by DD Barant
No gun, of course. It’s probably disassembled in some NSA lab by now, while a dozen or so techs have geekgasms trying to reverse-engineer it. I hope one of them shoots himself in the eye.
Around then my head informs me, none too gently, that it requires coffee immediately, and probably some more of that Urthbone concoction.
I hear the door unlock. It opens, and Dr. Pete comes in with a tray—it holds a large mug of coffee, a little wooden pitcher, a small porcelain bowl and a tall glass of something brown and murky.
“I see you’re up, good. I brought you the Urthbone cold, today—thought you might like to try it both ways.”
“Uh-huh,” I say. I grab the glass and chug it back. Cold, it reminds me of herbal iced tea with a side of aspirin. I put the empty glass down on the tray and grab the coffee. “Thanks.”
“I see you’re a woman with priorities.”
I take a healthy swallow. Ah. If whisky is the water of life, coffee is the whisky of Nirvana. “Brain . . . activating,” I mutter. “Will to live . . . returning.”
“Good to hear. How’d you sleep?”
“Fine.” I’m halfway through the mug already. “For a prisoner.”
“Sorry, that was beyond my control. But the door is open now—you’re not going to be treated like a captive.”
“No, just an abductee. Technically, this entire universe is my prison.”
He shrugs. “Sure. But the same holds true for everyone, doesn’t it? Technically, you were a prisoner in your own universe.”
I glare at him over the rim of the mug and take another swallow. “I have a rule, Doctor—no existential philosophy before the second cup of coffee.” I hand him the empty mug.
He takes it and sets it down on the table beside the bed. “I have a rule, too: my patients don’t leave until they’re fit to do so. So sit down—you don’t have to get undressed, but there are a few basic tests I have to perform.”
He checks my eyes, my reflexes, my blood pressure, asks me if I had any nightmares or felt dizzy since I woke up. I tell him the truth, which is that I feel fine.
“Okay,” he says. “The Urthbone seems to be doing its job.” He pulls a sealed plastic bag out of his pocket and gives it to me. “You can mix this on your own—directions are on the outside. Let it steep overnight, make sure you take at least six ounces a day. If you have any recurrence of symptoms, let me know right away.”
“Absolutely. I just have a few quick questions, all right?”
“Go ahead.”
“It sounds like you’re discharging me. Where the hell am I going? What bed will I be sleeping in while my tea steeps? Whose stove will I be boiling water on? And how do I contact you, anyway—pee on the nearest fence post and hope you get the message?”
“My phone number’s on the bag. The other questions you’ll have to take up with the Director; he’s sending someone to pick you up after breakfast.” Dr. Pete gives me an encouraging smile. “You’ll be fine. The Agency will provide you with a place to live, clothing, all your essential needs. You’ll get the same salary any agent does, plus a healthy bonus for your . . . situation.”
“Kidnap victims rate a higher pay grade? Well, that makes up for everything.”
“Come on. Let’s get something to eat.”
I follow him out the door. It occurs to me that so far, all I’ve seen of this world has been two small rooms, and I’ve only met two—well, three, if you count undertaker guy—people. That’s about to change.
I’m not sure what to expect, but all I get is an empty corridor that seems more like part of an office than a hospital. We walk down it and into what looks like a smallish cafeteria. The nurse with the blue-streaked hair sits in one corner, across from a bulky black man in scrubs. Both glance at us, then go back to their meals.
It’s completely mundane until we get to the food counter. Eggs, bacon, ham, sausage—a little protein-heavy, but nothing that strange. Then I notice the rows of plastic bottles half-submerged in a tray of melting ice.
I pick one up. Looks like tomato juice. The logo reads: JUICY PIG in brilliant crimson, and below that is a cartoon bat wearing a monocle and saying, “Bloody good!”
“Want that heated up?” the bearded man behind the counter asks.
“No,” I say, putting it back. “I’ll stick with eggs, thanks.”
