Nightfall (29 page)

Half-formed questions bumped inside his head, images of a silver-tipped wolf. The way she'd leaned into his touch had provided a fleeting sense of peace that soothed him to the bone. But he wouldn't let them coalesce. Jenna was Jenna. Everything else was a nightmare, and more to the point, it was completely useless if she didn't wake up.

The other possibility, that she could try to hurt one of them, held more immediacy. He wouldn't break his promise. So Mason checked his nine-millimeter and slid in a new clip. The thought of treating Jenna like a contagion and a threat made him ill, but the alternative was so much worse.

A quiet knock at the door brought his head upright. He'd expected Angela, but Tru stood in the doorway. “Hey.”

Mason nodded in greeting.

“It's like Christmas with all that stuff you brought back. Well, if you dig presents from a home improvement store. Ange liked the batteries.”

The kid slid onto the opposite bunk. As always, his posture reminded Mason of himself—tense and thriving on that tension. But that was a younger version of himself. All Mason felt now was fatigue and gut-deep dread.

“Why?”

“Because of Penny,” Tru said. “Ange is always looking for her and she hates the dark.”

“Not you though, huh?”

“Whatever. Lights are on now.” He shrugged. “I guess I'll stay in the basement.”

“Why?”

“I just thought ...” Tru glanced at Jenna. “You'll stay with her. Take care of her.”

Mason stood and shook the numbness out of his legs. “Jenna doesn't change things. We all have our jobs. If you want to stand guard in the basement, that's your choice. But you have backup now.”

Funny how a few words could change a person's entire bearing. Mason had seen it with Jenna, how his words made her happy, gave her a measure of comfort that brawn never did. He just hadn't expected it to have the same effect on anyone else.

But when Tru took to his feet, his uncharacteristic hesitancy was gone. “Yeah, backup's good.”

“And I didn't mean it when I said you were a kid, okay?” Mason pinned him with a serious look. “I appreciate what you did here.”

Tru beamed, briefly, then donned his don't-give-a-rat's-ass expression. “No problem.” Again, his eyes darted to where Jenna rested. “So what now?”

“A lock. I need a lock.”

An hour later, he'd soldered a chain across the outside of the dorm door. He'd be able to relieve Tru on point, patrol the perimeter, power through another meal, take a piss—all without wondering if she was stalking through the station looking for fresh meat. He slid the chain in place and thumped the door hard with his forehead.

She'd turned into a goddamn wolf.

So back it went, shoved into a corner.

He set off for the showers. Lukewarm water beat against his bare back, peppering his skin the way Jenna had—except her kisses hadn't been the random patter of water. She'd touched him deliberately. She'd found every place that hurt and eased it, until his defenses diffused like steam.

A scream built inside him, gathering from the core abdominal muscles just below his bellybutton, scorching his organs, pushing up through his body until nothing could hold it back. Fear and grief and a hollow, broken need bellowed free, reverberating off the tile walls. Finally, his lungs empty, he dropped to his knees on the shower floor.

Water poured over his head. He scratched his wet scalp. Days of stubble itched like steel wool. Tiredly, he got his knife and wished he could use it on himself—a solution more permanent than scraping the hair off his head. Mason lathered and shaved, needing to impose that minimum of order. His grip on reality was seeping out of his pores. He felt it leaving.

With a last burst of energy, he twisted the shower knob. The water stopped. He shivered. The knee he'd split open on the ice was bleeding again. He watched a thinned rivulet of his blood trickle toward the drain. He didn't know how he was still moving, but he managed. Every movement went sluggish and numb as he toweled off. With a T-shirt and jeans on, he climbed back up to the dorms and unchained Jenna's door.

No change. She wasn't awake, smiling a greeting at him, but neither was she feverish, transformed, feral, dead—too many horrific possibilities. No, at that moment, resting looked pretty good.

So he did.

