Better Off Undead: The Bloodhound Files Read online

  And then Eisfanger comes in wearing mouse ears.

  They’re not really mouse ears. They’re some kind of protective glasses with white plastic frames, the kind on hinges that flip up and out of your way. Except he’s forgotten that and pushed them up on top of his head the way some people do, and with the lenses flipped they stand straight up like—well, like Mickey Mouse ears. Damon’s a thrope who gets his build from his mother’s side of the family and his coloring from his father’s; the maternal side has pit-bull genes in the mix from an ancestor bitten by a thrope-infected dog, while the paternal half were arctic wolves. Damon’s wide and stocky, with ice-blue eyes and short, bristly white hair on his head and above his eyes. That plus the white coat he’s wearing make him look like the world’s biggest lab rat.

  “What?” he says.

  “Never mind,” I say, grinning. I suppress the urge to give him a hug—Damon’s just geeky enough that the social incongruity might set him back years. “Just in a wacky mood. You get the word from upstairs?”

  “Oh, uh, yeah. How are you—you know, holding up?”

  He looks anxious, and I resist the urge to tease him. Inappropriate humor, while more or less my standard operating procedure, just seems like a little too much effort right now. “I’m doing okay, aside from the leg. Charlie, not so much.”

  My partner had been on the warpath ever since I told him about the Gray Wolves’ visit; it took some serious arguing to persuade him that storming the mansion with a battalion of agents was not the best response. He muttered something about “sending a message of my own” before stalking off, and I suspect that more than a few of the local wise guys were going to be joining Louie in the scoop-your-own-innards-off-the-floor club.

  “Has he heard?” Damon asks.

  “Not yet. He’s still out in the field, and telling him would be like pouring rocket fuel on a bonfire. I’m going to wait until he’s cooled off a little.”

  Damon nods. “Yeah. Warn me first, okay? I think I’ll want to be in a different city. Maybe a different state.”

  “He’s not going to take it out on all thropes, Damon.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re not—” He stops dead. His pale skin flushes.

  “Not yet. Which is why I’m here—Cassius wants you to examine me?”

  “Yes. Take your jacket off, please, and have a seat.” He points me at a chair sitting next to a stainless-steel table with a number of items on it, both familiar and esoteric: a stethoscope, a brightly painted rattle, a syringe, a bowl with some dried white berries, a number of things I can’t identify. I slip out of my jacket, hang it over the back of the chair, and sit down. “Cassius wouldn’t give me any details, other than hints about this helping with my … condition. What can you tell me?”

  He starts by listening to my heart, then my lungs, then my stomach. “Not much, I’m afraid. I don’t know what he’s got in mind, just that he asked for a very specific set of data points.” He scrawls some numbers down on a clipboard, then squeezes one of the berries between a thick finger and thumb and rubs the pulp into the hollow at the base of my throat.

  Great. Once again, Cassius plays it so close to the vest that even his own people don’t know what he’s up to. I feel a surge of anger, but I know it’s misplaced; you can’t really blame the head of the NSA for keeping secrets. I’m not really angry at him, I’m angry at myself. Strangely enough, I don’t seem to be angry with Tair.

  “Okay, then. What can you tell me about what’s going to happen? To me?”

  He shakes a rattle under my chin, then asks me to open my mouth and sniffs my breath before answering. “You mean the change.”

  “No, I mean the effects of eating a sauerkraut-and-mushroom pizza before going to bed. Yes, of course I mean the change.”

  He scribbles more notes, then picks up a tuning fork covered in embossed runes. “Well, it’s a federal crime, for one thing. Tack another thirty years onto his sentence when he gets caught.”

  “That’ll be a great comfort when I’m marking trees with my own urine. What about me?”

  He raps the tuning fork against his palm, then holds it over my heart. “Your first lycanthropic transformation won’t happen until the moon is full. But you’ll experience other effects before then.”

  “Like what?”

