Wild Card (53 page)

“You want DNA from the whole pack?”

“Yes.” There was an ominous silence. I cringed. I had known this wasn’t going to go down well. If only there had been time to explain it face to face. That would have been better. Maybe. That or fatal.

“It happens that I can help,” he said.

“Err…great.”

“Doc took blood samples from everyone a year or so ago. We should still have them. But…”

That was like two punches in the stomach, one after another.

“Yes?” I said.

“But we will raise this at a pack meeting first. You need to convince them.”

He didn’t wait to hear what the demon in my throat had to say about that.

“I have to go now,” he said, and the call ended.

Well, that was potentially huge, but I wasn’t going to do the happy dance just yet. And I didn’t want to stop looking for solutions in other ways. Lots of things could go wrong or be inconclusive. This wasn’t standard human DNA we were talking about.

I called Melissa.

“Yes, boss?”

Tullah’s joke was catching. First Julie, now Melissa. It served as a prompt that I’d have to put them on the payroll. Or rather, get Tullah to do it.

“Very funny. Good news: the pack may have a DNA database for you to check against the stuff you got from Glenmore Hills.”

“Excellent!”

“
If
he was careless. Meanwhile, slave, check the missing women’s files.”

“Hold on a second. Okay, ready.”

“I don’t want to stereotype, but wealthy, unhappy women go to therapists, don’t they?”

“Yeah. Gods, you’re right, they do look the type, don’t they? Stereotypes are us.” I gave her a minute querying the data.

“No, Amber. Most of them did, but there’s no common factor. They went to different doctors all over town.”

That would have been too simple.

“Okay, leave that. Do an internet search on Doctor Theodore Noble, please. I want to know all the places he works.”

“Easy.” There was a clatter of keys in the background, then she started through the list.

His private practice, the Psychiatric Center, the Aurora Regional Center, the Denver Free Psychiatric Outreach Association.

And the Denver VA Medical Center. The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Faculty.

“Thanks, Melissa. Later.” I ended the call.

There could be a hundred reasons that his wall of certificates and endorsements had a couple missing. And no certainty that the missing ones would be from the VA Medical Center. Where Barbara Green might have been treated.

I finished the coffee and swung the Hill Bitch out onto the road.

So that was what therapy was like.

You go in thinking one thing and come out thinking another.

I’d lost normal a long, long way back, I guessed, but I caught myself thinking: Is it normal to have a suspicion that your dapper, urbane therapist is secretly a deranged, sociopathic serial killer?

No. I was just too tired to think straight. It was physically impossible. Maybe I’d have the DNA database soon, and it would all become easy.

Chapter 55

Not trusting my memory, I mentally went through everything with the deliberate, fumbling care of a drunk as I drove to Alex’s.

Bian was coordinating the rogue hunt until tomorrow now. I flipped the sound on the TacNet and listened to a couple of standard reports as team leaders declared an area searched. They’d come find me if they needed me.

Tullah was at the Kwan, discussing the outcome of our request to talk to Adepts in the Empire of Heaven with Mary and Liu. I hadn’t received any angry calls about revealing Tullah’s secret, and I was more than happy to let that sleeping dragon lie for the moment.

Melissa was safe at Manassah, trying to decode Clayton’s notes and warming up her DNA analysis machine.

Jen, David, Pia and Julie were downtown. Julie had called to say they were going in to use the office conference system. Some problem had come up in the New York subsidiary.

Alex was waiting at his house, where Mom and Kath were due to arrive in thirty minutes.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something as the Hill Bitch snarled through the traffic, scaring other cars out of the way. Something I’d almost reached when I’d fallen asleep in front of Noble’s office.

Maybe all I needed was a good night’s rest.

No chance.

I pulled up outside Alex’s and I knew there was something wrong immediately. One of the cleanup crew’s green vans was standing there.

Silas was coming down the path. Alex and Ricky were just emerging from the house, supporting another big man in blue overalls. I recognized Kyle Larsen from the photo Melissa had sent me. Olivia was coming out behind them.

Larsen was a mess. His legs didn’t seem to be working. His eyes were glazed.

