Helix: Plague of Ghouls (18 page)

Too much—too much—Get out of my face before I tear it off—

Holly looped her arm through his and pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “Try not to look like you’re caught in a firefight,” she purred.

“Something’s not right,” he said.

She put her hand on his chest. “You’re growing a beard,” she whispered. She stood on her toes and kissed him on the lips. “Breathe,” she murmured, hardly moving at all as their lips butterfly kissed. “Or you’ll set us all off.”

A woman with an oversized and brightly coloured ID tag shouted a five minute warning.

He felt Holly’s hand slide up his chest, up his neck, and into his hair.

The shouter looked at them. “Get a room,” he said, stupidly. When Ishmael tensed again, Holly brushed his lips with hers.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Let’s.” She ran the back of her hand over his cheek, and he could feel how much he needed to shave.

“I used to be better at this,” he said.

“There’s something in the lobby,” she said.

He canted his head. She nodded and touched her nose.

“We
should
go to another hotel,” Holly suggested.

Ishmael glanced along his shoulder at Bridget, who was rubbing the back of her neck. “We’ll have to come back,” he said. If something was in the air—a change pheromone, maybe—that meant somebody other than Pack was lurking about. “God, how I wish Harvey would just come up here with his dogs.” He took her hand. “Come on.” He told the receptionist that they’d try elsewhere; the receptionist offered him a phone book, but he declined. He joined Bridget, where she stood with one stubby finger jammed into her free ear to block out the noise of two dozen loud, hung-over managers as they tried to figure out which conference room matched which meeting. Ishmael tapped Bridget on the shoulder and made a peace sign, indicating that she needed to ask for two rooms instead of just the one. Whoever she was calling, they had sufficient occupancy.

“It’s out of our way,” Bridget said, as she hung up the phone. “But that might be a good thing. At the very least, I’ll bet the other place will smell better.”

THE OTHER PLACE
didn’t smell better. The Marigold Hotel smelled of bug spray, exhaust fumes, and burning vacuum cleaner. But it was quieter.

Bridget put away her cell phone. “Well, we’re now in the same hotel as Two-Trees.”

“I thought he was at the Howard Johnson?” the Padre said, chucking his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of downtown.

“So did I. He says the place was booked solid when he tried to get a room. Came here instead.”

The woman behind the counter smelled like toast, coffee, cigarettes, and overdue dental work.
I shouldn’t be able to smell that
. Ishmael wondered if there had been latent pheromones at the Howard Johnson after all, and if he was still feeling the effects. The receptionist smiled at them, taking their measures. She turned to Bridget. “You called looking for two rooms?”

Bridget took an immediate liking to the receptionist. She returned the smile, and they set about making the arrangements. The Padre offered to bring in the luggage, and Ishmael went with him. Once they finished, Bridget had pass cards in hand and was discussing breakfast options with the receptionist.

Holly was near the elevators. As soon as she saw the Padre, she blushed and jammed the newspaper in the garbage. At Ishmael’s curious look, she shook her head, furious and distressed. Bridget handed out all the cards—careful to check room numbers first—and they boarded the elevator, luggage and all. The whirring of the dusty lift was a poor substitute for music, though music would have been a poor substitute for news from Holly. Something had her on high alert. Ishmael tried to get her attention, to confirm that her worry had something to do with the Padre, but he couldn’t catch her eye. She stared at the floor numbers as if watching a vital sign monitor.

If there was something on the news, Ishmael needed to find it out from Holly fast, before the Padre turned on a TV to discover it for himself. Then he’d have to pass a message on to Bridget to get her to run interference if the Padre turned on the television.

People couldn’t have recognized him so soon, could they?

The elevator opened, and they stepped into the hall of the third floor, trying to decipher their directions from the room numbers and the plaque on the wall. Holly and Ishmael would share the third room down the right corridor, and Bridget would shack up with the Padre down the left. “Breakfast after this?” Ishmael asked.

