Charlotte Boyett-Compo- Wyndsheer (16 page)

“I want him to hurt.”

“Oh, he will, Agent Wendt,” Ordwell assured him with a brutal smile. “Believe me he will hurt as he has never hurt before.”

The door opened and Ordwell’s assistant came in with a small case such as would house a musician’s flute. He carried it to the adjustable bedside table at the foot of the patient’s bed and laid the case atop it. Opening the case, he withdrew a weapon that looked like a miniature tranq gun but with a longer barrel and a heavier stock. Also from the case he removed a small black oval pellet.

“The accuracy range of this weapon is roughly 50 meters,” the man said. “For maximum benefit of the charge, aim for the center of the chest or back. Avoid a headshot. It wouldn’t kill him but it would irrevocably scramble his brains and that we do not want.” He ratcheted the slide back and dropped the transprobe pellet into the chamber. “There are eleven other transprobes in the case but since you are a highly-qualified marksman, you should need only one.” He extended the gun butt first to Wendt.

Wendt took the lightweight weapon and examined it, hooked his finger onto the trigger and sighted down the long barrel, flipped the switch to turn on the laser sight and a small red dot appeared on the far wall. “Sweet,” he pronounced. “Real sweet.”

“I thought you might appreciate the workmanship,” Ordwell said softly.

“He’ll never know what hit him,” Wendt said with a dry chuckle.

“Oh, but he will,” Ordwell argued. “He most definitely will!”

“When can I leave?” Wendt asked, lovingly caressing the weapon in his hand.

“The team has been assembled and the convoy will roll out within the hour,” his assistant stated.

“Convoy?” Wendt questioned, his brows drawn together.

Ordwell got up from the chair and shrugged out of his lab coat, folding it neatly before placing it on the chair seat. “For some reason the village has protected MacGivern and helped to keep him out of our reach all these years. In order to remedy that, it will be necessary to place Lamb’s Grove under martial law and restrain its citizens to keep them out of our business,” Ordwell said. “We are taking a specially-designed laboratory along with us to contain our errant Lycant until we can get him back to Draeton.”

“How the hell can you take a laboratory with us?” Wendt demanded.

“Take a look out the window, Agent Wendt, and you’ll see,” the assistant said in a smug tone.

Wendt walked to the window and looked out. What he saw beneath the sweeping arcs of the sodium vapor lights in the parking lot brought a slow, malicious grin to his lips.

A solid black truck tractor-semi trailer combination sat like a hulking monster in the yellowish glow of the lights. The windshield and side windows were darkened with film so the interior of the cab could not be viewed.

“How long is that thing?” Wendt asked, amazed at the length of the semi.

“The box is eighty feet long if that’s what you mean,” the assistant replied. “It houses a state of the art laboratory and command center, both built expressly from Dr. Ordwell’s specifications. It is manned with men I trust implicitly to do as I tell them.”

Eight black armored vehicles sat in four rows in front of the rolling laboratory and eight more sat behind it. The windows in the multipurpose wheeled vehicles were also covered in dark film. It was impossible to tell either how many soldiers were inside the armored carriers, or how many might be in the six troop transports that sat in three rows behind the last row of armored vehicles. A black limousine sat nearby with a uniformed chauffeur leaning against the passenger fender with his black-clad arms and legs crossed.

“Are you ready, Agent Wendt?” Ordwell asked.

“Yeah,” Wendt said and when he turned from the window, his eyes were gleaming with malice. “I was born ready for this!”

* * * *

She knew something was wrong the moment he came through the door. She could see it in his eyes though there was a smile on his lips. “What happened?” she asked.

He shrugged, a nonchalant uplifting of his shoulders meant to convey indifference, but the mirrors of his soul were reflecting disquiet, apprehension. “Nothing for you to worry about,” he replied and held his arms out to her.

She came to him and pressed tightly against his tall frame. He was a good head taller than her but she fit in the niche of his embrace almost as though their bodies had been forged from the same pattern and had been meant to be one. The steady, reassuring beat of his heart against her cheek gave her a small measure of encouragement. She tilted her head so she could look up at him.