Olivia was in tears.

Had the pack found the rogue and started summary justice?

“What’s going on?” I said as I ran up the steps.

Silas blocked me like tall, dark wall. “This isn’t for you.”

“It freaking is until I know what’s going on. I want to ask him some questions. You as well.”

I tried to get around him, but his big arms just swung out and stopped me. He pushed me off the path. They were past and Kyle was in the van before I got free.

“Alex?”

He looked past me and just shook his head. I couldn’t believe it.

“Damn it, no. What are you doing?” I yelled.

Alex grabbed me.

“Have we come at a bad time?” Mom’s voice.

Yes, you could say that. Mom and Kath had arrived behind me.

“Right with you, Mrs. Farrell.” Alex tried to hide that he was holding me. He nearly got his ankle broken for his efforts.

Silas turned as he got in the van. “We can’t talk about this now,” he said quietly to me, his eyes flicking to my family. “It’s not outsiders’ business.”

Ricky leaned out the window as they pulled away and called. “We need you there with us, Alex.”

My mouth opened, but Alex was shaking his head at me.

“I am so sorry, Mrs. Farrell.” He held his hand out. “Won’t you please come in?”

I was trembling with anger. Not just at the pack for whatever it was they’d done, including brushing me aside, but at Alex. How could he do this?

Mom sensed the tension. She used what she’d always used when I was angry; she talked.

They got the house tour. The split level, the kitchen, with its very, very sturdy railing above the hall, the bedroom, Kath’s eyes slyly looking for signs that I lived there, the airy study, and back down to his living room with its big timber beams and Native American bookshelves.

The old photo of Hope—Alex’s girlfriend who’d died from her inability to change—had been removed from the bookcase. Even that irritated me, as if she were mine as well. I wanted it back. The stupidity of that calmed me down a little. I was still seething at him for not explaining what had gone on, and having pack business at his house when my Mom was due, but I’d smile and talk for the moment. Now was not the time for a row.

We sat down for coffee and conversation in the living room.

“What a lovely house, Alex, thank you,” Mom said.

“Very bachelor,” Kath said brightly.

I ground my teeth. Kath was just fishing to see where I was living. Mom was probably measuring the rooms for the engagement party.

“Your last call was so strange, Amber. Is everything all right?”

She didn’t want to come right out and ask about the FBI. And no, everything wasn’t all right. And I’d forgotten to organize some kind of a guard today, to make sure there weren’t any Nagas around.

Did I need to? I’d started to sound paranoid to myself.

“Things are complicated,” I said, “but I’m fine.”

“You look tired,” Kath said.

“Are you sleeping well?” Mom asked.

No. I’d barely been able to sleep since the Assembly, apart from the night I’d persuaded Jen and Alex to be my bookends on the sofa. None of which I could discuss with Mom. Especially the last. “Fine,” I said again.

Mom gave it a rest. “These are Arapaho as well?” She pointed at the rugs Alex used as throws on the sofa.

They were, and Alex carried them to the window to show Mom the workmanship.

Kath zeroed in on me like a barracuda. “Why haven’t you been calling Mom?” She spoke quietly. “Do you know how upset she’s been?”

“And how much of the upset has been caused by you spreading lies to our friends?”

“I may have been mistaken in some things, but you’ve got to admit, you’ve been acting more and more strangely lately.”

“
Mistaken?
Kath, you make up shit like that and all you can say is you’re
mistaken
?”

“Are you doing anything with those anger management issues?”

My demon got off the leash. “Yeah, I’m seeing a therapist. What are you doing about your chronic lying?”

Alex had been explaining his project of collecting the oral traditions of the Arapaho and Cheyenne. Mom had just came up with one of the little stories that Speaks-to-Wolves had taught her. She recited it just like I remembered it from my bedtimes—half in English, half Arapaho.

It drew me out of my argument with Kath, and the sound of the tale, the rhythm of the Arapaho shut me up and carried me back to happy times.

Alex dragged her up to his study to get it recorded.

My eyes came back to find Kath staring at me, and the happy times evaporated.

“You brought the necklace, right?” I said.

