Wild Card

by Mark Henwick

  She shook her head, glancing nervously at Tullah for support.

  “And my apprentice,” I turned to Tullah, “isn’t interested in you just answering phones either.”

  Tullah swallowed. “I wouldn’t have let her do anything you didn’t clear first. I’m sorry.”

  I raised a brow at the tacked-on apology.

  “It was kinda underhand,” she clarified.

  “Good. We got that out of the way. Whose idea was the skateboard?”

  Jofranka raised her hand.

  “Not bad, coming up with that in a hurry,” I said and she glowed. I swung my feet up on the desk. “My apprentice assures me we can afford you part-time. I’ll agree on a probationary basis,” I held up a hand, “pending all the admin done by Tullah, a written report from both of you, detailing what you think you can do now and proposing a training schedule that’ll take you from an apprentice and a gofer to junior PI assistants.”

  Jofranka practically bounced on her chair.

  “Meantime,” I drawled, and they both went super-still. Oh, cookies! I had to bite my cheek to stop laughing. “I have some real boring surveillance for you. Tullah, you’ll supervise. Jo will do the legwork. The details are in the system under Mrs. Harriman.”

  Tullah had relaxed slightly when I’d said surveillance, but she came back to attention at the name. Good.

  Strictly speaking, Ethel Harriman was only another client, but Tullah was smart enough to know she was the sort of client where you made sure you got everything right. The potential boost to business was as big as the potential damage from getting it wrong.

  “The core of the case may be a complex financial con involving a friend of Mrs. Harriman’s, a Mrs. Suzannah De Vries. That’s why she came to me, and I’ll have to handle that part of it. But, under the circumstances, I want an immediate feel for Mrs. De Vries’ partner. Not just a standard background check, I want a fingertip feeling about this guy, good and bad: he’s inappropriate in the elevator; he’s kind to animals; he has a hard on for gambling. I want to know. You will not, under any circumstances, interfere, or give him the slightest hint he’s under observation. Or you fail. Do you understand?”

  Big round eyes. Nods.

  “Partner?” Tullah asked.

  Good question.

  “As in business and personal,” I replied.

  I gave them a couple of seconds for other preliminary questions, but nothing was forthcoming.

  “If you think there’s a serious issue with proceeding, you can come and clarify things with me after you’ve read the case file. Other than that, don’t bug me. And Tullah,” I smiled evilly at her. “You’ll explain my thinking on how we’re handling this case and report in writing, along with the preliminary observations that you and Jo put together. And don’t let your other cases get behind; it’s always harder to catch up, however tough you think it is to keep going.”

  I could see that any idea this was a simple practice case had gone clean out of Tullah’s head.

  Good. This might just work for all of us.

  “Jo, give us a minute, please. Don’t go far, we’re going to have to head off soon.”

  She went out without a murmur of complaint. It was the quietest, most restrained Jofranka I had ever seen.

  Tullah waited nervously.

  “You knew I’d checked the office out already?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “How?”

  “The guys you talked about, they had you rattled. You’d never have let me in here first. You’d never have had us come here if you thought they’d still be around.”

  “But you still didn’t let Jo in till you had checked.”

  “My responsibility. I can’t always rely on you.”

  “Carve that on your soul. That’ll be how we work for the moment.”

  Tullah didn’t argue.

  “She’s a good friend. That’s a really bad reason to get her into a PI firm. Did you have any other reasons?”

  “She can get places we can’t. Or where we’d stand out.”

  She was right.

  As I understood it, Jofranka’s gypsy heritage had a wild mixture of everything, but with her coffee skin, the tight ripple in her long, black hair and her street-wise aura, there were places where she’d pass unnoticed and neither of us would.

  “She’s going to realize we’re not exactly human,” I said.

  Tullah ducked her head. “Adept communities sometimes include people who aren’t Adept. I’m clearing it with Ma.”

  “It’s not just Adept communities we have to worry about.” I didn’t know where to go with this. Mary and Liu had said we should form our community. They’d be okay if Jofranka was involved, but what about the Were and Athanate. How would they react to Jofranka knowing about me. The thought of community, House and pack being like overlapping circles didn’t feel right. I wanted them to be the same thing.

  The silence built a little, and Tullah fidgeted.

  “You know, you don’t need to be bitten to be part of my House.” That just popped out, almost as if my demon had said it. Where had it come from? Not Athanate approved.

  “But it’s what Kaothos wants. She thinks she can control Athanate Blood and strengthen my ability to channel energy.”

  “Do you want to be able to channel more energy?”

  “It’d be cool,” she admitted reluctantly.

  “And dangerous. It would make it much easier to come to someone’s attention.”

  She dipped her head again in acknowledgement, a trickle of anxiety leaking from her.

  My Athanate stirred and I walked over to look out the window to hide my conflict. As I understood it from Speaks-to-Wolves, my Athanate had been held in check by Hana over the last couple of years. But that wasn’t the case now. Hana seemed to have her hands—paws—full with the Were side of me, leaving my Athanate to develop and leaving me to come to terms with it.

  If I did infuse Tullah, how would Kaothos fare in the long term? Kaothos was immeasurably stronger than Hana. Maybe she knew what she was doing.

