Page 37 of Wolf Bane
The floor was gritty under my cheek.Old, peeling linoleum or vinyl.Stale, sour sweat.Something sharp and green, medicinal but not herbal.Under it all, the cloying too-sweet smell of rotten tissue, rotting blood.
Well.That realization did away with my attempts not to vomit all over myself.
“Oh, good.You’re awake.”
I rolled onto my back, debating whether to swallow the bile-bitter saliva in my mouth or spit it at the man standing over me.“As luck would have it,” I muttered, closing my eyes.“Just so you know, doctors don’t make as much money as you think.At least I don’t.So, if this is a ransom thing?—”
“You’re adorable,” he said, reaching down to pat my face a little too hard.“I don’t believe for one second you think this is a regular kidnapping.Daniel, get him up.”
Daniel—it turns out, the were who tried to eat my arm had a name—grabbed me around the middle and slung me to my feet.“Get off me,” he snapped when I swayed forward, knees buckling.
“Fuck me for being woozy,” I snarled.“It’s almost as if someone tried toeat my fucking arm!”
“Boys,” the other man quelled, sounding amused and annoyed at once.It took me a bleary moment to recognize the man who’d bitten me—one of the weres who’d come to take Robards away.The other man was unfamiliar, older and a bit on the shaggy, unkempt side.Big, though, built like someone who’d done hard physical labor most of their life.Sun-dark, craggy, and graying, he sat on the edge of a battered old desk littered with stacks of paper and an ancient CRT monitor.“This ain’t the time for dick measuring, Daniel.You know what needs to be done.”
Daniel grunted, giving me a final shove before he turned away, heading for a heavy door with a security bar, the kind you could bump with your hip if you had to.He gave that a shove too and stuck his head through into the dark on the other side.“Slidell, get over here.Bring Zero.”
“I’m sorry… Slidell?Like the city?”I asked, gingerly cradling my injured arm.Someone—probably the older guy because Daniel didn’t seem the sort—had bandaged it while I was out.It was too much to hope that he’d managed to clean the wound.Human—and were—mouths were filthy, and I was no doubt going to end up with a mother of an infection if I didn’t get it taken care of soon.
“Like the city,” the man agreed, assessing me with a dark, glittering gaze.“Sorry for how this is going down, but it’s kind of an emergency and the dickheads at that council bullshit weren’t returning calls.Oh, now, don’t give me that look.”He chuckled, low and grating.“You know what I’m talkin’ about.Your little lover boy works for ‘em now.Must make it real convenient to get your shit done, huh?”
He shoved away from the desk and paced closer, looming over me in just a few strides.“You’re one of the lab monkeys, yeah?You don’t get loyalty to a clan, a mate, none of that.You’re too human to give a fuck, aren’t ya?But see, we don’t give a good goddamn about that.You’ve got the council’s goods and you’re gonna help us, whether they like it or not.”
Daniel pushed the door wider and two people limped through.One, I assumed Slidell, was guiding the other with a hand on their elbow as Zero (process of elimination and, frankly, they justlookedlike someone named Zero) dragged themself over the threshold.
Gently, Daniel helped them both to a long, cracked vinyl bench beneath a tar paper covered window.The bench emitted a sad creak and fluff of thin, flammable stuffing under the two weres as Zero slumped sideways to rest their head on Slidell’s lap.Zero’s breath was wheezing and high, like it took effort just to walk slowly across the room.
Slidell patted their back fretfully, muttering soft, crooning pleas that made my heart twinge for them, and I kind of hated him for that just a little.
“They have the virus, don’t they?”I asked, glancing at the older were.“How long?”
“I don’t got it,” Slidell offered in a thick, swampy accent.“Zero here, they got sick few weeks ‘go.We went to the Carbine Harvest Festival at St.Mary’s, down ‘round Layby.You know it?”
When I shook my head, he sucked his teeth a bit sadly.
“Most folk don’t.Poor as shit, right?”He seemed to be waiting for an answer, so I nodded.
“The Layby shifters, they’re a freaky group, yeah?Gators,” he added with a sharp gnash of his teeth, just in case I had no idea what an alligator’s most notable feature might be.“They’re pretty clannish, but they’ve been easin’ up on us for a bit now.Had one of them trucks come ‘round there.Not the first, not the last.”He shrugged.“Givin’ out medicine an’ shit.”
“Shots?”I glanced at Daniel and Old Guy.“Did you get shots for anything?”
Zero shook their head once, wincing.“Had a headache,” they muttered.“Got some painkillers though.”They held up two fingers to show me how many.
“Some of our others had what was presented as a vitamin booster,” Old Guy offered quietly.“They were passing out information about nutritional deficits in children and young adults…” He looked nauseated, swallowing hard as his color drained from his face.
I glanced at Zero again, really studied them for a moment or three.They looked younger than I first assumed.Being sick had done a number on them.Lank hair, sallow skin, drawn to the point of furrowing along their mouth and jaw.Dehydrated too, I’d wager.Their sad, defeated expression reminded me forcibly of Justin.Wait… “Did you say you took a pill from them?Painkiller?”
Zero nodded.“Like… Tylenol?But store brand or something.”They shrugged.“The lady handed it to me in a little paper cup, said it was okay to take on an empty stomach.”
“How soon after did you get sick?”I asked, taking a step towards Zero only to be stopped by a sharp snarl from Daniel.“Dude, chill.I get it, you’re the big bad wolf in this scenario.”I threw my hands up, still scared but also so frustrated I wanted to shake someone until their eyes rolled out of their head.And I really wanted it to be Daniel.“Stop overcompensating.”
Old Guy snorted.“Stand down, Daniel.But stand by.”
“Good God,” I muttered, turning my attention back to Zero.“I… I’ve been collecting data.Well.Some was pre-collected.But I’ve added to it.”Glancing at Old Guy, I held my hands out in asee, I’m totally harmlessgesture and took another step towards Zero and Slidell.“One of my friends has been pretty sick.He said he took some painkillers, too, beforehand.”
Zero gently disentangled themself from Slidell and pushed upright so they could look me in my face.“Benoit said you’re a doctor.”They jerked their softly rounded chin in Old Guy’s direction.“That true, or you like one of them who came ‘round with the van?They weren’t real doctors.I can tell.”Zero sniffed, then suddenly bent double with a racking cough that sent Slidell’s hands fluttering in useless panic as Daniel lurched forward and Old Guy—Benoit—barked for him to grab some water.Zero waved them all off, their breath whooping for several horrible moments.Finally, they were able to breathe without rasping and hacking, without that dreadful, terrifying whoop.
“They weren’t real,” Zero repeated.“They didn’t ask the right things.They didn’t know how to do much of anything.Just give those shots.”
