Pack Dynamics (12 page)

“It’s … near my time of the month, Mr. Jarrett,” she said, still flapping her wrist. “Smells like that affect me a little more than usual when I’m getting this close.” Recovering somewhat, she turned and headed toward the lab. “If you need me for anything, you know where I am.”

Doc Allen puffed hard on his cigarette. “What the hell are those?”

“Near as I can tell, they’re rabbits infected with the same sort of nanotech that Mike injected Ben with. Only they’ve got something extra.” He scratched the back of his head. “And that’s why I need a blood sample.”

“And how the hell do you propose to get one?” Allen eyed the snarling rabbits. “Because I’m not touching a thing that looks like that.”

“Er. I guess we could … kill one.”

“Yeah?” Allen crossed his arms and tongued his cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other. “Go for it. I’ll watch.”

“Janni? Little help?”

“No way,” she said. “Finding the damned demon bunnies was horrible enough. You haven’t paid me enough to
play
with them.”

“I can pay you more.…”

“Alex, sweetie, there isn’t enough money on the planet for me to help you get one of those things out of its cage.”

Fists on hips, Alex surveyed the truckload of rabbits. “I have some that are dead already,” he mused. “But I don’t know if he used the same tech on them as the live ones.” He made a decision. “Janni, go through his notes and see what you can find out about the bunnies. Doc—”

He jumped up into the truck, opened a refrigeration unit, pulled out the dead rabbit labeled with the most recent date along with a vial of blood with the same info, and hopped back down. “Take this and get some samples microscope-ready for me. Centrifuge a few others. You know the drill.”

“You’re the boss.” Allen took a drag on the cigarette, blew the smoke through his nose, and walked out, dangling the rabbit by its ears. Janni followed, muttering under her breath.

And now Alex had to figure out how, exactly, he was going to kill one of these things.

He pulled a cage holding a single rabbit out of the truck and set it on the floor while the beast inside snarled at him. The cage was made of silver, and he’d seen the one burn its nose on the bars, so that was a substance that obviously could do some damage. The classic method was a silver bullet. “Who am I to argue with the classics?”

Of course, first he’d have to either make or find a silver bullet, because that wasn’t something he personally had just lying around. Maybe Reed—

He rummaged around in a toolbox they’d packed into the truck, and in the third drawer from the bottom hit paydirt—a whole box of fifty silver 9mm rounds. He pushed the intercom button on the wall. “Miss Graham? Would you bring me the Beretta from the bedroom I sleep in, please?”

A long pause. “Dare I ask why?”

“Reed provided a method of killing the lycan-bunnies. But I need my gun.”

He could almost hear her palm hit her face. “Please don’t tell me you have silver bullets down there.”

“Okay, I won’t. But I still need that gun, because it’s the right caliber.” Silence on the other end. “Miss Graham?”

“I’ll be right down.” He thought he heard her mumble something else, but it might have just been static on the intercom.

True to her word, she came in a few minutes later carrying his Beretta in its leather case. When the rabbit saw her, it went crazy, throwing itself against the sides of the cage without regard for the fact that the smell of burned hair was filling the garage and it was injuring itself.

And then, as if the day hadn’t been surreal enough already, it turned into a tiny little wolf with the same markings it had as a rabbit, black spots on white fur. Alex was equal parts horrified and interested, leaning forward and watching the thing as it raged.

Megan, however, took an involuntary step backward. “Whoa.” She shoved the gun case at Alex. “I’ll just—yeah.” She jerked her thumb toward the lab and beat a hasty retreat.

Alex removed the gun from its case, ejected the ten-round magazine and the round from the chamber, and replaced all eleven bullets with the silver ones from Reed’s box. The rabbit, meanwhile, calmed after Megan left, morphing back into bunny shape and huffing in the center of the cage.

Alex opened the gun case back up to store the regular bullets and found a note he’d left himself last time he’d used the Beretta: “Hearing protection, dumbass.”

Rolling his eyes, he nevertheless pulled out a pair of earplugs and put them in. He flicked the safety off and aimed straight down at the rabbit’s head between the top wires of the cage. “Thanks for your sacrifice to science,” he said, and fired.

