Lycanthropy Files Box Set: Books 1-3 Plus Novella

by Cecilia Dominic

  “From when, nineteen hundred?”

  “Nineteen forty-three,” I murmured.

  Her hand dropped back to her side. “Look, I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something,” she said. “I was driving by and…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “That’s a lie. I looked you up and found you.”

  I bit my tongue so I wouldn't ask if she’d consulted her scarfaced concussion-dealing friend before showing up for a visit. “What can I fix you to drink?”

  She opened her eyes, and her open face betrayed her surprise. How had she gotten mixed up with that bloke at the pub? She reeked of innocence, but she was no dummy. “To drink?” she asked.

  “The rules of hospitality dictate that if a guest shows up at one’s residence, one should offer some sort of refreshment. Thus, would you like a drink?”

  “Yes, but…” She glanced at the Scotch, then back at me. “Do you have any wine?”

  I gestured to my dual zone wine fridge. “Red or white?”

  “White, please.”

  Soon I had her settled with a glass of Chenin Blanc on the opposite end of the sofa. The similarity to David’s visit from earlier didn’t escape me, but she was nicer to look at.

  “So what brings you to Shady Acres?” I asked. “I’m afraid it’s not the Scotland in coffee table books.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “It’s not so different from home except our historical houses are a couple, not several, hundred years old. As for what brings me…” She looked into her glass. “I wanted to know how the investigation into Otis’s death is going.”

  “I had official business today, so I wasn’t able to do any investigating, but I will give it my full attention tomorrow. I’m hoping Garou will have his reports ready by then.”

  “Are you going to question us? He already did.”

  “That depends. Can you add to your statement?”

  “Garou implied we were dating,” she said. “But we weren’t. But still, it’s my fault that Otis died.”

  That drew my attention away from the curve of her neck and the way one button on her blouse seemed to hang on for dear life over her breasts. “Fill me in here. How does Garou’s implication cause you to be a murderer?”

  She blinked, and two fat tears trailed down her cheeks. “Other people thought we were dating, or at least that we were more than friends. Because we were the same age and American, maybe. Lonna even hinted that it wouldn’t be a good idea to cross personal and professional relationships.” She snorted. “Like she’s not married to her co-director.”

  “Right. Believe me, we did consider that, but we need both of them. Go on. I’m still not convinced LeConte’s death is your fault.”

  “That morning after staffing, he asked me to walk with him to his office. He said he had something to ask me. I was afraid of what he’d say, he looked so hopeful and afraid all at the same time. I said no, I had things I needed to do before your visit. The next time I saw him, he was dead.”

  “What do you think he was going to ask you?”

  “To go out with him, I guess. I don’t know what else it could have been. But don’t you see? If I’d gone to his office with him, he might not have been killed or he would have had warning that something wasn’t right. You know we hear and smell better than humans do.”

  “Or they might have gotten you too,” I reminded her. “Did you go to his office between his request to you that morning and when we found him?”

  “I…” She looked down at her now empty wine glass. “I didn’t.”

  I knew she was lying, but I didn’t want to confront her and spook my only link to the murder’s witness into running for the States. That she opened up to me even minimally gave me hope she would continue to do so as she came to trust me. “Do you remember anything else unusual about him or his behavior that day?”

  “No, only that he was excited about getting the applications. He had a project on the side tracing the family records of known lycanthrope lines, and he was looking forward to putting it all together to see how the subjects’ lines intersected with the ones we know about and to isolate another genetic marker to maybe figure out why Chronic Lycanthropy Syndrome fully expresses in some people but not in others.” She shrugged. “That’s all I can remember.”

  “I appreciate your coming to visit me today, but was it really necessary?”

  “I needed to talk to you outside the Institute. I don’t feel comfortable there anymore.” She shuddered. “It’s like I’m being watched.”

  I thought about the letter in the kitchen. “I know the feeling.”

  She stood, and I did as well. “Thank you for the wine,” she said and held out her glass to me.

