Helix: Sedition: Helix, #4

By Pat Flewwelling

What do you do when you wake up and realize you have been the villain all along?

After years of working for CIRCE, Dr. Holly Eva Foster is beginning to realize why her patients have been dying off: she's killing them, but she doesn't know why.

Meanwhile, following a devastating ambush and life-or-death surgery, the Padre discovers that his Packmates and colleagues suddenly revile and distrust him. Watching their behaviour degrade from bizarre to brutal, the Padre escapes, only to run into the arms of his least likely allies: enemies of CIRCE.

For the sake of all humanity and other-kind, Eva and the Padre must risk their lives—and their minds—to rebel against one creature's well-intended quest: the annihilation of her own kind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyche Books
• Release date: Aug 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781540141187

Book preview

Helix:

Sedition

By

Pat Flewwelling

The Helix Series:

Helix: Blight of Exiles

Helix: Plague of Ghouls

Helix: Scourge of Bones

Helix: Sedition

Helix: Sedition

Copyright © 2019 Pat Flewwelling

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.

Published by Tyche Books Ltd.

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

www.TycheBooks.com

Cover Art and Layout by Indigo Chick Designs

Interior Layout by Ryah Deines

Editorial by M.L.D. Curelas

First Tyche Books Ltd Edition 2019

Print ISBN: 978-1-989407-07-3

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-989407-08-0

Author photograph: C2 Studios

ABgov

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

For my most awesome beta readers, Agnes (A. A. Jankiewicz) and Amanda (A. L. Tompkins);

For Stuart, veteran and friend, who giggles when he gets talking about improvisation and hardware;

And for Tanya Huff, who, in her own way, breathed new life into a writer on the cusp of quitting.

Chapter One

FEROX WRENCHED THE keys out of the ignition and threw herself out of the truck after the Padre, running at a crouch and stopping by the back tire. She touched the tiny button on her leather collar and said softly, Unit Three, on scene. The Padre sprinted toward the auto shop. Once he had his shoulder against the bricks, he adjusted his glasses and drew his hunting knife.

This was the first karakuri hunt for any of Ishmael’s Tiger Dogs under the CIRCE administration. They had to make this hunt count, they needed to do it by the book, and they needed to do it without exposing the nature of their mission to social media. They owed it to Ivy.

Ferox had two choices: to run from the truck past the shopfront and garage bay doors to take a position on the eastern side of the shop, or to go around behind. She pressed the button on her collar again and murmured, Tower One, check my position?

We have you, Ferox.

What’s behind here? Is there a back exit? Ferox asked.

Tower One responded with action. The compartment on the roof of the truck unfolded, and a drone came buzzing out, hovering uncertainly on the wind. A moment later, the noisy thing tilted and scuttled forward, over the roof, and disappeared behind the shop.

The place was eerily quiet. Traffic flowed steadily past the intersection two blocks up, though nothing came down this way, thanks to the CIRCE-coordinated roadblocks. On three sides, apartment and office buildings blotted out the bright afternoon sky. Parking lots were full. Even this one was chock-a-block with crumpled beaters waiting for their turn in the shop. Somewhere, music was playing. And yet, the whole neighbourhood felt like it had been evacuated. Even CIRCE wasn’t this good.

A soft beep preceded the message in her ear. Three egress points in the rear, the calm voice at Tower One said. One office door, two bay doors. All three closed. Standing by.

There could have been a dozen people in the waiting room of that shop. The only thing she could see distinctly was the neon marquee flashing the letters O-P-E-N.

The Padre was as tense as a guard dog pulling at his leash. He remained crouching, knife in hand, waiting to spring at the first thing that showed its shadow. He raised his thumb, and Ferox bolted from cover to his side. Flush or pincer? she asked. The Padre looked suddenly flustered. He was in attack mode, not decision mode. Remembering all the apartment buildings, with all their glossy windows and the eyes behind them, Ferox said, Pincer. Count of five. If there was going to be action, it would be indoors and out of sight. The Padre nodded very briefly. She tapped his shoulder and ran.

At the end of the wall, she paused again, risking a glance around the corner. The drone was bobbing in place, its camera pointed at her like a serene, curious eye. Not even the birds were chittering in the hedge between the shop and the apartment block. It was a rather rundown area of southern Ottawa, but Ottawa was no ghost town. So why is it so damned quiet?

