by Sarah Blair
“It’s not exactly the same, but that looks like the sword on his wall.”
“What sword?”
“Dimitrius has a huge sword.”
“That’s what she said.”
Sidney smacked his shoulder.
“Sorry, how could I let that slide?” Williams pointed to the sword on the page. “This is Caledfwlch.”
“Cal-eh-what-huh?”
“Cal-ed-vol-hagh.” Williams repeated slowly. It sounded like he choked up a hairball on the last syllable. “It’s the original name for King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur. Glastonbury is really close to Bath. I’m sort of an Arthurian geek.”
“How did I not know this about you?”
Williams shrugged and suddenly found his coffee very interesting. “It was more of a phase I went through in high school. Glastonbury is supposed to be where the land of Avalon was. King Arthur’s bones were buried there once, but no one knows what became of them.”
“I know. I’ve been there,” Sidney said.
“Wait. What?”
“Field trip.”
“Right, of course. Me? I went to the Brooklyn Zoo in the fourth grade.”
“Yeah, okay,” she waved him off. “So, maybe Dimitrius is an Arthurian geek too.”
“Actually, the original meaning of Caledfwlch, comes from the combination of two Welsh words meaning ‘battle’ and ‘gap or notch’, and one of the words in Old Irish for the word ‘gap or eye’ is Suil, sort of similar to Sulis.”
Sidney straightened up and frowned. “You think maybe there’s a connection between the sword and Sulis?”
“Could be, but what?”
“She was the patron goddess of the baths. Dimitrius said her power came from the water. Wasn’t there a Lady of the Lake or something?”
Williams turned in his chair. “In several versions of the legend, the Lady of the Lake did bestow a sword on King Arthur.”
“How do swords get their names?”
“It’s different for each weapon. Sometimes it could be named after what it looks like, or what it accomplished, or who wielded it.”
“Or a local deity?”
“You’re suggesting Sulis Minerva is the Lady of the Lake from the King Arthur legend.”
“Why not?”
“All right, I can see how a connection between Sulis and the sword might be plausible. The Lady of the Lake was supposedly extremely powerful, like a goddess would have been. Maybe over time Sulis might have been replaced with the idea of the Lady, especially with Christian influence over pagan traditions. I mean, the earliest mention of Arthur isn’t even until the 5th century when Christianity was—”
“Hey, Wills? Your nerd is showing. Zip it up, buddy.”
He snapped his mouth shut.
“If that’s true, then how does Dimitrius fit in to all this?” she asked. “Assuming the sword on his wall actually is Excalibur, and not some showpiece he got at a Renaissance Fair.”
Williams stood up and paced back and forth beside his desk. “The guy’s wealthy and powerful, and extremely old. There’s no telling how he could have acquired it. Inheritance, battle, theft, auction, maybe he saw it saw it on the side of the road and thought it was pretty? I don’t know.”
She studied the photo of the sword on the screen. “What if Sulis gave it to him?”
“What do you mean?”
“His name is Dimitrius Arturus Valerian.”
“But, that would mean— impossible— how could—no—what?” he sputtered. For a moment, she thought he might start hyperventilating.
“Is it? There’s a huge sword over his mantle and he wears that exact coin around his neck. Dimitrius told me Sulis made him what he is. They were in love. What if she gave him a sword as a romantic gesture? That was a common thing back then, wasn’t it?”
Williams threw his head back and blew a noisy raspberry at the ceiling. “Please, God, tell me I did not use the word ‘splodey’ in front of King Arthur.”
“At least you didn’t make out with him,” Sidney muttered.
“Huh?”
“What? Nothing. I’m going to go home and grab some work clothes. I’ll meet you at the office and we’ll see what the chief thinks.”
“I’ll see you down there.” Williams walked her to the door. He snapped his fingers as she stepped outside. “Excalibur! That’s what he should have named his club.”
Twenty-Six
As if the stink of the subway system wasn’t bad enough before, it was a thousand times worse with her newly acquired super senses. Even breathing through her mouth couldn’t disguise the stench of trash, and rats, and even a tinge of wet dog. It made her think of the shifters, and she clenched her fists automatically, trying to quell the adrenaline that burst into her system.
The tell-tale breeze of the incoming train tossed her hair and blew the scent away. Sidney caught sight of a red hood as she stepped onto the train. Something about the jacket sparked her memory and she stared at the man who sank into the seat at the other end of the car.
That elemental instinct that told her danger was near perked up her senses and her pulse quickened.
The man didn’t look at her the entire subway ride. He didn’t look at anything but his ratty old boots and the torn hem of his black jeans. It was probably nothing. The call from her grandfather was affecting her mind. He wasn’t having her followed. He didn’t know what she really was. Still, after working at the agency for so long she’d learned to trust her instincts about things. Usually a creepy feeling indicated something was up.
Sidney dashed out of the train as soon as the doors opened and the red hoodie did too. She merged with the people exiting at Times Square. At the lunch rush, it seemed like everyone in Manhattan was here in this station. She detoured to the platform for the Uptown R train, and then to the Downtown 2 platform, just to throw him off, but when she scanned the crowd again she didn’t spot a single flash of red.