“What happened?” she repeated.

“There was a man in village looking for me, but he’s gone,” he told her.

She searched his gaze. “But he’ll be back.”

He nodded. “Most likely, but he won’t find me and he won’t find you.”

She moved back, breaking his hold. “I finished my resignation letter.”

“That’s good,” he said but she could tell he was distracted. From the hands of the clock on the mantel she knew the sun was already beginning to lower in the sky. Soon, he would be leaving her and already she was feeling his absence.

“Will you take it down to the village and post it when you get back?” she asked. “The letter, I mean.”

He nodded then threaded the fingers of his hands through hers and held her hands firmly. “Try not to worry. The Guardian will be close by.”

“Who is the Guardian?” she asked.

Jamie shrugged. “More than a hundred handfuls for any agent of your government. No one will get within a mile of you, I promise.”

She had no fear of anyone discovering his lair. It would take a miracle for someone to stumble upon it and nearly impossible for that person to discover a way into the cavern that held the cabin. But he had given her a pistol for her own peace of mind and the hollow-point bullets with which to load it. She was an expert marksman and though she did not like doing so, she had dealt death in the past and could do it again if needed.

“I should go,” he said and released her hands, stepped back.

He was nervous, on edge and she understood it was the full moon calling to him that made him so. His face seemed sharper, his eyes brighter, and his hair when she reached up to stroke a lock back from his forehead was coarser.

It was the tenderness of her touch that made him groan and he grabbed her hand and pressed her open palm to his lips, closing his eyes as though leaving her was as much a physical agony as a mental one. He dragged her against him and slanted his mouth of hers in a hungry demand that she felt all the way to the pit of her belly. When he released her and pivoted around, stalking purposefully to the door, she made no move to stop him, made neither protest nor declaration of her love for him. She knew he understood the way she felt and to say it would cause them both pain.

For a long time she stood where she was--silently praying for his safety--before she picked up one of his shirts, walked to his chair and sat down, her tearful gaze on the flames leaping in the fireplace as she brought the shirt that held his scent to her face.

* * * *

Jamie was stunned to feel the tears falling down his cheeks. He swiped angrily at them, ashamed of his weakness. Crying was for weaklings, not Lycants. The man who had created him had striven to beat such flaws out of him during childhood. To have cried would have been to invite more pain, more degradation, and more punishment. To show weakness of any kind would have been tantamount to signing your own death warrant. Lycants were not supposed to have feelings. They were not supposed to know love. Lust? Aye, lust they could have, but not the gentler emotions--the ones human men felt.

But he loved his Mairi with every drop of blood in his body, every inch of sinew that held his muscles together and with every ounce of marrow in his bones. He refused to question how he could have developed such a deep-seated bond with her so quickly, but he suspected loneliness and isolation had played a large part in making that love grow.

“You’re like a fucking puppy,” he snarled. “The touch of a gentle hand, a scratch behind your ears, a few soft words, and you roll over and expose your belly.” He ran his arm over his damp face. “You might as well have pissed yourself in the bargain!”

By the time he reached the cave complex where he’d chosen to spend the next trio of days he was growling with frustration. His eyes narrowed into thin slits, lips peeled back from his teeth, he stopped to take off his clothing and fold it haphazardly before stuffing it into a niche to keep it safe while he was in Conversion. Practically running the rest of the way through the tight corridors, he barely noticed the sharp rocks gouging into the soles of his bare feet. By the time the sun sank and the moon rose, his transition from man to wolf had already started. One moment he stood erect and the next he dropped to all fours, his head hanging between his outstretched arms as fur began rippling from his flesh and bones popped as they shortened, compacted.

His jaw elongated. His forehead shot forward. His snout pushed out with a wet, cracking sound. Thick claws erupted from the tips of his fingers and toes, fangs descended from his gums. His entire being underwent a transformation.

