Ryan popped open the back of the SUV and wedged me in between two large pelican cases so I could sit. He didn’t stop looking around for trouble even as he dug through a first aid kit. “They went after it to kill it. Make sure it stays dead.”
I stared at him. A werewolf. They really wanted me to believe it was a werewolf? “Maybe it was a bear,” I whispered.
His full lips turned up, and he booped my nose. “You’re funnier than you think you are, Ada.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to be joking about something like that. That kind of hubris inevitably led to negative consequences, and with the charge in the air before it attacked… it sure felt unnatural. Looked that way, too. But I kept shaking my head, then it travelled down my arms to my hands and then to my legs until all of me trembled violently.
Ryan checked a radio on his belt, then cracked open a small packet from the first aid kit. I stared at him as my brain sluggishly tried to catch up. He waved it under my nose and the smell of it smacked me in the face and shorted out my brain. Reality jerked through me and I stared at him with wide eyes.
Smelling salts. ((NH4)2CO3H2O). Ammonium carbonate. Reacted with water to release ammonia gas, reactivating the sympathetic nervous system by inducing an inhalation reflex and raising blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen levels. Stupid, simple chemistry, yet it provoked such a substantial beneficial reaction. In small doses, at least.
“There we go,” he said.
Ryan waved the smelling salts in front of me again and I winced, leaning back, as the ammonia gas burned my nostrils. “Did you… Did you say you think that was a werewolf?”
“I don’t think, I know. It was a werewolf.”
“It could have been a wolf,” I said dubiously, searching for any other explanation. Occam’s Razor. Not a werewolf. Rabid bear or rabid wolf. Some kind of unholy bear-wolf-sasquatch hybrid one of the mad scientists the next town over bred. But not a werewolf.
His head tilted and he smiled. Ryan got a bottle of water and cracked it open for me, glancing around as Giselle strode up with a scowl and no more crossbow bolts. He called over to her but she waved him off to go around the SUV. “Really, Ada? You of all people refusing to believe in werewolves?”
Fair point. I gulped for air and held my hands up when the smelling salts approached once more. “It’s just… Where’s the evolutionary path where it would have broken off? Do you really think they’re human and then turn into wolves on the full moon? It’s a waxing gibbous, man. We’ve got a couple of days until the full moon, and it’s broad daylight.”
“There’s a lot we don’t know about werewolves,” he said. Ryan glanced up as Archer approached. “Ada doesn’t believe it was a werewolf.”
“That’s rich,” Giselle muttered as she strode back toward the trees, carrying a black bag and a red bag with biohazard markings on the side.
I stared at her, too disoriented to even be offended, then dragged my attention to Archer. “What the fuck is going on?”
Archer clapped Ryan’s shoulder and muttered something, then handed him what looked like night vision goggles. Ryan followed Giselle and Lars back into the trees, while Isidro leaned against the other SUV and irrigated a nasty slice in his thigh.
Archer took a deep breath and moved a case out of the way so he could sit next to me. “Here’s the thing.”
“Oh no,” I said, shaking my head. I popped up and tried to stand, though I swayed forward to face-plant and only him grabbing the back of my belt saved me from a broken nose. Nothing worked right, and yet I sweated my ass off like I’d run after the werewolf, too. Archer wasn’t even out of breath. “No, you can’t start like that. If you believe in werewolves, what the hell are you doing here? You apparently already know what they look like and how they behave, and you were prepared to shoot one. Who are you? What the hell are you even doing out here?”
“I can explain that in a second. First, are you hurt anywhere? Any scratches or bites or anything?” He managed to look concerned as he studied me, running his hands down my arms and shoulders and back. I stopped him before they got any lower than my waist.
“No,” I said. I held on to the SUV but backed away from him. I needed distance. “You can’t believe there are such things as werewolves. It was a joke. We were joking. People do not turn into wolves on the full moon and go crazy like that.”
“That’s not exactly how it works,” he said. His tone stayed gentle, though his eyes were eagle-sharp. There’s an alpha that controls the pack, and the alpha can force the others to change. It doesn’t have to be the full moon. They’re all dangerous, but that one…” He shook his head and glanced at the scars on his right hand. “That one didn’t have even a shred of humanity left. Sometimes they still understand language and will cooperate to be put out of their misery, but it was too far gone even for that.”
