Lazy Days (36 page)

* * *

Roth shut the lights out in his new digs which
came complete with kitchenette, separate bedroom and living room. He opened the
French doors to his balcony and stepped into the cool breeze of deep night. A
three-quarter moon glazed with thin clouds greeted him. Even the cloud cover,
however, could not completely obliterate the moon’s brightness and cast ominous
shadows across the manicured grounds three stories below. Roth sucked a lungful
of air, grateful for freedom if only for a few hours. The woods called to him.
He bowed his head and prayed the Prayer of Secrecy, shifting into his favorite
animal.

* * *

Rainey punched her pillow yet again. She wanted
to sleep, needed to sleep because of the workday ahead of her. She opened her
eyes and sat up.
Damn bodyguard. What was his name? Ross… Ron… Rat… Roth.
Wolf… Beowolf. What the hell kind of name is that?

She walked to her window and pulled the drapes aside.
Shifting clouds played with an almost full moon. Eerie shadows waltzed across
the grounds of her father’s estate. Unexpectedly, the clouds cleared and the
moon shone brilliant. Rainey gasped when a huge bird swooped from the sky and
soared past her window, its magnificent wings agilely directing its body. She
watched the creature until it disappeared in the direction of the woods.

I wish I could fly with you
.

* * *

Roth waited for his charge in the foyer. The
previous night’s shifting, first as an eagle and later as a wolf, had renewed
him. Being a shapeling, he required little more than two or three hours sleep.
The night guard, Jack Jackson, looking sleepy and bored, had gladly given over
a changing of the guards.

Rainey walked into the foyer. "I see you’re
punctual,
Mr. Beowolf
."

"It’s my job, Rainey."

"I would rather be called, Ms.
Childress."

"As you prefer,
Ms. Childress."

"Are you always this irritating?"

"Not usually."

"It must be me, then."

Roth remained silent.

"Mr. Beowolf, I’m sure you have been
apprised that we use different cars to keep the ‘bad guys’ guessing."
Rainey made quote marks with her fingers.

"Yes, I'm aware of that."

"We also use different exits when leaving
the estate. Again, keeps the ‘bad boys’ confused." She made quote marks
again.

"Yes, I am also aware of that. Your point
is…?"

"No point. I’m just making conversation
until our ride shows up…and look, here it is." Rainey pointed out the
window beside the intricately carved front door.

A black Escalade with tinted windows pulled to
the entrance of the portico. Without a backward glance, she opened the door and
skipped down the steps. The driver rushed to open the rear door of the Escalade
and Rainey ducked inside. He opened the front passenger door for Roth. Roth
thanked him, closed it without entering, and opened the back door, sliding in
beside Rainey.

"What are you doing?"

"I’m getting into the car, Ms.
Childress."

"I don’t want you in the back seat. All my
other guards ride in the front."

"Am I protecting you or the driver?"

"I always ride alone in the back
seat."

Roth saw Johnson adjust the rearview mirror,
watching their verbal battle. Although Johnson’s eyes smiled, his
professionalism didn't allow his mouth to join in. Johnson put the car in gear
and started down the drive. When Rainey attempted to scoot closer to her
window, her briefcase fell on the floor. Roth bent to retrieve it, and so did
she. They bumped shoulders. As if jolted by electricity, she jumped back and
sputtered, yanking the briefcase from his hands. Placing it back on her lap,
she opened it and thumbed through its contents, pulling out documents.

Once past the guard-station at the entrance to
the mansion, Johnson drove them through rural countryside to the Childress
Enterprises complex located on the outskirts of Portland. It took thirty
minutes to reach the private entrance and the guards waved him through. Rainey
opened her briefcase again and began stashing the papers back inside.

"Do you always read upside down, Ms.
Childress?"

"What?"

Roth nodded toward the papers. "They’re
upside down." With a mortified look, she squashed the pages into her
briefcase and fumbled with the clasp. As soon as the vehicle stopped in front
of the building housing the laboratories, she opened her door and made haste
toward the entrance. Johnson, who had stepped out of the car, watched her
retreating form, and then looked at Roth and winked. Roth suppressed a smile,
nodded to the highly trained chauffeur/bodyguard, and followed his ward.

