by Jen Haeger
Clem ran a hand over his face. “I think I’ve seen this movie before. I don’t know, Evie.”
“Clem,” Evelyn said over more fries before swallowing, “you agreed to help on the phone yesterday.”
“Yeah, after a heck of a lot of guiltin’ and brow-beatin’. ‘Sides, I don’t like all this sneakin’ about behind everyone’s backs. Roberto, David…it’s no good, Evie.”
“I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t important. Clem. What if there’s something in those notes? Something that we can use against the Vulke. Something that we can use to find a cure for all of those strays. We have to do this. I have to do everything I can and I can’t argue with Roberto about it or wait for David to see that we have no choice.”
“Alrighty, Evie, don’t choke on a fry. Do ya know how embarassin’ it would be to die in a McDonald’s? Course, Karen’s gonna kill you anyways when she finds out you already ate.”
*
Evelyn and Clem spent the night at Karen’s house, and she seemed twice as big as the last time Evelyn had seen her, though her due date for the new baby was still two months out. Even in extreme pregnancy, and despite a somber air that hovered over the home, Karen made an excellent hostess. She and Gabe knew all about the war and the fire and how bad things were, although Clem hadn’t mentioned his and Evelyn’s dangerous plans for the following day. Just before they left late the next morning Karen took Evelyn aside.
“I thought we’d lost him last time you came for him. But you both came back. I’d appreciate it if Clem could meet his niece…and you too, Evie.”
As Evelyn hugged Karen she tried not to wonder what would happen to Clem’s family if the Vulke won the war. Gabe would fight no doubt, and Evelyn had seen Karen’s moxie up close and personal, but they’d have three children to protect and no help from the Wahya. Evelyn hoped that they would run away and hide somewhere isolated, but intuition told her it was more likely that they’d end up the head of a werewolf hunting organization, training others about Wolfkin.
“I’ll do everything I can, Karen, absolutely everything.”
When they parted, both women’s eyes were moist.
“I know you will.”
*
Sunny, mild weather made the locks a crowded place to be on a Saturday. Tourists and townies alike were out to enjoy a lunch, watching the freighters rise and fall. Evelyn couldn’t begrudge them the view. It was peaceful, or would’ve been if a thousand butterflies of suppressed Whatifs weren’t caught in a tornado in her stomach. When noon arrived, Evelyn couldn’t even sip at the pop she’d purchased to blend in. Her eyes darted back and forth along the strip in front of the locks and she couldn’t help but remember the last time she’d been there with Clem. Good news had come out of that visit, so she prayed that good news would come from this one.
It wasn’t until twelve-fifteen, when Evelyn’s nerves were stretched to breaking and she was certain that Vulke were about to storm the locks and kill them both, that she finally spotted Nicolas. He looked weary, but also oddly excited. With him, he carried a large leather satchel. Pacing along the rail and gazing around, presumably for Evelyn, it didn’t appear as though he’d been followed, at least not knowingly. Evelyn ducked behind the pillar of the building and signaled Clem, then held her breath as she watched him approach Nicolas.
Clem strolled over to a spot at the railing, seemingly enthralled by the sight of the freighter in the lock. Not even a flicker of recognition crossed Nicolas’s face as he glossed over Clem then continued his search for Evelyn. Clem moved naturally along the railing, until he was behind Nicolas, then pulled out a camera and backed up until he bumped into the Vulke. Nicolas stumbled and Clem, feigned losing his balance, and tipped into Nicolas, causing both of them to sprawl to the pavement. Clem’s cane made the farce all the more convincing as he made a big show of apologizing profusely and helping a flustered Nicolas up. Evelyn peered around to ascertain whether anyone else was overly interested in the exchange, but most people either hadn’t noticed, or had immediately lost interest when they decided that a fight wasn’t going to break out. As Nicolas stood, his hand went to his pocket and Evelyn’s pop slid from her fingers. She gasped, picturing him pulling out a knife or a gun and turning on Clem. Taking a few steps forward as if she could close the distance and intervene somehow, Evelyn couldn’t breathe, but then Nicolas pulled out a handkerchief and brushed off his hands, vaguely nodding to Clem’s continued requests for forgiveness. Just before turning away, Clem shook Nicolas’s hand and Evelyn spied the instruction sheet as Clem thrust it into Nicolas’s palm.
