anything to interrupt it. Scott tensed, more than half expecting Evan to attack.

  He didn’t.

  “The only reason I’m not trying to kill you,” Evan said, “is that I know you had no choice. Madison told me what happened.”

  “She’s one of mine now,” Scott said. “You know that.”

  “Of course I do!” Evan took a deep breath. “I always knew something like this could happen. It’s why I tried so hard to keep her away from you.”

  “I know.”

  “But I was wrong.”

  “What?” Scott wasn’t usually taken so off-guard, but he honestly had not seen this turnaround coming.

  “You two need each other. If I hadn’t let her live in fear, if I hadn’t encouraged that, maybe you’d have realized it sooner, and maybe none of this would have happened.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Regardless,” Evan said. “You have my blessing. For what it’s worth.”

  Scott stood there for a long minute, stunned. It meant more to him than he could say. The only thing that could possibly mean more was Madison’s blessing. She still hadn’t said she loved him. He still wasn’t sure that what she had felt for him wasn’t just a product of two people in a dangerous situation.

  And he had turned her into a werewolf. Would she ever forgive him?

  “Can I see her now?” Scott asked.

  “Let me just make sure she’s awake,” Evan said. “She’s been sleeping a ton and I won’t wake her.”

  “No, of course not.”

  But no sooner had Evan opened the study door then the front doorbell rang. Frowning, Evan went to answer it and Scott’s instincts went on alert. He did not think he would like what awaited him on the other side of the threshold. He knew it for sure when Evan opened the door and sucked in a deep breath.

  Clinton. Scott smelled him before he saw him. He walked out of the den into the front hallway, glanced up the staircase where the woman who would never speak to him again slept, then strode purposefully to meet his betrayer.

  “Go away,” Evan said.

  It was too late for that. Scott nudged Evan aside and faced down the pup he would have to kill. He didn’t look good. He hadn’t looked good in the lab or locked up in that cell, but now he looked worse. He still wore the scrubs, but he clearly had not bathed or changed clothes since his escape. There was blood – little of it his – and dirt. Also, the scrubs hung loosely, as if he had recently lost a lot of weight.

  The yellow eyes that looked up at Scott were ringed in red. He hadn’t slept lately. And he knew he was going to die. So why was he here?

  Clinton lifted a hand, holding something out for Scott to take. Scott hesitated, seeing a vial of some kind of whitish liquid. In the other hand, Clinton clutched a notepad and a manila envelope. When Scott took the vial from the pup’s trembling fingers, Clinton tore the top piece of paper off the notepad and handed it to Scott as well.

  I can’t talk. So I’m writing to explain why I’m here. The vial contains a potion that will cure Madison if taken before her first transformation. Dr. Akin didn’t lie to me about having such a cure, he just refused to give it to me. He gave me something else instead.

  Scott stared from the note to the vial, his eyes going back and forth in stunned disbelief. It couldn’t be true. If there were a cure, he’d know.

  “What is it?” Evan asked.

  Without speaking, Scott handed Evan the note.

  “Can you trust him?” Evan asked when he’d finished reading.

  Scott had no idea. But he didn’t lash out at the pup, didn’t snap his neck as was his duty. Partly, it was because Clinton stood in docile silence, no apparent threat to anyone. Partly, it was because he didn’t want to do the one thing that would seal his fate with Madison.

  While he stood there in indecision, the pup started writing again. It took him a while to scribble out his next note, but Scott didn’t make a move until he was done and handed over the new message.

  I know you have to kill me. I accept it. I’m a monster. I still don’t know exactly what they did to me, but some of it is in the notes. They made me stronger. I have better vision. Better hearing. Better sense of smell. But I can’t speak and I look like this. I know I deserve to die for what I did to you, but I thought I was helping Madison. When Dr. Akin told me the truth I wanted to rip his throat out. I did, in the end. I went to his office to get his papers before starting the fire. Then I hunted him down.

  “Papers?” Scott asked.

  Clinton handed him the manila envelope, which Scott took, not opening it.

  “How did you get his papers in wolf form?” Scott asked.

  Clinton wrote again. It was a long, frustrating conversation but Scott wanted to know everything. Needed to know. If he could believe Clinton, if there was even a chance to save Madison from becoming a werewolf...

  He’d lose her. He hated himself for thinking it, especially since her life remained at risk, but he felt like he was only holding onto her due to a technicality. Yet if this was true, he had to let her go or he really would be a monster.

  What were his instincts telling him? Before, when Clinton had sounded the alarm, he knew the pup had betrayed him. But he’d never been convinced that Clinton had betrayed Madison. Maybe this was proof that he hadn’t. What else would bring him here, into the heart of a territory where he knew the alpha he had betrayed would probably kill him? He had come face to face with Scott, and Clinton’s trembling fingers said he knew the probable outcome.

  In fact, his next note was a little more difficult to read due to the shaking handwriting, but Scott managed.

  Transformation incomplete. Still have hands. Not good for running through the woods. Can’t run on back paws only. Hurts to run as a wolf. But hands can get papers.

  “And your mind?” Scott asked. “Do you have the wolf’s mind at the full moon?”

  He couldn’t have the wolf’s mind, Scott’s intuition told him. If he had thought to grab those papers then something in him remained human when he transformed. Was that one of the things Dr. Akin had tried to do? Had he been partly successful?

  Did such success excuse any of the things he had done?

  Scott took another piece of paper.

  Can still think as a wolf. Not as well as when I’m human, but not like the first time when I was pure feelings.

  It was Scott’s turn to tremble. The paper shook in his hands. If this was true... Wow, the implications for werewolves everywhere were amazing. Dr. Akin had tried to sell him on it, but Scott hadn’t bought
into it. He’d been too busy trying to escape. Too busy reeling at what the madman had done to innocent men, women, and creatures. Well, vampires weren’t innocent by definition, but even they deserved death and decapitation rather than imprisonment and experimentation.

  How many had died? How many had suffered? Scott remembered the young woman in the cage, the human whose mind had gone. She hadn’t even been a werewolf. Scott had found her afterward during some of the cleanup efforts. He’d checked each and every body they had recovered, and he’d recognized hers. A vampire had gotten her in the end. Scott had chopped her head off to make sure she didn’t turn.

  And that was just one story. Clinton himself was strange. Unnatural. How could he run with the pack with hands for front paws? How would he hunt and fight? He’d never be an alpha.

  But he had his mind, or part of it. And he had a cure for Madison.

  Clinton handed Scott another piece of paper.

  Cure only works before first transformation. No cure after that.

  Clinton had underlined the last sentence three times.

  Scott swallowed. He handed the notes off to Evan, but Evan couldn’t help him make this decision. He was the one who had to figure out if he trusted Clinton.

  “You betrayed me,” Scott said.

  Clinton closed his eyes and nodded, once. Then he turned his head to the side, exposing his throat. The message was clear, but Scott ignored it.

  “Did you betray Madison too?”

  Clinton shook his head furiously. Then he began to write once more.

  Dr. Akin said you were a danger to her. She was afraid of you for years, so I believed him. I did it for her.

  It all made sense to Scott now. He stared at the vial of whitish liquid in his hands. He believed it was a cure. He wouldn’t offer it to Madison before he looked through the notes, but his instincts had already passed judgment of a sort. Clinton wouldn’t have given him this potion if he hadn’t been sure. After all, he loved his sister enough to die to protect her. Apparently, that sort of thing ran in the family.