Moonlight Medicine: Inoculation (32 page)

David’s jaw clenched. “And what did you tell him?”

Evelyn relaxed. Even though the conversation she was relaying to David was entirely fictitious, she knew what her response would’ve been if the situation had actually occurred. “I told him that caring about other people as individuals is how we differ from the Vulke, that it’s one of our greatest assets in this war.”

David’s jaw loosened and he nodded.

Evelyn wanted to add that David did sometimes let his emotions get the better of him, but she knew that the comment would hurt him, so she held her tongue. It was too soon after the hell that they’d been through last night to speak frankly on delicate issues. Evelyn changed the subject and turned to Kim to include her. “So Clem’s alright?”

Chasing down a large bite of sandwich with a swig of Coke, Kim nodded vigorously then hiccup-coughed before answering Evelyn. “Yeah, he’s good. Went to spend some time with his family.”

“Not in Sault Ste. Marie? Aren’t they in danger there?”

Sandwich finished, David stood to stretch his legs and answered for Kim.

“Roberto hired them some serious private security. In fact, I think he was anxious for the Vulke to try something there so that he could get his hands on a couple of them to interrogate, but according to him, it’s been quiet.”

Evelyn’s thoughts went to Karen and Gabe, their sons, and unborn daughter. “Good. They’ve been through enough in the past couple years.”

“Are you gals almost done eating? I think that we should head out soon, get some distance between us and the road.”

As Kim finished off the last few bites of her sandwich, Evelyn stared down at her half-eaten hoagie. Though easy to eat while they walked, she wrapped it up in a napkin as a lost cause. David locked up the car and they headed into the forest. Tension gathered in Evelyn’s shoulders as they walked. Far from welcoming the change, as she had done the previous night, instead apprehension gnawed at Evelyn. She glanced up at David and Kim.
Will my wolf know that the fight is over?

52

Wrangling up the strays who’d survived the fire wasn’t nearly as difficult as Nicolas thought it would be. It was amazing how trusting people in shock were when you said that you were a rescue worker. Not all of the strays came quietly, but that’s the reason they’d brought tranquilizer guns. All said, they’d lost around twenty to the fire, the enemy, or the wilderness, less than half, and only two pure-blooded Vulke. There would be hell to pay when Taras found out about the losses, the fire, the whole damned debacle, but that didn’t matter now. Even as Nicolas barked orders for their withdrawal into Canada, all that he could think about was her. Dr. Evelyn Lucia Eisenhart. Nicolas had seen her picture many times of course. She was top of the Vulke’s most wanted list since she was one of but a handful of scientists researching the Wolfkin virus, the most knowledgeable, and the only one not already imprisoned in the Vulke laboratory in Minsk. But he’d never seen her wolf until last night, and was unable to forget the way that the fire’s reflection shimmered in her eyes or the subtle shifts in coloration of her stream-soaked fur.

“Sir.”

The lieutenant’s interruption shredded Nicolas’s daydream.

“What is it?”

“It’s Taras, Sir. He’s asking for your report.”

Silently Nicolas cursed the excellent cell phone coverage of the U.S. Knowing that he could no longer serve with Taras as his master, Nicolas thought he’d have at least another hour before having to confront the irate Vulke Alpha, time enough to craft his words well enough to deceive Taras. He snatched the cell phone from the lieutenant and stalked off further into the woods.

“Sire, regretfully there was a fire. Local authorities are now involved. May I brief you in one hour?”

A beat of silence, then, “Of course, Nicolas. I look forward to hearing from you.”

The line went dead and a terrible chill climbed Nicolas’s spine. He’d bought himself more time, but the cost would be high. Any pleasantries that came from Taras were paid for in pain, and the last time Taras had been so understanding it had cost Nicolas a tooth.

*

The brief surge in conversation that had accompanied their late lunch didn’t last as Evelyn, Kim, and David hiked into the forest. The clouds muted the beauty of the woods, making the colors a palette of ashen greys to Evelyn’s eyes, and the ash reminded her of the fire, and the fire reminded her of everything else that she was trying to forget. The silence between them only broken by the rustle of leaves and the snapping of a twigs, she wondered how they would be able to speak like normal people ever again after all that had happened.
Time heals all wounds
. It was a phrase that was meant to bring comfort like “this too shall pass”, but the word “wounds” made Evelyn think of another more morbid saying that was a favorite of her father’s dry wit:
all bleeding stops eventually
.

