Pack of Strays (The Fangborn Series Book 2) (5 page)

Maybe I could just stay here,
I thought.
It’s heaven—why would I want to leave?

A crack, hiss, and the smell of sulfur.

I turned. “Do you smell something? Something burning?”

Sean looked up from the newspaper he was reading. Sniffed the air. “It’s not in here, Zoe.”

But my nose told me something was on fire.

I whirled around, trying to identify the source of the smell. A wisp of smoke, nearly invisible but for its movement, drew me to the fume hood.

On the shelf inside, a cigarette was smoldering. No more than the tip had been consumed, and I grabbed it, stubbing it out.

I don’t smoke. Never been able to afford the habit and had never started. Smoking tobacco, anyway. “This isn’t yours, is it?” I held up the butt
accusingly
.

“You know I quit ages ago, Zoe. I told you. It’s not in here.”

So little had burned—no way Sean could have done it.
Impossible
for someone to have snuck in while my back was turned.
Impossible
for me to have not heard or smelled an intruder, not with my hyped-up Fangborn senses.

Impossible.

I took the extinguished stub and ran it under the tap. No point in taking chances—

Another faint trail of smoke from the closed cabinets. How in the hell—?

I dashed over, and opened the door. All seemed well but for the smoke rising up the back of the cabinet.

The stacks of pristine paper …

I pulled them out, and found an edge smoldering, a neon-bright line of red eating the sheets, leaving ash behind. Slapping at the edges, a cold tingle rushed through my fingers, as if the heat from the fire were causing pins and needles. Easily extinguished. I pulled out the rest of the paper to ensure nothing else had caught.

A shiver ran down my spine. There must be faulty wiring, something in the walls causing this.

The whole row of storage cabinets was billowing smoke. Somehow I knew that line of electric red was threading its way through the cabinets.

“Sean!” I turned, desperate, looking for a fire extinguisher, an alarm, and saw smoke also pouring from the row of cupboards on the other side. Sean was nowhere to be seen.

The chemicals. If the fire reached them, there was a good chance there would be an—

I began running toward the racks. I had to save the artifacts. My fingers brushed the first rack—

Boom.

The world went spiraling.

My vision went blurry. My body felt as if it were being squeezed through a colander.

“Zoe, what is it?” Sean’s voice was something for me to focus on, cut through the pain. I couldn’t see him or the lab though. I was hurtling through the vast dark of space.

I tried to focus; the more that worked, the better I was—there. A pinpoint of blue. “Water! An ocean, a coast. Towns; an old
cathedral
, huge. A house by a park. It’s old; it’s large, brick. There’s a flagpole, a flag …”

“Where?”

Another excruciating breath, broken glass in my lungs. “I don’t know, I can’t tell—” But as soon as I saw the signs in the town nearby, and the flag, everything melted away. “Denmark, I think, from the flag. The signs say ‘Roskilde.’”

I’d seen that house before, but not in person. It was one of the visions I’d had when I’d opened Pandora’s Box. The visions of where other objects, perhaps like the powerful vessel I’d uncovered in Ephesus, were hidden.

And just as suddenly, I was back in my dream lab.

“Okay, that was weird,” Sean said in a nearly normal voice. “Also, extremely, really, totally unpleasant. Are you okay?”

“I—yes. No. I don’t know. Are you hurt?”

“I can’t feel—I don’t have any body. But I didn’t like what it was doing to you …” He took a deep breath. “Zoe, we have to find out where that was and get there.”

He paused, and it was as if there was a hole in the universe where he had been. I wanted him to keep talking; it made me feel not so numb. The absence of the pain was almost as intense as the event itself had been. I felt … less … than I was before.

Other objects, perhaps like Pandora’s Box, were calling me. The bracelet was part of that communication, perhaps a connection to those other artifacts.

The pain was to make me focus. It had worked.

