16. DO I WANNA KNOW?

 

The Learjet lands at a small business airport in Paris that most people wouldn’t even know exists. As we step down onto the tarmac a rush of fresh air hits me with the scent of the city. This is more a homecoming than New York was. A hired car idles nearby.

Marrock pauses. “Here’s where we part ways.”

“What do you mean?” Amara asks and looks at me.

“You need to receive shipment of the weapons,” I tell her. “Ben will go with you. Prepare the pack for whatever’s coming and fill Ben in on the rest.”

Amara and Ben both open their mouths to protest but the captain tenses to indicate he won’t hear it. Although the human part of me would like to avoid eye contact with Amara, the wolf tells me that I have to show strength in my decision.

“You said there were to be no more surprises,” she scolds.

“Now you know how it feels.” I can’t hold back a grin, but she’s not amused. “It’s probably chaos here. I need your strength to control the packs while Marrock and I deal with Boguet. We need to be organized and ready.”

She can take command of the packs if things go south with Boguet; I have every confidence in that. There’s no further pushback from her. Before getting in to the waiting car she turns toward Marrock.

“I will hold you to task should you not return him to the pack as I have left him.”

He puts his hands up as if in surrender. “I’ll take the necessary precautions to make sure he’s completely untouched.”

“Completely?”

“—ish,” he adds.

Amara finds no humor in it but I let out a laugh in spite of everything. I don’t want a prolonged goodbye. I don’t want her last memory of me to be of a kid fumbling for the right words.

“Be ready,” I tell her.

She walks off to the car with Ben. I take a snapshot in my mind. Syrupy farewells are for the movies anyway, as much as my life feels like one just now. In a blink, I turn away. Through the small terminal building we follow the signs to the parking garage and find my inherited Bugatti. An impressed whistle from Marrock shakes me out of a jet-lagged haze.

“Good money in pharmaceuticals?”

I just smile. These possessions are irrelevant when we could find ourselves knocking at death’s door at the end of this car ride. Still, as I look at the sleek white lines, it’s a nice way to get to the door. We shove our bags into the tiny trunk and I begin the drive to La Défense business district and Boguet Biotechnology. It’s past midnight and the Eiffel Tower dominates the sky, lit in a golden glow. It’s comforting in its familiarity. I park the car illegally on the curb at the Place des Saisons business tower. Parking violations are the least of my concerns right now and I enjoy the irony of a police office sitting next to me. We walk up the front steps of the steel and glass skyscraper in full view, like any office workers going to their day jobs, but it’s so dark that only the streetlights brighten our way. The building itself has been abandoned for the night; the employees have probably been home in their beds for hours now. As we approach the top of the stairs there’s a familiar figure standing behind the glass door, waiting. Even from here I recognize the tweed jacket and wire-frame glasses of the old man. He smooths out the front of his jacket, flashing his grandfatherly smile as we approach. My heart stutters in my chest as he holds open the door.

“My dear boy,” he says.

We stop several feet away. Marrock remarks, without trying to conceal his surprise, “You’re Boguet?”

I suspect it’s an intentional dig, but the old man’s smile doesn’t waver. His cheeks have filled in since I last saw him in the underground dungeon at Quedlinburg. He hasn’t had to suffer quite the same since returning to the pocket of the Luparii. It’s easy to pick sides when deprivation is a benchmark. I take a tentative step forward, placing myself firmly equidistant between the two werewolves.

“And you must be Captain Marrock. Please.”

Boguet gestures for us to enter, and the childhood poem “The Spider and the Fly” comes to mind. We’re on his turf now, the mad scientist and his lab, much like the fly being courted into the web. I’m banking on Marrock’s experience to get us through this alive. Our footsteps echo through the dimly lit empty foyer. Boguet leads us to a waiting elevator. There are no buttons, just a biometric scanner to take us into the off-limit areas of the building. I researched the outward-facing developments of Boguet’s firm — those parts that he wants the public to see. Crop production and agriculture are his bread and butter, so to speak, but also some industrial products like biodegradable plastics and biofuels. All legit. Even his own employees would never know what goes on in these private areas of his corporation. The elevator doors open and we’re brought to a familiar glassed-in office space with several workstations, a central meeting area and a wall of closed circuit LCD TVs. It’s all very déjà vu. There are ghosts in this office where I was once brought against my will. The employees who worked in this private division were all handpicked by Boguet. I remember their faces as I walk through this room. Terminally ill kids with genius potential, no one left to draw hope from and just the right mix in their DNA to be turned into werewolves. Except their version of werewolf is missing our mostly lethal but sometimes transformative venom, like pet snakes. Boguet offered a new life in exchange for their old ones. The chance to start anew, cured of disease but robbed of everything else — friends, family, ties to any tangible item of importance to their former selves.

