Plague of Ghouls: Helix, #2

By Pat Flewwelling

Ishmael took something more dangerous than refugees out of that quarantine, but it’s nothing compared to what awaits outside.

Because of his crimes, his breach of quarantine, and his new and worrisome symptoms, Ishmael and his rescued Pack are pariahs among werewolves, loathed, and under constant suspicion.

And yet, when bodies turn up in small-town Ontario, the Wyrd Council splits up Ishmael’s Pack and sends him to investigate. He’s hurried away from the safety and isolation of Varco Lake, and thrust into an anxious, tightly-knit community full of surveillance cameras, cell phones, and bad memories.

Just when he grasps the enormity of the disaster waiting for him in Halo County, Ishmael realizes what’s in his blood, and where it really came from.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyche Books
• Release date: Aug 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536558432

Book preview

Helix: Plague of Ghouls

Published by Tyche Books Ltd.

www.TycheBooks.com

Copyright © 2016 Pat Flewwelling

First Tyche Books Ltd Edition 2016

Print ISBN: 978-1-928025-53-5

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-928025-54-2

Cover Art by Galen Dara

Cover Layout by Lucia Starkey

Interior Layout by Ryah Deines

Editorial by Simon Rose

Author photograph: C2 Studios

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage & retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright holder, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third party websites or their content.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead would be really cool, but is purely coincidental.

This book was funded in part by a grant from the Alberta Media Fund.

Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form.

- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Chapter One

ISHMAEL SAT SHIVERING and sweating at his computer, eyes wide, listening over his tense shoulder to a sound outside. He was in the middle of the building, surrounded by shelves full of laptops, bins of computer parts, rattling fans, and whirring hard drives. He shouldn’t have been able to hear someone knocking on his locked server room door, let alone someone standing outside. Not now. Not now!

He shuddered, mostly from the fever, but partly because he had to admit that he was suffering from something he’d picked up in quarantine at Wyndham Farms.

Ishmael wiped his forehead with his sleeve and toggled from the video editing software he’d been running, to the network script he’d been repairing, to the program that monitored all live feeds from the surveillance cameras dotting the estate at Varco Lake. In one video, a shadow moved along the third floor hall of the main house. He saw the empty foyer in another feed; someone was setting up breakfast in the cafeteria; a lumber truck rolled past the gas pumps at Varco Valley Station; in the second floor library, Holly shifted uncomfortably in a chair too wide and too long for her. Her eyes flashed as she watched someone off screen. Blonde hair had fallen in front of her pointed ears, giving her a wild faerie look, which was accentuated by her visible alarm. She hugged her legs to her chest and pretended to read.

For three weeks, Wyrd membership had been up in arms over Ishmael and his Pack of mismatched, misshapen lycanthropes, fearing that they carried some mutant strain. For those same three weeks, Ishmael swore his Pack of so-called Tiger Dogs were no threat, despite the fact that his shoulder still bore scars from some inmate’s teeth and claws. Now, unless his health took a turn for the better, he’d have to eat his words, and they’d all have to run for their lives.

Ishmael’s hand shook as he switched to different cameras. In the one labelled, labext1, a fish-eyed lens captured somebody in a hooded winter coat as he weakly shoved his shoulder against the outside door. Wind whistled shrilly down the corridor, as loud in Ishmael’s ears as a dentist drill, until the door was shut tight again. His ears rang.

Ishmael watched the interior camera feed as Gil negotiated the narrow corridor with his forearm crutches. Enormously relieved that this intruder wasn’t Angie Burley, again, especially not now, Ishmael rolled his chair back to unlock and open the server room door. Even this was enough to knock the breath out of him. Ishmael sat forward with his forearms on his knees, hoping to quell the vertigo.

Canes clacked beside him.

