Lycanthropy Files Box Set: Books 1-3 Plus Novella

by Cecilia Dominic

  I woke in a cave. A single torch—a real wooden one this time—flickered in its sconce on the wall above me, and a stalactite dripped cold water onto my face. I rolled to my side and then to my knees, noting how dry my mouth felt. Scraping my tongue against my teeth only brought a little relief, and I dared not try the water dripping in the cave for fear of microbes and parasites.

  Speaking of parasites, where did Rob and Alice go?

  I stood, careful not to bump my head on the ceiling. Trying to close my eyes and start the change didn’t produce any effect. Dammit, that’s right, there was Luridatone in there. On the other hand, maybe if I’m in human form, I won’t be as susceptible to Wolfsheim’s spells. If I’m lucky.

  I grabbed the torch and followed the corridor. In Celtic legend, caves were supposed to be places sacred to magical creatures like wyrms and fairies, and I wondered if Reine could be lurking about somewhere. I came to a widening and entered a room covered top to bottom with shining crystals. They reflected the light of the torch like a million little flames. In the middle, a stone throne held a young man. He gestured for me to come forward.

  “You are seeking me,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice. “I am Wolfsheim.”

  I looked around for guards or other signs of human life. It made sense he was powerful enough to sit without guards, but something felt off.

  “I don’t think you are,” I said.

  He nodded and vanished along with the crystals, leaving me alone with my torch.

  “Well, that was one,” I muttered. “Fairytale things happen in threes, so here we go.”

  My steps next brought me to a cave where the walls seemed to be assembled from planes of black mirrors. Again the light from my torch filled the room in a blaze like the walls were on fire. In this room, a wizened old man with a long gray beard sat on a black throne made from a material that looked like obsidian. The flames from my torch reflected in his eyes, and he looked like a centuries-old wizard.

  “I am Wolfsheim,” he said. “You and I have business to discuss, young man.”

  Although they were merely reflected, it seemed the flames in the walls emanated heat, and a bead of sweat dripped down my face and pooled underneath the torc, which still sat on my neck. Again, I couldn’t name what it was, but something told me that this was not he.

  “You are not Wolfsheim,” I said. He vanished, leaving me to blink the after-images of the flames from my eyes.

  “And that was two.”

  I walked through that cave into a third. It was just a cave with what at first glance looked like stalagmites and stalactites reaching toward each other from above and below, but too regular. Further examination revealed them to be Roman statues staring at me with blank eyes. The thought of the ones behind me watching me made my neck and back muscles twitch. The throne stood large and faced away from me. I circled it slowly, ready for any surprise. When I could finally see its inhabitant, I nodded. This, finally, made sense.

  “Did you miss me?” asked Jade. She puffed on her cigar, which smelled like a combination of pipe smoke and kerosene. Yes, that was the scent of the killer. She waved her hand, and my torch went out, leaving us in blackness.

  30

  Blinking in a cave didn’t do any good, but I couldn’t help it. It was reflexive to struggle to see in the pitch darkness. When the cave was once again illuminated, I squinted tightly.

  “Damn, Jade, you’re wreaking havoc on my retinas.”

  “Jade is gone.” The voice held the softness of velvet and the old stone smoothness of the Roman statues that surrounded us. A well-dressed man sat in the throne. He seemed ageless and ancient at the same time, like he’d cultivated his wrinkles for show. Gray-streaked white hair fell back from his temples.

  “Jade is you.”

  “No,” he said. “Jade is my daughter. Or did Morena not tell you?”

  His words landed like a punch to my throat, and I swallowed. “No, she left that little detail out.”

  He studied his nails. “She never wanted to claim me, to confirm we were lovers. She thought she was playing a game for information about my activities. I found it to be an entertaining seduction.”

  “There go my assumptions,” I said.

  “Not necessarily. It has been a constant source of shame for her that she succumbed to my charms and lost my game. Hence why she is not here at your side.”

  “So you used your daughter to infiltrate the Purists and the Young Bloods,” I said.

