by Jen Haeger
“This better be important, Evelyn.”
“It is. I need you to get me a number of antiviral medications and I need them by tomorrow morning.”
“You are a doctor, yes? Can you not get them for yourself?”
Evelyn shook her head even though Roberto couldn’t see her over the phone. “Not by tomorrow morning.”
Roberto began sounding more awake. “Tell me why.”
“The short answer is: I think that one of the students working in Dr. Jonson’s lab may have accidentally exposed herself to Languorem luporum and I’m going to try to prevent the virus from incorporating itself into her DNA and turning her into a Wolfkin.”
She now had Roberto’s full attention. “E-mail me the list immediately and I will have a package dropped off by seven a.m. I cannot guarantee that it will have everything that you ask for, but I will do my best. Where should I send the package? I assume that a random courier will not be able to enter the building at that hour.”
Evelyn was grateful that he didn’t ask any further questions. “Have them drop it off at the front desk of the veterinary clinic. It’s open twenty-four hours a day for emergencies. I’ll pick it up from there.”
“And Evelyn.”
“Yes, Roberto?”
“Do I have to tell you to be more cautious in the future?”
Evelyn wanted desperately to describe the whole improbable situation to Roberto and explain to him how she never could have anticipated something like this happening, but she knew that time was of the essence. “No, Roberto.”
“Good.”
18
Evelyn sent over the list of drugs to Roberto and then reluctantly made a new entry into her notebook transcribing the note, laying out the facts of the event as she understood them, and communicating her strategy to deal with the problem. This was a decent test for the efficacy of the antivirals in preventing integration of the virus into human DNA and in helping the body to clear the virions from the bloodstream. She couldn’t test the antivirals on a Wolfkin because the intermingled viral DNA would be constantly producing new virions. She hated to think of the poor girl as a test subject, but as of now, that was an apt description.
Evelyn sneaked upstairs into one of the unoccupied wards and nicked a couple of vacutainers, needles, and blood collection tubes along with a tourniquet, cotton balls, and cloth medical tape. With such a quick incubation, she would need to draw blood from the possibly infected girl to look for virions in the plasma and check for viral DNA integration within the human DNA of the white blood cells. Evelyn hadn’t drawn blood from a human for a very long time and didn’t cherish the experience, so she fervently hoped that Melissa had good veins.
The rest of the early morning Evelyn tried to concentrate on her work in the lab, but she spent a good deal of time going through the boxes of samples in the freezer and making sure that her and Kim’s samples were all accounted for in the proper boxes. She relabeled all the boxes in red sharpie and taped them shut with brightly-colored tape. She also managed to use a stray piece of cardboard and a lot of freezer sample Tetris to split off half of one shelf only for their samples. When she had finished, her fingers were freezer-burned and sore from the cold, but she was confident that a second accident was impossible. She also checked the offending centrifuge for any missed particles of glass and cleaned and disinfected it.
Progress in the lab was additionally stymied by Evelyn’s overwhelming desire to check her e-mail constantly for a reply from Melissa, which was silly given that it was the wee hours of morning. Around six thirty, Evelyn cleaned up the lab and sterilized the areas she was working in then she secured the lab and went up to the front desk of the clinic to ask if a package had been dropped off for her. The tired and frumpy woman working there seemed very surprised to see her coming from the depths of the building and even more surprised when Evelyn told her that she was there to pick up the package that had been left at the desk mere moments before Evelyn’s arrival.
Evelyn feared that the whole exchange was going to foster a juicy hunk of gossip that was certainly going to gallop to the far corners of the veterinary school before the day was out. She just hoped that it wouldn’t be linked to Dr. Jonson’s laboratory and his mysterious lab-sharing program, and that people who heard the rumors would be far too lazy to follow up on finding out who this unfamiliar doctor receiving peculiar packages at seven o’clock in the morning was. Smiling broadly, Evelyn tried to act like the whole exchange was perfectly natural, even humming to herself as she walked away with the box under her arm.
Once out of sight of the front desk, Evelyn glanced around for other observers and, seeing none, ran for the stairwell. She rushed down the stairs and back to the lab where she used scissors to cut the tape and tore the box open. Inside was a bottle of every single antiviral drug on her list. Roberto’s funds and connections had come through again, and Evelyn felt profound relief although there was still a great deal to be anxious about. Evelyn quickly composed an instruction sheet describing the dosage and frequency of the medications for Melissa. Then she tried to go over in her head exactly what she was going to say to the girl. She contemplated lying about which virus it was, maybe telling the girl that it was a strain of influenza or measles or herpes, but again that risked Melissa going to another doctor.
Evelyn didn’t have much time to debate with herself before the door to the lab opened and a short, freckled girl in her early twenties with straight brown hair entered and looked around expectantly. She looked groggy and had a large heavy book bag slung over one shoulder. Upon spotting Evelyn, she ambled over and held out her hand.
“I’m Melissa, you must be Dr. Eisenhart?”
