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Time passes weirdly when you're waiting to die, Tally thought.
She couldn't say whether it had been an hour since she awoke, or three. The only thing she could tell for sure was that the effects of whatever drug they'd given her had finally worn off. That was the only bit of good news to be had. She had been surreptitiously testing the strength of her bonds, hoping there was some sign of weakness, but so far her efforts had been fruitless.
She held off her building dread by trying to keep track of the things her senses told her. Once the fog from the drugs had passed, she was better able to hear the goings-on around her. To the best of her ability to perceive, there were three other men in the house besides Old Man Brown (even within the confines of her own thoughts, she refused to dignify the title of "Father" for someone who preached such hate). She couldn't exactly make out what was being said, but she was able to differentiate between different voices. At one point she thought she heard something that sounded like a name – Tony, maybe?
She craned her neck around, but within the field of vision she was allowed, her environment told her precious little. Several movable panels, made from metal frames with white fabric stretched across them, ranged around the bed. They created an artificial space inside some larger room, like a kind of makeshift hospital room (when the analogy occurred to her the first time, it made her blood run cold). Tally couldn't say why, but she had the impression she was in a house. It had to do, she thought, with the quality of the footsteps she heard, the sounds they made, a very distinctive creak-and-sigh that could only come from older style wood construction. This was no church or warehouse.
After their initial exchange, Brown had left her more or less by herself, though he was careful to check in on her at frequent, but not regular, intervals. Even if she'd been able to negotiate some kind of escape, the fact that his visits were unpredictable presented an additional level of difficulty. Tally didn't know if it was intentional or not.
During his first check-in, the old man tried to be cordial. "I trust you are comfortable, my dear?"
"You're going to have me cut open, what the fuck do you care about my comfort?" Tally hissed at him.
He looked down at her for several long moments before he responded. "Despite what you may think, I get no joy in what is to come. It is no fault of yours that you are rife with impurity. I have an opportunity to show the world the truth of your nature and am duty-bound to act on it. But that does not mean I should be uncivilized about it or cause you unnecessary discomfort ahead of time."
Tally shook her head. "Uncivilized..." The sheer, galling hypocrisy of it all was mind-boggling. She tried to twist her wrists in opposite directions, hoping to create any bit of slack in the metal bands that she could. "Now that you mention it, these bands are very uncomfortable. Maybe you could loosen them up a little?" She was originally from Mississippi, and she never fully lost her native accent, finding it a useful way to endear people. Now, however, she laid on the Sweet Southern Belle act as thickly as she possibly could, ending the question with a coquettish flutter of her eyelashes that caused something inside her to die a little. She had resolved herself that she would not beg, but this whatever-it-was felt awfully close to that.
The old man laughed, and damn him, but it was a genuinely pleasant laugh, the sort that should be accompanied by bouncing grandbabies on his knee. He reached down and patted her gently on the leg, midway between her knee and hip. Her body recoiled at his touch, though she had precious little room to maneuver. "I am not so foolish as people might believe of me, my child. Though... your attempt is admirable."
After that, he didn't bother to make small talk. He would just come in, occasionally check the tightness of her bindings, and leave without saying a word. Once, another man came in to check on her instead. He was much younger than the self-styled priest, short and stocky but impressively muscled. His plain black t-shirt seemed molded to his chest. They didn't look like the kind of muscles that came from working out in the gym: they were lean and toned, well-proportioned. She wondered absently if this was the Tony she'd heard mentioned. His leg was thickly bandaged, and he walked with a pained limp. Even though the dressing, Tally could smell the tang of blood, and it was fresh. The wound, whatever it was, was still seeping. Good, she thought to herself. Fucker deserves it.
The man stopped just inside the doorway, his demeanor cautious even though she was trussed and bound. He regarded her with morbid curiosity, like she was a particularly exotic animal in a zoo. There was something else in his gaze that she didn't like at all. The old man might not get any joy from dissecting her, but there was an anticipatory gleam in this one's eyes.