She crept around the corner, keeping her head below the bottom sill of the window. The office door was black, metal, and probably locked. Ferox shifted her weight, drew her knives, and peered through the crack between the door and its frame. No deadbolt.

And she’d lost count. She swore under her breath.

Five! the Padre shouted.

Ready or not, she yanked open the door and slipped inside. At the other end of the corridor, the Padre was nearly on all fours, frozen under a tinkling bell as his door slowly closed.

The radio was wrapping up Billy Idol’s Dancing with Myself when the announcer yelled the station call signs and catchphrase. The station went to commercial. Somewhere, a cheap coffee maker hissed and sputtered. The waiting room and corridor were deserted.

The Padre scowled as he slowly rose, blocking out the flickering OPEN sign shining in the window behind him. Ferox also straightened, though she was careful to keep her knees soft. A sheet of yellow paper blew off the front desk to roll across the floor like a tumbleweed.

The soft beep preceded dispatch asking, Unit Three, status?

The Padre visibly perked. He pointed to his ear, then to the floor. The Padre was right. Someone was underneath them, moving around. Now the questions were: how many people downstairs, and how to get at them? Ferox squirmed, because the only appropriate answer to both questions seemed to be: it doesn’t matter, get out now. Cliché or no, it was too quiet.

Oh, what’s wrong with you, dummy? We’ve hunted scarier things than one lame human being. Capture, transport, interrogate, hand over to the lab for rehabilitation. Easy.

They’d done this a million times before, in simulation, with hardened, super-muscled werewolves playing the part of the humans, no less. And that was after three years in the field, tracking down bonewalkers and rogue lycanthropes. This would be their first actual karakuri—a vampire’s familiar. They’d endured many gruelling months of training for this very moment. There was zero reason or need for the quivery, creeping feeling between her shoulder blades. Come on, stupid. Ivy’s counting on you.

To Ferox’s right was an open, flimsy-looking office door, beyond which was a square cinderblock and drywall room with a metal desk, three mismatched chairs, and a battered, once-white computer that looked like it belonged on the set of Star Wars. There was no way into the basement from there.

The Padre’s nostrils flared, making Ferox involuntarily take a deep breath. Either his sense of smell was stronger than hers, or he knew what to sniff for. He jerked his chin toward the main body of the shop, through another open door. There were no cars in either of the two bays. Beyond the garage doors, Ferox could hear the drone buzzing.

The Padre soundlessly weaved his way between a rolling tool chest and a computerized diagnostic station, pointing down. There were grates set into the concrete floor, and they were dimly lit from below. Ferox had seen setups like this at quick-stop oil replacement shops. Two technicians would work on each car as it came in, one working on the engine itself, and the other down below to ensure the proper collection of draining fluids.

Now she could hear the guy breathing, moistening his lips. He was just out of sight, between the two refill stations.

A beep. Tower One to Unit Three, status, over. Annoyed, Ferox touched the talk button twice, making the line beep without giving away their position.

Ahead, Ferox spotted a closed door, covered over in so many posters that she nearly missed the Employees Only sign. The Padre mouthed the word Flush. She nodded. This time, Ferox would sneak past their quarry, circle back, and then try to drive him toward this door, where the Padre would be waiting for him. If she couldn’t flush him out, she’d hold him until the Padre could lend a hand, and they’d drag him up kicking and screaming. Either way, the karakuri was trapped.

He’d moved. He was breathing hard. Hairs rose on the back of Ferox’s neck, bristling against the control collar, as she sheathed one of her knives and freed up a hand to open the door. The man giggled. He sounded close.

Ferox glanced over her shoulder at the Padre. He was pulling off one glove with his teeth and bending his head forward, exposing the button on the back of his control collar. She gulped and shook her head. They’d handled worse in the past without having to change forms. The Padre’s scowl deepened, but he fixed his glove and his sweater, and left his collar alone.

The guy chuckled again, his voice burbling up from underground. Her scalp prickled.

You took on Jay. You can take on one hopped-up human being.

The hinges were well-oiled. She slid through the opening and stood at the top of a stairwell. The karakuri was at the bottom of the steps, grinning humourlessly up at her, one hand on the wall, one hand on the railing, his eyes bulging, his giggle like a painful spasm in his gut. A bare shining bulb overhead robbed him of any colour.