Dr. Gil Burton looked irascible, especially now that he’d brought in the breath of frost with him. His coat hung open, and the heavy pockets swung in front of his hips, tangling up his canes when he walked. He stopped a few feet away from Ishmael’s open door, straightened—or tried to—and caught his breath. Under his winter gear, Gil was wearing a faded blue sweatshirt with the design of a tilted, yellow happy face printed on it, and the words Quitcher Bitchin written around the circumference. Gil took one look at Ishmael, who was sweating profusely and forcing a smile, then glanced pointedly at Ishmael’s bank of glowing computers. He shook his head, clucked his tongue, and wheezed. What, again? The monitoring software was rotating through all its views, and at that very moment, the picture had returned to Holly. You’ll go blind, Gil warned. Ishmael snorted a laugh. Too damned early in the mornin . . . His breath gave out.

It was 6:30, and Ishmael had already been working for two hours—and that was after thirty minutes in the gym, a shower, a five-kilometre walk in the cold, and a raid on the kitchen.

Is there coffee? Gil asked. Why are you up?

Yes to the coffee, Ishmael answered as he stood. And I couldn’t sleep. He pretended to be jaunty and aloof, when really he was leaning against the shelving unit to keep from lurching across the topsy-turvy floor.

For a while, Gil didn’t say anything. He looked Ishmael up and down, and he shook his head sadly, muttering to himself. Come with me, he said. After that, he focused on squirming through his medical lab door, traversing the tiled floor and down the ramp to a curved desk with several Apple computers, torn calendars, crumpled Jos. Louis cake wrappers, loose printouts, and a collection of empty energy drink cans. He kicked down a makeshift brake on his wheeled office chair so that he could sit without the seat escaping from under him. Even the act of sitting seemed to take monumental efforts of concentration and balance. Still holding his crutches, his arms sagged at the sides of his chair. Couldn’t sleep because you’re . . . His breath failed again. Too busy watching those . . . cameras. You lech.

Twenty-three years earlier, Gil had been the lead singer of Backdoor Access, with Ishmael on keyboard and Jay Brandywine on bass. Now Gil could barely cross the floor without getting winded, Ishmael was a prisoner and pariah, and Jay was on the run.

Any more trouble? Gil asked, more seriously.

Ishmael shook his head. His neck was stiff. Not lately. Not since Fitch pinned her in the library.

Gil shrugged. She’s better in a fight . . . than you are.

Don’t I know it, Ishmael freely admitted. He’d seen her fight in fur and in human form. There was a good reason why she’d survived nearly six years in quarantine.

She doesn’t need you . . . looking at her all the time. The last word came out as a whisper, since his sentence had outrun his breath.

It wasn’t her I was looking at, Ishmael said.

Gil looked like he was gearing up to say something funny, but all the spirit went out of him. He inspected Ishmael with bright but baggy eyes. Ishmael tucked his hands in his pockets and feigned sudden interest in a piece of paper on Gil’s desk. The kittens? Gil asked.

Ishmael looked everywhere but at Gil. Anger mixed with his fever, and his cheeks burned. Gil, you’ve gotta give me something. I’m going in circles here.

I don’t know anything, Gil said, patiently. Ishmael had been needling him for information since the day he’d arrived from quarantine. No more than last time you asked.

Which is nothing more than the party line, Ishmael said between clenched teeth. Same thing every time. Ask Harvey, ask Harvey, he found the video, ask him.

So ask Harvey! Gil said.

I’ve tried, Ishmael said. "The second after I email him, Burley comes down my neck telling me to mind my own business and let her handle the investigation."

"So let her, Gil said. You trained her!"

That wasn’t completely true. Angie Burley had been a cop before she was turned, and all Ishmael did was layer on some technical and survival skills. That made her even more qualified to handle the investigation than Ishmael, but he couldn’t let it go. Someone had taken eight women and infected them with Ishmael’s feline variant of the lycanthropic curse. That meant only one of two things: either Ishmael had turned them, or Ishmael was not the only one of his kind, as the Wyrd Council had always sworn. The Wyrd Council believed the first, because Ishmael had deliberately fallen off Wyrd’s radar countless times in the last six years, and it was anyone’s guess what he’d been up to. But Ishmael knew better, and with one exception, Ishmael had never attempted to turn a human being.

