Seven Kinds of Hell (46 page)

The chance came late that afternoon. A man in a lab coat appeared in my room. Tall and thin, with dark red hair and freckles that were incongruous on a serious demeanor.

“I know you’re not drugged.”

I acted woozy. “Huh?”

“I know you’re not drugged, because I swapped the canister of hellebore toxin gas for oxygen myself.”

“What do you want?” I sat up.

“I want to help you get out of here. We don’t have a lot of time. I pulled the security camera offline, but the guy I offered to cover for will be back soon. We need to get going before he finds his station unmanned.”

I suspected a trap, possibly a trick to get me to reveal the powers of Pandora’s bracelet. “Uh-huh.”

The guy wasn’t much older than me but was thin and worn. “Look. A number of years ago, I was a college student. I was the night manager for a little art cinema in Massachusetts, and one night after work I was attacked by three guys. I would have been
killed that night, except there was a young woman who turned into a wolf and saved me.”

My jaw dropped. If he’d announced, “No, Luke, I am your father,” I couldn’t have been more stunned. “That was you?”

He smiled briefly. “And it was you. Suffice it to say, my interest in werewolves was piqued, and after a long series of adventures, I found myself working for the TRG.” He frowned. “But here’s the thing. Either the Fangborn are citizens, with all the rights of citizens, or they’re not. Until they’re going to come out and lock up all the Fangborn, I don’t believe they should be holding you. Lying to you.”

“Will, the Steubens—they didn’t just go away about their own affairs and leave me here.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know how they got rid of them, what they told them, and that worries me.”

“You know, this is a hell of a way for the FBI to treat its employees,” I said, remembering Will’s description of the TRG in the café in Berlin.

“Things are changing,” he said, his face dark. “There’s been some reshuffling upstairs. I don’t like the direction we’re taking now.”

“Reshuffling?”

“The director’s brought in a new head of the Biological and Historical Intelligence branch. I don’t know the new guy personally, but I hear he comes with friends in high places and worked closely with Senator Knight himself.”

I felt sick. “You can get me out of here?”

He nodded. “I’m going to trigger an alarm on the far side of the building in a few minutes. Can you get out and over the wall, if it’s not guarded, in that time?”

“No problem.”

“Is there anything you need to pack up?”

“No.” My old backpack had been packed for days. Just in case.

“OK, give me five minutes to get over there and two to get the diversion going.”

I grabbed his arm. “Thank you—?”

He squeezed my hand. “Rob Watson. And you’re welcome. Thank
you,
Zoe, for what you did all those years ago.”

I nodded. It was nice to think my youth hadn’t completely poisoned my adult life.

“Seven minutes, OK?”

I picked up my bag and waited by the door, keeping it open a crack after he left.

Seven minutes later, an alarm was dimly audible. I waited until I could no longer sense anyone in the hall near me. I ran out to the main corridor and down to a side office. I threw my bag out, then eased myself out the window.

I thought about Will and the last night we’d spent together. I loved him desperately, perhaps even more than before the first time I left him. And Will loved me, fur, fangs, and all. I knew that. I had to find out what happened, how they managed to convince him to leave me. Or, if it hadn’t been convincing but coercion, I had to fix that, too. Same for Danny and the Steubens.

I sneaked down past the main gate and did a wide loop around until I found the outside road. I knew most of the staff were at the other end, so I wouldn’t be seen.

I started trotting away from the facility.

I’d find Will and Danny and make sure they were safe, and that they knew I was, too. And then I would have to think of a way to protect them all from the curse-bringer I’d become.

The Fangborn documents, like the Orleans Tapestry, were fragmentary, and they were prophetic; I knew there were as many ways of interpreting prophesies as there were interpreters. Thing was, whichever way you spelled it, I was doom or close enough to it. I was a werewolf, I had a dead man whispering in my ear and a bracelet with powers that defied scientific examination. I’d find a way to undo the oracles’ shadowy promises of destruction. I wouldn’t let anything, even me, hurt my friends. My Family.

A car, somewhere behind me. I wasn’t far enough away yet to start hitching, so I skidded down into the culvert to avoid being seen. A large black sedan pulled ahead of me and stopped. Honked once.

I could tell without looking it was Adam Nichols.

I didn’t sense anyone else, or any ill intent from him. It was handy, now understanding that I had more than the usual lycanthropic powers, that I could rely on certain vampiric or oracular talents as well. I was going to have to keep a journal, keep track of just how sharp my powers were getting, or which new ones might appear, as Sean’s voice had. Academic habits had been good for me, and they’d come in handy as I tried to correlate the information I had from Gerry’s Fangborn rules and lessons.

I climbed up. He reached over and unlocked the door for me.

I leaned into the open window. “You’re not bringing me back there.”

“No, I’m not. Where you heading?”

“You suddenly find me, when everyone else is being distracted. How does that happen?” I wondered if I’d have to knock him out and whether I dared steal his car.

“I heard an alarm, I thought of you. I went in the opposite direction of everyone else—easy. So I ask again, Where you heading?”

I thought about the letter my mother had left me and the scant details of her youth. “North.”

“Oddly enough, so am I.”

“Why? You’ve got a job here. You can probably talk the new boss into whatever you want. The TRG need to find Knight. They have to stop him from starting the Identification.” I didn’t say anything else about prophesies or my potential role in them.

He tilted his head. “I don’t know whether they trust me enough to let me do what I’m good at.”

I laughed. “You’re not particularly trustworthy. You’re not afraid of violence. You weren’t exactly Employee of the Year for your last boss, stealing from him, betraying him.”

