Shadow of the Moon (3 page)

“It always does.” Will turned his attention
to the shuffling, mumbling mass of patients. “Strength like that
isn’t quite human.”

"Ya think?" I muttered. "So what are
they?"

"
Boxenwolves
."

I sighed. He was right, but-- "What's a
boxenwolf
?"

Will shrugged.

The residents separated, heading into the
empty rooms. I strode to a doorway and watched as an elderly woman
methodically put on her patient gown and climbed into bed. Closing
her eyes, she appeared to sleep. Will peered into the next empty
room.

“Asleep?” I asked. He nodded.

I moved to the bedside and tapped the woman
on the shoulder. “Ma’am?”

Slowly she opened her eyes; confusion filled
them. “Are you the new nurse?”

“No, I’m--uh--Jessie.”

“How nice.” She gave me a sleepy smile. She
didn’t seem evil.

“Do you know why you’re here?” I asked.

“To get well.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

She blinked at the question, which I suppose
had been rude, but rude had always been my true middle name.

“I’m crazy, child. Didn’t you read the front
door?”

“You don’t seem crazy.”

“Does anyone?” she murmured, and went back to
sleep.

In my experience the crazy always seemed
very
crazy. But, also in my experience, crazy often went
hand-in-hand with psychotic, murderer--be it werewolf
or
human.

I returned to Will. “We’ve got to figure out
what they are.” I pulled out my cell phone. “I’ll call Elise.”

Elise Hanover, Edward’s right-hand woman, was
a scientist who knew quite a bit about what made werewolves tick. I
pressed the speed dial.

"I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Juggling the phone, I reached for my gun.
Will already had his. Together we trained our weapons on the man
who emerged from the shadows.

He was a lot younger than I expected,
although
what
I expected, I don't
know--certainly not the slim, tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed guy in
a white coat. Beneath it he wore a blue shirt and a yellow tie, the
contrast emphasizing his own coloring.

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded, ever Miss
Manners.

“I should be asking you that question. This
is my clinic.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Yours, as in you built
it, own it, run it?”

His lips curved. “Yes.”

“You look kind of young to fund a place like
this.”

“My ancestors put away quite a bit of
money.”

“Lucky you.”

I didn’t like him, and I wasn’t sure why. But
as I'd learned to trust my instincts, I didn’t lower my gun. Will
didn’t either.

“Name?” I snapped.

My annoyance only seemed to amuse him, which
annoyed me more. “Dr. Jeremy Zachau. And you are?”

I glanced at Will; he shrugged. We always
have a cover story prepared before we go on a job—a cover Edward
makes certain will hold up to any scrutiny.

“We’re with the Department of Natural
Resources. There’ve been reports of rabid wolves in the area.”

He lifted one sandy brow. “And why would the
wolves be inside my clinic?”

“Yeah, why would they?”

“Because they’re
boxenwolves
.”

I blinked, and my gun dipped. I’d never had
anyone actually admit to what they were doing without a little
“encouragement.”

“Who are you?” I asked. “And I don’t mean
your name. What are you up to here and why? How do you know about
boxenwolves
?”

“I created them.”

Inventing a new kind of creature was never
good.

“I’ll be happy to tell you everything,
Jessie."

I frowned. “How did you know--?”

“Did you really think your feeble DNR lie
would fool me?”

It had fooled everyone else.

Zachau's hair fell in a charming tousle over
his unlined forehead. I suddenly wanted to shoot him with silver
just to see if he caught fire.

“You’re Jessie McQuade, one of
Herr
Mandenauer’s best hunters.”

“You know Edward?”

“My grandfather did.”

“And who was your grandfather?”

“His name is unimportant. His work is what
matters. He spent his final days in a laboratory in the Black
Forest.”

“Mengele,” I muttered.

“Oh, I’m not related to that great man. I
only wish that I was.”

“You say
great man
, I say
psychopath
.” I shrugged. "Tomato. To-ma-toe."

Anger flashed in Zachau’s eyes. “Mengele was
brilliant. A visionary.”