He slid the nine-millimeter just under the bunk, within arm's reach, and slipped in beside her. His body dwarfed hers and made a joke of the narrow mattress, but he needed to hold her. He snuggled the blanket around them and nuzzled his face in her hair. Catching a hint of musk and snow, he told himself he didn't care. She was Jenna.
His
Jenna. And he would hold her until morning.

Four days passed in a nightmarish haze. Every morning, Mason awoke more exhausted than the night before. The others tiptoed around him, but he held his frustration in check. He knew better now. They didn't need his anger on top of their own worries. So he chained the door shut and trudged out to get food, answering their silent questions with a curt, “No change.”

He fed Jenna and rubbed her throat to make her swallow. He cleaned her when her body processed that food. And he wouldn't stop trying, no matter how hopeless it seemed.

Welsh looked as beat up as Mason felt. Where once he'd been clean shaven and neatly pressed, now the doc wore the same clothes for days, well on his way to a ratty goatee. The specs were all that remained of the scientist they'd first met.

“It just doesn't make any sense,” he mumbled as Mason walked by the lab on the fifth night. Welsh scribbled onto a notepad beside his microscope.

Mason hoped the guy spent sleepless nights working because he cared for Jenna—not as a potential lover, but as a human being. Yet he knew Welsh didn't work that way. Jenna was a riddle to solve.

He was tired of the radio silence in his head, tired of sorting each sliver of memory to see if he'd missed something. And damn, he was tired of stretching out next to the woman he loved without any hope that she'd open her eyes.

Mason dropped his spoon. It fell to the floor with a clatter, sounding far away. There'd be a splatter of oatmeal on the floor, but he didn't care.

Love. Goddamn it.

Tru snapped his fingers. “Hey, Mason. You in there, dude?”

“Yeah,” he said, throat tight.

“Harvard wants to know if you can come see him.”

When he arrived in the lab, Mason found Welsh and Ange talking quietly. Tru trailed him to the doorway and stood watching the proceedings. And where he went, Penny wouldn't be far behind. Yeah, there she was in the hallway outside, eyes locked on Tru.

Welsh glanced up with a tired expression. “Glad you're here. You'll want to check this out.”

“What am I looking at?” Mason asking, squinting into the microscope.

“Cells.” Welsh nodded to the pile of meat laid out on a nearby slab. Pins stuck out of various organs and tissues.

“What is this? Ash? Charcoal?”

“Not quite.” The scientist peeled off his Lennon glasses and rubbed his eyes. Then he indicated the slab of monster meat. “It's
that
. Looks like tissue, hell, it smells like rotting tissue. But that's how it looks under magnification. Like cinders. Not animal at all.”

He tried to hide his irritation. Slides and cells didn't mean Jenna was awake or that Welsh had found a cure. “And?”

“It's not possible, all right? There has to be cellular structure. This ...” He exhaled like a man admitting defeat. “I can't explain it. It's not science. It's ... other.”

Ange asked, “What does this tell us about Jenna?”

“I wish I knew.” Welsh gestured to another set of slides. “This is her sample.”

He stood away from the microscope, letting Tru and Ange take turns examining the unnatural evidence. Mason wondered if Welsh would admit the existence of magic now. Denial seemed impossible in the changed world, but maybe the guy was determined not to see what was right in front of him. God knew, the folks in Fresno had done the same thing, until it was too late.

Once they finished, Mason switched slides and peered down at Jenna's blood, swirled on the glass. What he saw astonished him. “This is like her fur.”

“What do you mean?” Welsh asked.

“When she was a wolf, her fur ... glowed. Just a little.”

“Yeah,” Tru said. “Like she was under a spotlight. Her cells look that way too.”

Welsh nodded. “Whatever that means, it's a fundamental difference between her and the beasts.”

Mason couldn't breathe. He looked to Welsh for confirmation of his hopes. “You mean, she won't turn into one of them?”

The scientist lifted his shoulders in a who-knows gesture. “I hope not, but I can't be sure. This is beyond anything I've seen before.”

“Is she dangerous?” Ange asked.

