Six rules undying book 2, p.16
Six (Rules Undying Book 2), page 16
Paige closed her good eye and let out a little snort. Lorcan sighed deeply.
“I see we’ve devolved into childish games, Miss Paige,” he said.
“Kyle seemed to think that your humanity had returned, that you were ready to be reasonable, but I see that you need more time.
Fortunately for me, I have all the time in the world.”
She pretended to be asleep for a while, and then actually dozed off. When she woke to the stabbing hunger pangs in her belly, Lorcan was still right there to slide over her tray. She growled as he bent down the straw, but still couldn’t fight the urge to slurp up more thick, pasty protein in a cup. This particular batch was extra sticky due to the peanut butter blended into the whey.
Her tray now also had a jug of water and two cups. “Water, please,” she said, her voice still unnaturally deep and husky.
Lorcan dutifully poured her a cup and grabbed a straw. Rather than take a sip, she looked pointedly at the other cup. “Pour yourself one,” she growled.
Lorcan twisted his lips into a wicked smirk. “You are a clever girl,” he said as he poured himself a drink. “You remember.”
“I remember a lot,” she said softly.
“Very well; let’s have a drink together and talk,” the vampire said. As soon as he took a sip of the clear liquid, his face puckered.
“Ugh, I haven’t had this in a while.”
“What am I?” she asked.
“I told you; you’re a werewolf,” Lorcan sighed. As soon as she took a sip, he took a deep breath and followed up with, “Technically you are what the Vikings called a berserker, a feral warrior. Some crazy ancient men discovered that a mix of alcohol, hallucinogens,
and good old-fashioned insanity could transform certain individuals into forces of nature. What they never realized was that the true berserkers were those infected by a particularly nasty lentivirus—one that overwrote several key functions in terms of cellular reproduction and repair. Most of those infected died horrible deaths as they grew horrible tumors, but a select few lived on to alter their bodies into twisted, terrible monsters.”
“A . . . disease, really?”
“Aye,” he said with a nod. “Fortunately for humanity’s sake, the virus exterior is similar enough in structure to a common group of viruses, and once immune to one in the group, the victim is immune to what my kind call the wolf pox.”
Paige simply stared at him.
“The old berserkers would scratch and bite their recruits. If you were worthy, you were infected and would start to exhibit the signs of the divine madness. Of course, if you’d ever had cowpox, smallpox, or chicken pox, the likelihood of infection dropped to almost nil. Only those with the weakest of immune systems would succumb.”
“So I am a berserker now?” she asked, shaking her head ever so slightly. “That’s impossible—”
“It should have been. Nowadays people in the civilized world are vaccinated shortly after birth. If my kind had its way, vaccines would be everywhere, and the unvaccinated would be put down immediately.”
“Why?”
“Because the very reason the berserkers were first trained by the witch doctors and holy men of old was to wipe out an old and dangerous predator of mankind. Some enterprising madman who thought the world was flat and the sun was god, made the single most dangerous weapon ever conceived to protect villages from that which would feed upon them in the night. Before werewolves were born, there was very little to stop us.”
Paige curled back her own puffy lip and showed off an impressive array of pointy teeth. “You are afraid of me?” she snarled.
“Very much so,” Lorcan admitted. “The original berserker strain is extinct. Most people infected today are shadows of the legends of
old. It takes a year for any of them to sprout so much as a fang or a claw, and they are no more frightening than puppies.”
He slowly unbuttoned his top few buttons and pulled the fabric away from his chest. Three deep red gashes cut from his collarbone to the middle of his sternum. A series of silver staples held the sides together as gelatinous clots pulsed in and out of his torn flesh.
“You did this to me after only being infected for weeks, if that,”
he said. “I found an actual werewolf in your mother’s bathroom, and I need to know why. I need to know which one of them bit you.”
“One of them?” Paige asked, confused.
“All of my pack is denying it, but—”
“Pack?” Paige whispered.