To Nicolas’s credit, he took the clandestine exchange in his stride and only peered after Clem for a moment before pocketing the paper, giving his surroundings one last glance, and heading over to an area of benches familiar to Evelyn. She spared a few more minutes to watch him as he opened the satchel and then sorted through some of the papers inside as though looking for a particular sheet. He then seamlessly mixed in the note from his pocket. Glancing around again and sending Evelyn sidestepping further behind the pillar, Nicolas carefully unfolded the note and read. His back was towards Evelyn, so she couldn’t get an idea of the expression on his face and his body language gave nothing away. A few minutes later, he packed up the satchel and left the bench, heading towards the parking lot.
Evelyn hesitated until he was well out of sight before stepping around the sticky puddle of her spilled drink and striding towards the bench Nicolas had just vacated. A family of four was nearing the benches and a flutter of panic surged through Evelyn. If Nicolas had done as instructed, then it was vital that she reach the bench before them. Unfortunately she couldn’t all out run, because that would look stupidly suspicious. Gritting her teeth, she power-walked for all she was worth until plopping down on the bench and pulling Nicolas’s cell phone from under her thigh as though she were pulling it from her own pocket. With a more practiced hand, she popped out the cell’s battery and then stood and pocketed each. There was always the possibility that he had another cell phone on him that could be tracked, but the dismantled phone gave Evelyn a mote of relief.
*
The next few hours could have appropriately been described as hijinks. The instructions had Nicolas touring back and forth across Sault St. Marie with Clem and Evelyn in hot pursuit. At no time did they spot anything suspicious other than themselves, not even when they had Nicolas answer a ringing payphone and had Clem direct him verbally to his final destination, the Sault Ste. Marie public courthouse, where he would have to pass through a metal detector. Clem was to watch Nicolas from just inside the foyer as he went through the detector, and then if all went well, they would meet Evelyn on the second floor.
Evelyn sat on a bench in the main hallway of the second floor trying not to appear out of place. She did have to wave off one excessively helpful clerk, who asked her if she needed help, by telling him that she was just waiting for someone. A few moments after he’d gone into one of the offices, Evelyn heard the murmur of voices and the echo of footsteps on the stone stairs. She leapt up and her heart likewise leapt into her throat as Clem followed Nicolas up the stairs and into the hallway. Nicolas paused when he saw Evelyn, staring until Evelyn fidgeted and tried to smile. He trod towards her slowly, carefully, as if he was afraid that she would run from him.
“This was a lot of, how you say, cloak and dagger, yes?”
“I’m sorry for that, but…well, it’s hard to trust…you understand.”
Nicolas let out a long breath. “Da. What now?”
“I’m afraid there’s just one more hoop we need you to jump through.”
Nicolas raised an eyebrow. “Hoop?”
“Oh sorry, it’s an expression. Just one more precaution, a test.”
“Oh.”
Eyeing his watch, Clem stepped forward. “And time’s a wastin’, so we best get a shuffle on.” Nicolas nodded and motioned for Evelyn to go ahead of him, but Clem shook his head. “Uh-uh. You first, then me, then Evie. An
d you’re ridin’ up front with me until we get this last bit sorted.”
Displeasure framed Nicolas’s haggard face, but he didn’t argue. When they’d exited the building and were heading towards the car, Evelyn pointed to the satchel.
“May I?”
Nicolas’s eyes lit up. “You speak Russian?”
Evelyn felt a burn in her cheeks. “No, but you know, science is the universal language, so I’ll understand at least some of it now.”
