Midnight Squad: The Grim (23 page)

           
It took me a moment before the pain went away enough that
I could form a coherent thought. Finally, after a few coughs to make sure my
balls were back down where they belonged I responded, “It’s all good, but how
about an explanation. I mean what’s with the hyper affection? Not that I was
complaining.” Danika sat down at the corner of the bed. It was clear she was
more than a little embarrassed. “Sorry, it’s a werewolf thing. So much of what
we do is with our noses. I was sent marking you, and trying to get her sent.”
She said it in such a matter-of-fact tone that I almost didn’t question it, but
the absurdity of the situation got the better of me. “Ok, how are you going to
get her sent from me?” Danika’s bottom lip quivered, “I know it’s stupid. I
just thought that since you’re related you probably share a similar scent. I’m
sorry.” Her eyes were already watering up. I had to head this off before it
turned into a full sob fest.

           
I put my arm around her. “It’s ok. I’m not complaining. I
just want to know what’s going on. So I’m guessing you and my little sister hit
it off pretty well.” Danika wrapped me up in another big hug, “She’s just
amazing. We talked, and talked. We’d still be talking, but your cell died.” The
little werewolf nuzzled against me some more. “I know you two are
half-siblings, but usually family members smell alike, and I just needed to get
a scent.” I tried not to let on how strange that all sounded. It was good to
see Danika happy. “That’s fine. I’m here if you need me. Just do me a favor.
Don’t do this in front of the others. It might make things a bit awkward.” She
looked into my eyes, and her face was overflowed with gratitude.

           
“Not to be rude, but you’re getting pretty worked up for
someone you haven’t even met, and only barely know.” I did my best to keep my
voice neutral. Danika leaned back and giggled, “I’m a werewolf. We tend to make
attachments very quickly. It’s one of the ways that our packs stay so strong
and closely knit. My brothers used to joke that we get attached so quickly to
keep us from eating the babies.” So werewolf humor involves jokes about eating
babies? I definitely want to avoid her on April
Fool’s
day. I racked my brain, and vaguely remembered something about how quickly a
werewolf can develop an unusually strong attachment to someone in her file, but
I couldn’t remember all the details. “Listen Danika, I don’t want to upset you.
I can tell you really like my sister, but you might want to avoid being so
wrapped up in her so quickly. I love her, and I’d never say anything bad about
her, but I think you should get to know her better before attaching yourself to
her. Don’t get me wrong. I think my sister is great, but I‘m not sure if she‘s
looking for a long term relationship. I think you two could definitely enjoy
one another’s company, but don’t get ahead of yourself. I just don’t want you
getting hurt because you think you’re exclusive. I mean you two haven’t gone
out yet or anything. It’s kind of sudden.” I did my best to cushion any blow
that might come. Danika was a sweet girl, and as much as I love my sister, Niki
is a lot more like me when it comes to dating. If she was a man they’d say she
thinks with her dick, but I really couldn’t think of what the equivalent of thinking
with your dick was for women. At least I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t
really offensive. I love my sister, and Danik, for all her werewolfie
weirdness, was starting to grow on me. I didn’t want to see either of them hurt
by misaligned expectations.

           
“It’s not a problem Grim. I’m a big girl. I’m just
surprised you were ok with it.” Danika looked a little sheepish. “You know what
I am and I can’t believe you don’t have a problem with it. You’re a lot bigger
person than I gave you credit.” Danika was still hugging me at every
opportunity. I did my best to ignore the extra nuzzling and all her awkward
attempts at surreptitiously sniffing me.

           
“Well Niki is a big girl also, and she’s old enough to
make her own decisions. Besides, it’s not as if I can complain about her
relationships. She has enough dirt on me about my ex-girlfriends to keep me
quiet for a long time.
Although, if she ends up furry and
grows a tail I will be kicking your ass.”
Danika started giggling, “No,
I can’t turn anyone into a werewolf. We’re born, not made. As long as I’m put
up in a secure place on a full moon, you’re sister is as safe as can be.”

