INTEGRATION (Bonfire Academy Book Two) (Bonfire Chronicles) (10 page)

I nodded.

“So, there you go. Your morning was not totally wasted. I can tell that you are a bit frustrated. It’s what you don’t know that forces you to come up with plans on how to proceed. What we don’t know from his files is whether he really needs this containment chamber or not.”

“So, we really need to test him in a regular chamber first?”

“Yes.”

“Why are we here, then? Shouldn’t we just get one of the other laboratories ready for Mason? He’ll be here soon.”

“Ah. Politics mostly. His father did have this chamber constructed just for him, at an exorbitant price, I might add.”

“I guess. But doing his initial tests here won’t help us figure anything out.”

“Hmm. Remember, we can’t have him suspect that we doubt his story. Today, let’s just wing it. Let’s put him in the chamber and run some basic tests, just to record his vitals, etcetera. Then, for the next session, we’ll plan to take him up to the other labs, and—”

The buzzer to the main doors silenced us. Mason had arrived. I waited to find out which Mason we were getting as the doors slid open.

In flew an eagle, who then proceeded to circle around the dome, flapping his enormous wings around, causing a draft. I hadn’t expected the eagle, nor had Henri by the look on his face. We watched Mason loop around the dome numerous times until he finally swooped down and perched himself on top of the containment chamber.

“Care to transform?” Henri asked him.

The eagle let out a high-pitched screech.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Henri mumbled. “Oh, well. I guess we’re testing the eagle.” He stood up, went over to the keypad in the floor of the test chamber, and tapped the combination so that the floor slid open to reveal the staircase. He turned and asked Mason, “Ready?”

Mason screeched, but not as loud.

Henri glared. “It’s time for your session. Please enter the chamber. I suggest that you don’t try to fly in; your wings may get damaged. Walk or hop, or whatever it is you do. Chop, chop.”

I couldn’t help but smile at Henri’s tenacity. Considering those enormous wings, I fully expected Mason to come to his senses and transform so he could walk into the chamber in one of his human forms. To my surprise, the insane bird slid down the glass dome, hopped over to the stairs, and bounced down the steps. Henri rolled his eyes and then followed the bird. I wondered if I should go with them, but decided to watch from outside. I didn’t really want to deal with Mason in bird form if I didn’t absolutely have to. I could only imagine the stench within that small basement under the chamber.

I sat and waited for what seemed like forever, getting slightly worried about Henri after a while, wondering if the bird had pecked out his eyes. I was just about to make my way down to check on them when I spied the armchair slowly rising out of the base of the chamber. I stood up to get a better look. Mason—still in his eagle form—was perched on the arm of the chair. He was covered with the shiny discs that were part of the data-gathering system specially designed for the unit. Biological measurements were collected by the discs and transmitted wirelessly to the computer units on the table behind me.

As Mason squawked impatiently, Henri emerged from the stairs and sat down behind the main monitor. He looked slightly flushed.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing. I was hoping to have him do this in his human form; he is slightly less annoying then. He pecked me a few times.” He pulled up his sleeve to show me the red marks.

I rolled my eyes. “Ouch. Are you okay?”

He nodded.

“Will it matter for the test? I mean, him being in eagle form.”

“Oh, no. We’re just going to record his vitals. They will be slightly different when he’s in this state. But it’ll be good to have baselines for both. Come and sit down, so I can explain and show you what’s going on. I wish he would stop screeching; it gets his heart racing. I’ll turn off the speakers so we don’t have to listen to it.”

I looked over at Mason. Even though I couldn’t hear him once Henri switched off the speakers, I could see him opening his beak and throwing back his head.

Henri handed me a headpiece with an attached microphone.

He adjusted his and then spoke into his mic. “Mason, we’ll get done a lot quicker if you calm down.”

I covered my mic with my hand and whispered, “Can he hear everything we say now?”

Henri shook his head. “Only when you hold this down.” He pointed to a little pin-like lever on the mic. “I’m going to turn the speakers on again, so we can hear him, even though we won’t be able to understand his squawks.”