Yeah, and see how that turned out.

Gil was the reason he never tried twice.

He’s pushing fifty. Ishmael hadn’t changed more than his hairstyle since Michael Keaton was Batman, but Gil was already an old man, nodding off in his chair.

Someone’s got to be looking for them, Ishmael said.

Yes. Wyrd is.

"No, I mean the girls. Wyrd is out looking for kittens. I’m looking for the women who went missing. If we can figure out where they disappeared from, then maybe we can triangulate where they are now. There have to be missing person reports. Someone has to be making a connection between all eight of those women—maybe more of them, for all we know. But I need something, some clue who they are in human form, or some metadata on the video, anything! Before anyone else is turned."

It was because of those so-called kittens that Ishmael had been sent to quarantine. Unauthorized infections were usually punishable by death—specifically, having one’s wrists and ankles shackled to an anchor at the bottom of Varco Lake—but he’d been sent to the Wyndham Farms quarantine instead. According to the official Wyrd Council statement, this was meant as a temporary prison term; according to less official accounts—namely Bridget’s own suspicions—the quarantine was meant as a painful, drawn-out, much more dramatic death sentence than a simple drowning.

Ishmael scratched at the scar across his shoulder.

Gil gave Ishmael a pleading look.

What? Ishmael asked.

"Coffee, por favor."

Ishmael wiped the sweat from his mouth and dropped his hands to his hips. Yeah. He sighed. Sure. Why not? Anything to change the subject, right, Gil?

He left the medical lab for the kitchen and brought back two cups of coffee. He was about to set one cup on a relatively stable-looking set of papers, when Gil barked a shout of annoyance and moved the papers from one disorganized pile to another. Ishmael set the mug down on a cleared spot on the desk.

Thanks, Gil grunted at last. He tried lifting the mug. It was too heavy for his narrow wrist. He had to use both hands now. He used to play guitar, mashing his fingers across the strings like he was grating a tough block of cheese. The mug quivered, and Ishmael fought the urge to chase it with a napkin and an open hand, to catch the dribbling coffee before it hit Gil’s lap. Despite the tippiness of the cup, Gil didn’t spill a drop. With great care, Gil set it down again. Then he sat still, looking drained.

Ishmael sat too, and he drank some of his own coffee. It wasn’t bad. He’d made better. It was one of the rare few things he’d really missed during his incarceration in Wyndham Farms.

I was only there for a week . . .

I’ve had worse, Gil said at last.

I was only there for a week. I missed coffee for a week. They were up there for six years.

Hey.

Who the hell am I to complain about stress and anxiety?

And what the hell did I bring back with me? He closed his hand into a fist, watching the tendons shift across swollen knuckles.

Ish.

He was thinking about licking the palm of his own paw. The width of it. The power in it.

The infection under the fur and flesh.

You’re still there, aren’t you?

Ishmael’s nostrils were flaring. He sat up, breathing deeply, hoping to cool his blood. I think I’ve gone nocturnal.

Gil shrugged. "Well, no shit. You are a cat. When he spoke, he would take a deep breath, and as he relaxed and leaned forward, he’d squeeze air into a tumble of words. Get the kit."

We don’t need it.

Get . . . the goddamned . . . kit.

Ishmael jammed his fist into his sweater pocket.

You’re flushed, Gil said. And shaking.

It’s because I make damned good coffee, Ishmael shot back.

We need to know. If not for your sake . . . Gil’s voice expired in a wheeze. He clenched his eyes shut, crushed his teeth together, and breathed. There was a screaming punk rocker trapped in Gil’s body, and he was raging to get out.

He was raging at Ishmael.

If not for you, Gil said, then for the sake of . . . those people you . . . cross-infected.