Ferox adjusted her grip on the knife handle as palm-sweat soaked through the Kevlar. He didn’t look armed, but he was not in his right mind. Ivy had warned them that vampires had an intoxicating spit, as powerful as psychoactive bath salts. The stuff robbed victims of any sense of pain or self-preservation.

Do you want to come up? Ferox asked softly.

The familiar never blinked, though the irises seemed to quake side-to-side. His knuckles and nail beds were white. Foam gathered in the corners of his rictus.

We can get you help, she said. She took a careful step down toward him. Okay? I won’t hurt you. Another step.

He hissed a sudden intake of breath, which he held for a moment, then let out a long, warning laugh, strained through gritted teeth.

I don’t know if you can understand me, Ferox said, taking a third step down. But for your safety and mine, I want to restrain your hands, okay? Will you let me do that?

The line beeped in her ear, and the Padre whispered, "What are you doing?"

Trusting the Padre’s keen ears to overhear her, Ferox said to the familiar, I know you’re not feeling great. That’s why I want to help you. Someone’s hurt you enough already.

The familiar seethed and let out a much louder, much longer, much angrier laugh. It seemed to go on forever. His feverish stare shifted to the butt of her knife.

It’s okay, Ferox said, raising her free hand. See? I’m putting it away. She sheathed the knife at her hip. Do you want to come with us? We’ve got people—

The familiar bolted for the far side of the basement. Ferox leapt over the remaining stairs and pursued, jumping over the canisters and shelving units he flung down behind him. He squirted out from under her grip and dodged behind a chest-high barrel, ripped the lid off, and frisbeed it at her ducking head. He held onto the ragged rim of greenish fluid as if he meant to pick up the whole vat over his head and throw it at her.

The Padre appeared at Ferox’s right shoulder, pushing her toward the side of the vat closest to the exit, cornering the joker between the wall and two CIRCE field agents closing in from either side, cooing words of comfort and caution.

The familiar laughed low under his breath, still grinning, but his eyes were wild now. His brows bent, as if he was pleading with them. Mid-laugh, his chin lurched forward, and foamy, yellow bile erupted from between his clenched teeth into the barrel. He held onto the barrel as if the floor had gone topsy-turvy under his feet, still laughing through the slobber. He groaned a note of hysterical desperation. He stared between them, as if seeing Death himself.

His irises shook violently side-to-side, and then rolled sharply as if tracing the letter e.

The laughing stopped. His face went slack.

Ferox reached for him. Hey, are you—

The familiar bent over double, thrusting his head, shoulders, and ribs into the barrel. Oh shit! Ferox grabbed one of the man’s shoulders and hauled back, but the guy wouldn’t move. Shit! Bubbles rocked through the viscous fluid and burst. The Padre sunk his arm up to the bicep in the fluid, trying to find the familiar’s shoulder. He found it, and he pulled so hard the cords in his neck stood out, but the karakuri may as well have been cast in bronze. The guy’s muscles were like wrought iron, his fingers like talons. The Padre kicked the familiar’s knees in, dropping him, but it wasn’t enough to get the guy’s head out of the bubbling coolant. Ferox pinched, probed, wrestled, leveraged, and twisted body parts to disengage the man from his own death trap, but he wouldn’t budge.

The Padre blew hot air in Ferox’s face, as if he’d had the breath punched out of him. She looked up in time to see the soles of the Padre’s boots. Equipment, boxes, and canisters crashed as the Padre landed against the far wall.

A cold clamp crushed Ferox’s throat and bruised the corners of her jaw. Her feet thrashed in open air. Her head scraped along the underside of the grating overhead until her whole body came to a slamming stop against the concrete wall.

The newcomer was slender, with pale, marbled skin, red hair, and a vertical scar from his chin to the hollow of his throat. He seemed neither concerned nor curious about the creature he had pinned against the wall. She punched at his elbow, but he was made of steel girders. He leaned into his hand, forcing Ferox’s tongue into her mouth. Pressure inside her head made her eyes bulge. She punched his arm again, clawed at his jacket, kicked at his shins and crotch. She needed air—God, how she needed one more breath! Strangulation made her face contort into grotesque shapes. She scraped her glove off so she could activate the button at the back of her control collar. The man simply added more force to her throat, making her chin tuck down. Stop, he said.

