by Kathy Lyons
“I have tried many forms of discourse. Most recently I have been reading his paper to him. Captain M said to expose him to familiar human things that will engage his mind.”
It was standard protocol, and Nero scanned the list Gelpack had made of all the things he’d tried. Every line item was followed by the words no noticeable effect. He also glanced at the array of Josh’s personal items scattered on a table beside Gelpack.
Walking over to it, he tried to see if there was anything that would help Josh. They had his suitcase and backpack, all of which had exactly what he’d expect. Tees with emblems or sayings that Nero didn’t recognize. Something was “shiny,” someone was from the Colonial Squadron. The jeans were worn soft, the socks worn old, and the toiletries cheap. His backpack wasn’t any different. There was a spiral notebook with diagrams of his big show and a laptop that they hadn’t opened because it was his and they were trying to respect his privacy as much as possible.
Nothing. Not even the crumpled receipts were interesting. A grocery store receipt for generic cereal and Campbell’s soup. Another one from Target for needles and thread, presumably to sew those shiny pockets into his wizard’s cape.
“What happens when you read his paper?”
Gelpack lifted the printed paper in his hand and began to read. The words were strange enough, but in his weird voice, they were downright creepy.
“To confirm that the defects of NOB mutants result solely from telomerase binding deficiencies, we performed primer extension assays with a series of chimeric proteins—”
“Okay. Never mind.”
Josh hadn’t reacted at all to the string of words. If anything, the creature’s eyes had glazed over as much as Nero’s had. Frowning, Nero ran through everything that had been in Josh’s file. The guy’s social media had been minimal, his family tree, all the way back to the ancestor with the werewolf gene, was useless, and even his grades, which had been excellent in the sciences and lackluster in liberal arts, couldn’t help.
“Wait a minute…,” he murmured as he looked back at Josh’s threadbare socks and the generic chips on his IGA receipt. Everything indicated he lived a stripped-down, impoverished lifestyle. Nero hadn’t thought it odd because that had been his own life before lycanthropy bit. But Josh’s father owned his own business making Volcax for the government. Though it sounded blue-collar, it was actually a multimillion-dollar company that was run like a fine-tuned watch. He knew that the Collier family’s income was in the top 1 percent. Josh had attended Harvard at full-price tuition. From his sister’s Facebook pictures, Josh ought to be wearing designer jeans and shopping at Whole Foods. Instead, his sneakers were ripping in two places, which sure as hell would be cold in the winter. Obviously the guy was living on his graduate stipend from the University of Michigan. He’d bet that not a cent was taken from dear old Dad.
Josh wouldn’t be the first guy to have an overbearing father. Maybe Nero could reach him that way. So he turned to the glaring, growling wolf and spoke in his sternest tone.
“Joshua Dyer Collier, look at you drooling on yourself and destroying your cage. I spent all that money sending you to a fancy school, and what do you do—?”
Josh went insane. Where before he’d been simply growling and chewing on the cage, now he slammed against the bars over and over again. And when those didn’t break, he howled with rage loud enough to make the other wolves stir in their unconscious state.
Nero’s insides stiffened, his body tightening unbearably every time Josh hit the cage bars. Which would break first? Josh or the bars?
Gelpack spoke above the din. “I do not believe this violence is a good sign.”
Maybe not, but then again, it was certainly more of a reaction than anything else they’d seen. He decided to keep going.
“Four years at Harvard and now how many at Michigan? You don’t have a trade, you certainly don’t work for a living.” He winced at that. He didn’t know anything about higher education, but he did know about being the lowest grunt on the pay scale. He would bet anything that PhD students were the slaves of the academic world. “You’re just lazy, freeloading off of my money. You will quit playing around at school and learn a real trade. Now change back to human and talk like the man you claim to be.”
The frenzy in the cage doubled, then redoubled. Josh was a whirling blur as only a werewolf could be. He thrashed at the cage on all sides, including the top and bottom. He snapped at the bars and exploded upward to try to break the lid. The sounds he made were no longer identifiable. Snarls or growls were indistinguishable from yips of pain or howls of fury. It was all one explosive disaster, and Nero saw blood and spittle fly from the bars. And still he couldn’t stop.