Ishmael left his coffee on a counter nearby and hunted for Gil’s equipment: a syringe, rubber tubing, six glass vials, and some antiseptic pads. Ishmael’s neck itched.

Ahab calls them ‘Tiger Dogs’. Good band name, Gil said.

I think it’s already taken.

When was the last . . . ?

Four days, Ishmael replied.

Yay, progress, Gil said, shaking his skeletal fist with skeletal enthusiasm.

Instead of his usual pain-in-the-ass six-day cycle, Ishmael had been slipping into his animal form once every two to three days since he’d left Wyndham Farms. At least at Varco Lake, there was a limitless supply of beef, chicken, and mutton, and if he was lucky, a stray moose or caribou tromped through Varco Lake when Ishmael was already in hunting mode.

Ishmael handed Gil the syringe, vials, and antiseptic. He’d handle the job of tying up his arm. Last change was on Sunday.

Sleeping at all? Gil asked.

Not really. Can’t sleep in the dorm. It’s Varco Valley Station or it’s outside.

With Holly.

It helps, Ishmael said, unapologetically. We take turns sleeping. Watch each other’s backs.

And each other’s fronts. Gil began to swab Ishmael’s inner arm. But why the shorter cycle?

Hell if I know.

"Hell you do know." Gil coaxed the tip of the needle where it was supposed to go.

Ishmael ground his teeth. Flashbacks, I guess, he said. My head whirls, and suddenly I’m right back there, hanging head first over the . . . He shivered. Over Digger’s mouth.

The wendigo, Gil murmured.

I understand what a seal feels like when it looks down the throat of a Great White shark.

Gil switched vials without removing the needle.

It doesn’t help matters that Fitch and company come banging on my door at three in the morning. With an axe, Ishmael said.

She saved your ass then, too?

Shut up, Ishmael said, trying hard to hang on to his peevish mood.

Wyrd justice was too slow for some members. Fitch was a long-time crony of Jay, and he wanted Ishmael and the Tiger Dogs gone. If Fitch and Friends couldn’t kill them, then they’d run them off Varco Lake property, forcing them to breech the terms of their agreement with the Wyrd Council. Make any attempt to escape, and the Wyrd Council would issue an Immediate Kill warrant, and turn every licensed lycanthrope against them.

Ishmael’s illness would only complicate matters.

Are you the only one sick? Gil asked, his lips barely moving. There were surveillance cameras inside the lab, too, and no way to tell who was reading lips.

I’m not sick, Ishmael said. I can’t get sick. You know that.

Dr. Foster had explained that the theranthropic retrovirus was jealously protective of its host. As soon as a foreign body entered the host’s body, it would force its host to up-cycle, flushing out all toxins, poisons, and invading viral material by the time the host returned to human form. The retrovirus had completely replaced Ishmael’s immune system, and that retrovirus was working just fine.

Gil rolled his eyes and began the third vial. Are you the only one?

Yes, he admitted. Just me.

You sure?

. . . dangling over that mouth . . . dislocated jaw . . . like Predator . . . or that worm-thing in Star Wars with the ring of teeth . . . Sarlacc—only it was one of us.

It was one of us.

He dug at the scars on his shoulder. Sweat erupted down his back and chest.

The next stage of our evolution.

De-evolution.

Shmiley? Gil asked.

Oh God—Dep—that lazy smile . . . He’s got the same strain—God help us—and I brought him here, on the verge of his first change—

Something itching in my blood—

Too much! Too much! He rubbed the ball of his fist against his aching forehead.

A cold finger touched him on the shoulder, and he jumped. His skin prickled. His arm was dotted with the stubble of new fur itching to break the surface.

You get anything done on . . . the new routing? Gil asked.

I uh . . . Ishmael said. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but his mouth was dry. He was grateful for the concrete, off-topic question. Yeah. But I don’t think it’s going to do much good. By the way, who the hell did they hire to cover me while I was away?

I dunno, Gil said, and he looked like he didn’t give a shit either.

Whoever it was, he was a dink.

Gil grinned.