The light drained from her eyes.

The skinny man leaned back, caught a knife as it sailed between their faces, and in the same arc of motion, threw the knife back where it came from. The Padre barked Shit! and dove into more noisy clutter.

The distraction had given Ferox just enough space and time to slip two fingers between her neck and the wall. Her earpiece chirped a three-note warning, and an automated voice said over the radio, Warning: injection detected.

The world brightened and expanded. Every sound amplified and slowed, every cell in her body vibrated, and every muscle fibre contracted. Somewhere between her lungs and her heart, there was a knot of rage and energy, shaking and growing, expanding into her limbs, up her throat and into her face. Pores tingled as coarse hair grew out along her jawline and cheeks, over her nose, and up the edges of her lengthening ears. She clapped her ungloved hand on the monster’s forearm, and retractable claws snapped out, biting through material and necrotic skin.

Now she had his interest.

Writhing tendrils of ink oozed out from his pupils across his irises, branching outwards like frost across his sclera, until his eyes were completely black.

The edges of the world were collapsing in, like the closing scene of an old silent film.

Why won’t you respond . . . ? the man hissed.

She couldn’t respond. All the feral strength in the world meant nothing without air.

Abruptly, the floor came up under her left foot, and she spilled over a twisted ankle. She clawed at her throat, desperate to unstick the insides of her windpipe. She gawped and heaved, and still no air was getting in. She was blind. She fumbled weakly for the button at the back of her neck, found it, pressed it, heard the three-note alarm but not the words that followed. Another rush of change hormones flooded her system, stretching and breaking her bones, but finally opening up her crushed windpipe. The air smelled like liquefied exhaust, but nothing had ever tasted so sweet. She held her throat, feeling the rough pads of her changed hands against thinly furred skin.

Far, far away, there was a fight going on. Things were falling. The Padre was yelping. More things fell, breaking. The skinny redhead was locked on target: he was coming back for her, and the Padre wouldn’t let him.

She gave her head a shake. Her face felt narrow and angular, but she had no muzzle yet. Her right ear flicked at the sound of a slow bubble breaking the surface, and she remembered the familiar. She hauled herself to her feet, but bones in her ankle and arch broke, driving her to her knees, shrieking. She clawed her way out of her boots and socks as the bones knitted into their animalistic configuration. The familiar’s arms and legs were limply twitching, though his fingers remained as rigid as ever. Hobbling over, she threaded her hand through his hair, extended her claws into his scalp, and pulled his head back. His eyes were closed. Slick coolant drizzled out of his nostrils and mouth. Even half-dead, he wouldn’t let go of the vat, so she grabbed his right thumb and dislocated it. His right hand fell free, though the left still held tight. She eased him onto his side, letting him dangle by his stubborn left hand. He retched, and a wave of coolant rolled out across the floor and over her bare, furred, clawed foot.

Fists hit bone with sickening, crunching snaps, and the Padre yelped again. Over the lip of the vat, Ferox saw him throw punch after punch, following the skinny man’s seemingly drowsy, weightless, backwards retreat. The Padre had given himself a healthy injection of change hormones too, clearly. He’d lost his glasses, his sweater, his gloves, his temper, and some of the skin off his chest. The vampire he was slugging—trying to slug—lifted his foot and effortlessly kicked the Padre against a white tank halfway across the basement. The were-coyote banged against it with so much force that it rocked back and popped two screws out of the floor. He staggered to his feet, clearly miffed. She had no idea where his knives had fallen. She wasn’t even sure he still had his thumbs. He had grown out his muzzle but hadn’t reverted to his completely four-legged form, giving him the silhouette of Anubis’s shaggy second-cousin. He bared his teeth and lunged at the vampire.

Ferox did likewise.

The Padre tackled the vampire’s legs, while Ferox took the high road, catching him around the chest and binding his arms. They landed in a tangled, growling, barking mess. Spiking, bone-scraping pain sheared through Ferox’s neck and shoulder. Ferox screamed and elbowed flesh, but the pain wouldn’t let up. She thought at first that the vampire had sunk his fangs in, but there was his emotionless mask, inches from her own face.