“Only Nadia, Toy, and Kayleigh express the virus. Tina and Kyle are carriers. I need to know which one of them disobeyed me and infected you.”
Paige shook her head weakly.
“Which one?” Lorcan asked again. “I’ve got the lot of them locked up until I get answers.”
“N—” she choked.
Lorcan’s eyes darkened as he shook his own head. “My volchitsa would never—”
“No one bit me,” Paige growled. “No one.”
“That’s imposs—”
He was interrupted by the door bursting open. A frantic-looking redhead rushed to Lorcan’s side and showed his screen to the confused vampire.
“Grandpa, you’re not going to believe this one—” Kyle started.
“What is it?” Paige snarled. “What is happening to me?”
“It’s strain 436-Alpha,” the doc finished. “There is no doubt.”
Lorcan grabbed the tablet and disappeared in the blink of an eye. Paige grit her teeth and yanked at her chains until the water spilled and her protein jug rolled to the floor. “What the hell?” she howled. “What the hell is happening to me, Lorcan? Lorcan!”
Kyle stumbled back in horror, watching Paige as her hand began to sprout new tufts of fur. He mouthed “I’m sorry” over and
over before dashing to her IV to hit the button again. Warmth flooded into Paige’s arm, and she collapsed into a fitful sleep.
Paige groaned as she woke up to the smell of fresh earth and felt a breeze blow the hair out of her face. She blinked a few times as she saw her perfectly human hands toying with long green blades of grass. The sun warmed her back, while the vegetation tickled her bare feet.
“Now don’t tell me you were napping while I was down there risking my neck!” a very Irish-sounding voice snapped.
She whirled around to see Lorcan dressed head to toe in drab browns and greens. Mud caked his face and hands, but in the few places where skin showed through, it had a decidedly rosy tone. He crept next to her in the weeds and pointed toward a set of rolling green hills.
“Do you know what’s beyond there, woman? The men from the unholy boats have set up a camp from the cove all the way to Liam’s grave. I’ve never seen so many invaders in all my life—”
She stared, dumbstruck, at his long, greasy brown hair and the quiver and bow slung over his back. The only familiar trapping on his person was a bone earring dangling from one lobe. He went on and on, describing strange men with red cloaks and a banner with a winged beast on it, but she remained frightfully mute.
“Woman!” he barked. “Are you even listening? They have more metal in their one camp than all the king’s armies combined. They are hacking down trees to build gods know what and you’re just flopping here like a codfish.”
Paige blinked, and the sky instantly changed from peaceful blue to blazing orange and crimson. She gagged as smoke and ash clogged the air. Her feet seemed possessed as she stumbled and ran through a muddy mess of broken shields and broken men. The cries of the dying surrounded her. The only thing standing amid this mire of death was a pole with a black and red standard flapping in the wind. The symbol in the middle looked like a red dragon, clutching a sword in its claws.
“You think you’ve won?” a voice howled from behind Paige.
“You’ll never win so long as I draw breath!”
She whirled around to face the voice but found herself right back in her apartment, staring at her father’s face on her laptop screen.
“You can’t trust anyone, not even me if I come looking for you.
Vampires are real, honey, and they have the power to control you.
They can make you say anything, do anything. They can even make you forget, Paige. They might have already found you. I know that one of them is after your mother. I tried to warn her, but . . . but . . .
Paige, anyone can be manipulated by these creatures, and they have eyes and ears everywhere. Remember what I taught you, Paige. Remember, it’s never about being paranoid. It’s about being paranoid enough.
“I know that you are shaking your head right now, kiddo, but there is proof out there. I can’t give you all the details now; only Mr.
Wolf can help you. He’s . . . special. Apparently there are very few people . . . very, very few people who are immune to vampire control, and he is one of them. I can’t tell you how I know this, but believe me, it wasn’t pleasant. I am not immune, though, and I don’t know if you’re safe.”
“Dad, no!” Paige snapped. “Not again.”