  He listens carefully to the tone of the tuning fork, then puts it down and jots another number. “Well, let’s see. Sharpened senses, especially smell—that will come and go, increasing in intensity as the full moon gets closer. Changes in appetite, with an increased intake of protein. Insomnia, restlessness, irritability, heightened aggression, possibly an achiness in your joints or head, abnormal hair growth—though that’s less of a factor in women—and feral urges.”

  “Feral urges? Do I even want to know?”

  He shrugs and looks uncomfortable. “It’s about what you’d expect. There aren’t that many instances of intentional lycanthropic infection these days, but I’ve read a few case studies. Disrobing in public is a phrase that seemed to pop up a lot.”

  I groan and close my eyes. “I can’t believe this. It’s not enough that I’m being turned into an animal—no, it has to be embarrassing, too.”

  Damon doesn’t respond to that, and then I realize what it is that I’ve just said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being an animal—I mean you’re not an animal, obviously, except in the sense that we’re all animals—”

  “It’s okay, Jace.” He gives me a look that’s more sad than offended. “I’m sorry this happened to you. I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now, but it must be hard.”

  “Yeah. I know I don’t always come across as the most lovable person around, Damon. Thanks for putting up with me.”

  “No problem. Uh—there’s something else you should know about, too.”

  I roll my eyes. “Great. What now, am I going to have to get neutered or something?”

  “It has to do with the thrope who passed along the lycanthropy. Until the first full moon, you and he will share a mystic bond. It’s sort of like imprinting, except with a junior and senior thrope instead of a mother and offspring. The senior thrope is supposed to prepare you for your new life.”

  I stare at Eisfanger in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, no, it makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective. It ensures that important survival skills are passed on in the most effective—”

  “You said bond. What kind of bond? How does it work?”

  Eisfanger looks apologetic. “I, uh, don’t know all the particulars. It doesn’t apply to somebody who’s born a thrope, so I’ve never gone through it. In fact, it only pops up in certain bloodlines—but your attacker belongs to one of them.”

  “Great. I won the genetic lottery, too.”

  “I seem to recall that it allows the senior to share experiences with the junior, and to let the senior keep track of the junior’s location.”

  “What about the other way around? Can I use it to locate him?”

  “I’m not sure,” he says hesitantly, “but I don’t think so.”

  Which, again, makes sense from an evolutionary point of view: If the survivor of a werewolf bite can track the one who bit him, pretty soon you either have a bunch of dead werewolves or a bunch of werewolves who don’t leave survivors. Either way, it slows population growth in the lupine sector.

  I haven’t even finished processing this latest bit of good news when I hear a voice that makes me swallow my gum. Okay, I’m not chewing gum, but if I were it would be either halfway down my digestive tract or in a flat midair trajectory after being spat out.

  “Hello, Jace.”

  I swallow, and turn slowly in my chair. “Hi, Gretch. How are things?”

  She’s standing in the doorway, dressed in a tweed skirt and high-collared white shirt, her blond hair as usual pulled back in a bun. Her hands are behind her back. She smiles at me, gently. Gretch and I are good friends, I’m the godmother to he
r daughter, I would—and have—trusted her with my life. But she also scares the living crap out of me sometimes, and this is one of them.

  “I guess you heard, huh?” I say, trying to convince a smile to show up on my face.

  “Heard what, Jace?” Her voice is as soft and friendly as a teddy bear. I wonder how far I could get if I ran. Probably not very.

  “That Sicilian werewolf gangsters kidnapped your baby while I was looking after her?” Sometimes honesty is the best policy. Besides, at this point I’m sure she has more information about what happened than I do.

  “Oh, that. Not to worry—it all turned out fine, didn’t it? I never doubted you for a moment.”

  Oh, damn. I am so far past hooped they’ll be naming basketball courts after me. And she’s not going to make it quick, either.

  “Gretch, I can explain. They came right into my building, I didn’t have my gun—”

  “Mmm.”

