Seven Kinds of Hell (22 page)

“We have to leave soon,” she said.

Gerry strayed over to one of the other cases. He peered at the pottery vessels and straightened, shaking his head. “Um, no problems about nudity in ancient Greece, huh?”

Claudia looked over his shoulder. “Whoa! Any excuse to wave your dick around. Penis here, penis there, get it out, lads, wave it in the air.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth. She had
not
just said that…

“
Claudia!
” Gerry was aghast. I suddenly realized Gerry the Werewolf was prudish. And his sister, under the layers of buttoned-down shrink, had an actual sense of humor.

“I’m serious, it’s nothing but penises over here. Zoe, how did they keep from getting sunburned?”

“Claudia!
Jesus!
”

“They probably used oil or fat or something, right?” She was genuinely curious now.

“Uh, probably,” I said. “Never really thought about it.”

Gerry shook his head. “I sure wouldn’t be so proud if my junk looked like a bunch of small, hairy radishes.” He caught my glance. “Which it doesn’t.”

Claudia had composed herself, as if the moment had never been. “What is that one, Zoe?”

I stepped back to show her the jug with the Prometheus painting.

She nodded, started to turn, then something caught her glance. “Gerry.”

This time it was a command rather than a joke. He stopped counting genitals and came over.

“What?”

“Hercules.”

He glanced at it, glanced at her. “Huh. Interesting.”

I realized why they were looking at Hercules; I understood now his lion skin suggested a possible Fangborn connection. I resolved to add “animal skins” to my list of Fangborn attributes to be studied. But Hercules, another Fangborn, associated with Pandora and Prometheus? It all bore consideration now.

He turned to me. “But we need to get out of here. As in, yesterday.”

“Yes. Zoe, come on.”

“But Professor Schulz—”

“You can leave word at the desk,” Gerry said.

I stopped by the front, and after a tentative “
Guten Tag,
” explained in English that I would miss Professor Schulz. “The police found my bag and I must identify it.”

“I will tell him, thank you,” the administrator said in unaccented English.

We hustled out, heading into the crowded tourist area full of shops and restaurants.

“Can we stop?” I said. “I missed lunch.”

I didn’t really want to stop, not with the discussions we had to have, but I was ravenous.

“Not quite yet. Let’s get a little farther,” Claudia said. “I know a place.”

“What are you worried about? My next meeting with Dmitri isn’t for hours, and I’m not even sure he’s in the country yet.”

We went a few blocks more, and the crowds thinned as we passed through a tony shopping district. It became mixed residential buildings and businesses, all very high-end.

I realized there were very few people I had to work hard to keep pace with, but the Steubens were among them. They weren’t actually running but eating up the distance quickly.

We went into an alley. Four tall apartment buildings formed a bricked courtyard filled with outdoor seating for a café. Suddenly my mouth watered. Not only could I smell the strong oils of newly roasted coffee, but there was a trace of truly diabolical chocolate baking nearby.

We were seated quickly. Claudia ordered, then turned to me. I said, thinking quickly, “
Für zwei,
” which meant I’d be having whatever she was having. But at least I wouldn’t feel like an ignoramus while I fished out my phrase book. My two years of flirting with German had been a long time ago, and while I might be a developmentally challenged werewolf, I still had some pride.

Gerry glanced at the menu and ordered something that took a lot longer to say. I wondered whether he’d gotten more food and whether he’d share, or if it was just more long compound nouns.

When the waiter cleared away, I was suddenly the focus of attention I’d not wanted.

“Nice skirt,” Gerry said. “You mug someone for it?”

“I needed to get out of there fast. That guy in the woods? He’s nothing but seven kinds of trouble.”

“Thanks for the promotion, Zoe. I think I used to be only six.”

I turned. That voice.

Will MacFarlane emerged from the basement of the cafe.

What was Will doing here? After all the pain I’d gone through to protect him from the Beast, from me—

Habit drove me. I stood up, kicking my chair back, ready to run.

“Sit down, Zoe,” Claudia said.

I sat.

I realized what she was doing and tried to stand up again. My legs wouldn’t work.

“God
damn
it, Claudia!”