Roth sighed. So far, this assignment was turning
into one of his worst. The Thirteen co-Princes must have had good reason for
sending him here, but he hoped the mission would be a short one—even though the
morning had proven to be quite entertaining.

He followed Rainey to the check-in station just
inside the entrance. Having already been introduced to the guards and
instructed in procedures, he quickly received clearance. He entered an elevator
with Rainey and rode to the eleventh, and top floor. She kept her back to him.

When the elevator braked, he followed her to the
only door in the hallway. After passing her keycard over a sensor, the door
clicked open. He entered behind her and the door clicked shut. The hair on
Roth’s arms electrified and his sixth sense kicked in. Another shapeling was near.
He stayed close behind Rainey, searching the lab with his eyes. She entered a
small interior office and dropped her briefcase on a desk. She then stepped
behind the desk and opened a lower drawer, stashing her purse. Roth stood in
the doorway viewing every inch of her office. Satisfied, he turned and again
scanned the lab. Three long tables stretching almost a third of the length of
the large rectangular room were crowded with lab paraphernalia: vials, ceramic
containers, microscopes, audio speakers, headphones, state-of-the-art
equipment, books and charts.

He looked toward the bank of windows on the
eastern wall and spotted a female shapeling watching him. Recognition lit her
countenance.

Behind him, Rainey said, "Excuse me, Mr.
Beowolf; I have
work
to do and you’re blocking the exit from my
office."

Roth stepped outside the doorway to allow her to
pass through. He glanced back toward the shapeling now approaching them. Rainey
walked to the farthest table. The other shapeling veered toward her. Roth followed
his charge. At the lab table, Rainey picked up a binder and flipped through it.

"Good morning, Rainey," the female
shapeling greeted.

"Good morning, Fawn. Were you able to
catalogue yesterday’s experiment?"

"Yes. It wasn’t much different from the day
before."

"Damn. I was hoping the added frequency
would help."

"Hello, I’m Roth Beowolf." Roth
interrupted.

"Oh, did I forget to introduce you? I’m
sorry." Rainey glanced at him, an innocent half-smile gracing her lips.

Roth wasn’t fooled. The little witch was getting
back at him for his intrusion into her backseat privacy. He didn’t have time
for games right now. He wanted to know what another shapeling was doing there.
The Thirteen co-Princes had said nothing about a double assignment. Not that he
was complaining. He remembered Fawn well. They had even mated once as wolves.

"My name is Fawn Woods. It’s a pleasure
meeting you, Mr. Beowolf."

Roth heard the slight inflection of familiarity
she gave his last name. He glanced at Rainey to see if she was aware of it. He
didn’t see anything in her expression indicating she was.

"If you call me Roth, I’ll call you Fawn.
Deal?"

"Deal."

"Why don’t you two go somewhere and
chit-chat
while I test my equipment?" Rainey interrupted.

Roth knew they were getting a brush-off, but it
would give him time to speak with Fawn alone.

"I’ll just get my notes," Fawn said.

Roth followed her to a desk near the bank of
windows overlooking the International Headquarters of Childress Enterprises. He
turned his back to Rainey and lowered his voice. "Is anyone else in the
lab?"

"No. Mr. Brenner—Steve Brenner—called and
said he wouldn’t be in until ten. He’s the other scientist. His assistant, Jim
Mathewson, is out sick."

"I suppose you know my next question. What
are you doing here? The co-Princes didn’t say anything about another shapeling
on this mission…not that I mind," he added seductively.

"They didn’t tell me about you either. I
was sent to protect the lab. I’ve been here about three months—never had any
problems."

"Meet me tonight in the woods outside the
Childress Mansion."

"You remember what happened the last time
we were wolves in the woods, don’t you?"

"No, what?" Roth asked innocently.