Evelyn noticed a small but deep wound on the girl’s proffered hand, so she held it gently while she shook it. “Yes, thank you for coming in this morning. With accidents such as these we like to start the antiviral protocol as soon as possible.” Evelyn tried to sound as cool and professional as possible to alleviate some of Melissa’s probable fear regarding the infection, and to hopefully curtail some of her questions. The girl didn’t appear overly nervous and nodded to Evelyn, but was not completely dissuaded from asking more questions.
“What virus are you working with?”
Evelyn decided that a very vague truth gave the best chance of her pulling off the overall lie. “It’s a novel virus very distantly related to rabies. If you want to put your bag down, I’ve set up an area over here to draw your blood.”
Evelyn pointed to another desk which she had cleared and set up the blood drawing materials on. She had even precut a piece of tape to use as a bandage. Melissa glanced over at the desk and then back at Evelyn. She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t mean to be rude, but are you, um, qualified to do that?”
“Of course. I also have an M.D.”
Evelyn bustled over to the desk as if there was no further need for discussion and pulled the chair out for Melissa to sit in. Melissa set her bag on the floor, followed Evelyn over and sat down in the chair. She started to roll up her sleeve. “I’ve been vaccinated for rabies if you think that will help. Will I need injections?”
Evelyn smiled cheerily in what she hoped was a comforting way as she slid the tourniquet up Melissa’s arm and tightened the rubber straps. “Unfortunately there is no current evidence that having rabies titers will prevent possible infection, but the good news is that all of the antivirals are oral medications, so no injections.”
“Oh. Okay. Good.”
Evelyn swabbed Melissa’s bare arm at the crook of her elbow with rubbing alcohol and picked up the vacutainer and blood tube, willing her hand not to shake. She felt the moisture of sweat on her forehead and under her arms as she uncapped the needle and prepared to puncture the girl’s vein. Knowing that hesitation only made things worse, she speedily poked the turgid bump of the blood vessel and tried to hold the vacutainer steady as she attached the blood tube, watched it fill with blood, and then swapped it out for another. She filled three t
ubes, then loosened the tourniquet and grabbed a cotton ball to press to the needle hole as she removed the needle from Melissa’s arm. Evelyn set the vacutainer aside and secured the cotton ball with the tape strip hanging from the desk.
Evelyn felt light-headed and realized that she’d been holding her breath. She exhaled shakily and tried to return to a more natural breathing rhythm while she was labeling the tubes with her back to Melissa. When she turned around the girl had rolled her sleeve back down and was looking at her expectantly. Evelyn guessed that she was waiting for Evelyn to tell her when she would get the results of the blood testing. Evelyn hedged.
“It may take some time to get results. Like I said it’s a novel virus and a little hard to isolate. Also I will need another blood sample in about a week. We can set it up by e-mail again.” Evelyn walked back over to the desk with the medication on it and picked up the four bottles and instruction sheet. She walked back over and handed them to Melissa. “Here are the antivirals and instructions. Please follow them as closely as possible. I’ve included my phone number in case you have any problems. I don’t expect you to manifest any symptoms, but if you think that you might be please call me immediately.”
“What kind of symptoms?”
“Oh, upset stomach, nausea, vomiting, headache, fever, runny nose, things like that.”
Melissa scrutinized each bottle in turn. “But this is all just a precaution right?”
Evelyn couldn’t quite meet Melissa’s eye. “Right.”
19
The alarm went off at eight a.m. like a jackhammer in David’s temple. He slammed his fist down on the snooze bar, but pried himself out of bed and stumbled blindly down the hall to the bathroom. As he splashed cool water on his face he thought that this was one of the worst hangovers in a long, sad history of hangovers that he’d been unfortunate enough and stupid enough to experience. What he really wanted was a long, hot shower, but he wanted to give Kim the opportunity to take one first, so instead he headed downstairs. He started up the coffee maker while he popped some bread in the toaster and tried to choke down some orange juice. David was nibbling on the dry toast when the front door opened. Surprised, he stepped out into the dining room and turned into the living-room in time to see Evelyn slide off her shoes and set her backpack down. She was the picture of exhaustion.
“Are you just getting home?”
Evelyn flinched at the sound of his voice and jerked her head towards him then relaxed again. “David, yeah, I…it’s a long story, and I don’t want to get into it right now, I need sleep, but I’ll tell you later. Did you guys have fun last night?”
Memories of the previous night’s events flashed through his mind and guilt made his chest feel achy and tight. He swallowed hard and tried not to let his thoughts show on his face. “Yeah, we did, maybe a little too much fun. I haven’t drunk like that it a long time. Now I remember why.”
Evelyn’s smile made her look like she had toothache. “Oh, well I’m glad that Kim had a nice birthday.”
There was an awkward lull in the conversation then Evelyn glanced at the dining room table which was piled high with assorted boxes and bags of food from Kim’s apartment. “I got a little work on Kim’s food done last night too. I wrote you a note, but basically there’s a new spreadsheet on your computer in the public documents file, and I got through everything in the pile on the left.”
“Great. Er…any standouts?”
Evelyn yawned noisily. “I don’t know, maybe, anyways, we can talk more when I’ve had a nap.” Her eyes flitted up the stairs. “Is Kim up yet?”
“Ah no, I don’t think that she’ll be up for a while yet.”