Spent more time untangling knots in the code than I did in building new stuff. Whatever. We won’t get any significant speed until we run fibre optics all the way up here.

No luck at all? Gil began the fourth vial.

Ishmael shrugged a shoulder. I’ve been working on some repeaters, to see if we can increase the range out to Varco Valley Station. He was mumbling. He couldn’t help it. His jaw was so stiff he couldn’t enunciate. He watched Gil take the fourth and fifth vials. He extracted a little blood from one of the vials and applied it to what looked like a litmus strip. He counted seconds, his lips moving, and he made a handwritten note of the colour changes.

Gil, I can’t breathe, Ishmael said. I can’t sit still. I need to be outside.

It’s cold outside.

I know it’s cold outside. That’s why I’m pissed off that I want to be outside.

You can’t plug a . . . computer into a . . . tree out there.

Ishmael nodded. If I can increase the range and speed of the connection, I can remote into the lab servers whenever necessary from the comfort of the cabin . . . If it gets cold, I can go outside and chop wood, and if I want to, I could . . . A muscle in his cheek jumped. He looked away. Whatever.

And whenever, Gil said, with another slow blink. You need to get that . . . under control.

Ishmael nodded, but Gil was pointing at Ishmael’s fingers. The nails had turned black. God damn it . . . Claws were trying to grow through. Four days off-cycle, and already . . . He tucked his hands into his armpits and closed his eyes.

It’s not stress, Gil said.

Ishmael’s upper lip burned. Recurring nightmares, eight women changed into one of my kind, people chopping through solid oak to get at me, men stalking Holly into the women’s bathroom, Wyrd’s final decision hanging over our heads . . . No, no stress. Ishmael ground his teeth and rubbed his fingers. He’d been fighting the change all morning, and now, with Gil watching, he was losing the battle.

You need . . . a vacation, Gil said.

I need answers, Ishmael retorted. He scratched at the scar tissue across his shoulder.

Gil was right. There was more happening than stress. The ’98 Lakebridge Park murders, those had been stressful. The Moldova Incident in 2007, that had been stressful. Every day since then, keeping the truth covered up, that had been stressful. And Ishmael had handled all of it like a champ.

His heart was pounding. He heard phantom people running behind him. He heard someone breathing in his ear, laughing. They were right on top of him, and he was running naked, furless, and unarmed through their territory, tripping over fallen trees.

Gil sat back in his chair, collecting his thoughts while he gathered his breath. With so little strength, every word had to be chosen for its maximum efficiency. This would be easier, he said, if you hadn’t killed Foster.

I didn’t kill Foster, Ishmael said, for the eightieth time. The Lost Ones got her.

After years living with them? Gil asked. Suddenly they win? When you were there?

If not them, damn it, Ishmael shouted, then the air strike probably did her in. He clapped his fingers to his upper lip. No blood. Pain, but no split yet. I didn’t do it.

Gil didn’t know Dr. Eva Foster was hiding in plain sight at Varco Lake.

She could look at your blood . . . tell you at a glance . . . which virus you’ve got . . .

I know, Ishmael said.

Brilliant, Gil added, with a sigh. Inexhaustible. He barely made it through the whole world before his voice failed.

Intolerable, Ishmael said. Gil grunted an enthusiastic, aggravated agreement. But you have to believe me. I didn’t kill her.

Bridget says you did.

And what does Dr. Grey say? Ishmael asked. What does the Padre say? Or Ferox?

Gil smirked. "What does the fox say?"

Oh, for God’s sake.

Gil nodded wearily. Dr. Grey . . . might help me. If you can find him.

Ishmael frowned. I know exactly where Shuffle is. I just don’t know how much use he’ll be. He didn’t even know he was Daniel Grey. Hell, if he’s forgotten his whole life, how do you expect him to remember advanced microbiology, especially without his notes? Gil, you’d have better luck asking Mary Anne, for all the good he’d do you.

