Renegade

by Donna Boyd

  Emory surged upward, blind with rage, and then Lara was on her feet, lunging toward him, capturing him in her arms and holding him fast, but there was no need. Of course David blocked any move he might have made with a single mild, uplifted hand.

  Emory tore away from Lara’s restraint, blood still pulsing in his temples. But he balled his hands into fists and tried to regulate his breathing and he shouted at David, “Why? Why did you do this? I’ve done nothing but protect you, I’ve risked my life for you, and so has Lara. Why?”

  Emory felt Lara’s hand on his arm, fingers digging into his muscles in warning, or reassurance. He seized her suddenly and drew her close, his hand in her sweat-dampened hair, feeling her heartbeat and her breath, close to his. The sagging wetness on her blouse was her own blood. And his breath was so harsh that it burned his lungs.

  David regarded them both with a kind of detached fascination for a moment, and then he moved around the table. Idly, he picked up a fruit knife from the platter, traced its blade between his thumb and forefinger, and returned it. He said, “One day we will have dinner, the three of us, at one of the fine hotels in Paris or Rome, and we will discuss dichotomies and dualities, the nature of good and evil, and whether one can, in fact exist without the other. I’ll tell you about my youth, my education, my view of the world, and what I really have been doing this past decade. What I thought about in all that time, what I discovered, what I decided, what I became. I will tell you secrets about myself, about what I am and what I can do, that no living being knows and we will bond in understanding, you two and I, on that night. But before that can happen, I have some other matters that require my attention.”

  Lara pulled herself away from the shelter of Emory’s arms. Her voice was strong and clear as she demanded, “What do you want from us?”

  He looked at them then with his power-blue eyes, his expression cool and calculating. “There are those, both human and werewolf, who would see me dead. Others who would capture me and attach me to their machines, or vivisect me for the amusement of their own tiny brains. Still others would pull me into their sect or cause or try to persuade my alliance against their enemies. I have a great many people working for me, of course, whole armies waiting to serve me, but none of them know the full truth of who I am, and without it their loyalty is transient at best. It occurred to me that it would be useful to have at least one person I could trust. So I found you in France, Professor, and I told you a secret. But a secret means nothing unless it can be kept. So I had to be sure it could be.”

  My God, thought Emory, but he could not speak it. All of this ... my God.

  Lara said very steadily, “We saved your life. Wasn’t that enough?”

  He smiled. “You would think so, wouldn’t you? But ...” He shrugged. “It’s a new day. The old rules no longer apply.”

  He took out the phone from his jacket and pushed a button. “You may leave this room whenever you wish; no one will try to stop you. Someone will be waiting outside to take you to your transportation once I am well away. I should give him my full cooperation if I were you. My generosity is notoriously short-lived.”

  Emory said, “And then what?” His fingers were so tight on Lara’s waist he knew he was hurting her but he did not dare let go.

  David replied, “You will be returned to your lives, such as they are. And I will get on with mine.”

  “What does that mean?” Lara demanded, her voice thin and furious. “What can that possibly mean?”

  David seemed amused. “My dear, don’t be naive. I knew this day would come and I’ve spent a lifetime preparing for it. I have headquarters all over the world. I have financial, industrial and technological resources that even I haven’t fully investigated yet. What that means is that I can do, in fact, whatever I like.” And he tilted his head at her in a faintly mocking fashion. “I am, after all, a Devoncroix.”

  He came around the table and moved toward the door, glancing at his watch. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll say my good-byes. I have a full schedule, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

  He glanced at Emory, and his expression altered slightly. For a moment it seemed oddly, almost impossibly, human. “You gave me your boots,” he said. “That was kind of you. I don’t forget a kindness.”

  For a moment, something in Emory wavered. And then, with a force of will, he made himself release Lara’s waist. He stepped forward, his heart pounding hard. He knew the hybrid could hear it, and he didn’t care. “With your permission, David, I would give you something more.”

  David tilted his head quizzically.

  “My fealty,” Emory said. “We may have our differences in philosophy, but I want you to know I still believe in what you can be. I will keep your secret.” He moved to David, took his face between his hands, and kissed him on the mouth. He said simply, stepping back, “My life for yours.”

  David looked surprised, and then gently, almost reluctantly, pleased. “How odd,” he said. “I didn’t think there were any humans I wished to save. Now I may reconsider.”

  He reached out his hand and lay two fingers upon Emory’s carotid pulse. Emory felt a surge of heat that seemed to crisp his skin, but before he could cry out with the pain, it was gone. Sparks danced before his eyes, then cleared. The air seemed suddenly purer, each breath more invigorating, his muscles seemed longer, his heart beat stronger. David’s expression, as he stepped back, was oddly tender.

  “Long life, Professor,” he said, and turned to the door.

