by Sarah Noffke
“Any progress with finding a lead on the rabid wolf?” Zephyr asked.
“Actually, I wanted to ask you about that. Do you have a connection with the weres?” she asked.
He halted in the hallway, his eyes turning serious. “Why would you ask that?”
She stuck her hand on her hip as she hitched it up, a victorious smile on her face. “I thought so. I notice that you shift a little as each is returned to the pack,” Rox said.
He flinched with annoyance. “I don’t know about that.”
“Oh, stop lying. So my point is that I think you’re emotionally tied to the weres,” she said.
“That might be true. I did sense when something happened to Orion and Hugo,” Zephyr said, combing his hand through his hair.
“What do you sense about Hunter Smith? He’s the one Adelaide identified as the possible rabid wolf,” Rox said.
Zephyr stared just over Rox’s shoulder, his gaze loose. “I don’t know. I feel angry, I think. Mostly at women. Mostly at ones who have done me wrong,” he said, his focus returning to her and his face shifting, growing more neutral. “But the feeling leaves as soon as I think of someone else.”
“As I thought,” she said, turning in the opposite direction of Aiden’s lab, where they’d been headed. “I think you have a connection to the members of the pack that we can tap into for clues. I’m going to go look up the victims and see if I can find a correlation.”
“Yeah, okay,” Zephyr said, his voice distant.
Rox turned, still headed in the other direction. “Hey, Z,” she said.
“What?” he said, glued in place.
“Remember you have this connection. That you can feel things about the members of your pack. You should use it,” she said.
How was it that someone who looked like a plastic Barbie doll and half the time seemed to share a brain with one, also had incredible insights regularly? Rox often made astute observations that stole Zephyr’s breath for a moment. How had she known that he felt a connection to the werewolves? Zephyr had barely made the connection, only when Orion and Hugo died. However, now that he considered it he realized he felt things when he thought of each of the werewolves. He felt Kaleb’s grief. Rio’s loyalty. Connor’s secret. And he had less concrete feelings about the other werewolves that he hadn’t met yet, but still there was something there, something that could become tangible with practice.
Zephyr stayed locked in this new realization and the things connected to it until he rounded the corner into Aiden’s lab. The reverse conversion hadn’t been successful with Connor, but there was still hope. It’s not that Zephyr really wanted to take the wolf out of himself, not like he used to when he swallowed prescription drugs in an attempt to subdue the beast. However, Zephyr thought that he needed to. There was little future for him and the other men if they changed into werewolves every week. How could he ever live his life if he constantly had to worry that he’d change and prowl on the innocent? However, not hearing the wolf in his head and not changing every week filled his gut with dread. That was like taking away a part of his personality. He wouldn’t be him anymore. It was strange that what had been forced on him was now something he didn’t want to let go of. But you can’t be a werewolf forever, he told himself as he cleared his throat.
Aiden flipped his head up, an easy smile springing to his mouth. “You’re as quiet as a mouse,” he said with a laugh. “I didn’t hear you coming.”
Mice actually made a shitload of noise scurrying about. Zephyr knew that from camping out in the forest when on an assignment. However, he wasn’t going to point that out to the scientist. That would be rude. It’s something Adelaide and Rox would have done.
“I understand you’ve updated the reverse conversion process,” Zephyr said, hands clasped behind his back, feet shoulder-width apart.
“You understand correctly. Do you have a pick for who should undergo the procedure?” Aiden said, picking up a gyroscope from a shelf where an assortment of science toys sat.
“Well, Connor has already agreed to it once, so I figured he was a good choice,” Zephyr said, watching as Aiden threaded a string into a hole and then started winding it around the middle rod of the gyroscope.
Aiden pursed his lips and then shook his head. “I don’t think having him go through the procedure twice is safe. And a different subject may be more receptive to it.”
Zephyr scratched his short beard. He wore it to cover the scar on his jaw where an Olento Research rent-a-cop split his chin open with the butt of his gun.
“How about Rio?” Aiden said, continuing to wind the string around the center spindle of the gyroscope.
Zephyr knew at once that Rio wouldn’t want that. He felt that instinctively. No one loved being a werewolf more than Rio. He shook his head. “No, that won’t work. And I’m guessing Kaleb is off limits since he could potentially lose his Dream Traveler skill,” he said.
“You brought in that new werewolf, right?” Aiden said.
“Yeah, David Sanders. I don’t know though,” Zephyr said, his insides aching with a new strange weight pressing down on him.
“Your call, but he sounds like the only viable choice. Either we wait until you rescue more werewolves, or we go with David,” Aiden said, tugging the string, quickly unraveling it. The gyroscope spun in the palm of the scientist’s hand before he led it onto the lip of a beaker, where it continued to spin.
“Okay, let’s have David go through the procedure,” Zephyr said, a strange foreboding taking up residence in his head. The gyroscope, having lost its momentum, collapsed onto the counter, falling still.
Chapter Twenty
“The wolf was sick, he vowed a monk to be - But when he got well, a wolf once more was he.”