“Watch the time carefully, kiddo. Be careful at night. If Mr. Wolf finds you again and you remember this, then . . . Kiddo, I love you, and I’m so sorry I got you wrapped up in this. If you don’t want to know any more, then don’t look in the other hidden folder—just pull out the drive—but if you’re my brave little Paige, my charter member of the Young Tinfoil Brigade, then look and find a way to get the truth out there. I know that I won’t be able to. I hope I get to see you again, sweetie. I love you.”
The progress bar ran out, but this time Paige slammed her laptop shut and limped to the bathroom. She saw a can of shaving cream left open on the lip of her sink and copious amounts of black hair circling the drain. She heard the door, the footsteps in the house. The bathroom door seemed to open by itself as she stared in
the mirror. She could hear the footsteps but couldn’t see a thing until it was too late.
“Paige!”
She grabbed her chest as she lurched awake. The bedrail rattled as her chain slid over the metal. She let out a sigh of relief as her legs once more had a knee in the middle and an ankle down at the end and five happy little toes wiggled in delight. Of course, each of the toes still had a nasty-looking black claw jutting out of the tip, but Paige was giggling too much to care.
She stretched her left hand out, and then balled it into a fist and back again. Every finger joint performed as expected, and her thumb once more opposed each pink little digit. However, as she stared at the red line under her freshly trimmed nails, a bit of black began to emerge from under the quick. She flicked her wrist and triumphantly produced a set of nasty-looking talons.
She flicked again, and the extra nails receded. Paige smiled wickedly at her newfound trick.
“Paige, are you in there?” Kyle’s disembodied voice asked again. “Paige?”
She looked up at the camera with her one unbandaged eye.
“Yes, I can hear you,” she snapped. “And I want answers—now!”
Her right arm had joined the fray as she found she could wiggle and move the entire appendage. She gently pulled her bandaged hand out from under the sheet and discovered, with delight, just how much more length of chain she had on that side. She slid both hands under the sheet and started toying and tugging with the bandages on her right hand. As she started moving her thumb, she heard clear popping sounds as the joints of her hand collapsed, allowing her to slide her wounded paw out of the restraint.
The door opened, and she quickly slid her hand right back in so that as Kyle peeled back her sweat-soaked sheets, he found only a helpless, chained-up little girl in the bed.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” she said as she noticed the bulk of his safety suit under his lab coat and gloves.
“You sound a lot better this morning,” he noted.
“I feel a lot more . . . human.”
“I need to draw some blood,” he said as he started the rounds of poking and prodding.
She watched closely as he siphoned off a few vials and checked her IV.
“What is in the IV?” she asked.
“Fluids, saline, type-AB blood—” he muttered nonchalantly.
“Morphine?”
Kyle nodded. “This particular machine has a fail-safe button where I can dose you with sedatives or painkillers if you start raging.”
“I . . . rage?”
“Like a menstruating honey badger. I must say that you pack an amazing left hook for someone the size of a soaking wet Chihuahua.
It took Toy and Nadia both to take you down.”
“Did I hurt them?”
“Nah, only Grandpa took the hit.”
“Good.”
Kyle started nibbling on his lip. He looked up at the camera before flipping around his tablet so that only Paige could see the words scrawled on the screen. “Vampire blood,” it read.
He flipped it back around and started typing away. “So, Grandpa told you about the virus?” he asked.
“Is he really your grandpa?”
Kyle smiled a terrifyingly familiar smirk to the one Lorcan liked to adopt. “Technically he’s my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather by marriage. For obvious reasons, I’m sure my nine-times-great-grandmother had a bit of help producing my ancestors. We called him Uncle Milton. He was the head butler for the Lambley estates back in England, or something like that.”
“A vampire married a human?” Paige asked blandly.
Kyle flipped around his tablet again. It showed a painting of a rather homely redhead who looked plucked from the pages of a Jane Austen novel in her high-waisted floral gown and demure little hat. It was the gentleman next to her that made Paige bare her teeth. No matter how sharp a pale, green-eyed Brit looked in long hair and a cravat, her stomach still turned at the sight of Lorcan Darcy.