Finally, she spoke to break the silence. "Take a picture, why don't you? It'll last longer."
"Fuck you, bitch," he responded. His tone was thick with anger.
"I hope your leg really fucking hurts," Tally shot back.
"You deserve what's about to happen to you." His words turned her blood to ice. Before she could think of a response through the sudden jolt of panic his words caused, the man turned and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
"Shit, shit shit," Tally muttered to herself, banging the back of her head against the mattress with each word. Things were getting too serious for her to pretend anything otherwise. She loathed feeling such helplessness. Being a werewolf for as long as she had, Tally was accustomed to having the upper hand in most situations. Even when things got dicey, she had the rest of the pack by her side. As much as she liked to give Geoff a hard time, at the end of the day she trusted her Fadirulf with her life.
She was doing that currently, she supposed.
They had to know she was missing by now. Unless, of course, those government bastards pulled some kind of double-cross back at the front gate. But things sure didn't seem like they were heading in that direction from what she could make out. So she had to assume that the pack was looking for her. How would they know where to find her – let alone who had taken her? She'd seen Geoff pull off some pretty miraculous feats of intuition before, but this situation felt different. Hopeless. She sure as hell wouldn't have considered Brown and his cronies as being capable of something like this. Tally wouldn't put it past Geoff to try a literal search party, physically going from building to building in an increasing radius from the pack complex. He would demolish the whole city for one of his wolves, but that would take time. And that was a luxury she didn't have.
Elsewhere in the house, she heard the dull bang of the front door closing.
Case in point.
The doctor was in.
She forced her breaths to be steady and measured. She wouldn't beg. She would try to stall, to delay things as best she could, to give the cavalry as much time as possible to find her. Somehow.
And, failing that, she'd try to do as much damage as possible on the way out. Maybe she'd get lucky and infect one of them. That prospect had a savage appeal. The mental gyrations they'd go through as the realization set in would be a thing of beauty. It couldn't happen to a more deserving set of bastards.
The sounds of muffled but intense conversation came to her from the other side of the door. She recognized Brown's voice, and a few words he was saying: "dangerous," and "abomination," and "quick." That last filled her with deeply conflicted emotions. She sure as hell didn't want this to drag out, but if they were in a hurry-up state of mind, that was going to make it even harder for her to stall them.
Before she had time to further consider her options, the door opened and Old Man Brown strode in, followed by three men. The second man she recognized instantly as the doctor of the group, and she would have even if he hadn't been carrying a leather case that made an unsettling metallic jangle with each step. There was just something about the way he carried himself, a kind of unconscious haughtiness that some people get when they've earned an advanced degree. If he'd been twenty years older, she'd have described him as hatchet-faced. Truthfully, she had been expecting someone older, closer to Brown's age, like an old timey backwoods physician who still made house calls. There was never an excuse for intolerance such as theirs, but it was never quite as surprising to hear it coming from the older generations. This one looked barely ten years her elder. His hair was jet black and slicked close to his head, though it only served to highlight his slightly protruding ears. The man's cheeks and chin were all sharp, cheerless angles, and his lips were so thin as to be nearly nonexistent. Eyes, deeply sunken and almost as dark as his hair, studied Tally's bound form for an uncomfortably long time without saying anything.
"She's pretty," he finally said. His voice was a deep, full baritone. If being the go-to sawbones for a bunch of religious nuts didn't pan out for him, the guy could make a career of narrating audiobooks. He sounded regretful that she was pretty; Tally tried not to read too much into that.
"Thanks?" she said.
That was evidently not the reaction the doctor was expecting from her. If he wanted her to plead for mercy, he would be sorely disappointed. The doctor turned to Brown, his eyebrows lifting slightly.
"You do not strike me as the sort to respond to flattery," the old man said.