“Good God, what a disappointment you are!”
The cage broke.
One of the hinges snapped and Josh bashed at the weakened side until the seam split. One slam to break the hinge and a second to burst through.
Shit, shit, shit. Nero was about to die.
There wasn’t time to react. And after being up for three days, Nero didn’t have the reserves to go wolf. All he could do was step in front of Gelpack and hope the alien would become goo instead of die like Nero was about to.
Josh hit him square in the chest and they tumbled backward into the table of belongings. Nero got an arm up and felt a flash of pain as it got shredded. He kicked Josh in the ribs, knocking the wolf sideways, because this wasn’t his first wolf-on-human fight. Josh was back before Nero could draw breath, and it was all he could do to dodge in time to save his face.
Bzzzzz!
The cattle prod. Gelpack had it in hand and was shoving it in Josh’s near side. The wolf yelped in pain and slammed sideways. Nero’s legs fouled the wolf’s footing and the two ended up tangled together on the floor.
Bzzzz!
The next electric shock carried into Nero’s body, but it was nothing compared to what Josh must have felt. The wolf scrambled to get his feet under him, but he didn’t have the coordination. Nero did, and he pulled himself aside barely fast enough to avoid losing a kneecap to Josh’s bite.
Bzzzz!
Gelpack got him again, and this time Josh’s wolf body rippled in agony from the impact, but he wasn’t jerking away. Instead, his head was coming around and his lips were peeled back from his very sharp teeth.
Bzzzz! Bzzzz!
Nero got his feet under him. His breath was quick and tight, but his hands were steady as he grabbed a pistol from the locked cabinet on the far wall. He didn’t want to do this. God damn it, he didn’t want to kill someone who’d just had the misfortune of being born to the wrong family tree. But he didn’t have a choice.
Josh was rabid. There wasn’t a choice.
Bzzz! Bzzzz!
Nero raised the pistol. He took a breath and sighted Josh, only to see the wolf body begin to shimmer. Nero’s heart pounded and his brain screamed to pull the trigger, but he didn’t do it. Not yet. He couldn’t—
Josh resolved into a human form with pink skin and dark red welts on the side.
“It’s telomere-ace, fuckface,” Josh bellowed. Then he launched himself at the cattle prod. He got ahold of it and ripped it through Gelpack’s gelatinous hand. Nero’s finger twitched on the trigger, but there was no time to save Gelpack.
“Josh, no!” he bellowed, but it was too late.
Chapter 6
JOSH RAMMED the cattle prod hard into the gut of the bastard who had been torturing him with it. He shoved it straight into the weird-colored creature and pulled the trigger with a vengeance. He saw the voltage go through the thing. Ripples of burnt color expanded outward from the point of the prod, and the smell was… unsettling. Like burned marine life. But he didn’t care and he sure as hell wasn’t going to stop. Fury rode him in rolling waves of hatred as he jammed that fucker with—
A Mack Truck tackled him. The cattle prod went flying, his bare feet left the concrete, and he landed on his hip, then shoulder, then head hard enough to make his brai
n rattle. It didn’t matter. He was fighting even before his consciousness caught up to what had happened. Every cell was punching or kicking or biting. If it could move, it was attacking.
Except the truck was fucking huge and the weight was suffocating.
His arms were pinned first, and his hips immobilized. Legs were trapped next, and when his vision cleared enough for him to focus, he saw the weird asshole holding the cattle prod. And all the while, someone was screaming, dogs were barking, and the Mack Truck was saying his name. Over and over.
“Josh, calm down. Josh! Ow! Joshua!”
He didn’t stop fighting. He couldn’t. The fury inside him was too hot for him to rest. But he didn’t have the strength. And though in his mind he might be Wolverine, slashing and bashing his captors, in reality, his body strained to no effect. He gasped for air, his muscles twitched as he still commanded them to fight, and in the background a woman was screaming while dogs were barking.
“Josh, calm down,” the truck was saying. The words came out breathless, and he had some satisfaction that he’d tired out the guy. “You fight like you’re possessed.”