           
“Full moon, I thought that was a myth, like vampires and
crosses?” I questioned. Danika took a moment to collect her thoughts, “No, it’s
real. It’s just not like you think. When a full moon comes, werewolves have to
give ourselves over to the wolf. We are in complete control except for those
nights. It’s the one night where we really are as dangerous as movies make us
out to be. We aren’t mindless monsters, but we become completely driven by our
instincts. If we’ve met all our needs then we are still in complete control,
but if there’s something the wolf needs then we can become very dangerous. It’s
one of the reasons we tend to have such large families.” Danika blushed. “I’m
not following?” I waited for her to explain.

           
She must be embarrassed because it was almost a full
minute before she responded, “On full moons any childless female with a bond
will go into heat. If the wolf inside decides it wants a large family, then
that female will go into heat every full moon until the wolf inside decides
that it has had a large enough family. That in
itself
wouldn’t be a problem, but our male wolves sex drives shoot up those nights as
well. The males go crazy with lust, and since sex is one way that our inner
wolves can build stronger relationships within the pack. Well let’s just say on
a full moon it gets a little crazy. You can imagine how awkward the next
morning can be. Since we all operate on an instinctual level that night there
are a bunch of unbonded males running around with a bunch of single females,
and since our wolves want to find a bond to mate with it turns into something
really…unique. Thankfully, we’re so lust-addled that we don’t really remember
much during those nights. It‘s like being drunk. The bonded ones go off and do
their own thing, and if all their needs are met then they are just as normal as
anyone. Some of the really fulfilled ones don’t even change. That being said,
if there’s an itch then on a full moon a werewolf just has to scratch it.” I
listened. I did my best to hide my surprise, but the pressure of not knowing
the details built up, and finally my questions started to bubble out.

           
“So what you’re saying is once a month?” I did my best to
leave the question open ended. Danika put her arm around my shoulder and said
calmly, “Werewolf orgy. Insane, crazy, nonstop, should be illegal in all fifty
states, pray to god that when you wake up that the hand draped over you isn’t a
relative, even Germany wouldn’t film porn that looked like this, disturbing,
and occasionally violent…werewolf orgy.” Well that left me with more questions
than answers, “So you all get together, and well…you all get together. I can
see how that might lead to a big family.” Danika nodded, “The only thing that
keeps all of us from running around pregnant all the time is that we have to be
bonded to a male to conceive. We can only bond to one person at a time. Only
bonded males and females can have children. It’s the only birth control I ever
needed. It’s one of the reasons I left the pack. I was getting old enough that
I’d have to bond with someone, or become a liability to the pack. With my
people, the pack health is the most important thing. Therefore, a woman that
isn’t bonded becomes a drain on resources. We were lucky enough to have a lot
of females, so it wasn’t a huge loss to the pack when I left. It’s only
temporary though. Someday, they’ll call me back, and I’ll have to accept my
pack responsibilities by finding a bond mate.”

           
“That doesn’t really seem fair. What about love, do they
really expect you to just find a guy and start becoming a baby factory?” I
tried not to sound angry, but I have a lot of sisters and the thought of them
going through something like that just burned me up. Danika, to her credit, was
patient, “It’s not really like that. Generally, we build relationships just
like you do. Don’t get me wrong, there are expectations placed on all of us
within the pack. Females are supposed to pick a mate, and have a few pups.
Males are supposed to guard and protect all of us. The pack’s strength and
survival is the most important thing. It trumps any single member. That’s why
many of the members often have a wife, or husband outside of the pack. The
bonding isn’t necessarily about love. We don’t have any real control over the
bonding. It happens outside of our control. Spend enough time around a member
of the opposite sex and you’ll likely have a bond mate. It’s really unusual for
someone to reach their twenties without a bond.”

