Pack of Strays (The Fangborn Series Book 2) (31 page)

It was also completely intact. The call of it was strong.

I picked it up. I hesitated, glancing at Porter.

He was holding up a phone, presumably to record the process, and saw me staring at him. He shrugged. “I don’t know what will happen. I presume that it will join the other artifacts, implanting itself in you?”

I shrugged back. Quarrel’s growing impatience hummed, intruding into my consciousness. I didn’t know how accurate his sense of time would be, as he had grown up before clocks.

I didn’t want to put it over my face and head.

“I had always assumed there would be some residual interference from the chemical changes we effected in your mother’s body. Have you noticed any difficulty in assimilating the jewels?”

His question was a small gift; that’s probably why I was having so much trouble learning what the artifacts had to teach me. I wondered whether, if I got enough healing ability, I could eventually fix what chemicals the Order had made in my mother, which I’d inherited.

“We’re
so
not having this conversation,” I said. “You’ve already spent too much time experimenting on my family. But I n
eed thi
s.”

I took up the mask. There were no eyeholes. My vision would be obscured, and I hoped I would be able to react if Porter tried anything. Then, given the response of the artifacts to Buell in the museum basement, I was pretty sure that even if he tried something, I’d be able to fend him off.

The growing shadow scared me, but the mask welcomed my nearness. Darkness covered me, and there wasn’t even a chance to settle it fully on my head before scenes from its manufacture flew with blistering speed into my mind. I had visions of a man with a wood-carving tool, chanting softly as he worked. I saw … it was gone too fast, but I thought I saw a spark leave his fingers and bore its way into the wood.

Done. The mask was gone.

It was easier this time, when the artifact bonded with me. I stretched a little and that seemed to help the new plates find their way over the older ones, until I felt sharp jolts at the fronts of my legs and left ankle. I knew without looking that I now had another anklet to match the one already on my right. I knew that the metallic net of tiny stars ran up my legs.

Much less pain, this time. So much easier.

Gasping, I found myself back in Porter’s office.

Porter sat back. “Thank you. That was an unparalleled honor. Do you realize there was a sort of … golden nimbus around you, ever so briefly? If I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have noticed. I feel you are coming very close to fulfilling the Orleans prophesy.”

“Fuck you.” I gave a push of compulsion pheromone, didn’t know if it would work on him, but I certainly felt a rush. “Tell me what you know about the Orleans prophesy.”

“It’s certainly suggestive, your new skin. Maybe you’re the one who will be unleashed, unchained. I’d prefer you to some others. Ever since I first read that prophesy, I was hoping it wouldn’t be Knight, for obvious reasons.”

“But what else do you know about it?” He seemed talkative; maybe I was getting him loosened up.

He looked thoughtful. “Maybe it’s not unchaining
all
‘the
Fangborn
’? Did you ever consider that? Maybe
you
are
the
Fangborn
.”

That was what Quarrel had said, I thought.

“In any case, the matter is moot. I’ve perfected the formulas I’ve been working on. Most importantly, the synthetic vampire memory venom, a compound that compels the Fangborn to follow its scent and, best of all, most recently, the chemical that helps one resist vampire persuasion.”

Hmmm, perhaps I wasn’t compelling him to talk.

He continued. “The announcement of those breakthroughs is scheduled for two months. We go into commercial production and distribution six months after that. Lots of governmental paperwork to get through, but I think today’s events will help expedite things with the FDA. I’d like to go black market, to get the juices flowing, but apparently, PR is all-important in the long haul.”

“You can’t be serious! Can you imagine the backlash, the
chaos
? Even if they don’t discover us, it’ll be anarchy!” I thought of the news vans I’d seen gathering at the edge of the waterfront—was it possible he’d called them? That it was already too late?

Wait—why was he telling me so much when he’d admitted to having something to resist the vampire compulsion to tell t
he trut
h?

Too much talk, too much truth. Something was up.

I did some quick math: if Porter Senior had been in his fifties in the forties, and it was about seventy-five years later … “You’re a little young looking to be his son, aren’t you? The man who was talking with Knight at the asylum. His son would be at least eighty or ninety now.”

He tilted his head, that same small smile as his father’s
plaguing
his face. “Very few researchers ever resist trying out their experiments on themselves. I’ve been successful with some; others not quite as much. But I have succeeded in slowing my aging process. There have been a few other little successes, too.”

I vaulted across the desk before I knew I’d thought of it.

Now it was certain I needed him alive; I could still slap what I needed out of him. There must be notes on all his experiments. It would be terrible to think of humans taking on this power by themselves.

Whatever he had, it still didn’t protect him from my speed and strength.

My knees skidded across the desk, and I grabbed his lapels. The fabric of his coat ripped under my hands. It was gorgeous wool, like everything Porter had surrounded himself with, first rate. It never should have torn so readily; I knew better than that.

He had pulled away from me. It wasn’t his luck, and it wasn’t my lack of skills. It was me underestimating his strength. He was across the room slower than Fangborn, but faster than human.

I lunged again; he feinted left, went right. I tripped him. He kicked at me with the vigor of a much younger man—hell, he
was
a much younger man than he should be.
Whatever
he’d taken was also prolonging his life in addition to making him vampire resistant and very fast. He’d learned well from his fa
ther’s deat
h.

Porter laughed, delighted with himself: I must be the ultimate test for him. “It’s not the same, not by any means, but with our numbers, we’ll finally stand a chance against you.”

I hauled him up and punched him, breaking the skin of my knuckles on his teeth. He took it, and laughed again, the blood running down his nose. He flailed over and reached downward. Too late, I realized he had a gun under the desk. I scrabbled for it, kneeing him in the head.