She could see red in the corners of her sight, as if her pulse was leaking into her vision.

No! No, not again! Ivy, help me—Ivy—

Sense vanished.

Teeth hungered.

Her fangs delved for bone, breaking through skin. Bad taste! Teeth on bone again. Hold tight. Pierce its eyeball. Fluid filled her mouth. Bad taste!

She was airborne, ribs broken in the shape of a boot print.

She hit the wall. Shoulder blades smashed. No breath. She fell on her side into slippery fluid that stuck to her fur. Head pain. No sound.

The Padre was pointing. His arm was broken.

The skinny redheaded man was standing in a corner. In the darkness. Waiting. Speaking. Hands up, palms out.

Teeth craved.

Ribs healed on the run. Two legs? Four legs?

Go high.

She hit him with all four paws, and dug in. A tooth caught in vampire face bones. She twisted. She wanted to rip his whole face off. A fang broke. Blood filled her mouth. Pain shot up into her eye, nose, and ear. Shake it off. No, no shaking. Makes it worse.

Where is it now?

The monster was staring at her. Part of its face had come off. Underneath was exposed muscle and a network of thin grey worms.

Fear and fury mingled. She didn’t know if she should attack or withdraw.

The worms adhered to the flap of skin. Pulled the skin up. Stuck it back in place. The monster smiled at her. He turned and ran for the stairs.

Fury.

On the stairs, claws caught in the metal holes. Leap. Climb him instead. Claws. Teeth. Hold on. Every sharp point, hold on.

An elbow to the face. Another.

She would not let go. He had smiled at her. He had smiled.

The shriek pierced her eardrums, making them ring. Thousands of teeth bit into her skin and muscles, all over her body, like spiked whips. Like electricity burning inside her spinal cord. She let go. Her bones and joints were on fire. She braced herself against the wall of the stairwell.

There was chewing gum on the bottom of his shoe.

She found herself at the bottom of the stairs, head ringing, pounding. Darkness was welcome. It eased the pain.

There was a noise in her left ear. A man’s voice, urgent, but calm. She shook her head. A familiar voice was saying the same words again, as urgently and as calmly as before. She checked her face. She was missing a fang, and her muzzle had grown in a little more. She gave her head another shake. The red fog was lifting.

When you can, the voice repeated, though the next words were too thick and slippery for her vulpine mind to catch.

Her leg was broken. Her wrist throbbed. Her pants were tight but more or less intact. Her sweater was done for. Everything was covered in blood, used oil, dirt, sawdust, and God only knew what else. She felt her leg muscles contract, and before she could brace herself, the broken ends of her tibia ground together as the limb realigned. Change hormones were both a blessing and a big, fat-ass curse. But without them, she would have been dead, strangled against a dirty basement wall in an oil-change shop.

The radio beeped softly in her ear. When you can, give us a status report, over. It was Ishmael’s voice. She hadn’t even known he was on shift. He was more of a nights guy.

Ferox eased herself to a sitting position with her back against the stairwell wall. Her tail had started to grow out. She heard a cough. The karakuri. The Padre groaned as if in his sleep, and by the sounds of it, he was dragging himself to a quiet corner to tend his own wounds.

Unit Three, when you can, Ishmael said again, give us a status report, over. Padre. Ferox. Come in, please.

Her fingers felt too short. It took three tries to find and press the button on the side of her control collar. Stadjz, she managed to say. She jerked her head to the side, as if that would force her swollen tongue to avoid the hole where her left upper incisor was supposed to be. Status report. Unit Three. The words she needed were out of reach, mentally and physically. Ouchies. She released the button.

After a moment’s pause, Ishmael asked, Any dead, Ferox?

Nuh-uh.

Wounded?

Fthdree, she said, failing to get her fat tongue to navigate too-long teeth. At least. Don’t know . . . where . . . other guy went.

Other guy? What other guy?

Ambush. Guy . . . was . . . bait.

Another long, long pause. Code brown? It was their radio-lingo for Are you guys in some stage of lycanthropic transformation, but punch-drunk as she was, Ferox thought about incontinence, and felt giddiness burbling up. Then she remembered the lunatic’s forced giggle, and she didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

Yeah, Ferox answered. There’d been a time when she’d been able to speak fluently with a fully developed muzzle. Both of us. Need to . . . cycle. Repair.