"He called me pretty." Tally would have shrugged if she was able to. "I wouldn't want to be rude. That ain't how my mama raised me." It also bought her another few seconds of delay – but Brown didn't need to know that part.
Brown chuckled. "Pleasant to the very last, eh? You will forgive me if I find this sudden turn rather unconvincing.”
Tally sneered at him. "I ain't forgiving you for shit."
"Ah, there it is." Chuckling to himself, the old man walked to the foot of the bed and checked the restraints at her ankles before moving beside her to test the binding of her wrists. He was making an obvious effort to do a thorough job, and in doing so he was leaning slightly over her form. He was taking care not to let any part of his clothing touch her (though whether this was due to revulsion on his part, or some kind of misguided sense of propriety Tally neither knew nor cared), but she thought that if she craned her neck far enough, she'd be able to take a good bite out of him. It wouldn't be enough to kill him, but it might be enough to infect him. The odds of infection when she was in human form were low, but not zero. If she was able to shift even her mouth into a lupine snout, the likelihood would probably jump to nearly ten percent, but there was no way she'd be able to do it before Old Man Brown could get out of range. The more powerful and experienced the lycan was, the quicker and easier the change became. Geoff could go from fully human to fully wolf in a matter of seconds, but she wasn't that strong (and she sure as hell wasn't that old).
Even though it would almost certainly fail, Tally was sorely tempted to act on the urge anyway. The men might kill her outright, but that beat the hell out of death by vivisection. To try and distract herself from those thoughts, she spoke. "You seem pretty knowledgeable on how to tie somebody up."
Evidently satisfied with his handiwork, Brown straightened up; her opportunity had passed. She hoped she'd have another one. "I wasn't always a man of the cloth, my dear," the old man said.
"Here I thought they had knot-tying class at seminary school. So what were you, then, before you were a 'man of the cloth'?" She tried to keep the scorn out of her voice but wasn't completely successful. If she could get him talking about himself that would buy more time, but she was also morbidly curious. What kind of life could drive a man to the one Brown was leading, and what other skills might he bring to the proceedings? If she somehow got out of this alive, that would be good information to take back to Geoff and the pack.
Brown searched her face for a few moments, then chuckled and shook his head. "Under different circumstances, perhaps I might indulge you, but alas, time is not our friend this day." His eyes shone with a knowing look, and he lightly tapped the side of his temple with one finger. The old man seemed to know she was stalling for time. Dammit. Brown stepped back, gesturing for the doctor to take his place at the head of the bed The younger man complied, setting his bag down on the bed side table to her left and flipping the latches that held it closed. She recognized the scalpel he produced from within, and something her brain tentatively identified as a retractor, but the other surgical implements were foreign to her. The only thing she knew for sure is that she didn't want any of it to be used on her.
"I don't think this is a sterile environment," she said. "I could get an infection."
The doctor paused for a moment, shooting her a distasteful look, and then resumed unpacking his bag. Three pairs of gloves and a small pile of towels joined the metal instruments on the nightstand, which was much too small to hold all of it. A small metal tool with a spatulate end was pushed off the table as he tried to make room for the towels, falling to the floor with a ringing clang that felt very loud in the small space. The man swore under his breath and crouched to pick it up. That brought him nearly level with the bed, and he inadvertently made eye contact with Tally. At such a close distance, she thought she saw something unusual swimming in his gaze: conflict. Maybe the good doctor wasn't as gung-ho about this as Brown thought.
She tried not to get her hopes up about that.
Movement near the doorway caught her attention. She'd been so focused on Brown and the doctor that she didn't even notice that the third man was carrying a small video camera and a laptop, the latter of which he'd set atop a dresser opposite the foot of the bed. He was busy connecting a cable from the back of the camera to a port on the side of the computer. There was only one reason she could think of why that would be needed: they were going to live stream this on the Internet. If all they wanted was a video to re-watch at their perverse leisure, they'd only need the camera.