  “Well, okay, the gun was there but it was out of reach and I was holding the baby—”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, I could have just strolled over and picked it up, they wouldn’t have taken it seriously, but it was also behind a locked door plus then I would have had to shoot all three of them—”

  “Ah.”

  “Okay, okay, I should have shot all three of them, but—but—” I run down slowly. She looks at me and nods once. Gently.

  “I’m glad you see where you went wrong. Now, let’s concentrate on capturing Tair, shall we? I understand he managed to give you a bit of a scratch.”

  And with that, she turns and leaves.

  “Brrr,” says the descendant of arctic wolves.

  I probably deserved that, but it stings all the same. Great. Charlie’s hellbent on revenge, Cassius is keeping me in the dark about my own possible future as a lycanthrope, and Gretch is pissed at me. I decide to celebrate by visiting Dr. Pete’s family and telling them I failed completely.

  The Adams pack, despite the name, is not altogether ooky. In fact, they’re a large, rambunctious group made of strays, orphans, and outcasts—or the descendants thereof—who have created something of their own. As usual, a bunch of them are spilling out of the house and onto the lawn as I pull up, squealing children being chased by growling wolves who are then chased in turn, old ladies in shawls knitting on the front porch under the moonlight, conversation and laughter rising and falling from the open windows.

  I park on the street and get out of the car. Usually, my arrival means being surrounded and pestered by a horde of kids, some in were form, which is like being mugged by puppies. I see heads turned in my directions, I see ears go up and noses sniff—

  And then, nothing.

  The kids go back to playing. The adults are all looking at me—some just glance, some outright stare. Nobody seems angry or upset; a few appear confused, while the older ones are carefully neutral.

  “Uh-oh,” I say.

  I make my way up the walk and toward the front door. People smile and wave at me, their discomfort disappearing behind a mask of politeness.

  I smile and wave back.

  None of the kids comes near me.

  The house is big, a three-story sprawling rancher painted a bright green, with a pool in an immense yard. I find Leo out on the back deck, holding court with a group of young thropes, a mug of beer in one hand. Leo’s the patriarch of the Adams clan, a large, burly guy with a hefty paunch and two wiry gray tufts of hair sticking up from his head like a lycanthropic Krusty the Clown. His grin is wide, his canines prominent and very sharp. He’s wearing his usual outfit, a baggy pair of shorts covered in a tropical design and a loose-fitting silk shirt of pale yellow. He stops in mid-sentence when I walk in. All heads swivel around, all eyes focus on me.

  The smile on Leo’s face drains away. He looks very, very sad. “Oh, Jace,” he says quietly. “You poor girl. I am so very, very sorry.”

  I don’t know how to respond to that. I’m not the weepy type—my little meltdown in Cassius’s office will do me for quite some time—so when Leo gets up, walks over, and enfolds me in a big, compassionate embrace I’m a little lost. Damn it, I didn’t go to all the work of bottling up my terror, anger, and grief behind a solid wall of cynicism, sarcasm, and denial to have one hug tear it down.

  “Thanks, Leo,” I say into his shoulder. “Guess the wolf’s out of the bag, huh?”

  “I knew as soon as I smelled you. It is a scent I have not encountered in a long, long time—but one never forgets. How did it happen?”

  I pull away and brace myself. “Tair. And it gets worse.”

  Leo frowns. “It didn’t work?”

  “If by work, you mean give Tair the opportunity to slice open an artery in my leg and escape while I was bleeding to death, then it worked like gangbusters. Otherwise, not so much.”

  Leo glances back at the group of thropes he’s been talking to and says, “You must excuse us. Jace, please come with me.”

  He strides away, not back into the house but out into the yard. I follow him, wondering what’s going on.

  He leads me around the pool, past a cluster of patio furniture, and all the way to a stand of trees that borders the property. There are no lights, but I can see multiple trails leading through the undergrowth, no doubt worn by children tearing through their own private forest. Leo pauses at the edge of the trees, waiting for me.