  If not, would Tullah become bound to me? An Athanate-Adept hybrid?

  I could tell my hard-wired Athanate instincts wanted her within my House, but I didn’t want her as kin and she didn’t want to be Athanate. How was that going to resolve?

  What would Altau and the rest of the Athanate think of a House comprised of Athanate, Were, Adept and human?

  I could almost hear the sizzling sound of dragon laughter.

  I’d spent longer here than I planned.

  “Well, I’m not going to press you for anything,” I said and felt a mixture of relief and almost disappointment from Tullah. She was in a real muddle over this.

  I had to move on. It was getting too close to my appointment with Noble. I didn’t even have time to go back and get my car.

  “Drop me off in Centennial, please,” I said.

  “Yessir.”

  Chapter 21

  Noble was already at the table.

  He was frowning and talking curtly to someone on his cell when I came in, but as soon as he saw me, he ended the call and smiled.

  “All okay?” I nodded toward the cell as I sat.

  “It never is, Ms. Farrell,” he turned the cell off.

  “Amber.”

  “Doc,” he replied.

  “As I understand it, werewolves heal themselves, so tell me, Doc, what does a pack need with a doctor? Surely you can’t still practice?” Alex had been a doctor, and had to stop when he became Were.

  “My specialization is in psychiatry now.”

  “I can see how that might be useful,” my demon said before I could catch it.

  Noble’s smile twisted. He knew right where that was coming from. “Don’t be too harsh on Felix. Were might not have the lifespan of Athanate, but Felix comes from a time when Athanate were immensely more intrusive into our lives.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “By limiting Were population, for instance.�
��

  I flinched. “You mean killing Were? Altau did this?”

  I couldn’t stop the flare of panic in me, but Noble shook his head.

  “No, no. That’s one reason I keep trying to make better links with Altau. They haven’t done any of that. As Athanate go, even Felix has to admit, they’re decent. And even with other Panethus Athanate Houses, it seldom came to that. It was more a threat, a constraint on numbers. Always with the unarguable reason of preventing humanity from discovering us, of course.”

  I let the sarcasm slide by. “So, Felix has been here for what, two hundred years? And he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop with Altau?”

  Noble conceded the point with a measured nod. “Altau haven’t helped. They’re not approachable,” he said. “Other than the interaction of new Athanate and Were, and even with that, they’re erratic. They may not be as bad as some, but they’re still not our friends.”

  “Maybe that’s going to change. I’m the new liaison, apparently.”

  Noble raised his eyebrows. “I’ll have to take over that position from the pack’s side. At least, while Felix insists that Alex is kept safe from you.” He gave an apologetic shrug.

  Alex had been the liaison. Had he told me that? No, Diana had.

  “Fine, let’s not go there,” I said. “Tell me instead the real reason why I’m so important in hunting for the rogue? How difficult can it be?”

  “It can be very difficult. You’re probably thinking of a rogue in Athanate terms. An Athanate rogue is barely sane at any time, and it’s easy to see them approaching that state. A Were rogue can appear completely rational in human form. We’ll need detective work.”

  Alex and Ricky had hinted at this, but Noble seemed more definite about it. My job just seemed to get harder all the time.

  “I’m not Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Indeed not, but apart from your undoubted investigative talents, you have contacts in the police which we do not. I’m sorry if that’s deflating, but a large part of why we need you is because of who you can talk to without attracting more attention to us. I’m afraid, to find one person in all of Denver, we need help, we need the search narrowed down.”

  “I’m fine with that.” I chewed on it as I looked at the menu. Right off the bat—skewers of garlic-smothered grilled shrimp with a side of salad. Sold.

  “So,” I said, “I’d come up with a list of possible suspects or a location…”

  “And Ricky and the others would check it out. Werewolves are much better at detecting marque scents than Athanate. They’d sniff out the rogue and close in.”

  “And kill him.”

  “There is no cure.” He clasped his hands in front of him and pursed his lips in distaste. “I understand this is unpleasant, but we would also need you again, before he is killed. You’d have to try and find out if there was anything we need to do to prevent it happening again. If he came from another pack, does it indicate there’s a problem in that pack and that more might come? Those sorts of things.”

  Interrogation of a condemned prisoner, no matter how evil, twisted my gut.

  “And I guess I’m better at that because I’m Athanate? I’ll be better at detecting if he’s lying or hiding something?”

  “You could say werewolves are good with the marque scent and Athanate with the marque telergy.”

  “But I thought werewolves can’t lie to each other.”

  “No, that only applies within a pack. Big difference.”

  The waiter interrupted us to take our orders. Noble went for the fancy lobster thermidor and ordered a half bottle of an Italian white wine that sounded good to me. Jen would have known whether it was the right one if she were here. Me, not so much.

  “There’s so much I don’t know about the Were,” I said after the waiter left.

  His lips twitched. “So, talk to me. It’s part of my pack duties.”

  “Settling in newcomers?”

  “Yes.”

  I flapped my hands in frustration. “Where to start? What is a Were? No wait.” I frowned, trying for the right words. “Why is a Were?” I said and had to laugh.

