The Mountain's Shadow

by Cecilia Dominic

  “She’s got a knack for self-preservation.” Lonna grinned, and the red wine gave her purple teeth. She looked like she’d been sucking the lifeblood out of a wine barrel. “Don’t you, Joanie?”

  “I guess.” I swirled the wine in my glass. “I just knew something was wrong. Just like the night of the fire. Just like the night Louise died.”

  “Wait a second.” Iain set his glass on the table and turned to look at me. “You mentioned her earlier, and it slipped my mind. Just how did she die?”

  “She showed up one night bloody and hurt, badly hurt. She died on my suede couch. Or maybe it was microfiber. Either way, they took it.”

  “She died in your house?”

  “She knew my grandfather, was helping him at the house. I guess she knew how to get there from the village. It’s not like it’s a difficult path, just straight up the hill.”

  He arched an eyebrow, his expression serious. “Then maybe I need to get as far away from you as possible.”

  “That’s not nice, Iain.”

  “Oh, forgive me, Doctor Fisher.” He stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets as he paced back and forth. “If you may recall, I just survived an explosion, one which you also witnessed. I lost my favorite luggage set, my rental car, and likely a few years off my life! I don’t know if I’m in the mood to be nice.”

  Lonna opened her mouth, but I held my hand up. “If you’re not in the mood to be nice, then I’m not in the mood to deal with you. I suggest you call a cab and go find a hotel for the night. Then you can skedaddle right on back to Stirling tomorrow.”

  “Skedaddle?” He frowned, then the corner of his mouth twitched. “I don’t think that a Scotsman would skedaddle.”

  “Whatever. You can leave whenever you want to.”

  He sat back down. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that bastard Robert should be here to protect you, not me. He’s the real reason you’re in this mess. If he’d stood up for you at Cabal, none of this would have happened.”

  “And what do you know about that?”

  He looked down at the wineglass cradled in his hands. “Robert didn’t want to fire you, but he said he was under a lot of pressure from his bosses—who were getting heat, if you’ll forgive the pun—from the bigwigs at the pharmaceutical company that bought Cabal.”

  “Wait a second. Cabal was bought by a pharmaceutical company? I thought it was another research organization.”

  “It was the research arm of one of the big ones, I forget which one. I think it only has one word in the name. The information should be online.” He opened his laptop and waited for it to boot up.

  “Lonna, did you have any luck figuring out where those vaccines came from?”

  “I’d almost forgotten. Yes, I talked to Jasmin, who looked in the state database. I could only get an idea of which ones were distributed in the region. The only company that had both the flu vaccine and the Tdap vaccine came from…”

  “Hippocrates Pharmaceuticals,” she and Iain said at the same time.

  I wish I could say that everything became clear at that point, but I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach. My foe—and the threat to me and my friends—had just gotten a lot bigger. I also knew with certainty that I was going to have to talk to Robert and find out what this “pressure” was and how my projects had changed since I had been “terminated”.

  I didn’t think I would be able to sleep that night considering the events of the day, so I was surprised when the ringing of my cell phone woke me up.

  “Doctor, is everything okay?”

  I rolled over and looked at the clock. Midnight.

  “Yes, Gabriel, everything’s fine.”

  “I was just checking the news online and saw the piece about the explosion in the Local/Arkansas section. Your name was mentioned.” He didn’t say anything about Iain’s, although surely his must have been as well. “Were you injured?”

  “Only my left wrist again. You weren’t there to save me this time.” I couldn’t keep the resentment out of my voice.

  “That is something I will always regret.”

  The genuine sorrow in his voice tugged at my heart, particularly since I had meant to tweak him, but then the conversation with Galbraith and Iain popped into my head.

  “You knew Iain McPherson? He said you were on his research team and left, then you showed up when my grandfather started looking for domestic help.”

  “You sound suspicious.”

  “Something doesn’t quite add up.”

  “Did Doctor McPherson also tell you I had collected everything I could find on your work? That I was your ‘biggest fan’, so to speak?”

  “He mentioned that you were very interested in it.”

  “What would you say if I told you I took the position for the chance to be near you?”

  “I would say that that’s creepy, almost stalker-ish. How do I know you weren’t trying to use me for my knowledge? Or my grandfather? Leo said you were a lab rat.”

  Silence. I could tell that I’d really hurt him. Gads, I hated how those late-night conversations could strip away the facades we put up. But he had kept information from me, and right now I couldn’t trust anyone, not even Lonna, whom I heard moving around in the living room. At least I thought it was Lonna. Maybe it was Iain because whoever it was didn’t sound like they knew where everything was. I held my breath and listened hard.

  “Doctor Fisher? Is everything okay?” My heart broke at the formality in his tone, the new wall between us.

  “Someone’s in the apartment.”

  “Just stay where you are. I’m calling the police.”

  “No, don’t do that yet. I’ll keep you on the phone. Let me just peek my head out and see if it’s Lonna or Iain bumping around.”

  “Is that wise?” Aha! Still that note of concern.

  “I promise, you’ll hear everything I do.”

