I heard something shuffling toward me, and I shrank back, unsure in the absence of light what it could be. Then I smelled sweat, dried blood, and river water and felt calloused fingers caress my face.
“Grandfather?”
“I’m here, Joanna.”
“I’d hug you, but I’m a little incapacitated.”
He chuckled. “I understand. We’ll get our hugs in later.”
“Let me see you.”
“How? There’s no light in here.”
“Where are we?”
“In a side room off the main cavern.” This voice was younger and unfamiliar. “There’s a metal door they keep closed during the day and night and only pull us out when they want to draw blood or experiment on us.”
“Who is that?”
“Johnny.”
My throat tightened with tears. “Louise’s grandson?”
“Yes.” The voice sounded small and afraid.
“How many of you are in here? Wait a second, shut your eyes.” I twisted until the flashlight was in my hands, and I turned it on. The powerful beam, even aimed toward the ceiling, was enough to illuminate the prison and its inhabitants. Everyone squinted.
I saw Lonna and Gabriel, both naked except for dingy white lab coats. Ropes ran from their tied wrists to large iron rings bolted into the walls. Three boys ranging in age from ten to twelve were also tied up. My grandfather, his cheeks sunken and covered with stubble, sat beside them. His shrewd, knowing eyes were the same. We were tied to adjacent rings.
“Why hasn’t anyone untied themselves?” I asked. “Or the others, rather. You can all reach.”
“They make us change too fast, so our fingers don’t work as well as they should,” Johnny explained.
A horrible realization broke to the forefront of my brain, and I flexed my fingers experimentally. Stiff and numb, all of them. I’d thought it was from being tied so tight.
“Pull up my sleeve, please,” I said, and my grandfather obliged, his fingers cramped and unwieldy as well. As I feared, on my forearm just below the ropes, a small red puncture wound. I had been infected.
“How soon is the first transformation?” I asked.
“Usually it wouldn’t be until the next full moon, but the formula they use is different. It may be tonight.”
“What time is it?” But there was no way to tell—they had taken my watch. How had they missed the flashlight? Or maybe they wanted me to know and to fear. I looked around the room, but no one would meet my eyes, not even my grandfather. I remembered the heartrending scream and Simon Van Doren’s hoarseness.
“What’s going to happen to me?” My voice, small, echoed in the stone chamber. No one could—or would—answer.
I didn’t speak to anyone, and they left me to my despair. I knew what was happening to me, could picture the physiological process as the viral vector raced through my bloodstream and replicated, attacking my cells and finding a certain combination on a specific genetic strand. It wasn’t comforting.
I wanted to deny I had the CLS potential, but there was the Landover Curse, the one that skipped a generation. I knew now what it was.
“Did you read those books I gave you, Joanna?” The voice was my grandfather’s.
“I was familiar with them already.”
“So you read the one by Lecouteaux, on shapeshifting?”
“It’s a classic. I’ve practically memorized it.”
“Use it.” With those cryptic words, he bowed his head and fell silent.
I’d had enough of silence. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a werewolf? Why didn’t you let me in when you knew I was studying it?”
“Would you have believed me if I had?”
“I don’t know.” The lab seemed so far away from this cave, this despair. So did the Manor. I wondered if Iain was having any luck, if he’d missed me yet. Even if he did alert his friends, what proof did we have? Werewolves and kidnapped children? You can’t build a legal case on a fairytale, no matter how gruesome.
The air changed, and I became aware of a hum, a vibration through the cave floor and walls. Spots floated at the edge of my vision, and I felt as though my lungs were being squeezed. I gasped for air but couldn’t fill them and wheezed. I doubled over and toppled from my knees to the floor in the fetal position as pain shot from my heels through my hamstrings, my lower back, my shoulders and my neck—like giant hands were wringing me out and shaping me into something I wasn’t. My clothes, which had been comfortable, felt tight in all the wrong places, and I strained against the fabric, panting and moaning.
“Use it!” my grandfather yelled. “Use the book. And open your mouth.”
I opened my mouth and stuck my tongue out as I remembered what I had found in the study, books about how rather than physically changing into werewolves, people would fall into a trance and allow their spiritual aspect to roam free. Some called it a doppelganger, others an astral projection. I felt something bitter on my tongue: aconite. My shuddering stopped, and I shrank in from my body, like it was a shell. I pulled away from my skin and my bones until I was hidden inside.
“What did you do to her?” Lonna’s voice, laden with tears, seemed so very far away. “Jo—”
“Don’t say her name. Don’t touch her. She’s in a trance. If you call her or touch her, she may not be able to get back into her body.”
My lungs breathed deeply and at an even pace. I was inside my chest, curled up and ready to be expelled. With a breath, I emerged into the cave and stretched my unfamiliar, awkward body. The disorientation only lasted a moment. Then I felt as though I had been waiting my whole life for the transformation into a creature of mist and spirit with four legs, a long tail, and brown eyes.
“She’s a wolf,” breathed one of the boys. I looked at him and at the others and could see the lupine aspects in each of them.
“Go,” my grandfather said. “We shall guard your body until you return.”
For a moment, panic welled up in my heart as it occurred to me I might not know how to get back, how to wake myself up. And what if someone did say my name or touch me? It might break the tenuous connection I still had with my physical form.
“You don’t have time for concern. Just go.”
I knew Iain would need proof for the FDA, and the only way to get it would be for me to bring it to him. And hope he didn’t ask any questions.
Walking through walls proved to be no problem. I went through them as though they were mist, and I willed myself to be invisible as I entered the cave proper. Halogen lights were propped up, and it felt like the movie set of an underground laboratory rather than the real thing. Two men in white coats worked at a long metal table. One of them measured a silvery liquid into vials with a dropper while the other one peered through a microscope.
“Do you think it’s happened to her yet?” the first one asked. The light flattened the reddish-gold of his hair and goatee, and I imagined the flame it would be in sunlight.
“No. We’d’ve heard her scream. Just keep working. They need this prototype in Memphis by tomorrow afternoon.” This one looked like some sort of modern medical monk with his receding black hair and long white coat. He blinked beady black eyes.
“Another all-nighter.” The first one sighed. “You’d think they’d understand between the experiments and the babysitting we have to do, especially with them bringing in new people lately. One of us is going to have to feed the kid at some point.”
“We’ll send the lawyer for food. It’s about all they’re good for, anyway.”
I saw Peter huddled in the corner with a small blond child, a boy who slept in his arms. The child had the beginnings of his father’s straight, narrow nose. Before I realized it, I was right beside them, peering into the toddler’s face. He opened large brown eyes, and I could see my reflection in them even though I still willed myself to be invisible. Then I realized he could see me, he had the gift. Maybe it was like what mine had been, and he understood the wolves’ silent communication. I imagined he had heard one of the boys as a wolf and crept out of the house to see the other child, not realizing the trap. He didn’t cry, only smiled sleepily, murmured, “Doggie,” and dozed off again.