“I can’t…” I held my head and tried to sort through the maelstrom. Dragomir was right; my head was too busy. Way too fucking busy. My head snapped around so I could stare into the forest, and somehow I knew his lair waited in that direction. Dragomir mentioned werewolves in those early days, though offhand like it wasn’t particularly interesting. Or did I make that up? Fog obscured details of those days, even though I still remembered the big picture.
“Ada.” Something touched my arm, slid against the sunburn and made me suck in a breath. I dragged my attention back to find Archer and Isidro both watching me with concern.
I rubbed my forehead. I couldn’t process this information with people around.
Archer cleared his throat, still holding my upper arm in a gentle grip. “Sit down again, Ada. Just take a breath. This can’t be that much of a surprise.”
“I don’t believe in magic,” I said. “It’s ridiculous. Unless you can show me evidence that that… thing wasn’t just a rabid, very large wolf, I’m out. I’m done.”
Isidro’s eyebrows arched. His normally ochre skin had a distinct ashen undertone. Pain or blood loss, most likely. I couldn’t look at the cut that shredded his jeans and his thigh. Red muscle, pulsing with blood, skin peeling back, yellow fat and then a hint of bone…
Bile rose in my throat and I gagged, then leaned to barf up what remained of my breakfast. Which was why I did not pursue biology as a field of study.
Archer handed me a bottle of water and waited as I dry-heaved and spat and rinsed my mouth. Precisely how I wanted a handsome man to see me, my eyes and nose running and spitting like a cowboy in a saloon. His warm hand rested between my shoulder blades. “Breathe in through your nose.”
I swallowed something caustic and used the bending over and coughing reprieve to order my thoughts. Evidence. Maybe they had evidence. I had evidence, sort of. Not that I would ever show him Hopper based on the immediate shoot-first-ask-later reaction of him and the whole team. But I’d seen the sasquatch, which definitely wasn’t the awful thing that just attacked. I could assimilate their evidence and figure out where… whatever it was fit into the broader picture. Everything had an explanation, and not once was that explanation ‘magic.’
“We’ve gotta go back to town so the doc can sew up Isidro’s leg. Come with us, and Lars will bring your truck and ATV back later tonight.”
“I’ll drive myself, thanks. I don’t care what you do with the ATV. At this point I’m never leaving the house again. And I really need a drink. Really, really need a drink.” I squeezed my eyes shut and swigged and gargled the rest of the water. Gross. “I’ll meet you at Callahan’s if you have anything to show me.”
He followed me to the truck and opened the driver’s side door. “You can’t tell anyone, Ada.”
I laughed and threw my hands in the air. “Who the fuck would I tell, Archer? It’s not like anyone would believe me. I could shout it from the street corner and no one would pay attention. That’s my life. No one takes me seriously, and I thought maybe you did and for the first time there might be a person who…” I covered my face. “But it’s obvious you’re fucking with me, too, maybe trying to get the clever scientist to believe in werewolves on camera. Sure. Give it your best shot.”
“This isn’t a prank,” he said. His lips thinned. “I’ll see you at the bar. Drive carefully.”
“Sure,” I said. I started the truck. “Can werewolves fly? Should I be worried about a fucking Pegasus, too? Witches? How about dragons? Run across any dragon hoards lately? I could really use the gold, so point me toward one of those.”
He gave me an exasperated look like I’d forgotten to hang my towel up for the thousandth time. My stomach shivered in warning. “For God’s sake, Ada. Just keep it together. Don’t do anything crazy.”
“I don’t even know what counts as crazy, Archer.” I put the truck in gear. “Make sure Isidro doesn’t turn into a werewolf, too. Or do you guys have a vaccine? A lupine epi-pen?”
Archer exhaled and waved me off, at the end of his patience for me. I swallowed back tears as I hit the gas. What the actual fuck was going on?
The sun started its descent toward the mountains, turning the sky all the loveliest shades of orange and red and purple. It kicked my blood pressure up, though, since all those beautiful colors just meant that night would arrive and so would new threats. Whatever the ‘werewolf’ actually was, I didn’t want to meet it in darkness.
I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles ached with every bounce and jostle along the rutted road. Every second I expected a werewolf or Dragomir to leap onto the road in front of me.