“What are all those numbers on the monitor?”

“Those are his pulse, his temperature, and other vitals. Each column records a different vital, but we’ll switch to the graphic depictions. It’s easier to decipher real-time changes on that one.”

I nodded, not really understanding, but I assumed I’d pick it up as we went along. “How did you know where to place the probes?” I figured I’d probably have to take over that task at some point.

“I didn’t. And even if I did, it was impossible to hold Mason down with his wings flapping all over the place and him taking shots at pecking my eyes out. The discs can actually be attached anywhere, as long as you get all the main twelve ones on the torso, the four red-colored ones with one on each limb, and the green one on the forehead. It’s usually easier in the human form, especially the limb probes. Birds are particularly challenging.” He looked over at Mason, who’d calmed down and had his head buried under his left wing.

“Is he asleep?”

Henri looked at the monitor. “His rhythm doesn’t indicate so, but he could be. It would be good if he were; it would give us ideal baseline levels. Let’s ignore him for a while and just observe. Take note of any thing of interest on the pad in front of you.”

We sat in silence for about half an hour. Mason didn’t move at all, and the readings on the monitor remained constant. I was fairly sure he was snoozing. I couldn’t help but yawn.

Totally bored, I asked, “Shall we wake him?”

“Yes, in a minute. Did you make a list of possible stimuli from the information in his file and from what you know about him personally? Can I see it?”

“Um, no. Was I supposed to?”

“I clearly remember asking you to.”

“I’m sorry. No, I didn’t.”

“In that case, let Mason keep sleeping for a while longer, and you can get on with the list.”

“Things and situations that may make him transform?”

“Not so much transform, but elicit a physical reaction, like an increase in heart rate.”

I picked up the freshly sharpened pencil from the pad and jotted down Faustine’s name, then mine on top of the list. Since he’d fallen asleep in my presence, he probably wasn’t the least bit fazed by me. I put a question mark next to my name. Next, I added Jagger and Quinn to the list. After those, I was a bit stumped. I didn’t know Mason well enough to guess what else might rile him.

What did I know about him that might help? He was Ryker’s brother. I wondered if Ryker could share anything that might help. Probably not. Ryker had been protective when I tried to kill Mason last year, so he was unlikely to share any of Mason’s information with me. But perhaps he’d share stuff with Jagger. After all,
they
were half brothers.

My thoughts digressed to Jagger, with an increase in my own heartbeat. As close as I felt to him, I knew so little about him. Jagger hadn’t shared anything about his and Ryker’s father with me. I wondered if his father was responsible for the faery part of Jagger. That would make Ryker a Wanderer-faery. Or maybe Jagger’s mom was the faery. That would leave his dad’s type completely open. I really ought to try asking him again. Whenever I had casually asked him anything about his family, he’d steered me into discussing other things. Although it was possible both of Jagger’s parents were faeries, I had felt something else. But he’d never manifested any powers in front of me that were un-faery-like.

I focused back on Mason. Mason was just Ryker’s adopted brother. I had no idea why he’d been adopted. We knew that Mason’s biological dad was Monsieur Drasco, the shifter sovereign of Paris. His biological mother wasn’t listed in his file. Could she have been the old woman in his room? She’d sounded too old, but pretty much all paranormals could mate and deliver offspring for as long as they wanted. I scribbled “Old lady” on the list. Perhaps presenting Mason with a sound bite that sounded a bit like the old woman in the room would get him going.

It occurred to me that Ryker’s mother could also be Mason’s biological mother. Just because he had been told that he was adopted didn’t mean that it was true. Maybe he’d been a secret pregnancy. That sort of thing happened all the time, and it would make Mason part Wanderer, which would explain his disappearances from the chamber at Boone—if that story were true.

With what I had learned through Faustine’s sessions, it would be easy enough to test if Mason wandered. It would be a bit harder, however, to figure out if he did it on his own or if someone helped him, as Ryker did with Faustine. Still, if Ryker’s mom was his real mom as well, why the lie? That didn’t make any sense. What made even less sense was that Mason lived with a Wanderer family when he was the son of such a prominent shifter. Who was Mason’s real mother? And why had she given Mason up to Ryker’s mom? Were they related?