“Jesus, enough already with the small talk, hey?” She scowled at me. “No, I haven’t.”

I clamped down on my temper. “It’s important.”

“Why is it so frigging important? It’s not to me. It’s not to Mom. It’s important for you, for some reason you won’t bother to tell us, so everyone has to jump around because Amber wants a necklace. It’s not even yours.”

“It is. It goes to the eldest.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. That old trash. Why’s a stupid, old bead necklace so important anyway?”

“You can see what this ‘trash’ means to people like Alex. It’s important as part of our cultural history. It’s a genuine find. Alex thinks it may have been used in sacred rituals.” Kath was looking as if I was speaking a different language. “You clearly can’t understand, so it’s not worth trying to explain.”

“Is this some kind of cult you’re mixed up in? What did that guy in the van mean—‘outsiders’ business’? For God’s sake, what have you got yourself into that you can’t tell us?”

“Forget it, Kath. I’ll come to your place after we’re finished here and pick it up.”

“No. Why should I let you? Why the hell should I hand it across just because you want it?”

Because it was my only lead on the puzzle of finding a way to help the Were who couldn’t change. Because it might be something that helped keep Olivia alive, and I’d promised, on my Blood, to do everything I could.

The anger was boiling up in me now. I could feel Were and Athanate stir inside. This was Were business, but I needed a cool head. An Athanate head. I stood up.

“Because I want it,” I said. Cool, cool head. Beneath the raging tangle of emotions on top of her mind, I touched the quiet below. I rested a hand on her shoulder. “That’s all you need to know.”

Her heart rate slowed, her breathing deepened and her eyes blurred.

“Because I tell you,” I said. So calm.

“Because you tell me,” she whispered, her voice indistinct, soft, pliable, like her mind.

My wishes were symbols, hard edged and heavy, like Chinese characters cut from thick metal. They floated down and pressed themselves into her mind, pushing her wishes aside. I could make her do anything. Not that I would. But to get her to stop spreading rumors. Maybe even to find out what lay behind all the negativity toward me that seemed to be powering all her actions. First, the necklace.

My hand was knocked away from her and I was spun around.

What happened?

I was looking up at Alex. He was angry, as pale as his ceiling. Mom was at the top of the stairs looking bewildered.

“Stop it!” he hissed.

The link with Kath wasn’t broken. Why should I stop? I was only fixing something that was her fault anyway.

But my kin. My kin was angry at me.

Why?

Everything seemed so slow. I looked down at Kath. She was staring, open-mouthed at me. It was wrong. It was all wrong.

With an almost physical clunk, the connection was broken.

Kath pitched forward on her seat, frowning.

What had I done?

“Excuse us.” Alex said, grabbing my arm and marching me out the front door.

My Were and Athanate lashed out in me, making me stagger. I was horrified and yet I couldn’t face that. Instead, the anger that Kath had caused boiled straight back up at the worst possible target. Alex.

“I will not let you compel her,” he hissed.

“Who are you to tell me what to do?” My mouth just ran away with it. “Don’t you see all the shit I have to wade through? What harm is there—”

“Everything.” He shook me. “You justify it for something like this, and what’s next? Who’s next?”

I broke his grip and pushed him away. “But Olivia—”

“I know better than you what Olivia needs, believe me.”

Our eukori touched. Not in the gentle way we had before. This was pain, like a branding iron. I could see through Alex’s eyes. Hope screaming, tearing with her nails at her flesh, bloody foam bubbling out of her mouth and nose, yet her words so clear.
Kill me
, she had screamed,
please kill me
. Like Olivia, she hadn’t been able to change. A Were who couldn’t change, died from it. Horribly.

That was the wrong thing to show me.

Couldn’t he see? I had sworn an oath on my Blood to help Olivia, to protect her from that fate. I couldn’t do it. My oath pushed me to behaving like a Basilikos. No way around.

My strongbox groaned open.

“We’ll find another way,” he said. He reached to hold me again.

“Don’t touch me,” I screamed. “Get away from me. Get away.”

Kin!

Pack!

I couldn’t stand it. I turned and ran.