43 
TAKE YOUR MEDICINE
We’re calling Stacy.” Sig’s voice didn’t have any give in it, and I wasn’t in a great position to argue. Literally. Sig was carrying me. I had a broken knee, and I couldn’t even drape an arm over her shoulder because some of my ribs were broken. Finally, she got impatient and slung me over her shoulder. My hero. Or heroine. Or heroin.
“Sig…” I slurred through broken teeth. Have you ever had that dream where your teeth are being pushed out of your gums by some inexplicable pressure? That was happening to me for real as new teeth emerged through my gums to push the old ones out of their way.
“No,” she said. “Now we do this my way. You know, the way that doesn’t involve one of us looking like a truck ran us over and then backed up?
“Bud…”
“We can’t do this alone,” she said. “We have six tranked werewolves to deal with one way or the other and you need a place to heal and I don’t know this area.”
“Ah can…”
“Dammid, puh me down.”
She did. I managed to land on my relatively good foot, but I didn’t have a chance to make my case. Pain tore into my side and Sig tore into me. “This isn’t just about you, John. Other people have a stake in this! Those were good people I met this morning, and it’s their clan too! They deserve to know what’s going on.”
Sig did know people. It was part of the whole Valkyrie thing. They don’t just talk to dead people; they evaluate souls. Or at least souls not protected from such things by a geas.
“Buh…” I drooled.
She shook my shoulders and I almost screamed.
“Look at me, John. Do you trust me?”
I had wanted her to put me down so I could talk better, but I was in a lot of pain and my body really wanted to pass out so it could reserve resources for healing. I swayed there and the words wouldn’t come.
“Yesh?” I said.
It turned out Stacy had a safe house, though she probably would have called it something else. It was one of those surprises that don’t really surprise you. I was in a basement den that looked like it had been decorated on the cheap from thrift stores—a mishmash of styles whose only common themes were “old” and “comfortable-looking.” Propped up on a couch with a homemade palanquin of pillows, I still wasn’t in a position to argue. My jaw was realigned enough that I could eat, and I was forcing soup and pudding one-handed down my throat as fast as people could bring them to me. There was currently a huge pot of vegetable stew on the coffee table next to me. To a mending werewolf, food is like coal being dumped into the furnace of an old-fashioned train engine, and I was shoveling it in.
Virgil, Tula, Matthew, Stacy, and Carl were all seated in folding chairs around the couch while Sig sat on the end of it. Bizarrely, an open laptop with Parth’s face prominent on the screen was upright on Carl’s lap. The real guest of honor, though, was sitting in the room’s lone armchair: Ben Lafontaine, a full-blooded Anishinaabe and leader of a large Native American werewolf pack. I’d never met Ben before, but he seemed like five feet ten inches of badassed gravitas in a green polo shirt. He was unusually weathered-looking for a werewolf, wide, hard, and scarred. The man who had informally adopted Gabriel’s sister but not Gabriel.
Gabriel was slumped in the center of us. We had gotten our hands on a lot of knight equipment when we cleaned out their vans and hiding places, and Gabriel was bound in silver steel restraints. One of the shock collars the knights had used to limit me to human form was also around his neck. He was awake but not talking.
“What the hell is a Gandillon?” Virgil wanted to know. Of everyone in the room, he looked the unhappiest. With the exception of Gabriel and Ben Lafontaine, he had been in the Clan longer than any of us. “And what does it have to do with Bernard wanting you dead?”
“They were a whole family of really twisted cunning folk four hundred years ago.” My new teeth weren’t entirely finished growing in yet, but I had worked out how to form consonant sounds again, though my face still hurt when I moved it too much. “The Gandillons were into all kinds of nasty-ass stuff. Cannibalism. Human sacrifice. Devil worship…”
“The usual,” Carl deadpanned.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “What made them famous is that they figured out how to re-create the spell that made the first were-beings. They had some kind of ointment they rubbed into their skin. It set off a hundred years of werewolf trials and inquisitions in France.”
“And Nikolai told you Bernard is claiming to be one of them,” Virgil said skeptically.
“Right.” I slurped down the rest of the vegetable soup in my bowl and held it out to Sig.
She leaned over and didn’t bother with a ladle, just scooped the bowl through the pot on the table and licked her fingers after handing it back to me. She was very tactile about food. I still couldn’t decide if it was mildly disgusting or insanely hot.
“So what?” Matthew brought me back to my version of reality. “Some people hunted down some werewolves. Big surprise.”