Yes, he did. Always.
“Gelpack, you okay?”
“That was an unusual experience. Should I have experienced pain? I do not have nerves yet to transmit sensations.”
The guy huffed out a breath, dropping his weight more fully on top of Josh. “Be thankful you don’t. Hell—” He turned and looked at something to Josh’s right, then did a double take. “The girl changed back to human. Call Wiz to help her and sedate the other wolves. We can’t handle them right now.”
Josh turned his head enough to see what his captor was looking at. What he saw shocked him into momentary stillness. Cages. Rows of cages, three with barking wolves and one with a naked redheaded woman clutching her head and screaming. She must be the girl they were talking about. He’d been so busy fighting that he hadn’t registered the noise.
God, she had a set of lungs on her. Good. He hoped she was loud enough to bring in the cops, but somehow he doubted it. This had all the freezing-cold feels of an underground laboratory. And didn’t that just make all his body parts clench tight.
“Send us back to Earth,” he said loudly. “It’s not right to experiment on us.”
He felt the truck pull back, and Josh focused enough to see that it was the big warrior guy from the convention, the one with the Roman name. And he was frowning at Josh.
“What are you talking about? This is Earth.”
“He’s not.” He jerked his chin at the see-through guy in board shorts. And what the hell was that red smear in the middle of his chest? It looked too bright to be blood, but then how would he know what blood looked like inside a guy who was made of Jell-O?
“Um, yeah. His name is Gelpack. He’s not from around here.”
No shit, Sherlock.
Then he watched as the weird guy picked up a tranquilizer gun and steadily shot each of the wolves. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. Three wolves yipped in surprise and then dropped down onto the ground with a thud.
It was chilling, especially when he aimed at the redhead, who had quieted into soft sobs.
“No!” Josh cried out, suddenly pushing himself up so he could stop the creature. But the big guy didn’t budge off him. All he got was a grunt and a renewed grip on his wrists. “Damn it—”
“He’s not going to shoot her.” He cast a glance at the alien. “Right, Gelpack? You’re not going to shoot her.”
The redhead lifted her head to stare at them with huge green eyes.
“There is no dart loaded in the gun. I wondered if the air pressure would be comforting to her. Captain M said this morning that she found the breeze soothing.”
“It’s not—” Nero said, but it was too late. Gelpack had already pulled the trigger… to no effect.
“It appears I have miscalculated,” the creature said as he put the gun away in a locked cabinet. “I will go wake Wiz now.” He paused. “Will you be okay alone with Mr. Collier?”
“Yeah,” he said as he started to peel back off of Josh. “His big ole brain is engaged now, right, Josh? You’re not a mindless lunatic.”
No, he wasn’t, though hatred still boiled just beneath his surface. And to think he had actually flirted with this bastard. “Of course I’m fine,” he said, sarcasm heavy in his voice. “I’ve only been attacked, abducted, and….” Shit. Certain parts of their bodies were intimately close. And damn it, his dick didn’t seem to care about who was pressing against it. It was hot and throbbing, and given that he was stark naked, it wasn’t something he could hide.
It also told him that he probably wasn’t in as much danger as he feared. If the Mack Truck was trying to harm him, Josh wouldn’t be getting aroused, right? Subliminal cues and all that would keep his dick shriveled. Maybe.
And while he was still processing that, the alien left the room, shutting the door with a heavy thud.
“Before you get any bright ideas, the door is locked and sealed. You can’t get out without a handprint.”
Yeah, he’d already figured that from the way Gelpack had pressed his palm on a hand reader. Though that did bring up an obvious question. “Does he have a handprint?”
“I don’t ask questions that make my brain hurt,” Nero answered. Then he gently disentangled himself from Josh’s legs. “So we’re good here? I can get off you?”
“Yeah, sure,” Josh lied. “We’re peachy keen.” He shoved his hips sideways, trying to toss the guy off. It would have been wasted effort, except Nero rolled with the movement and suddenly Josh could breathe again.
He looked around, trying to be covert about it. He needed a weapon. The dart gun would be great if it was loaded and not locked in a cabinet. Meanwhile Nero was talking in a calm, reasonable voice.