Still …

“I’m afraid, Sean. I don’t know what’s waiting for me out there, but I don’t want to find out this way. It’s like I’m being dragged off a cliff and there’s something really horrible waiting for me at the bottom. Sean?”

Sean was gone. The lab was gone. I found myself emerging as if from a dream.

I was in mid-Change. The visions had come earlier today when I was being attacked. I was being attacked now.

In the real world, my wolfy instincts drove me from bed. I tackled the nearest person near me, presumably the source of my danger.

Chapter Five

The nearest person to me was Adam Nichols, who was screaming.

“Zoe, wake the fuck up!”

Sleep fled, sight came to my eyes, awareness snapped into place as my brain re-oriented.

I wasn’t out of danger yet.

My mouth was an inch below Adam’s ear. I was one second away from fanging up and millimeters from any number of soft targets on his neck and face. Apparently, I’d been in mid-lunge, but now awake, I found I couldn’t relax because Adam was holding my wrist in an iron grip, so I had to remain on tiptoe.

His eyes were wide and wary, and with good reason. My other hand was around his throat, my nails digging into his skin. Not quite ready to puncture, but close. His skin dimpled and reddened under the pressure.

One more second and they would have been claws easily capable of rending skin and cartilage.

One more second, and I might have killed Adam.

Or maybe not. A faint tang, a note of citrus tickled my nose, and a metallic rasp caught my attention.

Still not daring to move, I slid my eyes down and found the true source of my hesitation. Adam had the very large, very nasty-looking pistol he’d showed Buell. He now had it aimed under my chin with his free hand. I knew all about the pistol, knew what it could do. Adam had been teaching me how to use it during our trip. Another bonding experience.

It was about now I realized he was naked, save for a pair of white boxers. I was in the T-shirt and panties I’d gone to sleep in.

The danger factor shot up by a factor of a hundred. I didn’t respond well to being threatened; I didn’t respond well to almost killing someone in my sleep. I tried to concentrate on immediate issues.

“Okay?” he said, not daring to swallow or move under my clawed hand.

“Okay.” I said, not wanting to nod back. Too dangerous. “Count of three, everyone stands down.”

“One.”

“Two.” I saw him exhale for the first time.

“Three.” I moved my head away and let go of his throat. Adam released my wrist; it was a relief to be off my toes. Adam took an extra half beat to lower the pistol. Maybe he didn’t even notice that himself, but I sure did. I let him get away with it, as a gesture of good will. If I’d sensed him exerting the slightest inclination toward pulling the trigger, odds were still good I’d be mostly out of the way and he’d be mostly dead before anyone heard the bang.

He safetied the pistol, went over to the brown chair that didn’t match the peeling particleboard table, which didn’t match the
other
furniture. The pistol was the most solid thing in the room; too big for my small hands, I wondered if the rickety table would tip or splinter under its weight.

He took a deep breath, then got back up and grabbed a bottle of water, chugging it down. He wiped his mouth. “Was it … were you dreaming about today? About Buell?”

“No, I …” I shivered. “I think … the visions? They’ve been coming when I’ve been in danger. They were worse after Buell injected me. You know how the hellebore weakens us?”

He nodded.

“I think it might make me … susceptible to the visions. Maybe it is breaking something down in my body chemistry. Or maybe it was the stress of the …”

“The torture.” He nodded. “Okay. That would unhinge anyone. Are you sure they’re real? The visions, I mean? Not just a nightmare?”

“Yeah, I am.” I tapped my right wrist. To the rest of the world, it might just look like a vintage piece of antique-style jewelry or
gaudy
cloisonné, but it was a truly awesome artifact that was becoming more powerful. “Trust me. There’s nothing subtle when this thing takes over. And wherever they’re coming from, the visions are getting stronger. Most of them were stress induced.”

“Which could be dangerous. When you’re in trouble, that’s the worse time to blink out.”

I shook my head and sat down. “No, each time they’ve helped in some way. Except this time …”

“What about this time?”