“Sit. The quicker you settle down, the quicker we get through this. And,” she added, “the sooner you get a handle on your powers, the sooner you can resist me.” She shrugged. “You’ll have a better chance, that is.”

As soon as she said “powers,” my stomach lurched away and my face went aflame. “Not in front of—”

“It’s OK, Zoe,” Will said. “I know all about it.”

“What
exactly
do you think you know?” I said. I didn’t want to look at him. I was so mad he’d insinuated himself back into my life, but I forced myself. “
I
don’t even know what’s going on with me. How did you find me? What do
you
know?”

“More than you, but that’s no surprise.” He smiled for a second, but it vanished a heartbeat later. “I know all about the Fangborn, Zoe, because it’s my job.”

Impossible. After I’d sacrificed so much, it just got worse and worse. He’d known the very worst of me as a human, and now, somehow, he knew that I was a freak. Once again Will knew more about everything, more about
me,
than I did.

My breath came harder and harder, and I realized I was hyper-ventilating. The waitress came out with a loaded tray, and that gave me a moment to collect myself.

Will sat down at the table, right next to me, and ordered a coffee in idiomatic, ass-achingly perfect German. He’d aced his required language exams, of course; as a classicist, he’d come across Italian, German, French, Latin, and Greek, trying to keep up with archaeological reports.

I was trapped. If I thought I could have managed it, I would have Changed, right then and there, and taken off.

Instead, I took a sip of the hot chocolate and burned the shit out of my mouth. “Damn it!”

Zoe, chill out. If he knows…
Taking a deep breath, I groped for words.

He reached for my hand, then caught himself and pulled back. “I can help you get Danny back.”

“What do you know about Danny?” I turned on the Steubens before he could answer. “What are you people trying to do? Telling him could
kill
Danny! You want me to trust you, then you ambush me with
this?
”

“Zoe,
listen!
”

I wanted to say, “Claudia, cut that shit out!” but suddenly I couldn’t say anything.

Damned vampire tricks. She wasn’t wrong, though, so while I fumed, I listened.

“I think I can help you with Danny,” Will said, “because I know who Dmitri Parshin is. You’re going to get a call from him, right? In about two hours?”

I nodded. He did know everything.

“I want to listen in on that call, and when you go to hand him the figurine, I want to be there. At the very least, I want you wired.”

“Are. You. Out. Of. Your. Mind?” I realized Claudia’s suggestion was only so strong; the more I concentrated on speaking my mind, the easier I found the trick of resisting her. Maybe I was getting better at it, too.

“He’s immensely dangerous,” Will said. “We can’t let him get the things he’s looking for.”

“If he finds out I’m working with you, he’ll—”

“I know: Danny.” He shook his head slowly. “We won’t let that happen. I won’t let it happen.”

“How can you—?”

“I work for the government, Zoe.”

“What, the Bureau of Fangborn Affairs?” Either Claudia was easing up on me or I
was
getting better at this.

“It’s a long story.”

“That’s OK. I’ve got two hours.”

He sighed, looked around, and leaned over the table, to close our ranks. “The formal name, for the bean counters, is the Biological and Historical Intelligence branch of the FBI’s Technical Laboratory. We mostly call ourselves TRG, from the Theodore Roundtree Group, after the guy who established it back in the 1940s.”

I saw Gerry nudge Claudia, none too subtly, in the ribs. She nodded, frowning, and shushed him.

“Yeah?”

“He was the first, as far as we know, to officially acknowledge the presence of Fangborn in the United States. We work with the Fangborn in roles of legal and diplomatic efforts. It’s kind of a cross between law enforcement, civil rights, and public relations.”

“You’re the guys who help hide the existence of the Fangborn.” I looked at Gerry and Claudia, then back at Will. “My…people.”

“Yes. And we’ll be the ones helping to orchestrate the introduction of the Fangborn on I-Day. There are even a very few elected officials at the national level who are Fangborn.”

“Like Senator Knight?” I blurted.

“How could you possibly know that?” Claudia said. “That’s…that’s very uncommon knowledge.”

“I…don’t know.” I was as surprised as everyone else around the table—where had that come from? Perhaps Professor Schulz’s comments had put the idea in my head. “The guy at the museum said a senator was asking questions along the same lines as mine. It just…came to me.”