“Cordelia, are you still with us?” Henri nudged me with his elbow. “I’ve finished going through Mason’s file, but didn’t come up with much. He doesn’t seem to have any recorded phobias we could exploit. What about you? Did you come up with anything? Let me see.” He dragged my pad over for a look. “Is that it?” He looked disappointed.

I shrugged.

“You’ll have to think a bit harder. Start with the obvious. Who do you see in the chamber?”

“Mason.”

“What is he at the moment?”

“A sleeping bird.”

“An eagle. Who are the eagle’s natural predators? Start with the basics.”

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

“Google is your best friend.” He pointed at my iPad. “But not now, Mason is stirring.”

I looked over and watched Mason preen himself. He seemed very comfortable in his eagle feathers, stretching his almost six-foot-wide wings, first one and then the other. He was a phenomenal-looking bird.

“Can he see us?”

“No, I activated the one-way window when he was first raised into the chamber. His vitals indicate that he is still very calm, so I’m going to introduce him into a scene. I’ll have to do one that doesn’t prompt him to fly, since there isn’t enough space in there. That’s something we should have considered during the design phase.”

Henri tapped some keys. The monitor flickered, bringing up an image of a kitchen. “That’s from his house.”

I watched Mason intently, wondering what an eagle would do in a kitchen. Nothing. Mason transformed into his female human form. She flicked the long brown strands of hair off her face and rubbed her eyes. She extended her legs, waggled her feet, and then straightened her school tie.

“The clothes?” I asked without moving, my eyes transfixed on Mason.

“Professor Bern cast the same kind of spell that she did for Faustine, so the clothes stay put during the transformations.”

“But where do they go? Faustine’s are just elastic; they just sort of adapt to her body.”

“Mason’s turn into feathers.”

“Oh, okay.”

Mason got out off the armchair and walked to the wall of the chamber. Glancing at the monitor, I worked out that she was beside the pantry.

She made a pulling motion and then reached for something. Holding the invisible item with one hand, she scrambled with her other hand, apparently opening some kind of container or package. Then she threw her head back while opening her mouth. She raised the hand holding the imaginary object and seemed to pour something into her mouth. She sat back down, chomping happily, a smile playing across her face. After a moment, she leaned forward, reached out, and pulled something toward herself. Then she looked down, appearing to read. She sat like that for a few minutes.

“I’m going to bring this session to a close now. We’ve got the base vitals recorded, both in the human and eagle forms, which is good. I have another student to test in an hour.”

“Here? Do you need me around for it?”

“No, it’s over at the other lab, and I won’t need you. I believe you have to attend an advanced class this afternoon. I’ll see you at Faustine’s session tomorrow. You may go now.”

“You don’t need me to stay until Mason leaves?”

“No. She seems fairly calm now. Seeing you would just get her agitated and likely to transform again. I’d rather end the session on a calm note.” He smiled.

That sounded good to me.

“Besides, Jagger will be here in a minute to pick her up.”

I immediately felt a twinge of jealousy and wished that Mason had decided to turn into his annoying male form. I looked over at Mason and scrunched up my nose. She was stunning; there was no doubt about that. Those sparkling light-blue eyes were an unexpected thrill when she revealed them from behind her brown tresses.

Ignoring my current orders, I decided to stick around, but not inside the dOME lab. I planned to wait outside the door and get Jagger before he came in, just to remind him who owned him.

I walked right into him on my way out.

“Cordelia, sorry. I’m a bit late, rushing in to get Mason. Henri texted me a while ago.” He stepped back and started walking around me. “Dinner later?”

“Not so fast.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

His eyes widened, and a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Urgent? If not, can it wait? I’m really late.”

“It can’t,” I whispered, thankful that the hallway was empty apart from the two of us. Then I did what I had done the very first time I met him. Just to remind him.