I only grazed him; he staggered and pulled out an oversized gun. “The shotgun shells are filled with irradiated hellebore. The effect it has on Fangborn is quite catastrophic.”

He raised it. He couldn’t miss. I held my hands up.

“Don’t,” I said in a rush. “We both need to get out of here. The building is about to be besieged by a dragon.”

Did the weapon dip, just a little? Maybe his intellectual curiosity would save me.

His face transformed with delight. “Ah—you’ve actually seen one? And brought one to me? That is a kingly present!”

“Not if he bites you in half and tears this place down, it won’t be.”

“Zoe, I hate to shoot you, I do, but you see, I’ve already
myself
outstripped you. I only needed to see how someone with your blood chemistry—
our
blood chemistry, to a certain extent—could
assimilate
the artifacts. I’m very close to doing it myself. You see, evolution can be gotten through science, not only through
centuries
of reproduction. I just don’t need you anymore.”

He was going to take the “tools” for himself? Oh, sweet ba
by Jes
us.

“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t matter now. You’re outnumbered. My friends are mopping up the Fellborn and Mark Twos even as we speak. So you can shoot me, or you can come with me, answer our questions, try to clean up this horror show you’ve created.”

“And why would I want to do that? I like living. I have meaningful work and a duty to my race. Goodbye, Zoe. Thank you.”

I saw his finger tighten, heard the blast. My abdomen clenched, and I grabbed at it foolishly.

Porter slumped over. Blood spilled from his chest. He dropped the gun.

I could hear his heart slow and stop. I sensed him dying.

I whipped my head around. Toshi stood there, blood soaking into his clothing, his scars healing from the fight on the waterfront. He held a hand cannon so big, it looked like it had come from a comic book. He must have taken it from one of the humans outside.

“What are you doing?”
I shouted. “Toshi—we need what h
e know
s!”

His face was impassive. “He took everything from me. I returned the favor.”

“I don’t matter. But this—” I got up, shoved Porter’s bleeding body away from me. “Toshi, you might have just ended the world.”

“He had to be stopped, Zoe!” Toshi face was resolute, but I saw a trace of doubt in his eyes. “I kept
you
from being
dead
. I couldn’t let him—”

“There are bigger things—”

A rumble under our feet interrupted me. The whole building was shifting. My heart sank; Quarrel was losing patience.

Toshi shook his head. “I-Day is here, Zoe. We can only try to make the best of it now. The world is a better place without him.”

“Not without his information; we need that to fight back! Stay here, don’t touch anything.” I needed time and I needed information. I needed to get to the lab. “I’m gonna—”

The smoke, the roar of explosions, the roar of a dragon awakened and harboring anger and resentment for centuries, the smell of blood …

I was there.

“Hey, Zo.”

I shoved Sean aside and ran to the center island of the lab. I slapped my bloody hand against the black bench top, willing all the cabinets open at once. The lab had gotten so big, I’d never find what I needed in time by opening them individually. The cabinets stayed closed, but before I had a chance to swear, the scarred and chipped surface of the bench went from opaque to … infinite. I could “see” every artifact that I’d found, like a 3-D computer screen.

That had never happened before: My need had created a
shortcut
.

“Bring me these,” I said, pointing to the beads, gear work, and lidded bowl I’d tried to mend before.

Now I knew what I was doing, what I had to do. The mask and its creator had taught me more about being an artificer.

The pieces appeared; I reached into the table to take them. My hand paled and went translucent, another piece of this construct. Since none of this was real, it might as well be convenient.

The bench top had proffered a diagram. Parts were missing, a gray staticky haze that interrupted the icy blue precision of the rest of the schematic. Rather than seeing what the artifacts should look like intact, I saw veins like circuits that suggested connections that needed to be made. Different colors appeared, and I understood the paler ones were weaker than others, and the darker were stronger. The different colors were different elements that somehow
interconnected
.

I didn’t need similar materials, or artifacts related by culture or use. I needed only artifacts with similar capabilities. I didn’t need to make a whole artifact, a recognizable form. Like the lab, I could organize my world—the artifacts—to suit myself.

It wasn’t complete, but neither was my knowledge or my tool set—or my supplies, for that matter. But it gave me a hint.

Desperation did the rest.

“Give me some options,” I tried. “Show me what might work.”

The bench top flashed briefly, and I had an impression of variations being tried out. Then it made a suggestion for a partial substitute: A fragment of tapestry and the chunk of quartz core appeared. They weren’t a perfect fit, but made connections I knew were
essential
.

I put them together, willing them to meld. I no longer had a pile of random objects; I had a piece of modern sculpture.

The carved brown bowl separated from its lid. The lid remained suspended over it, connected by thin metallic threads made from the copper beads and tapestry. The gears pulled apart and rearranged themselves into a gossamer mobile, each larger piece balancing several smaller ones, with the straightened springs connecting them. It moved with gentle delicacy in a breeze that didn’t exist.

I raised my hand: the headdress arrived, and the silver and carnelians formed a filigree cage around the clockwork. The turquoises slinked out of their settings, merged, and formed a robin’s egg lining in the top and bottom of the bowl. Before the lattice could close finally, I tossed the chunk of quartz into it. A dark purple, almost black, light began to strobe. The new piece rotated like a carousel.

I admired it for a moment. A beautiful Frankenstein, an elegant patchwork. Rube Goldberg married to Fabergé.

Good enough for government work.

I reached in to take the first object, with both hands. The bracelet flared like the mosaic had at Istanbul, and I felt a wrenching tug. I couldn’t see my flesh anymore inside the bench. Lights cascaded around me like a waterfall. I held on tight and then jerked back.

The bowl started to vanish.