The Forever Drug (7 page)
I wasn't sure what to say. Should I humor Jane's delusion, or challenge it? The woman in the photo did indeed resemble Jane, but was as old as she was. Jane could have picked up the locket in a pawn shop, noticed the resemblance, and bought it for that reason.
"Nice photo," I murmured in a noncommittal voice. "It looks old."
"It's a tintype," Jane said. She snapped the locket shut, then ran a finger along its tarnished surface—a gesture that made it clear this was her most treasured possession. Then she refastened the necklace at her throat.
I looked around the burial grounds. Still no sign of any dealer. There were plenty of rough types on the sidewalks outside the burial grounds, but none of them showed any sign of being about to venture inside.
Jane was beginning to spook me. Not only was she wandering around a rough port city without any knowledge of where or who she was, she was putting complete trust in total strangers—which, apparently, was what I had become to her once more. Had I been a thief, it would have been all too easy to take the necklace from her. Despite its sentimental value, she'd practically handed it to me.
Jane's vulnerability touched me. She was a grown woman, and yet ... a child. When she yawned, I could see that she was barely keeping her eyes open. If I left her here, she'd probably curl up on the bench and sleep. I didn't want her to become fodder for a malicious ghost.
"You look tired," I told her. "Come on. I've got a place where you can doss down."
She looked at me, for just a moment, with narrowed eyes. She was sizing me up, weighing my offer.
"You'll have privacy," I assured her. "I usually sleep during the day. You can sleep on the couch. You
wouldn't like my bed, anyway."
She stood. "All right."
We climbed over the fence and walked back up the hill to Robie Street. I could tell that Jane was exhausted, but she kept up the pace throughout the twenty-minute walk. We at last came to a house built in the last century, a tall and narrow two-story building with a sharply peaked roof. I led Jane around the side and opened the gate that leads to the back yard. Gem and I don't bother locking it, because there's plenty behind that gate to deter burglars: forty kilos of snarling menace, trained to take down an intruder in three seconds flat.
As soon as I stepped inside the gate, Haley caught my scent. She streaked across the yard toward me, running low and strong. When she reached me she skidded to a stop, chest down and hindquarters high, and gave a sharp, playful yip. Despite the greeting, she still remembered to do her job; she kept one eye on Jane at all times, watching for any threatening moves. But I knew there wouldn't be any problems. On our walk over, I'd warned Jane about Haley. And I hadn't smelled any fear on Jane when Haley had run at us. Her body language was perfect: relaxed, confident, non-threatening. She'd be fine.
Haley's a beautiful bitch, a pure-bred German shepherd without any of the hip problems that can plague that breed. In Gem's opinion, she's "too soft" for police work. But she's produced several litters of excellent puppies, many of whom have gone on to distinguish themselves with Lone Star's K9 patrols.
I bent down and let Haley lick my face, and gave her muzzle a quick kiss in return. You couldn't call what we had love—not in the way humans used the term, anyway. I had sired a couple of litters on Haley and she was fun to romp around with. But even though she was a smart dog, being with her wore thin after a while. You could only roughhouse and play for so long. I needed the intellectual stimulation that only humans and metas could provide. Still, I hoped Haley wouldn't be jealous of Jane.
Frig. Where had that thought come from? I must have been more attracted to the human woman than I cared to admit.
I closed the gate and led the way to the garage. That's where I doss down. It isn't much, by human standards. As I flicked on the light, I looked at the garage for the first time as it must appear to a human: unfurnished, spartan, a place where an animal would sleep. The only furniture was an old couch that I sometimes curled up on, a wooden table and a single chair for those rare occasions when I eat human food, a space heater, and the pile of blankets that is my bed. There wasn't much in the way of decoration— just a few holopics that I'd tacked up on the walls, landscapes that reminded me of the forest where I'd been born.
At home, inside the privacy of the fence, I usually shift into wolf form. It's much more comfortable. But in order to communicate with Jane I'd need to stay in human form. I brushed off the chair so she could sit down. "Would you like something to eat?" I asked. "There isn't that much; I mostly eat out. But I could fix you something."
I opened a cupboard, shoving aside the cans of dog food and searching among the tins for something a human would find tasty. I wasn't having much luck.
"I'm not hungry," Jane said. "I think I'll just sleep."
She sagged onto the couch, arranging one of the cushions as a pillow. I picked up a blanket, intending to cover her with it, then realized it was thick with dog hair. It was also heavily impregnated with my
scent. It smelled, quite frankly, of wet dog.
"Just a minute," I said, embarrassed. "I'll get you a blanket from the house."
A light was on in the house; Gem was still up and about. I knocked, and after a moment she came to the door. When Gem answered it, I asked to borrow a clean blanket. "Just for the night," I explained. "I've got a guest."
"Oh, really," Gem said, arching an eyebrow. "Would that be the good-looking woman I saw you bring home? You sure she's your type?"
One of the things I hate about human form is that you blush. I had hoped Gem wasn't looking out the window earlier, but I should have known better. Her senses are as keenly honed as Haley's.
Gem's an ork, and her night vision is excellent. She's short for her race, with a mop of unruly curls and wide hips that she says would make the perfect "breeding bitch." But she's never had any kids, as far as I know. Instead she devotes all of her time to her dogs—her "children."
She could sense my discomfort. Instantly, her body language changed. "Sure, Romulus," she said in a soft voice. "I'll get a blanket for you."
I waited on the back porch. In all the years I'd known Gem, I'd never entered her house. Well, not quite. There was that one time, but I'd felt awkward about it. The dogs weren't allowed inside, and I felt I was setting a precedent by entering the house, even if I
was
in human form. After a few uncomfortable minutes of sitting in the kitchen, I'd excused myself and gone back to the garage. Ever since that day, when Gem and I wanted to chat, we sat on the back porch.