The sudden spark faded, but he handed over the satchel and Evelyn perused the contents as Clem drove. In this batch of papers were a bunch of photocopied articles whose originals had been heavily highlighted. Evelyn wished these were in English, but did catch a few scientific terms that gave her at least the gist of several of them. She’d have Nicolas translate for her on the way back down to Lansing…if this last thing went well. Soon they reached the outskirts of the city and pulled into an empty parking lot in front of a small, squat building with a fenced yard in the back.
“We’re here.”
Clem motioned for Nicolas to get out and waited until he slammed shut the car door before also exiting the vehicle with Evelyn.
Nicolas turned towards Evelyn. “A veterinary clinic?”
Evelyn nodded. Nicolas shrugged and the three of them walked up to the door. The sign in the window was flipped to closed. Evelyn opened a white metal container hanging off the door that was used by diagnostic services to pick up samples of blood, and rummaged around inside of it, tongue between her teeth.
“Aha!”
Out of it, she pulled a key on a fluffy white dog keychain.
“You have worked here before?” Nicolas asked as she unlocked the door and led them inside.
“No, but I went to vet school with the owner.” She locked the door behind them. “Raul’s a good guy. I told him I had family up here who only trusted me to work on their animals, but wouldn’t bring them down to my clinic. He agreed to loan me his for the evening, provided I left everything cleaner than I found it and paid him a fee for use of the facility as well as for all the materials I use. Fortunately, his kid has a little league game tonight, so he couldn’t stop by and say ‘hi’, but was able to leave a key for me.”
Evelyn led them out of the small waiting room with the fish tank, past the exam rooms, and into the treatment area of the clinic. Switching on the lights, she revealed an open space with lots of cabinets and counters, a few metal tables, and some overhead surgical lights. Off the open space were two smaller rooms with open doors, a closed door, and one dark, closet-looking room. Pausing only briefly, Evelyn headed towards one of the rooms with an open door and turned on the light in that room as well, illuminating a long table situated underneath an x-ray machine.
“Please lay down on the table.”
For a moment Nicolas appeared as though he might protest, but then shrugged and did as instructed. Evelyn located the stash of unused film cassettes and placed a large one in a tray that slid out from inside the table, then used an x-ray-thickness caliper to measure Nicolas’s chest. Focusing a light from the overhanging machine over Nicolas’s upper torso, she placed a plastic square with an embedded metal R on the right side of his body and then adjusted the dials on the machine with audible clicks. She then grabbed some protective garments off hooks along the wall and showed Clem how to don the lead apron and thyroid protector.
“Stand back and put your hands behind your back.”
Clem retreated towards the door and clasped his hands behind his back as Evelyn pushed a foot pedal out from under the table. She looked down at Nicolas. “Hold very still now.” Moving her hands behind her back to shield them, Evelyn pressed down on the foot pedal. There was a whirr and a beep. “Okay, you can relax. Just three more.” Evelyn removed the exposed film cassette from the tray and handed it to Clem. “Set this out there on one of the tables.”
Clem took the cassette out of the room as Evelyn placed a fresh film in the tray, slid the light of the machine down to Nicolas’s lower torso and abdomen, and measured his abdomen. She adjusted the machine dials again then assumed the position by the foot pedal.
“Hold. Three, two, one.” Evelyn depressed the pedal and the machine gave out another whirr and beep.
“Oh shoot, I forgot to put my hands back.”
Evelyn glanced at Clem. “Oh no! The radiation! You might transform into some kind of monster.”
Clem frowned at her.
“You’ll be fine.”
When Evelyn had taken four radiographs, she removed the lead apron, motioned for Clem to take off his, and walked over to the table to retrieve the last film cassette. “You can get up now.”
Nicolas climbed off the table. He stared at Evelyn with fire in his icy blue eyes. “What about me? Will I turn into some kind of monster now?”
Evelyn didn’t know how to respond to that, so forced her eyes from his and turned away to remove the film from the tray. “I’ll be back in a minute. I have to develop the films.”