When she thought it was safe, she went over to the Shuttle to Grand Central Terminal. The train was already in the station and she jogged on right as the doors closed.
When the train pulled into the station, she blended with the rest of the crowd at Grand Central and stopped glancing over her shoulder every few seconds, even though her heart still banged inside her chest. She told herself it was a coincidence. There were probably thousands of guys in red hoodies all over the city at that exact moment. It didn’t mean anything.
“Sidney Lake,” a low growl trickled down her spine and a faded red sleeve entered her peripheral vision. She pretended she didn’t hear her name and stepped out into the street dodging cabs, cars, and a delivery truck like Frogger across Lexington Avenue.
There was no intention to reach into her pocket, grab her keys and get inside her apartment. She knew she wouldn’t make it. Besides, she didn’t want this creeper knowing where she lived, in case he didn’t already.
As soon as she passed her building, she broke into a run. She only took a few steps before sharp claws dug into her arm and yanked her to a halt. She spun around, ready to plant the heel of her hand in his face, but he blocked her move.
Now that she was close, she could see why he’d kept his hood up this whole time.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” It was strange hearing actual words come out from between those unnaturally sharp teeth.
Sidney tried not to breathe at all, but her senses were on full alert and she couldn’t stop herself from sucking in that smell.
“I only want to talk.” That voice was a low rumble.
“Hey, lady.” A guy with a messenger bag tossed over one shoulder rode up next to them on a bike. “This guy bothering you?”
The man in the hoodie growled and snapped his jaws. The too-familiar sound made her heart stop.
“Holy fuck!” The bike messenger zipped down the road, nearly splattering into traffic at the bottom of the hill.
Sidney stared at the hybrid man-wolf in front of her. From this distance she could see
the similarity between this man and the two John Does they’d found. Only, this guy was alive and breathing. It was like he’d been frozen in the middle of a transformation.
Everything inside her body told her to run, but if there was any chance he could tell her what the hell was going on, give her any clue whatsoever about why these bodies had appeared and who they were, then she would gladly take it.
“You have my attention, but you’re going to have to loosen your grip,” she said.
“Sorry.” He eased his hold on her arm and blood blossomed onto her shirt where his claws had dug in. “Even after all this time, I forget.”
“Forget what?” Sidney asked.
“That I’m not human.”
“What are you?”
He glanced around, up and down the street. “Not here. Is there some place safe we can talk?”
Sidney weighed the options. It was stupid to bring him up to her apartment, really stupid. But they couldn’t exactly walk into the coffee shop on the corner, order a cappuccino, and hang out like old friends. Well, they could, but not without sending people out the door screaming.
She shut her eyes and sighed. “My place is right here.”
They walked back to her building. She opened the door and nodded him in first, “Third floor.”
The creature leaned heavily on the railing, his body not quite moving the way a man’s should move to climb the stairs. She sent a text to Mitch: Earwig. It was code that he should answer and listen but not speak when she called. They reached her landing and she waved the hybrid inside first, then pointed to the couch.
“Sit down on your hands. Wait here,” she said.
Sidney went back to her bedroom and pulled the gun Mitch had given her out of her bedside table. She checked the clip and made sure it was ready to go. On her way back through the kitchen, she grabbed her biggest chopping knife out of the drawer. It had to be sharp, she never used it. She dialed Mitch and let the phone ring.
Back in the living room, she set her phone on the desk and made no effort to hide her weapons. The man—wolf—thing, sat on the couch exactly as she had instructed. His hood was off his head, revealing his pointy ears and shaggy tangled hair. The eyes and nose were human, but the jawline was off somehow.
It was grotesque, and Sidney wasn’t sure what was worse, the fully changed wolves or this other hybrid creature.
“Okay, who are you?” she asked.
“David Anderson, Special Forces, United States Army.” He removed his arms from underneath him.
Sidney tightened her grip on the gun. He slowed his motions to let her know he wasn’t going to try anything, then pulled up the sleeve of his jacket to reveal a familiar tattoo on his forearm.
“What happened? How did you get to be like this?”
“We were on a covert operation in Afghanistan back in the ‘80s, monitoring Soviet action in the mountains. Our squad came under attack one night, only not with firepower. It was something else. Our leader was torn to bits by an animal. We figured it was a mountain lion or a panther.” He shoved his disfigured hands in the front pockets of his jacket and kept talking.
“Next night, same thing. Another guy down. Night after that, we were ready, waiting. We opened fire, but it kept coming. I was bitten, so were Knight and Wier. Larsen was scratched all to hell, but we caught the thing. Killed it. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen in my life before or since.”
“Werewolf?” Sidney asked.
He gave a decisive nod. “We were quarantined. Turned into fucking guinea pigs. They told us they were going to find a cure. At first, I could change back. I looked human and nobody could tell the difference. But they kept giving us drugs, said it would fix us—now look at me.”
Sidney couldn’t help but flinch. Not because of what he was, but what he reminded her of; the body on the platform, the snap of those powerful jaws next to her head, and the scrape of claws across her back. She shivered, trying to push the memory to the back of her mind so she could concentrate.
