Blood's Shadow

Chapter 3

3

“Iain,” Lonna said. “Good morning. Did I wake you?” She pressed the button to turn the speaker feature on, and Iain’s cheerful voice came through.

“I was already up. Had the oddest feeling something was wrong.”

Lonna opened her mouth but covered it with her left hand to stifle a sob.

“Bad news,” Max said and covered Lonna’s other hand with his own. “Otis has been killed.”

“Killed? Are you sure?” Noises came through the phone as though he rearranged its positioning against his ear.

“Well, yes,” said Max. “He was quite dead.”

“At the Institute? Could it have been an accident?”

“Yes, here, and no, that’s not possible. Look, I don’t want to give you the horrid details over the phone, but Gabriel McCord, the Council Investigator, is here, and we need some information from you.”

“Gabriel.” Iain’s tone was cool, as it always was when he dealt with me. I was working undercover for the Council when I’d assisted him with his research, and he hadn’t taken the revelation well when I finally came clean.

“Iain,” I said, trying to keep the impatience from my voice. He’d always treated me as an intellectual inferior, so it was as pleasant for me to talk to him as it obviously was for him to hear from me. “Look, I apologize for having to interrogate you when you’ve just found out about your colleague. Would you like me to call you later?”

“Why? He’s going to be just as dead then. Ask your questions.”

“Iain,” Lonna said, “I know this is a shock…”

“It’s fine,” I told her. “What had you sent to Doctor LeConte, Iain? I understand it was all on paper.”

“Yes, because you’ve done such a fine job of dragging the Council into the twenty-first century. I’d mailed him the first six applications for the Experimental Adjustment and Reversal Program along with the blood samples and other material data.”

“Was there anything unusual about any of them?”

“It depends on your definition of ‘unusual’. They’re all Americans who were infected with CLS by vaccines and who experienced the full change. Four males and two females, all of Scandinavian or Celtic descent.”

“Has anyone on your team there been threatened?” I asked.

“I’ll check with Joanie and Leo, but not as far as I know.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I’ll be in touch if I need anything else. Oh, could you send an encrypted file with the information to the team here? We’re still looking for the blood samples.”

“Yes, it will take a few hours to get it all encrypted and uploaded, but I’ll get right on it.”

He rang off, and we all sat and looked at each other. The dead man may as well have been in the room with us, we were so somber. I was the only Scot, but the others easily matched our stereotypical grimness.

I stood. “Thank you for lunch, especially under the circumstances. I’ll let you know what the Council says with regard to proceeding.”

“Otis wouldn’t have wanted us to stop,” Selene said. “He would’ve told us to keep going without him. It’s important to the mission that we do.”

Her Southern US heritage had become evident in her vowels, likely an effect of the rum.

“I will do my best to make sure you can proceed soon.”

“I’ll see you out,” Max said.

Selene wobbled to her feet and said, “I’ll take him. I need to get something out of my car.”

“Are you sure you’re okay to do that?” Lonna asked. “You’ve just had a strong drink on an empty stomach.”

Selene looked at me, her eyes imploring, and I interjected, “I’ll watch her and ensure she gets back into the building safely.”

“Thank you,” she said once we’d left the room and were out of earshot down the hall. “I just need a few minutes to breathe and be alone.”

“Shall I leave you, then?”

She looked up at me through her lashes, where tiny crystal-like tears clung. “No. God knows I shouldn’t, but I feel comfortable with you.” She sighed as if she wound up to say more, but she shook her head.

“You can tell me whatever you need to. Is there something about this morning?”

“No, nothing important.” But she looked away.

We reached the side door that led outside, and I held it open for her. She glanced around before stepping into the watery sunshine. I couldn’t blame her—after the events of the morning, I definitely felt like peeking around corners before I turned them and snarling at shadows. Although I knew she must be strong if she was one of us, her cautious gestures made me want to protect her. And find out what she might be hiding.

She’s a scientist and she might have just lost her boyfriend, I told myself, although my instincts told me she and LeConte hadn’t been lovers. Still, she’s off limits.

I watched her as she fetched a small bag from her car and went back inside. Still, my mind wouldn’t let her go as I drove away, although I wasn’t sure if I was more interested in her as a person or in the mystery she seemed to hold. Either way, I’d enjoy finding out.