He can help. Haberman brought him here. Told him to sit and talk with me. We sat and talked, once. He knew.

He knew, what . . . ?

Terminology. Equipment. Genetics.

And then—

He left, Gil said. Never came back. Not like I could stop him. Or follow him.

Ishmael checked his fingers again. The nails were still black. He’d arrested the change, but he hadn’t rolled it back.

"And Mary Anne could help, Gil said. She was a doctor once, too. Hospice care. Good researcher. Worked with Foster and me . . . at the bunker, beginning of . . . quarantine."

Ishmael nodded. Holly had told him about life in the bunker, and about how Mary Anne had been invaluable as a research assistant there and on the island. But he’d forgotten—discounted—Mary Anne’s worth. He’d only been thinking of her in terms of a dying patient, not as a scientist.

Gil’s hands settled on the arms of his chair. If the old boy weighed a hundred pounds, it was because he was carrying a ten-pound weight in either pocket.

I’m sorry, Gil, Ishmael whispered. It was so hard to look at him. For Gil, some days were better than others, but every month, the standards for a good day were lower than the month before. He had another five years, maybe. But they wouldn’t be good years.

And it’s my fault.

Ishmael wanted to get up and walk away forever. I am so, so sorry.

Gil didn’t respond until Ishmael rose and started putting equipment away. I’m not dead yet, Gil said, forcing good humour. Besides. I asked.

Ishmael didn’t understand at first.

Gil was looking at his own hands.

I screwed up, Ish, Gil said. All this . . . started with me.

You want me to put these vials in the centrifuge? Ishmael asked, louder than necessary. Gil said yes, then gave him more specific instructions about speed settings and how to latch the lid.

When you’re done there . . . come here, Gil said.

I should get outside.

Here, kitty, kitty, Gil said, without a drop of humour.

Ishmael picked up a pen from the floor and tossed it onto the desk. With his aching hands on his hips, he stood behind Gil’s chair. Gil pointed to two of his monitors. Hair sample, he said. Day one out of quarantine. Arm hair. Gil pointed at one monitor. Left arm. Just below the scar. The microscope picture showed a straight hair that was jagged, scaly and dark brown at its edges, while reddish-brown in the middle. In the other monitor was a second hair sample. Same location, opposite arm. That hair was straight, short, smooth, and black. Gil clicked his mouse button. Hair samples, same locations. Day four. There didn’t seem to be any change. Day six. Still no change. Day eight. Ishmael didn’t see any difference, so Gil switched between day four and eight, then up to day twelve. The black hairs were becoming scaly and rough. By day sixteen, the scales seemed to be peeling away from the rest of the hair, becoming as coarse as the hairs on his infected left arm.

It was his human body hair that was changing.

And your blood . . . flooded with latent change hormones . . . The last word was barely audible. Four times higher than in a normal . . . lycanthrope.

Therianthrope, Ishmael said, scratching at his chest. Hair was thickening and growing between his collarbones. Not now, damn it! We prefer the term therianthrope.

Skin-walker . . . by any other name, Gil snarled. Then he puffed a bitter laugh. At least you learned something . . . from Foster before you . . . offed her.

Didn’t kill her, Gil. Believe me or don’t, that won’t change the truth. His teeth chattered, and he pulled his too-small jacket tighter to his body.

Gil grunted. Whatever. Weight. Height. Blood pressure. Pulse. Temperature. Go.

Ishmael visited each station grudgingly. I need to go, Gil.

Patience.

If I have an accident, it’s your fault.

The results weren’t much of a surprise. Ishmael’s blood pressure was dangerously low, his pulse raced, his temperature was through the roof, and he’d put on another seven pounds.

But at least I haven’t gotten any taller, Ishmael snarled, as he sat down almost knee-to-knee with his erstwhile college roommate. He was almost twice as wide across the shoulders, compared to Gil.

God, Gil muttered. That’s another fifteen pounds . . . so far this week.

I know.

It’s only Wednesday.

I know.