He ran his claws over his head; such a human gesture didn’t fit his appearance. Sidney did her best to hide her reaction, but she wasn’t very successful.
“See? People are terrified of me. Even you. I can’t get a job. Can’t have a family. If only they’d left us the hell alone. They ruined us and now they’re killing us off, taking care of their mistakes, one by one.”
“The body in the subway?”
The thing shook his head. “We were told we were being transferred. They put us on a boat. Once they took out Knight, we realized what was happening. It was an execution. Wier, Larsen, and I overpowered them and escaped. We hid out in the subway a few days, but Wier wanted to get help. Larsen freaked out and killed him. I haven’t seen him since.”
“Who’s ‘they’? Who did this to you?” Sidney demanded.
His response was cut off by a loud crash in the back bathroom.
The man launched off the couch. Before she could blink, he had her in his grasp with the gun to her head.
“Don’t struggle and they won’t hurt you,” he growled in her ear. “Just do what they say. They want you alive.”
“What is this?” Sidney struggled against his grip, but his strength matched her own. She cursed herself for being so stupid. “What did you do?”
“They said if I got you, they could fix me,” he said. “You’re the key to all of this.”
Two men just like the ones from the morgue barreled through her kitchen door and piled into her living room.
Sidney took a deep slow breath as they blocked both exits. There was no way out.
“You’re surrounded. We don’t want to hurt you. Come with us quietly and everything will be okay,” the first man said.
“It’s fine.” She forced her body to relax. “I’m not an idiot, I can see when I’m outnumbered.”
It surprised her how calm her voice sounded. The hybrid’s grip on her eased.
Sidney slipped her hand free, grabbed his hand with the gun in it, and squeezed the trigger. The back of the first man’s head sprayed across her door.
Chaos erupted. Before he hit the floor, the second man was in motion.
The hybrid’s head exploded. Bits of brain matter and bone caught in her hair. Blood splashed across her favorite Waterhouse print. She fired back and hit her target.
At the same time, two more men came through the kitchen door, followed by two fully-changed shifters.
Long snouts caught the scent of carnage in the air and went straight for the fresh bodies. The remaining two in human form came for her.
That was just fine. Humans, she could deal with. She placed a swift kick into the kneecap of the first man to lunge at her. It crunched like a bunch of fresh celery snapping in two. He hit the floor, an unnatural growl emanating from his lips.
The crack and pop of a different kind echoed off her walls as he morphed into a wolf. She fired two bullets into his head and he fell still. After the fight in the morgue, she knew better than to assume he was dead.
Something stung her shoulder. There was a hole in her shirt, and the last man holding a gun grinned in satisfaction. His malicious look melted away when he realized it had no effect. She closed her hand around the knife just as he plowed into her.
She tumbled backwards, ending up on top, knife ready. Her lungs burned from exertion, but she wouldn’t dare pause to catch her breath. Mitch yelled, as if he could get to her by sheer will power alone, but his voice was small and ineffectual through the phone.
The intruder roared out in pain as Sidney plunged the blade into his neck. She gagged and twisted the hilt, cutting off the sound of his voice as she slashed the blade under his chin. She shoved him aside and grabbed the gun, glad to have a weapon in each hand.
Heavy paws knocked her into the desk. Stars burst across her vision.
Claws dug into her chest, pinning her to the ground again.
Sidney shot the thing. It jerked and rolled to the side. She turned and emptied the cl
ip into it. For an instant she was on the floor in her parents’ bedroom, shooting at a different creature. The memory left her dizzy and disoriented.
The door burst open. She threw the knife out of instinct and it lodged in the wall right next to Mitch’s head.
“What the fuck?” she yelled.
“Are you okay?” His eyes were wild behind his glasses.
“Are you crazy?” She staggered to her feet. “I could have killed you!”
“Look out—”
He dove at her. She tripped over the chair as she went down. Mitch’s weight knocked the breath out of her.
The second shifter pounced on them. Sidney snatched up one of the intruder’s guns and put a bullet in the creature’s skull.
It collapsed under the table.
She shoved Mitch away, coughing and gasping to get air back into her lungs. When she could breathe again, she pushed up from the floor. There was no reason to rush as she went to the door and tried to yank the knife out of the wall. The hilt slipped through her grasp, covered in blood. She dried her hand on her shirt, and tried again.
Straddling the creature’s back, she drove the blade down into the base of its skull, using both hands to twist the knife. A soft sound and loosening of the neck let her know the moment the tendons separated from the spinal column.
She turned and grinned at Mitch.
“That was close, huh?”
Twenty-Seven
The smile faded from her face when he didn’t move, didn’t even blink. He just kneeled there, completely frozen.
He said it took more than claws and fur to make a monster. Maybe this is what he’d meant. Maybe she didn’t have to change into a wolf to become something that disgusted and frightened him.
“Mitch I—”
“It didn’t break the skin.” He swallowed hard. Shuddered. “I don’t think it broke the skin.”
“What?”
He lifted the bottom of his shirt. A red crescent shape marred his abdomen just under his ribs.
Sidney dove for him, ran her fingers over the indention. The marks were red, quickly fading to purple, but the skin wasn’t broken. She shook her head.