When I returned to my offices at Lycan Castle, the seat of the Lycanthrope Council, I found a stack of files on my desk and a blessedly welcome pot of coffee. Less welcome was the message slip my assistant Laura handed to me.

“Lady Morena wants you to phone her as soon as you get settled.”

“I’m going to have to delay getting settled, then, aren’t I?”

“She didn’t seem in the mood to be pushed,” she told me and looked sternly over her thick rectangular glasses.

“Yes, mum.”

“Cheeky,” she said as I walked into the inner office.

“It’s a good thing you make such good coffee. You can be replaced, you know.”

Now she took off her glasses and squinted at me. “You’ve met someone. You haven’t threatened to replace me since you phoned to tell me you were close to finding Charles Landover’s secret laboratory in Arkansas and his granddaughter was delightful.”

“Yes, and we remember how well that turned out. Please fetch me the personnel files on the Institute staff.”

“Morena. Call her.”

I gave a noncommittal shrug and closed the door. Once I was safely out of Laura’s line of sight, I tossed the message slip into the unlit fireplace. Although nothing burned due to the warm early summer weather, the small act of rebellion gave me momentary satisfaction. I wanted to do something, not waste my time writing reports and waiting for the waffling of the Council to determine that Lonna, Max and Selene could proceed with their plans. Frankly, I didn’t think the Council should be involved in the Institute, but it hadn’t been my decision, and even though one of their own was an integral part of it, the Wizard Tribunal hadn’t pushed back. Likely they waited to see how it all worked out so that if it failed, they wouldn’t have to take any responsibility for it. They’d just throw poor Max under the bus. Coldhearted bastards.

Laura brought the personnel files in, and I tossed aside Lonna’s, Max’s, and the lower staff members’. The first one I looked at was Selene Rial’s. A health psychologist who’d been educated in the States and turned after a flu shot introduced the viral vector into her system, she had been invited to join the team when Iain had been impressed with her. He observed that she took everything in stride and while she appreciated the challenges of being a lycanthrope, she could step back and look at the situation objectively, or at least more so than any of the other candidates he’d interviewed—both human and werewolf. He’d written that she had a “unique and sympathetic perspective” on the difficulties CLS sufferers faced, even beyond her own experience.

Meanwhile, Otis LeConte, a geneticist, had worked in the same lab as Joanie Fisher, now Joanie Bowman, prior to her being fired and turned. When I closed my eyes, I still saw Joanie standing on the balcony off her bedroom at Wolfsbane Manor, watching me change, her eyes burning with curiosity and—

“Lady Morena has arrived.” Laura’s voice startled me from the memory.

“Right,” I said. “I didn’t call her.”

“She said she couldn’t wait, and she expects to be seen immediately or she will fire me and every other staff member you depend on so that your lazy ass will have to learn to do things for itself.”

A headache started in my right temple, and I massaged it, hoping it wouldn’t flare up into a full-blown migraine. Although modern science had given a name to my “sick headaches,” the medicines didn’t work for me. Losing my staff wouldn’t help it, so I said, “Send her in.”

Morena glided in without picking her feet very far off the floor. She wore her customary navy blue pantsuit and flats. She’d adapted well to this new era in which women could dress like men. When she and I had worked together in the fifties, the skirts and heels of the time had always looked like they enjoyed being worn by her as much as she enjoyed wearing them. Her yellow eyes took in the details of the office, specifically the message slip in the fireplace, but she didn’t say anything about it.

I bowed. “What a pleasant surprise, Chairwoman.”

As always, she got directly to the point. It was one of the few things I liked about her. “I understand there’s been some unpleasantness at the Institute.”

I gestured for her to take a seat in one of the chairs in front of my desk. She sat with spine straight. I could count the number of times I’d seen her relax on one hand.

“So you’ve spoken with Garou,” I said and sat in the other one. My office wasn’t as cozy as Lonna’s but still held a fair number of volumes, and my eyes strayed to one shelf of books from the original Wolfsbane Manor. They were all I managed to rescue before the fire found the library, and I had dreamed of presenting them to Joanie when I returned for her. Alas, by the time I had made it through all the bureaucratic nonsense of the Council, she had been claimed by another.

“He filled me in on the obvious details. I want to know what you think he missed.”

“What did he find in the pull-off where the getaway car was?”

“What makes you think I’m going to tell you?” She leaned forward. This was our game.

“Because I’m the Council Investigator,” I said, “and even if you don’t tell me, I’ll get the report from Garou later. Might as well save me some time.”