In the darkening forest the beast within Evelyn stirred. The coming change felt different this time and Evelyn could understand Clem’s fear of losing control. Her wolf, just returned from battle or perhaps still in the throes of war, was angry, sad, hurt, confused, afraid, and bitter. Reflections of her own emotions, but unfettered by logic and sharpened by primal urges. Evelyn longed for the change to come, yet at the same time feared losing the barrier of logic against her emotions. Realizing that Kim and David probably felt the same way, Evelyn suddenly wished she was alone so that she didn’t have to deal with their emotional scars as well as her own tonight. But no, she had responsibilities to David, to Kim, and it would be irresponsible of David and her to let Kim run free, no matter how isolated they were.

“Can we stop here?”

Kim’s words rang out in the silence and David turned to look at her, then glanced at their surroundings. They’d been roughly following a stream for about an hour now, the only feature delineating this patch of forest from the next, a large fallen tree spanning the stream.

David shrugged. “Sure. Good as anyplace, I guess.”

Peeling off his shirt, David folded it carefully and stowed it at the base of a tree. A twinge of petty jealousy that he could be so careless about exposing his bare chest before the change shot through Evelyn. After her encounter with her Vulke rescuer that morning, Evelyn was even more self-conscious than usual, and as David turned his back she ducked behind a tree to take off her borrowed sweatshirt. Though the prickling underneath her skin was only just beginning, it was a tad early for them to be so prepared for the change, but restless and anxious for the transformation to come, Evelyn didn’t really mind. Taking a seat cross-legged about a foot from the trunk of the tree, Evelyn practiced some Tai Chi deep breathing exercises that she’d seen on the internet, attempting to relax her body to make the change less painful.

Either there was more to Tai Chi than one vaguely recalled video from the web, or her wolf was way too worked up to allow the exercises to be successful, because ten minutes later the pain was only slightly better than when she’d transformed as she was falling down a ravine. When the agony subsided, Evelyn’s instincts immediately warned her of danger, and she crouched, ready to spring towards an attacker or flee. Her senses erupted with the scents, sounds, sights, and vibrations of the night, and her gnawing fear dissipated only as she inhaled clean, smokeless air. Recognizing David and Kim’s scents, Evelyn’s muscles relaxed, though her emotions were still on edge. Before she could glance over at Kim to see how the other woman was faring, a mass of light brown fur blurred in the edges of her vision and pounced on her back, knocking her to the ground.

Instincts taking over, Evelyn rolled to dislodge her attacker and to gain better leverage. As she rolled, she saw more movement out of the corner of her eye. Her vision clouded with red, and Evelyn prepared to lash out at this new danger as soon as she regained her feet, but suddenly the weight of her initial assailant was gone and a series of sharp barks landed on her ears. Her feet once again under her, she paused and the message of the barks slowly sunk in as she spied David staring down a snarling Kim. Evelyn’s mind gained control of her body and her vision cleared. The battle was over; this was just Kim experiencing the same difficulty with her wolf letting go. Straightening, Evelyn approached Kim from behind, and as Kim turned to face her, Evelyn back-handed her with a clawless slap. The rage extinguished from Kim’s eyes as shock replaced it, and a whimper escaped from her slack jaw. Placing her hands on her hips and tilting her head to the side, Evelyn stared into Kim’s eyes and barked once.

Evelyn hoped that her human-like actions would bring Kim’s control into focus, and it worked to an extent, though once the shock passed, a twinkle of anxious energy lit up Kim’s eyes. Snapping playfully at Evelyn, she turned and ran past a startled David across the tree bridge to the other side of the stream. Once across she glanced from Evelyn to David, yipped, and then sprinted into the forest. Growling low, David gave chase, and Evelyn had half-a-mind to just let them go on without her. Without the adrenaline of the fight, she was drained, and pondered that some time to herself to collect her thoughts might help her to come to grips with her encounter with her Vulke rescuer. As images of him both as a Wolfkin and as a human flipped through her brain like a slideshow, skittering spiders of unease danced inside Evelyn’s chest. Deciding it was still too soon to contemplate what had happened, Evelyn scampered across the tree and headed after Kim and David.

