by Rob Preece
"I hope you reported those Internet sites to the cybers,” she said stiffly.
"We've got reservations in an hour,” he told her, ignoring her comment. “It's casual."
Casual? Danielle closed the door to her room and looked in her closet.
Four herder uniforms and the Hunter informal dress uniform hung neatly from hangers, each still in its dry-cleaning bag.
In her chest of drawers, she had an assortment of T-shirts, workout clothes, a couple of Karate Gi, along with a three pair of jeans and underwear.
So what did one wear to a casual restaurant in the middle of the Dallas zone?
Not a uniform. Residents of the zone hated warders almost as much as they feared them. Which was fine with most warders, as long as the fear came first.
Somehow, though, jeans and a T-shirt seemed too informal.
There was no help for it. It was time go shopping.
She clicked onto the net and found the store where they ordered their food. It wasn't Neiman Marcus or Foley's, but they did have a small selection of clothing—and they'd deliver anywhere in the zone, something that the prestige stores in North Dallas would never even consider.
Highly aware of the minutes ticking away, Danielle input her size and color choice, then ordered the only halfway cute dress that showed up, along with a totally impractical-looking pair of shoes and, in a brief moment of complete unreality, a pair of stockings.
A pretty brownie dropped off the package twenty minutes later. Danielle almost plowed into Carl as she ran to the door and was glad she'd decided to get something new.
The werewolf wore a charcoal gray blazer with an open-necked shirt and a pair of navy slacks. The required Were marker was discretely embroidered into the shirt's collar. He looked more like the millionaire he was than the nerd scientist she'd imagined him to be.
"I'll be ready in a flash,” she told him, then headed back to her room.
Three minutes later, she decided to let him go out to dinner on his own.
The dress had looked charming and innocent in the computer display. On her, it was just short. The thin knit of the fabric molded to her slender figure and made it look like she'd added two cup sizes. And the stockings had seams up the back. She didn't have to worry about looking like a warder. Instead, she looked like a slut.
She wrapped her bathrobe around her and went out to deliver the bad news to Carl.
"It's the zone,” he reminded her when she told him about her disappointing shopping experience. “Nobody will care what you wear."
"I care,” she told him. “I mean, look at this.” She yanked off the robe and stood there in front of him. “You'll look like a guy who ordered up his date from an escort service."
"I'll look like a guy any other male will envy,” Carl told her. “Come on. We don't want to be late."
She was making a mistake by allowing him to talk her into leaving the house. Still, the look of pleasure in his eyes was gratifying to her. She wasn't interested in him that way, of course, but what woman doesn't enjoy being admired by a drop-dead gorgeous hunk of a man? Even if he wasn't really a human man any more.
After a short drive, Danielle handed her car-keys to a young zombie serving as valet and slipped her hand to Carl's elbow. “Don't drip any body bits into my car,” she told the zombie.
"Yeth,” he lisped.
"Zombies are very careful,” Carl reminded her. “I'm sure that's why they picked them for valets."
She looked at him closely. Again he was showing knowledge that he shouldn't have had. When had he learned about zombie habits? She'd have to bug his computer and his office to make sure he wasn't communicating electronically with other impaired.
The restaurant was casual, but in a very high-class way. Its atmosphere reminded Danielle of a movie she'd once seen about Germany between the first two world wars, a strange combination of decadent sophistication and fear. A jazz band played, the wait staff occasionally dropped everything and broke into song, and a brief cabaret demonstrated the remarkable talents of a myriad of individuals who were simultaneously magic-infested and gender-challenged.
Her attire, she found, was tame by the standards of the restaurant and she became a little more content with her choice.
Better yet, the food was spectacular.
Danielle rarely touched alcohol. For once, she let her emotions overrule her logic and smiled when Carl offered to pour her a glass of wine.
The rich red from the magic-overrun Bordeaux region of France made her tingle from her toes up.
Although Carl had told her that the club attracted some normals, she was still surprised to see a table of normal men, obviously enjoying a night on the town, ogling the cabaret entertainers, pawing at scantily clad waitresses, and generally making themselves obnoxious.
She was at the point of walking over and asking them to desist when the club manager appeared at her elbow. “Leave them alone,” he urged. “We don't want any trouble."
She nodded and tried to rejoin her conversation with Carl.
After a few minutes, she lost track of the normals. Carl entertained her with tales from graduate school, where he'd supported himself playing jazz saxophone in clubs something like this. That was before, of course. Clubs like this were no longer allowed in normal neighborhoods.
Since the return, normal society had gotten much more conservative, and anything this risqué was banned. Although he was only a few years older than her own twenty-six, Carl had grown up in a different world. No wonder he was inspired to find a cure and return to what he saw as real life.
* * * *
She thought she had things under control until the band slowed it down.
She and Carl had finished eating some time earlier and she wasn't surprised when many of the diners stood and moved to the dance floor. She was surprised when Carl got up and offered her his arm.
"Is it time to go?” A part of her had wanted to continue the evening, wallow in the pretense that she was just an ordinary woman living in a time before the zone.