“Are we going to talk?” I ask, mostly to break the eerie silence in the room.

“I want to assure you,” Boguet begins, “that I have been single-minded in my endeavor. That has not changed. My desire has always been to cure the disease, not eliminate the species.”

“You understand from your own research that the pack werewolves are evolved Neanderthals, right? What they are isn’t a disease.”

“And what of those whom they turn into monsters?”

Marrock lets out an annoyed huff. “Look, we’re not here to chit-chat about ethics. What do you want?”

“Do you remember?” Boguet says, loping slowly toward me. “I told you once that you would live or die by my command.”

A chill goes down my spine. His words draw out memories I buried months ago. “Your financial backers are the ones who have been trying to kill me. Should I assume that you’re powerless or that you want me dead?”

With a shake of his head he draws in closer so he can speak to me in little more than a whisper. His cool collectedness in response to our frank questioning is unnerving. “As I’ve said before, you’re an unusual specimen. Judge my motives, good or bad, but to allow that unique element within you to slip through the annals of time without fully harnessing its power would be like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.”

“Alright, already,” Marrock interjects. “We get it. You want Connor alive. In exchange for what?”

There’s no doubt in my mind that Boguet’s single-mindedness includes using me as a guinea pig for his lab.

“The golden eggs, of course.” He confirms my suspicion, moving back to a more comfortable distance. “I have no illusion that sacrifices will have to be made in the coming days. This is an old war and I’m an old man near the end of his days. There was a time when my faith in redemption through a higher power would have prevailed. Those days are long behind me now. I must place my faith elsewhere.”

I turn away. In the days when he was a witch-hunter of renown, Boguet used religion as an excuse to persecute humans and hunt down the werewolf packs. When he was bitten, he turned away from religion and toward science and technology to find the answers he was looking for. It’s what he uses the technology for, and whom he gives it to that’s the issue.

“You still put your faith in the Luparii?” I ask.

“That was a mistake, admittedly.”

Marrock notes, “So you’re looking for a new horse to bet on.”

A glass paperweight on a familiar desk catches my attention. I walk over to the desk, where Boadicea explained my new world to me, and hold up the cube at eye level. Engraved within it is a DNA strand labeled ‘C92.1’. Myelogenous leukemia. The disease that would have killed her. I want to be angry. I want to ask if this is how Boguet treats his allies, but my own role in her death stops me.

Diagonally across the room, another elevator pings. The cube slips from my hand in surprise. Marrock catches it deftly before setting it back down on the desk. Emerging from the elevator, dressed in a white lab coat over a polo shirt and khakis, Trajan smiles smugly.

“’Sup?” he says.

I shake my head in disbelief. “Do you have any sense of loyalty?”

“That hurts, Connor.” His tone is jocular as always. “Of course I’m loyal to you. You’re still signing my paychecks.”

“And who in the hell are you?” Marrock asks.

“Trajan’s a geneticist,” I tell him. “He used to work here before he was ... recruited by my company.”

“My research is mostly in recombinant DNA,” Trajan adds.

“I don’t care,” the captain states. “Why are you here?”

“I have offered Trajan access to project files,” Boguet explains. “The Luparii made the decision to conduct field tests of Wolf’s Bane. While the results proved my original hypothesis — that it is possible to remove the beast from the man — it is most unfortunate that the reverse appears to hold true for born werewolves. An unforeseen travesty.”

“There’s only one of two ways the results of Wolf’s Bane could have gone: wolf or Neanderthal,” Trajan adds, switching to professional mode. “With the exception of Arden, the results of the ‘cure’ have consistently come back wolf-only. Either way, it’s permanent. What we know about your venom now is that it’s also permanent, updating the LYCN1 marker in bitten humans so they turn into full-fledged wolves. We still have no idea how it will impact born werewolves.”

“I’m sure this is all very interesting...” Marrock’s voice trails off, clearly lost.

“You must understand,” Boguet interjects, “I have always held that it is a shameful thing for a man to be clothed in the form of a beast. Allowing these souls to be trapped in the body of a wolf is entirely the opposite of my intent. My aim has been to free them. There is no turning back the clock on what Wolf’s Bane has done, but I will do what I can to stop those who wish to abuse it.”