  “She acted on her own, but I accepted her help.” He gazed at me, and I found I couldn’t look away from his eyes, which were slitted like a snake’s. “People tend to want to help me, Gabriel.”

  I shook my head and forced my gaze away from him. “I will not willingly do so, Wolfsheim. I wouldn’t give you control of the reversal process even if I had that power.”

  “But you can bring it to me, all the instructions, once they’ve perfected it. I can supply my own blood magic. And first I will play with your useless Council and control them with their own blood, and then humanify them.”

  “Again, I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Ah, but I have a bargain for you.”

  I sighed. “Fairytale villains always do.”

  “First, there is the easy offer.” He gestured over my left shoulder, and I saw Rhys and the young man from the first throne room holding Selene by her arms. Her hair was now chin-length. “You are rather attached to Doctor Rial, are you not? She had hoped to offer herself in exchange for her brother’s life, but as you can see, he is more than willing to serve me. A pity because I do love redheads.”

  “You’ve spelled him,” I said. “Like you’re trying to enchant me.”

  “And then there is your second choice.” This time, he pointed to the space beyond my right shoulder. Jade posed like a game show girl with the racks of blood samples that had been stolen from the Institute. “The proof of your accusations to the Council today, both regarding Bartholomew Campbell and Dimitri Corvair. To sweeten the deal, I have the paper trail showing how they conspired to hire Jade to kill Otis LeConte.”

  “Okay, fairytale stuff happens in threes. What else have you got?” I asked and turned back toward him. He held a manila envelope.

  “And choice three: the answer to what happened to your father all those years ago.” He caressed it with his long fingers. “I have the letters that didn’t make it out, the mistakes that told me his position and what he was after. Once all comes to light, his soul will finally be allowed to rest in peace. You may only pick one. Which will it be in exchange for you handing over the formula and procedure for the lycanthropic reversal process?”

  He had me pinned between love, duty, and family. What would an alpha wolf do?

  The answer came to me immediately: Take control of all of it.

  Wolfsheim stood and circled me. The torc grew cold under my shirt collar. I tried to keep my eyes on the vargamore, but as he moved around me, my muscles tightened and grew numb beyond my control. When he stood in front of me again, a spark arced between the two stones.

  Dammit, this thing is supposed to help me!

  Fog filled my vision, and a roaring in my ears warned me I’d lose all conscious control soon. Wolfsheim swept his arm in a downward gesture, and my knees buckled. The torc’s temperature dropped further, keeping me focused and most of the fog at bay. I tried to move my arms, but they stayed glued to my sides.

  Small fingers tangled in my hair, then tightened and yanked my head back, bringing me in eye contact with Jade.

  “Can I keep him, Father? He’s pretty and tried to save me from that mean man.” She caressed my cheek, and I tried to pull away, but she and her father’s magic held me fast. The capillaries in my left cheek burst under her thumb in little spurts. She licked her thumb, and my stomach folded at the thought of the power she might now have over me. She released me, and I swayed but didn’t faceplant on the cave floor.

  “So what will it be?” Wolfsheim asked. “Your ladylo
ve—although Jade might have something to say about that—saving face with your Council, or finally allowing your father’s soul to have peace?”

  One of the shadows at the edge of the cave moved, and I bowed my head as though defeated. I opened my senses as I had in the Council room to determine who was there and what threat they posed to me. My suspicions confirmed, I looked straight at Wolfsheim.

  “I choose to challenge you,” I said. “For leadership of the Order of the Silver Arrow.”

  “You would challenge me?” Wolfsheim shook his head. “I never took you for suicidal. Very well, then. I admired your strength and cleverness, but now you’re going to make me kill you.”

  I couldn’t help a glance over my shoulder at Selene. “Are you okay?”

  “Gabriel, be careful!” Selene’s mental voice came to me even though she stood perfectly still and stared straight ahead. Rhys and Curtis stood back against the cave wall and watched the fun. I wondered if they’d made wagers as to how long I’d last against their boss.