“Artifacts, you know, like …” I held up my arm so he could see the bracelet. “They’re calling me. I need to find more. They were … crazy, painfully insistent. I have to find a house in a place called Roskilde.”

He nodded. “Okay, I get it … but can you be sure you got it right? It would be a hell of a thing to go all that way and find out you’re in the wrong place.”

“I haven’t got much choice in the matter. I can’t exactly call up and say, ‘Do you have any mysterious Fangborn artifacts,’ can I?”

“I suppose not.” Now that the danger was past, Adam was sweating. He got up, pacing off the nervous energy, then went into the bathroom to splash water on his face. “I’d rather not shoot you, you know. I mean, I might only be human, but I’m as much a slave to my survival instinct as you are to yours.”

“I know. It won’t happen again. I’m sorry.”

Inspecting the scratches on his neck, he grunted. “Nothing major.” He turned back to face me. “No, maybe not tonight. But maybe tomorrow we think about separate rooms. Or I’ll sleep in the car. Or something.”

We’d been sharing, registering at cheap motels, because I was using a credit card given to me by a criminal so I could help him steal. Adam always seemed to have a lot of cash, but we didn’t know how long either would last. There was nothing between us, and so far our biggest tensions were about who got first shot at the shower and Adam’s snoring. There
couldn’t
be anything between us, since my love, Will, was still out there, somewhere close by I now knew.

There couldn’t be anything between me and Adam because
until
very recently he seemed to switch sides with ridiculous ease, and always with a good excuse. But never a trustworthy excuse. He’d worked for Senator Knight, getting me into a whole lot of trouble when he stole the artifact I needed to ransom my cousin Danny. But then, he picked me up and helped me escape the TRG facility, just as they were isolating me and doing experiments on the bracelet.

So as for Adam, even though we were traveling as a pair, I was still very much on my own.

He cleared his throat, bringing me back to the here and now.

“No, you don’t need to sleep in the car,” I said. “You’re probably safe. For tonight.” I didn’t try to make it sound like a joke; dream-fire and waking violence wasn’t funny.

“I don’t want to die because of your bad dreams, Zoe.”

I shrugged again. I couldn’t blame him; the situation sucked. “I’ll go to the pharmacy tomorrow. See if there isn’t something to make me sleep better.”

“What we need is something for you to
wake up
better.” He dried his face and hung the towel up carefully.

Instead of getting onto his side of the bed, he sat down next to me. “Is there anything I can do?

He patted my shoulder.

Just that little bit of comfort in a day full of violence, both personal and impersonal. Humanity, in a day full of what seemed like my increasing alienation from both the human and Fangborn races. My face grew warm. Other parts of me grew warm, too, and it was with a Christmas-morning delight that I understood I could feel something as ordinary as lust again.

I thought about what it might be like with Adam. He was good looking, he had a ridiculous Captain America body, and he had saved my life now, more times than he’d endangered it. Given my present lifestyle, that counted for a lot.

I thought about what it would feel like to put my hand on his thigh just below the leg of his boxers—

A knitting needle through my gut. I doubled over, the vision of the old house and the name “Roskilde” the only thing between me and the pain. Every other thought disappeared.

“Zoe!” Adam grabbed my shoulders.

No, no more touching. I held up a hand, and he cautiously withdrew, waiting for me to recover.

“It’s … okay,” I gasped finally. “I … I think … it’s the last of the hellebore working its way out of my system.”

His concern was obvious. “Is there anything I can—?”

“No! No, thank you. I … I just need some sleep.”

Adam was exhausted from the day’s events, but I wouldn’t have bet that he could fall asleep so fast. Must be his easy conscience.

I sat up for a moment; then, clammy cold, I crawled into bed, giving a rough tug to the blanket Adam had stolen. I got my fair share; he didn’t even stir.