She shuffled out to collect the other cassettes and headed into the smallest room, which was the film developing closet. After another twenty minutes of dipping the exposed films in chemicals and reloading the cassettes, with only a dim red light to see by, Evelyn exited the developing room and stuck the first film up on one of the viewers on the wall. By this time, Clem and Nicolas were both in the open treatment area, Clem perched on a counter and Nicolas seated on a rolling stool. Both men got up and approached Evelyn as she examined the films in turn.
“You missed his head.”
“The skull’s too thick. I probably wouldn’t have been able to see anything.”
Evelyn turned from the image of Nicolas’s skeletal legs and feet on the viewer to face Nicolas.
“Do you have a tracking implant in one of your teeth?”
She thought that he would answer right away, but Nicolas hesitated and looked thoughtful. He ran his tongue over his teeth and then a finger over them as well.
“Not to my knowledge…And I’ve not known this to be done.”
Evelyn nodded. “Well, that’ll have to be good enough. I don’t think an implant would really work well after multiple transformations anyway. It could dislodge and get stuck…I think you’d be able to feel it.”
“So he’s clean?”
“As far as I can tell.”
Nicolas faced Evelyn and his voice grew soft. “You doubted me so much?”
Evelyn couldn’t bear the hurt in his eyes. She looked to the films and pulled them down from the viewer. “It’s not just me; the Wahya, everyone needs reassurance. If you did want to hurt us…”
Nicolas grabbed Evelyn’s arm. “I would never hurt you.”
Clem stepped forward and gripped Nicolas’s arm in turn. “But I would hurt you, Nicky, so you best let go of Evie right quick.”
Glancing from Evelyn to Clem, Nicolas’s face reddened. He removed his hand from Evelyn’s arm. “I didn’t mean to cause offense…Clem?” He turned back to Evelyn. “I just wished you could trust me.”
*
Evelyn ran Roberto’s credit card through Raul’s machine and left generous payment for the time they’d spent at the clinic, as well as for the radiograph film they’d used, then returned the keys to the metal box on the door after locking up. Clem got behind the wheel again, but Evelyn insisted that Nicolas sit in the middle seats of the Explorer with her so that he could translate for her while they drove, but first she needed some immediate answers from him.
“So you’ve defected?”
Nicolas nodded. “I was caught copying files for you. I…I had to leave.”
“But you don’t think that you were followed?”
“I had to take certain…precautions, they might suspect something, but should not know that I have copied the files. Or where I have gone.”
Evelyn frowned. “But you said that you were caught.”
“Da, but only by one. He is not a concern anymore.”
Deciding that det
ails would only upset her, Evelyn moved on. “Is this everything? All the research files?”
The corners of Nicolas’s eyes sagged. “No. There was not enough time. There are still many more. I am sorry.”
“That’s alright, I probably wouldn’t have time to go over more anyway.” She paused and bit her lip. “Um, Nicolas, there’s something that I should tell you about your asylum.”
“Yes?”
“I didn’t…I don’t…we haven’t worked out all of the details yet, so we’re going to keep a low profile for the time being.”
Clem snorted from the front seat, but she wasn’t sure if Nicolas had heard it as well.
“Fine.”
His eyes bore into her again and Evelyn shivered, though the sensation wasn’t all bad. Dropping her gaze, she picked up a stack of papers from the satchel and handed them to Nicolas. “Start with those.”
62
The late afternoon had slipped into evening then into night by the time they arrived at the condo. Evelyn, concentrating on taking notes off Nicolas’s translations, hadn’t even thought to call ahead to prepare David and Kim for Nicolas’s arrival. She almost had the two men wait in the car while she went in, but then elected to have Clem by her side instead. Pushing the door open, she poked her head inside and called out before walking in with Nicolas.
“Hello! We’re back. And we have a big surprise.”
David was not amused by Evelyn trying to make light of the matter. His shock rapidly transformed to anger and finally to something colder.
“It’s going to be awfully cramped here with five people.”
Evelyn conceded the point with a shrug. “I’d like Nicolas here so that he can help translate the research notes, but I figured that we could set up a place for him in that odd room in the basement. Not too much privacy, but it does have a door, so would be a separate space at least.”