“
Hell
.” The creature didn’t die instantaneously like he expected it to. It leaped into the air, hit the roof of the cage, and actually screamed before turning back into a wolf.

“Holy shit,” Alex breathed. After what seemed far too long but was really only a couple of seconds, it collapsed, panted twice, and expired, re-shifting back into what passed for its normal form.

“Okay, that
sucked
.” But at least it was done, so he flicked the safety on again and stored the gun back in the case, along with the earplugs. Picking up the cage, he carried it to the lab, whistling nonchalantly to hide just exactly how disturbed he was by this whole business.

O O O

Ben tried not to react when Alex brought the dead rabbit in, but his muscles stiffened under Janni’s hand and he could feel the hairs on his arms stand straight up, like they had a mind of their own. He wondered if a time would come when Alex would have to put him down the same way he’d done the bunny. He hoped it’d be quick.

He was still sitting backwards on the chair, and he rested his forehead on it for a moment.

Janni stroked his shoulder blade. “They’ll figure it out,” she whispered.

“Yeah.” Breathe, he reminded himself. Although with the scent of fresh rabbit blood now permeating the room, he wasn’t sure that was a good idea either. The last couple of years had been good for his self-control, but nothing had prepared him for, well, this. The rabbit Doc Allen was working on was bearable, because it had been dead for a while, but a fresh kill was a whole other ball game.

“Do you—” The words came out in a choked gasp, and he took another few breaths before trying again. “Do you need me here, in this room, Alex? Because, seriously …”

Alex shot him an alarmed look. “No, go on upstairs. I’ve wired the whole house with intercom for a reason.”

Ben shoved himself out of the chair and stumbled up the stairs. Janni walked beside him with her arm around his waist. He collapsed onto the sofa in the living room, elbows on knees, fisting his hand in his hair. Remembering to breathe, which was much easier without the scent of blood in the air.

Janni disappeared for a minute but came back with a glass of orange juice. “We have groceries,” she said, handing it to him. “Want me to make you anything?”

He was ravenous, again. “A sandwich would be great, honey. Thanks.”

She caressed his hair briefly before going back to the kitchen.

At the sound of Megan’s footsteps, he opened his eyes and glanced up. She set Reed’s laptop—along with a stack of jewel cases and a couple of thumb drives and some paper files—down on the coffee table, and squatted beside him. “How you holding up?”

“Not … that well, to be brutally honest.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Tell me it gets easier.” Even if it was a lie, he needed to hear it, because he could only be brutally honest for so long.

“Ben. It gets easier. It does.”

He gave her a bare nod. “Okay.”

“How’s Janni taking it?”

“Like a champ.” He was so very lucky to have her in his life. “She’s amazing.”

“Oh, I like that,” Janni said, coming back in with an enormous sandwich and a pile of chips on a plate. “Tell me more about how amazing I am.” She set the plate next to the laptop, and he pulled her onto the couch next to him.

“You … are strong, and beautiful.” He stuck his nose in her hair. “And you smell good. And you’re funny and cute and have dimples on your knees and put up with my shit and I adore you.” He hadn’t quite meant to say that much, because a lot went unsaid between them and always had. But it was almost a relief having it out in the open like that. Almost. Depending on how she reacted.

Megan coughed. “I’m going downstairs before I go into a diabetic coma. If you need anything, just yell.” She retreated.

Janni laughed, and he relaxed. “Think we weirded her out?” Janni asked.

“I certainly hope so.” He grabbed the sandwich and took a bite. Turkey, and ham, and a ton of bacon, with spinach and tomatoes and pickles and sprouts, with just the right amount of mayo and brown mustard …

“Mmph, this is to die for. Add ‘you know my favorite foods and actually make them for me without bitching about how unhealthy they are’ to the list of reasons you’re amazing.”

She snuggled into his side. “You’re not so bad yourself, you know.”

“Other than the complete and utter wreckage of my psyche, you mean?”

“I can think of worse things you could have wrong with you, honestly,” she answered, squeezing him a little. “You’re not mean, or stupid, or a drug addict. You can hold down a job.”

“Your mom is an understanding employer,” he mumbled around the last mouthful of sandwich.

“That’s because you work your ass off when you’re on the clock, silly man.” Janni snagged a chip from the plate.