I tried to think of the day as a net positive: I’d found the
asylum
.
I had a destination. And whatever the bracelet was doing, at least now I had another destination, courtesy of the visions.

On the negative side, my journey wasn’t moving me toward my friends, but away from them, and it didn’t seem as if I had any choice in the matter.

I was changing. The bracelet was changing me.

Profound snores from the other side of the bed.

“Adam, roll over,” I said dully, a habit now deeply ingrained. All the familiarity of an intimate relationship, with none of the comfort.

Obediently, he rolled over, muttering something. I was left alone in the dark and quiet.

The next morning at breakfast, it all seemed crazy to me. “I know it’s not a lot. But I saw the airport, I saw the train, I saw too much, like a whipsaw trip through history. I saw the name, ‘Roskilde.’ I don’t know what it means, but I have to go to Denmark.” I shivered. “I don’t dare not go.”

Surprisingly, Adam was more supportive of the idea than I was. “Yeah, but … if something like that is calling you, better you should answer, right? I mean, as soon as you figured it out, the pain stopped, right? You go, maybe you keep Knight or the Order from getting there first. Win–win–win, as far as I can tell.”

“Okay. I guess I put off looking for the others. The bracelet wins. I’ll go.”

“We both go.” He nodded. “And we both need new papers. We’ll drive to Manhattan. I have a friend who might be able to help us.”

Adam was quiet a long time. I finished the rest of my eggs and thought about more bacon. It was good to have my appetite back. I felt nearly 90 percent, which, considering how I’d felt yesterday, was like feeling 600 percent.

“Okay,” I said finally. “We get the papers, we get a plane.”

It wasn’t a long drive into the city from outside Princeton. It was much harder trying to find a parking place on the Upper West Side.

“Let’s splurge on a lot,” I said.

He shook his head. “I don’t like parking structures. Too easy to be trapped.”

Finally, Adam made his own parking space. He pulled into a side street that was “residents only” and pulled out a sheaf of parking tickets. He stuck one under the windshield.

“If you don’t like getting trapped,” I said, “how are you going to feel about being towed?”

He put the rest of the tickets away and locked up. “At least if someone comes at me out here, in the open, I’ll see them coming. We can walk from here.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of meeting someone who forged
papers, the dark underside of the city, the criminal element.
Despite
the fact that I was something of the criminal element
myself
. “Shall
I get lost for an hour or two?”

“No, you should come with me. You’ll like Jean.”

We walked uptown a few more blocks. We were near the
Museum
of Natural History when we turned and walked down
another
one.

We went up the stairs of a tidy brownstone in a quiet neighborhood. The noise was muffled from the nearby busy streets, and it was hard to envision that the woods of Princeville Township were even in the same galaxy. Geraniums bloomed in the window boxes, impatiens around the tree bases, and there was a carefully lettered sign requesting that I clean up after my dog. It was a nineteenth-century interpretation of a seventeenth-century Dutch exterior: bourgeois, comfortable, immaculate, civic, permanent. I was immediately jealous.

There was only one name on a deeply engraved brass plaque by the doorbell: Jean A. Leigh. Adam rang.

A woman with short, curly dark hair; wide eyes; and an improbably pixieish nose opened the door. At first I thought she was affecting 1920s garb because her white lab coat reminded me of a driving costume from that period, and her glasses hung from a long, gold, beaded chain around her neck. She wore a long skirt and sweater and flats; she was casually and expensively dressed for some kind of high-end professional work. She looked at me briefly, evaluating, then turned to Adam as she stepped aside to let us in.

“You’re early. Do you mind waiting while I finish? Thanks very much.”

She spoke automatically, didn’t wait for an answer or an introduction to me, just waited for us to pass before she closed the door behind her and set the alarm.

“Upstairs.” She led the way to the back of the house, to a large elevator that had been recently added to a kitchen. There was more than enough room for all of us, and the walls were padded with heavy quilted fabric. She pressed “4,” and the doors slid shut
silently
.