My wrist had gone from broken to sprained, and I held my hands up side by side. “On one hand, we’ve got Bernard desperately trying to discover or re-create some kind of magical formula. On the other, we’ve got Bernard claiming to come from a family famous for discovering a magical potion to make werewolves from scratch. Am I really reaching here?”
“You think Bernard is trying to re-create his family’s discovery?” Parth didn’t sound alarmed. He sounded intrigued, which is why I hadn’t wanted to include him. To a naga, forbidden knowledge is like crack. Sig had insisted, though. According to her, Parth possessing a secret wasn’t dangerous, and he had lots of them to prove it. It was keeping a secret from him that was risky.
“I do,” I said. “Herbs and chemicals that were part of the first werewolf rituals affect werewolves normally, and Bernard got really excited when a bakaak’s paralyzing poison worked on werewolves. He wanted to isolate its ingredients bad.”
I could actually hear Parth clap his hands as if delighted. “He can identify the elements of the compound through trial and error by finding out what other natural elements affect werewolves normally!”
“Yeah.”
Stacy frowned. “But why?”
I frowned back. “Nikolai said that the Clan was going to change the world.”
“I don’t get it,” Matthew complained. “We already know how to change people into werewolves. We just bite them. Why all the fuss about some magic potion?”
He made air quotes around “magic potion.”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” I mumbled around a mouthful of soup. “What can you do with a werewolf potion that you can’t do with a werewolf bite? How would it change the world?”
Sig hadn’t been saying much, maybe respecting the fact that she wasn’t clan. But she spoke up now. “It has to be about dissemination. You can’t weaponize a werewolf bite.”
The kind of too-silent silence that follows a thunderclap fell over the room. People looked around with their eyes only, reluctant to make any sudden rustles or shifts.
“You’re talking what, exactly?” Virgil said eventually. “Turning this potion into a gas?”
“Or putting it into water supplies,” I suggested. “Making chemical dispersal bombs out of it. Some kind of mass-effect terrorist weapon.”
“This is insane,” Stacy muttered.
“Why?” Gabriel blurted suddenly. “Even if all this is true, why are you all acting like it’s so bad?”
I don’t know if he had hopes of convincing the others to turn on Sig and me or if he had doubts that he wanted the others to help him beat down.
“The change to werewolf kills most people, Gabriel,” Stacy said angrily.
“Says who?!?” he scoffed. “The knights? Have you ever actually counted how many people die from the change and figured out an average?”
“As a matter of fact, I have!” Stacy snapped. “Who do you think deals with the people who get bitten by werewolves around here? Would you like to see my records?”
That confused him for a moment, but then Gabriel shifted tactics. “Everybody dies anyway, sooner or later. Do you know what overpopulation is doing to this planet?”
“And killing people like trimming off excess fat is the solution?”
“It worked for the men who gave my people blankets infected with smallpox,” Gabriel said grimly. “And what kind of life do most humans have, anyway? If everyone became werewolves, the things that make life hell wouldn’t matter anymore. No more disease. No more old age. Everyone would be the same…”
“We’d still be human in every way that mattered, Gabriel,” I told him. “Humans always find stupid reasons to hate each other.”
“Exactly!” Gabriel said. He wasn’t a very polished arguer.
“Exactly what?” I asked.
“The Pax can’t last forever!” he snarled. “What do you think is going to happen when the spell gets broken and humanity realizes werewolves are real? We’re all going to wind up in concentration camps or reservations if we don’t do something while we have the chance! This is about survival.”
Virgil stood up abruptly. “Oh, hell. This is real.”
“What do you mean?” Tula asked.
Virgil leveled an index finger at Gabriel. “I’ve known this man for six years, and he’s no philosopher. Those aren’t his words coming out of his mouth. Somebody else has been preaching this trash to him.”
“Come on, Virgil,” Gabriel urged.
Virgil bent down so he could look Gabriel in the eyes. “John had me when he said Bernard was protecting a child murderer, you dumb son of a bitch.”
Werewolves don’t use that phrase lightly.
“Tula?!?” Gabriel pleaded. “You came here to fight knights.”
I found it interesting that Gabriel wasn’t talking to Ben Lafontaine, hadn’t even looked at him, though Ben had barely taken his eyes off Gabriel since sitting down.
“I came here because I have a three-year-old daughter in Finland who is better off without me.” Tula’s voice was flat. “And you want to kill her.”
That shut Gabriel up for a moment. I didn’t know anything about a daughter. I don’t think anyone in the Clan did.
“You want to kill my mom too,” Carl added levelly. “I guess she’s not right for your new werewolf master race, huh?”
