Page 33

With our backs to the plugged hole in the wall, we shone our phones’ flashlights around a room smaller than the laboratory we’d left.

Built-in shelves and cabinets held all manner of items from jars and vials to decorations from around the world, everything from shrunken heads to glowing geodes to strange fossils.

It was only luck that we hadn’t been blocked from entering by some of those cabinets.

Books filled a few cases in the back, old tomes with yellowed pages. Maps and diagrams, many framed and some with notes scribbled on them, lined the walls. A few desks, chairs, and a table occupied the floor space.

I stared at the table. Numerous magical artifacts rested on it, a leather-bound journal open next to them, fresh ink on the pages.

I recognized a platter and a pistol. Radomir had made me touch them when I’d been in his office at the lavender farm.

And was that… Ivan’s bracelet? Like the other artifacts, it emanated magic.

Since I knew who that belonged to, I tucked it into my bag so I could return it later.

“This is Abrams’s workspace,” Duncan said, though I would have guessed that on my own. “I recognize some of this stuff. He had it when I was a kid.” Duncan waved toward some of the knickknacks on the shelves. “I’m surprised he salvaged it after…”

“After you burned his castle down?”

“Yeah.”

I walked to the journal, wondering if we would be able to read the language it was written in. It looked like English, but the cursive script was tiny and jammed together.

“It wasn’t a malevolent burning,” Duncan said.

“I know you were trying to escape. And still lament the loss of the library.”

“That’s the truth. There were so many wondrous tales in there.” He joined me at the table, resting his hands on it and leaning his weight on them.

“I hope your collapse isn’t imminent,” I told him.

“You won’t carry me out if it is?”

“Oh, I will, but it’ll be hard with guardian bugs nipping at my heels.”

Scrapes and tinks came not only from the room we’d left but the door leading back out to the main area. I tried not to think about how we might be trapped.

“I have no doubt.” Duncan pointed at the journal. “That’s Abrams’s writing.”

“Can you read it?” I asked.

“It’s in English.”

“That looks like the chicken-scratch font. Except a lot less legible.”

“It’s not the finest penmanship.”

“No kidding.”

Maybe Duncan had grown up reading the stuff because he perused it without apparent trouble. Taking pity on me, he read aloud.

“Most of the werewolf artifacts we’ve discovered have yielded few clues about the magic inherent in their kind.

Many were crafted by druids rather than those with lycanthropic blood.

One exception is the Medallion of Memory and Power, two of which we’ve recently discovered, having belonged to a werewolf pack originally from the Mediterranean region where the magic of their kind was known to be strong.

The werewolves themselves, many generations removed from their more potent ancestors, lack substantial magical power, but, as our silver bullets have proven, they do retain the regenerative magic that we seek to capture.

It is not presently known if they possess atypical longevity, but my work on that has progressed well even without lupine influence.

Based on our ingredients and my research, and touched by the magic of the medallion, my potions may achieve all that we’ve desired, an elixir that not only causes rapid healing and mitochondrial repair but that extends the life of the imbiber, perhaps indefinitely.

Radomir may get his wish, to cash in on being able to sell eternal life to those who can afford it.

I only seek to leave behind a suitable legacy and to ensure that those worthy of great longevity have a way to possess it.

I’m very close now to locking in that goal.

The magic of that medallion is all that I need.

I am certain of it. Though the intriguing druidic case may also hold clues.

As soon as I have these items, I should be able to successfully complete my life’s work. ”

Duncan leaned back. “I figured it was something like that.”

“That he’s trying to create longevity potions?”

“I knew he was intrigued by the regenerative abilities of our kind and trying to bottle that power for humans, as it were. Back when I was a boy, he asked me to bite him. He wanted to be turned into a werewolf so he could easily take blood samples of one to study. In those days, he never mentioned what he wanted to achieve or study, so I could only guess. But a few words I’ve overheard since he’s come back into my life…

Well, this makes sense.” Duncan waved at the journal.

“I know that he once believed our blood was key in figuring things out. Maybe he studied it for a long time before shifting to this, trying to find secrets in magical artifacts.”

“You didn’t bite him, did you?” I would have sensed it if Abrams were a werewolf.

“I refused. I always thought it was a trap or a test, that he wanted me to try and would use it as an excuse to punish me.” Voice low, Duncan added, “He was always quick to punish me.” He flexed one of his hands, the scar tissue around his wrist visible below the edge of his sleeve.

“In fact, it was shortly after we argued about that that I made my escape.”

“Do you think he still wants to be turned into a werewolf?” I almost pointed out that there were plenty of our kind around that he could have asked to bite him, but only those who could turn into a bipedfuris had the power to pass along lycanthropy that way.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t, as he pointed out, convey longevity.

That may be why, however, that he had Lykos made.

I don’t think the kid is yet old enough to pass along lycanthropy, as that ability, I believe, comes with puberty.

” Duncan shrugged, looking toward the door and the wall, the sounds of the guard bugs still audible.

“If he’s moved from wanting werewolf blood for his experiments to wanting artifacts, he may be past desiring to turn into one himself. ”

“If we could find some samples of what he’s been working on, do you think they could cure you of your problem?” I waved toward the scar on his forehead.

A longevity potion ought to keep someone from dying because of a curse, right?

“It doesn’t sound like he’s cracked the code yet.