“In between the times I spend hiding at home with my arms over my head?”

She poked his side. “You haven’t done that in ages, and you usually remote in when you do anyway. She gets her money’s worth out of you.”

“Speaking of which.” He pulled the computer up onto his lap, having finished the food while they’d been talking.

“Well, then.” She kissed his shoulder and reached for one of the files. “Need anything?”

“Just you, honey.”

O O O

Hans raged around the lab at Ostheim Industries. Idna had taken to her bed, and he was wild with worry.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Dr. Michelle McFoucher, his chief researcher, said. “But we’ve been trying to get in touch with Mike Reed all day, with no success. His assistant isn’t picking up either. It’s like both of them have dropped off the face of the earth.” She shrugged. “And without the nanotech, we’re completely stalled. Reed said the other day that he’d had a breakthrough, but he hasn’t sent us the details yet.”

Hans barely kept his grip on his frayed temper. Wolfing and eating his subordinate wouldn’t help anyone, least of all Idna, and this woman was the best in the business, on the cutting edge of research into what made werewolves and vampires tick. If anyone could help his wife, McFoucher could.

“Work with what you have,” he said. “We’re running out of time. I’ll see if I can track Reed down.”

He stormed into his office and slumped into the chair behind his desk. What could have happened to the man? Reed’s assistant had said something about an “uncontrolled experiment”—and never called back. Hans was immensely tired of people blowing him off, and the fact that the full moon was two nights hence didn’t help his raw nerves in the slightest.

He dialed Reed’s direct number at Jarrett Biologicals. Voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message. Reed’s cell phone gave him the same result. He growled and scored his desk with his claws. A man of action, he was paralyzed here. He knew nothing of the nuts and bolts of research; he simply ran the company and told his scientists the direction he wanted their studies to take.

He snatched his phone up again and dialed his assistant security chief. “Go to Mike Reed’s house and see what you can find there. And send someone to Jarrett’s for some
discreet
surveillance. Not only that, but I want stakeouts on everyone else’s places as well. They can’t stay holed up in there forever.”

Maybe Reed was sick, or injured. Something. But at least Hans had set something in motion, and he felt better about it. Not much better. But better.

O O O

“Oh, no way,” Alex said, staring through his microscope at the rabbit blood. Vampire bunnies. Which had been werewolf-ized. Great. He pounded his forehead with his fist. “Ostheim, you evil bastard. Poaching my employees, stealing my nanotech … you’ve been a very bad boy.”

Janni had come down to the lab for more notes. “Well, that’s who we thought all along, right?”

“Yeah. His wife’s a vampire. So that’s why—” He squeezed his eyes shut. “At the fundraiser. Oh, man, no wonder he’s pissed at me. Megan, how long have I been dodging his calls?”

“Two or three months.”

“And I bet she’s been sick for longer than that.”

“Vampire?” Janni said. “Did you really say ‘vampire’?”

“Yeah, match made in heaven, apparently. Him being a werewolf and all.” Alex rested his chin on his hands and stared at the wall. “Common knowledge in the biz, I mean, you start noticing when people don’t age, and with his company specializing in the paranormal side of pharmaceuticals …”

“You sent us after a werewolf and his vampire wife.” Janni’s tone was flat.

“Well, hell, Janni, not on purpose. I didn’t know it was him, I just knew someone was after my research.”

“So, what does this mean?” Megan asked.

“It means,” Alex said wearily, “that Reed was working on something that would hybridize werewolves and vampires, probably to try to cure whatever’s wrong with Idna. The scary bunnies are the result. And Ben got caught in the crossfire when Mike thought he didn’t have any choice but to use it on him to save his life.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I don’t know.” He combed his hair back with his fingers. “It was designed to work on vampires. What it will ultimately do to a regular human …” He stopped, and swallowed, and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“But you’ll try,” Janni said.

“Oh, yeah.” Alex tapped his teeth with a fingernail. “I need more bunnies. Regular ones, not vampire ones. Megan, could you have some sent over, please? And I need to replicate this tech.” He wheeled himself over to his computer and started banging on the keyboard, getting specs, setting up a research protocol, programming his nanotech fabber, which built the little bots he’d made his fortune with.