Selina’s shock morphed into exasperation. This guy just won’t quit! “Aren’t there professional ethics about seeing your patients?”
“I don’t want to ask your gargoyle out for dinner.” He stroked Gary’s head. “As a species, they’re sweet-tempered but deathly short on conversation.”
Selina opened her mouth but struggled for words, outraged and intrigued at the same time. I heard wolves moved fast. She suddenly felt less articulate than Gary.
A crash came from outside the exam room door. The noise was metallic, as if a tray of medical instruments had fallen. It was followed by a loud thump.
Dr Jake pulled off his stethoscope and set it on the counter, his movements quick and precise. Selina read tension in the bunched muscles of his shoulders. “Stay here.” He stepped outside, closing the door behind him.
What’s going on?
Gary started bobbing up and down, squeaking like a rusty pogo stick. Automatically, she picked up the gargoyle to comfort him, stroking the soft skin of his back. The bright white bandage made him lopsided, his injured wing bound tight.
Cuddling him, Selina stood to one side of the exam room door and tried to peer through the narrow window. She could see part of the hallway and, sure enough, a rolling cart of supplies had crashed into the wall. It leaned drunkenly, a trail of surgical tools marking its path to collision. One of the other exam room doors stood open, blocking the rest of her view. She heard Dr Jake’s voice. “Tracy! A little help here!”
Wasn’t that the room where the ordinary-looking guy had been pacing? Selina tried to remember as she set Gary back on the table. The gargoyle cheeped, reaching for the dog cookies. Selina gave him one, hoping it would keep him busy for a moment. “You be good,” she admonished.
Gary blinked his lime green eyes, the picture of innocence, and stuck the cookie in his beak. Selina opened the door, cautiously peeking out. Common sense told her the thumps and growls coming from the exam room were bad news, especially in a clinic like this. She stepped into the hall, pulling the door shut.
Tracy stumbled backwards into the hall. She caught sight of Selina. “Get back in the room!” she snapped. “We’ve got a first-timer in here.” Her voice sounded rough, as if her wolf were lurking just beneath her human mask.
A first-timer! Someone — usually someone adopted as a kid — meeting their inner beast for the first time. Selina had heard horror stories about those poor shlubs who went through life as Grade A human, and then one day succumbed to a genetic time bomb that turned them into ravening fuzz balls. The late onset was due to a mysterious complex of factors — hormones, no pack socialization, human diet — but the outcome was predictable. Even if their bodies survived, their minds usually didn’t. Unexpectedly turning into a wolf wreaked havoc with the psyche.
“But it’s not full moon,” Selina said.
“Don’t believe everything you see in the movies. Full moon isn’t the only time the change can happen.”
Selina stood mute for a moment, fighting a dread so strong it felt like nausea. Some of it was hers, some came from outside. She took a breath, forcing her stomach to hold steady. “I think I can help.”
“Yeah, right.” Tracy flashed her a look of contempt. “Get back in the room or get out the door. This is going to be ugly.”
The receptionist lunged for the rolling cart and began rummaging through the jumble of supplies. Two more bodies exploded from the room, hitting the worn carpet with a thump of bone and flesh. Selina jumped back. They rolled, momentum smacking them into the baseboard. Dr Jake was on top, kneeling on his opponent’s back and wrenching the other man’s arm into a hammer lock. The vet was a big man, but the other was surfing supernatural adrenaline. He threw Jake off and scrambled to his feet, roaring with fury and confusion.
Selina had seen the change just once before. It had been fast and fluid, like a ripple in water — one moment a man, the next a wolf. This guy looked like he’d become stuck. He was hairy more than furry, one eye blue, the other yellow. The bones in his head looked all wrong, and there were definitely too many big, sharp teeth.
The wolfman and Dr Jake noticed Selina in the same instant. The vet was on his feet again, scrambling to put himself in front of her. Jake was starting to look a little wolfy himself, his teeth bared and shoulders hunched.
“Get back,” he said to the other man in a low voice. “Stay away from her.”
The wolfman sprang at the vet, teeth snapping.
“Watch out!” yelled Tracy.
Jake rolled into the motion of his attack, throwing his attacker to the floor with a practised flip. The man’s foot caught the edge of the cart and it went down with a crash, scattering supplies. Jake leaped on top.
Tracy crouched beside him, wrenching the wolfman’s shirt aside and jabbing a syringe into his shoulder. The drug was too little, too late. Black, curving claws thrust from the wolfman’s fingers in a spray of blood. He shrieked in pain, the sound cresting in an inhuman howl that tore through Selina.
A wave of hot nausea slammed into her. Choking it down, she pushed forward.
“Get back!” snarled Jake. He made a move to get up, to stop her, but checked himself because it was his strength alone that was holding the wolfman down.
“Cool it,” she snapped. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah? What?” Jake puffed, forcing the wolfman’s shoulders to the floor.
Selina wanted to run so badly her legs twitched under her. Tracy grabbed her shoulder, but she shook her off. I don’t want to do this. I moved a thousand miles so that no one knew I could even try. She fell to her knees by the wolfman’s head, fighting dizziness.
“The drugs aren’t working,” she said.
“No shit,” Tracy snarled.
Selina opened her mental shields a crack. The wolfman’s eyes were squeezed shut, tears streaming down his hairy, malformed cheeks. But even sightless, he could sense she was there — fresh, tender meat. He twisted his head, neck craning toward her, nose twitching to scent her. Selina leaned closer, letting him catch her aroma, letting her awareness drift closer to his.
“Are you crazy?” Jake looked aghast. “Get out of here!”
“Forget it,” said Selina. Terrified, she damned her sense of obligation. There was a reason she worked where she did, with logical spreadsheets and beautiful antiques. They weren’t live creatures filled with volatile, wrenching feelings.
She grabbed the wolfman’s head, one hand on either cheek, and felt the black hole inside him. It was a dark whirlpool of pure terror. Her mind teetered on the edge, in danger of falling into the vortex of madness.
I can’t. She snatched her hands back, her heart hammering in her mouth. She could feel Jake next to her, the heat of his body prickling against her skin. Their shoulders brushed, their breath mingling. Close enough for his werewolf senses to pick up on what she was trying to do. Because her mental shields were open, she felt the jolt of his realization. “You’re an empath!”
“Sort of.” There was no time to explain how her magic didn’t always work right. Her hands clenched, as if her very skin shrank from touching the wolfman again. What if Jake talked? Or Tracy? Everyone would know what she was. She’d lose everything.
What possessed her to come here? She should have left Gary in the grocery store.
What if she screwed up?
What if. .
Enough! She grabbed the wolfman again, pressing his face between her hands. His eyes, wild with horror, stared into hers. With a sick fascination, she felt his thoughts pour into hers. His name was Steve Collins. He was watching his body twist and deform, turn into something sickening and foul that he didn’t understand. When the first symptoms had started a month ago, he’d thought the changes were signs of some degenerative disease and that he might die. Then he’d started to guess what was happening and came to the one doctor who might know how to help. But help how? Death would be better. He’d had a wife, a job. They were as good as lost.