"Don’t pretend with me, Roth Beowolf.
Shapelings
never
forget things like that." Fawn chuckled.

Roth suppressed a loud laugh. He turned and
walked back toward Rainey.

* * *

"Did you have a nice chat; get to know each
other? Did you interrogate her to find out if she’s a 'bad girl'?" The
moment Rainey said the words, she regretted them. Not only did the words sound
petty, they had another connotation. Fawn was a talented and beautiful woman
and didn’t deserve Rainey’s foul mouth.

Roth didn’t reply.

Rainey choked on her next words. "I’m
sorry. Forget I said that. Fawn is a very nice person."

"You’re forgiven." Roth said, and
grinned.

Rainey choked again, but this time it was in
anger. Of all the condescending things to say, that was the worst.

Roth stepped onto his balcony, relieved that his
first day with Rainey had ended. Tonight the clouds lay thick and dark,
mysterious. He looked forward to meeting Fawn beyond the grounds of the estate.
They had not spoken alone the rest of the day, and he was anxious to learn more
about her assignment. He bowed his head and spoke the prayer that would shift
him into an eagle.

Seconds later he soared high, his feathers
making him impervious to the frigid night. Circling the heavens above the
Childress mansion, his keen vision honed in on Rainey’s second story bedroom
window. As if on cue, she thrust aside the drapes and stood peering into the
night, the lamplight in her bedroom silhouetting her voluptuous body. Roth
caught a downdraft and circled lower. She looked upward, as if she knew he was
there, but he was unsure whether she could see him. Her unbound hair fell in
waves to her shoulders.

Ignoring the urge to swoop past her window for a
closer look, Roth shifted direction and rode the current toward the forest. In
a matter of minutes, he flew over the tops of tall pines and magnificent oaks.
Spotting a perch, he dove and landed gently on the outstretched arm of an
ancient oak. Folding his wings, he waited.

A wolf howled in the distance, calling to him.
Diving to earth, he said the Prayer of Secrecy. When he landed, it was not with
talons, but with the paws of a wolf. Without pause, he streaked toward the
howling of a female shapeling. Raising his head toward the moon, he answered
the howl. Running and dodging all manner of forest obstacles, he pushed himself
harder and faster. The wind rushed through his sleek coat, exciting him. He
smelled Fawn’s scent.

Abruptly, he slowed to a trot. Then he stopped
and waited. Within seconds, another wolf appeared beyond a fallen log in front
of him. They appraised each other. Fawn, as a wolf, was beautiful, as he had
known she would be. When he lowered his head to pray, she lowered hers in like
manner.

"Why did you shift back into a human,
Roth?"

"I need more information about your
mission."

"We could have spoken about our missions
after we-"

Roth interrupted. "I cannot mate with you.
My sole focus must be on accomplishing this assignment. It's my final one
before entry into the ranks of Shapeling Master, and you…are very
distracting."

Fawn lifted her head and laughed. The moon,
briefly free of its cage of clouds, glinted off ebony tendrils of her hair.
"All the more reason for me to entice you. Do you remember that time in
Ember Canyon beside the rapids?"

"Fawn, you’re making this very
difficult."

"I am happy that is so."

"However, I will not change my mind."

She sighed. "Very well, I also remember
your stubbornness. However, it has brought you to the threshold of Mastery.
What is it you want to know?"

"Why have the co-Princes sent you here?"

"My mission is to protect the Childress
Enterprises Laboratory that Rainey is in charge of."

"Why is that?"

"She's on the verge of a momentous
discovery. As I said this afternoon, I've been working at the lab for about
three months. When I first arrived, Rainey and Steve Brenner were excited about
a breakthrough in frequency testing. They've been working with frequencies for
years."

"Go on."

"As you know, human history can be quite
convoluted. I’ll try to explain. Have you heard of a Chladni plate?"

"No."