“And yet here you are, talking to me.” He reached across to the briefcase that was in the passenger-side well and pulled out a file. Coffee-stained, dog-eared, I recognized it as the one from Knight’s office, the one that had my Family’s history in it. “Untrust-worthiness has its rewards.”

I stared at the file. The key to my history, and maybe my crazy powers. I knew I wouldn’t like what I found in there, but I had to open it and find out. My own private Pandora’s Box.

He looked in the rearview. “I haven’t got all day, Zoe.”

Sean’s voice whispered in my ear. “He’s a dick, Zoe. Don’t trust him.” I looked down at the bracelet and had the impression the fractured dark blue stone had momentarily pulsed with life.

“I know,” I said to Sean. Adam assumed I was answering him.

Adam had a car; I had a direction. He’d picked me up twice before, both times saving my bacon and complicating my life. I could take care of myself now, and I wouldn’t much mind if he got blown up if I unleashed some new power all of a sudden.

I threw my bag into the backseat, got in, and slammed the door shut. He pulled off down the road.

“Any particular route you want me to take?”

“Just keep going north. I’ll tell you when to turn.”

“No map? No destination?”

I shrugged. “I’ll just know.”

He laughed. I fastened my seat belt and stared out the window, watching the woods roll by.

I’d find an answer to all this trouble I’d inadvertently stirred up.

It was time for me to dig into my own past.

END

I like “Acknowledgments.” I like seeing the connections between people, and I think it’s important to take the opportunity to say thank you to everyone who makes the writing process a little less solitary.

First, and most importantly, to my husband and first reader, James Goodwin. You’re the reason I could write
Seven Kinds of Hell,
plain and simple. That’s why it’s dedicated to you. (OK, I
know
that’s not enough, and I
still
owe you for those days when you picked up the slack and did extra laundry or the shopping, and went on endless research trips to look at old ruined things, and did the cooking—like I
said,
I’ll make it up to you.) But for real, for now, this Fangborn novel and my love. Thank you.

I wouldn’t have come up with the Fangborn if it hadn’t been for my friends and beta-readers, Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner. Writers and editors extraordinaire, they asked me to contribute to their holiday anthology
Wolfsbane and Mistletoe,
which was the first story featuring the Steubens. May everyone reading this find such friends, who both challenge you
and
give you the means to succeed. My FP sisters—y’all rock. Thank you.

Tess Gerritsen and S. J. Rozan read drafts of this book. Tess introduced me to Peter Sommer’s wonderful gulet tours of Turkey; the sites we visited inspired much in this book. She also told me I had to write an archaeological thriller; it turned out to be an
archaeological thriller
with
Fangborn. S. J. is a sterling writer and one hell of a reader/editor. I was lucky to have her eagle eye and incisive observations. Thank you both.

Many folks gave me advice about factual elements in the book. Mostly I took it; sometimes I fudged minor details to suit the story, taking advantage of the fact that this is a work of fiction. Thanks to Dan Hale, who helped me navigate Paris, and to Konstantin Clemens, Mark MacMahon, Jilles Van Gurp, and Christian Ziech, who came to my aid in Berlin. Joe Basile (Associate Dean of Liberal Arts and Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, Maryland Institute College of Art) helped Zoe with her classical art and archaeology, and helped me with ancient Greek, Latin, and Italian. Thank you all!

To the amazing folks at 47North: David Pomerico (acquisitions editor), Justin Golenbock (PR specialist), Katy Ball (marketing manager), Patrick Magee (author relations manager): Thank you for your support in bringing the Fangborn to novel form! Very special thanks to developmental editor Clarence A. Haynes, who read
SKoH
so thoughtfully.

My brilliant literary agent Josh Getzler is a terrific reader and knows the business; he’s also a very nice guy. He and the team at HSG Agency (Carrie Hannigan, Jesseca Salky, and Maddie Raffel) are simply the werewolf’s fangs. Thank you all for your knowledge, patience, and enthusiasm!

The wider mystery community has been incredibly encouraging of the werewolves and vampires in my crime fiction. Thank you to the good folks at Malice Domestic and Bouchercon, especially, with a special shout out to Jon and Ruth Jordan. Also, thanks to the folks at the SF/F conventions (especially Boskone) who’ve welcomed both my hypernatural characters
and
the mysteries in which they were set. Thank you to the booksellers and librarians who keep writers in all genres going.

Every writer has a special community of writers and readers. Our community lost a dear friend and champion when Sally Fellows passed away this year; we will miss you, Sally. Thank you to my friends in the Teabuds, MysteryBabes, BuffyBuds, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and especially to my promotion group, the hugely talented Femmes Fatales. They are: Donna Andrews, Charlaine Harris, Dean James, Toni L. P. Kelner, Catriona McPherson, Kris Neri, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Mary Saums, Marcia Talley, and Elaine Viets. Thank you all so much.

Award-winning author Dana Cameron lives in eastern Massachusetts with her husband and two cats. Cameron, known for her mystery novels and short stories, was short-listed for the Edgar Award in 2010 for “Femme Sole,” and earned the Agatha Award in 2011 for “Disarming” and in 2008 for the Fangborn story, “The Night Things Changed.” Trained as an archaeologist, Cameron holds a bachelor of arts from Boston University and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. When she’s not writing fiction, Cameron enjoys exploring the past and the present through reading, travel, museums, popular culture, and food. More news about Cameron and her writing can be found on her author website and blog, at
www.danacameron.com
.