"Hey!" she called out. "I'm pretty sure you need my consent to put my face online." The cameraman ignored her, but her words elicited a chuckle from the fourth man in the room. It was Tony(?), who'd closed the door behind the little group once they'd filed in and was leaning heavily against it. A bright spot of blood stood out against the white of his bandages. He'd been over-exerting himself, but Tally wasn't about to say anything to him about that.
"Don't you worry about a thing," the injured man replied. "We'll just have the doctor here ugly you up real good before we start. That way no one will recognize you." Tally regretted saying anything at all, now. Apparently his job was to be the resident psychopath of the bunch. The doctor started and looked to Brown for confirmation – or perhaps for reassurance.
"That will not be necessary," the old man said in a slightly placating tone. It seemed like he was used to playing the mediator between those two. Without giving either of them a chance to respond, he shifted his attention to the cameraman. "Tony, are we ready to proceed?"
Tally blinked a few times. Wait, so the cameraman was Tony? Her gaze flicked back to the injured man – who the hell was he, then? She considered the question for a few moments, then decided that it truly didn't matter. The odds were high that she was going to die tonight (she hadn't fully given up, but ever the pragmatist was ol' Tally Young, and she recognized how long those odds were at this point) and she didn't want to waste her last thoughts on things like that. She'd rather focus on her pack, her Skari, and the light and love she got from them. Even Geoff – for as grumpy as he could be and as much as they butted heads, she knew how deeply Geoff cared about his wolves. Whatever love Geoff refused to express openly, Lou more than made up for. Tally didn't care what kind of arrangement she and Geoff made with Elisa; in Tally's mind, Lou was her Modirylgr. She and Geoff shouldn't have worked together as friends, let alone pack leaders, and yet somehow they managed to forge a pack that Tally was willing to defend with her last full measure of devotion.
She was going to miss them.
Her rumination was interrupted by Tony – the real one this time – speaking up. "We're just about there. Just finished tunneling through, now I'm setting up the stream. What should the title be?" He looked up from his computer then Tally met his eyes, and he at least had the decency to fidget a little bit, quickly looking to Brown for his response.
"What, did you not understand what it was you signed up for?" Tally called out to him.
"I know exactly what is going to happen, bitch." Tony's lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl when he spoke, his eyes glinting defensively. She'd pushed him into a corner and now he was clinging even more tightly to his beliefs, despite the uncertainty she'd glimpsed from him.
"You sure do have a way of making friends, don't you?" Not-Tony asked, chuckling with malicious glee.
Before Tally could respond, Brown cut in. "Alright, alright. That is enough. We haven't time for this. Tony, I think the title 'Anatomy of an Abomination' will do just fine." He turned to Tally. "Initially I'd thought to gag you, but my associates were unable to bring me something made out of a suitably strong material before you awoke. Now, I am loathe to bring my hands anywhere close to your mouth. I'm sure you can understand." He fell silent for a second, giving her a look as if daring her to say she wouldn't try anything. Since she'd been strategizing just how big a chunk she could take out of him mere moments before, Tally stayed quiet. Satisfied, the old man nodded. "You might be tempted to try and drown out my sermon with vulgarities, but that would be unwise. I have other means of silencing you that would be less pleasant for the both of us."
Christ, there was going to be a sermon, too? She'd rather they just hurry up and kill her already. Instead of saying that, Tally gave a shaky nod. "I'll do my best, I suppose. Though, just what do y'all expect to find when you cut me open? Fur?"
The old man studied her for the span of a few heartbeats, as if trying to figure out if she was mocking him or not. "We shall see."
"It doesn't work that way, sweetheart," she responded.