*

The night passed quickly and Evelyn remembered little of it: running, hunting, sparring with Kim and David. It was a time that thinking human thoughts while in Wolfkin form would have only gotten in the way, and Evelyn was glad for the blissful release from the weight of reality. When the sun rose the next morning, the change was abrupt and Evelyn felt exposed, though not physically, as she had the previous morning. She felt exposed mentally and emotionally as everything she had buried in animal ignorance was unearthed once again. Walking back to get their clothing and then back to the car, Evelyn attempted to push down the wrongness of the past few days, weeks, months…years. She wondered when, if ever there would be time to deal with it all.

Focusing on just the past twenty-four hours, Evelyn again longed to tell David everything that happened with the strange Vulke. She didn’t know why she couldn’t just talk to David and Kim both about it. They were a pack after all, and shouldn’t keep secrets from one another, but there was just something personal about the experience that weighted down her lips in front of Kim. Evelyn was finding it strange that neither David nor Kim had asked Evelyn about her escape from the fire, or why she was so late in arriving at the safe-house. If she had to guess, she would say that likely David was just glad to see her and didn’t feel like the details mattered much and that Kim was too polite to grill Evelyn. Guilt scratched in her chest and throat.
Just tell them
.
Why keep it a secret? Why am I making such a big deal out of this?
The beauty of the sun-dappled forest they hiked through, the chirping of morning birds, and the merry burble of the stream was lost on Evelyn as she continued her internal struggle.

“It’s good to see the sun again.”

In the wake of Evelyn’s preoccupation, Kim’s words sounded foreign in Evelyn’s ears. “What?”

“The sun. It seems like I haven’t seen it in weeks, even though I know it’s only been a day or so. Don’t you think so?”

Looking up, Evelyn had to shield her eyes from the glare. The sun was indeed shining as if the fate of humanity didn’t hang in the balance. At first this annoyed Evelyn. She wondered how the world around her could appear so bright and cheerful while inside her world was bathed in the darkness of sorrow, pain, loss, uncertainty, fear, and guilt. “Mmmm.”

“Yeah, it did seem like we might never see it again.”

Glancing at David, Evelyn found that he was looking right at her as he spoke. Locking eyes with him, Evelyn’s cheeks prickled as blood rushed to them. She dropped her gaze to stare at the forest floor instead, not knowing exactly why David’s attention was making her so uncomfortable.

He cleared his throat. “I know that Roberto wanted us to stay remote until this cycle is over, but I don’t think that I can just hang out around here all day and spend another night in these woods. What do you guys…sorry gals…think about heading home, waiting until later this afternoon, and then driving out somewhere to change?”

Evelyn wanted nothing more at that moment than a bit of normalcy. “I think that’s a brilliant idea.”

“Yes, definitely,” agreed Kim.

53

During the unremarkable drive back to Lansing, Evelyn gave into her drowsiness and dozed, although she still felt unrested by the time they arrived at the condo. Piling out of the SUV, the mundane world stood out starkly around them. Children played in a yard across the street, running and screaming with delight; next door a man mowed the lawn, and several doors down another neighbor watered her flowers. Evelyn longed for their ignorance of the dangers of the world around them and wondered what she would be doing at that moment if David had never found her.
Would I be treating patients at the clinic?
Realizing she didn’t even know what day of the week it was, Evelyn abandoned the fantasy. It wasn’t helping anything anyway. Following Kim and David into the condo, Evelyn took off her boots and was suddenly at a loss for what to do next.

“I’m going to put this stuff away and make some lunch.” David carried the box of foodstuffs from the safe-house towards the kitchen.

“I’ll help you,” said Kim, trailing in his wake.

It wasn’t a two-person job, let alone a three-person job, and Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to go with them, even though her stomach twinged with hunger. She’d intended to go straight back to her research, not at the lab, but at her desk in the basement. Sighing, she headed upstairs, used the facilities and washed the grime of the past twenty-four hours off her face. Staring at her own face in the mirror, she waggled a finger at the morose countenance she found there.