by Sarah Noffke
“Welcome, David Sanders,” Adelaide said. “I’m guessing these rejects filled you in on your trip here?” She waved her hand at Connor and Zephyr.
The guy nodded. He was as tall as Zephyr, but didn’t stand straight like him.
“Good, then let’s skip introductions. You all can play in the dog park later. I’ve got to get out of here soon and therefore let’s get straight to business,” Adelaide said.
“She has a warm personality that matches her hair,” Rox said, looking to have recovered from being hypnotized.
“Shut it, Hooker Shoes. I’ll get to you later, so try and stay awake. I know you were up all night earning a living at the strip club so try and look alive,” Adelaide said, her focus returning to David. “Snow. You can create snow, is that right?”
He nodded again, not looking capable of actually producing words like a human should.
“Oh good, you’re a fucking snowman and seem to have the personality to match,” Adelaide said, shaking her head at the newbie.
“He can make snow flurries. How scary is that? Nothing defeats a villain like sprinkling them with lovely snowflakes,” Rox said.
“If the ladies aren’t abusing us then they feel insufficient,” Zephyr said to David. “Don’t take it personal. It’s their coping mechanism.”
David released an uncomfortable laugh and another nod. Did this guy have the capacity to talk?
“And you,” Adelaide said, turning her attention on Connor. “Fire, huh?”
Connor scratched his head, remorse spilling out of his every movement. The way he averted his eyes instantly said so much. “I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to…” he said, his voice hoarse.
“Oh, well it looks like you’ll have more to talk about in therapy. Try not to sweat it. You were defending Zephyr, according to Rio. We all have to kill someone at some point,” Adelaide said.
“Have you?” he said, his eyes reaching up to meet hers. There was something in him she wanted to fix. Needed to. But not right then. Maybe never.
“Hell no. I’m not a bloody sinner,” she said with a laugh. Inside, though, she felt actually sympathetic for Connor. It must have been crazy to randomly have fire shoot from his hand. It was probably as confusing as when Adelaide first used mind control, but had no idea that’s what she was doing. It looked as if he was matching her, keeping up with her monster characteristics.
Adelaide turned to Zephyr. “Well, it appears that elements seem to be a strong part of your pack.”
“Yeah, I’m going to be diving deeper into this to research what it could mean. I think that we might also be able to locate a pack member if we hone in on abnormal weather patterns,” Zephyr said. He had grown stronger as the alpha since they’d rescued him. Adelaide recognized that he’d defaulted to the higher authority, the Lucidites, initially. However, now he seemed natural leading the pack. And they no doubt respected him. Actually the way the pack worked together was inspiring. It was something foreign to Adelaide since she’d never been a team player.
“That’s not a bloody awful idea,” she said. “Meanwhile the Lucidites will be erasing memories of people who witnessed your public displays of violence and showing off.” Adelaide threw an offensive glance at Rio.
“Hey, we got David. That’s what you wanted,” Rio said, flinging his hands up like in surrender.
“Yeah, and the invisible man is dead. That’s one less worry,” Zephyr said.
“But there’s still an invisible woman out there,” Adelaide said. “And who knows what else Mika is creating right now. That’s why I’m off to Parantaa Research. I’ll be gone for the week.”
She met Connor’s eyes and caught the silent worry. It made itself most apparent in the way he held his mouth, like he wanted to say something but was holding back.
“Hey, Nail Polish,” Adelaide said, swinging her eyes over to Rox. “I want you studying the rabid wolf attacks. Find the correlations between the victims and figure out where he’s headed next. We can’t have this fucker out there any longer. And I can’t be expected to do every bloody thing myself, so make yourself useful.”
“You got it. I’ll work the case, and we both know I’ll do a hell of a lot better job than you. And I’ll actually look good doing it,” Rox said.
“Slutty. You’ll look slutty doing it,” Adelaide said. “It’s sad that you don’t know what simple words mean.”
“Do you have protection or a backup at Parantaa Research if things go wrong?” Zephyr said, for the first time sounding protective of her.
“I can control people with my fucking mind. I think I’ll be all right, Zeppy,” she said, not daring to mention that her mind control didn’t work on Mika. The truth was that she should have a backup, but telling Trent that was the same as telling him she wasn’t good enough. Adelaide was just starting to feel adequate. She couldn’t diminish that.