  Wolfsheim flicked his wrist, and I flew backward and smashed against the cave wall. I wanted to think the crunch I heard hadn’t been my body and the blooms of pain that snapped open along my bones and especially the wounds on my back didn’t belong to me.

  Come on, healing. I staggered to my feet in spite of every joint’s protest. I reached inside and found my inner alpha wolf. The Luridatone must have worn off, or maybe they had dosed me wrong.

  When I changed, the dead skin and scabs from my exposure to the hellfire grenade sloughed off. I lost my clothing, but the torc remained around my neck and fit better in my wolf form. This transformation was even larger than in the Council fight, and I stretched to give my brain a better idea of my dimensions. Even so, another hit like the one he’d given me, no matter what shape I took, would likely finish me. I had to do something to make him let down his guard. As for Jade, I could only hope the ally I sensed was truly there and would help neutralize her rather than decide this was a good time for payback for the frustration I’d caused him.

  “By the ancient laws,” I said and staggered a little to give the impression I was still reeling, “I demand to choose the form I battle with.”

  “Oh, this gets better,” he said. “Very well, I will humor you. All my forms will be stronger and more powerful than your little lycanthrope one.”

  The repeated warnings not to take him on without help played in my mind, and I remembered the story my father had written to David, the one he had told me as a child. In it, friendship had defeated the villain. “I challenge you as the Boar King.”

  “Ah, yes, my favorite. Well, you will be a tasty little wolf. So will your lover.” He stretched out his arms. An invisible wind blew his garments, and he tilted his head back. Now the flames from the torches along the walls elongated and raced to the middle, enveloping him in a dozen fiery ropes.

  Thankfully I’d correctly estimated Wolfsheim’s penchant for drama. He reveled in his fiery form. I got the impression of an elongated lower jaw, tusks, and coarse hair. A harsh, snorting laughter filled the cave, and the torches snapped their flames back. I had one shot at this, a fleeting moment of vulnerability or he would eat me alive—literally.

  “Now!”

  I guessed at when his moment of disorientation would occur, leapt for his throat, and closed my jaws around it. He grabbed for me, but when his hooves met the metal of the torc, a sizzling sound and bacon smell told me it still had some magic and found me a worthy wearer. I held tight in spite of his hooves raking my tender back and used his thrashing motions to sink my teeth deeper into his neck.

  “This will not work,” he said and dropped to all fours, pinning me under him. “My neck is too thick.”

  “Lies,” I said. I struggled to breathe but held on and used the opportunity to have my back claws go to work on his underbelly while scratching at his face with my front ones. His thick, leathery skin resisted my attempts, but I kept at it in spite of the soreness in my digits. I hoped he had to direct enough of his resources at me that he would release the spell on Selene.

  The sensation of bubbles racing along my limbs warned me that someone was using blood magic on me, or trying to.

  “Selene, is Jade still in here? She’s magnifying his power with the blood.”

  “I’m stuck! I can move, but Rhys is holding me.”

  Anger surged through me, and I wanted to go to her aid, but I couldn’t let go of the Boar King, or all would be lost. Then I remembered my ally who had snuck in.

  “Garou, help!”

  A crack like that of stone on bone reverberated through the cave, and the internal fizzing stopped. Wolfsheim wheezed, and the iron taste of blood seeped into my mouth. A lethargy seeped into my bones, then, and the thought occurred to me that his blood was poison, and it was killing me, and I should let—

  The two stones in the torc shocked me before I followed the compulsion to release him.

  “Nice try, Wolfsheim,” I said.

  He roared and tried to slam me against the floor, but he didn’t have the momentum. I rolled and gave a vicious shake with the last of my strength. His throat tore open. I leapt away and lay on the floor, panting.

  He flopped to his back and shrank to his human form, but instead of the vibrant older man he’d been, he looked like the creature that represented the wizard race among the gargoyles on the Council School: emaciated, bald, and with bulging eyes and fangs. He clawed at the air, and his thoughts floated through my mind—destructive ones—and then the resignation that this was how it would end after seven hundred years. Finally, even those faded, and the ugly, broken body on the stone floor lay still, its limbs up like a dead roach’s. His blood flowed light pink down his gray skin, the faded colors a measure of how his blood magic had drained his own life force.