“The Luparii are a multinational agency funded heavily through a lot of different channels. How do we stop them?” I ask.

“That is where I had hoped Captain Marrock would enlighten us. Your voyage overseas may prove to be useful yet.”

The captain cracks his knuckles. “Finally, we’re getting somewhere.”

Boguet proves an exceptional strategist as we make plans into the early hours. If we can neutralize the Luparii as a threat, the packs can rest easier and move on to the next rising threat of fighting the Hounds, though I doubt I can count on Boguet as an ally on that front. Those who have gone into hiding will quickly join my cause on the front once the looming threat of Wolf’s Bane is no longer a concern. The shaky alliance with Boguet makes me uneasy, but it’s the best way forward. Marrock instructs me to catch a bit of shut-eye in once we’re shown to the loft apartment of one of Boguet’s former employees. The place once belonged to Boadicea, whose laser-engraved DNA cube I’d held earlier. I lie staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep, thinking back to the night in the Père Lachaise Cemetery when Madison shot her to save my life. Back then I’d questioned her motives, not quite trusting them. I’m still holding out hope that once Amara reaches the pack hiding spot, Arden and Madison will both be waiting for her. All I need is a text to set my mind at ease. Without knowing if Madison was really taken, there’s nothing I can do but wait. I hear the shower running; the sound only adds to the fact that I’m too wound up to easily fall asleep again.

“You up?” a voice calls from down below.

I crawl out of bed, shambling zombie-like to lean over the metal railing. Trajan stands at the base of the wide steps, staring up expectantly from the shiny black marble floor.

“Boguet says they took the bait.”

The bait is me. Things are progressing quickly, especially after such a long period of biding my time to make a move. Boguet contacted the Luparii under the pretense that Daniel’s attack on American soil had the intended effect and that Marrock has offered to turn me in, with the understanding that each party will keep to its side of the Atlantic in the future. I rub my eyes slowly before descending to the lower level. As I get closer I notice Trajan is holding a little mouse in his gloved hand. It gives him the vibe of an old school Bond villain in training, working his way up to stroking a full-grown cat. I don’t really see the potential that Roul did in him, other than taking the opportunity to hijack Boguet’s research. Then again, Madison has a different story to tell about him. I’ve mostly only seen the thug side.

“I know you’re paying me for all this,” Trajan starts, “but I’ll throw in ass-kicking services for free.”

“I didn’t mean to jump to conclusions about you.” With a grim smile I note, “It was more about Boguet than it was you. I’m still not entirely sure I believe his intentions here.”

“Trust issues, much?” He strokes the rodent with his thumb. “You know it took Boguet decades to work out his ‘cure.’ Finding you and your DNA meant he could punch through a wall that was blocking his progress. Under a microscope you’ve got stuff we’ve never seen before with the potential to create proteins we hadn’t even imagined. That kind of research opportunity comes up only once in a lifetime. You’re basically the missing link between werewolves and humans. If you think about it, Boguet spent four hundred years looking for you.”

Unsure of how to respond, I turn my attention to a wall of windows that overlooks the sleeping city of Paris. The conversation is making me a little uneasy. I don’t want to be a lab rat when this is over, but maybe there’s no avoiding it. Greater good and all.

I point at the mouse. “Are you telling me this is my fate with Boguet?”

He shrugs and holds up the rodent for examination. “I call this bad boy Lazarus. He’s part of a project I was working on while I was here.”

“Let me guess, a zombie mouse?”

“Something like that, actually.”

Trajan cradles the creature in the palm of his gloved hand with the closest thing I’ve seen to affection. Lazarus is pretty cute for a rodent. He has large eyes and ears and an almost bald tail about the size of his body. I reach to pet the little guy and am rewarded with a squeal of protest and a bite on my finger. As I instinctively pull away with a gasp, the mouse falls. I react quickly and catch him before he hits the floor, only to be bitten again as I try to keep a hold of him. Trajan takes Lazarus from my cupped hands before I make things worse, gently examining the creature. Blood and fur cover my fingertips. Some of it is mine, but the mouse for whatever reason looks in much worse shape than I do. It’s missing a chunk of flesh from the back of its neck.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “The hell happened? I barely touched him.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Trajan tells me and drops the rodent into his lab coat pocket. “It’s an African spiny mouse. They have an escape mechanism that involves the autotomic release of skin. When a predator like you makes a move, it gives them a quick way out. It looks gross now, but the wound will pretty much disappear within a day. New skin and hair grows on these suckers about twice as fast as on werewolves, but with the added bonus of scar-free regeneration. We were trying to tap into that.”