“Right,” Zephyr said, turning his gaze to David, who stood frozen. Being dumped into this world was no doubt threatening his sanity. He’d survive. They’d all acclimated to the Lucidite world eventually.
“Aiden is revamping the reverse conversion procedures. I want you to assign one of your puppies to undergo the procedure, but be sure to review their files carefully when you choose. We can’t take chances,” Adelaide said to Zephyr. “Maybe just throw Connor through it. The worst it could do is fry his brain and since he doesn’t have one, we’re good there.”
“Sorry to see you leave, Addy. Bye,” Connor said, turning his back on Adelaide, dismissing her at once.
Chapter Eighteen
“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”
- Rudyard Kipling
Malcolm Edwards knew what women wanted. They wanted someone who was good to look at, charming, and had a big stack of chips. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as good at blackjack as he was at roulette, which roughly meant that he didn’t know how to turn his telekinesis in his favor in order to win that game.
He stared down at his chips. Ten dollars. That’s all he had left after three separate wins at the roulette table. He could blame his poor blackjack skills on the major losses following the wins. Maybe he could make it an even four wins. Or maybe he should find another casino. He’d have to take a taxi since the rum was making it difficult to even sit up straight.
A blonde on his right laughed. She leaned back in her seat, clapping a hand to her chest, giggling at something her friend on the other side of her said. Malcolm paged his finger to the right in the air, sliding up her skirt as he did, revealing a bit more of her thigh. Telekinesis was really the perfect skill for him. No, he didn’t like turning into the werewolf weekly, but the benefit was almost worth it. And the desert was an easy place for a werewolf to roam and hunt. Although he was fairly tired of rodents and reptiles. They tasted like trash and usually upset his stomach in the morning.
Leaning forward, across the place where the blonde sat, Malcolm tapped the table in front of her friend. “Hey, I have a question for you,” he said to the brunette, whose face was flushed from laughing.
“What’s that?” she said, looking at him. He knew women considered his mocha skin and green eyes attractive. What they liked even more was his charm.
“I have to know. Is it hard being friends with such a ridiculously gorgeous woman?” he said, leaning back and catching the heat burn on the blonde’s cheeks.
Both girls burst into nervous laughs, the blonde covering her mouth as she did.
“Later, ladies,” Malcolm said, pushing away from the table. Maybe he’d swing by and see them again later after he made money, make the blonde further endeared to him. His legs swayed slightly when he stood. Walking to the roulette table might prove harder than he initially thought. If only he could bring the table to him, he considered. And as drunks are prone to do, he acted on his impulsive idea. People screamed around the roulette table as it lurched in Malcolm’s direction. The dealer reached for the table as it sped forward.
&n
bsp; “Earthquake,” someone yelled.
The room sprung into chaos at once as people rushed for safety. No one seemed to notice that nothing was moving except for the roulette table. They were probably imagining that the casino was shaking all over based on the commotion. Gamblers ran for the exit, knocking into each other as they did.
The roulette table jerked to a halt. There wasn’t going to be any point in playing without a dealer to hand out the winnings. And furthermore, Malcolm was pretty certain that he could neither walk to the table nor bring it to him. His head swam in a sea of fuzzy images just as he found an empty seat at a poker table. His hand had just barely met the felt when his head crashed down to meet it. Sleep. He just needed to sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
“Every wolf’s and lion’s howl / Raises from Hell a human soul.”
- William Blake
“I’m glad you didn’t die,” Rox said, striding beside Zephyr. He looked like he had more color in his face since he returned from Dallas. That was probably just her though. She was always noticing new things about Zephyr, like that he licked his thumb before doing the most random things. Before pushing her hair behind her ear. Before turning off the light switch. Before rolling his eyes at her, which he did presently.
“I’m fairly certain you’ll be the death of me, woman,” he said, hiding a grin.
“I’m hoping to be,” she said, enjoying the tense look he gave her. They both knew this game wasn’t sustainable. Last night they’d discussed it. Rox had every intention of quitting the FBI and getting a full-time position with the Lucidites. It’s where she belonged, and the claustrophobic feel of the Institute, absent of windows or an easy way to escape, didn’t bother her as it should have. Nothing about the Institute bothered her. Nothing there triggered her old fear, the one connected to being locked up overnight. That meant to her that she’d finally found a home away from home. And soon she’d purchase that other home, the cottage at the top of a mountain somewhere.
“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 i
nto 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.