- Walter Bower
If Adelaide could just find out what Olento Research was working on now, she’d be able to stop them or at least prepare a better strategy. However, what she needed was to work her way up and implant the idea of a transfer to Olento Research into her boss’s head. She’d spent a week at Parantaa Research and wasn’t finding anything useful. Still, she couldn’t just use her mind control to get a promotion since she figured this would flag Mika’s suspicions.
She’d gotten lost so many times in the Parantaa Research facility that people were probably starting to wonder if she had any brain cells. However, when she’d met Mika she overheard him say that they were storing something there instead of at the “other” facility. Her access badge got her into most areas, but not all of them. That’s why she’d had Aiden “fix” her badge so that it gave her universal access.
Tentatively glancing at the empty hallway at her back, Adelaide then slid her badge over the scanner. It glowed green. All of the rooms in the building were labeled with two letters and two numbers. Not at all helpful for telling one what might be in them. This one was CC-12.
Pulling the door back, Adelaide craned her neck around the corner of the door frame. Employees at various workstations that lined a wall looked up at her, quizzical expressions on their faces, like they weren’t used to being interrupted. Without a word she drew the door shut and continued down the hallway.
Adelaide felt as though she were bumbling along, searching in plain sight for something that was obviously hidden. What was Mika going to do next? He had already created invisible men and mega werewolves in order to try and catch the pack. What would a sinister mastermind like Mika do then? And he obviously had a revolting obsession with comic book characters. Maybe he’d make a spider person or a reptile man? Adelaide laughed inside as she tried another door. Again she interrupted a room of scientists, probably creating a horrible disease and also the antidote. One couldn’t cure a disease if it didn’t first exist.
When she opened the next door, bright light and irritated faces didn’t greet her. This one was the same as the others, the same as the room where she worked, but this space was dark. The dust covering the first set of workstations told her it hadn’t been occupied in a
while. At the back, another door caught her attention. The room where Adelaide worked, with a bunch of stuffy scientists, didn’t have another door. None of the rooms did, she recalled. Her sinuses tickled with a sneeze that threatened to burst out of her. She pinched her nose and made her way across the space and then slid the badge over the scanner. It glowed green.
“What are you doing in here?” a man called at her back. He had a German accent and heavy irritation in his voice.
Adelaide paused. She’d have to use mind control on the scientist to get out of this. When Adelaide turned around, she found a man with a large belly and white beard framed in the doorway.
“I’m looking for the restroom,” she said, putting influence into the words, making him believe them. Mind control involved getting into a person’s head, but about like how one experiences the outdoors with the window down. It was a very superficial experience.
“No, you’re not,” the man said, to her horror. This man, who she knew was Alexander Drake, hadn’t believed her. She identified him based on her father’s notes, but now something even more disturbing was overwhelming her mind.
My mind control doesn’t work on him! That was impossible. Drake was a Middling. However, he wasn’t just any Middling and had the intellect to help Aiden build a device that opened portals. And he had stolen the Dream Traveler conversion protocol. It was entirely possible that he’d done it to himself. Fuck! Adelaide needed another way to get out of this.
“Okay, you caught me. I was looking for a quiet place to take a nap. I was up all night drinking at the bar,” Adelaide said, making her way in Drake’s direction.
“You don’t sound like a Parantaa Research employee,” Drake said, scrutinizing her behind his wire-rimmed glasses.
“No, I’m much better than the buffoons here. I’m Abigail Post,” she said, extending a hand to him.
He eyed the hand and then shook his head. “I’m sick,” Drake said, rejecting the handshake.
Adelaide shrugged at the angry German and tossed her long hair over her shoulder. Then she grabbed a clump of strands in her fingertips. She watched as his eyes trailed down to the ground, like watching something fall. “Hi, Sick. Nice to meet you,” she said.
“How did you get access into this room? It’s off limits to staff of your level,” Drake said, blocking the exit.
Adelaide began twirling her hair around her finger in a rhythmic fashion, the same way she did with the ballpoint pen. Drake’s eyes darted to the movement, it drawing his attention at once. That’s the way it was with hypnosis. It was irresistible.
“The door was open,” she said, inserting the message into his brain. Making him have to believe it.
Drake automatically nodded as Adelaide dropped her hands. “Now I better get back to work. If you’ll excuse me,” she said, pointing at the hall.
He cleared his throat, shaking his head at the same time, like trying to dispel something. “Yes, you better get back to it,” he said, his eyes on the ground now.
Adelaide slipped around him and sped down the hallway, in the direction of her office.
Drake’s head was suddenly fuzzy, like he’d just awoken. But that wasn’t the case. He’d been awake for sixteen hours. Maybe that was the problem.
Strange that this girl, supposedly Abigail, had found this room unlocked. Drake stared at the badge reader. That was what she said though and he knew it to be the truth. Without a doubt. She was definitely snooping, which meant that her name probably wasn’t Abigail, but rather Adelaide. And she held an uncanny resemblance to Ren Lewis, whom Drake had only met the once. Kneeling down, Drake retrieved the long red hair he’d seen fall to the white linoleum floor. It had been easier than he suspected to obtain a DNA sample, and now he’d be able to distinguish if she was a Dream Traveler, as Mika suspected.