“Well, keep it under your hat,” Will said. “He’s one of the oldest Fangborn around, born at the beginning of the nineteenth century; he’ll step down at the end of his term in two years. But for the moment, we’re looking for Dmitri Parshin, who’s as big a threat to humankind as he is to the Fangborn.”

I couldn’t stand not knowing any longer. “So did your interest in the Fangborn start before or after we dated?”

“After. But not by much.”

“To get back at me.”

Will looked at me. “Yes. As soon as we broke up, I immediately went searching for a government organization specializing in the history and culture of an otherwise unknown group of superhuman, hypernatural beings, on the astronomically remote chance you were one. That way, I could spend the next years of my life finding a way to hurt you as much as you hurt me.”

I couldn’t help it; I grinned. “OK, that was dumb. But how…?”

“Zoe, you knew I was looking into government work back when we were dating. Park Service, Army Corps of Engineers, my résumé was circulating. And the TRG discovered your existence about the time you left me. Questions and long, long discussions ensued, followed by a job offer. For a while, I admit, I thought I might use it to get back
to
you, once I learned about your history.”
He looked away, then back at me. “Now I’m just worried about getting Danny home safely.”

“How did they find out about me?”

“Recently, a document about a certain…facility…came to light. There was a list of names with photos. I almost flipped out when I recognized your mother’s picture among them. And that she’d somehow managed to leave and keep from being discovered for so many years.”

“What?” I recalled the note my mother had left me. “What else do you know?”

“Nothing. All I saw was the list of names.” He cocked his head. “But there must be more information to be had. It wasn’t my brief.”

“What about you guys?” I asked Claudia. “Are you part of this TRG?”

“Um, no,” she said. “But I think we’re connected by blood.”

“What?” This time Will was the surprised one.

Gerry leaned forward. “I’m pretty sure our grandfather, Jacob Steuben, was one of the first Fangborn to become involved with them. I found some family papers, sealed up and buried beneath the back shed when I was replacing it last year. They were written by Grandpa Jake, and they told of some weird stuff he and his Cousins got up to, on the home front and abroad, during the Second World War. The papers mentioned an FBI agent, who Grandpa said introduced him to Mr. Roundtree.” He turned to Claudia. “What was his name? Harry Green?”

“Gray,” Will said quietly. “And you’re not supposed to know any of that. It’s dangerous for you, for us.”

“Well, we do know about it,” Claudia said. “And we’re in this now. So consider us legacies.”

I didn’t care about institutional memory. “You’re after Dmitri?” I asked Will.

His expression didn’t belong in that sunny courtyard. It belonged among gravestones, on a battlefield, in a morgue, not
within sight of laughing, chatting Berliners. “Yes. And I want you to go after him. I want you to wear a wire and lure Dmitri out into the open so we can get him.”

I didn’t know how angry I was at him, and Claudia and Gerry, at that very moment until I actually stood up. Growling, I felt the pull of Claudia’s suggestion and ignored it. Will was back in my life, but was endangering Danny by being here. They’d told him everything; everyone knew more than me. I was nothing but a pawn to any of them.

“We told you back in Boston,” Gerry said. “Dmitri is not just a threat to Normals interfering with his illegal activities. He wants to
become
Fangborn. He doesn’t understand. It’s birth, not biting, not a spell, not a curse. He’s not only a danger to the human world, he also threatens us. Anything that draws attention to our existence is a threat. Right now, we’re very vulnerable.”

“It is possible, too,” Claudia said cautiously, “that the objects he’s seeking do have some power. We don’t know what, but it’s imperative we find them first.”

I didn’t care what Dmitri was, not really, beyond his present role in my life. It didn’t matter how awful he was. I hated how casually they were willing to risk my life and Danny’s to get what they wanted.

So far from hiding, I was now out in plain sight, with people I needed to trust using my existence to further their own ends. So far from avoiding authorities and other Fangborn, I was at the center of multiple conspiracies I knew nothing about. The security and anonymity I’d worked so hard for were only illusions, shattered by friends.

A last tug, like fingers losing their grip, and all sensation of Claudia’s restraint left me with an almost physical
snap.
I fled downstairs and into the toilets, which were unisex stalls with a common sink area. I closed a door behind me and tried to get it together.