“You’re right. You’ve been assaulted, sort of. And kidnapped. And traumatized, I’m sure.” He glanced guiltily at the girl, whom had quieted enough to listen. Then Nero stood up and opened a drawer across from the girl’s cage. He pulled out gray sweatpants and a sweatshirt, which he fed her through the bars. Then he glanced at Josh. “Your clothes are over there. Or you can grab some sweats.”
Josh wanted to argue out of spite, but he felt defenseless crouched naked on the floor. So he went to his luggage and quickly pulled on jeans and a tee. He didn’t see his shoes anywhere, so it was bare feet on the cold concrete. Nero, he saw, was casually attired. Khaki pants, a butter-yellow polo that stretched across his broad chest, and Dockers for shoes. Preppy much?
The girl, however, didn’t move from the back corner of her cage. She stayed where she was, arms wrapped around her knees as she glared through her short red hair. At least she’d stopped screaming. Meanwhile Josh had to think of a way out of this place. For himself and the girl.
But first things first. He needed more data.
“Why have you kidnapped us?” he demanded.
“We didn’t….” Nero grimaced. “Well, okay, we did, but let me start at the beginning.” He took a deep breath. “You are werewolves.” He gestured at the rows of cages. “You all are. I am too, if that makes you feel any better.”
“It doesn’t.” That was a lie. It kind of did. The guy seemed… normal in an evil Hulk kind of way. Josh chose to focus on that rather than the idea that he had turned into a wolf and been trapped in a cage. It wasn’t possible, and he didn’t want to even look at the memory. But it was hard to deny when the cage was two feet away. “How can I… how can we be…?” God, he couldn’t even say the word.
Nero pointed at him. “Romani magic.” He pointed at the girl. “Family curse.” Then he went down the line of wolves. “Native American thing. Family heirloom, we think. And we haven’t got a clue about him. He was an accident.” Then he turned his thumb toward himself. “Lycanthropic bite from an asshole.”
“And Gelpack?”
“He’s his own special kind of we don’t know what.” Nero looked at the bloody gashes on his forearm, then crossed to a near
by cabinet. While he spoke, he pulled out bandages and tape, wrapping up his arm with casual ease. “That’s why we need you guys.” His voice had dropped to a lower pitch, the one that drew Josh’s attention like a bee to a flower. But his next words pulled out of that resonance, enough to make Josh listen even closer. “Whether or not you realize it, you guys were always going to manifest into werewolves. We did it in a controlled environment where we could keep everyone safe. Including you.”
Josh shook his head. “I was perfectly safe. I was doing a show on….” His eyes widened as he remembered what had happened. “You turned me into a wolf in front of the whole con! I worked for a year on that show!”
“And everyone loved it. It just wasn’t the show you planned.”
“No…,” he murmured, memories flooding back. The terror of a body gone insane. The hatred boiling in his mind and body. And then… they’d choked him! And shot him! His hands went to his throat in memory, and fury burst through him. “You fucking asshole!”
He shot forward, going for a grappling hold. He’d had a little martial arts training in college, and he used that in his attack. But whatever little training he’d had, Nero had more. The guy took his attack and rolled through it, sending Josh flying across the floor until he slid against the tranq gun cabinet.
That didn’t stop him, though. He jumped up and ran straight at Nero. He had no plan except to beat the guy senseless. Then he’d figure out how to open the girl’s cage and get them both out of there. Time after time, though, all he did was get tossed onto his ass. And once—as if the whole thing wasn’t insulting enough—Nero flipped him to the floor and protected the back of Josh’s head while doing it. The fucker was looking after him at the same time he was kicking his ass.
Which made Josh all the more pissed off. So he threw all his energy into what he was doing. If he couldn’t beat the bastard with skill, he’d do it with frenzy.
Didn’t make any difference.
Five minutes later he was on his back, sucking air. He tried to get up again but was too dizzy, and damn it, every single joint felt like it was on fire, and his muscles seemed to be weighed down with lead. He tried to roll over to at least crawl, but another wave of vertigo put him flat on his back again.