I suck on the blood that’s oozing from my right index finger. “They definitely bite hard enough to deter a predator.”

Trajan’s brow furrows on his wide face. He curses and my skin crawls.

“What—”

“Nothing,” he responds too quickly. “It’s fine, you’re fine. It’s ... you’ll be fine.”

“Why don’t I feel fine all of a sudden?”

“Trust me,” he starts, eyes catching mine briefly, “no harm done.”

Marrock emerges from the bathroom before I can find out more. He’s freshly showered and in uniform. “Is it time?”

Trajan nods, probably glad for the interruption. He says to me, “You better bounce before you do any real damage in here.”

With a smile he leaves. Time to get into costume. I slip on the spider silk vest and pull an NYPD hoodie over it on loan from Marrock. It hangs loose on me. My muscle mass has probably doubled since I first moved to Paris, but it’s no match for Marrock’s frame. The captain gives me the once over before pulling my hood up over my head and producing a pair of handcuffs from his belt. Nervousness tingles along the back of my neck.

“Is that really necessary?”

“You’re supposed to be in my custody.”

“What if things go wrong and we need to hightail it out of there?”

He holds the cuffs in front of his face and, like a magician, makes a show of how secure they are. With a flourish he releases the locking mechanism without a key. Trick cuffs. I grin and silently applaud before turning to allow him to put on the restraints behind my back. We ride the elevator all the way down to the foyer. There’s still at least an hour before dawn, so a slow-moving security guard has to let us out of the building. He asks no questions about an NYPD officer escorting a shackled teen from a biotech building before dawn. It’s probably not the strangest thing he’s seen coming out of here. All the same, with the hoodie up I keep my head down in an attempt to give the appearance of a run-of-the-mill young offender. Marrock leads me outside to the parked Bugatti, where he helps me down into the low passenger seat, hand on my head the way I’ve seen on cop shows. He slides into the driver seat and bring us to our meeting place.

“Were the cuffs just an excuse so you could drive?” I joke to ease my nerves.

He winks and we pull up to a section of abandoned railway called Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture. It was chosen by Boguet, who has lived long enough to have watched the evolution of the city. This is a segment of old steam engine track that runs through Parc Montsouris, a public park in the 14th arrondissement at the southern edge of Paris. The park was once a large stone quarry and it still sits atop a network of abandoned mine tunnels. Between the catacombs and Métro lines, the ground below Paris is like a block of Swiss cheese. In these parts, the abandoned track runs inside the old city fortifications. Those ancient walls kept this line isolated and forgotten long after it became disused. Marrock parks the Bugatti on the outskirts of the park so we can make the trek through the forest before we’re walled in. We don’t speak; there’s nothing left to say. We already know our roles. Whatever the Luparii have in store for me is moot at this point. There’s still the danger that this transaction won’t go as smoothly as Marrock imagines, but he doesn’t let it show in his resolve, and I try to channel that energy. We march on in silence until a long corridor closes in ahead of us with moss-covered fort walls on both sides. I glance up at metal railings on top of the walls high above us, meant to prevent what I can only imagine would be a deadly fall from whatever’s above. We continue onward. At the far end is an arched tunnel where any number of predators could lurk in the dark.

“That’s far enough,” he tells me as we reach the midway point.

There we wait, my heart pumping a mix of fear and anxiety throughout my system. Eventually, forms start to come into view just as the early glow of morning lightens the sky. Boguet emerges from the darkness and moves toward us. Behind him, dozens of Luparii snipers slowly appear, dressed in camouflage gear that makes them nearly invisible. The stealth suits do nothing to hide the rifle that each of them carries. I force out a slow breath to calm my nerves, fingers gently caressing the quick release mechanism on the cuffs that restrain my hands.

“Which of you is leading this operation?” Marrock calls out.

Boguet motions for the marksmen to stand down as he continues his approach. “I’m afraid we have a little hiccup in our arrangement.”

My heart leaps in my chest, and it takes everything in me not to glance over at the captain and tip the soldiers off that we’re in this together.

“Come again?” Marrock asks.

One of the Luparii marksmen pushes past Boguet. “There’s been a change in command.”