  Noble waited more patiently than I’d have managed.

  “Look,” I said finally, “speaking as a part Athanate, I can sort of understand why there are Athanate and why we have developed in the way we have. The benefits like the extended life and improved health that require Blood to maintain. The need for the special relationship with kin who provide the Blood, the pressure to form groups like Houses. That all makes a kind of crazy sense.” I paused. I was babbling like an idiot, but Noble just made an encouraging hum. “So what is the equivalent for Were? Why are there werewolves, what are they like and why?”

  Noble’s hands flexed and he settled happily into his seat. He was expressive with his hand gestures and body. His head moved to look at his food or nod, but other than that was very still, giving me a sense of his concentrated focus on me. I wondered if that was a psychiatrist thing.

  “A perceptive question, however you put it,” he said. “Such a fascinating topic. Exactly the sort of topic I want to discuss with the Athanate, if they would. Instead, here I have you, half and half, my captive audience for the next hour.”

  I snorted.

  “Were, of course, are not just werewolves. There are werebears and werepumas and maybe others I don’t know about and can’t really comment on. All characterized, of course, by the ability to change form. This isn’t governed by the moon or any such nonsense, but they have to change a couple of times a month once they’ve started. It can be fun, but that’s not the point. They have extended lives and health and so on and so forth, but that’s not the point either.”

  He’d gotten animated enough to tap the table for emphasis.

  “The Athanate is all about the mind. Yes, there is Blood and sex and physical improvements, but the key to understanding the Athanate is the mind. It’s why they have structures like kin and House and creed. It’s not that they have no emotions, but that those emotions are channeled in directions decreed by the logic of their requirements. They observe, they discuss, they assess, they document, they govern themselves with a complex hierarchy of needs and obligations and duties.” He paused. “These are all mental constructions. The Athanate is all about thinking.”

  I could have argued, but I saw what he was getting at and kept silent.

  “The Were are all about spirit. About heart and feeling and emotion. The Athanate, I believe, will talk about Weres being enthused. They mean it literally. The etymology of the word means to fill a person with a sense of the divine. Putting theology aside for the moment, you don’t see half-hearted Were.”

  I thought of Alex and Ricky and Felix. There was something in what he said. All of them had the feel of someone living completely in the moment. It was one of the things that made Alex so hot.

  Noble himself was the odd one out. Apart from his enthusiasm with this topic of conversation, he’d seemed much more like the Athanate he described than the Were.

  “And Adepts?” I said, just to see what he would say.

  “Power.” His fingers drummed the table. “The attraction of being able to change things to suit yourself.” As if he’d suddenly noticed it, he stopped drumming, looked aside and shrugged again. “But they are even more secretive than the Athanate. I don’t really know.”

  He wasn’t right about Adepts and he wasn’t being entirely honest there, my gut said. The Adepts I knew seemed to go out of their way to not use power. But I’d rather find out about Adepts from Mary, so I went back to the Were.

  “Why does a werewolf need a pack?”

  “We can sit and discuss the theory, and it would be interesting, but to truly understand why a werewolf wants to be part of a pack, it needs to be felt. Of course having a pack is better for training newcomers and so forth,” he made a dismissive brushing off motion with one hand. “All of which is nothing in comparison to how it feels. So this, I cannot easily communicate to you,
but you’ll understand when you feel it.”

  “The Call?”

  “That’s a facet of it.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, it all feels like a million facets at the moment. Maybe I just need to wait, but what I feel now is lost.”

  The food arrived and we began to eat. It was excellent. As Athanate and Were sharpened my senses, food had become a rediscovery. Flavors and textures took a defined quality they hadn’t had before, and under the garlic, my shrimp had clever hints of mustard and coriander.

  “I’ve got a suggestion,” Noble said, interrupting my food moment.

  “Well?”

  “Talk to me as often as you can. I’ll send you some times that I’m free. Pick some that work for you.”

  “You mean talk like talk to a shrink?”

  “More like a mentor.”

  I looked at him carefully, but he seemed unaware that he’d used an Athanate term.

  “You’re unusual, a statistical anomaly.” He gave a small smile as he went on. “You are my lab specimen. You’ve become Were without any support in place. Fascinating. And why me particularly? Well, it’s not dissimilar to what I went through.” His brow creased. “Or if that’s not good enough, think in terms of the objective. We’re trying to make sure you adjust well to being both Were and Athanate so that you can provide the bridge between the two.”

  “Which is sadly lacking.”

  He nodded agreement.

  “You said you’ve been through something similar?”

  “Nothing to do with the Athanate side, of course. I was infused accidentally while unknowingly treating a fatally wounded Were. I had no knowledge of what was happening to me. I assure you it was truly bewildering. I was fortunate that I was adopted into the Denver pack before I went rogue.”

  I felt an unexpected rush of gratitude. As much as I’d made close ties within the Athanate in a short time, this was the first person who’d gone out of their way to make time to explain things and help me. Even if it was a shrink—well, I could use someone to talk to about the changes going on in my head.

  “Okay.” I scribbled my cell and email on one of the restaurant’s business cards and handed it over. “You are different from the others.”