Ishmael had gone into quarantine sporting a hundred and seventy pounds of combined bone, muscle, and fat. When he escaped six days later, after so many changes and so little food, he weighed in at a hundred and four. Now, only three weeks post-quarantine, he tipped the scales at one hundred and ninety-three, with very little fat. Cycling through two and three times a week kept the fat off as easily as if he were back in quarantine; but cycling through also converted beef, pasta, and moose-on-the-hoof into raw muscle and bone. Even between cycles, food seemed to bypass his stomach and go directly to his neck muscles. All that would be wonderful, he thought, if he wanted to get into extreme bodybuilding or heavyweight boxing—or if he just felt healthy while packing on the mass. Instead, for the last three days, he’d been suffering from fever, flop sweats, migraines, and nausea. Vomiting was unheard of among lycanthropes. They had to process and store every calorie they could in order to survive the metamorphosis from human to animal and back again. Vomiting was a logistical nightmare. Even week-old road kill was food, so most therianthropes had lost the gag reflex.

Could be a mental cause, Gil said. Stress, like you mentioned. Could be physical. Could be viral. He pointed limply at Ishmael’s left shoulder, which felt hot, as if sunburned from the inside out. Either way, you do need . . . to get out of here. He drew a loose circle around his face. Far.

And go where? Ishmael asked, drawing up his hood.

Make a new passport.

Facial recognition software, Ishmael reminded him, pointing to his own face. I mean, when it stays human for more than an hour at a time . . .

Wear make-up. And high heels. Gil chuckled, airily. Like at that gig in Hamilton.

Phuh, Ishmael puffed, in place of a laugh then shook his head. Is it true? They use GPS tracking tags?

Gil’s smile ebbed. Not my department.

Do they?

Ask Burley, Gil said. I only heard rumours.

Where? Physically?

Gil shrugged. Up your ass, maybe. How the hell . . . would I know . . . ? He drank more of his coffee. You need to get away . . . from here. Somehow. And soon. He sat forward, and awkwardly dumped his long, skinny hand on Ishmael’s shoulder. He stared into Ishmael’s eyes as if downloading directly into Ishmael’s brain a hundred private messages of warning, encouragement, and regret. Then he sat back, and his hand fell. Place is going to hell in a hand basket, Ish.

I do need to get out. He got up to pace. Away from all this. Away from me. His thigh spasmed with the need to run and his knee buckled. I need to get outside.

Ish, they know about Moldova.

Don’t care, Ishmael said.

I think they know about Chloe, Gil added, stressing the name. And about Anders.

Wyndham Farms Quarantine had been a different world, one that made sense, for all its cruelty. The rules had been simple and cardinal: find something to eat, don’t be eaten, sleep when and where you can, use every resource you find, and spend every moment keeping each other alive. In quarantine, he could smile broadly and laugh out loud, because no one was ashamed of fangs. When conflict arose, he’d fought among equals. He’d fought, tooth and nail, holding nothing back, and they did likewise. No prisoners to drug and interrogate. No immigration officers to bribe, no police to bully, no victims or spouses or children to deal with. No surveillance cameras, no cell phone video footage, no YouTube. No humans to worry about. On the island, if anyone died, it was because they’d brought death down upon their own heads. No diplomacy, no easily bruised egos, no negotiation, no clever machinations. Just raw . . . bloody . . . power. Always at his disposal. Always just beneath the surface. His power. His.

And I want this.

You’ve got to get this under control, Gil said.

I shouldn’t have to. Not out here.

This is mine. No one can take this from me.

Except, they had.

Human beings had taken him down in an airport lobby. They’d thrown him into an island prison so damned scary that he’d forgotten how to change. And the worst threat hadn’t been those crumbling cannibals either: it was Dr. Eva Foster. She could stick a needle in his skin, rob him of his animal power, and make him mortal. And she’d do it with a smile.

Ish, Gil said, impatiently. At least take it outside.