“Agent Vermeulen, we agreed—” Boguet tries to intervene, but the old man is cut off abruptly. It’s clear that he’s not in control of this situation.

“We’ll take the prisoner from here.”

“Not until we’re settled away here.” Marrock steps ahead of me. “I don’t give a damn what happened to your commander. First, I need to know the terms of the agreement are still the same.”

“Yes,” Vermeulen answers simply.

“Not good enough. You got to spell it out.”

For a moment the Luparii leader stares Marrock down, like he’s wondering if he should just shoot him on the spot. I worry that the captain has stalled too long. Boguet makes his way between us, hands held out from his sides to indicate he’s not a threat to either side.

“Gentlemen, please.”

The man scoffs derisively. “You needn’t worry about the Luparii crossing onto American soil again,” Vermeulen assures him with a flip tone. “Once was clearly enough to bring you to heel.”

Marrock puts on a good show of being offended by holding back a snarl. “I got to ask. When you killed him, was your beef with Aquila or Fenrir Pharmaceuticals? If it’s business, I can understand.”

“Aquila’s death was just a happy accident. He got in the way of a bullet. Mr. Lewis here won’t be in our custody for very long.”

The response causes the captain to smile as he reaches behind me and quietly releases the trigger on my handcuffs. I ready myself to move.

“Here’s the thing,” he says. “We’ve got another ‘little hiccup.’ Mr. Lewis happens to be a citizen of the United States of America.”

Boguet’s eyes flit over to us.

Marrock calls out to the sky. “Now!”

Above us, soldiers leap over the railings and rappel down the sides of the fortification walls. Vermeulen scrambles back in stupefied surprise as the Luparii marksmen train their weapons on us. Boguet continues to stand between us, hands still held non-threateningly away from his sides.

“Pull back, Boguet!” the leader commands in French, confused. “You’re blocking the target!”

Boguet does precisely the opposite. The old man raises his hands fully above his head in surrender before he smiles again. As he slowly turns to face the Luparii, he says to us, “Libere vivere. You’ll want to take cover now.”

Marrock draws his weapon, the last piece of the plan clicking into place. I free my hands and crouch low as armed officers in tactical gear land around us with a series of thuds. Floodlights fill the corridor and a male voice commands in French over a megaphone, “Police, drop your weapons.”

Either not realizing they’re vastly outnumbered or not caring and ready to lay down their lives, the Luparii open fire. I try to dodge toward the stone walls for protection but trip over something and fall. For a moment I lie there, breathless. Marrock hustles over to me, defending me with covering fire and leading me out of the corridor and to safety. Boguet was directly in the line of fire between us. His body fell at my feet and now lies in a heap as we run away.

Marrock jostles me. “Connor, I asked if you’re all right.”

I nod, crouched down with my back to the wall as I catch my breath. Peering around the corner I see the conflict is already over. Armed with sniper rifles, the Luparii are no match in firepower for the counter-terrorism forces. Organized and heavily armed militia groups aren’t looked upon favorably over here. Now that they’re exposed they’ll be the ones hunted to extinction. The Luparii shouldn’t be much of a threat anymore. Those who aren’t fatally injured after unloading their weapons attempt to withdraw into the tunnel, where more police officers are waiting for them. Boguet’s body lies forgotten. My ears ring from the gunfire. Marrock peels me out of the NYPD sweatshirt, exposing the spider silk vest beneath it, and I yelp from a searing pain along my side that went unnoticed in the adrenalin rush. Blood covers the left part of my torso. His expression doesn’t give anything away after he examines my wound.

“They really wanted you dead,” is all he says, pulling off the vest and handing it to me.

My index finger prods at a hole in the fabric. “I thought this was supposed to be bulletproof.”

“It can stop a handgun,” he informs me, satisfied that the wound isn’t fatal. “High-powered rifles use much more force than your average handgun, though. You’re lucky.”

He tries to stand but staggers suddenly by my side and falls to his knees. A blue-finned dart sticks out of the back of his bicep. The Luparii never meant for either of us to leave the way we came. I pull out the dart, and when his eyes fall on the object fear flashes in them for the first time since we met. Coming into this I imagined the sacrifices I would have to make. I didn’t realize that those around me would be the ones to pay the biggest price. Marrock tries to peel himself out of his vest in the moments before he passes out. The nearby firefight is over, the marksmen in cuffs. Any second now the police are going to come looking for us, and Marrock’s about to turn into a wolf.