“He was an insane, elitist pig who killed
people because they were different.”

Zachau shrugged. “In the advancement of
science, sacrifices must be made.”

My trigger-finger began to itch.

“Jessie,” Will warned.

“Yeah, yeah.” I tried to relax, but it wasn’t
easy. “Mengele wasn’t advancing science," I continued, "he was
building a werewolf army.”

“He
did
build one."

Which was how Edward had become . . . well,
Edward. Back in WW2 he had been a double agent, assigned to
discover just what in hell the "great man" was up to in the Black
Forest. Unfortunately, Edward hadn't found out quickly enough. By
the time he reached Mengele's lab, the doctor had panicked at the
incoming allied invasion and released everything he'd created into
the world. Edward had been chasing them ever since.

“I've perfected his formula,” Zachau
said.

I went cold, even though the temperature in
the clinic had been set to steam bath.

“Perfected how?” Will asked. He was always
the voice of reason. Thank God. Someone had to be.

“My wolves look like wolves, without the
human eyes to alert the hunters. And silver doesn't hurt them.”

“What does?” I asked. Zachau merely
laughed.

“Your formula isn’t all that perfect,” Will
pointed out. “It makes people insane. Or were they insane to begin
with?”

Zachau stopped laughing. “I’m still
tweaking.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“My subjects were not insane to start with,
and they won't be insane once I'm finished with them.”

Werewolves that couldn’t be killed with
silver or recognized as werewolves by their human eyes was bad.
Once Zachau set them loose on the world, rather than keeping them
in little white rooms, there’d be no stopping them.

Usually, I shot whatever confused me. But
shooting Zachau would be murder and shooting the
boxenwolves
with silver wouldn't do a damn bit of good.

Now what?

“Once the formula is tweaked to your
satisfaction," Will said, "what then?" Will always had just the
right question.

“I'll become a
boxenwolf
myself, of
course.”

“Of course,” I repeated. “Who wouldn’t want
to run around on all fours, wag their tail, drool a bit?”

Zachau scowled. “Who wouldn’t want to be
immortal?”

“You got big plans for eternity?” I
asked.

“More than you could imagine.”

I could imagine quite a bit.

“Put down the guns,” Zachau ordered.

Let's see . . . We had them; he didn't.
“No.”

Zachau whistled and patients surged from the
doorways. The ones closest to Will grabbed him, those closest to me
did the same, then they divested us of our guns. They took my cell
phone, too. I probably should have tested Zachau’s statement that
silver wouldn’t kill them, but I discovered myself unable to shoot
a defenseless crazy person in a hospital gown. Go figure.

“It was so nice of you stop by," Zachau said.
"I was in need of help to perform my final tests.”

"Do your own dirty work.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Miss McQuade but to
Mr. Cadotte. He's the perfect specimen for this experiment. Wolf
clan, correct?”

Will didn’t so much as blink.

“How do you know so damn much?” I
demanded.

“I make it my business to know. You think the
two of you came here by accident? It was by design. My design.”

“That’s impossible.” The
Jager-Suchers
were sent out in a rotation available only to Elise. No one could
have known that Will and I would catch this case.

“Nothing is impossible,” Zachau said. “I’ve
proven that with my
boxenwolves
.”

He had a point. The word
impossible
didn’t mean as much as it used to.

“Take them to the lab,” Zachau ordered.

Two burly patients grabbed each of us under
the arms and practically carried us a pristine white wall at the
end of the hallway. Zachau joined us, placing his palm against a
metal plate. The entire wall slid aside, revealing an elevator.
Which explained why we'd never found the lab.

The guards shoved us inside, but they
remained outside. Zachau joined us, and the wall slid closed. We
began to descend. The doctor held our guns, one trained on each of
us.

I settled back, gaze never leaving him.
Zachau would slip up eventually. Mad scientists always did. I only
hoped the mistake occurred
before
he performed his
experiment on Will.

The door slid open, revealing a state of the
art facility—lots of bells and whistles, computers, beakers, test
tubes, microscopes. Who was funding this guy?