  “I thought it better if we talked alone,” he says. “It sounds as if we have much to discuss.”

  “Yeah.” I tell him the whole story—the Gray Wolves, the deal, the escape. He listens attentively, and doesn’t speak until I’m done.

  “Again, I am so sorry,” he says. “This is all my fault.”

  “Leo, you know that isn’t true—”

  “No. It is. I was the one who told you about the procedure. It was a foolish risk, one I should not have asked you to take. At the very least, I should have been there as well.”

  “It wouldn’t have helped. And security procedures wouldn’t have allowed it, anyway.”

  He turns away from me, toward the dark, rustling shadows of the trees. “It was my own weakness that triggered this. I just—I miss him, Jace. He is like my own son. But now, you are the one who must pay the price.”

  “I miss him, too, Leo. But he’s gone.”

  Leo nods, then turns back to me. His face is somber. “Yes. But you are not—you are here. And you must listen to me very carefully now, all right?”

  Leo is the driving force behind the Adams clan, the one who took Dr. Pete in when his own family was slaughtered. He’s done the same for countless others, binding them all together with the kind of love and loyalty they needed. I have a huge amount of respect for him. “Of course.”

  “What I am about to say to you, I do not say out of guilt. I do not say it out of duty, or even compassion. I say it because it is something I have thought long and hard on, and I know in my heart it is the right thing to do—right for you, right for us. I want you to join us, Jace. I want you to join our pack.”

  I try not to sigh. I knew this would happen—Leo’s made it obvious that I have a place in the Adams pack anytime I want it, doing everything but offering to bite me himself. “I’m flattered, Leo. I really am. But things are moving kind of fast, and I’m not ready for that kind of a commitment yet.” I pause. Up until now Leo’s affection has been sort of playful, but this is the equivalent of a wedding proposal. I hope I haven’t hurt his feelings.

  He chuckles. “I didn’t expect you to say yes—not right away, in any case. I just wanted to make it plain that we’re here for you, that there’s no question of that at all. You aren’t alone in this—not if you don’t want to be.”

  “Thanks. But I’m not sure I even belong in a pack—even when I was working for the Bureau I was kind of a lone wolf.”

  “So were many of the Adams clan. You would find much in common with many of them, I think. They would respect your privacy, if that is what you desired.”
<
br />   He’s offering me a chance to belong, to really fit in for probably the first time since I got to this world. It makes me feel a lot better and terrifies me at the same time. “I’m not saying no, Leo.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Now let’s go back inside—I promise you, no one will pry.”

  “Tell me exactly how it happened,” Xandra says. “Every detail.”

  Leo’s promise, it seems, doesn’t extend to the curiousity of teenage girls. Teenage thrope girls full of hormones and angst, especially.

  We’re in her bedroom, where she’s dragged me for a full interrogation. It’s covered in posters for musical acts, all of which look genuinely frightening; the term hair band takes on a whole new meaning when you throw lycanthropy into the mix. The ones I find the most disturbing, though, are the equivalent of skinheads: a completely shaved, seven-foot-tall werewolf behind a drum kit is a sight you can’t unsee.

  I lean back against the wall and groan. We’ve both kicked off our shoes and are sitting on her bed. “There’s not much to tell, Xandra. I didn’t even see it happen—just felt something slice open my leg.”

  “Did he threaten you first? Was he all like, Choose—join me or die?”

  “No. He was all like, Let her bleed to death or try to catch me. And he said it to the guard, not me.”

  She nods, somehow satisfied. “Yeah. Cool.”

  “What do you mean, cool? I could have died!”

  “Nah. If he’d wanted to kill you, he would have. He took that shooty thing away and you couldn’t even see, right? He totally could have killed you.”

  She’s right. “I know. He played it smart, like Tair always does. He knew he could disable at least one guard and the priest, but he found a way to take me and the other guard out of the equation, too.”