“Meet here,” Bridget agreed. She seemed cooler and calmer now. The change in air had done wonders for her and the Padre. “Twenty minutes? I need a shower.”

“Sure,” Ishmael answered
.
“But, Bridget, I think—”

“Shower first,” she said from down the hall. “Epiphanies later.” The Padre shrugged apologetically but seemed to side with Bridget. Ishmael decided a shower was a good idea, after all. It’d been a long and stuffy car ride.

Ishmael turned to Holly, and he was surprised to see her nearly at the far end of the hall already. He rushed to catch up. As soon as he was inside the door, Holly tried to speak. She couldn’t find the words. She shook her head and turned on the TV instead to search for a 24-hour news station. She couldn’t find one.

“Stay here,” she said. She left. Ishmael sat on the edge of his bed, thumbing through a news website on his phone. Yet he read nothing that might cause Holly to look so Dr. Foster-like without cycling.

Three minutes later, the electronic lock clicked, and Holly came in. She gave him the crumpled newspaper, one that was local to Halo County. Holly pointed to the photograph on the front page, under the headline: “Have you seen this girl?”

The pointed chin, the high cheekbones, the hangdog eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses, the skin tone, the brown hair cut short on one side and jagged on the other, the piercing intelligence and weary disdain all added up to one horrible coincidence. If that face was twenty years older and male, it would have been the Padre.

The girl had been missing for four days.

FEROX RAN ALONG
the moraine, bent so low her fingers brushed the dirt. The shadow stopped, and Ferox crouched. Her skin tingled, especially along her cheekbones and between her nose and upper lip, but at least the wind was calm. That helped keep the cloud of change pheromones around Helen, and not send more of them trickling toward Ferox.

You’re so new to this
. Ferox began to scale the moraine. She heard the girl moving about, collecting leaves, growling, and talking to herself.
I just wish we could get through to you.
It was a good twenty-foot drop to the ground from the cliff where Ferox lay, listening, smelling. Below her, a mere shadow under the starlight, Helen uttered a short, sharp cry of pain, and quickly stifled it with her hands. It wasn’t enough to muffle the moans and whines that burbled up. Ferox listened from her vantage point, hearing material rustle, listening to Helen whisper things to herself. “It’s going to be okay. Breathe now. Okay. Breathe now.
Ohm mani padme ­­hum . . . Ohm mani padme hum . . .”

Oh honey, yoga’s not gonna help you much tonight, is it?

When Helen’s scent rose on the updraft, Ferox had to retreat from the edge or risk losing her human form. There was no doubt about it: six weeks after Helen had become a young woman, she was becoming a young therianthrope.
Yeah, but who’s she going to take after? Her mother? Her father? Ishmael?
After years of being treated with Dr. Foster’s “vaccine”, the same one Digger had been treated with, Helen had taken a dose of Ishmael’s blood. A couple of hours later, Helen’s mother up-cycled and tore the shit out of her baby girl’s back and chest.
This girl is a walking viral soup
.

Helen gasped and oriented toward Ferox, who lowered her head and trusted the tumbling leaves to cover the sound of her breathing. Ferox had been chasing the girl all over the estate. False starts were making the girl so skittish Ferox half-believed Helen was turning into a were-squirrel.

I can’t leave her to deal with this on her own
. Dep had been there for Ferox when she was going through the last of her own false starts, and when he wasn’t around, there was always Shuffle, or Rhiannon, or Padre, even Turkey.
She doesn’t need to be alone.

There was, of course, the possibility that Helen could become a raging, psychopathic, werewolf-eating wendigo. Ferox hadn’t seen for herself what had become of Digger, but the Padre had told her what he’d seen, and that was bad enough.

Suddenly, Helen broke from cover and ran northwest toward the Maachii River. Ferox let her run. She trusted the dark to keep herself hidden, she trusted her ears to keep track of the girl, and she trusted Helen’s distraction and inexperience to keep the trail loud. After a count of fifteen, Ferox got up and ran northwest, down the moraine, and up a rocky outcropping in three easy, silent bounds, where she squatted, hunched, eyes averted, her human ear turned toward Helen’s rapid footfalls.

