The Lycan Society (The Flux Age Book 1) (2 page)

Yasmin blinked. This was
not
what she expected. “A wolf?”

“Not just any wolf,” said the doctor. “The only blood that remotely matched my sample is stored in the Museum of Natural History. In a vial marked ‘Dire Wolf’.”

Yasmin took a step back, her mind racing. She didn’t even notice when Dr. Hardy checked his watch and disappeared.

Most of the afternoon was spent in Yasmin’s favorite Manhattan deli. However wonderful it was to chow down on a pastrami sandwich with Hugo and her parents, especially after being bed-ridden for so long, Yasmin couldn’t wait to get moving. Her senses were alive, hungry to be fed. She felt an indefinable need to be on the street, to get her hands dirty. Above all, she needed to make up for lost time. She had never felt so driven.

At around four she was finally able to disentangle herself from her family. She convinced her parents they were better off back at the laundromat. She could see the worried look on her father’s face. Time was money after all.

Hugo was a little more difficult to escape from. He wanted to head back to their shared apartment and watch Audrey Hepburn movies on the couch. Once upon a time Yasmin would’ve liked nothing better, but right then she felt strangely irritated by the idea.

She tried to persuade Hugo that she urgently needed to follow something up. She could see in his eyes that he felt she needed supervision after so long in hospital, as if she was some kind of head case. In the end she simply walked away, leaving him staring sullenly after her. She marched down East 26th street with renewed purpose, relieved to finally be alone.

But where to next?

As far as Yasmin could tell, she had two leads available on her quest to unmask her white knight. She could either explore the courier angle or look into the more fantastical element to all this - the dire wolf. Her practical side took her straight to the US Post Office on West 33rd and 8th.

She knew it was a mistake as soon as the clerk looked at her over her glasses. “You do realize our clients’ right to privacy is protected by several laws?” she asked with a serious dose of snark.

“I’m sorry, my mistake,” mumbled Yasmin, retreating before the clerk could call the police.
That
particular method wasn’t going to work.

How else to dig for information? Short of staking the post office for signs of the courier, there wasn’t much in her playbook. Nothing legal, anyway. Finding the courier might take days. It was a viable option but required patience, a virtue she had in short supply.

So - the dire wolf. It was a tenuous, remote link to the man who had saved her life, but a link nonetheless. There was only one place she could begin to find answers - the New York Public Library.

Yasmin hurried along Avenue of the Americas, the bitterly cold February wind whipping her platinum hair into a frenzy. It just felt good to be out in the world again, on an adventure. She hadn’t felt like this since scampering the alleys of Harlem as a kid.

The stately facade of the Public Library emerged through the late afternoon murk. Yasmin had never used the facility aside from a brief grade school excursion. It took her over fifteen minutes to register. Once the painful bureaucracy had been seen to, she glided under an archway and entered the central reading room. She
loved
the grand, cavernous space. Several mezzanine levels were chock full of rare, ancient books. The quiet reading area on the ground floor was illuminated by a galaxy of reading lamps. The muted green lights were somehow soothing and inspiring.

Yasmin had no idea where to begin. She eventually accosted a helpful librarian who directed her to an entire section on European mythology.

Sitting on a footrest, Yasmin scanned hundreds of spines, finding nothing that stoked her interest. It wasn’t until she’d been sitting there a full hour, her back getting more than a little stiff, when she discovered a scarlet tome with pages edged in gold. The only reason she picked it up was because it had a stylized wolf’s head symbol on the spine.

The title read MONSTERS IN THE DARK: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DARK AGES.

Yasmin dragged the weighty book onto a trolley and squeaked her way down to the Reading Room. Ensconced under a cool desk lamp, she flicked through the pages, scanning for anything that might be relevant to wolf’s blood. The logical part of her mind screamed that this was a crazy exercise, worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack.

The book began with an exquisitely detailed drawing that both entranced and disturbed Yasmin. It depicted a forest scene. A group of villagers were undergoing various degrees of grotesque transformation. Many were busy feasting on the carcass of some kind of monster. Yasmin checked the publication details.

The original, Romanian version of the book was published in 1822 by Vladimir Prakow and translated into English by Charles Munny a century later. The translator included a note describing the genius of the original author, a ‘paranormal naturalist’ who trawled the deep, dark forests and monasteries of central Europe for research materials.

Finding herself drawn into the book’s weirdness, Yasmin began reading. The 19th century English took a while to understand but she got the hang of it. The translator seemed to have retained the passion and inspiration of the original.

From what Yasmin could tell, the author’s argument was a little controversial. The Dark Ages were commonly regarded as a period when the great human civilizations of the world collapsed from 900 AD to 1100 AD. It was a hard time for the human race, a time of plague and pestilence. Most societies came under the control of violent local warlords. Travel of any kind was rare. Culture and learning came to a standstill. Thankfully many monasteries in Europe and Asia were able to preserve artworks and books, keeping the flame of human understanding alive.

Yasmin learned that whilst no historian has ever disputed that the Dark Ages occurred, there had been much debate on what could possibly have triggered that horrible period in human history. Global cooling, disease and war were all possible suspects.

Vladimir Prakow had a different theory.

He believed that civilization collapsed because of the Flux.

Intrigued, Yasmin read on, exploring this notion of ‘Flux’. A chill went down her spine. Surely this book should belonged among the storybooks. It was fantastical, unimaginable.

From what Yasmin could glean, the Flux was a large scale disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic fields, causing all kinds of problems for humans.