  Mindful of my father’s warning, I spat his blood from my mouth, at least as much as I could. A shout brought my attention to the side of the cave, where Curtis, now released from his compulsion, struggled with Rhys. Selene slumped against the wall, dazed. I ran to her and lunged at Rhys, knocking him away from Curtis. I growled at him.

  “You picked the wrong guy to mess with.”

  “Gabriel, stop!”

  Reine’s words halted my lunge for Rhys’s throat. He glared at me, but the stain of a vindictive smile spread across his face. “The slavery Wolfsheim offered you would have been nothing compared to what you will experience with my sister.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He was too smart to give me unlimited power.” Reine looked around with a shudder. “Ugh, it smells like dead wizard in here. I only wanted to make sure he wouldn’t hurt you, dear brother.”

  “You’re his sister?” I asked. “Why were you helping me?”

  She gestured to Selene. “The girl can tell you. Sometimes you have to rescue your younger siblings when they take up with the wrong crowd. He wouldn’t listen to reason, and I am limited as to how much I can interfere in the affairs of other races, so I had to act indirectly. Plus I like you, Wolf-man.”

  Selene scooted closer to me and put a hand on my head. “I do too,” she said.

  “Likewise.”

  Jade lay on the floor behind the vials of blood, and I couldn’t tell if she was dead or merely unconscious. I trotted over to her and was relieved to see a slight fluttering of her chest.

  “That one will have to be locked up.”

  I looked up to see Garou standing there. He had blood on his temple but otherwise seemed to be fine.

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “You had better be. Someone had to neutralize the guards outside the chamber and this one. Otherwise, you would have been in trouble.”

  “I was wondering. And thank you.”

  Morena wouldn’t meet my eyes at David Lachlan’s funeral. She slipped out before the bagpiper played the final strains of “Amazing Grace.” I wasn’t up for a confrontation, anyway. My handkerchief had gotten soaked with my quiet weeping, which I tried not t
o let Selene see. Of course she noticed and didn’t seem to mind, only offered me one of her paper tissues, and her gesture reminded me that these modern women had more tolerance for their men showing emotion. Or at least the ones in psychology did.

  I didn’t see any spirits, and Alexander, who accompanied me, said he didn’t either, only the normal ones that hung about Lycan Village’s big stone church. He told me it was a good thing—that it meant they were at rest. “If you don’t finish something a ghost wants you to start, they’ll let you know,” he said.

  I nodded and touched the torc around my neck. Since Morena had avoided me, I hadn’t had the chance to return it to her, and it felt like a link to the important past we didn’t know enough about. Who had been the chieftain to wear it? How had he defeated the Boar King, and more importantly, why did the creature come back? I only had his name—Connell. If his spirit visited, I didn’t know, but I told Alexander to look for him and ask him if he got a chance. I suspect the torc, like many magical objects, endured because evil spirits were never truly destroyed—they just were vanquished and then gathered their power to return.

  As for the Order of the Silver Arrow, I technically won leadership of it, but the only member who stuck around was Curtis Rial. The rest had scattered, and the leaders of the Young Bloods went into hiding to avoid being arrested on kidnapping charges. I trusted Garou would find them—he was a good detective, after all.

  Curtis found me at the pub after the funeral reception. Troy gave me a whiskey before I ordered anything.

  “For the old man,” he said, his eyes red-rimmed. “It was his favorite post-funeral dram.”

  “Slàinte,” I said and raised the glass before knocking it back. It burned all the way down, but this time in a good way. It also gave me an excuse for the tears in my eyes, and I had to take a moment to compose myself.

  “Mister McCord?” The young man’s voice beside me brought me back to the present and out of my spiral of “what if?”

  “Yes, Curtis?” I didn’t mind the kid, but I’d sent Selene home and wanted to be alone, or as alone as one can be in a pub. I sought the anonymous alone with the occasional understanding nod from the barkeep.