  I opened the door just wide enough to squeeze through, and cell phone in hand, I crept down the hallway to the living room. The front door stood wide open, and something lay crumpled in a pile in front of it. I knelt down and saw Lonna’s crimson Razorback T-shirt and boxers—the ones she had gone to bed in.

  “Gabriel, I’m not sure what to make of this,” I whispered into the phone.

  “Of what?”

  “Lonna seems to have left the apartment.”

  “She lives there, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, but I think she left naked. Her clothes are by the door.”

  Gabriel sighed. “I had a suspicion, but there was no way for me to know with certainty. I would have told you had I been sure.”

  All the pieces to that puzzle fell into place. Lonna’s moodiness, her strange illness, and the way the male werewolves had reacted to her. “There’s something you haven’t been telling me, isn’t there? Something else.”

  “I don’t think I need to tell you, do I?”

  “No.” My best friend had become one of them. “I have to go.”

  “Be careful. A new werewolf can be difficult to control.”

  “I’ll wake Iain.”

  A pause. “That’s probably a good idea. But good luck getting him to believe you. He never accepted CLS as more than a mental illness.”

  “He’s going to have to. At least I’ve got compelling evidence.”

  “You and I can have a long conversation when you get back. I promise to explain everything to your satisfaction.”

  “I hope so. I think he’s coming with me.”

  Another pause. “I’ll prepare a room.”

  “Gabriel?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks. Whatever tonight and the next few days bring, I’m really glad you’ve got my back. Even if you’re a creepy stalker Scot.”

  “You’re welcome, I think.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The door creaked on its hinges as the wind picked up, and I moved to shut it. With the door closed
, in the silence, I could almost believe I was in a waking dream—that it would be over when I went back to bed and shut my eyes. But then my feet found the discarded garments. What had Gabriel said? That a new werewolf was hard to control. It had never been possible to control Lonna. Just look at the mess she’d made with Peter Bowman. This wasn’t going to be easy. I closed my eyes and wished for Leo to return.

  A footstep startled me, and I ducked the wine bottle that came swinging toward my head.

  “What the hell—”

  “Oh, it’s you, Joanna.” Iain flipped on the light, and the discarded pile of clothing came into lurid view as did the toppled end table and coffee table. The sofa and chairs, while still upright, sat at odd angles as though they’d been drinking with the lights off. “What’s going on? I heard someone moving around in here. I think they bumped into everything.”

  “Lonna’s gone out for a run.”

  He looked at the clothes by my feet and arched an eyebrow. “Naked?”

  “If you weren’t gay, I’d swear that idea titillated you.”

  “If I wasn’t gay, I’d allow it to distract me. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  I took a deep breath. “This is going to be a little hard to believe.”

  “Someone tried to blow me up today for no logical reason. I’m up for believing anything.”

  I gave him the quick-and-dirty explanation of CLS as we grabbed our jackets and put shoes on. He listened, but I could tell he didn’t really buy it.

  “So you’re saying that we’re dealing with true werewolves, not just delusions?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, Iain, but it’s true. I’ve seen them. I saw Gabriel transform, and it wasn’t a trick of the light. I’ve dealt with them post-metamorphosis and after a long night of hunting. I’ve heard them argue over who got to kill a deer with human voices in canine mouths.”

  “How is that physically possible?”

  “I suspect it was telepathic—I can understand them when others can’t—but still, you’ve got to believe me.”

  “Whether Lonna has what I know of as CLS or what you’re telling me doesn’t matter. How did she develop it?”

  I released the breath I’d been holding. Good, he’s back in scientist mode. “With some help. I just need to figure out who and how. But first we have to find her.”

  “And just what, exactly, are we looking for? Is she still part human?”

  “I don’t know.” I handed him a flashlight, and we walked out the door. I locked it behind me and put the key in my pocket, then hesitated. What if she came back and ended up being locked out, naked on her front step?

  “Hang on.”

  I dashed inside and hung the boxers and T-shirt on the outside doorknob. “Just in case.”

  Iain gestured for me to precede him down the stairwell. The lights illuminated a ten-foot radius, but beyond that, inky blackness.

  “Um, why don’t you go ahead?”

  “Afraid of the dark and things that go bump in the night?”

  Before I could answer, a howl split the air, reached a crescendo of triumph, and then tapered, the quiet of the night such that the vacuum of sound left by the howl momentarily sucked all noises into it.

  “What was that?” Iain searched the darkness with wide eyes as we walked down the stairs side by side.

  “I hope it was Lonna.”

  “Who else might it be?”

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t really feel like going into the whole black-wolf mystery right then. He’d really think I was mad. Still, my heart rate picked up. Was it Leo? Was he trying to warn me?

  “Where do you think she might go?”

  “Hmmm…” I flicked on my flashlight. “There’s an Italian place around the corner. Why don’t we check the dumpster?”

  “Werewolves go dumpster diving?”

  “She might be hungry.”

  “You don’t think she’s hunting?”

  “I don’t want to think of her like that.”