Part of my respect for Gem comes from the fact that she's an expert dog trainer. She has a voice that commands attention like a whip crack, but she can also dish out praise, when appropriate, in a voice as pleasurable as a good belly rub. She's been training dogs for Lone Star's K9 patrols for at least ten years— longer than I've lived in Halifax. I'd heard she was involved, for a time, in some of Lone Star's experiments with training hell hounds as guard dogs. But after seeing the burns on her arms, I didn't want to ask her about that experience.
I lived rent-free in Gem's garage in return for helping her with the training. I demonstrated the moves, and the young dogs responded well to the occasional nip or growl from a "dog" so much larger and more powerful than themselves. But as I stood on the porch, waiting for Gem to get the blanket, I felt like a foolish puppy.
When she returned, I nodded a quick thanks and loped back to the garage with the blanket. Only to find Jane curled up, fast asleep, with the dog-haired blanket pulled up to her chin.
Gently, I removed it. Jane stirred only a little as I replaced it with the clean blanket. I thought I heard her murmur something in her sleep: a man's name. For just a moment, I felt a twinge of jealousy. Then I pushed that emotion aside. I squatted beside Jane and nuzzled her hand with my cheek. She looked beautiful when she was sleeping. Relaxed, at peace with herself.
The touch of my cheek on her hand was just enough to wake her up. Her eyes flew open wide, and her gold-flecked eyes bored wildly into mine.
"Please!" she whispered fiercely. "Don't let them take me..."
She blinked. Then she looked around the garage, and back at me, and seemed to realize where she was. As whatever thought had prompted her fearful outburst vanished, her face gradually relaxed.
"Don't worry," I said. "You're safe here."
She nodded, curled back into a ball, and closed her eyes. After a minute or two, her breath was slow and deep.
I stared down at Jane. Where was this urge to protect her coming from? Was this the first stirring of love that humans felt for one another? It seemed too soon, too fast; I'd only known Jane a day. I didn't even know if that was her real name.
Then I laughed at myself. What did "real" names matter? I hadn't had a name when I was born; Romulus was just a tag my first set of foster parents had given me. I still didn't have a "proper" last name. And what was identity, anyhow, to someone like me, someone who shifted between the worlds of animal and human every day?
My curiosity about Jane was growing. I knew the old adage: curiosity was what killed the cat. And cats are stupid creatures, when you get right down to it. So stupid that they're always poking their noses into other people's back yards, and getting chased up a tree for their troubles.
My curiosity wasn't going to get me into any trouble. I just wanted to know more about Jane. But where would I start searching for that first puzzle piece?
I had no idea. Unless...
No, that was ridiculous. It couldn't be true.
But there was only one way to find out.
It took me most of the morning to find the information I was looking for. I'd never been to the archives before, and it took a while to find what I wanted. And part way through the morning I had to leave the archives to pay another visit to the Old Burial Grounds so I could double-check the position of the grave, pacing out exactly where it lay.
But the effort paid off. There
had
been a Matilda buried under the headstone where Jane had left the bouquet last night. Matilda O'Reiley, born in 1798 and laid to rest in 1875 at the age of seventy-seven. The archives even had a record of the inscription placed on the grave, a verse by the poet Byron:
***
I
took
that
hand
which
lay
so
still
,
Alas!
My
own
was
full
as
chill
...
I
know
not
why
I
could
not
die
.
***
An odd choice for an epitaph, but one that could be rationalized as a token of a mother's near-suicidal grief at the loss of a beloved daughter. It could also be taken as evidence that Jane really
was
more than two hundred years old.
Nobody lived that long. Except maybe elves. They were rumored to have life spans measured in centuries. But the first elves had only appeared in 2011, when magic returned to the world. The oldest elves were only in their fifties now—although some of them looked as though they were still in their early twenties, which was how the rumors about longevity got started.
Jane wasn't an elf. She didn't have pointy ears. At least, I didn't think she did. Her hair had hidden the tops of her ears, now that I thought about it. But even if she was an elf, she'd have to have been born
after
2011.
What I'd uncovered in the archives had surprised me. But I still refused to believe it. Jane could have done the same legwork I had, could have looked up the old burial records and "adopted" one of the bodies of the cemetery. Even so, part of me wanted to believe her. Jane seemed so sincere, so
certain
. But weren't those the hallmarks of a true crazy?
And then there was that word she'd used in the scanning lab: sphygmomanometer. It had taken me a while to figure out the spelling, but when I had, the archivist had come up with an interesting detail. "Sphygmomanometer" was an old-fashioned word, the original name of a medical instrument invented in the 19th century: the blood pressure cuff. Where had Jane dug up a word like that?
I was preoccupied with these thoughts as I walked down the lane at the side of Gem's house. And I was sleepy. I didn't usually stay up until noon. But as soon as I saw the back gate hanging open, I tensed and came fully awake.
Something was wrong. The gate shouldn't have been open. Gem had gone out shopping today, but both she and I were always careful to close the gate— and Haley wouldn't have been able to open it on her own. No passerby in her right mind would ignore the red-lettered Beware Of Dog sign tacked on to the fence—and even if they did, Haley's barks would have frightened them off.
I suddenly realized that the yard was quiet.
I dropped into a low crouch and sniffed. There was an odd smell, one that made my eye itch. Kind of like medicine, but stronger. I poked just the tip of my nose inside the gate; the smell was stronger inside the back yard. Then I looked—cautiously—into the yard.
I almost yelped when I saw Haley stretched out on the ground. For a heartbeat or two, I thought she was dead. Still in a crouch, I made my way over to her on clumsy human legs and touched a hand to her chest. She was still warm, still breathing. The strange medicine smell puffed from her nostrils with each breath she exhaled.