  “My pleasure.” Our fingertips brushed when she handed the crystal over, and again, I got the image of her as a wolf looking into a pool of water, not unlike where David and I had stopped and been shot at that afternoon.

  She looked up at me with a smile she tucked away, and again, I wondered what she’d seen. It was unusual enough for such strong visual images to come through with scent, and for them to do so with touch puzzled me. Was it part of me coming into my full power?

  “I should be going,” she said.

  I followed her to the front door. “Be careful,” I told her. “You don’t know who or what is out there watching.”

  With a quick nod, she walked to her car and went to the passenger side before sighing and going to the driver’s side. She must not have been in the country that long if she was still trying to drive from the wrong side of the car. I hoped she would remember what side of the road to use.

  After she left, I double-checked all my security measures to ensure nothing had been tampered with. All looked secure, and I took a hot shower. When I got out, I saw something scrawled in the mist on the mirror: 204, the number that had been scrawled at the edge of the photograph of my father’s mangled corpse.

  A chill chased away the heat from the shower, and I hesitated to wipe the fog from the rest of the mirror. Would another face besides my own stare back at me? I licked my lips and tasted salt. Tears?

  I wiped the fog from the mirror, but what faced me wasn’t my father’s or even my face, but a scene from the past. It was the kitchen of my parents’ flat in Lycan Village, where a lot of the Council members lived if their own houses were too far away.

  “No, I’m not doing this,” I said and turned to open the door. The knob stuck. “Dammit, the past is in the past. I have no desire to relive that day.”

  “Sometimes the past doesn’t die.” The voice that had spoken to me in the car and in the pub made the skin at the back of my neck tighten.

  “No, I’m not going to come down,” my seven-year-old voice said. It was the voice of a child simultaneously terrified and holding on to that last shred of hope that if he didn’t come down the stairs, his world wouldn’t come crashing down on him, and he wouldn’t have to grow up too soon. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wood of the bathroom door, a lump in my throat.

  “You can’t avoid the bad things that happen forever.” That voice was David Lachlan’s, and although the words were harsh, the tone was gentle. I had forgotten he was there when the officer brought news of my father’s death. I didn’t have to turn around and look to remember the scene. My mother, her hands wrapped in her apron, slumped at the kitchen table with tear streaks on her face and looked into nothingness. David—now my mind filled him in—stood with a hand on her shoulder.

  Footsteps came down the stairs, their pace hesitant and defiant, and seven-year-old me stood there, hands on hips, trying to pretend he wasn’t crying. The two men looked at him with sympathy and a little admiration, I’d like to think, for his holding on to hope until the very last second. But he couldn’t hold on to it forever, and he rushed to his mother, who clasped him to her, the most solid remnant of her lost husband.

  The emotions rolled through me then, and I relived the moment when I was that little boy who, in an instant, had had to become a man
—the desire for revenge on whoever had done this to my family and anger at the men who had brought the news. And beneath it all, a crushing grief and fear that my father would be disappointed in me and at my reaction.

  “I was never disappointed in you. But you can’t run from the danger I faced. That was my mistake.”

  I turned around. The only thing in the mirror that caught my attention was the dark hazel irises of my own frightened, angry eyes. I took a deep, shuddering breath and left the bathroom.

  I put David’s letter in my fireproof safe in case he should want it back. It occurred to me I could phone him, but I didn’t know what I would say aside from, “I wanted to make sure you didn’t crash your car on your way home.”

  Then I thought about calling Selene, but that didn’t seem right, either. First, she was lying to me, but my instincts told me she was in some sort of trouble. I needed to bide my time and get her to trust me before pushing her on it. Second, although female companionship would be welcome, I doubted I would be good company for her. The feelings from earlier had subsided except for a certain restless irritation, and I couldn’t sit still enough to decide what to eat for dinner. Nothing sounded good, but I didn’t want to go to the pub, come back smelling of smoke, and have to shower again. Finally, I busied myself putting together a meal of steak and greens.