In the corner stood a shiny silver cage. He
flicked the barrel of a gun in its direction. Will and I stepped
inside, and the door clanged shut behind us.

Zachau wasted no time, moving to a table,
setting down the weapons so he could prepare a syringe, then
returning. “Give me your arm, Mr. Cadotte."

“Leave him alone,” I said, my voice
impressively forceful though I felt anything but.

Zachau lifted a brow. “You think I'd go to
the trouble and expense of having the two of you sent here, capture
you, then leave him alone just because you say so?”

His words hinted at a traitor in the ranks.
Wouldn't Edward be surprised? If we managed to stay alive, and
non-furry, long enough to tell him.

“It was a worth a shot." I kept my gaze on
Zachau, but part of my attention remained on the guns that still
lay on the table behind him. If I could grab the doctor, smack his
head into the bars, then I just might be able to sweep those guns
closer with my foot. They weren't
that
far
away.

“Shot," Zachau repeated. "A very good word.”
He picked up my gun and pointed it at my head. “Give me your arm or
she dies."

Will presented his arm in a hurry.

“Move away, Ms. McQuade,” Zachau continued.
“To the far side of the enclosure, please.”

Hell. He seemed able to read my mind, or
maybe it was just my face. I'd never been much good at hiding
things.

Seeing no other way, I retreated until my
back pressed against the outside wall that made up one-quarter of
our prison.

“What trouble did you go to?” I asked. Maybe
if I kept him talking, he’d make a mistake. Couldn’t hurt. Besides,
I was curious.

“Hmm?” Zachau murmured, tapping Will’s arm as
he searched for a vein.

I could tell by the tension in Will’s body
that he was waiting for an opening, too. Unfortunately the doctor
appeared quite ambidextrous. He kept my gun aimed at me while
holding the syringe in that hand as well. This left his other hand
free to mess with Will's arm.

I had no doubt that if I made a quick
movement, he would have no trouble plunging the syringe into Will's
arm before I could get close enough to stop him. If Will moved in
any way that annoyed the doctor, a bullet would be dispatched for
me. I wanted to avoid both scenarios.

“You said you went to a lot of trouble to get
us here. I’d like to know what you did.”

“You must be as delusional as my
boxenwolves
if you think I’ll tell you.”

“If you tell me, it'll go no farther than
this room, since you plan to kill me when you’re through."

“Why would I do that?” Zachau didn’t bother
to look at me, which only made me more certain I was right.

“Because if you inject that shit into Will,
you’re dead the next instant.”

“Big talk for someone without a gun.”

More than talk but Zachau would figure that
out soon enough.

“So tell me how you did it."

“The usual way.” He shrugged. “I paid for the
information."

"No one in the
Jager-Suchers
would
dare."

"There's always a price if you can afford to
pay it.”

"Who?" I asked.

Zachau snorted, and I didn't bother to ask
again. If he knew the name of the traitor, he wasn't going to share
it with me now. Or ever.

From the curve of his lips, he'd found a
likely vein. He prepared to plunge the needle into Will's arm, but
he at last had too many balls in the air, or too many items in his
hands. In the instant that he hesitated, trying to figure out how
to aim the gun, steady Will’s arm and depress the syringe, Will
said my name.

He didn’t shout, he didn’t whisper just spoke
that single word in a casual tone of voice. I hit the dirt; he
grabbed the gun.

The weapon went off. A bullet whizzed past my
temple, leaving a scorching path of pain in its wake before plowing
into the wall, sending bits of cement raining down.

Will yanked the gun from Zachau’s grip and
tossed it in my direction, even as he plucked the syringe from the
doctor's suddenly limp fingers. Will had always been quicker than
the average human--another reason Mandenauer had tried to kill him.
However there was nothing supernatural about his ability, just the
result of hours practicing tai chi.

Before Zachau could run, Will yanked him
close. “You psychotic prick,” Will snapped, and the fury in his
voice shocked me. Will Cadotte was the calmest man I knew. He had
to be to live with me.

My shock paralyzed both my body and my brain.
I didn't see Will's next action coming until it was too late.