Sig squeezed my ankle and I glanced over at her. She mouthed the word See?
Ben spoke up for the first time. “Tell Gabriel what you told me about Catherine.”
“What?” Gabriel’s head shot up.
“Nikolai also said that Bernard is making Mila Apraxin his new queen,” I said. “Have you talked to Catherine lately?”
Gabriel tried to stay angry, but something uncertain and vulnerable came into his eyes. For a second, he looked like the little brother who had clung to a big sister in that Catholic orphanage he’d mentioned. “Bernard wouldn’t…”
“Which Bernard?” Ben asked. “The one who’s willing to kill four out of every five people for his vision? The one who offers shelter to a child killer?”
Ben indicated me. “The Bernard who sent Nikolai to kill this man who had served Bernard faithfully? The Bernard who’s proud of coming from a family of witches? Which one of these men wouldn’t get rid of your sister, Gabriel?”
Gabriel tried to talk, but his mind was busy going over conversations that I’d never heard, clues I’d never seen, excuses for Catherine’s disappearance. “Everybody loves Catherine; Bernard would never get away with it even if he wanted…”
“He already is getting away with it,” Ben said. “He tells me that he has information that the knights are after Catherine to get leverage over him… that a claw is keeping her on the move and that even he won’t know where she is from hour to hour for the next few days. Sometime soon, Catherine’s body is going to be discovered with a silver bullet in the head, and Bernard will say, ‘I told you so.’ He will use her death as a symbol to rally the Clan around whatever plans he proposes.”
Gabriel began to thrash around in his chains then.
“Compose yourself!” Ben snapped.
And Gabriel did.
“Bernard knows you would never let that happen.” Gabriel’s voice was ragged. “He knows you love Catherine even if you never liked me.”
“Bernard doesn’t care if I believe him or not,” Ben replied sadly. “He doesn’t need our tribe any longer, and some of my own people listen to Bernard more than they do me now, young men like you who think the old ways are weak ways and don’t listen to our stories.”
“Your stories are the same as any other religion!” Gabriel yelled. “You just use them to keep people from wanting to change anything! You want to pretend we’re proud while we’re living in slums!”
“This man is right,” Ben said calmly, pointing a thumb at Virgil. “You open your mouth, and another man’s words come out.”
Gabriel’s mouth tightened.
“You are such a rebel, Gabriel Flores.” Ben’s voice was level. “Such a daring young man. Turning against your own people because of the sweet lies of a white man. That’s different.”
“ALL RIGHT!” Gabriel yelled. “ALL RIGHT!”
We waited.
“All right, what?” I finally asked.
“I’ll help you find out what happened to Catherine,” he said sullenly.
Matthew laughed bitterly then. He was the only person who did. “Time for a reality check there, Gabriel! They aren’t asking for your help. They’re trying to figure out whether or not to kill you.”
“Ben would never let you do that.” Gabriel shot Ben a hot glare full of frustration. “He wants to take me to a shaking tent or some bullshit like that.”
I stopped eating long enough to address Ben then. “I can’t tell if he loves you or hates you.”
Ben still hadn’t taken his eyes off Gabriel. “It’s complicated.”
Matthew stretched and looked around. “Well, this episode of As the Wigwam Turns has been great and all, but why am I here? If you guys want to go against Bernard, I’ll keep my mouth shut. But if you want me to help, I want hard proof that any of this is real.”
I guess expecting Matthew to become a completely different person was unrealistic. Then I saw him slide a sideways glance toward Carl, and it suddenly occurred to me that Matthew was showing off.
Huh.
Come to think of it, Matthew ruled a bunch of macho alpha male types, and he didn’t have a female mate. Could it be that he was overcompensating?
“If we had proof, we wouldn’t be having a secret meeting,” Stacy snapped. “We’d be leading a mob.”
“So, most of the Clan really doesn’t know about any of this?” I asked. “I wasn’t walking around with a big sign on my back that said DON’T TELL THE KNIGHT ABOUT THE BIG WEREWOLF PLAN?”
“We’re not monsters, John,” Carl said irritably, then paused and laughed bitterly. “Well…”
“Most of us have families and friends and ex-lovers who aren’t werewolves,” Stacy said. “I’m dating a normal human right now.”
I was ashamed.
Matthew cleared his throat. “Proof, remember?”
Ben looked over at Virgil. “You have Bernard’s number on your cell phone, yes?” he asked.
“I’ve got one of them,” he said dourly. “He left a few messages on it before I pulled the battery out.”
“Put the battery back in,” Ben told him.