Chapter Twenty-One
“A wolf eats sheep but now and then, ten thousands are devoured by men.”
- Benjamin Franklin
Breathless, Rox slid to the right, taking some of the sheet with her as she did.
Also panting, Zephyr curled his arm behind his head, stretching as he did.
With only the ambient light from the desk, she could still make out the straightness of his nose and curves of his mouth. Zephyr wasn’t just a handsome man. He was beautifully unique with his gray eyes framed with long black eyelashes. And the silver sprinkled into his hair and beard made him appear sophisticatedly sexy. But she’d never tell him any of this.
He reached out his hand, sliding his palm over her bare stomach as a sigh of relief fell from his mouth. That seemed like an invitation to come back so she rolled forward until she laid her head on his chest. Things with Zephyr were ridiculously easy and simultaneously difficult. They each knew what the other wanted and it seemed easy to give it to one another. It was difficult because of the facade they put up with each other and then also with others. It was the feeling of falling. Of hating that she felt an expanse all around her, instead of confined to a small box.
“You fulfill my quiet desires, but if you ever tell anyone that then I’ll totally murder you in your sleep,” she said.
“So one night I fall asleep and then you strangle me, is that right?” he said, with an amused tone.
“Something like that. Nothing gross. I don’t want to get my sheets dirty,” she said, feeling his fingers slide into her hair.
“Makes sense. And no worries. I’ll pretend to hate you in front of others. I will go so far as to point out all your numerous shortcomings so that everyone is aware of the faults about you that I’ve spied but decided to overlook,” he said.
She patted his arm, affection in the movement. “That’s all I want out of this. The facade that we hate each other and then the sex behind closed doors,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s strangely all I’ve been looking for. A secret love affair with a girl I can’t stand most of the time who also strangely I can’t resist,” Zephyr said.
“We all want that, which is both good and awful for us,” she said, having another moment of insight.
A heavy sigh fell out of Zephyr’s mouth. “Which explains my obsession perfectly with nachos. How can they taste so good and make me feel so bad?” he asked.
“It’s the meat. It’s toxic. You shouldn’t eat it. Most Dream Travelers are vegetarians because it promotes better sleep habits,” Rox said.
“You realize you just told a werewolf to be a vegetarian?” he said.
“Well, you don’t have to follow the pack. Why don’t you try being a lone wolf in that way?” she said, sliding up so she was looking at him.
“And what, try eating celery?” Zephyr said, arching a thick eyebrow at her.
“It wouldn’t kill you.”
“Have you eaten celery?” he said, condescension heavy in his tone.
“Sure, but it’s more of a thing you put in stuff. Like split pea soup,” Rox said.
“If you don’t shut up right now I’m throwing you out of this bed,” he said.
“Why, because I said split pea soup?” she said, teasing him.
A smile quirked up the edges of his mouth. “Because you say the dumbest things. Me eating split pea soup is like a lion gnawing on a stalk of broccoli.”
“I can see that happening though, especially if the broccoli was covered in a hollandaise sauce,” she said, combing her hand across his chest.
“You are seriously out of touch with this world,” he said, smiling up at her.
“And?” she said expectantly.
“And what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe this is a good segue into how you feel about me. I mean, besides that I’m awesome in bed,” Rox said and instantly regretted going there with the conversation. She blamed the girl in her for needing to bring feelings into this, but more and more that had been the nagging case for her when with Zephyr.
“Again your rationalizing skills have failed you. There’s never a good time to talk about feelings,” he said.
Rox didn’t respond and she hoped her disappointment filled the silence. She wasn’t sure why she was pushing the topic when she wanted things to remain light between them. But more often she was finding herself attached to Zephyr. Maybe it was just because she couldn’t have him. Not really.
“I like you. You know that. I can’t stand you and you irritate the hell out of me. But you’re also one of the rare people who get me,” he said all in a rush.
“And I’m the only one who can best you in a fight and put up with you when a werewolf,” she said, laying her head down and smiling into his chest. It wasn’t “I love you,” but it was enough. He liked her. Love made things compulsory. Like was so optional. People were usually obligated to love their family, but they picked friends they liked.
Rox turned over so her back was to Zephyr, then reached around and patted his leg.
“And yeah, you’re okay too. I guess,” she added a moment later.
In his arms Rox drifted off in a sleep so deep she wasn’t even allowed a moment to dream travel. And later she’d awake to realize that for the first time since she was a child she fell asleep easily, without the gripping fear that accompanied bedtime.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Luxury is the wolf at the door and its fangs are the vanities and conceits germinated by success.”
- Tennessee Williams
After only six rounds of injections the subject Drake had recruited was already shifting. Each morning he awoke with shorter legs and a wider body. His nose had flattened and his forehead had enlarged.
“What should we call him?” Drake said, his fingers perched on the rim of the one-way mirror. Inside the white room the subject, who had been found sleeping on a park bench, his own vomit covering the pavement under it, sat hunched staring at the tray of food.
“Luolamies,” Mika said, straightening his gray tie.
“I’m guessing that’s the Finnish word for ‘caveman,’” Drake said.