"So sure of that are you?" Without waiting for a reply, the old man turned his back to her. "Are we quite ready, Tony?" The other man nodded and pointed the camera. The moment the red recording light popped on, the old man began to speak, intoning gravely. "Brothers and sisters, I come to you at a very opportune moment. We find ourselves with a glorious, very fortuitous chance to prove, once and for all, the wickedness and inhumanity of werewolves." He took a smooth step to one side, revealing Tally's bound form. Tony moved closer, panning the camera up and down the length of her body. She stared into the unblinking black lens and tried not to squirm. Meanwhile, the old man was still talking. "In this form, they may look like the sons of Adam, the daughters of Eve, but I submit to you that beauty is literally skin deep. They may tell you they only assume their wicked form on the full moon, but I submit to you that it is always there, hiding just below the surface." The more he spoke, the deeper his voice became, heavy with gravitas. Tally didn't know if he was improvising or if this was a prepared speech, but he had a knack for rhetorical flourishes. "They may tell you that they are humans afflicted with a disease, but I submit to you, my fellow children of God, that they are not human at all. They are abominations in the eyes of the Lord, and tonight... tonight we shall have our proof of it. Doctor?" He gestured for the other man to begin.
The doctor picked up the scalpel, started to move it toward her form, and hesitated. His face was contorted in a mix of hesitation and confusion. Tally guessed that they didn't offer courses on this in medical school. He seemed unsure exactly at which angle to approach her.
"Whatever happened to 'First, do no harm?'" Tally asked, trying to hold eye contact with the man. He blanched, turning to Brown.
The old man put a hand up, placating. "Be easy, Christopher. Do not listen to her words, regardless of how prettily she speaks them." He paused long enough to cast an arch look Tally's way. "Your oath as a doctor pertains only to human patients, and we are about to prove she is not."
"But–"
Brown cut him off sharply. "Have you forgotten what happened to your sister? Your dear, precious sister who was only eight when that werewolf attacked her? Your parents couldn't even identify her body, so brutal was the assault. Those creatures, they clearly had no concern for the harm that was done to her, did they?" He may have started off speaking directly to Christopher, but by the end of his speech the old man had half turned so he could address the camera too. The man knew how to work an audience.
And it worked. As Brown spoke, the doctor's grip tightened on the scalpel until his knuckles showed white. "No, they did not." His words were clipped, his voice suddenly more raspy, deeper. It was as if those words were coming out of a different person altogether. Unfortunately, this person still clutched a scalpel, which he brought toward her with newfound resolve. "We will start with the antebrachium." Tally didn't have to wonder what part of the body that was, as he pressed the blade against the skin of her forearm, just below the elbow, and sliced six inches toward her wrist. The pain was sharp and immediate, but far from the worst pain she'd experienced as a lycan. It was just a fact of life for a lycanthrope – whether it was from the progression from Ungr to Fullr, a pack schism as part of an Odrulf's rise to power, or just plain pissing off the wrong person, pain and violence were inevitable. Even accounting for the unique way Geoff ran his pack, the occasional scuffle was unavoidable. The healing abilities of werewolves were legendary – Tally had seen wolves survive injuries that would have been fatal to humans – but that didn't stop them from actually hurting when they occurred. Most wolves at Tally's level of strength developed a pretty high pain tolerance.
She had a sinking feeling that tolerance would be sorely tested today.
A warm gush of blood spilled down her arm, pooling in the crease of her elbow before dripping onto the bed. Because her arms were bound above her head, the spreading liquid quickly stained her pillow. Distantly, she remarked on the fact that the linens were going to be a total loss. A sudden wrenching pain pulled her back to the moment. Christopher had inserted retractors into the wound, pulling the flesh apart with a wet tearing sound. Tally sucked in a breath, flailing against the bonds. The movement only served to force the wound open still wider, deepening the pain. With gritted teeth, she forced herself to be still. Christopher spoke again, narrating his actions as if recording notes to transcribe later. "Upon initial visual inspection, no apparent abnormalities to note. Due to lycans' advanced healing, a more thorough examination may be difficult. We will proceed past the dermis to examine the musculature next."
Tally had promised herself she wouldn't scream. She lasted almost fifteen minutes before she was forced to break that promise.