  Lara whirled around. Emory caught her wrist and held it, hard. “Where will you go?” she demanded. “What will you do?”

  He made an airy, expansive gesture over his head and replied without turning, “I go to discover this brave new world I’ve inherited. And to make as much mischief within it as I possibly can, of course.”

  Emory’s throat was tight, his breath caught somewhere in his midsection. His words sounded odd and far away, as though coming from the lips of one already dead. “Don’t make me sorry I saved you,” he said.

  David turned then to look at him, his hand upon the handle of the door, eyes brimming with amusement. “My dear professor, if you are not sorry already, you are far, far less bright than I gave you credit for.”

  They could hear his laughter long after he left the room, as it faded down the corridor, and even then, as they stood alone in the elegant blood-wrecked little room, they heard him laughing in their heads.

  Lara stepped away from Emory slightly, to better examine his eyes. A thousand days and nights of longing and regret flashed between them, a thousand unsaid words, a thousand buried thoughts. But it was gone, as it always was, in an instant. She said only, “Were you successful?”

  Emory drew a breath, and released it unsteadily. “I don’t know.” A bleakness came over his face as he added, “And worse, I’m not sure what to hope for.”

  She touched his arm lightly, and a rare tenderness crossed her face as she did so. “This is Castle Devoncroix,” she said. “Are there things you want to see? I could show you.”

  He looked at her for a moment, almost managed a smile, and shook his head. “No,” he said. “There’s nothing to see here but ghosts now.”

  He walked forward and tried the door. It opened easily and they left together, not touching, and did not look back.

  ________________________

  Epilogue

  To my friends, human and loup garou, in the Alliance:

  I have done my best, in this and other writings, to put forth a fair and accurate account of the events that led us to this moment in history. Times being what they are, however, information is unreliable and accuracy is difficult to maintain—almost as difficult as the task of compressing a hundred thousand lifetimes of history into a few pages. And because times are what they are, and my life, and those of my compatriots, are so uncertain, I take the risk of leaving behind this written record of the early days. The days when we still had choices and, for better or worse, made them a
s best we could.

  From the beginning of time species Homo sapiens and species lupinotuum, a single atom split in two at the moment of creation, have been two halves of a whole yearning toward each other even as, by the very nature of their existence, they repel. Now, once again, they are joined. We live in the age of miracles, and on the cusp of Armageddon. I’m sorry to say that the two are not mutually exclusive.

  I was not entirely forthcoming with Rolfe—or David—about many things, as you no doubt have guessed. The first years after the collapse of the Devoncroix Dynasty were chaotic indeed. The global pack and the unified Brotherhood both were scattered and in disarray, with various factions from each constantly on the brink of war with each other and with humans. There emerged from the chaos the need for purpose, sanity and vision.

  Lara Fasburg, with the memories and the powerful intent of her father—one of the strongest, if perhaps most misguided leaders of the modern time—now integrated into her consciousness, has led what is now known as the Alliance since 2003. Our purpose is to protect humankind from renegade loup garoux, to maintain the balance of power as best we can, and to restore Nicholas Devoncroix to his rightful place as leader of the pack.

  He is alive. I dare say no more.

  My bond with Lara was weakened by the death of her father, it’s true, but it did not entirely disappear. She risked her life for me when I was captured. I would have given my life to spare her pain. Few humans will ever know this kind of love, or the weight of this burden. I breathe for two, as does she. I think for two, as does she. I walk more carefully than I have ever done before, because I know one misstep could cost a life much more valuable than my own. I wish sometimes I had never known this responsibility. And I wonder how I could have endured these past years without it.

  While it is true that I have lived much of my life under cover over the past ten years, I did so in service to the Alliance. I may have exaggerated my lack of access to technology during this time, for as soon as I discovered I had been infected by the virus in David’s bloodstream, I—and all of the pack scientists within the Alliance—began researching a cure. Because this is a shifting-antigen virus, the best we were able to come up with is a mutant strain that has virtually no affect on the live virus but may one day, if we are able to continue the research, be adapted into a vaccine for those not yet affected . I know this because I inoculated myself with the mutant virus years ago. It may have slowed down the progression of my disease, but did not, clearly, halt it.

  The mutant strain does, however, have one unexpected side effect. The tests we performed on the remaining samples of David’s blood show that this virus is capable of causing an autoimmune response that destroys red blood cells faster than they can be replenished. The symptoms begin within hours and death follows quickly. This virus is easily transmitted through something as simple as a casual kiss. Like the one I gave to David.

  As of this writing, we have been unable to determine whether David’s unprecedented immune system was able to adapt to and destroy the disease I gave him, or whether it will, as our lab tests assured us, produce a fatal reaction that will eliminate the hybrid, and all the possibilities he represents, forever. I did what I thought was necessary at the time, just as I always have done.