And all of it was an agony far worse than that with which he lived every day. It was an exquisite ordeal that made him whimper and whine and then howl with frustration and hopelessness before the full Conversion claimed him and he fell to his side, panting and heaving, his lupine body quivering, paws jerking.

When he had transformed completely there was no human intelligence left within him. He could not speak nor think in human terms for his animal nature had full reign over him. His bloodlust was high and hunger prodded him so that when he had regained enough strength to stand on wobbly legs, his dark muzzle dripped with saliva. He lifted his head, sniffed the air and knew a raccoon nest wasn’t that far away. The damp, dark passageways called to him and he made a chuffing sound as his nostrils quivered, searching for the scent of his prey.

He took a step forward in the pitch blackness that would be his home for the next three risings.

Chapter Nine

Every man, woman and child in Lamb’s Grove was rounded up and interned in the largest building in the village—the communal church where nearly every one of the two hundred and thirty-two residents worshipped each Seventh Day. Armed guards stood sentinel at each door and the windows had been boarded over with no chance of escape for the detainees. But to keep the prisoners docile, each had been given medication that made them lethargic and less likely to cause trouble.

When the black caravan had rolled down the street, there had been no thought of running and hiding, of protesting the insertion of martial law upon the village. Burly, silent men in black fatigues had piled out of the armored vehicles with laser rifles at the ready, their faces hidden behind the ebon smoothness of mirrored faceplates that revealed not even the gleam of a warrior’s eye. Black leather boots and gloves hid any expanse of flesh so that the soldiers appeared far more menacing than had there been a hint of humanness to their look. Only a few had protested taking the mind-dulling meds but they would not do so a second time.

Ordwell had taken over the sheriff’s office and from there he ordered his troops to search every inch of the village for any sign of James MacGivern. When none was found, he dispersed them into the surrounding forest and up the mountain with the express command not to return unless and until they had news of the Lycant’s whereabouts.

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll know we’re here?” Wendt questioned as he stopped his pacing to slant the scientist an impatient look.

What passed for a smile tugged at the older man’s puffy face. “There is a full moon tonight, Agent Wendt. James will have gone to ground rather than risk hurting the woman during his Conversion. He is neither aware of what is going on here nor were he to scent us, would he care. This is the ideal time for my men to find where he is hiding and to put you in position to bring him down when he emerges again in human form.”

“What about the monster?” Wendt asked. He began nervously chewing on a cuticle that had already been gnawed to the quick. “What are we gonna do about it?”

Ordwell sighed. “There is no monster, Agent Wendt. James has the ability ....”

“Don’t try feeding me that shit like they did at the hospital! I know what I saw. I
saw
the fucking thing!” Wendt shouted, eyes wide, saliva spraying. “I felt it
touch
me. I felt it breathe on the back of my goddamn neck! Don’t sit there and tell me there is no monster. It spoke to me!”

The scientist started to speak then obviously thought better of doing so. He closed his mouth and stared at Wendt, gauging the man’s lucidity. Others had returned from the Pionós Mountains saying there was something evil, something dangerous in the vast timberland but they couldn’t say what it had been. None had admitted to seeing anything though they’d sworn something had been there. Ordwell had dismissed the wild tales, believing them some mind-warp the Lycant had thrown at the agents to scare them away from his hiding place. Studying Wendt now as that man roamed back and forth across the room, there might be some doubt to the validity of that particular theory.

“What was it you saw?” Ordwell asked in a quiet voice.

“Big,” Wendt said and rammed a hand through his white-blond hair. “Big and it smelled like a beached whale ten days in the sun, only worse.” His eyes rolled in his head. “Furry and tall with talons and fangs and it could appear behind you without making any noise then disappear in the blink of an eye and reappear in front of you.” He shuddered. “And that face! Those eyes!” He shuddered again and wrapped his arms around himself.

Ordwell exchanged a look with his assistant who shrugged and arched a disbelieving brow. The scientist turned back to Wendt. “You say it spoke to you,” he stated. “What did it say?”

Wendt shook his head wildly. “It spoke some strange language and it growled and it hissed and it snarled!”