Once again, there’s no windows. I guess in a society full of vampires, that makes sense, but it just reinforces the fact that I’m here against my will. I’m not that hungry—the ghost of last night’s tequila is currently haunting my lower abdomen—but I make myself eat.
Dr. Pete has a ham steak, scrambled eggs, and coffee, and I study him as we eat. I feel kind of strange, almost drugged—the jumpy, nervous feeling in my stomach is slowly being smothered by a completely irrational feeling of ease. Of course, the Urthbone could have almost anything in it—
I abruptly realize that what I’m experiencing is exactly what Dr. Pete warned me about. The sense of relaxed competence is coming from him—I’m feeling what he’s feeling.
And just as suddenly, I’m not—because the idea that my emotions aren’t my own provokes an immediate feeling of anger and revulsion, which apparently trumps the doctor’s warm fuzzies. Good to know; I can always count on my natural orneriness to kick in, usually at inappropriate times.
But part of me wants to give in, to go back to that feeling. Dr. Pete, it seems, is one of those people who love their job; he feels at home here, feels confident and strong and valued. I think there was a two-hour period when I felt that way at the Bureau, right between considering myself an incompetent newbie and hitting old-timer burnout. I don’t remember it very well.
But Dr. Pete knows that feeling intimately. It strikes me that I’m being played, that the reason the good and sincere doctor was assigned to me was exactly because of how I’d respond. Maybe they even thought I’d be attracted to him—he is cute, in a slightly unkempt, puppy-doggish kind of way.
Well, if that’s what “they” thought, they’re barking up the wrong agent. I don’t do romance, in the same way that I don’t do heroin, Russian roulette, or nude alligator wrestling. I consider all of the above to be stupid, self-destructive, and demeaning, and these are things up with which I will not put.
I’m a survivor. Everybody knows that in order to survive you have to be adaptable, but nobody tells you that “adapting” means being able to give up the things you care about. Or, sometimes, the people.
Dr. Pete notices me glaring at him accusingly. “Whuh?” he says, his mouth full of eggs. I feel his confusion, coupled with wariness—Is this woman going to do something crazy?—and my anger subsides a little. Great. Welcome to the roller coaster, don’t forget to strap in. And I thought PMS was bad.
“Nothing. Just getting used to the medication, that’s all.”
He swallows before speaking. “It may be intense at first. Just try to stay conscious of where the emotions are coming from; after a while, you should be able to separate your feelings from those around you.”
Sure, I’ve got plenty of experience doing that. But even though I try to keep a layer of Kevlar between my heart and the rest of the world, the damn thing keeps breaking anyway. . . .
I finish my food and push the plate away. “So what can you tell me about the case?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid. The NSA doesn’t give high-level briefings to lowly MDs.”
About what I’d expected, but I had to try. “How about Cassius, then? What’s my new boss like?”
“Remember what I said about vampires getting craftier as they get older? Well, Cassius is old—real old. No one knows how old for sure, but he plays up the Roman angle a lot. There are all kinds of rumors about him, but I think he starts half of those himself.”
“For instance?”
“That he’s the original model for Michelangelo’s statue, for one.”
I think about it. “I can see a certain resemblance. How about something a little less like hig
h school gossip?”
“He’s also supposed to be the one that personally cut off Stalin’s head.”
“Stalin was a vampire?”
“Lycanthrope. Silver-edged sword.”
“Right. How long’s Cassius been Director?”
“Since 1935.”
“Guess there’s not a lot of room for advancement when everybody’s immortal.”
“Not everyone is.” He took a long sip of his coffee. “Lycanthropes live around three hundred years. We’re immune to most diseases, but not all; we don’t have the virtual invulnerability that hemovores possess, but we do heal very quickly. We can recover from any wound short of decapitation, except those caused by silver.”
“Okay. Are there any weird discrepancies I should be aware of?”
“Like what?”
“Differences between my world’s mythology and your world’s facts. Like, does garlic still repel vampires, or do I have to stock up on paprika? Is a wooden stake through the heart still effective, or do I have to aim for the spleen?”