“The Lambley family speculated extremely well on the outcome of the Napoleonic wars. They had more cash than scruples, and when Lord Edgar Lambley was faced with passing his fortune on to either his eldest son with a flaming case of syphilis or his youngest son, the hopeless dreamer, he chose instead to bargain with the local vampire. In the end it worked out for everyone, especially Great-Grandpa.”
“You mean he’s—?” Paige asked.
“Undead and well and living in Argentina,” Kyle sighed.
“Kayleigh and I have quite the generation spread at family reunions.”
“Lorcan bit—” she snarled in disgust.
“No, Grandpa bit my nine-times uncle, Geoffrey, and ten-times-great-grandpa Edgar was given to a family known as the Azarola as a peace offering. If you ever need to fall asleep, I can give you a lecture on vampire family politics. It all worked out in the end, though. My cousins get stuck running some decrepit house in the English countryside that they rent out for weddings, and Kay and I get to party in the States. Whenever Grandpa is on vacation, he comes to us. Can you ease over to one side?”
Paige eyed him suspiciously, but acquiesced. While he was measuring her vertebrae, her tail swished back and forth.
“What does that even feel like?” he asked as he took a picture of her healing back.
She swatted at him with the furry appendage. “I don’t know.
What does having an arm feel like? It’s just there.”
“You can control it impressively now. A couple of days ago, it was just sort of limp. There is no way for that to not sound dirty, is there?”
Paige let out a little chuckle. “I can still laugh, it seems,” she sighed.
“No matter how crazy it all seems, it’s still just a virus, Paige,”
Kyle said as he helped her back on her back.
“A virus that has me chained up like an animal,” she snapped.
“Do you think they put your average flu patient in handcuffs?”
“I’ll talk to the boss about that,” he muttered. “Most flu patients don’t have claws, to be fair.”
“Did I really turn into a wolf?” Paige asked sadly.
Kyle nodded. “A shockingly close approximation of one at least,” he said. “Seriously, did you study wolf anatomy? Grow up around a bunch of dogs?”
Paige broke out into a sad little laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m allergic to dogs,” she laughed. “I should have broken out in hives!”
Kyle joined her in her sad laughter. “I was too,” he sighed. “Until my sister bit me when I stole her My Little Pony. Now look at us!”
He punctuated his remark by pulling off one glove. He grimaced as five tiny little claw-tips poked out from under his nails. He grunted slightly as one by one he was able to suck them back in, but he had to help his ring finger slightly by jabbing it back in with the corner of his tablet.
“It’s not the size that matters,” he said. “It’s how you use them.”
They did giggle for a few moments more. Paige’s stomach, however, interrupted them with a particularly ferocious growl.
“Will I ever not be hungry?” she asked wistfully.
“Truthfully?” Kyle asked. “You just collapsed and rebuilt your entire musculoskeletal system in a single night. That takes a lot out of you. You’re always going to need to eat like a teenage boy, but it will settle down after a few months. I’ll go get you a shake and some solid food if you feel up for it.”
Paige nodded. As Kyle started to walk away, she cleared her throat and choked out, “Thank you for everything.”
Kyle walked back and squeezed her hand. “Look, I know everything is a little messed up right now, but please know that I’m a doctor first and a vampire descendant second. I want to help you heal, Paige. You might hate Grandpa right now, but believe me, he is one of the good guys.”
She simply answered him with a sigh. He wandered out of the room, promising chicken as he shut the door. The moment she heard it shut, she took a deep breath and slid her hands under the sheet.
Two painful pops later, and her hands were both free. Next she ripped the IV out of her arm and winced as an alarm blared.
She ripped her sheet away and swung to the floor. For one second her wobbly knees held firm, but she ended up sprawling to the floor. Undaunted, she crawled across the linoleum and grabbed one of the sheets that surrounded her bed. She yowled in pain and dragged her aching body back to her feet. Just as she savored her moment of triumph, the door swung open again.