He shook his head. “I haven't heard music like this since college. I'd love a dance."
She swung into his arms hesitantly, almost awkwardly. “You'll have to show me how,” she admitted.
"You don't dance? How can anyone go through life without dancing?"
Maybe if her mother had lived a little longer, Danielle would have been able to have an ordinary childhood and learned ordinary girly things like dancing and makeup. Instead she'd been sent to one of the countless orphanages that had sprung up after the return of magic had torn apart so many families. She'd learned how to fight, but she hadn't learned how to dance.
"Not all of us were born with silver spoons in our mouths."
Carl shook his head. “I hope you're not talking about me. I already told you I needed a scholarship to go to college. My parents were dirt-poor."
At least he'd had living parents. Danielle wasn't especially sympathetic.
"A jock like you should have no problems picking it up,” he told her when it became obvious she didn't intend to answer. “Come on, you'll have fun."
Fun with an impaired? She didn't think so. But everyone else was up and dancing and she didn't figure it could hurt.
"All right."
Three minutes later, she wondered why she hadn't learned this stuff years earlier. The band had switched to something Carl called Big Band, and she got to kick up her heels.
"You're leading,” he complained.
"Your point?"
"The guy is supposed to lead."
"New times make for new rules.” Admittedly the government was big into pushing traditional values, but there was no way Danielle was going to let anyone, let alone a werewolf, control where she went.
On the other hand, being in charge was more fun that she would have guessed. And Carl's muscles felt pretty good when she used his strength to launch herself into the air.
Danielle handed the parking receipt to the parking attendant, who
jogged off, leaving them alone in front of the restaurant.
Or were they alone?
She didn't see anything, but a warder learns to trust her instincts.
"What?"
"Something doesn't seem right.” She had her leash, but she'd left her heavier weapons locked in the car. At the time, that had seemed safer. Now, she wondered.
Carl sniffed at the air, his nose raised like a wolf's. “Something's about to—"
"Ever had any impaired ass?” The door to a parked white van swung open and four young men—normal humans from what he could tell—clambered out. The speaker, a bald man with a beer belly, was probably a normal, but he could have passed for a troll with his size and aggressive attitude.
"Can't get enough,” a second tough answered. His laughter was cruel and crude.
The group of normals she'd barely noticed when they'd been in the club stepped out behind Carl and her. On cue, she realized. This whole thing was staged. And now eight men surrounded them.
"It seems a shame to waste a piece like that on a dog like this.” One of the men from the club pulled a heavy automatic from his belt and pointed it casually in Carl's direction.
"You, scat. And leave the female."
"I don't think—"
"That's right, you don't think. You're an animal and I've got a gun loaded with silver bullets. Time to run away. Or die.” He laughed shortly. “I guess I'd just as soon you stay. I can buy more bullets."
Chapter 3
Danielle had seen the punks talking on their cell phones while she and Carl had danced, so she wasn't completely surprised by the situation.
"Warder business,” she stated. “Move along, citizens."
"You may be a warder,” the bald man told her. “But I don't think that dancing with an impaired is warder business."
"Warder Agent Danielle Goodman, Serial 2738433-763,” she told him. “Second warning, citizens."
"Let's not mess with another warder, Billy,” one of the punks from the club warned. “Maybe we should—"
"Maybe we should shut up and just do it. Is that what you were going to say? Because that sounds real smart to me."
When she'd first sensed something wrong, Danielle had started storing oxygen and flushing the residual effects of alcohol from her system. This whole thing was ludicrous. She was a warder, charged with protecting normals from the danger that the impaired present. Yet it looked like she would have to fight the very people it was her job to help.
If she simply stepped back, let them take out their frustrations on Carl, no one in headquarters would think worse of her. But she knew she wasn't going to do that. Carl believed in his research, and his faith was as contagious as some of the viruses that had swept across Earth during the bio-wars. If she left him, they'd kill him and she would have failed.
"We're going to walk away now,” she told the one called Billy. “When we do, you can go back home or go into the club and have a drink. If you try to make trouble for me and my charge, I'll give you more than you want to deal with."
Carl growled softly at her side. He hadn't shifted, but her warder perceptions let her sense the essence of wolf pressing against his human form. Overhead, the moon, nearly full, shone with silver reflection, heightening the magical powers of the night.Billy took a step forward. Danielle's magic-spotting senses showed her that while Billy might be courtesy normal, he had a touch of the magical within him. A bit more and he would be the troll he resembled. Too often, Danielle knew, those most closely related to magic hated it most. If he lived long enough, Billy might find himself locked into this side of the zone. She didn't think he would live long after that.
"Final warning, citizen,” she said, but she moved at the same time, stepping toward Billy, then turning with a jumping crescent kick to knock the automatic from the gunman's hand.
Billy caught her as she came down, using his strength to neutralize her quickness.
She headbutted him, splitting his piglike nose and assayed a palm-thrust to the groin. Billy had come prepared for a fight. Her strike met hardened plastic rather than soft flesh.