“Insolent pup,” she growled. “I should have voted against making you Investigator. You were too young.”

I arched an eyebrow. “As I recall, you did, and yet here we are. The question is whether you’re going to help me do my job.”

“You never did respect your elders like you should,” she told me. “And no, the question is whether you’re going to be able to do your job. Remember, you’re not a full Council member yet. You can be replaced.”

“I see no reason why I shouldn’t do my job, and yes, I do recall my position. You remind me of it every chance you get.”

She stood and walked behind the desk to where I had the files laid out. “Yet perhaps I do see potential areas of conflict for you, even beyond your friendship with the directors. What do you know of the dead man?”

I moved to close the open file, that of Selene. “He was a full human and a geneticist.” I grabbed for his file, but she held it away from me.

“And what else?”

“He’d gotten a batch of applications from Iain MacPherson, the CLS specialist and the other geneticist.”

“Do you know about a wife? Family? Even his nationality?”

“No, no, and I suspect American. As you know, I only just arrived when you barged in. What are you getting at?”

She flipped Selene’s file at me. “Only that you might be letting your small head overrule your big one.”

I winced. No matter how modern we got, I couldn’t get used to women speaking crudely. “I just received the files.”

“And see which one you opened first.” She slammed both fists down on the desk, which toppled an antique inkwell. I righted it before it could spill. “Dammit, Gabriel, this case goes beyond anything you’ve looked into for us, and it’s got more diplomatic pitfalls than you can imagine.”

“Oh?” Now she had me intrigued. I could forget the insult.

She ran a hand through her short gray hair. “We’ve been fighting the press away from the Institute for months now, basically since we started building it. Now we have to be careful that the human press doesn’t get hold of this story. It’s bad enough our community will know.”

“So we deflect the humans. Business as usual. What else?”

“I’m getting to it. After months of silence on the issue, the International Wizard Tribunal has come forward to say they do not support the project, and they want to pull Maximilian Fortuna off the staff. We’re trying to negotiate his staying.”

A low whistle escaped my lips. “If we don’t have him, we don’t have an Institute.”

“Right, and that’s why the wizards want to pull him. They haven’t come out and said it, but they’re on the side of the Purists. They believe this thing is a gift, and no one should take it away, especially not using a forbidden form of magic.”

“Blood magic is only part of the process. They haven’t told me the whole procedure. It’s proprietary, at least until they perfect it and can share it with the world.”

“No one knows it, and it makes the wizards antsy because they can’t study it and the lycanthrope Purists unhappy because they see it as reversing something that they have a birthright to.”

I ground my teeth. It was an argument that just wouldn’t go away. “We’re not taking anything away from them.”

“No, but they’re afraid nevertheless.”

“What does this have to do with LeConte’s murder?” I asked. “Do you think he was killed for trade secrets?”

“That, dear Investigator, is your job to figure out as quickly and quietly as you can. I’ll stall the Council, but keep in mind that they’ll want a report very soon.” She tapped a finger on Selene’s file. “And just remember that in our world, it’s rare that something is exactly as it seems.”

Morena’s cheerful visit left me with difficulty focusing. Her words swirled around my brain, especially what she hinted about Selene. As much as Morena frustrated me, she did have the admirable trait of not interfering in others’ personal lives. On the other hand, I knew next to nothing about hers. Although our rules of coupling and mating were looser than the pure humans’, and therefore she would see nothing wrong with me having a dalliance with Selene, I still had to worry about conflict of interest. And Morena’s warning about the wizards made this an even higher profile case.

With a growl, I stood and strode out of the office.

“Don’t forget your ten o’clock tomorrow morning,” Laura called after me.

I waved to acknowledge I’d heard and then headed straight for the pub.

“Straight” is a relative term in the hills of Scotland. Of course leaving the castle was never direct since my offices were in a turret, and I had to negotiate a set of winding stairs. Then I had to cross a minor hall, then the major welcome one, and another minor one to the side door to the Council and employee parking. Visitors valeted so they couldn’t leave quickly. That was mostly in place for the rare wizard who showed up.

The thick carpeting muffled my steps in the welcome hall. No matter how many times I passed them, I couldn’t help but slow to admire the vividly drawn, albeit fading, battlefields on the tapestries.

“Ho, Gabriel!” The booming voice stopped me just as I reached the door.