Werewolf Companion (Wolf Mind Book 1)

by Tommi Hayes

  But as things stand, if I need to know something from Amisa, then I ask her. Is that so hard to do? No.

  But, we have a problem, it seems. The problem, the one that has me failing to fully observe Amisa's reaction, to check it for anything unusual, anything that might be an issue requiring immediate action, is Raj.

  Jesus, Jesus, it's Raj.

  When I scan Raj it's with the utmost politesse, the utmost reluctance. I don't warn him, I don't knock on the door. But still, I have his unspoken permission, now that he has a vague awareness of my abilities and activities. I get in and get out and try not to get any on me.

  It's never worked the other way around, and in fact the thought has never even occurred to me. Other subjects have made the attempt, so it surely in fact ought to have occurred to me. It seems as if there's something romantic, for some, in the idea of a telepathic connection. Certainly some of my cases have got off on the idea. They've insisted upon at least making the attempt to make the leap from their side of the bond. They can't actually make the step, reach out and take a hold where the link, the opening to telepathic connection is. They haven't the gift, obviously. All they can do is to signal their availability, their openness to being contacted, being invaded, having their mental privacy disrespected, utterly. And how eager they have been, many of them, to do just that.

  But as I say, they haven't the gift. They can't impose the connection.

  So what the hell, then, is Raj doing inside my mind? I don't even recognise the phenomenon for the first few moments. In fact, how long has it been going on? Thirty seconds? Two minutes? Five? I honestly am not sure. It started up at some time during the current course of my conversation–interview–with Amisa, at least, that much I'm sure of.

  At least, I think I'm sure of it. I'd better be sure of it, because if he's been in here before now, at times when I wasn't aware, wasn't even troubling to defend myself against psychic attack, then what might I have laid myself open to? What raid upon my defences, what invasion, what capture and coup?

  But no. I try to calm myself, at least a little, because no, no way, Raj wouldn't do that. Not purposely... Perhaps only accidentally, leaving the gates of my mind wide open, stumbling upon things that he shouldn't know, not if he knows what's good for him...

  And how do I know it's him? The same way you know your lover's voice, his touch, his step upon the landing of the upper floor, his distinctive sigh and the tone of his voice even when words are inaudible. You just do. It's imprinted and engraved upon your brain, within weeks, maybe even days of taking up with him. Especially if you're really in love. Then it's tattooed on your skin, into your brain. You're done for, absolutely.

  What the fuck? So there are two questions. One, what is he doing here at all, where he has no business to be, in the sanctum of my mind that has been forever inviolate, barring the intrusions of Section psychs and their pre-warned, highly systematized, schematized, ordered, weak-ass scans, that I can protect myself against with the utmost contempt? And of course the second question. Now he's here, what the fuck is he doing about it? Is it benign? What is going on? I'm sweating with the stress of it, and thank God that Amisa isn't a telepath herself, has not a shred of the gift. Because if she did... It doesn't bear thinking about. I so much don't want to even think about the possible consequences of that.

  No, no thinking, thinking is definitely, absolutely a terrible idea. Action is what has to be prioritised, in this grade-one klaxon-blaring emergency, and I act. I push back against the pressure that is Raj's warm hum of love and humour and, what is that, curiosity, against the upper, less sensitive layer of my mind. He's in the non-redacted, all-access portion currently. Thank God, because theoretically, otherwise, I would have to kill him.

  And I'm not too sure he was aware of me being aware of him until this moment, but now when I push he definitely is. And there's no guilty consciousness, no furtive awareness of wrong-doing and being caught in the act. No, only a great joyous wordless greeting, because although he's in here, in my cranium alongside me, which is pretty alarming and impressive in itself, apparently he's only mastered that first pre-verbal step of presence, accompanied with a little light poking around. I sag a little in my chair, feeling at least a rudimentary portion of relief.

  But not much. Because there's Amisa, ass resting up against her desk, as she stands before me, tapping a fancy fountain pen against her teeth, and gazing at the grey metallic cabinets of her office–one businesslike portion at least–thoughtfully. As she waits, and her eyes come to rest on me. "Easy?" she says, meditative, and I can detect in her tone that that troubles her. "Explain further, please, Izak."

  And there's no gainsaying her tone, her schoolmarm severity that's spelt out in the suddenly rigid line of her body. I don't know why the hell she's having this bug-out reaction, to a relatively inoffensive assessment of the induction process. But I don't have time to care, and I for sure don't have the capacity to process what she's asking me and come up with a reasoned, pacifying, coherent reply.

  Because I don't only have Raj's stumbling, amiable, bemused presence in my mind to contend with, and to conceal. He's not only here, giving me a virtual embrace, a warm strangling hug inside the sanctity of my private thoughts. He's active, and I recognise much too late that he has purpose. Purpose, or too much curiosity, because I feel the digging in of fish-hooks and grapples into parts of my mind, parts of me, parts of my powers that are so essential to my being that they are me. They belong to me, they are the power that's more rooted in me than persona or personality or person. My powers. Whatever witchcraft or device or latent ability he's using to be here, to crawl into the space where my power's located, it digs in, gets hold and I can feel it. No-one belongs there, not even Raj, no-one but me but it seems I have no defence against him, or nothing the dark secret me is willing to put to use.