  All these years I never doubted the rightness of my decision in sparing him that night, despite the dreadful consequences that resulted. All these years I never minded fighting to restore what was lost for his sake. I believed in the evolution of nature. I believed in the potential of the future. I believed he was our destiny.

  Now I am not so sure. About anything.

  As soon as we discovered the virus David carried we knew that if he escaped the Sanctuary before a cure was found he would have to be destroyed. We knew this, but it had always seemed such an academic thing. And suddenly it wasn’t.

  Shortly before I was captured and interrogated by David, Lara received word from the Sanctuary from which he had escaped. All 131 residents were dead. Slaughtered. Artists, musicians, philosophers, seekers of peace whose only crime had been, perhaps, to bore him.

  Twenty-four hours after David touched me and I felt life sing through my veins, my blood tested negative for the virus. I was cured. And my first thought, God help me, was Had he cured me before my kiss had the chance to work its deadly magic on his blood? How powerful was he?

  How powerful did I want him to be?

  To that, I have no answers. This is what I know.

  The magnificent loup garoux have ruled over all of nature for over a millennium. They have been hunted as monsters and worshiped as gods. They have taken us into their palaces and anointed us with oils, and they have roasted our bones over their fires. And for the past six hundred years they have walked among us with a mixture of contempt and desperate affection, needing us and despising us, never quite able to forget the twisted, broken history we share. They see in us what they once were. We see in them what we might have been. And the seeing breaks both our hearts.

  Eric Fasburg and his family were banished from the pack for treachery against the queen. Within the decade the disease that had been killing their infants was eradicated from the pack, and Eudora found a mate among one of her own clan. They lived to see the birth of eighteen children, one hundred ninety-two grandchildren, three hundred forty great-grandchildren.

  It is estimated that between 1342 and 1345 one third to one half of the population of Europe was destroyed by the plague. Perhaps had Louis Phillipe, keeper of secrets, student of arcane knowledge, possessed the gift of foresight he might not have considered his sacrifice such a noble one. Or he might have, in fact, thought the trade equitable. The cost in terms of human life was enormous. But civilization was saved. Slowly, here and there in warm pockets of the earth, art began to blossom. Poets and thinkers put forth their ideas, a Galileo reached for the stars, a DaVinci unleashed his genius. Science and invention thrived, continents were explored, operas were written because once long ago a vow was broken, a choice was made; humans died, and werewolves lived.

  I no longer indulge myself with speculations about the nature of right and wrong, or deceive myself into believing that I am capable of discerning what comprises a balance between them. I have made choices. I soon will make others. I suspect I will choose according to my nature. In the end, that’s the best that any of us can do.

  In the meantime, you would be wise to remember what happened the last time the gods went to war. Civilizations crumbled, the beasts ran wild and darkness ruled the earth. There can be no victors in such a scenario. They are still out there, our fine heroes, the magnificent species lupinotuum, genus hominid, warvulf, lycanthrope, lycos, werewolf. Their muscles are strong, their brains are large, their senses sharp, their synapses fast. They are still at the top of the food chain. And, as I was once assured by someone who should know, the old rules no longer apply.

  I am

  Emory Hilliford, PhD

  Human

  Assassin

  ___________________________

  About the Author

  Donna Boyd is the author of several dozen books, under a variety of pseudonyms, that include mystery, suspense, romance and women's fiction. A full list of her work can be found at on her web site. She lives in a restored Victorian barn in the Blue Ridge Mountains with a variety of four-legged companions that may or may not include werewolves. You can contact her at www.donnaball.net.

  Also in this series:

  THE PASSION

  THE PROMISE

  _____________________________

  If you enjoyed this book, you might also enjoy the following suspense novels by Donna Ball:

  NIGHT FLIGHT

  She’s an innocent woman who knows too much. Now she’s fleeing through the night without a weapon and without a phone, and her only hope for survival is a cop who’s willing to risk his badge—and his life—to save her.

  SANCTUARY

  They came to the peaceful, untouched mountain wilderness of Easte
rn Tennessee seeking an escape from the madness of modern life. But when they built their luxury homes in the heart of virgin forest they did not realize that something was there before them… something ancient and horrible; something that will make them believe that monsters are real.

  EXPOSURE

  For popular talk show host Jessamine Cray, it started as just another piece of slightly weird fan mail: a single typed line on an unsigned sheet of paper that reads: Have you ever done anything you’re ashamed of? No one takes it as a threat until the second communication comes, and then the third… a blood-stained prom dress, a disfigured photograph from a high school year book, copies of private papers to which no one but Jess should have had access. Every celebrity’s worst nightmare has come true for Jessamine Cray: she is being stalked, and shame is her terrorist’s secret weapon.

  Also by Donna Ball:

  The Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Series