           
“So what happens if a werewolf bonds with a human?” I
questioned. Danika forced a smile onto her face, “It‘s happened. Usually the
pack kills the bond mate so that the werewolf can find another mate within the pack,
but occasionally the pack has allowed the relationship as long as the children
become pack members. There is also the possibility that the werewolf can
renounce their pack, but that almost never happens.” Danika took a deep breath,
“You see if you are a werewolf, you need the support of a pack. A lone wolf
doesn’t have the support system that they need to survive. A lone wolf is
competition, and other packs will usually kill a loner on sight, or if it’s a
female then they kill her bond, and they force her into a bond with an
available male in the pack. They’d impregnate her, and then the pack adopts the
child after it’s born, and they kill its mother if she hasn’t accepted her
place in the pack. That’s why it was so important that I kept my pack rites after
I left the pack. On my own without the protection of my pack membership my
future would be pretty bleak.” Wow, that was a lot to take in. I felt bad for
her.

           
I hugged her back, and did my best to ignore her sniffing,
“Well I’m glad you’re with us. Just be careful, and don’t make me regret giving
you my blessings towards my sister.” Danika didn’t just hug me, she practically
squeezed the life out of me, and I might be wrong but I think she may have even
licked me. Suddenly, she hopped up and bounded out of the room like a happy
puppy. All I could think of was how adorable she was, and how much I liked the
idea of them spending time together. They were just so much alike. Even if they
never became a couple, I hoped that they’d still be friends.

           
We moved the shopping day back a bit so we could get more
work done, but it wasn’t easy every morning when I felt like I was wiping with
sandpaper. As the days moved on our training progressed, the clones weren’t
much of a challenge anymore. DD kept promising that significant upgrades were
coming, and yet the girls’ learning curve was such that we were quickly
outstripping the ability of DD’s creations. If she didn’t develop something
that really offered a challeng then any more training would be pointless. Penny
and Danika operated like a well-oiled machine. They were so dominant that it
made up for the deficiencies in teamwork that Katy and I were having. I had to
admit we just weren’t working well together. I couldn’t put my finger on the
problem. It just seemed as though we were constantly tripping over one another.
It was like going to a dance, and both people wanted to lead, but neither knew
the steps.

           
I racked my brain trying to fix whatever teamwork issues
we had. It wasn’t an effort problem. Katy worked as hard as anyone, and it
wasn’t an attitude problem. She took orders without complaint, and was always
open to any suggestions. We just kept stepping on each other’s toes. I’d be
about to take a shot, and Katy would step in front of the gun to cast a spell,
and I’d lost count of how many times I’d stepped into the path of one of her
spells. Quite a few times she’d cast a spell and have to strain to draw the
magic back into herself to keep from injuring me. I felt bad because from what
they’ve explained it’s physically painful to pull back a spell, but when I
asked her about the pain she only would say, “Don’t sweat it. Nothing I can’t
handle.” She didn’t want to admit how badly it hurt, but a couple of times
after reeling a spell in she looked almost ready to collapse. Her face would be
pale, and more than a few times I caught her doubled over when she thought I
wasn’t looking. She wasn’t the only one getting hurt. I still had more than a
few nights in the medical lab getting treatment for burns, and other spell
related injuries.

I
didn’t have much free time, but when I could scrape together a few minutes I
spent it in the computer lab. I was going over news sites looking into my past
jobs. My time spent healing after the shooting was still unsettling to say the
least. I wanted to believe that everything was just a bad dream, but I just
couldn’t let it go. I didn’t really want to believe what in my gut I already
knew the answer to, but I finally dug up enough courage to look into it. I
didn’t have to look long. By the third news website, I found everything I was
looking for. There was a picture of the little kid after the bombing. There was
burning and charring on one side of his face, but the other side was almost
untouched. There was no doubt that it was the boy. I barely made it back to my
room. I spent the rest of that day throwing up and crying my eyes out.