  After eating, I flipped through television channels but couldn’t find anything interesting. My cell phone ringing, which typically annoyed me, was a welcome distraction.

  “Gabriel?” The quaver in Lonna’s voice was unusual enough to make me sit upright.

  “What is it?”

  “Something’s wrong with Max.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  9

  I arrived at their house in twenty minutes. The sun lay low on the horizon as a glowing orange ball, putting me in mind of videos showing sunset on the African savannah with the silhouettes of prey animals bounding to avoid predators. In our little world, we no longer knew who was the predator and who was the prey.

  Lonna opened the door with Abby on her arm. The baby fussed and whimpered, no doubt picking up her mother’s distress.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “He came back from the Institute today looking just awful, like he had a fever. I made him lie down, and when I went to check on him, he wasn’t breathing.” She took a deep shuddering breath. “But he was still alive and talking.”

  I pushed by her into the house and darted to the stairs. “Why did you call me, not an ambulance?”

  She followed me up. “He told me not to call the human doctors, only you.”

  “When did he tell you? How could he if he wasn’t breathing?”

  Tears ran down her cheeks, and she gestured to the closed door of one of the bedrooms. “It’s the blood magic. I can tell he used it.”

  When I entered the room, Max sat on the edge of the bed. In the dim light from the bedside lamp, he looked deathly ill. At least he seemed to be breathing.

  “What did you do?” I asked and stood what I hoped was a safe distance away. The world of wizards was a mystery to me, but I knew not to get too close to a wounded creature even if he was my friend.

  He looked up at me and clutched his stomach. “I didn’t do anything. The blood did it to me.” He coughed, and a trickle of blood ran down his chin.

  “What do you mean, it did it to you?”

  “When we found LeConte. I had only worked with small quantities—that was going to be what I used in our method, just a few cc’s to guide the reverse vector—but the volume of it there, it pulled something from me.”

  “That’s why you were using the light to look for the murderer’s footprints.”

  He nodded. “I didn’t know what his blood did to me, and I felt normal soon after. Only Lonna could tell I was off.”

  “That was yesterday. Then we found the security guards.”

  “Yes, and it happened again, but not as much because they’d been bled out and moved. Then this evening, I found where they’d been killed, in the blood storage unit. There was blood everywhere, and it pulled the magic out of me, like a string attached to my gut.”

  “We need to get you to a healing wizard, or call one.”

  “No, they’ll pull me from the Institute!”

  “If you die or turn into whatever the last wizard to use blood magic did, you’re not going to be of any help to anyone.”

  I didn’t think he could go more pale, but he did. “Fine.”

  When I got out to the hallway, I found Lonna standing in front of a door behind which a very angry Abby vented her feelings about being locked away. “I put her down so I could help you. Is he okay?”

  “Do you know any of his wizard friends?” I asked. “A healer would be preferable.”

  “One step ahead of you,” she said. “I called Arnold. He said he’d send someone.”

  “Arnold?”

  She bit her lip. “He’s hard to explain. Kind of a wizard investigator, but internationally.”

  The doorbell rang, and I moved toward the head of the stairs. Lonna tried to follow me, but I motioned her back.

  “Calm the baby, I’ll get the door and help them attend to Max.”

  “Thank you. You’re a good friend.”

  I ran down the stairs and to the front hall. All I could see through the peephole was a wreath of mist. When I opened the door, the fog resolved into a mass of blonde curls so light they looked white. They framed a surprisingly young face with wide-set blue eyes.

  “So you’re the one with the blood magic contamination?” she asked, sounding surprised.

  “No, my colleague upstairs is.”

  She sniffed. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Please hurry.”

  She shook her head and sailed past me. The train of her light blue dress undulated over the carpeted floor.

  “You wolves are always in a hurry, chasing this or that or the other. Is that what got poor Maxie into trouble?”