A howl split the night and the Were lunged at Billy's throat. A gunshot echoed in the narrow street. The lupine form jerked, then spun away.
She felt a vague surprise that the wolf would help her rather than run away. Still, she could worry about Carl later. Right now, she had her own problems. Billy was bleeding from her headbutt and she didn't think his gun hand would work after the kick it had taken, but he wasn't out of the fight. Other attackers closed in quickly.
She slammed a sidekick into Billy's knee and an elbow into his ribs, finally breaking the courtesy-normal's troll-like grip. Then she snap-kicked the man who'd shot Carl, sending his gun into the gutter.
She was in full blur now, pumping stored oxygen into her muscles and flooding her body with adrenaline until her thoughts and instincts became action.
All but one of her opponents slowed down to the relative crawl of the normal when facing a warder martial artist. One, though, blurred with her.
He was the man from the bar—the one who had urged Billy to back off. Now, though, he seemed intent on ending the fight his own way. He lurched forward, apparently uncoordinated and random in direction. Unfortunately for him, she'd trained to become a hunter. She knew the drunken-fighting style.
She blocked his attack, moving seamlessly from defense to counter, but he was ready too, parrying her strike before she could bring the full power of her body to bear. Whoever he was, he'd had Academy training.
Another attack and counter. Danielle knew she was better than he. Given time, she could take him. But she didn't have time. Sooner or later, one of the other normals would find the gun she'd kicked away. She glanced around using her peripheral vision to keep the other normals in sight.
Carl was down on the ground, transformed back to human form. Red blood oozed from a hole in his thigh. Apparently they hadn't been bluffing when they'd said they had silver bullets. Billy rolled on the ground groaning and clutching his knee. And the other six men had only started reacting to the battle.
Her warder opponent tossing something at her eyes, hoping to blind her, then followed it in.
She ducked, caught the scent of pepper, and stepped back.
As if this was a signal to bring the other men back into the fight, she sensed Billy behind her using his arms to pull himself to his feet. Another man clawed beneath his jacket going for his gun. They were certain they had her now. The warder would keep her busy, protect himself, and let one of the others pick her off.
It wasn't a bad plan, but Danielle didn't intend to stick around and watch it play out.
She dropped, rolled to Carl's side, then completed the roll to her feet lifting Carl's heavy bulk.
Another elbow, this one to the throat, took Billy out of the fight for the night.
She dumped Carl's still body into the passenger seat of the normal's van, vaulted over him, and took off.
Behind her, three shots crashed into the stolen van, then she turned a corner and left them behind.
That hadn't gone well.
"We need more help."
Carl looked like he'd aged twenty years. The silver bullet had ripped through his thigh, broken his leg, and lodged barely above his knee. Danielle had cut into his leg to remove the poisoned bullet, but he was still hurting.
A Were heals quickly, though, and Carl already looked a lot better than he had the previous evening, so Danielle wasn't sure what he was getting at.
"You're going to be fine. Besides, no doctor will come into the zone.” She could take him to a normal-side hospital, but his treatment there would be no better than it had been at the restaurant that first day. He'd be lucky if he was ignored. It was possible that some doctor would decide to finish what the thugs had started.
"I'm not talking about that."
"What, then?"
He ticked off his slender fingers. “Last night proves that things are getting worse. Those ga
ngsters would have killed both of us for no reason beyond simple prejudice. If we wait too long for the cure, it'll be too late. There'll be too much distrust between normals and the impaired."
"I'm in as big a hurry as anyone."
"I need a research team.” He held up a hand to forestall any suggestion that she play that role herself. “People with training. I mean, let's be honest. I'm trying to save the world and I'm working by myself."
"I can see that."
"And second, I need some field workers. The return of magic is the most important event of our generation and you know what? No one has even bothered to undertake a systematic analysis of the DNA sequence of the different magical talents. We've assumed that something in the makeup of the victim defines the type of magical being that they become, but we don't really know this. We've assumed that the normals have some sort of resistance, but we don't know that either."
Danielle put up a hand. “Everyone knows normals are different. That the magic infected the already defective, people with holes in their souls."
Carl laughed. “Show me somebody with a perfect soul and maybe I'll believe that. Come on Danielle, I'm no different than I was a year ago."
"Then why is late onset so rare?"
"That's another good question. I proved that magic is a virus, but what is its vector? Does it spread from person to person, or are there some intermediate hosts? We don't even know that. Why did it hit once, then mostly stop? If it was a one-time event, why are there any late-onset victims at all? I need to know that before I can be sure I have a cure. It's up to me to do the basic field work the NIH should have done ten years ago when this whole thing started."
Danielle stood, paced across the living room a couple of times and then stopped in front of him. “Bringing in additional people will increase the risk of your project. There's still rioting going on in the zone, you know. After we left, those lowlifes called in some friends and went on a rampage. Seven normals were killed. If we hire someone and they're killed, the authorities will shut down your project so fast you'll be back in jail before you know what happened."
