“Well, now, let me see.” Winnie perused the chart once more, casting little smiles to every colleague, patient, or visitor that passed by the desk. “It says that Dr. Milner was on call last night, so she’ll just be finishing up her shift. You wanna talk to her?”
“Should I?”
Winnie bounced both shoulders in a shrug. “Don’t much see the point, honey. Dr. Milner’ll tell you exactly what I told you. And she’ll say there ain’t a whole lot else to do, ’cept treat ’er when you bring ’er in, and send ’er home when she’s better.”
Viola nodded and gave Winnie’s arm a gentle squeeze. “Thanks, Win,” she said.
“Any time, honey. Just wish I could give you some better news, is all.” Winnie proffered a thin, purse-lipped smile and fell into a lean against the nurses’ station counter.
“I appreciate it,” Viola breathed, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “See you in a month or so,” she muttered, resigned.
“Yeah,” Winnie said on the wings of an exhale. “See you.”
Viola turned to head back down the hall toward Verity’s room, her feet dragging a little. She always held out hope that there would be news of some phenomenal discovery, and there never was. But maybe now, knowing what she did about their origins, she was in a position to really help Verity for the first time in their lives.
As she neared the end of the corridor, something made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She couldn’t put her finger on why she felt this sudden panic, why her senses were going haywire, but she followed the instinct and darted at top speed back to Verity’s room.
And a good thing she did, because there in the corner by the windows was a full-sized Kodiak bear. The bear sat still on its hindquarters, breathing shallow breaths, careful not to move lest it disturb anything in the small corner room. Its furry backside was pressed up against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Verity, for her part, was frozen in stunned silence, her mouth hanging agape with a mixture of shock, horror, and awe. Without thinking, Viola placed her body directly between Verity’s and the bear’s, and she locked her eyes on the creature’s. They were familiar: warm, like tea and honey. She squinted at the bear, who exhaled sharply out its nose, its head canted gently to one side.
“Graham…?” Viola said at length. And the bear began to vibrate, like God himself had reached down to smear the image across the air, and from out of that blur emerged the man she’d named.
“I’m sorry,” Graham said, scrambling to don his boxers and jeans that were piled on the floor. “I didn’t mean to startle her. I was just trying to… I wanted to… I…” He looked past Viola to Verity with such an expression of concern that Viola turned to look at her sister. Verity was still frozen.
Viola gave her a little shake, wanting to ensure that she hadn’t suffered some kind of stroke, and Verity eventually snapped out of it.
“It is true,” she stammered, lifting one thin arm to point at Graham. “He was a bear. I saw it. You were right.”
“I told you,” Viola said, feeling slightly self-satisfied. She turned her eyes then on Graham, who was tugging a green flannel over the exquisitely chiseled contours of his shoulders. “And as for you, what are you doing here?”
“I got your message,” he explained. “I figured you wouldn’t be able to make it to the apartment as we’d discussed, so I thought this was the most logical place. When I came in, I saw that Verity was awake and thought I would… introduce myself.”
“He said he was a friend of yours when he got here,” Verity explained. “And then I sort of…” She cast her eyes down to her hands, where she was picking at the beds of her nails, abashed.
“What?” Viola urged. “You sort of… what?”
“Well, he said, ‘I’m a friend of Viola’s,’ and I sort of jokingly said, ‘the bear or the panther?’ And then… he…”
“Ah.”
“He turned into a bear.”
“I’m Graham McCallum,” he said, extending his hand to Verity in greeting. She took it, shook it limply, and withdrew her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise, I’m sure,” Verity muttered, her eyes never once leaving him, not for an instant. Her curiosity had been sparked, that much was obvious.
“I imagine that Viola has given you a bit of information about our situation,” he continued, tugging on his socks and brown boots before he moved to button the flannel.
“Yes, but…” Verity hesitated, her eyes wide. “But when she was speaking I was trying to decide if I shouldn’t… call someone from the psych ward. I’m sorry” — she turned her attention to her sister — “but you have to understand how it sounded.”
Viola grinned; she couldn’t help it. “No, I know how it sounds,” she said, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans and meandering absently from one side of the room to the other, careful not to disturb any of the delicate instrumentation that surrounded the bed.
“In any event,” Graham went on, “she’s in a bit of trouble with Clan Felidae, and will require our protection while we figure out our next move.”
“I’m not leaving Verity unattended,” Viola immediately asserted, her expression as pointed as her words.
“I can go with you,” Verity said, flinging the blankets off of her and swinging her legs over to the edge of the bed. She hoisted herself gingerly up, her bare feet landing on the cool linoleum floor.
“I don’t think so,” Viola said. “You still need to be under observation.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I can manage.”
“No, you’re staying here until the doctors say you can leave,” Viola said, her voice rather sharper than she’d intended. Verity looked chagrined but said no more about it. She remained standing, crossing her arms under her breasts and adopting a posture that looked a lot like Viola’s. Except, of course, that Verity was wearing a pale blue nightgown instead of Viola’s jeans and tee shirt.
“You’ll be safe here,” Graham said to Verity. “We have people on staff.”