Not in here, the Padre grunted.

No, not here. She felt like the before-picture in commercials about oil spills, rescued ducklings, and gentle dish soap. No amount of cycling-through from human to animal to human again would help clear out the shite she’d been rolling in.

And your target? asked the man on the radio.

Ferox couldn’t see him from where she was sitting, but she could hear him coughing up fluids. At least he’d stopped giggling. Her bones had healed straight, but not well enough yet to hold her weight for long. She used the stairs to pull herself up, hopping on the pads of her one good foot. Using every shelving unit, tank, and rail as a crutch, she made her way to the coolant vat. We got him, she said over the air.

In what condition?

Barfing, she said. Get here.

Roger, Unit Three, Ishmael said. ETA four minutes. Tower One, alert civilian authorities. Extend the no-go zone for twenty minutes. Any luck with that drone?

No joy, the Tower One dispatcher answered. He’s a ghost.

Ishmael and Tower One continued their question-and-answer period, but Ferox couldn’t give a damn. Their first mission out, and they’d had their asses handed to them. Tarred and feathered, she thought, pulling at a clump of blackened fur. Ferox slid down the wall beside the wheezing familiar, her black hand-paws dangling over her upraised knees. The Padre sat across from her, his mottled brown fur completely pasted down under so much sludge. Even his ears and whiskers drooped.

She couldn’t get the image out of her mind: his eyes straining, flicking to one side, then rolling. A look of total realization and desperation on his face, as if he was watching his arm being dragged into a metal press. That man did not want to die, but he couldn’t stop himself. If anyone knew the horrors of being completely out of one’s mind, it was Ferox; how much more hellish would it be under someone else’s total control? She leaned her head against the wall. Her throat still felt bruised. Why won’t you respond . . . ? the vampire had asked.

A thought niggled at the back of her mind, but a wave of exhaustion and nausea overwhelmed her. Her brain was more foxlike than human. Ideas hurt. Words were dumb.

And over and over, she saw the eyes of that deadpan vampire, when the blackness of his mind seeped out from his pupils. She had stared into the void, the void had pulled her in, whispering, tempting, insulting, urging, and she couldn’t shake the feeling she’d felt it all before.

Chapter Two

HOLLY PUSHED HER way between two technicians. A truck door banged shut, echoing through the cavernous underground garage.

"What I want to know is why nobody saw that vampire bozo creeping in behind us, Ferox was saying as they unloaded gear from their truck onto the garage floor. Isn’t that the point of having a drone?"

The medical response team ran in from primary decontamination with the crash cart, but one of the garage personnel raised her hand and shook her head. It was already too late.

Are you two okay? Holly asked.

No, the Padre said. He tossed his backpack at the feet of one of the technicians and yanked the earpiece out. The cord retracted into his control collar. He died on route.

Holly took Ferox’s chin in her fingers, turning her face so she could peer deeply into her eyes to check for infestation. Ferox jerked her head away. Holly didn’t take it personally. Ferox was pissed off at her own failure.

Ferox said, If someone had warned us about that black-eyed jackass, we could have extracted the guy easy. Alive.

It wouldn’t have been that easy, the Padre said. He was glaring at the second truck, one that had been retrofitted like the old Wyrd quarantine vehicles: a Chevy Suburban on the outside and a sterilized padded cell on the inside, complete with restraints and blacked out windows. When somebody says ‘inhuman strength’, you think about lifting cars, not grip strength. Had to break his damned fingers to get him to let go of that barrel.

And nobody told us about the eyes! Ferox said. Did you know about the eye thing?

Yes, Holly said flatly. Ivy’s demonstrated it during combat simulation.

Not the vampire’s eyes, the Padre said. The karakuri.

Holly lifted her chin. She hated keeping things from her people. The other ex-Wyrd members she didn’t give a shit about. They could live and die by their own decisions. But when it came to her Packmates—her Pack, not Ishmael’s Tiger Dogs, as everyone had been calling them—Holly had a point to prove.

You knew, Ferox said. "And you didn’t tell us?"

Holly’s ear twitched backward. Ivy was coming in. I’ll explain later.

Didn’t tell you about what? Ivy asked.