Just as Yasmin was settling herself for a long read a bell resounded.She stifled a surge of anger when she realized it was closing time. She’d been reading for four hours!

Turning the pages frantically, Yasmin tried to absorb as much as she could before she was asked to leave. According to the author, the Flux was the reversal of all the forces that usually kept nature in balance. This reversal, triggered by an unexplained cosmic event, saw the rise of a variety of mutations among humans. The normal laws of biology and physiology no longer applied.

Horrible creatures were sighted in the forests and mountains. Nightmarish things not seen since the time of ancient Greek and Roman myths. Fanged creatures stalked the lands, some of them assuming human form.
Naturebound
- humans with the ability to transform into their spirit animals - were common.
Vampyra
- a race of pale blood drinkers - rose to accumulate power and wealth. Reports of mummies, ghouls, succubi,
Aquila
(eagle folk) and
Nautili
[ocean people] abounded, too many to ignore.

The face of humanity had changed - there were now no limits to what was possible. The lands of the earth became a battlefield. No faction gained complete control, and not all of the new subspecies were fiendish and evil.

There were the noble
Djinni
of the fertile crescent. The wise
Grey Samurai
of the Far East. Perhaps most important of all, there were the
lycans
, a
Naturebound
subspecies from central Europe. They took control of the monasteries and made it their life’s work to preserve human culture and learning. They alone seemed to understand that the Flux was temporary, and that when the magnetic forces of the world righted themselves, humans would need resources to start again.

Wide-eyed, Yasmin flipped through the book to find out what happened next. Much of the tome was a compendium of all the monsters and creatures that roamed the earth at this time, accompanied by richly textured drawings.

Hearing footsteps behind her, Yasmin flicked to the back of the book in desperation. The author’s final word chilled her to the core. It was a warning. Vladimir Prakow believed that the Roman calendar was not based around the birth of Christ but the occurrence of Flux events. A Flux event occurred every thousand years, at the turn of each millennium.

At 0 BC, 1000 AD, and … 2000 AD.

The latest Flux had already begun.

“Some books are dangerous, you know,” said a dry, crumbly voice behind Yasmin. She almost jumped a foot into the air.

The man was tall and gaunt, with pale, papery skin.

“Do you work here?” Yasmin breathed.

The man gave a brief nod before loading his trolley with Yasmin’s book.

“Vladimir Prakow was killed for his passion,” said the strange man. “Seems religion is a better explanation for the miracles of the past.”

Before Yasmin could question him further, the librarian had gone. Gathering her coat around her in the suddenly cold air, Yasmin hustled through the deserted library and into the frigid New York night.

Hugo was in the kitchen, back turned, stirring a pot of pasta with a strange, slow rhythm. He was usually bouncing around, full of energy and bravado. This version of Hugo scared her. She was shocked at how much information she could process from just one glance.

“I figured I’d be eating alone,” her boyfriend of six years said quietly.

Yasmin’s heart lurched. She remembered she was one day out of hospital, and that Hugo had been by her side every day for months. Social niceties demanded that she spend the afternoon with
him
, perhaps sipping a glass of wine on the couch while she watched him impress her in the kitchen.

But she had changed. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it had happened, but all she could think about was going back to the Public Library in the morning.

“What do you want me to say, Hugo?” she asked more defensively than she intended.

Hugo stopped stirring and looked at her intently. She knew he could see it in her eyes. The complete, almost defiant, lack of interest in what he was doing and what life with him represented.

“Where’s my Yas gone?” he asked with a sad smile.

Expecting a question didn’t always make it easier to answer it. At that moment Hugo looked vulnerable. She resisted the temptation to step into his arms, something she might have done not long ago.

What had happened to her? Where had all her warmth gone? Admittedly, there hadn’t been much there to begin with. Yasmin was too tough, too self-dependent, to get all mushy at times like this. But the fact was she’d known Hugo since she was twelve, loved him since she was fourteen. Whatever happened next wasn’t going to be easy.

In the end Hugo took the words right out of her mouth.

“I could say it was the near death experience,” he began. “But that would be too neat. It started before that, didn’t it?”

Yasmin didn’t deny it. They’d just grown apart. She told herself that was life, but it still hurt.

“You can stay here as long as you want,” he said quietly. He seemed about to cry.

“Thank you,” said Yasmin. Suddenly everything sounded so polite, so formal. Not knowing what else to say, Yasmin decided to leave the room.

Hugo’s small, wounded voice followed her.

“Who is it?”

Yasmin felt a stab of anger at the question. “Excuse me?”

“Who is it?” he repeated. “One of the doctors?”

“Not who,” she said tiredly, not caring how cryptic she sounded. “What.”

She could picture Hugo’s frown. “Whatever,” he eventually said.

Yasmin shrugged and went about her business. Hugo had gotten off lightly. She had almost said ‘a dire wolf’.

But he already thought she was crazy. Why make things worse?

New York, USA

FLORENCE UNDERWOOD FELT a light, delicate touch at the tips of her flame-colored hair.

Was she out in the forest on a mission? Was it a spider? A scorpion?

Details of the room emerged slowly. She’d had
way
too much to drink last night. The apartment - a converted warehouse - was worryingly unfamiliar. The ‘spider’ on her hair was a hand. The owner of the hand was that cute barman from Crate 768, a bar she frequented. She groaned inwardly, her groggy mind running a quick report. Incidental sex. They hadn’t been on a date. She’d been out with friends and one thing led to another.