"I had to do some quick study for this
assignment to keep Rainey and Steve believing I'm what my credentials purport—a
lab assistant who's worked in multiple disciplines. Anyway, here’s a short
history lesson. Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni wrote a book called
Discoveries
in the Theory of Sound
in 1787. He invented a technique to show a visual
effect of frequencies on matter. By placing sand on a metal plate and drawing a
violin bow over a piece of the metallic surface, he discovered the sand would
shift into patterns corresponding to particular vibrations. Since then, the technique
has been vastly improved and the violin bow replaced by tone generators. The
sand has also been replaced by a lightweight powder called lycopodium, which is
actually the spores of a genus of plants called clubmosses
.
"

"So Rainey and Mr. Brenner are
experimenting with frequencies?"

"Yes."

"Have they achieved anything
significant?"

"Yes and no. Before I arrived, they had
dialed in some frequencies, but not executed them. Steve’s assistant, Jim,
arrived at the lab the next morning and accidentally bumped the control switch.
What he saw astounded him, and he shouted for Rainey and Steve to come look. By
the time they arrived, they only saw a glimpse of what Jim had seen."

"You’ve got me hooked. What did they
see?"

"I hope you’re ready for this. For an instant
on the Chladni Plate, they saw the formation of a three-dimensional human
person sculpted by the lycopodium. They saw Rainey."

"What!"

"Let me explain: Going back to our history
lesson, Dr. Hans Jenny, who was born in the early 1900s, carried on the work of
Chladni. In 1967, he published the first volume of
Cymatics: The Study of
Wave Phenomena
. His second volume was published the year he died, 1972.
What Dr. Jenny discovered was that low tones produced simplistic patterns,
while higher tones produced more complex patterns. Dr. Jenny and a British
scientist named Sir Peter Guy Manners experimented and created an instrument
called the Cymatic Instrument for the purpose of projecting sounds into the
body for healing. It seems that when certain frequencies are combined, they
produce three-dimensional formations. However, they discovered that there must
be a combination of at least five or more frequencies to recreate
three-dimensional shapes. And for body organs the number of required
frequencies is enormous."

 "I think I understand where you’re going.
If a human body is ailing and the specific organ of ailment is identified, then
there is the possibility that certain combined frequencies could restore that
organ?"

"Exactly, the combined frequencies create
the form. If, for example, a liver is failing, and the frequency of a healthy
liver could be determined and applied to the sufferer, then the ailing liver
would eventually resonate to the frequency of a healthy liver, thus changing
the diseased liver into a healthy one."

"That would certainly benefit the human
race. But that’s a far cry from what you described of a likeness of Rainey
being generated."

"I know. It seems that when Jim bumped the
tone generator switch, the memory function had not been activated. Whatever
tones were generated, were lost. Of course, the pressing question is: How was a
three-dimensional version of Rainey accomplished?"

"Yes, how was it done?"

"After Rainey, Steve, and Jim went over and
over the details of everything up until the moment the switch was turned on,
they came to the conclusion that Rainey’s DNA must have been on the Chladni
plate. The previous day she had been working extensively with the equipment to
repair a malfunction. While doing so, she scraped her hand and it bled onto the
plate. She wiped the blood up with a cloth and didn't think anything about it.

"When the frequencies sounded, they must
have been the perfect combination to mold the likeness of a human body
according to the DNA on the plate. Since that time, although they have
successfully created three-dimensional shapes of several organs, they have been
unsuccessful in recreating anything close to a replicated version of a human
body. They’re very frustrated."

Roth chuckled. "I knew Rainey was
frustrated the first time I laid eyes on her. I wanted to curse the co-Princes
for sending me here. I had hoped my transitional assignment would have been as
a cheetah. I have never had an assignment as a cheetah."

"I had hoped for an assignment as a
dolphin."

"Fawn, we could stand here all night
hoping, but it won’t change anything. The sun will crest soon. We need to sleep
for a few hours. Let’s meet again. When it's time, I’ll signal you at the lab
with the shapeling ensign." Roth placed three fingers over his heart.

"Okay. Are you sure you’re not in the mood
for some wolf-play?"

"Another time, Fawn." Roth bowed his
head and shifted, catching the wind in his feathers and streaking upward.