  I can feel the moment he hooks in and uses my power, as well as his own, uses it. Oh God, and what ability is that, where has it come from? Can he have been psy all along and I never felt it, surely it’s not possible? I don't know what my face must look like. I'm too busy gawping in worried dismay, trying to hold it down and hold it in and hold it back. But I can't, I can't–as he crosses the barrier and the ether and the next barrier. Out of me, through the gap, and in Amisa's mind.

  No no no no oh God almighty, is most of what I feel. I can't understand how I haven't the power to prevent it, but evidently I haven't. I still can't tell, with him warm and wordless and fast in my mind, whether there's malice and plots involved, or if he's just insanely reckless and exploring uncharted territory. The kind of territory that could get the both of us killed, if she senses and detects his invasion.

  How can she not? How can anyone fail to perceive when the barrier to their mind, their own essential person, is breached by something alien that doesn't at all belong there?

  Of course, when I give someone a scan, take a tour through their essential self, most of the time they don't have a clue about it, unless they're unusually sensitive. And especially not if I'm careful about what I'm up to. The first that Raj himself knew about it, was when I actually explained to him the nature of my role, and a highly edited version of what my duties had been with respect to him.

  I'm an artist, and not just a gifted one. Not just insanely powerful. I have also worked, I have learned my craft, I have the skills and the chops that someone with a decade or two on me might expect. I could do it... probably. And even I've never attempted it, because I am chock-full of good sense and caution and the knowledge of how essential it is to pick your moment with the most extreme care. I am a bit of a coward, possibly.

  How can Raj possibly have the skill and the fine-tuning and the sensitivity to do this undetected, still less the raw power in the first place that it entails? And yet... I open my mouth to speak, a surely hopeless attempt to distract her. Any moment, a look of bewilderment, then perhaps disgust, terror, fury will overtake her face. She'll be too busy coming to the conclusion of psychi
c attack–which is something every Section employee is trained to recognise, of course. Then searching about, accusing the telepath nearest to hand, leaving me only with the options of giving myself up for arrest, or diving into her mind after Raj. Doing the job she'll accuse me of, wiping her mind of accusations. Doing a sloppy job in the rush of it and having it detected, being pursued by too many government agents for even me to control them all.

  Being abandoned to the fate my mother always feared for herself, for me, from the State. Sedated and controlled,imprisoned. Used as a tool without autonomy, if I'm even used at all, if my gift becomes anything more than the lure that guided me into a trap.

  But she's speaking to me, even as I feel Raj leap, and grasp to prevent him, and fail. My heart, it's a rabbit in my chest, hammering with great muscular hind legs, trying to break my ribcage open. But Amisa's speaking to me. Just as if nothing is wrong. Just as if she can't tell that a spot of breaking and entering is going on in her brain.

  Impatient, she is, and that's all that she is. Not traumatised, not furious, not screaming for security, leaping for the panic button to get me lashed down and tranqued. Before I can really get my–before Raj can get his hooks into her brain, and take her over. "For God's sake, Izak. Did your I.Q. just shoot down to single figures? Quit just staring into space, pretty boy. Just because you look like a weird-ass model doesn't mean you have to act like you're only as smart as one. The induction, Izak–your guy Rajan. Current subject. Ring a bell?" She's closing on contemptuous now, and I unscramble my powerful, jumbled wits to give her a coherent answer.

  Because, by the Lord, by some mercy he's got away with it. So far. Whatever he's doing in there.

  What was it she wanted to know, a thousand million years ago? Oh. Yes, how, why Raj's cleaning, weeding, was an easy job. "Yes," I say, quick, not knowing even what my mouth is coming out with. My voice is in a higher register than normal, skittery, nervous. "Well, like I say, it's unusual to have all the trouble spots in one place. Not even multiple spots. Just the one, well, if you visualise it as a clump you won't go far wrong. It's unusual, it's..." I gibber on, let my motor-mouth take over. But what I'm doing is something else entirely, as I fix my eyes on hers with the utmost concentration. I'm checking all the time for a diminution of her attention, for a sign that her attention is straying inward, to the smash and grab, the joy-riding raid going on inside her head.

  Mouth dropping open, I move to go after Raj, as immobile, invisible, undetectable as I can possibly manage it. But I'm arrested, divided, diluted power on the verge of sliding in there. Because I don't need to. Because the connections, the links that Raj is goddamned feeding off for his raid, the sneaky little shit, the terrifyingly strong Trojan horse, turns out they go both ways.

  He's transmitting back to me. Showing me what he's up to. And it's done with love and joy, still. Pride at having exploits to show me. He's showing off. And that's not all it is. There's also slyness, and wit, and a bit of a dare in there.