Even if he had, which of those hundreds of vials in the fridge would I quaff?

I didn’t see labels.” Louder scratches near the plug in the wall made Duncan look in that direction.

“It might also be difficult to reach those fridges at the moment. Due to the bug infestation this building is suffering from.”

I huffed a frustrated breath and started opening drawers and cabinets. There had to be an immediate answer to Duncan’s problem here. If there wasn’t…

I shook my head, throat tight, well aware of how quickly he was deteriorating. We didn’t have time for Abrams to make a scientific breakthrough, damn it. We needed an answer now .

The door fell away with a clang, and bugs rushed inside, tinking, clinking, and oozing clouds of that vapor into the air. Shit.

“Time to go,” Duncan said.

He ran around the table but clipped his hip on the corner. That shouldn’t have fazed him, but he pitched forward, legs wobbly as several bugs sailed toward him, spewing vapor into the air more rapidly than before. It hazed the whole room.

My heart beat erratically, and numbness spread from my fingers into my arms and legs.

Duncan covered his nose and mouth with his arm and kicked one of the approaching bugs.

It flew into the wall but not before spitting an electrical charge into the air.

It must have struck Duncan when he contacted it, because he stumbled back. More bugs swarmed closer.

Furious, I rushed to grab him. But with my legs growing more numb by the second, I almost fell too.

Frustration and fear swept through my veins, and my skin pricked with hot magic.

The power of the moon flowed into me, and all I managed to fling aside was my bag before fur started sprouting from my skin.

I also thrust my grenade at Duncan before the wolf overtook me.

Dropping to all fours didn’t make the bugs any less daunting, not with those vapors flooding my nostrils and their red glowing eyes even closer to mine.

Though the wolf magic didn’t eradicate the numbness creeping into my body, I sprang for the door, trying to scatter the mechanical obstacles as I rushed through them.

A memory percolated through my lupine thoughts. Duncan, the one I wished to be my mate, was ill and couldn’t change. I had to clear the way for him.

Electric shocks assaulted me whenever I touched one of the strange contraptions, but I accepted the pain, biting into the metal things and hurling them aside. I wanted to destroy them utterly, but their carapaces were strong, deterring even my magically enhanced jaws.

Some I batted with my paws, sending them skidding away, but I dared not delay long. Awareness that something in my blood was slowing me down, something that might knock me out or kill me, forced me toward the door. Instinct urged me to go as quickly as possible, to reach fresh, natural air.

But more bugs flooded in from the larger room outside of this one, piling atop each other and blocking the exit. Worse, the poison clouding the air grew thicker and thicker. I stumbled, almost pitching to my shoulder.

“Luna,” came a raspy voice from behind, followed by a thump. “This way.”

Duncan had grabbed my bag, slung it over his shoulder, and unplugged a hole in the wall. He waved for me to follow him, then crawled through.

Weren’t there more of those bugs in the other part of this cave? I thought so, but the air in here was so toxic, sweet and cloying and deadly. Perhaps it would be better over there. Even if it wasn’t, I had to go with Duncan.

He almost fell through to the other side.

With more bugs piling through the doorway and surging toward me, the poisoned air crackling with electricity, I leaped through the hole.

I landed beside Duncan. From one knee, he pointed past the laboratory counters and to the doorway.

A handful of bugs were inside with us, but most had gone into the other room.

Others were… they were clumped together and appeared to be stuck to a dark cylinder on the floor, legs and carapaces caught by its pull.

Its magnetic pull. Duncan must have hurled one of his fishing tools ahead of him into the room.

“Hurry,” he said, then lifted a paw-sized oblong metal object. “I’ve got this for the others. I’ll follow right behind.”

What it was eluded my wolf brain, but Duncan was a strong bipedfuris when he wasn’t ill, and my instincts instructed me to follow his guidance. I ran out the doorway and toward the scent of pine trees and snow that wafted down from a stairwell. Escape lay in that direction.

Duncan stumbled after me, and I made myself slow, offering my back if he needed to rest a hand on it for support.

“That way.” He pointed at the stairs. “Go.”

The bugs in the room we’d left had realized we’d departed and were flowing out the doorway after us. Duncan pulled a slender piece out of the metal object, then rolled the device toward them. He turned to run toward the stairs, but his legs almost betrayed him. Again, he stumbled.

Despite his order, I drew close to him, again offering my back. This time, he rested his hand and some of his weight on me. Together we hurried toward the stairs.

We’d only made it up two steps when a great explosion ripped through the air behind us.

The stairs trembled, and the walls quaked. Duncan stumbled but grunted with determination and kept going, fingers digging into my fur as we climbed. He needed my support.

I gave it, but fear and instinct made me want to sprint up and outside, especially when the stairs continued quaking. Snaps and cracks came from the structure all around us. Worse, the memory of bars blocking the exit wafted through my mind. It wouldn’t be easy to escape out into the forest.

We climbed as fast as we could and had almost reached the level above, that which led to the outdoors, when something snapped right over our heads.

Before I knew what was happening, the roof of the cave gave way.

As it collapsed, Duncan sprang atop me, protectively pushing his body over mine.

I wanted to object, since he was far weaker than I in that moment, but great chunks of heavy gray rock pummeled us.

Duncan covered my head as the cave roof collapsed atop us.