The back of Mason's neck prickled. “Not when she's unconscious and locked up.”

“You don't get to take that chance. Not with my daughter's life.”

He tensed his injured hand into a fist. “I wonder what kind of life your kid would have right now if Jenna hadn't opened the cabin door for you.”

“Hey, let's not borrow trouble. She has to survive before we worry about whether she's a threat.” Welsh seemed to realize what he'd said. “Sorry, man.”

Mason nodded, though his gut felt like it held live coals. He fixed a dark, cold stare on Angela. “If it comes to it, we'll take a walk in the woods. Just her and me.”

She blanched. “I didn't mean ... oh God.”

Welsh put an awkward arm around her.

So that's how it is
.
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid.

This wasn't the time for Mitch's prophecies, but the words burned in Mason's head.

“Mama?” Penny stood in the doorway. The pale fabric Ange had fashioned into a nightgown seemed to glow against her porcelain skin. Her filthy bear dangled from slim, graceful little fingers.

It was the first word anyone had heard her speak since the change.

Her face alight with wonder, Ange reached for her daughter. Tears streamed from her eyes even as she smiled. “What is it, baby?”

The girl smiled in return. “Mama, the wolf 's awake.”

Shapes loomed in the dark.

She had never been here before. It smelled strange, and a big thing stood between her and freedom.
No wind
. Faint smell of death. Her blood. Human stink—more than one. It was too warm. Her tongue lolled as she sniffed something familiar.
Good.

But she heard movement.
Threat?
If they had put her in this place away from trees and freedom, they were her enemies. She curled her lips back and raised her hackles. An angry growl escaped her as the thing moved. Light trailed in.

Backing as far as she could, until her rump met something hard, she stood with her ears forward, threatening. The new thing was human. He stepped in, and she snarled to let him know of her presence. He edged closer. His familiar shape gave her pause.

He kept coming. She coiled her muscles, ready to spring if he did not take her warning. His body folded as he knelt, and in the motion, she breathed his scent.
Hunt-mate.
They had taken prey together, bonded in blood. She remembered this human. He had good hands. She remembered them on her muzzle. The fear trickled away.

Whining softly, she let her fur fall soft against her neck. She edged closer. Sounds spilled from the human. They made no sense to her, but she tried to communicate. She bent forward in a half bow and lashed her tail, letting him know she wouldn't mind playing. He didn't seem to understand, still moving with the slowness of a crippled wolf.

Happy but out of patience, she pounced and nipped gently at his arm, then pranced away. She turned to see if he would try to catch her. Instead he stared at his arm, frozen in place. She huffed out a little breath.

Maybe he didn't want to. Maybe he was tired.

Chastened by her inability to read him, she slunk forward with her belly low on the ground. He didn't move, but he continued to make those soft mumbling noises. He didn't smell scared. He smelled ... good. Not like food, but something else she wanted.

When she got close enough for him to touch, she rolled onto her back in a pose of extreme submission. She shouldn't have tried to make him play. Only cubs annoyed pack mates like that. She should have known better.

Slowly, he reached out and rubbed her tummy.
Good.
She wriggled side to side on her back, letting him pet her. Something thunked beside him, and then he put his other hand on her. She didn't try to get away when he lifted her. Instead she sat down and gazed into his eyes.

Water streaked down his face. She licked.
Salty.

The human made a sound she recognized, a whine of pain.
Hurt?
She licked again, looking for a wound, and he wrapped his front legs around her like he wanted to wrestle, but she didn't think that was right. Then one of his noises reverberated through her.

The word cut through her like a crow's squawk. She cocked her head. He said it again.

Fire followed. She spilled onto her side, whining, as the world slipped away. She went to that place of pain for the briefest time and spiraled back. Agony impaled her, as if all her bones had shattered at once.

When her vision cleared, Jenna lay in Mason's arms. He stroked her naked stomach as if she were an animal. Worse, he looked as if he had single-handedly fought the armies of darkness.