Ishmael growled and cracked his neck. He’d been able to down-cycle in the middle of a fight with the Lost Ones. Surely, he had the ability to down-cycle in Gil’s lab. What he lacked was the motivation.

You have no idea how bad it smells . . . when you people change.

I’ve got a pretty good idea.

Allergies, Gil said, as he hooked Ishmael’s elbow with one of his canes. He couldn’t pull Ishmael closer, of course, not with Ishmael’s feet planted on the rubberized floor, but he made the effort. Ishmael stepped in. You, Gil whispered, need . . . to get this . . . under . . . control.

Under the skin, Ishmael was control. Turned inside out, he could hear everything, see everything, smell and sense everything around him. There was no trapping him, no catching him unawares. Turned inside out, he could rest with one eye and one ear open, and he could move from sound sleep to battle mode in a split second.

No one would take that from him again.

He made eye contact. Colours were turning to grey, and someone was turning up the lights. He heard Gil’s heartbeat quicken.

I don’t want to, Ishmael murmured.

Something’s going to happen, Gil said, in a rush. To you. To Bridget. To your Pack.

Ishmael checked Gil’s face for any sign of mischief. The rest of his body may have belonged to a prematurely aged curmudgeon, but his colourless eyes were as young, as sharp, and as pissed off as ever.

When? Ishmael asked.

I don’t know. Soon.

The Council’s ready to hand down a decision. What’s it to be? Drowning? Or a new quarantine?

No . . . no, they’d find a way of hobbling me and forcing me to watch as they execute everyone else first. Everyone. Including Bridget and Gil.

At Wyndham Farms, Ishmael had killed a man nearly twice his size. He’d clamped his jaws on the man’s throat, and he’d squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed, until the throat stopped working, and the man had fallen down, unable to breathe. And that had been when Ishmael was at nearly half his current weight.

Bring it on, you bastards. Try and come between me and my Pack now, you sons of bitches . . .

Ish, Gil said.

I’ll go, he growled.

Get it under control. They want you to fail. They want an excuse.

God, he said, his voice thickening and his upper lip splitting, how I wish I could give them all the excuses they want.

Hit the fans on your way out.

I didn’t do it, Gil. Ishmael’s jaw bone was swelling. Foster. The kittens. None of it. Remember Moldova. He slapped at a switch beside the door. Fans whirred, and a light outside the lab switched on, warning incomers that the place had been flooded with change pheromones. A similar light was rigged at the main security desk, inside the manor house. You know I wouldn’t try to infect—

Except for the exiles, Gil said, over his shoulder. And now look at them.

Neither forgotten nor forgiven am I?

Except for— Gil opened his mouth to say something else, and it was going to be agony for both of them. Go.

Gil. I never meant to—

Gil shut his mouth, turned his back, and flung out his hand, knocking coffee mugs, papers, and his keyboard off his desk.

Chapter Two

RAIN SPARKLED WHITE like wet snow in the twin headlight beams. Hector Two-Trees shut off the engine, snapped off the lights, and pulled the key from the ignition, but he missed his pocket, and the ring of keys fell between the seat and the middle compartment. High calibre reflexes, Two-Trees, he muttered.

Halo County was the last place he wanted to be. But fate found ways of bringing him back, again and again, to gawk in morbid fascination at the bloody leftovers and the hollow-eyed survivors.

The truck’s interior lights faded, and, except for the occasional flash of the network connection light on his cell phone, it was soon as dark inside his truck as it was outside. It was only 7:00 p.m., twenty minutes before sundown, but it looked like the middle of the night. In the country, under a stubborn rainstorm, the darkness was stuffy and cold.

Because investigating a random act of brutality is never required in full sunlight . . .

Two-Trees flapped his open coat across his leg and jammed his hand down the narrow space beside the driver’s seat. He was getting tired of having to manoeuver around his potbelly, and not for the first time, he made a committed mental note to definitely maybe think about going to the gym. Six weeks, he grumbled, grimacing at the pebbly