  “Maxie?” Lonna asked from the top of the stairs. She held Abby again, who cooed when she saw the lady.

  The mysterious woman paused for a moment to look at her. “Oh, she’s just the image of her daddy, isn’t she?”

  Lonna raised an eyebrow. “Max is in there.” She pointed to the bedroom I’d come out of. “You know him?”

  The curls, which were all I could see, nodded. “We were in school together. Took different healing paths. I knew he’d need me someday. Now please wait downstairs. Not you, Wolf-man. I may need your help.”

  Lonna’s face had an understandably skeptical expression, but she moved past her to descend the stairs. “Arnold vouched for you, so I’ll believe you,” she said over her shoulder. “Just please know, if you harm him, I will not be happy.”

  “Right.” The woman’s laugh reminded me of wind chimes. “I’ve heard you’re a fan of evisceration.”

  “How…?”

  “Tut, tut, my dear. Down the stairs you go. I’ll answer all your questions after I attend to the patient.”

  I followed her into the room. Max sat where I’d left him, still doubled over and clutching his stomach.

  “Reine,” he said. “You still have the same aura.”

  “Yes, you always said it was hell when you had a hangover.” She laughed again, and I relaxed a hair. Whatever she was—I knew she wasn’t human—she had that effect. That Arnold guy knew some interesting creatures. She cleared off a space on the dresser and arranged some objects on it. I tried to see, but her billowing hair and dress hid them from me.

  “Stand behind the bed, Wolf-man,” she said.

  “My name is—”

  Max held up his hand. “Her kind doesn’t need to know names unless it’s absolutely necessary,” he said through gritted teeth. “I have an exception because we went to school together.”

  She shook her head, and her curls seemed alive for a moment, like they had small fish darting through them. “You don’t ever let me have any fun, an
d he’s a handsome one. Are you ready for a cleansing?”

  “What is your price?”

  “Max,” I said, “money is no object. Whatever it costs, I’ll—”

  He stopped me with a gesture again. “Shut the fuck up if you know what’s good for you.”

  I shut up. Max was not a fan of cursing.

  “Why is he even here?” he asked the woman.

  “In case I needed some muscle. As for my price, you have a lovely wife and child. A life for a life?”

  Her words spoken in a casual tone chilled me to my core. She spoke of lives as if they were Starbucks gift cards, and it finally got through my thick skull what she was—one of the Fey, possibly a changeling who’d been educated with the wizards and who had gone back to her realm after.

  “Absolutely not! Your price is too high.” His entire body shivered, and the wheeze in his next breath made my lungs tighten in sympathy.

  She ran a hand over his brow. “You don’t have much time. There was that opal necklace of your mother’s I always admired. It sparkled so with fire and love.”

  “Fine,” he said. “You may have that in exchange for healing me and showing me how to prevent this from happening again.”

  “Oh, that’s two things you want from me.” She shook her curls, and this time they seemed to hold a blizzard in them. “Are you sure about the baby? You know I’d bring you a good one in return. And your wife is young and healthy—you’ll have plenty more.”

  “No, you may not have my child. You may have the earrings that go with the necklace.”

  “All right, but only because I like you,” she said. “Now hold him still, Wolf-man.”

  “How would you like me to do that, Mistress?”

  “Grab his wrists and hold them behind him.”

  “Do what she says,” Max told me and placed his hands behind him. Each small movement obviously pained him, and the cords stood out in his neck, but he remained silent when I grabbed and held his wrists.

  With movement too fast for even my eyes, she shoved his head back and stuck a slick-looking black stick down his throat. His throat worked, and he struggled, but he didn’t cry out. No doubt he wanted to avoid upsetting Lonna, and jealousy stabbed through my anxiety for him. Not because he had Lonna—we would never have been more than friends—but that he had someone he loved enough he would stifle his basest urges to protect from emotional hurt. My father had been like that with my mother, but that also meant he’d kept secrets from her.