Viola blinked owlishly, her gaze fixed firmly on Graham as a small smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Who?” she asked.
“Just… people.”
Viola let it slide as she turned her attention to her sister. She moved forward and gripped Verity by the shoulders, staring intently into her face. “You don’t make a move without letting me know, okay?”
“Fine.” Verity stood up on tiptoe to press a kiss to Viola’s forehead.
“Oh, shit,” Viola said. “My cell phone… I stole this guy’s — long story…”
“Just call me,” Graham interjected, plucking his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. “I won’t leave her side. My cell phone number is on the back.” He handed Verity his card, white linen with embossed green lettering.
“Thanks,” Verity said, taking the card and turning it over in her hands like something precious. “Fancy.”
Graham smiled. “It was nice meeting you, Verity. I’m sorry about the whole turning into a bear… thing.”
“It’s okay,” she said, still somewhat dazed. “I liked the part where you were a naked man after.” Verity could say things like that without coming off as odd or perverted, because it was so direct and so earnest. It made Graham McCallum actually blush.
“All right, that’s enough of that,” Viola said, ushering Verity back toward the hospital bed. She hugged her tight and let her go. “Take care of yourself, sweet girl. I’ll be back to see you when this is all over.”
“Bye bye, Vi,” Verity said as she climbed back into bed, tucking the business card into the spine of the book she had been reading: Jane Eyre.
Graham gently directed Viola out the door of the hospital room as though she needed extra urging to get moving — and perhaps she did. She hated to leave her sister alone in a hospital, even a nice hospital. The rubber soles of Graham’s boots were squeaking against the hall tile as they moved, and Viola waggled her fingers to Winni
e by way of farewell as they passed.
“Later, honey,” came Winnie’s lilting timbre. Then: “Good morning, Mr. McCallum.”
Viola paused and saw him smile and nod at Winnie. “Winifred,” he said, “lovely to see you.”
And she could tell, then, what Winifred was: another ursine shifter, with those warm honey-brown eyes, a little too luminescent to be human. Rowan had mentioned that Clan Felidae had eyes on Verity as well, and Viola wondered who among the employees of the hospital was in the pocket of the panther clan. She hoped very much that Winnie would stay close to Verity, in case the panthers issued some sort of call to action. But they weren’t after Verity. No, Clan Felidae was after Viola.
Graham pushed through the front entrance of the hospital and held the door open for Verity, who hugged close to the hinges, allowing a team of paramedics to dart through and head toward emergency, a man sprawled on a gurney held between them. Safely outside, she walked close at Graham’s side, glancing up at him every now and again as they made their way toward a side parking lot. “Where are we going?” she asked as he fished a set of car keys out of his pocket.
“To the Dwelling,” he said, as though that would make absolute sense to her.
“The Dwelling?” she echoed.
“Yes, er… it’s the headquarters, essentially, for Clan Ursus. The elders will be convening there.” Viola wondered if the clan elders were anything like the Felidae council and hoped very much that her meeting with them went better than the other one had.
Viola stopped dead on the pavement. “I left a stolen car, a gun, wallet… all that stuff in the back parking structure,” she said, hooking her thumb over her shoulder. “I shouldn’t just… leave it… should I?” For an assassin, she had precious little experience in other forms of crime, and had no idea what to do with stolen wares. She wasn’t a thief — or, at least, she’d never been before today.
“I’ll have someone take care of it,” Graham said, stopping by a Ford F-150 in hunter green.
Viola smirked. “Of course you drive a truck,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“What?” he asked in mock defensiveness as he unlocked the doors.
“You are just really playing into this stereotype, you know that?” she said, opening the passenger side door and climbing up and into the cabin.
“And what stereotype is that, Miss St. James?” He got in next to her and slammed the door shut. The engine roared to life like some great and untamable beast.
“Lumberjack woodsman bear shifter man,” she said lamely, and grinned.
“I am what I am,” he said, throwing the truck into reverse, “nothing more, nothing less.”
CHAPTER 4
They were driving for an hour by the time they arrived at their destination. “How’d you make it to the hospital so fast?” Viola asked him when they finally pulled the truck to a stop in what looked like the middle of nowhere. Graham explained to her that he had been staying at his apartment in the city so that he could get into the office early. But he glanced at her rather coyly and amended the statement.
“All right,” he said, “I also just… I didn’t like the idea of being so far away from you through all this uncertainty.”
She smiled a little as she climbed out of the trunk, her sneakers crunching against the gravel beneath her feet. She looked up and saw trees, towering evergreens, against a clear blue sky. They seemed to be in a small clearing, but there were no buildings as far as the eye could see.
“Graham…?” He was closing the driver’s side door and walking around to the bed, where he hoisted two duffel bags out of the back. “Where, exactly, are we?”
“The Dwelling,” he replied as though it were obvious. “This way.”
He led her along a trail that weaved in and out of the trees until they came to a small cave opening in the side of a hill. He walked right into the mouth of the cave and disappeared; Viola hesitated before she followed. But after a few steps, motion-detecting lights went o and illuminated a small space, no more than four square feet in dimension, with a packed dirt floor and a door, the same grey as the natural rock walls.