“Wood of any kind will penetrate hemovore flesh, and wood through the heart or the brain will usually prove fatal. They find garlic intensely repulsive, so much so that possession of undiluted garlic by anyone other than a police officer is a misdemeanor. The major area of vulnerability for a vampire, ironically enough, is his neck; it doesn’t have the same kind of resistance to damage that the rest of his body does. The leading cause of hemovore death is accidental decapitation, usually due to a car wreck.”
“How about silver and vampires?”
“A silver blade will cut vampire flesh, but it will heal. Sunlight’s a bigger problem, but it’s not immediately fatal—it takes direct exposure of a minute or longer to cause critical body-wide collapse and burnout. Emergency rooms deal with minor burns on a daily basis—bad ones can scar, but most fade away within a few weeks.”
“Why do you switch back and forth between ‘vampire’ and ‘hemovore’ but always stick to ‘lycanthrope’ instead of ‘werewolf’?”
He blushes. “That’s, uh, my mistake. ‘Vampire’ and ‘werewolf’ are both considered impolite—I guess I was using them because I was trying to make you feel comfortable.”
“The V word, huh? But ‘were’ is okay?”
“ ‘Were’ is, ‘werewolf’ isn’t. Lycanthropes are descended from more than just wolves—canids from all over the world can manifest the energy that triggers transformation. Jackals, coyotes, dingoes—even dogs.”
“Hang on. There are were-dogs?”
“Dogs are just domesticated offshoots of wolves. Werewolves that bit dogs transmitted the carrier curse to them, and they infected other humans the same way. Similar to a virus—and when a virus jumps from one species to another, it mutates. A human infected by a dog will still transform under a full moon, but now he’ll exhibit certain characteristics of the canine that actually bit him—and he’ll pass those on to the next person he bites.”
Visions of were-Chihuahuas dance in my mind; I think they’re doing the Macarena, but it’s hard to tell. “So if I have to deal with some yappy little bureaucrat, he’s probably just channeling the yappy little dog inside him?”
He laughs. “More than likely. It doesn’t necessarily mean he was bitten by an infected dog, either—just that one of his ancestors was. The traits are passed down genetically as well.”
“And what’s in your family tree, Dr. Pete? No, wait—let me guess.”
I mock-squint at him. The shaggy brown hair reminds me of a cocker spaniel, but it’s not curly enough. Brown eyes, more soulful than sad—not basset hound, but maybe beagle. Average-size nose, which eliminates the pugs and greyhounds but leaves everything in between. His name doesn’t give me much of a clue—Adams is probably British, but it’s pretty generic.
“How about a hint?” I say.
“All right,” he says, and I can hear the mischief in his voice.
He transforms.
I’m not sure what I expected as far as the actual process goes; probably either the instant morphing you see so often on television, or the extended, bone-cracking version movie directors love to inflict on their audiences. What I get is somewhere in between—not instantaneous, but not three minutes of skin-stretching agony, either. I guess it takes about ten seconds, total, and the most disturbing thing about it is how it sounds: kind of like someone squishing raw hamburger in their fist while chewing a mouthful of peanuts with the shells still on.
In the movies, werewolves are always snarling and growling and generally looking vicious. Dr. Pete opens his mouth and pants at me, like a—
“Collie,” I say. “You’ve definitely got some collie in you.”
He nods agreement, which is a lot cuter than scary; it somewhat offsets the fact that his eyes are a vivid, unearthly yellow. I stare at him, noting that while his head appears pretty wolf-like, the rest of his body hasn’t changed that much. His chest is a little broader, his arms a little bigger, and his hands have turned into big, furry things with wicked-looking claws on the ends. I duck my head under the table and see that his legs—sorry, his hind legs—now crook backward the way an animal’s do. His shoes have fallen off, but he’s still wearing socks, which looks faintly ridiculous.
I straighten up. He does something nimble with his hands, but unfortunately I don’t speak were–sign language; I’ll have to do something about that.