  How is he so much of himself, still? The induction, normally it wipes them out, pretty much. And what is he doing, because... Because his mood is changing, because it's darkening, quieting right down.

  You might picture my experience of someone else's mind as a continuous series of doors into successive rooms. The rooms are filled with filing cabinets, or lockers like a gym locker room. (Yes, I know, how quaint, how primitive, it's charming really. No servers, no data storage, no cloud. Positively twentieth century in its anachronism.) I have never known if the rooms, the containers, correspond to actual brain areas. But certainly they correspond, as I travel further, deeper in, to more personal and private areas, places a brain's normal service-user would be less and less happy to have alien company in.

  So that's the visual, the metaphor I experience and usually root around in, searching for things I shouldn't be searching for, checking that everything's in its right place, correctly ordered, nothing unusual. No hotspots that suggest violence, hate, insurrection, secret plotting. (They're not literally hot, not even in my subjective perception. But there's something dark, wrong, misplaced and egregious about them. I can always feel them out, much as they might look much like... Well, any other symbolic filing cabinet in any other mind.

  But now, without words, I don't have to go searching, off my own bat. (Why would I, either, in Amisa's mind? There's not going to be anything of that sort to look for. And besides, I have more sense.) I already see through Raj's eyes. And he's found something.

  But what has he found? There is, it's true, a cabinet, a locker that's somehow out of true. And he's not even very far in. One layer, one locked door down, perhaps two at most. This isn't deep and dark and tightly held to her chest, deep in her psyche. No, it's something that's regular, perhaps not everyday and mundane but still something unsurprising, taken in stride and dealt with.

  It does not glow. The cabinet is wrong, askew, crooked. But it's not packed with significance. There's no pressure in my own mind around it, like an unheard note with sound nullifiers clamped over the ears, still setting a sinister mood. And through Raj, I can see as he pulls the drawers open, slow. He's slow, and cautious, and how naturally skilled he must be that she feels nothing, drones on at me with words I'm zoning out, my face glassy-eyed as I nod at her, dutiful.

  Has he done this before? No, that's crazy, paranoid. It's not something he could possibly have hidden.

  Has he? Have we been played? Have I?

  It's less urgent than seeing what it is that's caught Raj's attention. And like a cameraman stereoscopically zooming in behind him, I swerve up closer and peer over the shoulder that only virtually exists. Because I'm taking a ride on his mind, as he sucks the energy and the gift out of mine, piggy-backs. As we both sneak and peek, inside Amisa's.

  Oh, it's a tangled web. But I see it, I see what's caught his attention with its wrongness, silently calling out and signalling to both of us, a random piece from the wrong jigsaw puzzle. In the file are induction procedures, subjects, Section meetings of higher-ups, and Higher-up yet than them. Each hanger, each file has its own little visual, for moments only. But when I concentrate on it, or when Raj does, it opens up into its true self, and for as long as I need to read or watch or understand, it opens up into figures and conversation and histories and criminal acts.

  Oh. The thing is, when we identify and induct a turned wolf, it's because there's good reason. Or when the Section does. Because it's not as if I truly identify with the employer that has sucked my old life from me. My old life, when I was an academic, a scholar, when I loved to teach and write and wasn't a pretty face in a sharp suit paid to seduce and betray and suck the self out of people's brains.

  A large proportion of that good reason is that the wolf is identified as a threat to the State, has insurrectionary thoughts and plans, is fermenting revolution and acts of terrorism.

  They take the risk less often with a born wolf. Since these are part of an established community, and the loss, the change is more likely to be noticed. The born wolves take care of their own, including the rebels and the troublemakers. When the State has to step in, justice is done, seen to be done, and nothing more, usually. (Unless an entire cadre without strong external links goes down. Then all may be inducted.)

  But I've always taken a hypocritical comfort in the existence of a fig-leaf, a slight veneer and trace of justification for my actions, my collusion in the whole enterprise.

  What a naïve little sweetie I was, after all. This file is bad. The next is worse. And the one after that... Well, of course they weren't being as discriminating about test subjects as all that. Really, it's so obvious that I'm kind of embarrassed, as much as shocked. Embarrassed to be shocked, embarrassed not to have even had it occur to me before now. That the explanations of the Section regarding their benevolent scheme, in which, hey, everybody wins! were so much tissue paper, decoratively covering up a further tissue of lies.

  It's partly true, and partly a lie. The truth is, their ideal targ
et subject, the criteria they aim for, that's fair enough, a fact. It's the sticking to it, when a juicy subject comes up, that's what's thrown by the wayside. A made wolf with extra abilities? They squeeze past the guidelines a little. A wolf with few to no family connections left, with no friends in the vicinity who'll come looking, asking questions? Ditto. A born wolf without a pack, no-one to speak up for him? I think you can guess. A wolf with proven, sterling leadership qualities, whose men will follow him to hell and back, a natural alpha male with the added enhancement of wolf dominance and judgement–a general amongst wolves?