“Wow,” she said as he put the bags down and searched his key ring for the right key. “This is… very ‘secret lair.’”
Graham smiled as he unlocked the door and pushed his way inside. “Yep,” he said, holding the door open with his foot and reaching down to pick up both bags. “Just call me Batman.”
Viola moved into the Dwelling, her feet landing on a metal platform that led to an elevator. The golden doors glowed warm and swept open immediately when they reached the threshold, even as the main entrance door was closing behind them. They stepped inside, but there were no buttons to press, just a keyhole, into which Graham stuck another one of his keys. Turning it, the doors closed behind them and they began their descent.
Viola’s ears popped before the doors opened, and Graham hauled up the bags as they stepped out onto a balcony that overlooked an incredible underground sanctuary. Viola stepped lightly over the masonry to the railing and leaned over, drinking it all in.
It was extraordinary: hundreds of feet below ground, it was a cylindrical lair with balconies that ringed it in a perfect spiral. At the far end of the cavern was a natural waterfall that spilled from the top tier and disappeared into the hot spring below. The place seemed to exist in perpetual evening, with dim indirect lighting casting everything in a warm orange glow. “Welcome to the Dwelling, Miss St. James,” Graham said, placing a hand on the small of her back.
“This is incredible,” she said, spying doors here and there, catching glimpses of people moving on the bottom floor, too far away to see clearly.
“Come on, we’ll go down to the Great Hall.”
They walked along the top balcony ring until they came to a second elevator bank and stepped inside. This was a quick jaunt down to the bottom floor, and when the doors opened, she found herself in a wide open space that looked like one side of a hunting lodge had been blown open to grant admittance to the natural world. On one side of the space was the hot spring into which the waterfall emptied itself, and on the other was a blazing fire pit, surrounded by fur rugs, wooden chairs and couches, and antler chandeliers. It was beautiful, opulent, and rustic, and it smelled sweetly of moss and burning embers.
Viola was wide-eyed as a child as she walked around the room — no, it wasn’t a room. It was a universe. “This is so beautiful.”
“Yeah,” Graham said, “we kinda like it.”
There were people around, mostly on their own, some sitting and sipping coffee, reading newspapers, a few shuffling children to the hot spring, and their laughs bounced off the stone walls. Graham led her across the vast expanse of the hall, and at the far end of the room, he ducked behind the waterfall. She followed him and went through a heavy wooden door.
Beneath this waterfall was a stunning master suite with dark hardwood floors and a bearskin rug at the foot of a wide canopy bed. She stepped up to the rug and stared down at it. “Relative of yours?” she asked.
Graham laughed a loud, guttural laugh. “That isn’t real, Viola,” he said. Graham set the bags down on a chaise lounge on the far side of the room and moved to stand atop the fake bearskin. “This is mine, and you’re welcome to stay with me.”
“What, there aren’t guest rooms in this underground palace?” she asked, but her heart had skipped a beat when he’d asked her to stay with her.
“No, there are,” he said, “but I called in the entire clan when things started to go south with Felidae. I know that they’ll all be safe here — no one outside of the clan knows where this place is.” He paused, inclining his head slightly. “Except for you.” He leaned against the bed frame and hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Door on the left is a walk-in closet, door on the right is a bathroom.” He pointed to a set of double doors to the left. “Through there is a den with a desk, television, all that kinda stuff. And this is a bedroom.” He flashed her a grin. “Listen, there’s a
pull-out sofa in there I can sleep on if you —”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Whatever, we’ll figure it out.” She canted her chin toward the duffel bags. “What’s in those?”
“The rest of your clothes from your apartment,” he said, lifting them up to place on the mattress. “I thought… I’m sorry, did I step over a line? I just figured —”
“No,” she said, stepping forward and unzipping one of the duffels. Her favorite ratty old grey tee shirt was right on top. “No, this is great. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Viola was feeling weary, ready to drop, even though it was only about ten in the morning. She felt she’d lived three lifetimes over the course of the last week, lived and died, lived and died, lived and died. Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, she was actively fighting the urge to lie down and sleep right then and there. “So, what’s the plan here, Graham?” she said. “Now that we’re in this big, safe, quiet place. What do we do?”
He breathed a sigh that was a gesture of releasing the stress of the last few days and rubbed at his eyes. “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you have a shower, get changed, and I’ll get us some food and a couple of drinks, get us comfortable, and I’ll tell you everything. Everything you need to know.”
CHAPTER 5
There is something delicious about taking a long, scalding-hot shower after having been denied something as rudimentary as a perfunctory rinse for nearly two days straight. Viola stood beneath the water until it began to cool, either from overuse or from the fact that her body had gotten use to the increase in temperature. The bathroom boasted a clawfoot tub and a waterfall faucet that hung directly overhead, and for a while, Viola sat in the cradle of ceramic and allowed her mind to become a blank.
When she finally stepped out onto the padded bath mat and wrapped herself in plush green terry cloth, she felt rejuvenated, prepared to face the facts as Graham would lay them out before her, prepared to ask all of the questions that needed asking.
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