  “The jealousy in your voice is priceless.”

  I stopped and he bumped into me. “What do you mean?”

  “You sound sulky, like you wish it had been you.”

  “Do not.” We moved onward again and headed toward the patch of woods behind the apartments and beyond a small lake. The path around the pond was treacherous during the daytime with loose gravel and places where the path may slide out from under unwary walkers, so we stuck to the ground above it. We searched the area for footprints, but the wet grass kept its secrets.

  “This is pointless,” Iain started to say, but I heard something and held my hand up. “What?”

  “Do you hear that?” It was a scratching noise.

  “Hear what?”

  “Follow me.”

  We crept around to the right of the pond and heard it more clearly, a noise like someone—or something—scratching in the dirt. Then I realized that something pawed at the spent coals in the barbecue pit. Our flashlight beams hit it at the same time: a wolf with tawny fur ticked in black. It glared back at us with topaz eyes, a bone in its mouth.

  “Iain, that’s her.”

  “Ah, and how do you know?”

  “I could make some smart-ass comment about that being how she always looks if you try to take barbecue away from her, but it’s the fur. It’s her coloring. And the eyes.”

  “Right now she’s looking at us like we’re dinner.”

  “Running away from a predator is the best way to get it to chase you.”

  “So what do we do now that we’ve found her?”

  “Good question.”

  She answered it for us by spitting the bone out and loping down the hillside to the woods, where she vanished among the trees.

  “What now? Go after her?”

  I nudged the bone with a toe. “We’re never going to be able to keep up with her. We’re going to have to wait until dawn and then try to find her before she gets taken to the loony bin for running around naked.”

  “I had no idea hanging out with you would be so interesting.”

  “Me neither. Or should I say likewise? Until I saw you today, no one had tried to blow me up.”

  “Is there someone else who could help?” he asked as we made our way back up the slope and picked through the weeds at the side of the lake.

  “Like who?”

  “Another werewolf?”

  “The only one who’s nearby is busy on another hunt.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Five, er, six now. That I know of, anyway.”

  “That’s incredible. It’s the advance we’ve been looking for, the one we didn’t dare think would happen, but which defines the disease.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you remember my book, the one about Hillary Baehr, the woman who escaped from the asylum?”

  “Yep. It’s required reading at Cabal now.”

  “I didn’t want to put it in there for fear someone would refuse to take it seriously, but the guard on duty that night said that the only strange thing he noticed was a ‘large dog’ that dashed through the yard and then disappeared.”

  I swung my flashlight so that the beam hit him in the face, his pupils narrowing before he put a hand up to block the light. “Now I know you’re kidding me.”

  He squinted. “Think about it. Say you’re an orderly doing your rounds, and you look into a patient room, but you don’t see her. So you open the door, and a wolf dashes out. You look inside the room, no patient, so you sound the alarm. But who is going to believe you if you tell them a wolf came out of the room? No one, and they’ll probably stick you in the room next door.”

  “But how would a wolf get out of an asylum?”

  “If she was a patient there, she would know the nooks and crannies that a human may not be able to access or hide in, but an animal might, particularly a petite one. And who cares if the patients see you? They’re all crazy anyway. You just wait and slip out behind someone who
can open the doors.”

  “I guess that’s plausible.”

  “Now that you know I’m not kidding you, perhaps we should call one of your friends. Dawn won’t be for another few hours. They could follow her trail and find her before she hurts herself.”

  “They’re all up in Piney Mount, er, Crystal Pines. It will take them hours to get here.”

  “What about the one who’s not? The good Doctor Bowman?”

  “He’s chasing another werewolf.”

  “So that makes seven?”

  “Yep. At least, I think that one’s a werewolf. I don’t know the human behind it.”

  “Call Gabriel.”

  “What?”

  “He’s one of them, right? That’s why he was so interested in your work.”

  “I guess.”

  “Joanie, it’s better than nothing. Your friend could hurt herself or someone else.”

  “Are you really concerned about Lonna or more interested in finding a research subject?”

  Iain shrugged. “Would you hate me if I said yes to both?”

  “No, I guess I would understand.”

  I tried the house, but Gabriel wasn’t answering, and his cell phone went to voice mail. I had no idea how to find Ron or Leo—Ron may be at the house, but he wouldn’t answer the phone. Leo could be anywhere.

  So we did the only logical thing. We made a large pot of coffee and waited for sunrise. In spite of the caffeine, I had difficulty staying awake. So did Iain, and we were both startled when someone pounded on the door.

  “Is it her?” I asked.

  He held up one finger and reached for the heavy flashlight as I tiptoed to the door and looked through the peephole.

  “It’s Gabriel.” I hoped he didn’t hear the relief in my voice.

  “The research assistant turned butler has arrived to save the day.”

  I shot Iain a dirty look and opened the door. Gabriel’s expression turned from concern to carefully neutral when he saw his fellow Scot.

  “Doctor McPherson,” he said and held out his hand. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “Likewise. I guess. So I understand you have CLS. That explains a lot, admittedly. But why didn’t you tell me?”