“Hmmm. Well, goodnight.”
Evelyn turned her back to David and headed up the stairs. He almost called her back, but then asked himself what more he wanted to say to her right then. Do I really want to confess to her about kissing Kim last night? No. Not now. Not days before the confrontation with the Vulke. In fact, he had to put the whole complicated mess out of his head and focus on tracking down the oral source of the mutant infection and preparing for the meeting with Roberto the next day. He had done substantial research on war strategy and tactics on the internet, but none of it seemed feasible or appropriate for the kind of fight he was anticipating.
One of the most difficult hitches of the whole situation was that, even though the strays were now part of the Vulke army, David couldn’t get past the idea that they were innocent victims in all this, so to kill them outright just didn’t sit well with him. The more he mulled things over, the more he felt that a similar sort of distraction to the one he’d used against Christoff was the way to go. If they could draw the strays away from the main fight, then they could deal with them separately from the Vulke who, at least on some level, knew what they were getting into. David’s mind went to using food, likely deer carcasses, to distract the strays, but they had to somehow appear in the middle of the fight so that the Vulke couldn’t prepare for them, counteract them, or negate them. David hadn’t worked out the details, but he was counting on the meeting with Roberto to be fruitful in that respect.
David brought the toast and coffee out to the dining room table, opened the laptop, and grabbed a cereal box from the pile of Kim’s food. After about ten items he took a break to check his e-mail and found that four other packs had provided lists from their strays. He shot off an e-mail to all of them, asking if the other strays’ homes had been broken into and ransacked like Kim’s had. Afterwards, he briefly glanced over the lists and noted a lot of the same food items, bread, milk, butter, cheese, flour, sugar, etc., but as yet no matching brands. Staring at the words on the computer screen was making his head hurt, so, rubbing his eyes, he went back to picking through Kim’s food.
The boring and tedious work left plenty of time for his mind to wander. He thought back to his kiss with Kim the previous night and his heart sped up, but then his thoughts drifted to the first time that Evelyn kissed him in the hotel room in Sault St. Marie. With that memory, pain surged in his chest and spread to his throat and stomach. Others had accepted what he was before that moment, but Evelyn had been the first person to forgive him for the monster that he felt he’d become. Kim didn’t even know half the things that David had done. He hadn’t told her about James or Tommy, or any of the details of his fight with Christoff. In retrospect he saw just how wrong it was for him to have kissed Kim, to have toyed with her emotions when she didn’t really know him or what she might be getting herself into by starting a relationship with him. He had thought that a relationship with her would be so much simpler than one with Evie, but really, he was the one tainting everything.
This epiphany was a rude awakening and it shook David to his core. In all his efforts to not become the monster that was now a part of him, he had become a different kind of monster, one who appeared safe and kind on the outside, but still wreaked destruction. A cure for the werewolf virus, his holy grail, wouldn’t change that, the damage had been done. Still, he felt a strong connection to both women and a strong desire to protect both of them, but he hated to think about how much of that might be due more to instinct than human emotion. They were a part of his pack after all, so his attraction to them now could all be a sick reflection of his possessive Wolfkin nature.
David chastised himself for letting his thoughts turn so dark and brooding. Nothing mattered more right now than saving as many innocent lives as possible, and that included Evelyn’s and Kim’s lives. He was responsible for Evelyn’s involvement in the Wolfkin subculture and for her infection, and although he wasn’t directly responsible for Kim’s infection, he was now responsible for her as her Alpha, and therefore anything that might happen to her would be on his head. He had to shield them as best he could from what was coming in just a precious few more days, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to. Evelyn would not be ordered to stay away from the fight, not by him or Roberto or Clem or anyone else, but there was a slight possibility that he could
guilt her into staying back in the lab by telling her that she was the only one capable of finding a cure. It was also possible that he might be able to convince Kim in a similar fashion by telling her that Evelyn needed her.
David hated himself for thinking such things because they we conniving and condescending, and he respected both Kim and Evelyn more than that. Additionally, if things went poorly during the battle, Evelyn and Kim would be all alone. They would be hunted down by the Vulke and slaughtered, or worse, forced to turn their research of Languorem luporem towards making the Vulke stronger or able to change whenever they wanted. David knew that Evelyn would rather die, but what if they had her mother and father or her sister and nieces and nephews? No, Evelyn wouldn’t let it come to that. He thought about how she had prepared the syringe of euthanasia solution to kill herself if he had lost the challenge two years ago. She would end herself before the Vulke got the chance to torture her and her family, and he wouldn’t be there to stop it.
20
Evelyn was dead to the world until well after dark, and it took her a long time to focus enough to remember the last twenty-four hours. She groaned and pushed herself into a sitting position. In the dimness she could just make out Kim’s empty bed. Though Evelyn wanted nothing more than to escape into the oblivion of sleep once again, she knew that she had to get up and get ready to go back into the lab. Even before that, she had to tell David and Kim what happened at the lab with Melissa. Evelyn made brief and uninspired efforts to wash her face and pull back her hair. She dressed in scrubs, only technically a step up from her pajamas, and went downstairs to look for Kim and David.