Changing back takes him about the same amount of time. “Collie on my mother’s side,” he says. “Some black Lab on my father’s.”
His tone is light, but I can feel the sudden surge of alertness in him. He’s worried that seeing him transform will be too much for my fragile psyche to handle.
“I could use some more coffee,” I say. I hand him my cup. “Fetch?”
He laughs more like a terrier.
The golem finds us in the cafeteria.
He—it?—isn’t what I expect. Dr. Pete’s description of “a human-shaped plastic bag filled with sand” had me envisioning something like a lumpy yellow blow-up doll, minus the orifice options. What stands in the doorway is a broad-shouldered figure a little over six feet tall, wearing a very sharp pin-striped suit of dark blue, matching fedora, and polished black leather oxfords. His skin is darker than his shoes, and just as glossy; his features seem sculpted out of black chrome. His tie appears to be alligator skin.
He strides over to us, his movements oddly deliberate but not jerky; he reminds me more of someone performing a dance about walking than someone actually doing so. He stops in front of our table and looks at me. At least, I think that’s what he’s doing; he doesn’t seem to have actual irises or pupils, just eye-shaped indentations. It’s like looking at a mask, one with strong, angular features: square chin, heavy brow, Roman nose with a pronounced hump to it.
“Jace Valchek?” he asks. His voice is deep and raspy, sandpaper scraping the bottom of a metal barrel. He holds his hands loosely at his sides, and I note that the skin on them is just as black as his face. He doesn’t have fingernails.
“Who’s asking?” I say.
“I’m Charlie Aleph. I’m here to escort you to see the Director.” Just like Cassius, I can’t quite place his accent—Arabic? German? Something with harsh gutturals, anyway—but the coiled tension in his voice is as obvious as a stretched bowstring, while his body language is completely relaxed. The only people I’ve ever seen able to pull off that combination effectively were lifelong politicians or trained assassins.
I can’t tell how much of the wariness I feel is natural caution and how much I’m picking up from him. “Yeah, fine. Do I get to actually see the outside world now, or are we traveling in a hermetically sealed armored car?”
“We’ll be driving,” Charlie Aleph says. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I toy with the idea of having another cup of coffee and making him wait, but that’s a game I’d probably lose; never try the patience of someone whose family tree includes marble and granite. I get to my feet. �
�Okay, let’s go. Dr. Pete, thanks for the tea.”
“Call me if you have any problems,” he says, and I get the feeling he’s talking about more than just symptoms.
“Sure,” I say. I wonder if they’ll give me a phone.
Charlie leads me out of the cafeteria and down the corridor to an elevator. His body makes these soft crunching noises as he walks, like he’s stepping on fresh snow.
“So,” I say as we stop at the elevator. “What’s my status? Am I a prisoner or a cop?”
“Neither. You’re a consultant of a nonrecognized foreign government, granted Special Agent status for the duration of the case.” He doesn’t look at me while he talks, which is good. Those eyeless eyes aren’t exactly comforting.
“Bureaucratic doublespeak meaning that while I work for you, I don’t have any special legal standing. No Diplomatic Immunity, for instance.”
“No.”
The elevator arrives and we get on. I almost expect it to creak under his weight, but that doesn’t happen.
“What happens if I try to run?” I ask as the doors close.
“I’ll stop you.”
“You don’t look too quick.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I hate surprises.”
“Then don’t run.”
The doors open. We’re in the lobby of an office building, not a hospital; I guess that was Dr. Pete’s private practice, or maybe just a facility the NSA reserves for special cases like me. I see a few other people, but nobody out of the ordinary—a paunchy guy in a business suit, a middle-aged woman in a long beige coat. The front wall of the lobby is all glass, and it looks like a gray, overcast day outside. My own internal clock tells me it’s early morning, but for all I know the sun’s about to go down.
Okay, Scary New World—here I come.
Out the door. Charlie Aleph heads straight for a dark blue Crown Vic parked at the curb. I stop, take a deep breath of air, look around.
