44 
MY, GRANDMA! WHAT A BIG ASSHOLE YOU ARE!
Where the hell have you been?” Bernard’s voice demanded. Virgil didn’t have the phone on speaker, but he didn’t need to. We were all werewolves except for Sig.
“I’ve been moving bodies out of the hot zone,” Virgil said. “Nikolai is dead and John isn’t much better.”
There was a long pause before Bernard asked, “How?”
Virgil exhaled heavily. “All I know is, Tula comes by and tells me that Nikolai and Gabriel are fighting because Gabriel wants to talk to his sister and things are getting a little out of hand. So I go to the hot zone, but nobody is outside it anymore. So I follow my GPS until it goes fuckways and close my eyes and stomp on the accelerator and next thing I know, Tula and I are in the zone and I still don’t see anybody.”
Bernard didn’t interrupt.
“So we go down to that weird wooded patch,” Virgil continued. “And it’s crazy. There’s a whole claw down there in chains and drugged. Gabriel has got a tree going through him. Nikolai is dead. And John looks like he’s been hit by a truck. I mean, he’s broken, man. Shattered. You know John can pick pockets, right? It looks to me like Nikolai was beating the shit out of him when John got his hands on Nikolai’s gun.”
Virgil paused but Bernard still didn’t say anything.
“So maybe you should tell me what happened,” Virgil finished.
“I have no idea,” Bernard said gravely. “What did John say?”
“John couldn’t say anything even if he was awake. His body is taking its time pulling itself back together.”
“I sent Nikolai to get John because John took it on himself to execute four werewolves and wasn’t telling Phoenix what he was finding at the Apraxin house,” Bernard asserted. “John hasn’t been returning my phone calls, either. I thought we needed to talk. That’s it.”
“Nikolai had a claw with him,” Virgil noted.
“They were there to replace you guys in Abalmar when you leave,” Bernard said. “The knights just lost a lot of people, and they don’t handle that kind of thing well. I’m worried about how they’re going to retaliate.”
“Yeah,” Virgil sighed.
“Where’s John now?” Bernard asked. “What did you do with the others? I’ve got locals looking all over for you.”
“That’s why I’ve been busy,” Virgil explained. “Tula and me have got them all tranked and in chains because I don’t know what’s going on. We’ve moved them to John’s safe house.”
Another pause before Bernard clarified. “John’s safe house?”
Virgil made a confused face even though Bernard couldn’t see it. He was a good actor. “Yeah. His safe house.”
“What the hell, Virgil.”
“Hey, man,” Virgil said, “I thought you knew.”
“I know Nikolai and John hated each other.” Bernard’s voice was earnest. “I know John’s been acting erratic ever since you raided that house. And I know Nikolai is dead. That’s all I know. Is it possible these evil spirits you were all talking about this morning brought out the worst in them?”
“John said ghosts couldn’t get inside his head,” Virgil said slowly. “I don’t know about Nikolai.”
“Well, what does this exorcist you hired say?”
“I never saw her,” Virgil explained. “She had lit out by the time I got there.”
“Well, maybe we’d better find her.” There was no maybe in his voice.
“What do you want me to do in the meantime?” Virgil asked.
“Get the claw that came with Nikolai back on their feet. You and Tula help them bring John to me. We need to get to the bottom of this.”
“Where are you?” Virgil asked.
“Not over the phone,” Bernard said. “Just tell Shane to take over for Nikolai and bring John back to the place they came from. Tell him to call me. You can follow them.”
“All right,” Virgil said. “It might take a bit to get them back on their feet. Do you want me to tell the locals any of this?”
“No,” Bernard said. “I think your instincts were good there. We don’t know what’s going on yet. Don’t tell anyone anything that might start a panic.”
“All right,” Virgil repeated.
“And, Virgil?”
“Yeah?”
“It might be that Nikolai finally decided to kill John for the good of the Clan without my approval. Or it might be that those two finally got in a pissing contest that went too far. Or it might be that the knights are manipulating this somehow. Or maybe John has an agenda I don’t know about. Or maybe some evil spirit really did make Nikolai go crazy. Until we know for sure, you keep John drugged, all right?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean it, Virgil. I know you’ve been working with John a lot. I like him too. But he’s too dangerous to take chances with. Even to talk to. That’s an order.”
“I understand.”
“And, Virgil?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you say Gabriel wasn’t chained like the others?”
“…”
“Virgil?”
“No,” Virgil said. “He was impaled on a broken tree.”
“Why wasn’t he in chains like the others? Is it possible he and this exorcist helped John take down Nikolai’s claw, and Nikolai got free of it?”
Virgil frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’d better keep Gabriel drugged and in chains too. Until we figure this out.”
Virgil sighed. “All right.”
“I know this is bad business, Virgil. I’m grateful you’re there.”
“…”
“And, Virgil?”
“Yeah?”
“Keep your cell phone on. I’m worried.”
The phone went dead.
Gabriel cursed, and Virgil stared at the phone as if someone had just shit in his hand.
“That sounded reasonable.” Matthew was thoughtful.
“Bernard always sounds reasonable,” Ben said dryly.
“Yeah.” Apparently, that was Virgil’s new favorite word. “It all made sense.”
“What I want to know, though, is if Bernard has locals looking for John, how come this is the first I’ve heard of it?” Matthew looked at Stacy inquiringly.
“I haven’t heard anything, either,” Stacy informed him.
“It’s because you publically stated that you wouldn’t work with Mila Apraxin this morning,” I told Matthew. “Bernard wants you out of the picture. I think he was counting on me killing you when he sent me here.”
Matthew sighed. “Maybe. I know that Shane and his claw didn’t come here to take anybody’s place. They’re one of Nikolai’s kill crews. He calls them waste disposal units.”
“How do you know this?” Stacy asked him.
“Nikolai’s got… I mean… had people who specialize in making problems disappear. I’m pretty sure he got rid of Ray Morgan.”
“The guy that you replaced?” I asked Matthew.
“Yes,” Stacy said tightly. “Ray was a good man. I always wondered if Matthew killed him.”
That would explain a lot of their dysfunction.
“It’s a virus,” Gabriel said suddenly.
We all shut up.
“What’s a virus, Gabriel?” Ben asked gently.
“That science geek working with Phoenix? He used to work for the government making manmade bio-plagues or something. Bernard says that the thing that changes us to werewolves is a virus, and the potion is the virus in a bottle… that it seeps into our skin and gets in our bloodstream. Bernard wants to make it an airborne disease. Like that flu that killed millions of people.”
“Swine flu?” I asked. The swine flu killed somewhere around a hundred million people at the turn of the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands on American soil. It was before my time, but people were still talking about it when I was born. And it’s threatened to break out a few more times since.
“Yeah,” Gabriel said.
“Bernard wants to make a werewolf flu?” Virgil demanded.
“Yes,” Gabriel snarled. “There’s more to it. Chants and stuff that have to be said. But if people were already infected, Bernard could drive cars through cities playing the chants on loudspeakers, or broadcast them on radios and televisions, or send them out on prerecorded cell phone messages, or put them on Internet sites. It would trigger hundreds of thousands of people on the first full moon, and then we’d have werewolf outbreaks all over the place.”
Holy shit. Bernard never wanted peace with the knights. He just wanted to get them off his back long enough to lay the groundwork for a werewolf plague. He used me to distract them. Again.
I looked at Mathew. “Is that enough proof for you?”
Matthew’s jaw tightened. “It’ll do.”