"Did you know? I assume you know. Ferox pointed vaguely behind her, probably to indicate the corpse in the truck. About the karakuri eyes doing that thing. The barrel roll."

Ivy’s own eyes had their tricks, too. At a glance, they looked perfectly normal: clear, guileless, and a dull colour that was either green or blue depending on the light. But if eyes were the windows to the soul, then these peepers were the equivalent of a window frame nailed to a concrete wall. On top of being perpetually expressionless, Ivy had confessed that she had to make a conscious effort to blink. The effect was unnerving.

You didn’t tell them, Holly? Ivy asked. To Ferox and the Padre, she said, It’s an involuntary reaction to the psychic control of vampires.

‘Psychic control’ my ass, Foster said.

Why didn’t you tell them? Ivy asked.

To make a point. Holly shrugged and offered a self-deprecating smile. I didn’t think an eye roll would be so disturbing.

That kind of eye roll’s not something you can fake easy, the Padre said. Ferox has been trying to do it the whole way back. Gave herself a headache.

Ferox shivered. Like their eyes are spring-loaded.

Which is why they earned themselves the term karakuri, Ivy said.

When Gil had first given the infected that name, Holly had looked up what it meant. The original karakuri puppets were pre-industrial Japanese automata, fascinating and benign marvels of ancient technology. One little push, and a puppet could move across a table, serve tea, and then return after the emptied cup was returned to its tray. Others could nock and fire an arrow; or, powered by weight-driven mechanisms, the automaton could even write kanji or a name. In all cases that she found, the karakuri were delicately painted with serene smiles.

Even their eyes had more personality and expression in them than Ivy’s.

And that Renfield laugh, Ferox said, shuddering all over.

So, it was a successful training mission then, Ivy said.

"Except for him dying, the Padre grunted. Hard to interrogate a corpse."

Depends on who’s conducting the interview, Foster said. Pain pinched somewhere behind her left eyebrow. Not now, Holly thought back at her, rubbing away the ache. Sometimes, it felt like Foster was a physical baby in her brain, kneeing and punching the insides of her bony womb.

Ivy nodded sadly. Too long in thrall, and the karakuri becomes dependent on its master. Once separated beyond its master’s reach, the victim’s brain simply shuts down and dies.

Lungs-full-of-coolant may have been a contributing factor, the Padre said.

You should have moved more quickly then, Ivy said.

It was less than a twenty-minute drive from here! the Padre blurted.

You could have kept yourselves human long enough to perform proper First Aid, Ivy countered mildly.

Ferox blushed when she was angry, and the Padre’s jaw muscles stuck out like ropes.

I’ll have someone review the footage, Holly said. Find out why that vampire snuck past us. To one of the technicians, she said, Have the body moved to cell four. Dr. Foster will take a look once she’s on shift.

It was CIRCE’s worst kept secret that Holly and Dr. Eva Foster were one and the same, but Holly and Foster were both proponents of compartmentalization. Holly had her body-time, and Foster had hers. They had their own skills and interests, and therefore, they had their own jobs. Holly had access to all of Foster’s thoughts and ideas, but it was like trying to decipher formulae written backwards on a dusty blackboard. Likewise, Foster had all of Holly’s combat experience, but she overthought every situation and usually froze until someone shot her.

You two can get cleaned up and changed, Holly said. I’ll meet you in the debrief room in . . . twenty minutes? Thirty?

They weren’t happy, but they didn’t argue.

I’ll see you up there at 2:00, Holly said. Ferox and the Padre glanced at Ivy, the ranking officer, and when Ivy nodded, they hit the decontamination showers without another word.

Ivy regarded Holly, which was as close to a hard and purposeful stare as she could manage. You didn’t tell them about the barrel roll.

If they knew about the barrel roll, and if they came back saying, ‘Yes, we caught a human who did the barrel roll but he died on the way here,’ people around here will always suspect that they had nabbed a random human, killed them, and then lied about them being a karakuri. But since they had no way of knowing about the barrel roll until they came into contact with an actual karakuri . . .

"So, there is still animosity between the old Wyrd agents and the Tiger Dogs."

Holly bristled, but smiled. "Wyrd lost a good number of agents during the quarantine roundup a few years ago. Back when they were hunting us. We may have kicked a number of