Let her run it out
.

In her other form, it would have been far easier for Ferox to keep tabs on Helen. Whiskers could help her navigate the underbrush, four legs could keep her silent and running on a much lower profile, and a fully canine muzzle—vulpine, technically—would make Helen’s scent stand out like phosphorous on the ground. But then, Ferox was never fully human, and even in bare feet, yoga pants, and a fleece sweatshirt, she could outrun and out-track the best of them.

They never let you out into the Park
.
That’s why you’ve never learned how to run silently
.

Feet broke through a fine crust of ice and splashed into bitterly cold running water. Helen gasped. Something cracked. Helen shrieked.

Ferox sprinted closer, never straightening her knees; her head was no higher than her rib cage usually was. She stopped behind a log, listening. Helen had stopped breathing. Her chest was snapping and grinding and gurgling in the throes of the change. When the change stalled, Helen gulped air and choked, as if she’d been drowning.

I have to be there for her.

Helen turned and ran again, heels thumping the dirt. She’d lost at least one shoe, if not both, either because of the river or because her feet were warping out of them.

No, follow her. Find her shelter. If she runs off again, you’ll know where to look.

On the island, space was limited and crowded. She couldn’t get far without someone checking up on her, protecting her, trying to soothe her. Varco Lake was enormous and deserted.
Well, at least I’m getting my exercise.

Helen suddenly dropped to the ground, shoulders hunched. Instinct forced Ferox to do the same. She opened her mouth and stopped breathing.

There were people talking.

“I need to know that I can count on you,” whispered a man with a mild English accent.

Fox-like or not, Ferox’s ears perked, and phantom whiskers splayed like exclamation points.

Helen growled softly.

“What was that?” a woman whispered.

Shit
, Ferox thought. The skin across her cheeks, mouth, and jawline drew tight. She ran toward Helen, just as Helen was rising out of the leaf clutter, arms curled out from her body, chest heaving, head low.
Shit! Threat stance.

“Over there,” the man murmured.

Ferox caught the girl around her furry waist and pulled her to the ground. She straddled Helen’s pelvis and leaned hard against the girl’s throat with one arm. She put her hand over Helen’s fanged but otherwise human mouth. She shook her head every time Helen made a sound or sudden move. Helen lay still. Dark fur grew under Ferox’s touch.

The strangers met, chest to chest and only steps away. Helen’s eyes were wide.

One of Helen’s ribs broke under Ferox’s knee. Change pheromones surged from Helen’s pores, and Ferox was powerless against their effect. Ferox mouthed
“Shit!
” as her fangs descended. Her pupils dilated in a flash, turning night into twilight. Sounds crackled in her bleeding, aching ears, and hearing opened in high definition, as if she’d spent the last two weeks sleeping in the bath and only now had surfaced. She shook her head, sprinkling droplets of fresh blood onto her shoulders.

The male stranger mouthed words into the woman’s ears, but the woman couldn’t hear them. Ferox
could hear sticky saliva breaking between the man’s tongue and palate as he mouthed his words. “Someone’s spying on us.”

“It could be raccoons,” the woman whispered. She was no better at silence than Helen was. Her “s” sounds were as loud as a rattlesnake’s warning.

Ferox felt claws digging into her sleeve. She eased the pressure on Helen’s throat and put her finger to her lips. Helen nodded.
Not that far gone, thank God
. And while Helen may have been shit at running quietly, the girl knew how to hide, fawn-like, in silence.

The Englishman left the woman standing where she was. She pulled out a gun. The man moved toward Helen and Ferox, sliding his weight from one foot to the other to reduce noise. Leaves crinkled ever so softly. A soft twig squeaked under his weight. As if he knew the stick was about to break, he took his foot off it again, making it creak. He pulled out his gun too.